Welcome to Episode 63 of our podcast, Courageous Conversations, hosted by Leanne Pilkington.
In this episode, our guest is Laura Shooter, Managing Director of SJ Shooter Real Estate. Laura talks about what led to her career in real estate, the decisions leading up to starting her agency with her husband, how they established the core values of their brand, and the difficult conversations that were had along the way.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or Google Podcasts.
00:30 – What Laura did before her foray into real estate; wanting to do teaching. First job at Dept of Housing was a very eye-opening experience for her, particularly around empathy.
02:30 – Child protection; Laura’s drive to help children who grew up in unsafe households and where she felt her career would move next.
03:30 – Laura and her husband, Samuel, had run a music school which came to an eventual close and her husband became a real estate agent. 5 years after this, the two of them started their own real estate agency.
04:00 – The impact of social work/community services on Laura’s perception of the world; learning from the way these companies instilled their values and carrying this into her real estate business
05:00 – Establishing the values of their business; how Laura and her husband worked through this process (blocking time, having their kids looked after to keep focus)
08:00 – Starting the office from the bedroom, and their first audit by Fair Trading
09:00 – Integrity, professionalism, care and results; the 4 values that SJ Shooter started with
10:00 – Honouring Samuel’s non-compete clause following his previous real estate job before launching their own business, and how he used the time to study for his licensing requirements
11:00 – Seeing an old Blockbuster store as a real estate office; what happened to negotiate this and what the results were
12:40 – How Laura remained committed to their agency in the early days of Samuel’s non-compete clause; her courageous conversation with Samuel to get his motivation back on track
15:00 – How starting a business was like an exercise in personal discipline
16:00 – 14 months into their business, they moved into an office and started a property management division, and what led them to their current office location
17:00 – Laura’s recruitment process and how their values come into play e.g. getting someone to write in their cover letter how they demonstrated the values in a previous place of employment, or asking during an interview what it means to be a value-based business
18:00 – The surprising amount of people who have disregarded SJ Shooter’s values when applying for a role there; why you should ‘learn the language’ of the business you want to join before applying (companies want to be convinced you want to work for them; it’s not just about the job and filling the chair)
19:50 – The REINSW Awards; what made SJ Shooter decide to enter the awards and their process to getting their application in