Owners Best founder Vincent Baldacchino has an unconventional approach when recruiting new estate agents – he prefers to employ people with no experience in the sector.

Now, this isn’t an approach that you often come across, in any industry. However, Mr Baldacchino believes that it is precisely this choice that has made his company so successful when it comes to closing sales.

“I want new joiners to follow the Owners Best system. If I employ someone from another agency, they will bring with them different ideas and processes. And most other agents follow a very similar principle – you stick to a buyer that you click with, and you bombard them with properties. That’s the old school way.”

Not at Owners Best. Mr Baldacchino’s approach flips the model. “The new school of thought gets more results and faster. You pick a good property and make sure you have 20 to 30 buyers for it. Get them in within a week, and you will sell it before too much time goes by.”

It’s an approach that he has tried and tested to great success. And he bases it on the knowledge that what the seller wants are buyers.

“And we have plenty of those, so all we need to do is match the right buyer with the property,” he says bluntly.

But how does this matching happen, exactly? Enter the Owners Best dynamic buyers’ database, which is updated in real time. The secret of Mr Baldacchino’s success lies precisely in this system that is based on logic, uniformity and a sharing culture among the agents.

“Every single buyer that comes in from any Owners Best agent goes into the database, with full details of the specifics they’re looking for. As soon as we receive a new property, we input details and the system returns a list of all clients whose requirements match this property. The agent connected to that buyer gets in touch, and the rest moves like clockwork,” he elaborates.

The system depends on everyone being on board and following the same methodology – hence Mr Baldacchino’s preference for newcomers. For the method to work, it’s crucial that each agent is trained on the same principles. All newcomers are given one-to-one training by one of the more experienced agents.

“As an incentive, and as a thank-you for taking the time, if the newcomer makes a sale, the trainer gets a percentage of the profits. But for this to work, everyone must follow the same method. You can’t have one trainer using a different system,” he tells me.

It’s a system that is built on logic. Sellers expect access to buyers. Buyers expect access to properties. What spells the difference is the match-making system.

“I started doing this years ago with the magazine Direct from Owner, and it was a huge success. I’d match 20 to 30 potential buyers for each property, and most were sold at asking price. It was almost like having an auction on each property, led by the owner himself.”

At the time, Mr Baldacchino’s role was limited to purely marketing. Now, he’s translated this into a version that suits the real estate industry.

“The entire value that we offer sellers lies in our buyers’ database. Many other estate agents will use advertising as their go-to methodology when trying to sell. Think of all the Facebook adverts that individual agents take out in an attempt to sell property. This is not the way you give value to the seller - they can simply advertise it themselves, after all,” Mr Baldacchino states.

The Owners Best process removes the need of advertising. And it works because it’s built on a process, rather than on individuals, giving agents the freedom and time to focus on what matters most: making the sale.

“We don’t rely on luck or chance to close a deal. Those are not effective strategies, despite being favoured by other agents. Sticking to one buyer and going all around Malta in the hope that they like one of the properties is a very hit-or-miss way of doing things,” Mr Baldacchino says.

Instead, Owners Best agents leverage the laws of numbers. If a property gets 30 matched buyers on the database, at least six people are likely to agree to a visit. And one of them will probably close the deal.

“It’s good to remember that these are not simply ‘buyers.’ They are matched buyers. Each buyer’s individual requirements are kept constantly updated to ensure that there’s no time wasting for them or for us. So if details regarding locality change, for example, these will immediately be reflected on the database.”

Mr Baldacchino believes it’s a matter of focusing on the demand and on speed. Many estate agents find themselves taking months to close a sale on a property - at Owners Best, it takes a couple of weeks at most.

“Taking six months to sell a property is demotivating and bad for business. And, of course, both the seller and the buyer are also using other estate agents meanwhile, so there can be a hit elsewhere. We don’t subscribe to the sole agency approach – in our case, it’s unnecessary as we work with speed.”

What this means in practice is that the agents focus on taking all the matched buyers for a viewing as fast as possible. While other agents place all their attention on the buyer, the focus here is the relationship with the seller. And this only works because every single potential buyer brought in by Mr Baldacchino’s agents goes on the database.

“We don’t hoard buyers here. All my agents are on board with this, because it benefits them as well. Let’s say one of the agents doesn’t update the database with a new buyer, and a property comes in that could be an excellent match. That agent will lose the opportunity, because this buyer isn’t on the database,” Mr Baldacchino says, adding that this spells the difference between a collection of agents and a real business.

“Owners Best is a business. The buyers, the properties… they’re on the books of the company. And those who use the system find that it gives back to them.”

Thanks to this well-oiled system, all agents enjoy full flexibility to work when, how, and from where they wish. Mr Baldacchino compares it to a fast-food franchise where the client is always guaranteed to receive the same standard of burger, the same flavours, the same waiting time - no matter who’s preparing the meal.

“This is exactly how the Owners Best approach works. It’s a streamlined machine that works independently of the agent, but that is intended to benefit them. The idea is to make the same amount of money with less time and effort. And isn’t that the dream, at the end of the day?” Mr Baldacchino concludes with a smile.