Returning to rural roots, a rewarding journey for auctioneer

Joining the business as a back-up auctioneer to founder, John McGrath, 27 years ago, when McGrath was just a three-office business in Sydney, Scott Kennedy-Green has been a driving force in the McGrath success story, which now conducts close to 6000 property auctions a year and has a presence right across Australia’s eastern seaboard.

He said the growth trajectory of McGrath across Sydney, and later into more coastal and regional locations, were borne out of its innovative sales processes and practices and the development of a brand that people wanted to be part of.

He said coastal agencies were the first to be developed but the more regional growth and the recent engagement with the rural property market “was just a natural fit”.

“We had the vision that if McGrath was to move to the regional centres, as we’ve done, a by-product of that was going to be a push into agribusiness and broadacre rural sales, rather than just the lifestyle component outside Sydney,” Scott said.

In helping develop the new rural business for McGrath, Scott has drawn on his lifelong affinity with the bush and farming to help identify key drivers and establish their point of difference, and linking with the right partners has been key.

And while Scott says a different marketing approach, skillset and even agency style is definitely required for rural and broadacre property marketing, he also believes the existing McGrath business model and selling systems and initiatives are offering some new and exciting strategies to the rural property market.

“These are tools and initiatives that we use day to day in our metro market, and I’m talking about digital and social strategies, and our marketing and promotional initiatives.

“These are cutting edge and you have to be on point and continually moving the needle to be in front of our competitors,” Scott explains.

“John McGrath made a name for himself as being an innovator on that side of our business, and when you move such tools, initiatives and processes into regional areas, that is not something that our rural competitors use, have or utilise.

He said those tools, combined with the deliberate and strategic targeting of businesses they’ve partnered with to expand the brand into the rural market is, he believes, offering something to the market which their competitors are not.

“That’s part of our connection piece – finding the right partners to join us in the journey and we are pretty specific about the calibre of agent we partner with, ensuring we share the same goals and values.”