Ethan Petrie: from $100k to $2.4m in only 3 years

Ethan Petrie from Ray White West End - From $100k to $2.4m: The Ethan Petrie Playbook.

This week on ep 09 of Raising the Bar, George Sourris from Empire Legal sits down with Ethan Petrie from Ray White West End.

Ethan’s one of Queensland’s youngest Chairman’s Elite real estate agents, ranking in the top 1% of the Ray White network. At just 26, he’s has sold more than 140 Brisbane properties in the past 12 months, averaging three sales per week.

We cover:
- Back to basics in QLD real estate: why consistent phone calls, follow-ups, and avoiding “commission breath” win long-term in the Brisbane property market.

- Volume done properly: how one of Brisbane’s top-performing attraction real estate agents scaled from writing ~$100k in commission a few years ago, to writing $2.4m+ today.

- Team and communication: how building an Effective Business Unit (EBU) allows Ethan’s team to handle high-volume property sales without dropping the ball on client communication.

Ethan's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ethan.petrie.raywhite/
Contact Ethan: https://raywhitewestend.com.au/agents/ethan-petrie/138800
Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empirelegal/
More podcast episodes: https://empirelegal.com.au/podcast/
Check out our blogs: https://blog.empirelegal.com.au
Website: https://empirelegal.com.au

Transcript

All right. Hi guys. Welcome to Season two of the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland property. I've got Ethan Petrie from Ray White West End with me today. Mate, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you, George. Excited to be here. Mate. Good to have you.

Welcome to the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland Property. I'm your host, George Sourris from Empire Legal. 

Ethan - fun fact, is 26 years old. Yep. Yep. And you are part of the Ray White Chairman's Elite. Yep. Meaning Ethan sells the top 1% out of all agents in the Ray White network, which is mate amazing. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Especially at the young age of 26. Thank you. I hadn't even started being a lawyer at your age, so you're well into your career.

Yeah. 

How long have you been in the real estate game? 

I've been, well, I've been with Ray White West End for three and a half years now. Yep. Just over and then, yeah. Oh, it's probably about a year before that. Did six months in property management and then six months in sales at a previous place.

About half a decade under your belt roughly? Yeah, four 

and a half years. Yeah, just over. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. 

Nice. And now you're selling last year by the stats, I looked up, 142 odd properties you've sold in a 12 month period? Yeah, it's like three a week every week. Mate, that's pretty, you would know you get the contract.

Pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah, we see your name pop up a lot. I'm going to jump into our first question. According to realestate.com, in the last 12 months, 142 properties. Yep. So you started writing $100,000 roughly three years ago, and that figure now is $2.4 million.

And for those playing at home, that's in commission. Mate, that's more than a 20x increase in a very short amount of time. 

The whole point of this podcast is to story tell excellence and just whoever may be listening out there that may want to end up being an Ethan Petrie being a suburb specialist, selling a lot of properties.

Let's just talk about that a bit. What has that journey been like for you, from when you were writing $100,000 to now writing $2.4 million? 

What I think I did more than anyone else was investing early. And I think a lot of people are actually scared of doing that.

Not just time, but money as well. For the most part at the start, wasn't really actually making that much because I was putting a lot back in. Okay. So 

reinvesting into the growth of your business? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The brand absolutely every, 

everywhere. And yeah, just whatever I could sort of throw money at.

That would try and, or I thought would help. Obviously there was a few things that didn't work, a few that did work and I've kept doing those. Trial and error of course. Yeah, a hundred percent. The mentality for me was that I'm just going to make it work. I'm not a born salesman. When I first started, what, I was 22 with a lisp, right? Like, you know, pretty. Had you ever done sales before? No, no, no. So I was just like, I gotta do something. Right? So the bigger thing, like for me was, oh, just going to work more than everyone else, right? Yep. Try work harder.

Yep. Do a bit more and do the basics and do it more or less just as consistent as possible. Like the biggest thing in our industry and like well real estate and probably with lawyers as well, is inconsistency, especially with like doing the simple things. People always want that, I guess. Quick way.

Yeah, the quick win. Like the win, the quick win. It doesn't exist, does it? We talked, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just not there. Chasing the easy or the quick win and which just, it never works out well. More or less playing the longer game. Just doing, doing the basics. Yeah, 

I watch Tom Panos a lot. I like Tom Panos.

And he talks a lot about just going back to those basics. Yeah. Yeah. Are you making phone calls? Are you following up? There's not this, you following the shiny object down the road. It, it's actually, it's not going to get you there. Yeah. They've proven time and time again. The guys that crush it, do the basic stuff consistently. 

Yeah. Absolutely. And even when listing a property and selling it, right? Instead of focusing on, and a lot of people do, and I know I was guilty at it of it at the start as well, listing the property, you want to get it sold, right? Yes. Because you get paid, you get paid when, when the property sells and settles, right?

So trying to chase that, and I think that that was the biggest shift with me, I guess, doing volume then. Mm-hmm. Was actually holding onto properties and you know, if you've got more listings, it's not as stressful. I think waiting for that next sale, because you've got a few coming up anyway. 

Right. As opposed to just having, say one or two in the air and you are like, 

oh man, I need this to sell. Yeah. Yeah. Needing the quick win, you know, it means you're getting the property on the market, off the market in a week, not enough time for people to really to see you. Yeah. And the results get affected, right? You're not getting the best price or, or, or the best outcome for the owner if you're on the market only for a week.

That again was a big shift for me. Moving the focus from getting the property sold quickly. Yes. To actually making sure that we're doing it properly. Let's get the best price. Let's, 

let's jump a bit deeper into that. Right. because we, we call it you don't want to get "commission breath".

Yeah, yeah. Right. And that's one thing's a Tom 

Panos line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Like you can smell it, you can actually smell it a mile away. You can see on selling agent side, buying agent side. You can tell they just want to get this deal done. Yeah. Versus. Is Ethan doing the best thing for me and my circumstances and my property, and do I trust him and do I like him?

Mm. 

That's the difference, isn't it? 

Yeah, absolutely. Like trust. I had it. Yeah, a hundred percent. I had it this morning on the phone with an owner. She said that she made a mistake last time of just selling it week one. Right? Yeah. And, and I just said point blank. We don't do that unless if it's a crazy amount and we know that.

Yeah. This is wild. My average day for market's 21 days, and that's mainly due to auction, but genuinely, like when we see it, for the past six weeks, our best buyers have actually come through the day before the auction on the third week. I would, I would say the dark horse that pops up right before. 80% of the time.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. It would be the day before, the weekend before, and that's week two or three, right. So that just goes to show again. And, and they're always ones, you know, winning at auction, you've gotta be paying more than everyone else. Right. 

So why? Do you think it's just a matter of you need a certain amount of time on the market for the right people to find the property?

Yeah. Well, it's a balance, obviously. 

Well, yeah, because we're in the area that we're in, right. In the volume market, there's always so many properties for sale. So. 

Which is West End, right? The 4101. Yeah. South Brisbane, West End. Yeah. South Brisbane. Kangaroo 

Point is my main market. Yep. But sort of inner city apartments, so we, we sell all over.

Yep. 

But yeah, it's a volume market, they're apartments. So people are looking at every one bedroom apartment for sale at any time. Right. Yeah. Within that area. 

Yeah. Yeah. There's a few products. It's not like there's one or two available. Yeah. There's quite a few of these. Yeah. Around, yeah.

Yeah. Go back a couple years ago at any one time in South Brisbane, a one bedroom. There was over a hundred. So one bedroom apartments. Wow. We couldn't give them away at that point. Proper buyer's market. Yeah. It's very different now, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, like you, we are, we are hoping to get one bedrooms right now.

Yeah. Because that's where the market is. A lot of people are looking, to that point is that people are buying quickly as well. And there's more buyers coming into the market every week because there's so many people. Your best buyer could be going through the motions of getting pre-approval at the moment. Yep. And not looking at property until the next week.

So if we just refocus back on that, that journey, right. Yep. From Ethan Petrie three years ago, $100k commission. Now you're over $2 million mark. You look at that journey. I know you spoke about just doing the, the, the basic things consistently, mate, what else springs to mind?

I'm just mindful if there's say agents out there that are new in their journey that go, yep, this is a similar business model that I want to try and replicate, when you reflect, what else comes to mind? 

The biggest one's is just I'm on the phone constantly. That's, I think, my biggest strength probably. Not afraid to get on the phone. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't do anything else. I personally don't think there is anything else to do, apart from inspections, which are important. But yeah, it's just on the phone to buyers and sellers. More time I can spend on the phone to buyers and sellers, more time that I'm actually interacting with people.

Yes. People that are buying and selling real estate, which is our market of people that we want. You make it sound so easy. They're the people I want to know and people that want to know me, right? Yeah. So just doing that. And then another thing that we sort of implemented in big shift was just doing more inspections as well.

That's probably been more in the past year or two that we started doing that. Are we talking like appraisals for properties or? No, inspections, like open homes. Oh, okay. So once you've got the listing, actually it's having an open more so you can get more people through the property. A hundred percent.

Right. So where possible, we double open, even triple open a property on a Saturday. Huh? Morning and afternoon. Right? Like we're, we're doing between 10 to 20 inspections every weekend. That is unique. Yeah. You don't see many people doing that. It's crazy to me. Buyers say to us all the time, you'd come through a 10:00 AM inspection, they're like, we didn't think we were going to make it because there was five others over at the same time. Right. Right. Whereas they got the 

opportunity to come to the afternoon slot instead. 

We actually get more people in the afternoon than we do in the morning. We are meeting double the people that way.

Man, it's such a good point. I remember when I was house hunting, I had that same problem. Yeah. Out of these two, we have to pick one to go to, and then you sort of knock out the chances. Whereas if you open it up again. Yeah. That afternoon slot's probably going to be free, isn't it? because everyone is jamming them into the mornings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good 

point. Everyone wants to be finished by lunch, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's just it. Yeah. But we usually finish up about three. After three, that's when it becomes a bit dead in all honesty. But yeah, it's sort of that early afternoon time after lunch, people are very active, still looking.

Yeah. You've got all the families. And if, if they're motivated buyers, they're going to be, they will come along. Children, 

children's sport in the morning, for example. True. Can't necessarily make morning. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Just trying to accommodate a bit more, do that little bit of extra. Which is a unique point.

Yeah. And again, like we are meeting more people, more buyers for the property. Yeah. It means that we give more opportunities as well and we more meet more people. 

All comes back to those basics. More conversations is going to equal more results, more volume, and it means more phone calls the next week.

Before we move on to the next point, let's just quickly talk a bit on the phone calls, right? Yeah. Because I know lots of agents in our business. Mm. We, we mainly work with resi agents all around Brisbane and Gold Coast. 

Yeah.

Man, did you ever have a fear of being on the phone?

Because I know a lot young agents are just petr, especially, you know, I'm a bit of an older vintage than you. Yeah. And if you look at the guys even younger than you, mate, phone calls are probably quite scary. 

Oh, terrifying. Now it's my favorite part. I love just, just coming in how Yeah.

And doing that. Because again, I know that's what my whole business is made out of. But yeah, at the start, it's terrifying. I remember we would sit there for like 10 minutes looking at the property, looking at the address, looking at the owner, made sure I had their name right, finding out when they bought the property, how much they bought it for, what sold down the street.

All this information, spending 10 minutes preparing for this phone call. Left a voicemail. 

Yeah. 

I'm like, oh, takes the wind outta your sails a bit. Hey, that, that sucked. 

Yeah. 

And then I did it for the next one and it was like 10 in a row. I'm like, well, I've just wasted two hours, spoken to no one. And then like, genuinely like, I think it's just about once you're actually on the phone, it's not that bad.

It's it's that fear definitely of actually doing it and talking and not wanting to say the wrong thing necessarily. Yeah. But again, because I'm not that sort of born salesman, I'm just having a conversation with them for the most part. Genuinely, most of the time it's just, hey, what are you doing?

We're just checking in with owners here in the building or on this street? Yeah. 

Adding value. Adding value. Right. 

Did you see that sale? We just sold X, or did you have any plans? Like what, what's actually happening in your life? Where are you at? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much genuinely just having a conversation, not asking for anything.

I get enough cold calls myself from just random stuff, right? We all do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Telstra and this and that. Agents, everything. Electricity, solar, all sorts of stuff. 

Yeah. I genuinely just hate being that person on the phone and having to ask: why are you calling?

Yeah. Yeah. What do, what do you want? 

Yeah, just cut straight through it. Yep. Look, I was just calling with regards to your property. 

Yep. 

Did you see that sale? Did you have any plans? Yep. Cool. No. Great. Well, thanks for your time. Bye. 

Cool. Yeah. And you'll find your people. You do, don't you? The ones the ones that have interest and want to know will ask more questions and the ones that don't, alright.

Yeah. Well, 

again, people want to know who you are, why you're calling. That's about it. Yeah. Once they know that, they're going to make up their mind whether they want to talk to you or not. Yeah. It's pretty simple. And don't push. Right? Like if I don't want to be on the phone, I don't want to be on the phone. Right?

Yeah. And, and if someone's on the other side, you can tell that they don't want to be on the phone. End it. Yeah, true. Don't push, that's how you're going to burn the relationships. 

Yeah. And then like, oh, that bloody Ethan bloke. Yeah. Yeah. That's not the vibe you want with your brand. Do you want me to be like, oh great, yeah, he told me this stuff or he respected that I was busy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Absolutely. 

Do you have a period of time, like a calling block? How does Ethan Petrie do it? 

Yeah. Yeah. I'm usually in the office at 7:00 AM that's my admin time. Yep. Between seven and eight, then go for a quick coffee, come back in, usually by 8:30am, on the phone.

And I have in my calendar blocked out and this has been the same since I joined Ray White. 8:30 to 11 is just blocked out. It's just calling, yep. Two and a half hour window. Yeah. Yeah. That's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Every day except Thursday. because that's our auction day.

And then in the afternoon as well. Usually I try and jam my appointments in around midday. Yep. So this would be 

like appraisals or like inspections, photos for whatever you, anything that you need to go out for, because 

people, people are actually a bit more available around midday to do inspections. But other than that, people don't really want to be talking. That's their lunch break. True. People don't want to be on the phone necessarily. So I found that that time for me was a bad time to be calling. Yes. because people weren't as receptive. They've just gone on their lunch break .

Don't want to get between their food. They want to scroll on Instagram. Right? I do too. So you want that time. Yeah. Having a bit of a break. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Switch off. And then yeah, it's afternoon, finish off the day. And then evenings for me is open homes, other inspections. I try and book everything for me after five. Yeah. Like face to face if I'm seeing people. And that's where people are relaxed. It's the time that you can go see someone if they want to see you. Yes. Again, I try not to call anyone after five though as well, because that's their home time, right. 

Yeah, and I guess if you reverse engineer it, I personally wouldn't want to be called after five. Yeah, hundred percent. Unless you were already representing me, say then I'd love to hear from you, like tell me about the property. But if you're in that sort of lead generation stage, yeah, you're right, it can sort of not always hit.

So you're the 4101 and surrounding specialist, what's your go-to local cafe or restaurant? What do you like? 

Cafe - easy because it's literally next door to the office. Vulture Street Espresso. And you have a piccolo, 

I remember.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well 

bounce between, I mean, look, depends. I'm a long, I love long black. But just depends. Time of day more than anything. But look, they're just consistent. Always open, good people as well and good, good food and coffee. So, 

and there's a big space out the back, which I only found out this week that you can go sit at the back of the laptop and do some work and it's, yeah, it's 

nice and chill.

There's people there all day. Yeah. 

Yep. It's great. So that's local knowledge guys. Yeah. Good vibe. Yep. Just across the road from your office. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally next door. Yeah, it's great. 

Excellent. Alright. Question two. Oh, sorry. Unless you want to go restaurant as well. Oh yeah. You gotta go to 

restaurant.

Absolutely. Course don't go wrong, Rich and Rare and Yamas. 

Ah, yep. Must to be out there. Yep, yep, yep. Yamas a nice Greek restaurant. Very good. The best. Yeah. And Rich and Rare is underrated, I reckon. Yeah. Oh, 100%. A lot of people don't even really know about it. They, everyone gets stuck on the SK's and the Fat Cow's.

I love Rich and Rare. 

Well, Fat Cow's same owner, and same owner as Yamas too. 

Okay. Yeah, Tassis Group. Unreal. It's in West Village, right? Yep. Correct. Again, just good people, good service, good food, but yeah, Rich and Rare, extremely underrated. Yeah. Yeah. Nice work, Mr. Tassis. Yeah. Thank you.

Alright, next question I've got is, let's talk about your EBU.

Yeah. So I'll let you explain what an EBU is. I just want to know what does that look like for the Ethan Petrie Team. Is, is it you? Is there a team? What's it look like and how's it work? 

Yeah, of course. So yeah, Effective Business Unit, team, whatever you want to really call it. And I think it's different for everyone.

Because it comes down to what your strengths are and what you're good or bad at. I know myself, I'm not bad at admin. That's why I come in early to bang it out. I know it's better off for me doing it than someone else. Different for agents, and I know quite a few of them that are terrible with admin.

Great agents, but terrible with admin. 

I know really high performing agents that absolutely don't even have a laptop. Yeah. They actually don't. 

Can't do it. Yeah. Just they have their phone. 

And the, the rest of the team does all of that other stuff, for them, a hundred percent, which,

there's no right or wrong, it just comes down to what you're good at.

Yeah. So my team was mainly built around more support with volume more than anything, and, in hindsight, I probably should have done it a lot sooner than I did. So I've got my offsider associate Donovan he is, and he'll be sort of moving out into his own sort of lead agent role within the team.

He's been with me for about coming up to one and a half years now. So again, on the phones with me prospecting, doing exactly what I do on a day to day. Okay, so similar tasks, just 

an extra person 

to help you manage the volume. Yeah, just calling and then helping with open homes, the occasional inspection, if I've got something else, I throw him there.

Then we've got Keira, she started at the start of the year. She's buyer manager role. The second half to me and what I'm doing, driving people to open homes, helping with negotiations, and again, helping with that volume. Because we're meeting so many people, on a weekend, on average, we'll meet between 100, 150 people every weekend, right?

I can't talk to all of them every time, all at once. It's not possible. She helps, does follow up from the weekend, sees who's interested. And again, just look sort of just managing everything with me.

Okay. So you and Donovan mainly on the sales side, so managing the clients, the property, all that stuff.

Yeah. And then on the other side, it's the buyer management. Yeah. So just what, trying to suss out who's actually a genuine buyer. Yeah. Who's just having a look like, yeah, like hot, hot, warm, cold. 

Yeah. Yeah. So Donovan and I stock in, trying to find properties, managing that side and then Keira stock out, right?

Like managing that side. We obviously get involved with negotiations and everything. Donovan's got his own properties that he manages and handles as well. Those negotiating sides is all him. And then same with me on properties as well, I step in for negotiations, especially on auction day.

Yes. But yeah, Keira's, which is Thursdays, that's your big, that's Thursday is game day. Yeah. Sale day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. But yeah, Keira's managing that relationship and I think it works really well. Again, it's sort of, you know, good cop, bad cop sometimes, right? Like she, she gets them there and then when it comes down to crunch time, we both go.

That that's been a huge change as well. Not just on the client side for me, like the vendor. Yes. Helping with that relationship, but just making sure that everything's managed properly as well. Everyone's getting communicated with, everyone's getting the right information and on time as well.

Because again, with volume, it just becomes about timing, time management. 

You'd obviously have systems to help, technology to help you guys with that. Yeah. Yeah. because otherwise it would just be impossible. Yeah. You can't just have a notepad and a Yeah. You know the amount of volume you guys are doing.

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So. Keira and Donovan have come in, Keira you said was this year Donovan was about a, we'd say a year, year and a half ago. Year and half ago. Yeah. Keira started 

before them, was it just you? Oh yeah. Before Donovan. So you were managing everything. Yeah. Donovan was the first.

Had someone else start she left at the end of last year. So Keira was the new one coming in, but we restructured and reshaped that role because it was a bit all over the shop before that. Okay. Yep. And then Brooke started a month after Keira, earlier this year. And she is EA sales admin.

You took the next words out of my mouth. I was going to say. Okay. So you guys are all doing agent capacity roles. Yeah. I know you said you did your admin in the morning, yeah, but like surely a team with the volume you guys are doing needs more admin support. 

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. So Brooke, she's more vendor communication. We have WhatsApp group chats for every property. Quick responses and everything. Because I'm on the fly most of the time, inspections, calls. So if an owner needs a quick answer, Brooke is on top of it, she's an absolute machine.

Preparing all the contracts, making sure that we've got, especially with the new sellers disclosure, Brooke's on top of it. That is a familiar name, right? Yeah, that is a familiar name. She's chasing other people up. But yeah, that's her role. 

That all boils down to one word, and that's just communication. Yeah. Yeah. And we, we have the exact same challenges, especially with all this Form 2 sellers disclosure stuff. It's very topical. Yeah. Comms are so important in, in your game, in our game, in any human interaction, any business.

It all comes down to communication. If we know something's not going to be done today and the deadline was today, you gotta get on the phone and tell all the people involved saying this isn't going to happen. How do we fix this? What's the solution? Yeah, yeah. That's where it all falls down, I reckon.

People that don't communicate effectively. Yeah, 

no, a hundred percent. And that's why it's called an EBU - Effective Business Unit. Yeah. You guys are operating as a unit. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to your point before, before Donovan, yeah it was just me. And that's why I made the comment earlier as well about I should have done it a lot earlier, and I think a lot of people hold off doing it.

Why do you think that is? Ego for one, definitely. Not wanting to relinquish control. I'm doing it all myself. I think that was probably more me, like I could handle it. I was doing it. And I was very proud that I was doing what I was doing by myself. But it does get to the point where communication from me was slipping, I think, and I just needed that additional person to be able to say, hey, I need you to do this because I need to focus on this and getting that done. And having a team there is so important, especially for us, selling apartments as well. At a minimum you need two people at every inspection. With 

apartments,

you don't realise this until you have to do it. For example, one person downstairs at the elevator with a fob to get people upstairs, whilst say you are upstairs talking to the people. Yeah. Without the second person, it's actually a logistical nightmare. Oh, it's terrible.

Buzz. Or you? 

We still see it at the moment. We're selling an apartment building and we've got three of us rolling around. Me in the apartment or me out the front talking to people. Someone else checking in, buzzing people up and down, someone showing the amenities up the top. And then there's another agent at the same time doing an open and they've got this funny little sign on the door saying, yeah, ring this number, saying, Hey, ring, ring the number.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit of a different experience. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And it was funny once they had the wrong apartment number there. I think they grabbed it from the wrong, they were obviously selling a few, grabbed, the wrong one, so we had everyone coming up to us being like, Hey, like how do we get up there?

Not me, man. Not sure, but come check this one out. What are you looking for? But it is really common. It comes down to investing into your own business and team. Minimum wage is what, 60 odd grand now. It's a big hit when you say it out loud and thinking, oh, that 60 grand coming out of my pocket.

Yeah. But it's all invested. When you said right at the start, about you just kept investing in yourself and the business and the growth, that's all it is, right? Yeah. I used to do every conveyancing deal myself. Abi and I, when we first started, we were doing them all.

Yeah. Yeah. Now I can't do what we do, this business without my team. No way in the world. I don't do deals anymore. Mm-hmm. I'm in a totally different sort of chapter of my business evolution. Yeah, yeah. Whereas, yeah, it was a hard journey to go, I'm going to let go of these referrers. Imagine if you'd been working with me for six years, and then all of a sudden I'm like,

hey mate, I'm not going to be your guy anymore. It's going to be, Allie. Yeah. Ironically it is Allie that you work with mainly. Yeah. That was a hard adjustment for a lot of, yeah. You know, our referrers, but it's part of the, part of the, the game, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. It allows you to do what you are strong at.

You want Allie running your deal. You actually do. You don't want me running it, because I'm doing a hundred other things. Yeah, there's, you know, you got to put the right people in the right spots. 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I couldn't imagine at the moment, and I still think about it and I'm like, why was I doing all these contracts and like, stupid stuff during the day?

Especially at the moment, I couldn't imagine it. With the new Form 2 and everything, it's so time consuming. 

Yeah. But you don't know what you don't know in the moment. Yeah. It's all part of the journey. 

I guess 

that's the lesson for the people listening, right? Yeah. Is you've, you've scaled up, you've grown your team.

Everyone's got their strengths and their processes. Yeah. And that allows you guys to sell 150 properties in a year. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, on that note, please give us one hack or daily habit that keeps you sharp in a, basically a 24/7 business. 

One hack, 

you can have a few seconds to think.

What do you think you do that just helps you mate, not burn out, sell all these properties, help people get good results. 

Well, like, like I said before, I actually love, you know, everyone says that I, you know, love your job, love your work, love your stuff, and then you, you see them posting and going out to lunch and you know, sort of not doing much here.

And that I genuinely love coming in and being on the phone. That to me actually excites me. Because that is, again, how the whole business has been built. Yes. And that's new business, future business, talking to people. And I think for me, structure's a huge thing and that's why I have it blocked out in my calendar.

I know what I'm doing during the day. Yeah. Rather than just rolling in and be like, great. Okay, who am I calling today? What am I actually doing? You know, oh, I've got that. Oh, I've got a lunch. I've got to go to that. Just having the same thing consistent every week. And that's the beauty of our process and auctions as well.

We know every Thursday that's what we're doing in the lead up to Thursday, we're gearing up for that, getting people ready. Yeah, you've got a 

process built for that. Yeah, it's a well oiled machine. I was only in your office recently seeing Luke, and that room is just, that's a powerhouse, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. It's great. That room in your office produces spectacular results. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's unreal. But yeah, I think that that's for me, just having the structure structure put in. Back to basics 

brother, same thing. It's just the structure. Yeah. Do you sit in your office on the phone?

Yeah. Or do you walk around up and down the street? What do you do? I'm terrible 

for walking. I can't remember. I love a good phone call walk. Yeah. I'm really bad for it. Yeah, I just roam around the office really. Okay. But you stay in 

the office and just cruise around 

on the phone? Yeah. Well, we're on the corner of two main roads, so it's a bit noisy out there to, to go walk around.

I do wander out there or into the carpark every now and again, but yep yep. I just roam around the office. Yeah. Okay. Or I, I, I'll sit down for a bit, but usually it's just walking around. What AirPods in? Yeah. AirPods in just wandering around annoying people, but yeah. 

And then what, do you have to take notes after your conversations?

Do you have a, sit on your phone? It's 

all, yeah, it's all on, on the phone. Ray White's invest a lot into technology and making life easy for people. So it's all our CRM. I've got the app on the phone and great, you 

can put it straight in, piece of cake. Yeah.

I'm saying 

call from the app. Yep. Log the notes straight away onto the next one. 

Excellent. You can just focus on that conversation as opposed to mucking around with all the Yeah, yeah. You don't need to reinvent that wheel. Yeah. 

No, no, no. 

That feeds into this last question I've got for you. How do you deal with the volume?

I know we've sort of unpacked that already, but in particular, what tips do you have for new agents looking to build a business like yours? 

Look, just focus, again, going to sound boring. Just basics. Focus on calls, focus on actually stuff that is going to build your business, not going out and, and doing stupid.

Can I swear mate? You can say whatever you like. Stupid shit during the day. Yeah. 

Well, mate, you're not out on your, not out on yachts or playing golf or, you know, having four hour lunches at Hellenika every day. You're in that office, with your team, on the phones getting results. 

I, I live a very boring life, right?

Like, which I think it's how it should be. Like it, it's go to work. I come home, I've got the two dogs and my partner Alyssa. We spend time with the dogs and do that stuff, but then most of the time it's just spending time together at home. It's funny, I posted the first personal photo on my Instagram for a while, and it was still me in front of a signboard with my dog.

We don't go out, do all that nonsense, like a lot of people post about, you know, going to SK or Hellenika every Friday. Yeah. Playing golf on a Friday morning too. It's not for me. It's not what I want to be doing. It's a disservice to the clients that I do have at the moment.

Mm. Like, I would hate to have them see that, right. It's like, yeah, yeah. When they're, that's why you're not answering the phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

And they jump on your Instagram and you, it's like, oh man. That sort of, that sort of sucks. 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They, they know that they call me like, I'll be at the office, unless if I'm at an inspection, look, they know where I'm going to be.

It's just focusing on what's actually going to bring in business. It's getting your name out there. I remember when I first started, this was before Ray White. I just spent every day letterbox dropping. My printing bill was huge. I was using a lot of paper.

Which is not sexy, right?

You think about now, you think about it and you look back and you go, man, I did some crazy stuff to get the results. Yeah, yeah. 

Well, at the time, I was single as well, so I had nothing like, no life other than double down on your career. Yeah. Yeah. That's all it is. I, I would go home at six and I would be walking until like eight, nine o'clock at night, just dropping shit in people's letter boxes.

My main focus was just getting my face and name out there.

But you had the win-win, you're still getting your steps in. Yeah. Yeah. And you're feeling productive. Yeah, it was very healthy. And what's the alternative? What's the alternative mate? Is sit at home, probably screen sucking. Yeah. Thinking about how you should be doing better, whereas if you just get out and do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

It's very simple. I love the simplicity. I think we need to stop and realise for a sec, if you rewind three years ago, we're talking from $100k to $2.4 mil. That's 20x better. Did you think three years ago when you were writing that amount, that in three years time you'd be writing 20 times?

Like, did you actually be, was it, is that an unrealistic dream? And you're like, oh my God, I'm living a dream? Or were you like, man, I'm going to kill it and this is where I'm going to be like, yeah. Like what were your thoughts 

back then? Look, I don't know. I just knew that I wanted to do that and, and do well what that looked like.

Still unknown, right? Like, I didn't really have numbers or anything attached to it. I knew I wanted to do volume. I thought about it, i'm like, do I really want to be doing like, you know, the prestige 

on the river, $10 million or what do you want to 

 be a volume agent? Oh, look, don't get me wrong, that, that's lovely, but yeah, like it's a whole different beast, isn't it's one a month, right?

Like, what are you doing for the extra three weeks of the month or what, whatever to probably play some golf or whatever. But, you know, it 

sounds like you genuinely enjoy the the fast pace hustle bustle. I like to be busy. I have 

to I'm pulling my hair out if I'm not. I knew I wanted to do well, I just wanted to work in like, again, like it's just doubled every year, which it's been great.

Yeah, mate, it's exceptional. Going back to just investing back, like whatever I would make, I would be investing a good portion of it back into the business. And I still am. I think it's really important. So long term. Long term. Yeah. You're not looking just at your nose here, you're looking down the line.

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred, a hundred, a hundred percent. Like I'm not planning on getting out anytime soon. Right? Yeah, mate. You're just warming up. Yeah. Yeah. At least another 10, 15 years hopefully. We'll see how we go. I think it was just always that long term goal. I didn't think it would happen this quickly and don't get wrong, glad it did, but now like again, like at the moment it's about, well, how do I not only keep this, how can I double it again this year? You've got a team now as well, where 

you've got responsibility with looking after them, with their careers and yeah, all that stuff.

It's a bit going on. Yeah. Yeah. On the back of that, and then we'll wrap this up with our final question. Yeah. Is, does Ethan Petrie have a personal life? Mate, sounds like you've got your routine, you got the dogs, you got your lady, like do you get out and do stuff, mate? Yeah, yeah. I mean, take holidays?

No.

Are you a robot? I'm trying. I'm trying. Yeah. Big, big push at the moment is for me to actually take holidays. No, we don't. And I think, look, it's good because my partner, she's amazing and like she's focusing on her career as well, which is good. What industry is she in, if you don't mind me asking?

She's well she finished uni. Project management. So for a water solutions company at the moment. Okay, so they're like doing the flood monitoring and everything, like, oh yeah, cool that, so she's progressing in, in that field. She finished her uni degree when we first started.

And so that's what she's focusing on. We do want to travel and holiday more. Yep. My preference at the moment has just been building the business, especially while I'm young and got the energy to do it. Focus on that now, maybe in a few years time, like, you know, once you can, once everything's rolling smoothly, right?

You can sort of take the, take the foot off. I, I 

think if you, if you didn't do what you did, you wouldn't have the results that you have. Right. It, it's, it's, it's my, my dad says it all the time. He goes, you get out what you put in. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent.

And it's directly proportionate. I remember being at uni and it's like, if you don't study, yeah, you get a shit result. If you do study, it's pretty funny, you get a good result. It's the same thing with your business. The more you invest into your business and your team and your people, the better 

the result you get.

Yeah. And that's why I chose real estate in the end. I was just looking for a career. Sort of just fell into it like I think most people do. Yep. Looking for a career that was exactly like I was working two or three jobs at the time. I loved working, because I wanted to earn more. And real estate was that field where, look, you could get in, and you get out what you put in. Look at the rewards, you've from your hard work you want to work or you can earn more. Yeah. And, and you'll be rewarded by doing that. Like I think Tom Panos says it or someone says it, real estate - you're either the lowest earning for lower amount of work, or the highest earning for the most amount of work.

They say that 

20% of the agents write 80% of the business. Hundred percent literally. So 20%, yield 80% of the results. And then the remaining 80% are fighting over the 20%. Yeah. So yeah, once you sort of jump up and you've got that profile, people know who you are.

Yeah. Would people just, they'd call you , I've seen your signs, I've seen your results. I want to talk to you. 

Yeah, yeah. I got to that point. It was maybe end of last year, probably a year ago, that's when I started noticing it and we started keeping track of it, like where everything was coming from.

Mm-hmm. 

And a good 80% was people actually getting in touch with me one way or another. Attraction agent. Yeah. Yeah. Which was really cool. Really cool to see. You know, based on a number of things from us actually calling and being in touch consistently the billboards or, or the marketing engine doing its job, mate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or even just the results. And I, I think like most of it generally comes down to, actually having more properties for sale and, and selling more. I think people actually seeing what you're doing is a huge, huge thing. 

Oh, visibility's huge. Yeah. We talk about it all the time with our business.

Because obviously conveyancing's maybe not the, the sexiest topic in the world. Yeah. And if you get on Instagram, I'm sure there's much better ways to entertain yourselves. Yeah, yeah. From cars to boats to all the rest, if you're a bloke, or if you're a girl, makeup and all that jazz. We say all the time, how can we cut through?

Mate, it's just about putting your name out there and getting out there, and then the more consistently people see it and they build the trust and yeah. You'd probably be able to walk down the street now and people would know who you are. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas a few years ago, I bet that wasn't the case.

Yeah, yeah, 

Again, because I live locally, like it's really cool. I actually been able to go out and, and say, hey to a lot of people every time we go out whether they've been buying or selling.

Like you literally bump into them in the street. Yeah. Yeah.

People you help buy and sell because you're living in the area that you're working in. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah. No, it's 

great. Yeah. I've got a lot of family and friends and that, that come to Brisbane and the first thing they say when we catch up with, and we saw your billboard.

Like, great doing its job. Here's 

the irony. I remember a few months ago you had one in West End, just near the bridge there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I messaged you, I I took a photo. Yeah, you did. And I'm like, oh, cool. Like, yeah, your billboard's there, so yeah, it 

works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. Yeah.

Repetition builds trust, right? Mm-hmm. And yeah, the combination of them seeing me there, seeing me on realestate.com in the letterbox and me calling the next day, right. It's just a combination of everything. People like, oh shit, this guy's, yeah, he's on it, he's on top of it. Right? Yeah. And I think that, that that that pays dividends, right?

So for anyone listening out there, I, I think when you look at the, the common themes we've spoken about here just comes back to doing the basics. 

Yeah. Do do more of them. Yeah. Yeah. You're not chasing the shiny 

ball down the road. You're just doing what has to be done to open up more conversations, to open up more doors, talk to more people.

Yeah. A hundred percent. 

I've got one final question for you, which we ask everyone on the show. Yeah. You, you probably don't know about this, but here we go. So we're here to raise the bar, right? Yeah. The whole point of this podcast is storytelling excellence in Queensland property. Mate, it's evident that you're excellent.

Your career's only warming up and you're just crushing it. 

Yeah. 

You can have a few seconds to think if you need it, but just one golden nugget of advice. It doesn't have to necessarily be real estate related or business related. It can be personal. Just one thing you think to the audience we have that's helped Ethan Petrie in his life that you would pass on to someone out there.

Have a few seconds to think and when you're ready, shoot. Just one bit of value add that's helped you in your life. Yeah, for.

I mean, I was literally just going to say, we spoke about it a couple days ago when you came in, just not chasing the quick wins. And I know we spoke about it earlier today. That's been probably the biggest thing for me, shifting the focus from, again, chasing that paycheck of the commission, whatever, whatever it is.

And actually just, yeah, going back to basics, it, it's by far been the bigger thing, shifting that focus. Not only reputation gets better, the results and what you actually do gets better. And just focusing on that. 

Mate. I love that. The thing springing to mind for me is there's all these people now trying to pick the next crypto thing.

Oh yeah. Or the next whatever the day trading stocks to be an overnight millionaire and look. I actually know one bloke that did it. Yeah. He made an absolute packet. Yeah. And he, you know, just, just crushed it. Yeah. But everybody else that has tried it was, has lost a lot of money. Probably know thousand more that didn't.

Yeah. Yeah. And you look at, you know, these people, like, I've got a few mentors myself, and it's a very slow and steady race. It's, they bought one unit and they bought a second unit. Yeah. And they bought a third unit and then a fourth, and then they're in the whole building eventually. And that started from.

Yeah. Basics, discipline. Long game. 

Yeah, a hundred percent. And look, they're buying and selling property, right? That's the one given way that you can make money, like within crypto bricks and mortar. Tried and test it. Yes. You know, well, instead of investing 50 grand into crypto, buy an apartment somewhere, rent it out, you've got passive income, and sell it off in a few years, you'll make more that way.

Safer for one. And, and that's again, been a big thing for me is just trying to buy. Yeah, buy a property, right? Like it, it's actually baffling how and crazy to me how many real estate agents actually haven't bought and sold a property themself. Yeah. Like it's actually like, like you, again, you can find all this information out whether they own a property.

Right. Very easy to look 

that up online. Yeah. Yeah. 

There's so many of them that don't. Yep. And not sort of understanding that. I've gone through the process a few times now and yeah, buying a property sucks. Dealing with that, the amount of times that I, you know, made offers, signed contracts as well.

Yep. And then nothing. Like you think, oh, I'm signing a contract. Great. Property's mine. Sign a contract, then get a text at at eight o'clock last night saying, yep, property sold to someone else. Thumbs up. 

Different journey on the other side, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, 

well, you understand the frustration, right?

And again, that, that's probably helped me a lot as well, being able to actually reciprocate with buyers, the experience that they're having. Yes. And be like, I know, you know, let, let's try and avoid that. But yeah. Yeah, definitely. Look, getting into the property markets, yeah. 

Yeah. You are, you are practicing what you preach.

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I, I personally love property as well. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's yielded great, I'm only, you know, young in my journey and it's yielded good results already. Yeah. 100%. Look in saying that you can do good stuff with shares too. Yeah. Like, not, not bashing shares, but, you know, we're obviously property heads and we believe in it and I think it's, it boils down to what you know.

Mm. Yeah. 

Like I, I'm not going to go and buy shares confidently because I just don't have the knowledge. Yeah. Whereas I live and breathe property. You, you mate. It sounds like you, you live and breathe properly through and through. Yeah. You, you, you know it. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've, I've 

tried shares, like to your point, like I don't get it.

Still got money sitting there, but me too. And I haven't done particularly well. I've upsets me every time, but 

Yeah. I'm like, man, I wish I just rolled that into a property. Yeah. Yeah. Such as life. Absolutely. Yeah. 

I mean, looking at the market now, we all should have bought more. So, yeah, if you're 

watching this now buy now, yeah.

We've got the 5% Guarantee coming in. Yeah, I know. Yeah. What, in a month? Mm, already in September. It's happening up, happening in less than a month now. Yeah. Crazy, crazy. Yeah, so if you are a first home buyer and you haven't heard about this, look it up, 5% guarantee scheme, where you can buy a property with only 5% down, which shortcuts the barrier to entry by years.

Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. 

And what threshold going up to a million for first home buyers? Yes. In Brisbane. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yep. And great. Yeah. I mean, if you are a first home buyer and you're looking for an inner city apartment, Ethan could have a product. But I mate I think we wrap that up there.

Yeah. Thank you. I will put in the social channels ways that people can find you Yeah. If they need to get in touch. And thanks for your advice and for your time and thank you. I will be very keen to sit here in a few years. Yeah, and see what's going on in the Ethan Petrie world. It'll be pretty impressive, I reckon.

Yeah, yeah. Hopefully. We'll see. Thanks mate. Thanks for your time. All right. Thank you.