They thought they had a stock problem

Heading into the final quarter of the financial year, JKL had almost completely run out of stock.

On paper it didn’t add up. The size of the database, the number of opportunities being generated and the prospecting activity of the team all suggested the business should have been listing and carrying significantly more property than what was sitting on the stock board.

“What we knew was that it wasn’t a lead problem. The leads existed. The prospecting was happening. The opportunities were getting to our agents. But they weren’t consistently turning into listings.”

Dan Schubert, Managing Director

When the team was asked why, the feedback was consistent: we’re losing them on price. On fee. On marketing. We don’t really do anything different to our two biggest competitors. We’ve already done the listing presentation training. The questionnaire doesn’t work.

But ask the agents doing the presentations what was actually missing, and a different answer came back.

“Having a clear cut listing process and sticking to it. Things that we knew we should be doing started being forgotten. Cutting corners, etc.”

Alex Jacobs – Sales Agent

That was the real starting point. Not a knowledge gap. A discipline gap, created by the absence of a system worth being disciplined about.

Rather than accepting the first set of explanations, Dan and Jess went looking for where the conversion process was actually breaking down.

The investigation: three places the process was leaking

They mapped the listing journey from before the presentation, through the presentation itself, and into the follow-up afterwards. The problem wasn’t one script, one objection or one piece of training.

There was no complete conversion system.

Before the presentation. A sample of 20 listing presentations was reviewed. In fewer than half, the vendor’s price expectation had been established before the agent arrived at the property. Pre-list kit delivery was inconsistent. Too often the kit arrived with the agent and was left behind almost as a gift, rather than being used deliberately to influence and educate the vendor beforehand. The questionnaire existed, but without the information required to use it properly, the team had started to believe the questionnaire itself didn’t work.

During the presentation. The biggest discovery was how the business saw itself. Asked why a vendor should choose JKL over its major competitors, the answers sounded like everyone else’s: we work as a team, we provide great service, we have experienced agents. None of that gave a vendor a compelling reason to choose JKL. The competitive advantages were real. They simply weren’t being identified, articulated or proven.

After the presentation. Follow-up was largely transactional. Opinion of value, fee, marketing package, then wait. In many cases the business wasn’t directly asking for the business at all.

“We had put significant effort into getting an opportunity to the listing presentation, only for our structured conversion process to effectively finish when we walked out the vendor’s front door.”

Dan Schubert, Managing Director

The work: rebuilding the system, not tweaking the presentation

Through a series of conversations between Dan and Jess, supported by 1:1 work with the senior agents, the decision was made to stop refining the existing presentation and rebuild the entire conversion system from the ground up.

The objective was bigger than a better listing presentation. It was a repeatable system that worked Before, During and After.

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01 Price and timeline became non-negotiable

Two pieces of information now have to be gathered before the appointment: price expectation and timeline. Previously useful, now understood as the thing that fundamentally changes the ability to prepare for and conduct the presentation. The quality of the presentation starts before the agent arrives.

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02 The questionnaire became the foundation

The team stopped blaming the questionnaire and changed how it was used. The listing presentation doesn’t begin until the questionnaire is complete. Instead of another form or script, it became the foundation of the conversation, telling the agent what matters to that vendor, and therefore what the presentation needs to focus on. Every vendor no longer gets the same presentation.

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03 Real points of difference replaced generic language

The team stopped describing itself in generic real estate language and looked at what the evidence actually said:

2x	the inspections compared to the market average
40%	faster selling, with around half the discount rate
7 of 8	years ranked #1 for client satisfaction, and Forster Tuncurry’s most reviewed agency

A very different proposition to “we work as a team and provide good service”. And now able to be connected directly to what each vendor said mattered to them.

“Demonstrating a clear difference between ourselves and other agents. Showing our successes and wins better. Showing our process better.”

Alex Jacobs – Sales Agent, on the biggest changes

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04 A repeatable framework

The core of the presentation was built around three areas: Premium Price (how the agent, strategy and negotiation process maximise the final result), Creating Demand (how attention, inspections, competition and offers are generated rather than listing online and waiting), and Client Experience (how communication, expectations and the journey from listing to settlement are managed).

These aren’t standalone presentation topics. They are systemised across Before, During and After, so what’s said beforehand supports what happens in the room, and the follow-up reinforces the same value proposition.

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05 Roleplay on steroids

Rather than periodic training and hoping it stuck, JKL built an ongoing coaching system. An AI coaching tool that understands the work developed with Jess, the listing presentation methodology and the standards expected of agents. It analyses roleplay transcripts against that system, identifying individual coaching opportunities, tracking development and allowing specific parts of the presentation to be coached repeatedly instead of starting again each time. It also transfers knowledge beyond the most experienced agents.

“I liked the evaluation and tweaking things each week to improve. Having the three points to talk about.”

Alex Jacobs – Sales Agent

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06 Follow-up became video + value

When the listing isn’t won immediately, follow-up is no longer price + fee + marketing. The conversation continues, the areas the vendor said were important are reinforced, and value is demonstrated after the presentation rather than waiting for a decision.

The listing presentation is no longer a single meeting. It’s a conversion journey.

What changed in the agent's chair

A system only counts if it changes what happens at the kitchen table. Asked what he personally had to stop doing, start doing, or think differently about, the answer wasn’t complicated.

“Just following our listing process and not cutting corners. Put more time and effort into it.”

Alex Jacobs – Sales Agent

And asked what feels different now, walking into a listing presentation compared with three to six months ago:

“I have a clearer picture on how to react and what to say. Confidence. I believe if I do everything correctly I will be hard to beat.”

Alex Jacobs – Sales Agent

That last line is the whole point of the work. Not a better script. An agent who walks in knowing exactly what the process is, what the business stands for, and what the evidence says. And who backs himself because of it.

The outcome

The biggest result isn’t a new listing presentation. It’s the foundations of a listing conversion system that is repeatable, measurable, coach-able and scalable.

The same system teaches an up-and-coming agent what great looks like, while still identifying specific areas where one of the most experienced agents can improve.

The team’s mindset around conversion has changed too. Instead of explaining a lost listing as “they went with the cheaper agent” or “they bought the other agent’s price,” the team can go back through the process and identify where the outcome could have been influenced differently.

“We’ve gone from looking at an almost empty stock board and wondering where all our listings had gone, to having a conversion system we believe can sustainably deliver our 70%+ listing conversion standard over time. And importantly, it’s a system that doesn’t depend on one great agent. It’s a system we can build great agents around.”

Dan Schubert, Managing Director