James Tostevin, Director and Auctioneer at Marshall White, has been ranked Australia’s number one real estate agent in three of the past four years. Now after 30 years in the industry, he is using his wealth of knowledge, experience and skills to conduct seminars for other agents, designed to propel their real estate careers and help them achieve more, in less time.
James Tostevin is no stranger when it comes to training great real estate agents and has previously mentored and trained highly successful agents Zali Reynolds, Kate Strickland and Marcus Chiminello, plus many other high performing agents in the highly successful Marshall White team.
His energy, diligence and exceptional negotiation skills are what defines him as the best in the country, and his meticulous time-management and follow-up systems are guaranteed to improve your knowledge and ability to perform at a higher level, when you attend his training.
Q. Tell us a bit more about the course that you’ve designed for other agents.
There is a big focus with this course on managing time. For a long time, my training has focused on how and when to prospect and also how much time you devote to it; the other primary focus has been listings and how we articulate our key points of difference. I’ve very rarely focused my training on time management but I have so many people that say to me, “How do you fit everything in on a given day or week?” I feel time management is a glaring weakness with a significant percentage of agents in the industry.
The other thing I intend to focus on is team structure. I get asked a lot, “When should I put someone on? What point in my business/career, or with the fees that I’m writing, should I consider doing it?” I always say that people should have time to establish their career and a meaningful number of contacts on their database, and then in turn, increase the size of their team. A lot of agents seem reluctant to increase the size of their team at exactly the right time.
I would say the two biggest weaknesses of real estate agents is they don’t do enough prospecting, and time management. This seminar aims to help agents with both of those things and more and I will certainly focus on ensuring agents have the right structure for their week.
Q. The difference with your training is it’s actually what you do right now, is that correct?
Realistically I would spend around 12 to 15 hours a week on prospecting/nurture calls. I feel the training is more relevant as I’m currently working in the field and encouraging people to do the things that I actually do myself.
There are a lot of trainers that say, “This is what I used to do. When I was in the industry, I did this, this and this.” There are also a lot of people that either have been out of the industry for a long period of time or haven’t ever been in real estate at all! When I finish training, I go back to the office and I do exactly what I’m encouraging other people to do to improve their careers.
Q. Is this the first time that you’ve done training like this?
Yes, it is the first time other than speaking at significant conferences like AREC or internally at Marshall White. Ultimately, the legacy I want to leave Marshall White is knowing I have increased the knowledge of the younger, inexperienced but motivated people within our team. Furthermore, I’m interested in improving agents outside Marshall White. I really enjoy fast tracking the success of agents!
About the event
‘Accelerating Growth’ by James Tostevin is a half-day event to be held on August 5th between 8.30am and 12.30pm at the Melbourne Park Function Centre.
Topics covered:
- Understanding the ‘qualifying period’ to being successful and having realistic expectations
- Effective time management
- Structuring the perfect team as your career develops
- Delegating the appropriate roles and responsibilities
- Being consistent in your performance
To book tickets, visit http://www.jamestostevintraining.com/