Christopher Mourd has one of those McGrath roles that sounds equal parts enviable and relentless: overseeing franchise services across the Eastern Seaboard, staying close to what’s working in the network, and working alongside offices as they grow and evolve. It’s a job that keeps him on planes, in offices, and “living out of a suitcase”, but it’s also placed him at the centre of what he sees as the next shift in real estate leadership.
As McGrath’s Head of Franchise, the biggest change he sees is not technology, commission structures, or marketing. It’s leadership – and the business structures forcing it to evolve.
“I think first is that concept of business of command and control,” Chris says.
“Someone owns the business. They’re in charge, and they’ll send down the mission to everybody… Here’s when the meetings are on. I want you at the meetings.”
He still sees that as the default model in much of the industry, particularly among independents and smaller operators, where “one person, two people own 100 per cent of the business and everybody else ultimately were employees or in some cases contractors”.
But he believes the direction of travel is clear. “What we’re seeing is the future as being multi office, multi partnership,” he says.
That shift matters, because it makes old leadership habits hard to maintain.
“Leadership then has to deal with a wider front,” Chris says.
“There has to be some leadership that sits within each of those businesses. You can’t just have a manager that wanders around.”
In his view, scale demands something more entrepreneurial: leaders with “skin in the game” who are “excited and delighted to develop talent”.
The job is no longer simply to drive output; it’s to create momentum in other people.
And that’s where he thinks many principals get stuck.
The hard part: stepping back from being the income producer
For owners who are also top billers, the move from selling principal to business builder can feel like a financial leap without a net.
Chris doesn’t pretend otherwise, but he says the transition starts with a basic decision: time.`
“The number one thing is time,” he says. “Actually setting time aside.”
He points to the McGrath Ipswich business, which he says has “increased their revenue by a third” over the past year, after director Adam Boettcher made a deliberate shift away from being the dominant income producer.
“What he did was he realised that he needs to evolve out of that and stop being a major income producer and start developing his team,” Chris says.
Of course, that choice comes with pressure.
“If you’re an owner of a business and selling principal, you do need to significantly increase, right, because you’re paying people’s salaries versus keeping the money yourself,” he says.
“But in this case, he just made the bold move. He set time aside to start developing talent rather than just going out and doing the transactions himself.”
Chris sees it as a trade: short-term personal certainty for long-term business stability.
“Over time, he’ll replace his income, with people who are also doing very well for themselves,” he says.
His broader point is that owners who are still producing most of the income often can’t see the full picture of their business because they’re trapped inside the transaction cycle.
“An owne, who’s also the income producer, they are completely focused on their clients,” Chris says.
That leaves “less time to think about, has this been a profitable month? Could we save some costs? Could we generate some more revenue? Could we have done some training?”
This is why, he says, the industry keeps circling the same bottleneck: good agents building businesses that can’t grow beyond them.
What new agents want now: guidance and certainty
Chris says leadership expectations have shifted “dramatically” over the past decade.
Younger agents may have better access to information than ever, but they’re still searching for something human: direction, confidence and support.
“What they’re looking for is guidance,” he says.
“They’re looking for surety that they’re doing well. So helping to make sure that they have the confidence to get out and create … that’s important.”
He describes it as “that concept of believing you can win”, paired with the need to feel connected.
“I think it’s a feeling they’re not alone,” he says. “I think it’s incredibly hard for anyone just to be trying to do it all themselves.”
In Chris’s view, the industry has moved away from the old model of offering a desk and leaving performance to raw survival instincts.
“If you’re good enough, you’ll do well – that’s well and truly gone,” he says.
“You should never practise on clients”
When it comes to capability, Chris is also very blunt: agents still need the fundamentals.
“They need to know how to price properties effectively. They need to know how to present properties effectively,” he says.
They also need to be able to demonstrate a process that leads to a result.
“There’s a lot of key components that they can sit in front of the client and actually show them: we have a process to bring their property to market and achieve the highest possible price,” he says.
Marketing and negotiation sit alongside that: “Salesmanship or negotiating skills is a massive component.”
But what matters is how those skills are learned and he is adamant that poor training becomes a client experience problem.
“We have a saying within the business: you should never practise on clients,” he says.
His argument for team-based learning is practical rather than philosophical: “We only want people in the field with our clients who are really capable of helping them achieve the right outcomes.”
Formal training helps, but so does proximity.
“When they’re working alongside highly talented agents … we’re reinforcing what you’ve learned in the classroom,” he says.
The talent war is not won with “spreadsheet diplomacy”
The other thing Chris challenges is how the industry talks about recruitment and he has little interest in recruitment driven purely by splits, sign-on offers, or numbers.
“I’m not a fan of what I call spreadsheet diplomacy,” he says, where people become “just a name and a number on a spreadsheet with a bat of dollars you produce.”
His view is that agencies will win by building workplaces that make people better.
“It’s actually the one who creates the best environment for their agents,” Chris says.
“An environment of learning, of sharing, of trust, but also demanding a very, very high quality support of their clients and a strong work ethic.”
In that environment, he argues, the work becomes clearer and more productive: “Give them the right tools to be successful, the least possible administrative role, more about getting out … face to face where the opportunity exists.”
Autonomy is high – but trust is non-negotiable
Chris calls real estate one of the most flexible roles in any industry. “There’s huge autonomy,” he says.
“We are not with them every minute of every day.”
That autonomy, however, comes with conditions.
“For us transparency, actually I’m going to say honesty, is just non-negotiable,” he says.
“How far can they reach is a function of how skilled they are and how much you trust them.”
In other words: flexibility isn’t a perk, it’s an outcome.
High performers who earn trust should be given freedom. Those who haven’t done the work shouldn’t expect it.
He puts it more sharply with a line that cuts against hierarchy: “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.”
One of the more telling parts of Chris’s view on culture is how he explains standards being taught – not in theory, but through detail.
He recalls John McGrath’s strict approach to something that, on the surface, sounds minor: how a “Sold” sticker is placed on a signboard.
“It’s the notion of no bubbles on the sold sticker,” Chris says. Not because it’s precious, but because it’s visible proof of care.
If “every time you drive down the road, there’s a different sticker in a different spot”, standards become optional.
He remembers getting calls early on: “It’s not 100 per cent in the right spot, Chris. You need to go and make sure that gets fixed.”
“What we found was that immediately people would switch onto the notion of high attention to detail, very high standards, and then take that mentality and apply it to everything they do,” he says.
Chris calls it “good, clean business”.
The agents he backs: calm communicators with curiosity
When asked what makes a strong recruit, Chris doesn’t start with charisma. “Attitude and work ethic, without doubt, is everything,” he says.
But beyond that, he looks for agents who are “articulate”, “engaging”, and able to hold “a conversation that is intelligent”.
He also notices a particular style: “They would tend to be more businesslike. Calmer conversations, clear communication.”
Then he offers a distinction that speaks to how clients experience agents at the coalface: context versus content.
“Most of the industry teaches content,” he says. “Here’s my listing presentation… Here’s how we price… Here’s how we market.
“But “context is: here’s how we’re going to go about achieving what you need as a client.”
The difference is behavioural.
“Our people are more likely to ask questions and actually understand our clients’ needs and actually present their solution,” he says, rather than “just flipping through the book and talking to you”.
He also places weight on genuine community engagement, not performative sponsorship.
“If you sponsor the local football team, it is not enough just to pay some cash across,” he says.
“We want you there at the sausage sizzle, or you’re coaching or you’re engaged somehow. It’s not good enough to just sign a check.”
The industry misconception that drives churn
He also doesn’t shy away from why people leave real estate early. Too many walk in believing the job is the visible part: the nice suit, the open home, the auction, the car.
“The bit that people just do not understand is the hard work in developing relationships over many years,” he says. “
A database, days and days of door knocking, the constant follow-up.”
He likens real estate to an iceberg: the public sees only the pointy tip, while the bulk of the work sits unseen beneath the surface.
“Our greatest agents have a phenomenal work ethic and a disciplined approach they put into place every single day,” he says.
“Churn is predominantly because people just don’t understand that that is actually the job.”
Chris finishes where many principals should probably start: your environment determines your talent.
“The environment they create is the environment that then will attract the right people into the business,” he says.
Treat people like numbers, neglect systems and development, and you’ll keep hiring people who leave.
Invest in the workplace – “the right systems, the right processes” – and you create conditions where agents can do the work that matters.
