Ray of light pierces property gloom

Carey Smith is focused on the silver lining. Photo / Graeme Sedal

Should you be the owner of a major real estate franchise, passing your Saturday morning by reading the paper, having a cup of coffee and wondering just how your business will survive a slump that has already sliced 50 per cent off industry turnover, expect a phone call from Carey Smith.

While you may be thinking purely about survival, the New Zealand CEO of the Ray White Group sees opportunity - takeover opportunity.

Just as he has done for the past 12 years, Smith has written himself a letter, summing up his achievements in 2008 and the goals he wants to achieve in 2009. That letter has been sealed and given to his brother - Smith won't look at it again until the end of this year, when he'll take stock of how he's done. In the meantime, he'll set about achieving those goals.

This year, one of those objectives is growth by takeover. "I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity for mergers and acquisitions," he says.

"I think this year will be a year that if we're proactive, we will benefit. I need to be ringing people that otherwise I would not normally ring and that normally it would be difficult to make the phone call to - that would be direct competitors - to say I'd like to get together.

"It wouldn't be something you would ever do in the past. So it's sort of putting the flag up to say we are interested in growing ...

"In the past 12 years we've grown organically; I think we are well-positioned to grow more than just organically this year."

In the middle of a real estate market like this one, it's just the sort of audacious goal you'd expect from a 1.88m league-playing (and refereeing) Aussie real estate boss in his mid-40s, who speaks with a broad Strine accent.

What you don't expect is how softly and thoughtfully his accented words come out - leaving you with the impression of gentleness wrapped up in a bruiser's clothing.

Those who know Smith say this thoughtfulness, focus and ability to relate to people - rather than aggression and a win-at-all-costs attitude to business - is what's helped him to grow Ray White into one of the country's major real estate franchises in just 12 years. John Wall, CEO of Sugar International and the motivation expert on TV One's School of Success, has known Smith since they were both in real estate in Western Australia in the mid-90s, and says he has a unique leadership style.

"It's a very focused leadership ... really sitting down and having very full and deep relationships ... there's no self in that conversation, it's always, 'What are you doing?'," says Wall.

"I think he respects the whole person. He understands that his job is a commercial job, but people are whole people and there are other things that are going on in their lives that will affect their commercial lives."

Indeed, if you ask Smith what the most important ingredient of business success is, he'll tell you it's people. He says so in his about-to-be-published book Deliver (a result of his 2008 letter to himself), where he writes: "The success of business is built on the success of recruitment."

And it shows when he's asked to reveal his "breakthrough moments".

"Probably one of the biggest ones is when new people join us and the reason why they join us and also the reasons why they leave us. And that to me is an awakening experience every time I have that conversation.

"Many people think that people join a company for values and for what a company stands for and they leave the company because there's no direction and those sorts of things. The biggest lesson for me is that people join people, they don't join companies.

"And people leave because of people as well. They don't generally leave because of issues ... they leave because they've lost trust in the person they work for."

I point out to him that this is widely documented in employment literature, but he says - quite rightly - that it's something a lot of employers still don't get.

There was a fair bit about this country that Smith didn't get when he moved here in 1996, first as a business development manager in what was then United Realty, then just over a year later as CEO.

"At that particular time New Zealand was going through a slight globalisation in business - globalisation might not be the right word, it was more an Australasian experience - where companies such as Mitre 10, Harvey Norman, BP, Freedom Furniture, they were all starting to make early positioning in New Zealand and there was quite a campaign at the time ... to buy New Zealand made. And there was some level of negativity against big companies.

"So of course I came into new Zealand with an appointment from a big company ... it started to bring in different methodology and that was both uncomfortable for our members and quite uncomfortable for me because of the resistance, because I'd never experienced resistance in [the form of] 'this is the way we do things here and we're not so open to your thoughts'."

His biggest mistake, he says, was to think that the two countries were fundamentally the same.

"Culturally they're very different. I think New Zealand is much richer in culture ... I'm not sure of the perfect words, but certainly the Maori influence is much greater in New Zealand, which gives us a good cultural background.

"And you don't tend to realise that New Zealand is the same size as a state of Australia when you first come over; you tend to meet people in business that you would never meet in Australia, so the circle of business leaders is much tighter and business here is much more autonomous than in a state of Australia.

"Generally bigger businesses in new Zealand are more creative than their Australian partners because we've got less risk, we're not dealing with such big markets so we can try things. And I think from the time I arrived to now, New Zealand is ahead of Australia in its thinking."

As for the oft-discussed Kiwi inferiority complex, Smith is not fazed and says it's not unusual. Hell, Western Australians feel the same way about Sydney.

"I think there is a degree of suspicion but that's always from smaller to bigger. It doesn't matter whether that's from Ellerslie to Remuera or from Christchurch to Auckland or Perth to Sydney or Sydney to LA. There's always that case - that because you come from a bigger environment you should have more knowledge, but I don't know that that's always right.

"When you come, most people say: 'Why have you come to New Zealand?'. It's a great opportunity that I've had. I've been given the opportunity to run a country. Now there are guys in Ray White who run bigger businesses, but they don't run a country."

Bigger isn't always better, it would seem. But that's not going to stop Smith from making Ray White bigger this year. Agencies will go to the wall - he's picking 30 per cent, saying about 20 per cent have gone already.

"The market has reduced by about 50 per cent, so the actual economics are going to tell us that you can't have the same number of businesses on 50 per cent of the market.

"I still think we [Ray White] can grow a lot more. Our market share is good but ... I get the feeling that, particularly this year coming up, is an exceptional time for us. Good businesses will get better."

* Ashley Campbell is a freelance writer. Contact her at www.howgood.co.nz/profiles/95.