Naked Real Estate 3.65

Why Naked and What Are We About?

To answer that we need to go back a few years to when our CEO Brendan Leahy was growing up on a cattle station in the middle of New South Wales with his other 14 brothers and sisters. Being the second youngest, Brendan learnt the fine art of having to negotiate for just about everything with his other brothers and sisters. Over the years, Brendan learnt more negotiation skills as he watched his mum and dad negotiate to buy and sell cattle and lucerne seed. Not only did he learn negotiating from his parents but Brendan was taught 4 other lessons from his parents: 1) Always put 100% into whatever you do or don’t do it 2) Be kind to those all around you particularly those less fortunate 3) Always leave a dollar for the next person and 4) Don’t tell B/S – you have to have too good a memory. Brendan has carried these rules with him throughout life and they are the reasons for his success to date. Ending school at a young age, or should we say being promoted to leave by the principle. Brendan worked for a local supermarket at 14 and by 16 was running it. He then moved to working in a warehouse for a while then found a place he was happy to work in for a couple of year and that was the local pub.

By the age of 19 though, Brendan had started on the path to working for himself with one of his brothers – they started a landscaping and lawnmowing business that let’s say, had it’s ups and downs. Brendan moved to Sydney when he was 20 and started a small transport business which he later sold. He moved on and started an upholstery and carpet cleaning business that developed into a distribution business servicing all the major retail chains nationally such as Myers, David Jones and Harvey Norman selling what is today known as the add-on warranty sale when you buy furniture or electrical goods. Brendan and his wife Janine sold the business after 10 years to one of the world’s largest companies, Eli Lilly, who made in an offer too good to be true. As Brendan says the timing was perfect because he and Janine were looking at moving out of Sydney to some land so their 3 children could get back to more of a country feel around them.

At the time, Brendan had 4 other brothers in real estate and they urged him to get into real estate as he had always been in sales in one shape or the other. So he packed the family up at the end of 2002 to move to Western Australia. In 2003, Brendan fell in love in real estate – it wasn’t the selling of the home, it was the interaction of the sellers and buyers that he found enthralling and seeing people achieve their dream of a new home for their family. But there was a really big but. Brendan, while working on his real estate career, kept looking and thinking that there has to be a better way of doing real estate. That the way it currently was and still is, is crazy and it doesn’t seem to help the end user too well – the buyers and sellers and also the agents.

Brendan had said to his first real estate employer that if they didn’t change how they were doing business then they wouldn’t survive. They weren’t too impressed with that statement so Brendan moved on and 18 months later, they closed their doors. The same thing basically happened with 2 other agencies that he worked for – one went broke and the other is a shadow of its former self. Brendan would sit in these offices and listen to other sales people and their owners talk about how they would stitch up this person or that person. There was simply no respect for the long term benefit of their clients with little thought for training the agents and less still, customer satisfaction. It was “there is your desk, go sell something” and that applied if you have been in real estate one day or for 10 years, it was just a revolving door. It seemed it was pot luck for the sellers if they happened to get lucky with a good agent. The other thing Brendan couldn’t stand was the back room mentality that clients were greeted with a reception desk then a wall in most cases and an agent that hides from the client if things aren’t going well.

So Brendan decided to find who was the best at real estate, learn from them and put it into his own business. He spent endless hours learning and training and travelling the world to learn so no stone was left unturned. He learnt from the best in the industry – John McGrath, Shane Smollen, Mat Steinwede, Lee Woodward, Rik Rushton, David Knox, Dr Fred Gross, Matt Church and Michael Sheargold. He went to AREC and the principles conference every year, then to America to learn from the best – Keller Williams. He has also been to Tony Robbins conferences and had the once in a lifetime opportunity to interview Sir Richard Branson and then have lunch with him .

Is he mad I hear you say?! This must have cost a fortune and taken a lot of time?! And your right but if you think back to the start what Brendan was taught by his mum and dad to put in 100% or don’t do it. Well that is what he did and that is how and why Brendan Leahy Real Estate started on the 19th of May 2006 and why he has had the success he has had in real estate. It hasn’t been overnight, it’s been a lot of hard work and training. Brendan doesn’t say this to gloat but so anyone who thinks about joining Naked, does so knowing that training is part of the job. Brendan even today after all he has learned, knows that he still has a lot more to learn and in his mind you should never stop learning. The day you think you know it all is the day you should retire.

The reason Naked has come about is because of Brendan’s drive to give only 110% for his clients. That’s why in the background working closely with Brendan and his team are two of the world’s greats in marketing and business grown – Siimon Reynolds and Brian Sher. Brendan was again researching and training when he read both of their books and thought these two guys are pretty switched on. So he got in touch with them and they have mentored him and looked at the company and said, this is great lets make it happen. That was in June and on the 27th of August 2012 Brendan Leahy Real Estate changed to Naked Real Estate.

Naked is about finding agents that want the very best for themselves and their clients. These agents know that there is no quick buck to be made in real estate, they know that its what you do today for someone that will get you the sale tomorrow. Naked isn’t for everyone and we aren’t trying to be, although we can see ourselves being the biggest real estate brand in Australia and New Zealand. We are about being totally transparent and helping people find their homes. We aren’t in the house selling business, we are in the people business. If you don’t get that, then Brendan says this is not the place for you. We do realise that people deal with people and not agencies and that is why this system is so good.

Brendan has even built a new office for Naked caring the transparency ethos through in the design with no walls when you walk up to reception so you can see all the way to the back of the office. None of the meeting rooms or offices have solid walls – they are all glass so no agent has the opportunity to hide.

Naked is designed to support the agent and stand behind them with the world’s best training and support so they can do their very best for their clients. To quote Brendan’s 2 favourite sayings:

“At the end of the day it doesn’t matter about the dollars and cents, all the matters is how we leave them feeling”

and

“Would they recommend us to their family and friends? Everything we do needs to aim at getting a yes”.