New agency combining innovation and customer experience

In a short period of time, Edward Smyth and has made a big name for himself in real estate on the Gold Coast.

So much so that he and his business partner Karen Stewart have recently launched their own agency, Stewart & Smyth.

Karen and Edward met when Karen sold Edward a house. The pair clicked instantly and decided they needed to join forces – soon after, Stewart & Smyth Estate Agents was born.

Edward comes from the cut-throat world of finance and technology and understands what it takes to succeed at the highest level. After moving from the UK, he settled on a career in real estate and quickly realised the passion Australians have for property.

“I did some research and I thought, ‘What do the Australians love?’ It kept coming back to real estate. So I made the decision to just get my license on my own,” he said.

“Then I went and drove around the Gold Coast looking at all the developments. Then, in the first couple of weeks, I sold one off the plan – receiving a $35,000 cheque. And I thought, ‘Okay, this will work’.”

Karen and Edward formed a 50/50 partnership with Stewart & Smyth and immediately set out to grow the business. In the early days, Edward continued to draw on his strengths in a bid to bring something different to the industry. That combination worked well with Karen’s significant industry experience and people skills.

“Obviously I couldn’t have reached Karen’s experience, however, I’m an excellent delegator and an excellent outsourcer,” Edward said. “I only do the jobs that I’m good at, so I brought that element into the team. So immediately we put on a secretary, then immediately we’d have ways to streamline the botany of all of the systems.”

Edward’s taking that same approach to real estate that he had in finance and is more than happy to try and shake up the traditional ways of doing things that he sees as being either inefficient, ineffective or both.

“I did a deep dive search into the market place. I ran analytics. In our first year we turned over close to $700,000 and we got a bit of notoriety. People started looking at me from what others were doing in terms of data and tech. And that’s kind of where my passion lies,” he said.

“My real estate company now probably is based at least 50 per cent on technology. I don’t cold call, I don’t door knock. I just have my little ways and means.”

It often comes as a surprise to other agents that Edward has been able to utilise technology to be incredibly effective in generating business. He believes it’s where the future of real estate is heading.

“I’m using technology to generate conversations,” he explained.

“So almost by the time I speak with somebody, they should have an idea of who I am already – have interviewed me digitally. If it’s not the first time and they’ve transacted with me already, then there’ll be constant touchpoints, whether that’s SMS, whether that’s email, whether that’s social media proof across all the channels. And then they’re aware of who I am and what I’m doing regularly in a professional way.”

Technology vs People Skills

With Edward’s technology edge and Karen’s people skills, the two of them together have hit on a strong combination in the current real estate environment.

“Karen and I have our own very unique tone of voice. It’s very much the old school meets the new school,” Edward said.

“Karen’s very much face-to-face, very empathetic, very caring towards all of our client base. Whereas I’m more just wrapped up in the technology and the competition of it all. So it’s a really good kind of balancing act we’ve got between each other – the ying and the yang.”

He said the pair just want to show the market their unique tone of voice a bit better, which was the real driving force behind opening a new business.

“We wanted to get our tone of voice out into the marketplace because at the end of the day, people are choosing to list with either Karen or myself or both,” Edward said. “The name above the door is semantics really.”

In the next few years, Edward is excited at the prospect of continuing to grow their Gold Coast business in an age where technology will likely change what the market looks like from where it sits today. And he feels there is plenty of more work for agents to do to improve their client work.

“I think there’s a real calling out for agents and agencies to work in a more collaborative way to get the best results for clients,” he said. “I think it can be quite a greedy marketplace, whereas if there was more collaboration in a positive way, it would get the best results for clients and it would get the best results for agents and agencies.”

Edward also feels the way the industry is changing is lending itself to a more decentralised model and he believes that all agents need to be up to speed with technology or they face being wiped out.

“In the coming years, I think Australia will be very similar to the model in the US where you’ve got the buyer’s and the seller’s agents,” he said.

“I certainly think that would be a more efficient way to do business. So I would like to see it go down that road, but whether it will I don’t know. I think it will be disruptive. It’s got to be disruptive.”

As a result, Edward said he is always on the cutting edge of all technology coming out of the US. He gets alerts every morning of what’s happening with technology and he follows that to make sure that if a trend is building that he’s at the start of it, not left behind.”

Here to play big

The future for Stewart & Smyth looks to be an exciting one and the team has big plans going forward.

“For Stewart & Smyth Estate Agents, our vision is to create a collective that is equally passionate to customer experience as it is to innovation,” Edward said.

“So as much as I am caught up in the innovation and technology, one thing I want to make sure we excel at is the customer experience.

“We want to really refine what it looks like to have a nice buyer experience and seller experience. Then slightly automate that and apply the personal touch.

“We’re super passionate, we’re super dedicated, we’ve got a big support network behind us. We’ve got a great team from photographers, videographers, everything already signed up. So we’re live and we’re here to play big. We’re not going in halves.”