CHRIS BATCHELOR

Chris Batchelor is a man who likes to have a plan. He made the move to real estate in 2010, intending to sell houses for the next 10 years. Having ticked that off — along the way becoming one of the top 5 per cent of Bayleys’ sales people and selling more than $400m worth of properties — his next goal was to get into management. That’s just happened — he recently became the manager of Bayleys’ Takapuna and Devonport office.

What did you want to do when you were growing up?

Snowboard. I was passionate about it. But my parents said, you can’t leave school and do nothing; you have to have a job. So I trained to be a chef — the plan was that I could work at night and snowboard during the day. I hadn’t been massively interested in cooking beforehand, to be honest — it was a means to an end. But it meant I could travel, find work and be able to snowboard.

Did the plan work?

I spent about five years from when I was 17 doing back-toback winters between Queenstown and Switzerland, working in kitchens at night and snowboarding during the day. I also worked in London and at the Duke of Marlborough pub in the Bay of Islands. Then when I was about 22 the owners of the hotel I worked at in Switzerland bought a pub in the Cotswolds, England, and asked if I would like to work there for the summer. It was in a quintessential little village with about 700 people.

How did you end up in sales?

I got chatting to an art dealer who used to come into the pub every night. One day he asked if I would hang some art in his gallery on my day off. I did, and eventually ended up working for him fulltime, going to shows he put on all over the place — London, Edinburgh, Jersey among others — to hang the art for him. Then he said to me, “Do you want to have a go at selling? I think you’d be good at it.” I was 23, I thought, Why not?

Did you know anything about the art world?

No, nothing. So I would just chat to people until [the point] where I’d ask if they wanted to buy the piece they were showing in interest in. Then I would see if there was anything else they were interested in and I would end up putting deals together, selling them two or three pieces when they only came in to get one. I found sales came pretty naturally but realised that, with art, if somebody just doesn’t like a piece, it is very hard to talk them into [buying] it. Houses are the same, you have to like it at least a little bit before you can get helped into it.

Why did you get into real estate?

After 10 years away from New Zealand, I wanted to come back. Real estate had always appealed — I’d always loved houses and building and architecture. And I thought if I could sell art, I could sell houses. I also like the fact that it involves getting to meet a wide range of people. I’ve made lots of friends through selling houses.

Did you find it was a good fit?

In my first year, my manager at the time said he was going to help me out by not giving me any listings, he just wanted me to work with buyers. I thought that was a bit harsh, other companies helped new agents by putting them on a listing with someone else.

How it worked was that the commission was split into a listing portion and a selling portion, so if you sold somebody else’s listing, you got the selling portion of it. I spent that whole first year not listing a single property, but finding buyers for other agents’ listings, and I did about 25 sales just working with buyers. After that, I got my own listings. For the following three or four years, I doubled my income every year.

What do you think is the secret of your success?

I’ve always been very processdriven and I think that helps. It’s also important to have a good moral compass. You’ve got to do what you say you are going to. I can put my hand on my heart and say I have always given it my best shot for my client. I think that’s probably why 95 per cent of my business is repeat clients or referrals.

What lessons have you learned from this business?

I love the saying, ‘Little doors can lead to big rooms.’ You never know what could lead to opportunities.

In my early days I took on a listing in Sunnyvale (west Auckland) which I didn’t really want to do because it wasn’t my area. I sold it to a guy who owned a villa in Grey Lynn, which I then sold for him to another couple of guys, and later when they wanted to sell, I sold it for them. In the end I did about six transactions that all came from a house that was $235,000, and ended up resulting in about $12m worth of sales.

Do you still snowboard?

Yes. When I am up in the mountains, in the snow, I’m in my happy place. I hope my kids will get into it — I take my 3-year-old Lachie to Snow Planet every week in winter. He started on skis at 2 and he’s been on a snowboard for nine months. He loves it.

“I love the saying, ‘Little doors can lead to big rooms.’ You never know what could lead to opportunities. “