The 150 Ray White attendees gathered from across Australia and New Zealand came together for a second day of learning and networking at the group’s Emerging Elite conference on the Gold Coast. 

At the two day conference, the group of Ray White sales agents, who are on track to move onto the group’s Elite status ranking recognition level, heard from speakers across the network and a variety of markets on how they can adapt key tools for success to their own business. 

Karyn O’Dea (pictured below) of Ray White Robina has built a business on exceptional customer service and ran through her “non-negotiables” which include delivering more than 1,100 puddings at Christmas. 

“I have several non-negotiables including 17 touch points per annum with everyone who goes into my database. I assign them an action plan so I don’t ever have to be reminded," she said.

“I call them each quarter, then send a once a month market update email, I recognise anniversaries of when they bought a property, and Christmas. 

“I put ‘Karyn O'Dea' in the subject line because even if they delete the email, they are still thinking about me. And then I do a letterbox drop every week. It’s layer upon layer.

“It takes me nine full days to deliver the Christmas puddings, I started at 300 and it’s just grown.

“People expect it now and I don’t do it for anything in return, I love seeing people’s faces. It’s so popular that I get some people calling me asking where their pudding is.”

Ray White Canberra chairman Ben Faulks (pictured above) took the stage to share some tools he had developed and refined as a business owner of the ACT group. 

“Years ago, I sat in a room like you did. I hadn’t sold a house before, thankfully my business partner Scott Jackson had, but we built and grew the office from there to the 125 strong team we currently have,” Mr Faulks said. 

He asked the audience what their ambition was and more importantly, why? 

“Because a lot of us get fixated on ‘I want to be Elite or Chairman’s Elite’ but sometimes we lose sight of why that’s important,” he said.

I’ve dug into the concept of purpose, this component fascinated me. I initially thought it was a bit of an esoteric thing. But the definition of ‘purpose’ is quite different - the reason for which something is done or created, a person’s sense of resolve or determination.

“It’s not something you find or discover, it’s something you create or put out there. It starts with you and what’s important to you. It’s really about knowing what you want. 

“Our chairman Brian White shares so much wisdom that you often don’t appreciate until five years later. When asked what led him to build one of the greatest Australian businesses, he said he was fortunate to know what he wanted.

“He had clarity of objective and purpose and went out and executed on it. Just listen to Brian and if you ever get that chance run towards it.”

Ray White Group head of profit Luke Richardson (pictured above) took the group through the basics of running the financial side of a real estate business.

“If you don’t know your numbers, you won’t know where to stop. Know your numbers, it’s the first step to controlling and improving your return,” Mr Richardson said.

“It’s a common sense approach to building a career as an agent. You want to look at revenue coming in and expenses going out.

He asked the group several important questions including whether they take enough risk.

“The higher your current productivity, the lower the risk. Not enough of us take enough risks,” he said. 

“More importantly for this room, you can sell, you have good core skills and one thing I would say is if you can make sales, you can grow further. 

“The risk of you investing in some of these areas of your business and not getting a return on this is much lower than someone brand new to the industry. If you have the base to start, it's a pretty good investment in my mind.”

Joy Cullen (pictured above) attended the Emerging Elite conference all the way from New Zealand. The sales agent for Ray White Whangarei was excited to be able to learn and network.

“It's the learning and the connections I have made that I got the most value out of and actually just seeing how other people function as a team or look after their team and what they implemented,” she said.

“I found the reminder to just make sure you get your basics in line, and then the results will come really valuable as well.”

Coming from Melbourne, Ray White Brunswick agent Matthew Schroeder (pictured above) said he was interested to see how other people in similar stages of their career had adapted their businesses to suit them.

“I heard a lot about people bringing associates on and what they get their associates to do in the business so there's been some key takeaways there,” he said. 

“I think working towards success is about mindset and taking away key pieces. I think if you try to absorb it all, it can be a bit much and it may not be applicable to your business, but you can pick what you like from it, and it's always good to get a different perspective.”

Ray White Group head of performance and recognition Bianca Denham interviewing Karyn O’Dea.