It takes a long time to get from humble beginnings to where you are now. What

would you say would be the number one attribute that's driven you to that position? The

key ingredient, I think, was actually... There's so many people, the first challenge

The most important thing, you've got to be adaptive, resourceful, innovative and

There's lots of talk at the moment about AI. Could you see a future where you

perhaps have AI standing at the door of an open house, taking

Not yet. There's a lot of key things they've got to get right that

I'm Matthew Fraser and this is Amazon Ecom

Secrets. I'll be sharing with you the secrets that helped me go from

millions in debt to an eight-figure entrepreneur. If

you're ready to escape the nine-to-five and live life on your terms,

let me show you the way. Hey, guys. Welcome to Amazon Ecom

Secrets. My name is Matthew Fraser, and today we've got the

number one real estate agent and agency

in Australia, Tate Brownlees. Join us in the house, and

he's going to be sharing his insights into the real estate business and

Thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here and really excited to really delve

deep on a lot of hot topics today. I think we're going to cover off AI,

what you're doing with Amazon, the metrics of business, marketing.

You can say whatever you want, mate. You

can say absolutely whatever you want. I guess, look, at the end of the day, definitely

come from humble beginnings, started in a caravan park, did

my license. It was night school back in the day for 12 months and

just went really, really hard, worked, had an insatiable work

ethic. I think that made a big difference at the beginning and met my

beautiful wife. Not long after we set up, it

wasn't Tate Brownlee Real Estate, it was actually called The Estate Specialists. Yeah,

I had a business owner. I must have missed that one. You did, you did. Yeah, I had a business owner

as well, Loretta Trevan. Hi, Loretta. I'm sure you'll get a

chance to listen to this and reminisce a little bit too, but that's

where we started. Unfortunately, she had some things personal

that were going on in her life and unfortunately couldn't continue the journey. You

know, I met Kristen not long after and had

to pull her out of hairdressing. And it was interesting, first day

on the job, she's trying to work out the difference between cutting in hairdressing

and cut and paste in, you know, computer terms. Was that her

background? I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah, it was her background. And

she was an absolute whiz straight off the bat, which was really lucky. And, you

know, she got the, you know, the old throw at the deep end and took

So you're a big player in this region and I've known you for over

a decade now. And for those who

are listening now, I've actually bought a property that

you sold and I've also sold a property through you. So

we've had both sides. We have both sides of the coin. But

a lot of people see you've got your face on billboards and bus shelters and

letterboxes obviously, but you just touched on before you came from a caravan.

Yeah, it was down in a place called Drifter's Holiday Village. It's now called

Ingenia. So, you know, just down in Chindra there. Coincidentally, in

2005, it flooded as well, which is pretty wild. So, yeah,

it was a very interesting start to living on the Tweed Coast. And

during that period, working in real estate and just obviously learning the craft,

but went from that to, unfortunately, my

stepmother had cancer at the time, so they were doing the Grey Nomad thing,

thought I'd get into real estate. That was the time, I

think, where I went, you know what, I really want to delve deep into sales. It

was either real estate or car sales. And standing on a pavement with

hot weather didn't really interest me. So real estate got its shot.

So when you say you come from humble beginnings, it's because you

Yeah. Look, I think I had a really good upbringing in my family.

I definitely got the opportunity at school and things like that. But

I think just it was old school. My parents were

a bit older. They gave me really good support and encouragement,

but left home at 17 and then went out to rule the

world, as most young males do, or young

People see you now as this super successful guy.

like two offices now in the Tweed region. And

obviously all through letterboxes, as I said before, you're on

billboards everywhere, but there's obviously a side of you

before that. It's not an overnight success, right?

It takes a long time to get from, like you said, humble beginnings to

where you are now. And so what would you say would be the

Well, I always joke about it, Matt, that it was an overnight success that

took 21 years. So yeah, look, probably the

key ingredient, I think, was actually going through that journey. I

feel it built a lot of character. It definitely increased

my drive. I think going through the battle with my stepmother, I

was really close with her. I had a lot to be thankful for. I was a bit of a wild kid. So

she was really good at guiding me to qualify to get into university and

things like that, whereas I nearly dropped out in year 11. So that was a lot too. Did you

Isn't that interesting? Because a lot of people who are

success stories don't go to university. I did

one day at Bond University and then I was like, I'm out. That

No, it wasn't expensive at all. I think I bought a jumper though.

I bought the pullover jumper that had Bond Uni on it. I was like, I'm fully, I'm all in.

I think that made a big difference to me going through that

battle. I always joke about it, but it's true. You

go through something really traumatic in your life and towards the end I

moved back home and lived at home since I was a kid. So to

come back home and live with my father and my stepmother when

she was basically wheelchair bound and help her go to the toilet

and things like that when I wasn't at work and to really understand a

different part of life and that life can be pretty cruel and

it can be unforgiving and also to give value

on how much time you have and that it can be taken from you. I

think, I always joke about it, you know, you go in a boy, come out a

man. I think that was definitely a big change for me. And then, look,

love my dad to pieces, but he really struggled emotionally

and mentally as well during that period. There's a There's a lot of talk about

men's health, especially in the 60s and 70s, and

especially if they lose a loved one. And I think that was a big factor

there too for me. And it built a massive amount of drive. We

were sitting not too dissimilar here, except throw a circular table in the

mix. And I remember we had $4.50 for the week to

live on, just after Vivian had passed, my stepmother.

That was pretty hard, you know, and I think I was really mentally

and physically and emotionally challenged to that period. And, you know,

I never gave up. Like, I think that was the big thing. I

just kept turning up and I certainly was struggling, certainly

fighting my own demons at that point. But to come out the other side, really

swinging hard. I remember in February I had nothing and end

of financial, I think it was just tipping over into

July and settlement. So suddenly, you know, rags to riches, right?

There was suddenly about 20, 30 grand after tax just in one month that

suddenly hit the account and, you know, I hadn't made any money for

months. I was a commission only agent. So that really turned things around and was

Wow. I had no idea of that story. That's amazing. Because those

challenges come up as well, just in any business. Like, you know, when I'm, uh, mentoring

clients right now through Amazon journey, they're all going

through these obviously struggles. And you,

you talked before about every day you just kept showing up and

that's, that's basically what you've got to do on Amazon. You know, you might have a product that doesn't

work out, but you just keep pushing through. Yeah. So

has it been, I guess, with Kristen, your, your wife now,

Yeah, she's been a big rock. And I guess, you know, like you may have

noticed, even going back to that story, it's still very hard talking

about those things, because it is raw. It's really, you

know, the cold face of, you know, what we went through over that period.

And I met Kristen not long after, and I'd love to say that was

just a sail off into the sunset. But, you know, our business partner

that I had, and she's a lovely woman, but had her own challenges, you

know, to walk out at the beginning of the GFC and then Meeting

Kristen, I don't do things by halves, so Kristen not long

after was pregnant as well, so that put its own complexities. We

just started to get on track. Lucan was born. Unfortunately,

he had really major health issues too. We

actually nearly lost him in 18 months. He stopped breathing. We

found out later that all the drugs we gave him because of

his... Just a lot of challenges with... It sounds so

simple, right? Like tonsils, anoids, grommets, all

those things that had to happen with him. And, you know, unfortunately

he really struggled. So we gave him some pretty heavy drugs and we

know now that that triggered his kidney disease later in life too. So

we had a lot of challenges with Lucan in particular, very,

very early in business. And I remember refinancing things

and just tightening things up right at that point. It certainly

slowed me down a few notches. But, you know, you

pull through. And it was interesting, you know, we had a receptionist slash property

manager. And I sort of said to her at the time, look, you know, she

said, look, Tate, it's not for me. I just want to quit. And it was a

time when Lucan actually was really sick in hospital. I said, look, can

you just hold in for a few days? And she walked out and I was like, far

out. Like, talk about getting a few kicks in the teeth, right? It

was a pretty hard time. So to come around through that, And

then I remember, you know, it was interesting, you know,

keep backing yourself, I think was, you know, consistent, like, we

got into property management that come with so many challenges, but we backed ourselves,

grew a property management business, we just kept backing ourselves in the sales division.

And I don't recommend this, but we used maybe some money that might have

been allocated for tax to grow our business. Temporary. Right.

And, you know, especially back in those days, a

taxman would give you a little bit of leniency and payment plans and things like that.

We've all been through those. And resources you can. I don't

recommend it. You definitely don't do anything like

that with severe caution. But we pulled through the other side and

I remember again my next part of that journey was I

love my auctions. I had several hundred auctions under my belt as an

agent. I actually called a

couple of auctions just because I couldn't get an auctioneer in 2012 and we ran

a big event. I think it was start

of 2013, if memory serves me right, it was right at the point

where it was at its worst. Things were falling

off the wheels. Buy a house in Benora Point for $275,000. You think

you've got 10 of those? Yeah, things would die. Average time on

market at that stage was about 180 days if you were lucky

sort of thing. I mean, if you were lucky. I

talked to the team because I'm big on as much as I'm

running and leading the ship to get advice from the team.

I had to make decisions with the other agents as well

and I said, guys, I want to call the auctions. you

know, zero out of ten in January for sales was

not exciting me by any stretch and I thought, hey, at those numbers,

it's only up. And I call it the golden gavel days. I

actually went and I changed the whole mix for a while. I wasn't

confident enough to call them in rooms because it's a lot of pressure, it's

back to back and there's a lot of skill behind that and I was like, I

felt on site, I could absolutely crush it and I just felt as

well from a community-based perspective, it would build the brand. So,

I went back to on-site for a while and it was actually

the purple patch. We did 13 back-to-back, 30 days

on the market. It was just incredible. I've never broken it,

coincidentally. I've tried hard. You could argue in

January this year, we sold 14 out of 16 under

the gavel. You could argue we broke it then, but we did miss two. So,

I still feel that that was probably the best time in my career and it was one of

the toughest times. It built a brand where we

were somewhere in the mix. I don't know where we really sat in the market to definitely

standing as the number one agency. I was really proud of that. I

felt that we had a lot of adversity and a lot of challenges. It

was also at a time where I was a franchise and they

decided to put another one on the corner. In hindsight, I

think it was the best thing for me. You know, I had to look at

other options and other avenues and, you

know, what makes the business great. And it was when I started to call

Yeah. Before you go to the Tate Brownlee business now,

the new brand. There's obviously some key things

along that storyline. And I think it's so similar to

the Amazon business, which is what I talk about is

building your knowledge, which then builds power. Knowledge

equals power. And so as you've gone through those transitions

from, and even those, those really challenging times, but

you've just gained this knowledge, which then gives you the confidence to then

take the next step. So everything that you've that sort of built

up before even going into, okay, we're going to now do a

whole kit and caboodle of Tate Brownlee real estate, which

would have been huge at the time, you know, going outside of

Well, I think, to be honest, I did everything wrong. I look back

now and go, I think it's all a journey, but the

And even, I think a lot about- When you say franchise, what do you

Yeah, so I was under an umbrella. of

a different franchise, like a franchise company. And

basically, they were great in the foundations. They

taught me how to plan for GST. Such a simple lesson, but so

important in business because as we both know, if you haven't got the money for your

GST and your PAYG, you're in all sorts. So,

tax planning was really paramount in the GFC. But I remember there

was a guy called Anthony Meeker and if you're watching, mate, you're an absolute legend. People

like that, they're influential in your lives. They really changed your mindset

about how to plan and run your business. There was the

amazing Michelle Delaney. She was head

of property management for the whole company and she was incredible. Without

question, the best property management consultant that

I've ever met. And that's saying a lot. Look, there's a lot of

other really influential people we met along the journey, but she was the

standout. And even today, we'd still pick up the phone and have a

chat with her. And she was Kristen's mentor. She was the one that made

her great. And so you meet

all these people along the way. For the auctioneering, the

legendary Phil Parker, aka The Captain. He

was terrific. And like you said, sourcing people out.

I'm big on that. I said to Phil, what would it cost to just

get you one-on-one and just teach me everything? And I remember he

came to the office one day and I probably didn't look as

sharp. And he said, mate, If you want to run a multi-million dollar business,

he said, you need to look sharp. Like, a little lessons, right? But

they are everything. And it really made me reflect when

I changed the brand, like that really resonated with me. Like, what's

going to be the difference? What's going to be my one percenters from good to great?

And unfortunately, like when they opened up, you know, and it's typical franchise structure,

right? They'll open up an office in every corner. I had to make a

decision at that time. You know, it was hard, it

wasn't good. They were definitely going to, you know, like it's just reality, right?

There's going to be some market share lost. You can't change that. And so,

how was I going to react? And I was very emotional, very

upset about it. It was very hard to take. I

felt like my own brand had turned on me.

I mean, it is what it is, right? Whether that was mixed feelings, whether

it was a bit of immaturity on my behalf, I don't know. You were stabbed in the back? Yeah,

and like was it warranted? Look, probably not. I mean, they're commercially

making their money. I'm commercially making mine. You know,

I look at it very differently now. But, you know, Steve Jobs, right? I

love listening to podcasts, anything on YouTube, Blinkist,

for people that don't know Blinkist, 15-minute short stories, like

all that stuff really is awesome. And Steve Jobs is one of the best, you

know? The best lessons in life come poorly wrapped. And

I think You have two choices, you know, like you said, love

those words, stabbed in the back. You can feel, I guess, a

little bit selfish and poor me and victimized. And

I think in COVID, everyone got a bit of a taste of that. You know,

we can go the victim mentality or we can go, well, what's the learnings from

this? Like what can make me better on a higher level? And I was like, right.

The franchise thing, I went to another franchise, still

pretty raw and vulnerable at that point. made another big

mistake in hindsight when the business partnership that didn't work

out to try and expand and grow the business. And

that was not good either. And I guess, you know,

like, I sound like I'm riddled with mistakes, but I guess it's part of

the journey, right? And I remember the wife coming to me and

she said, we really made a big mistake with the

second business and growing. and going down this

path. And I said to her, like, this is all on

me. I take complete responsibility. And I think

when you look at business, you've got a choice, right? You can blame, you

can look at your partner and go, oh, you know, you were involved in this or

whatever, or you can take complete responsibility. I think that was the big difference. And

I made a decision at that point. I said, I'm going to make so

much money in business that this is just going to be a bleep. It's

not going to be an issue. And without going into

the ins and outs of it, there was hundreds of thousands of dollars that

went down the gurgler going through that journey. And it was a lot

of strain, it was a lot of pressure, it was a lot of stress. I

look back now, I feel for the other guy too. At

the end of the day, it didn't work out. Again, I can say that

he wasn't a nice person or blame, make up some story. But

at the end of the day, I think I look at the lessons I got from that and

that's what made us great. And I remember my

solicitor at the time, she'd come to me, I was a franchise still, a

different one. And she said, Tate, this is the time to

And I'm thinking- So someone else said that to you, you weren't thinking that yourself.

Correct. Look, we've been building behind this Tape Groundly team brand since

2015, right? And subconsciously, I probably didn't even realize initially what I was doing. And

then I had a great friend of mine, friends

actually I should say, because Mark and Lisa were definitely equally involved, Mark and

Lisa Novak that run Novak Properties. Beautiful people, run

a very, very successful company in DY and just

phenomenal down earth people but just crush it, right? Just the next level,

part of the 0.1% in the industry, right? And they

said to me like about independence and going your own brand. So the seed

had been planted, there'd been a lot of background work building this

plan but you never feel ready. What

I learned when I visited them too was like to build it

well before you want to start. So they've been probably

a good 18 months of building this strategy. But

it's always like then there's the, oh my God, like the reality of

this. And, you know, there's all this money going down the gurgler with the

business partnership that went south. You know, pressure with

that. My mum's my real mum,

so just not to get confused because obviously he was lucky in life to have two

mums. She's got dementia. She's not well at

this point. We've got a few things going on, right? And I made

the decision to rip the bandage off and go tape around the

real estate. And, you know, I also said to my

wife, like, we're going to drop a couple hundred thousand. We're going to drop a

quarter of a million on this. We're going to go all in. And, you know,

talk about backing yourself. And at that point, at that time, and

But just like someone who's perhaps been selling on Amazon for

a while, they're building all this knowledge, they've been through the ups and downs of

Amazon, because Amazon throw curveballs at you as well. And

then you might come to a point where you want to buy an established

Amazon business. And you might have to chuck in a couple

of hundred thousand dollars to do that. But the only way you can do that is

because you've already got the experience of already selling on Amazon. Just

like what you've done, you've already had the experience of operating under

a different franchise within real estate. And now it was an easy

Do you know what you've touched on there, Matt? For people listening in

regards to Amazon, and I know absolutely nothing about that business. If

I had 0.1% knowledge, I think I'd be doing well. So,

you know, other than obviously whatever I see. You've got the right attributes though. You've got the

right attributes up here. Thank you. And I think if I look at that

business, and I would imagine it's no different to any business, If

you've got the money, and I think this is the problem with a lot of new business, right? If

they're like me, I always joke about it but it's so true. I

started the business on the smell of an oily rag. When the business partner walked

out, I refinanced my property through the last 40K

into the business and then it was sort of like sink or swim. Then you're

sitting there in the GFC going, Jesus, is it even worth what I've just pulled

out? I might end up selling it for less than what I… Luckily, that didn't quite

happen. We just got out in front, but it could have, right? I

think the biggest lesson is that backing yourself,

but also too, what you said is so, so key. I think there's

been a lot of wealth created in the last three

or four years, especially in property. If people have got property, they've got

equity, they've got resources that they didn't have before. I

feel that if there was an Amazon business where you

can get the leg up or Like, say, hypothetically, a

Well, it's like what you're doing now where you're acquiring rent rolls. Correct. You're

buying. So those who don't know what that is, you might want to say it's basically an

Correct. And I often think, you know, what's more valuable? And I thought

when I started this, it was the property management, right? Oh, you get the property management.

Now I'm starting to think, is it the team? Is it the people? If you

get the right people, And this is interesting, right?

Things that aren't talked about in business, right? Currency. What's

currency now? In a labor crisis that

isn't openly discussed, right? Are you going to say brand? No.

Surprisingly, I think the biggest currency right now is actually people. I

think the value, and what I mean by currency is that the value and

the worth, and not necessarily just monetary right, but

value of your business is people. I mean, you've got

a pretty, with respect to autonomous business that can high

scale minimum labor content. There's a totally different structure,

but for businesses like mine and for the average business you know, stereotypical Australian

business out there. You know, you've got to have a team. You've

got to have people. And I think in a business now,

like it's interesting, right? I was reflecting on this the other day. What

can I do to build culture in my team? And I think culture is

a word that's thrown away way too comfortably. What

about going, okay, we're going to have a Christmas party, but

I'm going to book my Christmas party in June. We've

just booked this awesome boat. We're going to sail out. It's really

awesome. All the things that I used to dream about when I was living in the

caravan park that I was going to do with my team. And I'm like, I'm going to

do that. I'm going to book that now. I'm going to send it out to my whole team. And

we're doing it in late October this year because it's going to be a short

end to the year. But put it out to the team. Get them excited about

it so they've got something to look forward to. What can you

do to make your team excited about the journey that they're coming?

So there's like, hey, there's these mini little destinations along the way. They're

exciting. They're fun. We're talking

at the moment about maybe just even doing a lawn bowls on a Sunday, build

culture with the team. We have a dinner, we just

had a dinner actually. We had a big real estate hour at conference which is

the Australian Real Estate Conference. What things are

key to make your team feel great? Like your team,

you know they talk about customers. Your customers start with your team and

Yeah. But that whole story now scares me. because

now having an Amazon-based business. Someone

said the other day on one of the comments, they said, oh, Amazon, I

think you've missed the boat on Amazon if you're going to join now. I

said, dummy, dummy, it's not an

Amazon business. Yeah, it's an Amazon based business. Amazon is

purely a distribution model. That's all it is to help you

get more product out. Now, you can either tap into it and use it or

not. And considering it's like one of the number one distribution

models in the world, do you want to be in it or not? So if

It's interesting you talk about that. Whilst we've had no dealings with Amazon, we

create a lot of opportunities and

we find a lot of opportunities in the market in terms of branding. Touching

on branding in regards to what you're discussing, we order everything

from our pens online. I've got a local distributor. I try and

keep it Australia-based where I can. I love to see Australian money in

Australia. Everything where we can, we buy them locally. Our

gift bags are bought locally. Look, I'm not saying they don't get

manufactured in China. I think it would be, you know, poor Dick Smith. I

Right? And that's the problem. And I mean, poor Dick Smith. I mean, he tried, right?

I love Dick Smith. I worked for Dick Smith Electronics when I was a kid. It was actually my first

sales job and what he stood for. But unfortunately, you

know, manufacturing in Australia has been lost. Hopefully, it comes back, but

we'll see. But I think realistically, what you're saying is

so true. I think about it

when I started real estate. Oh, realestate.com's come.

Real estate's over. They won't be the real estate agent. The real estate agent,

the main reason you pay the agent is to bridge the gap. You pay

them to negotiate between the buyer and seller to get a premium price

for your property. That will never change. When there's human

beings behind it, and we'll definitely segue into AI very

shortly, but that part is so relevant now as it is at

any time. Whether it's AI, whether it's Amazon,

whether it's real estate, whatever it is, there'll be tools that

come out that get excited. AI in itself is a business.

There's opportunity with that. Amazon is a business. There's opportunity with

that. But there's also these products

and services like AI, Amazon, all these things that

come out. It's like, who's going to be the forward-thinking person

to create an exciting model? You only need to look at Elon Musk

for this. Who's going to be that forward-thinking person? Actually,

interestingly enough, if you look at Elon Musk's disk

profile, he's actually called the architect. High dominant but

high compliance, interesting mix. So, very,

very detailed, very, very calculated but off the charts

with drive and ambition and all those things, right? And they're the

people that are going to take Amazon like you have, seize it

Oh, that's all I'm doing is leveraging Amazon for distribution. You touched

on before about when realestate.com came out and everyone

got scared about there's going to be no real estate

agents. Well, I just saw a report the other day that said that people are

now going back to bricks and mortar retail stores. So they're getting sick

of shopping online and actually want to go out for the, it's now become a

novelty to go to a shop and have the experience of

walking into a store and seeing people and mixing with people. Isn't

that fascinating? So now there's this sort of like migration back.

Now, I don't know if it's going to be as big as the transition of what perhaps the

online businesses took away. But if you look at something like I

Right. I was just thinking the same thing, man. You were in my head. Yeah?

Yeah. What a legend of a guy. And it started off in the markets, right? At Carrara Markets,

Yeah. It is a great story. I freaking love it. Yeah. But

I thought he didn't have that many stores. It was like, I think a store on the Gold Coast, maybe

a store in Sydney, and I think a really big store in Las Vegas. That's

right. And I thought, but those stores alone, Because I

think he netted something in the vicinity of $300 million. I think it

was $600 million, including shares or something like that. Now,

those three stores alone wouldn't have given him that result,

that sellout. But what it was was the online presence.

And I would love to know what the figures were, but I'm going to say that his online

business dominated the bricks and mortar.

I'm just guessing there, but that would make sense why his

But let's delve deep with that. It's interesting, right? I think about this a

lot. So the way he's marketed

his brand, right? Did the shop fronts, and

this is something we can never work out the exact metrics on it, but I think it'd be off

the charts. How many people walked past

the brand, tripped over the brand, whatever you

want to call it, somewhere along the lines, walked into a shop,

saw it in some sort of marketing tool that he used, right? And

then went online. So like, I'll often, good example, right?

I've been to Culture Kings shops coincidentally a few times.

Do you know what, Matt? True story, never bought anything there. But online, hey,

Absolutely. Jealous. Yeah, yeah. I

just wanted to go back into the 90s, right? I love those. Yeah, it was

like my favorite shoe that I never got as a kid. Mom was like, why

are we wasting money on expensive shoes? And so, you know, the old nostalgia.

Oh, totally. Yeah, one of these Reebok pumps. And they're

That's why I've got these on. These are like 92 model Air Max BW

I remember when MJ, Michael Jordan, he said about his

shoes, he put on his, whatever they were, Air Jordans, the 1989 model

or whatever they were, and he said like in the last game he got, well

whatever it was, 28 points, 30 points, whatever the legend did, right? And

it was interesting, he goes at the end of the game, like he had blisters and sores, he's like,

how did I ever wear these shoes, right? Because the quality of the shoes had

come such a long way. But what a story, right? And I

think those stories are what we remember as

kids, right? We grew up and the basketball era was really

taking off. You know, the Bulls were just dominating, you

know, and it was a really exciting time. Michael Jordan was

the goat, still is the goat as far as I'm concerned. But the

things that he did, and it comes back to branding, right? And I think that's

where Culture Kings really got it. They took people like Michael

Jordan and they got it. They went back in time and

they hit all these different markets and didn't single out

and just go, let's make it for 20 something. Here we

are at that other end and we've got kids and

things like that and we're buying the gear there. You're

not capping out a market either. I think it was really interesting the way he saw

the big picture and he saw the big picture from day one when he was in that Carrara markets.

He had that vision. I was actually lucky enough actually at the Southport School,

they had a business lunch and actually heard

his story. It was unbelievable. So,

you know, he got down and talked also about how important

your mental health is. He actually does that, was

He's got his own- He said cryotherapy. I was like, he's

Is that therapy? But he literally has his own get

up. I think it's 180G or something. He's just dropped it in there, so if you're lucky

enough to buy his house. I think if I heard a memory, It

might have even been on the market recently, but if you buy his house, you get that. It's

Let's go back to the branding, though, because this branding is so important with

Amazon, your Amazon-based product and

your listing. You said before that someone said to

you, you've always got to look sharp. That's the same with your Amazon

product because someone can only go to the Amazon website and that's their first

taste of your product. The images, you

can't touch the product. You can't pick it up and feel it.

So the images have to be unbelievable, which is the same as, I guess, you

know, your presentation has to be unbelievable. When you walk into your real estate

office has to be unbelievable. When someone picks up your brochure. And

I know from a fact, because I receive your brochure in the mail, there's

your brochure and usually for some reason, I don't know if this is like some sort

of conspiracy, but they always put all the real estate agent ones together. So

you get like five different real estate agents in one day. And

your brochure is always just

leaps and bounds above everybody else's. There's people in there that are still printing in black

and white. I know, right? I'm like, what are

they doing? Are they trying to save money by presenting a

It's interesting. I thought about this when we launched the circular

signboard. Starting from the beginning and working through, a lot

of agents had a lot of different ideas about doing different things. Then

they've looked at the cost and then they've gone, there's no way we're going to do that,

right? It's interesting you mentioned the, and I'm guessing you're talking

about the booklet we do with the rundown on the performance in

the area. So we do one for the Tweed Shire. We also do one for the

Which is also in that, though, Tate, it's not just you having

obviously a sales pitch for your office and the listings, but

Correct. Correct. And that's what it's more about. And I think about shelf life,

right? A booklet like that, it might sit at at home on the table

for up to a month, right? It literally could. And it's

certainly not expensive, like thousands of dollars goes into that in

the creation of it, all that sort of planning. And then also obviously the

cost of manufacture, there's 10,000 I think that goes out. And

you've got that going out for Tweed Shire as well as Tweed Coast. And they're different booklets.

You wouldn't have probably seen the Tweed Coast one we do, because it goes to a different

market. But again, yeah, it's huge in

It's a huge difference. And when people are going to this Amazon

and seeing this Amazon listing, And they're seeing the images for the

first time. If those images aren't amazing, then

you can lose sales. Right? So it's back to, you know, if your presentation isn't

great or your front office staff are no good, you know, that you

could potentially lose sales. There's lots of talk at the moment about AI. And

I did a post recently talking and a video talking about

all the jobs that are probably going to go with AI. I mean,

even just in the Amazon logistics and things like

that. So in the warehousing, there's going to be robots, you know, picking and packing orders.

So all those staff are gone. Even right now, you can go to

the US, you've got AI tools within

McDonald's drive-thrus, Burger King drive-thrus. So

that window order taker, they're now gone. Right?

So there's all these little things. And honestly, I can't wait to

get it. They're talking about having an Elon Musk robot, Tesla robot,

in your house for $20,000 US. Yeah, wow.

That's what they said. They're saying they're going to mass produce it. And he obviously wants

economies of scale. He wants it in everyone's lounge room, right? Wow.

I don't think it's that long. I mean, have you seen on Google, look

at the Tesla robots, they're incredible, right? They're like cracking eggs and stuff. But

could you see a future where you perhaps have AI, let's

talk about even AI robot, like standing at the door of

Yeah, look, I think that definitely has an impact and

a role. I think for our industry, it's so human-based. That's

always going to play a part. What I find intriguing about

AI, and I think AI will definitely take a lot of

jobs, and it will also create a lot of jobs. At

the moment, though, for me, it's still very much in its infancy. I

really went into the Delve Deep AI and I just tried it on text.

So what I did is I paid for the highest quality AI

tool that I could get. I threw it a heap of text, just

bullet points, different things. And I just want to see what this thing could do, right? I

also threw it the floor plan and

I also gave it, I think I tried to give it a video, but

that didn't seem to work out. So I gave it as much content as I

could. And I just wanted to see what it would spit out at the other end. What

I realized was that it's still very much at its infancy, and it's

interesting, I think that And it's going to happen very fast.

But these AI tools need to come up with better, like

learn as you go, kind of every time you give them something, it improves a bit better.

Because I feel that's still a big lag. And I feel like it's still this big

generic. And it was a paid for subscription. So it wasn't the

cheap one or anything like that, free go. And it was

like, your square meters are this, and da, da, da. It was very still

So what you're saying then is you don't think AI is going to have are

that big of an impact? We're talking about AI robots. Are they that big of an

Not yet. I think there's a lot of key things they've got

to get right, and I think it could take genuinely one

Well, this is the problem, right? If it can't create good text at this stage, and

that's like a pretty primal, what we're talking about robots, right? I'm talking

about just some ad copy. It's still got a long way to go to

be adaptive and learn and understand formulas

Well, we might have to have a chat later, Matt. You might have to give me through a bit of a flick. But this

was chat GPT. I spent the extra money to get the

right level on it. So I think it's going to be very adaptive, and it's going to

But are you going to think from a cost perspective? Because I

know even if you think about a restaurant, if

you put an AI machine who can just make burgers

and chips, pool shakes or whatever. I

now don't have to pay a wage. I don't have

to pay sick pay, holiday pay, overtime, penalty

rates for weekends, extra

payroll tax. The list goes on. I don't have to worry about people

calling in sick. I had a case the other day where during the public holiday,

not a single person called in sick. Why? Because

they're getting paid extra. Not only that, there was people on

standby. They were calling in to say, I'm on standby. Then

every other day of the year, if it's not a public holiday, sick day,

sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. It freaking drives me nuts.

Yeah, it would. I'd get the AI robot in there, and then

next thing you know, I'd be saying, oh, can I come in and work because I

can replace the AI machine? I'm like, dude, this AI machine's coming in

every day and doesn't even talk back to me and just shows up and does the job, right?

And I'd have to pay that guy penalty rates, and I'd have to

Correct. And look, you're pretty forward thinking, right, with

where things are going. The challenge that I still have, right, and

I remember with computers it was the same thing, right? We could have these blitzkrieg

computers like, and for people who don't know that term, like lightning kind of

operation, right? And yet, what they do is they intentionally hold

back the technology because the average person isn't ready as

the consumer to consume it and it would be too overwhelming for them. And

my biggest concern at the moment is that I feel, like you said, we've got

all this technology. I think it's all coming together. The problem is

we're not seeing probably like, good example, and

you mentioned Elon Musk, right? the tools and the systems and

the things I reckon he can get a hold of, versus what we can

get a hold of, could be as much as five years difference, right? Like, who

There you go. So this is the problem, right? And I

think the other disadvantage we have in Australia, and love the country, love

everything about it, But it's a bit like the cars, right? The

cars come out in the other countries first, three years prior, they get these amazing

cars. And we're sitting here in Australia waiting with bated breath

for this new exciting car. I know you're a car buff, so probably shouldn't get

But this is the challenge I think we have. I'm really excited

about AI. I think it brings a lot to the table. But the frustration, and

I can tell you're already frustrated. You want your AI robots today. But when are

we going to get it? When's going to be the launch? And

it was a bit like the cars. There was a lot of hype, a lot of excitement around the cars. It

was an incredible marketing strategy that he did too. Elon did

wow. It made his company take

off, right? It's going to be the same with the robots, I'm sure, but when's that going to happen

Stay tuned, I guess. We talked

about attributes and I think you've got fantastic

attributes. The attributes, right? The

quality attributes. that you could transition from

just any business. You're in the real estate business now, you could easily transition into

the Amazon business. And I think the number one attribute

is resilience, because you've

been through so much in your life that when challenges come your way,

you can just overcome them. And there's so many people, not

in just the Amazon business, but just business in general, that the

first challenge that comes their way, they fold. Part

of my success and definitely I can see from your success

is there's been periods in your life where you've literally had your back up against

the wall and you're like, shit dude, we have to do this.

If we don't make this work, we're fucked. Yeah. It's game

time. Yeah. And I think that's been

You touch on Amazon, AI, those

things, and I think the most important thing, definitely a

bit reserved, just knowing how slow things roll out here, right in Australia, but

it's interesting. At the same token, though, you've got to be adaptive. You've

got to be the one to embrace change and to look at opportunity and

to delve deep and take advantage of it. Also, too, from

my company perspective, and probably a little bit different to yours, It's

such a fine line, right? You want to be the first kid on the block with a new

AI tool if it benefits the company, right? No question. You

know, resourceful, innovative, adaptive, and fast. Fast

is king. You know, I think about service and a client I was dealing with yesterday and,

you know, hey, has he got his report? Has he got this? Has he got that? Has everything happened, like,

within the space of a couple of hours? I want to be the best, right? Speed is

king. Speed is currency. But also, too, you've

got to adapt to that change. So if new tools, new systems, However,

and there's a big however with it and I think all business have to be

very mindful of this. There's no point going down a black hole

of AI and spending like going to see all these courses and

training and everything if it doesn't have any value to offer your

business. You've got to look at what's going to like, you

know, and a tool that may work like you mentioned robots, right? Robots for

you, I think, would have a lot bigger impact short term, definitely in your You

know, the fast food world and definitely in Amazon

because obviously products, manufacture, warehousing.

For real estate, it's still very person-to-person, 100%. You

could have someone at front of house collecting

the details and all those sorts of things. As long as you're still getting engagement,

someone's still going to be in the house engagement, relationship building

and all those. And it goes back to the basics, right? Realestate.com

was going to change the world in real estate. We would need real estate agents. Then it

was virtual walkthroughs. Everyone's going to have virtual walkthroughs and it's going to be all on

realestate.com. People won't need agents anymore. Now it's, hey,

AI is going to come in and disrupt the whole world. There'll always be

disruption. I think like you're saying, hey, you can next level this.

You can take it to the next level. I think that there'll be a lot of opportunity

created from the AI too. Someone's going to

have to, at the end of the day, fulfill all the different functions

of different responsibilities and roles in these new industries that are coming out of

this product too. But yeah, there's also going to be some labor content saving,

definitely. But I mean, we're already, and I think for

companies that aren't, they've got to be looking at labor as well offshore for different

tools and strategies that can benefit them as well. The reality

is right, and I don't think it takes jobs away. I think there's jobs

out there that, rightly or wrongly, a lot of

locals may not want to do those jobs, and those jobs are available for

people that want to do them. Yeah.

AI, offshore, whatever. Exactly. And I tell you, listen, I

know you've got to get going because you've got clients to see, you've got real

estate to sell, deals to do. That's right. So I want to

And I really appreciate you sharing your story. And I can see there's

a lot of synergies between your real estate business and Amazon

and having the right attributes as well. And maybe you want to look at going into Amazon and

Yeah, exactly. All right, guys. No worries. Thank you so

much for joining me on Amazon Ecom Secrets. Look forward to seeing you next time.

Take care. Thanks, guys. Thanks for tuning into Amazon Ecom

Secrets. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show

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