The 2024 Wrap Up

Last Message for 2024

It has been a busy and hectic end to the year, and at the time of writing this (Saturday 14th December) there is no sign of things letting up.

Before I go further, I would like to wish you a safe and happy festive season. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones, and enjoy the weather (hopefully!).

Our year is wrapping up on a positive note. We are 4½ years into this business now, and we continue to see growth.

We have added staff to the admin team as we have grown and we have had record months on many measures in this last quarter of the year, including revenue, profit, marketing investment, and team growth.

When I talk about growth, we have taken little bits of work off people and given the work to others, and added more roles. This has allowed us to scale at a sensible level. We have welcomed Leese Rogers to the team as support to Kim and I. She has taken lots of areas of the business under her control. Jemimah Awid is in the Philippines working behind the scenes in the accounting space. Tess McGuinness has joined our marketing department. We have added a specialised role in payroll to help the all important commissions payment process. I plan to introduce you to these wonderful people in the new year.

I asked the team to send me a list of the salespeople who had joined us since the beginning of 2024. Kim sent me a list of 28 people, and then I went looking for a few names who joined and then promptly left.

Adding in the no-shows takes us to at least 32 new ‘sign ups’ over the year. A lot of work goes into getting someone to that stage, and one of the reasons that a large amount of our energy does go into finding, nurturing, and when the timing and the fit is right, onboarding new people.

Real estate is a fickle business, and I know at times in my career I have had periods of motivation and success, and others of limited energy and limited success. Sometimes you can think that a change of scenery can activate your motivation (and career, and earnings) and often it does. Other times it doesn’t. I learnt during my time in Miami back in October, that when it comes to either new or established agents, about 20% of people who commence a new position will hit the ground running with early results that will continue on. The rest will get started slowly, or will simply fail to start at all. So business owners and team leaders out there – recruitment is a constant job. For Independent Agent to work, a low margin high paying agency, we need people who are producing. My job is to find them so we can continue to grow.

While all of this is going on, we need to of course make sure that we are helping out the most important people in the team. The ones bringing in the money. No agency is perfect and we are certainly in this group. But we try. We are a real estate agency, not a tech company. Fortunately Google, VaultMRI, Campaigntrack and all the rest are. The admin and management team focus on the human element and work to bridge the gap between tech and people, ever mindful of the importance of being compliant. All extra challenging in a remote-work business. Our own journey into AI is well underway – including an internal help desk style AI that will reduce the resourcing required to respond to salesperson questions around internal processes.

We had two fabulous events in the year, our annual ‘conference’ which was a low-key affair with a very not low-key Darren Prattley presenting. Christmas came early with an end of year function in November on Waiheke Island, at Wild on Waiheke.

This wraps up a year with 245 sales and 33 commercial leases in the rolling calendar year at the time of writing, with just over $225,000,000 worth of property sales volume. These numbers are a drop in the ocean of real estate sales and mean little out of context, but they show strengthening in the market, growth in this business, and shows the growth in this sector of real estate agencies. A rapid change is occurring in the relationship between agency and salesperson. A more balanced relationship that reflects the simple fact that it is salespeople that are producing the income, and deserve a greater say in how they present to the market, and how they earn.

If you are contemplating a change in direction yourself, please put us on your list. A brief chat with me might change your business direction and your life. There is an accomplished list of people in our business who have said that Independent Agent has done just that. Make 2025 the year.

In all this I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to work with all of the wonderful people I get to spend time with in IA. I am always thankful for their trust, their work, and their perspectives.

I can’t wait for 2025, but first – it is definitely time for family and friends, a break, and a warm summer.

All the best for the festive season.