MAIN IMAGE: Deon Terblanche – CEO and regional director of Keller Williams South Africa
Advertorial
If it relates to property, chances are Deon Terblanche, regional director and CEO of Keller Williams Realty, has been there and done that. A property investor, real estate principal, and property group owner, Terblanche built a solid foundation in the industry before joining Keller Williams in 2017 as an operating partner and working his way up to his current position of CEO.
In this interview, he shares his property journey and insights into what allows an estate agent to scale their business.
Deon, where did it all begin?
Shortly after qualifying as a commercial attorney, I joined the banking industry. I always explain the move with this analogy – athletes run the Comrades – they are the athletes, they are in it, they are competing. Then next to the road, you get these guys with the little bottles of water or the ice bags or whatnot. I was that guy, but I wanted to be a competitor, and that’s why I decided to leave law and get into business.
I worked for companies like RMB, Standard Bank, Liberty, and ABSA, but I quickly realised that while I was very happy, I’m not an employee; I’m just not built like that. More than knowing what I wanted to do, I knew what I didn’t want to do, and that was to work for someone else any longer.
So that became the catalyst for my wife and me. She wasn’t my wife back then. In fact, we were still dating, and we decided to start our own business. I was essentially a property investor at the time. I had a proper legal and financial background. And we just said, “What are we going to do?”
This was in 2007, and I thought I already knew the property sector, so why not go into property? But not here; let’s do it somewhere else. I had a few properties in Mossel Bay, so we thought, why not move there?
But timing’s never been my thing because in 2008 the whole world fell apart and I had enough money for a few months, but we had expenses, like getting married, so I’d say the first few years, I would say the first two years were tough, obviously just being in a new industry, new town, and that sort of thing. And then it got going. We got our teeth into it.
How did your business develop from one agency to a franchise?
A bit of dumb luck or misplaced courage probably led us to have our own agency for a while. I was proudly non-franchise for a long time, for a decade, in fact. While several franchises approached us, we continuously said no – we had four offices and were happy with how we were doing.
But you get to a point where you work really hard -it’s so interesting – when you start out, your challenge is to earn income, but you have time. Then things start changing—you start earning an income, but you have no time. I realised we needed to find a better system or model to scale our business while retaining time. That’s how the process started, and we began looking around at other companies.
It all started with a book. Can you tell us more about that?
It’s called The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, and my mind was blown. Initially, it ended up on the shelf, but as things in the market got progressively worse, I picked it up, thinking there might be something in there. It really fascinated me and gave me a model to build my business on, and I started applying the principles laid out in that book.
In 2012, I heard that Keller Williams might be coming to South Africa. I’d since realised that one of the authors is a founder of KW. I told my wife that when they launched, we needed to see what they were doing because they do things bigger. That led us to make the move a decade after starting our own agency. The rest, as they say, is history, and today, we’re pushing more than 300 agents.
The current trend seems to be opting for a franchise, especially if you want to grow. What’s your take on this?
We were growth-minded and we realised we didn’t want to trade all of our time for income. For this reason, I also left law – you’re stuck selling your time for money, and you only have so many hours in a day. Sure, you can bring other people in or raise your hourly rates, but you’re always limited in some way.
The only way to really grow is to add leverage. To me, that means you need three things: systems, tools, and people. In my mind, the best way to leverage is to bring in people who are better than you at the things that support the business. When you start out, you’re doing everything yourself, though you might not be the best at all of it.
I have so much respect for independent agencies, and the industry must have a strong, independent agency base. That said, I believe models are essential. In my case, the Keller Williams model gave me a step-by-step guide to bring in the right people and systems to scale my business and make my life bigger.
Whether you join a franchise or work independently, the key is to be clear on what you want. If you’re happy to trade time for money, you can be very successful, but if you’re growth-minded, you need the right model to help you.
What are the key things agents need to look at regarding growth models?
If you’re an agent looking to build, you need to master and manage three things: leads, listings, and leverage. Once you’ve got your leads, you focus on listings which enable you to attract buyers – when those two elements are in place, you now need leverage; tools, systems and people (admin, bookkeeping, marketing specialists, etc).
Practically, this breaks down into four elements:
- Knowing what drives your business – how do you make your money?
- How do you feed your business – how many leads do you need, how many conversions can you generate etc.
- Manage your finances like a business – know your budget model and what it costs to run your business. Managing finances is one of the most common problems estate agents have.
- Once the first three elements are in place, it’s time to look at leverage – identifying the people and tools you need to scale your business.
The real estate industry comes with challenges, especially when you start out and don’t know when you’ll be earning your first commission. But it’s the most incredible industry – if you’re entrepreneurially minded, it offers incredible opportunities to build the life you want, whether as an agent, a principal or a franchise owner – just find the right model for you.
