An Interview With Million Dollar Achiever Gary Seah

I’ve had the pleasure to work with Gary Seah for the past 2 years as his digital marketing strategist. Both are us are entrepreneurs in our own way and our journey has overlapped many times in the past.

Recently in December 2017, Gary crossed a significant milestone in his RES career. He made more than $1 million dollars in sales commission – the first time he scaled this Everest – in his 10-year career.

In fact, out of 3300 agents in Propnex Powerful Negotiators group (led by Kelvin Fong), he was just 1 out of 6 who achieved this significant goal.

All 6 were feted and acknowledged during a gala dinner held last month.

Most of my clients who worked with me rarely will tell me how well they do. This is because most are afraid I will start to increase my fees. 😉

Not Gary though. In October 2017, he told me he was on his way to reach that goal and sought my support to intensify his marketing efforts so he can achieve this 7-figure goal.

Gary and I meet at least once per month to discuss marketing strategies and online campaigns to launch. But during that particular 3rd quarter of 2017, we met almost once per week.

When he became quiet and didn’t disturb me 😉 – during the last few months of 2017 – I knew it was because he was busy meeting leads and closing sales.

He sent me this message on 31 December 2017:

As a fellow entrepreneur and marketing partner, I was keen to find out – was there some secret behind this achievement?

• Was Gary just lucky in 2017?
• Was his digital marketing strategist just so good? (HAHA)
• Was it because Gary developed some special sales closing prowess to convert his leads to happy customers?

So over lattes at Coffee Bean, I eagerly decided to just forget about marketing and leads and sales…. and just ask him what was his “success secrets”.

Most are his own words – I merely paraphrased.

“Gary – first of all – congratulations! I am very happy that you achieved this new milestone. So how does this 2017 results compare to previous years?”

Haha. You know Aidah – so many fellow agents suddenly contacted me to meet up with me. I think I never received so many breakfast and lunch offers before.

I first worked with you in 2015. (takes out phone to login to check what I assume to be his transactions).

My sales results:
2015: About $70K
2016: About $320K
2017: Over $1 million

(He looks a bit surprised.)

GS: Wah. I didn’t know it tripled every year.

AO: I think I should triple my fees (HAHA. Kidding Gary. Relax.)

“What happened during these 3 years?”

Actually how much I make and what position I am in does not matter to me at all.

This is important to clarify.

My achievements and trophies – whatever they are – they are just fleeting. Temporary. I feel it is very important that I do not let my success define me. 

Because when I let success define me, what happens when there are no success? What happens during the quiet low periods? So when failure comes in, should I define myself a failure?

The moment 2018 came in, my 2017 results will be a piece of history – something in the past.

So instead I focus on the present – other things that are more important.

I think it is more important to find out how many lives we are able to touch with our knowledge.

Let me share a few factors that I believe helped me improve my results tremendously.

So the 1st factor I want to share is – What is our objective?

We frequently believe that our first objective that make us wake up and start working is for money.

Money for our family or for the food on our dining table is never wrong. That is our responsibility our duty as a father, a mother or even as children to our parents.

But think about it. If what you ever do is for money – how long can you last?

I am not sure if you have seen any of those “motivational” videos on FB. That people always spend time to work for money and lost their health and family time.

When they finally got the money, they use these money to exchange back for health! Doctors are the ones who earn the money. They also realize – eh cannot buy back family time. Because all your family members has grown up or grow old.

Guess what happens when you start to focus on how much money you can make in every deal?

Do you think your client sitting opposite you cannot feel it?
Do you think they will buy your ideas?

Or maybe most likely – they are thinking – you are only using a sales script to close the deal.

So if your clients are feeling like all the words coming out from your mouth is just a sales script – Will they do business with you?

And if they ask questions that are outside of your sales script – will you be able to address them?

That’s why to me – the 1st objective is very important.

Your main role is to help the client to understand what they really want…. and what they need to do NEXT to achieve their goals.

Most important of all – it is necessary that you give your most honest opinion!

Only after this process – will my client and I will start to feel the connection.

There is a spark.

After this connection is established –  we are then able to open up and do business.

Simply put, there are just too many agents out there who are just out for money. And they start to focus on potential losses instead of potential wins.

And there are really very few agents who really cares. But if you are part of the small percentage that really care for their clients – do you think it is likely that you will lose the business?

“Of course not. We need to have the abundant mindset. We cannot run a business based on FEAR & LOSS.”

Soon you will notice after some time, you are somehow able to get their business. It becomes very effortless.

This is because my objective during the meeting is never about myself.

I treat it as a way to get to know one more FRIEND that I can help with my knowledge.

Believe me – most clients want to do business with people that care for them. I have many clients telling me this. There are many agents out there are so “Hao Lian” (arrogant) and are not able to advise them like how I do.

People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

It’s not that I know more or got better experience. It is because I care more.

“I know you do. Sincerity & genuine concern cannot be faked. Authenticity is key. What is the next factor you think contributed to your success?”

The second most important factor is doing outreach.

Your objective is very clear. You have to go out and meet more people. And HELP more people.

So you cannot stay at home everyday AND hope you can meet more people that way!

Most people will know this as prospecting.

There are so many ways to do outreach.

• Road shows
• Door knocking
• Talk to buyers that respond to your ads
• Friends and family
• Facebook ads
• Google (PPC or SEO)
• Newspaper ads
• And reconnecting with your old clients

Of course I think there are many more strategies which I might not even be aware of.

Trade secrets. LOL.

Most agents will like to do marketing and prospecting methods that are free. Believe me – this is normal. Not only agents want to do this. Any human will also want to do that.

If it works well – I will do it.

I even did door knocking myself. It works well actually.

But I did notice one thing after some self-reflection.  Yes, door knocking is free. But it not scalable.

You can only reach out to a limited amount of people per day. Remember when I talked about objective?

Why are we doing it? Because it is very important to help more people.

Then why are you not doing your best to reach out to more people?

After the door knock sessions, I  made a decision to increase my advertising marketing budget.

I know doing this will give me more chances to meet more people.

Everyone I meet in this trade will tell me it is a numbers game.

So when the number of people you meet increases, will your sales and income increase?

It will naturally increase. Never worry about this.

Focus on our main objective and increase our appointments.

Sales and appointments – they are aligned.

I understand that for new agents – the budget is not very high at the beginning. We can still do the free methods of prospecting. I am not saying it doesn’t work. But making it big?

That will be challenging.

Eventually – we have to upgrade to the next level. Otherwise we remain stagnant.

A fellow agent asked me how much I spend every month. I replied – more than $10K per month.

He looks at me and tells me I am crazy.

But in order to make $100k a month consistently, it is necessary to reach out to enough people.

Personally, I like FB marketing a lot. And when I go in deep enough – results will come in.

Stay focused and keep doing what you are doing. Don’t keep changing and “trying” out new methods.

The moment you chose to give up is usually when you are about to see the fruits of your labour.

If there are no results, don’t worry. Reflect what you did and improve from there.

“Yes I agree. Actually I really believe your success was more than 2 years in the making. People only see the end results – they never notice the hard work at the beginning.”

The 3rd factor is – always continuously improve yourself.

After you start meeting more people, you actually realize something.

You will notice that your knowledge is not enough to help everyone!

Your knowledge is actually very limited. Especially when the people you meet have bigger problems than the tools you have to solve them.

So what’s next?

Become a better and stronger person. Upgrade your skills. Any kind of skills – communication, marketing, investment. So many things you can learn.

But the same principle applies. To improve yourself,  you need to pay to invest in yourself.

Today I am going to Taiwan for a course to upgrade myself. I have to fly as much as 7 times per year to upgrade myself. I also treat this as self-investment.

This is the best investment I have made so far. The returns are beyond measure.

How much have I paid? I don’t know – I never calculated before.

There are people telling me -“But you got the budget to do it.”

Seriously – I started from nothing as well.

I even had debts and had to take up a loan to invest in my own knowledge.

You buy property for investments? You will also need to take up a loan.

So why is investing in yourself is something you don’t dare do?

The pressure from taking that loan – probably forced me to work harder.

Forced me to apply all the new knowledge I learned.

Forced me to go out and work harder.

You will definitely do it.

Stay humble and talk to as many people as possible. Anyone I talk to is my teacher. Even the guy that flew with me and currently is not doing well in sales.

He let me understand why he was not doing well. And to me that was a lesson. It is something I need to avoid. Eventually I will write it down – so everyone can benefit from it.

So never stop learning. I am learning from anyone and everyone. And I’ve been very fortunate to be surrounded with the best of the best.

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Conclusion

I hope the tips shared by Gary is an eye-opener and reveals that the journey to success is never-ending. Gary remains as humble as the first day I met him.

That humble trait and willingness to step out of his comfort zone has been sharpened to a special skill-set.

He has a powerful ability to make anyone to feel comfortable and good – he doesn’t care whether the person is a super-HNWI or just a normal HDB homeowner.

(He serves both. I know. I have seen the leads.)

If you are keen to find out what are the marketing strategies and positioning I have used for both Gary & Gaynor – I invite you to register for my “Digital Marketing for Property Agents” course.