Peter Vines has a vision.
Not just for how he wants to grow his business, but for how he wants to get there.
A collaborative environment, a team that builds a bigger pie, rather than just larger individual slices, and marketing that focuses on storytelling.
The Ray White Commercial Western Sydney Managing Director isnโt really a fan of the phrase of โdoing things differentlyโ but thatโs exactly what heโs doing.
โBecause weโre a more boutique business and weโre not answering to shareholders, we can be a lot more flexible,โ he says.
โWe can be more creative and we can make decisions very quickly, so we can adapt to opportunities.
โResidential agents are all big on marketing, but commercial agents arenโt.
โSo we need to make sure weโre attracting the right people and telling the right message to the right people.โ
Peter says that message when it comes to selling commercial property all comes down to painting a picture in buyers minds.
Not just of what the property they are selling is, but also what it could be.
โWe crucially analyse the properties that weโre selling, to not just look at what they are but what they could beโ Peter notes.
โWe spend a lot of time working out where someone might be able to create value.
โPeople are buying an asset for what it is today, but they pay a premium for what it will be in the future.
โSo we need to be able to clearly articulate that to buyers. You need to tell the story.โ
An incredible year
And tell the story Peter has.
In the past 12 months, Peter has achieved a 58 per cent increase in sales, selling more than $520 million in commercial real estate.
His highest sale exceeds $90 million, and while he canโt say too much about that one, he also sold a development site in Ashbury for $45 million and two former Centrelink offices for $37.5 million each in Blacktown and Mount Druitt.
For his efforts, Peter was, earlier this month, awarded the REINSW Awards for Excellence Award forCommercial Salesperson.
โWhen it comes to awards and that kind of thing, I donโt expect things,โ Peter says.
โI expect things to come from the work that I do, and I expect to win certain business because weโre the best place to do it, but not from an accolade perspective, I donโt expect anything.โ
In his family’s footsteps
Peter has been in the real estate industry a bit over 20 years now, and has followed in both his fatherโs and grandfatherโs footsteps, with those to men working in residential sales and projects.
Peter started working with his father in Pyrmont as a teenager, gaining experience on reception and in leasing, before heading to London for work.
In London he worked for a boutique agency, mostly selling apartments and houses in South Kensington.
After that he headed to Paris where he joined CBRE for three years in a role that taught him some of lifeโs toughest, but important, life lessons.
Peter says it was difficult to secure listings and the office culture was very much one of โevery man for himselfโ.
โIt taught me resilience partially, but it also taught me what kind of environment I donโt want to work in,โ he says.
โAnd thatโs one thatโs not collaborative.
โIโm such a big believer in, โletโs grow the pie, instead of how can I take more for myselfโ.โ
When Peter returned to Australia he worked with CBRE in Parramatta, as part of their investment and development team, before deciding to strike out on his own.
Going it alone
Four years ago Peter and his wife, Ruby Rozental, bought Ray White Commercial Western Sydney and has since grown the team from four employees to more than 30.
โIโd always had a vision of trying to do something myself, where we could create our own culture and build something meaningful,โ he says.
โIt was also important for me to grow a retirement plan, in terms of a property management business, and to have a new challenge as well.โ
And so what does the next 12 months look like for Peter and the team?
โFrom a business perspective, weโre very keen to grow our industrial capabilities, and to build an industrial team,โ he says.
โAnd I think we will probably look at acquiring other complementary businesses where they have a certain, specific skill set, or they have a property management business or a team that we want to try and acquire.
โI just feel that if youโre not growing, youโre dying.โ