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- Key figure: Jake Mackenzie, Sales Manager at Manor Real Estate
- Challenge: Systematic nurturing of thousands of database contacts without overwhelming high-performing agents managing 800+ annual sales worth $1.345 billion
- Solution: Implemented Realtair’s Market Update functionality with Wingman remote professionals to deliver automated monthly, branded property reports via SMS from agents’ numbers
- Key achievement: Transformed database nurturing from zero consistency to 100% systematic delivery, creating a competitive advantage through regular touchpoints that position agents as trusted advisors before prospects become active sellers
When Jake Mackenzie walks into Manor Real Estate’s offices each morning, he sees something most principals would envy: a team that moved $1.345 billion in property in the last year, with multiple agents hitting seven-figure GCI. But what he also sees is the same problem plaguing agencies across Australia.
“I sit in the office every day and listen to the agents making their prospecting calls,” Mackenzie explains. “There’s no appointment to be booked, so they say, ‘I’ll call you back in three months.’ But do they do that?”
Many agencies focus almost exclusively on prospects who are ready to sell immediately. This creates what renowned coach Tom Panos calls “too many agents on the now seller.” Most future sellers sit ignored in databases until they suddenly become hot prospects. By the time a prospect becomes a “now seller,” it’s too late to build a meaningful relationship. Agents who wait until this point must compete purely on immediate value propositions, usually price.
For Manor Real Estate, a powerhouse agency managing 800+ sales annually across Sydney, this represented both an opportunity and a challenge. How do you nurture thousands of database contacts without overwhelming your high-performing agents who are already juggling active listings and negotiations?
The answer, Mackenzie discovered, lay not in working harder, but in reimagining how consistent touchpoints could be delivered at scale through Realtair’s Market Update functionality.
The reality of lead classification
At any given moment, only 3% of property owners are actively ready to sell within 60 days. The remaining 97% break into two distinct categories:
- Medium leads: those considering a move within six months; a significant but largely untapped segment.
- Cold leads: those six months or further from any selling decision; they make up the majority of most agency databases.
Mackenzie categorises leads differently from most agents. Where others see a homogeneous mass of database contacts, he identifies distinct nurturing opportunities based on selling timeline and engagement level.
“The problem you’ve got with the ‘now seller’ is everyone wants the now seller,” explains Panos. “And because everyone wants the now seller, you’ve got too many agents fighting for it right at the end. And essentially, often the way you’re gonna win that business is by lowering your fee.”
Every hot lead was once a cold lead. Property owners don’t suddenly decide to sell overnight; they move through predictable stages of consideration. Agents who establish relationships during the cold phase have a significant advantage when prospects become active.
According to Panos, 80% of private treaty properties ultimately sell for less than initial listing prices, suggesting vendor expectations consistently misalign with market reality. This creates ongoing opportunities for agents who provide regular market intelligence and build trust over extended periods.
The solution required a shift in thinking about database management and the help of Realtair.
Systematic touchpoints through Realtair
Mackenzie understood that consistency trumps intensity when building long-term relationships. Rather than sporadic, high-touch interactions, Manor needed a system that could deliver regular, valuable touchpoints to thousands of database contacts without overwhelming their sales team.
The solution emerged through Realtair’s Market Update feature, which allows agents to send branded property reports to prospects. But the real innovation lay in how Manor Real Estate systematised the entire process.
“One of the biggest things that I wanted to change… is using the Market Update inside of Realtair,” Mackenzie explains. “We’re in the business of time; we’re all busy as agents. The last thing you wanna be told is that you’ve gotta do something else in your day.”
Manor’s system operates on monthly cycles, though Mackenzie notes this frequency depends on market conditions. “Our market transacts enough that there’s plenty of new sales happening every month. For most markets, every two months would be a pretty good point in time.”
Critically, Manor positions these communications as updates rather than property appraisals. Instead of suggesting “here’s what your place is worth,” the reports provide broader market intelligence. For a property worth $1 million, Mackenzie might include sales ranging from $800,000 to $1.2 million, allowing recipients to draw their own conclusions while staying informed about local activity.
Tech meets human touch
Manor’s success relied on integrating Realtair’s platform with Wingman‘s remote professional services. This combination allowed them to maintain consistent database contact without overwhelming high-performing agents.
Mackenzie operates a hybrid model. Junior agents handle their own Market Updates, while established agents delegate the task. “The more established agents that are just face-to-face with clients doing listing presentations and market appraisals and negotiation, that’s when they’re getting ’em sent by someone else.”
Remote professionals access Realtair directly, selecting recent sales within a radius of each recipient’s property. The platform sends messages from the agent’s mobile number or email address, maintaining a personal connection while removing the task from daily agent workflows.
Training became crucial for quality. “Realtair training is part of our academy,” explains Nick Georges from Wingman.
Outsourcing touchpoints to Wingman removed database nurturing from agents’ decision-making entirely. “It’s essentially having an assistant that they don’t necessarily need to be there,” Mackenzie notes. Quality control includes regular review of selected properties and messaging content, avoiding the pitfall of recipients feeling their property values were underestimated.
Manor’s system now reaches thousands of database contacts monthly, with agents focusing on high-value activities while remote professionals manage the entire nurturing process.
"We're in the business of time, we're all busy as agents. The last thing you wanna be told is that you've gotta do something else in your day."
Converting consistency into trust
The transformation Mackenzie observed at Manor confirms what Tom Panos calls the “rule of seven” principle: prospects need approximately seven touchpoints before recognising and trusting an agent.
“If they’ve got something off you every month for the last year, you’ve got 12 touchpoints ahead of an agent that hasn’t done that,” Mackenzie adds. This mathematical advantage compounds over time, creating what he describes as insurmountable competitive positioning.
The shift occurs gradually but decisively. Initial Market Updates might be ignored or barely noticed. By the third or fourth month, recipients begin anticipating the information. By month seven, the agent has achieved what Mackenzie calls “top of mind awareness” – the critical position where vendors think of that agent first when considering a sale.
This process operates below the threshold of sales pressure. Unlike direct solicitation calls, Realtair’s Market Updates provide genuine value without requesting anything in return. Recipients can engage with the content on their own terms, building familiarity without feeling pressured.
Mackenzie noticed this dynamic playing out in listing presentations. Prospects who had received regular Market Updates arrived at appointments already familiar with the agent’s brand and market knowledge. When prospects called Manor about potential listings, Mackenzie would always ask, “Are we connected on social media? Are you in my database?”
“If the answer is no, I have no persuasion there, and it’s a real, I’ve gotta actually go off and sell hard because they’re calling other people,” he explains. “But if the answer is, oh yeah, I get your stuff, you sent me out this and that. I think there’s already trust in the relationship. I don’t need to sell. We can move straight into a conversation.”
Rather than competing on price with multiple agents, Manor increasingly found itself in sole-agency situations where fee discussions became secondary to service delivery conversations.
Why platform choice matters
Manor’s success stemmed from Realtair’s practical design. The Market Update feature integrated smoothly with existing workflows, requiring minimal training while delivering consistent results.
Automated property data, radius-based searches, and direct SMS delivery from agents’ numbers created the efficiency Manor needed for scale. Wingman’s remote professionals could access everything through a single interface without disrupting established processes.
Mackenzie’s assessment reflects broader industry realities: “You get approached on a regular basis by the next tech, the next best thing. But actually, if you dig deeper, your current system is probably sufficient enough. It’s just not being used correctly.”
Manor succeeded because it amplified existing relationship-building rather than replacing it. The Realtair platform handled the systematic touchpoints while agents focused on listing presentations and negotiations. This division of labour solved the 97% problem through consistency rather than complexity.
Success in addressing the 97% problem requires tools that enhance human relationships rather than substitute for them. Realtair provided that foundation, transforming Manor’s database from a static contact list into an active pipeline of nurtured prospects.
