We Are Real Estate

Troy McLennan: Learning through experience

From learning the art of sales and people at a young age to becoming Director of Ray White Swansea, Troy McLennan explains why face to face relationships will always trump technology.

On getting into real estate
Until I was older my family was not really on the real estate path. But, after my parents divorce and a huge change in lifestyle, my father found himself investing and my mother found herself building a very successful career in property management.

Throughout my youth I’d spent more than a decade in retail sales, learning the art of people and problem solving. It was in an effort to advance my retail career that I found myself in Newcastle where I met a long-term customer who would one day be my reason for taking the leap into a new career.

At the time I was all about getting to a leadership role with an office in the big city, however one day I simply looked around and fell in love with our new location and decided to take up the opportunity to shift into the real estate industry. It was never really on my career path until it presented itself to me.

The happiest moment in my career
Over my career I’ve been blessed with many happy moments – mostly moments provided from those who’ve I’ve had the pleasure of representing. However, my happiest moment is certainly the day when we opened the doors of my very first office back in 2018!

The most memorable moment
This definitely has to be a joint winner between two clients (side by side). It was the first time that I went door knocking and found a seller – who was an absolute joy! Funnily enough, her neighbour was also selling! She was the opposite side of the happy coin. Turned out that they both listed with this young agent who broke two records selling their homes as a joint lot to a developer who turned it into 12 townhouses.

I’ll never forget the day the developer listed those townhouses with a different agent (face palm). Looking back, I don’t blame them. I was a young and inexperienced agent not equipped to deal with a project of that size, but this is one which has stayed with me for my career.

Best advice he’s received
Never focus on your result, always focus on their result.

Biggest challenge
As part of a younger generation of agents, I see a huge problem when agents come in to make the big bucks and lose focus on what’s important – the client and their needs.

Our industry is full of many agents who are trying to avoid the face-to-face aspect of real estate (the most important part to a successful agent) in order to chase the next big fad in technology thinking it’s going to be the difference between the amount of listings they do have versus what they will have.

The lack of communication and service is troubling, especially considering our industry has an abundance of technology to help us become better. The solution is simple: communication is an integral part of our business and technology is there to enhance the process, not replace it.

Change for good?
Stronger education required for agents coming into our industry. Less tolerance for those who intentionally deceive in order to win.

‘Elite’ agent means
An elite agent is not measured by the amount of sales they do, or even the GCI they write. In my opinion, an elite agent is measured by the amount of happy clients they have, along with how many referrals they receive.

 

#WeAreRealEstate is a series of short interviews with 140 agents all over Australia exploring the industry’s hopes, concerns, future challenges, and what it really means to be an Elite Agent.

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