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For Ben Spackman, 2021 marks the first year the principal and sales agent has ever entered the REB Top 100 Agents — and it’s a good thing he did! With 72 listings, 70 sales and an average sale price of more than $1.7 million, he’s well and truly put a positive spin on a year impacted by a pandemic.
The principal and selling agent at Raine & Horne Mona Vale shares his motivations for entering the ranking, a breakdown of his figures over 2020, and how his agency plans to capitalise on its recent success even further over the course of 2021 and beyond.
Here’s what he had to say.
REB: What did spur you on to enter the ranking?
Ben Spackman: I’ve been looking at it for a couple of years. The only reason I hadn’t is the application process is slightly difficult, but the team’s grown exponentially. So, I thought, you know what, I’m definitely going to go in it this year. It’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do.
REB: Seventy-two listings and 70 sales over the year with an average sell price of more than $1.7 million. Can you talk us through a little bit about how you got that kind of result?
Ben Spackman: Absolutely. I run a good-sized team, so it was more momentum listing at that point. We’d started off pre-COVID and we had a lot of market share at that point and through the COVID period, things quietened down significantly. We knuckled down and prospected pretty hard through that two-month quiet time. When it all turned, we were lucky enough to have a majority of the listings coming straight off the cuff of that.
Running into the tail end of the year, based on us having a majority of the listings, we were already meeting buyers and vendors considering coming to market and we expedited them based on market momentum. It was a bit of a whirlwind late last year and it all whipped up really quickly!
REB: Can you talk us through a little bit of a breakdown of your average sales per week at the beginning of the year, then when COVID hit, and then what it was looking like towards the end of the year?
Ben Spackman: Yes, pre-COVID, we were riding three to four a week. And then by the end of sort of running through October, November into December, we were riding eight to 10. So, it was a fairly significant change, double what we were doing in the early part of the year.
REB: What were your goals headed into 2020 before the pandemic actually hit? What were you hoping to achieve from that year?
Ben Spackman: The goal was always the hit to 2.25 [million dollars]. We’d done a 1.65 [million dollars] the year before, we’d had it planned to hit that kind of number. It was always going to be a stretch target, but we had that in our sights.
Reality is, with the amount of momentum, it was just an easier target to achieve by the end of it. Look, 1.65 [million dollars] the year before was pretty decent, but to get 3.25 [million dollars] that year during a COVID period where we were out of action for two months was pretty impressive.
REB: You’ve talked a little bit about COVID already, but can you talk us through what the effect actually was on your business when everything kind of turned upside down?
Ben Spackman: Yeah, it was just a whirlwind of panic. We had existing vendors on the market that at one point knew that we were being closed down, so they expedited sales and started closing down campaigns early. The ones considering coming to market just put everything on hold, which left us in a position where we had off-market listings, but we couldn’t run open homes and had to do in individual inspections.
We navigated that pretty well based on the amount of stock that we had at the time. But yeah, it was a funny time. It was interesting to see what you can do under pressure.
REB: That’s a great segue into my next question, which is, did COVID-19 teach you anything new in the world of real estate?
Ben Spackman: Absolutely. The versatility of being a real estate agent and a business owner, if you can move with the times and the business is versatile, you can literally make it through a pandemic. If you dig your head in the sand, then it’s going to be tough, but if you can move pace with what’s going on, that’s the major thing.
And obviously, try and keep a positive attitude throughout it all. I know a lot of people were really negative around that time and we just went back to the drawing board and hit the signs and tried to prepare for any kind of sunshine that came with opportunity on the other side of COVID. It came a lot sooner than anyone expected and it paid dividends for us in the end.
REB: Has It changed the way that you do business then, as we return to normal? Is there anything that you implemented through the worst of the pandemic that you want to keep doing day to day?
Ben Spackman: For the two months that we had to wind back outside of prospecting, pretty heavily, we just pulled the business apart and got our structures and systems in place. That way we could automate a lot of the stuff that we were manually doing. And we obviously said set some more team structure, and that’s actually paying dividends for us now to carry a volume of property. We’re carrying a lot more volume than we normally would. It’s actually been a positive thing for us, the whole COVID thing. I would say the team structure and systems that we now have in play are pretty bulletproof, so that’s in our advantage.
REB: So you’re a principal as well as a top-ranking sales agent. How have you juggled all of that?
Ben Spackman: It’s tough, but pretty supportive wife and a really good team. We’re pretty happy with our current team at the moment. We’ve got some real go-getters. As far as internal support staff and a wife that helps run the business and sales associates that work alongside me. That’s the only way that we would have made it through and get to this level with running an office and actually being in the REB [Top 100 Agents].
REB: What’s your split? What’s your breakdown of working on sales and leading the business?
Ben Spackman: I’m 90 per cent sales in all honesty. I’ve got an office manager now, so we meet three times a week to go over vital things and plot and plan and they just action that for me. So, I’m pretty much hands-on when it comes to sales. I’m not as hands-on when it comes to working in the business, but the growth side of it is basically what I concentrate on and support staff and office manager basically implement and action.
REB: So, what are your goals as an agent and as a business, too, for the 2021 calendar year and beyond?
Ben Spackman: Yeah, we’re looking at still growing. So, obviously, we’ve been a really good-sized team now, but I’d love to get a few other areas locally under wraps with market share and, basically, just expand the team and mentor them to a level where they’re at a stage where they’re comfortable and writing decent numbers.
The target always, for me and my team, is to push the boundary on what we can ride each year and keep customers happy. Looking forward, it’s a very different goal to try and achieve considering we’re running off 2.25 [million dollars], it’s almost double again, we’re always looking ahead. So, the goal for this year is $4 million internally for our team. Then, for the office, we’re looking at expanding into new areas and take market share for existing suburbs that we haven’t touched yet.
REB: Rounding out now, what is your biggest piece of advice that you could give to anyone who is looking to become a top-performing agent — and make that Top 100 Agents ranking?
Ben Spackman: I think always going back to basics. Whenever it gets a little bit patchy and you are looking for direction, just go back to the basics of real estate and that’s relationships and people and obviously hit the phone. The more phone calls and appointments that you can book each day is what’s going to dictate where you’re at in the three months coming.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
