Business Innovators Radio - Interview with John Foong, CRO of Domain

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

CRO leading Domain’s 500-person commercial team. Stanford MBA/MA, Global Director at Google and Uber, McKinsey consultant. Worked in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Africa.Oversaw record revenue growth at Google and Uber (e.g., multiplying cloud channel revenue into the billions as global lead) and market share/ARPU at Domain. Led large teams around the world (e.g., 300+ people at Google and 500+ at Domain across sales and technical roles). Trusted advisor, caring manager, and Stanford MBA who embraces both the strategic and operational. University of New South Wales Co-Op Scholar, Stanford Arjay Millar Scholar, and McKinsey Practice Olympics winner.Deep expertise in establishing 3-Way marketplaces: Creating outsized value for customers, win-win solutions for the partners, and engaging careers for the team.Learn more:https://www.domain.com.au/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-john-foong-cro-of-domain

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us, John Foam, who's the chief revenue officer at Domain. John, welcome to the program. Hey, thanks so much, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, I want to hear all about what you do and how you serve your clients, but let's start

first with your story and background and how did you get into the industry? Sure. Well, I'm calling from Australia. So good-day. I guess I'm in the industry in two ways. When I was 18, I started property investing because that was almost three decades ago now. And so I've been a pretty material property investor, whatever opportunity I get, I know, I invest what I can into the property market until those extent the stock market. So that's been happening pretty much my whole life ever since I started earning income. And even though for most of my life, I didn't work in the property industry. I was at Google for those years. I was at Uber for a few years. I did my MBA and things like that. For about two years now, I'll be the chief revenue officer

at a company called Domain, which is one of the largest real estate portals in Australasia. So it's like a Zillow or a redfin, except we serve Australia. and New Zealand. So that's my day job and I'm responsible for our relationships with real estate agents and I lead our sales group here. You know, I think that's really interesting is how you relate it to like a Zillow and things like that. And it really is, or let me just ask you this question. Does that take it out of the hands of like the institutions and put some of the power back in the hands of maybe the consumer? Does it give some tools to the consumer that they can access to make them feel like they're a little bit more part of the process? You know, I think it's very

similar to how you would use Zillow or Redfin in the U.S. You know, that's the great thing about how, I guess, the combination of technology, you know, phones like the iPhone and Android, it has democratized the real estate buying process. It's meant that in the palm of your hand, You could have information that previously only real estate agents got, and you're able to search and favorites and share properties in a matter of a second. So that part's really cool. And yeah, it doesn't, I don't think it's different to mediates the real estate agent. I think they've become more important than ever, where allows people, whether you're buying or selling, to be more educated than ever, I think. Yeah.

And, you know, the power in their fingertips, you know, you go searching for a car to buy, you show up to the dealership with all the knowledge that you've searched online. Same now these days with real estate. So talk a little bit about the property journey when someone is interested in moving, buying a home, selling a home. What does your tool provide to them? You know, the way that we think about the property journey is it starts years before you're ready to buy yourself. So we have a pretty material, I guess, media arm. We partnered with the biggest newspapers here in Australia. And we are writing lots of articles out property. How do I property? What properties are selling, property advice. And actually, in Australia,

property is even more, I guess, popular that is the US. People are always thinking about it. You're a barbecue. You're at a party. You think of our property. What's that with house prices? What are you doing with your property? And so that journey for us begins, you know, when you're, you know, like me,

all those decades ago, when you're, when you're, you know, 18 and you're thinking of getting your first rental or you're moving that house or you've got your first income and think of either getting a place to live in or a place to invest in. We want to engage you in. that journey with our media articles and then you'll start to use our app as well. And so it means that by the time you're ready to make a big purchase or sell your house, that you're very, very familiar with how to do property. Then you're warmed up. And so at that point in time, you know, we have, for example, the population of Australia is, you know, 25, 30 million.

You know, we have seven million people using our app every month in Australia. That's, you know, the majority of folks, you know, who are adults and are in that range of looking for a house. So, you know, even though only about 500,000 Australians are actively looking for a house at any given time, you've got many multiples that using the app getting interested, getting warmed up, educated themselves. So we see ourselves as instrumental in the property journey, especially when you're buying or selling, but for all those years in between. Yeah, I think that really is true. I've heard a statistic before that no matter what the industry is over 90% of the people that are in your target audience are not ready to do whatever it is

that you're looking to have them to do right now. You know, three to five to seven percent are right now. Well, all the other people need a tool that is helpful like what you have. Teach them, educate them, have them start dreaming, thinking. So it really does become where you become relied upon. And then when those people now start, you know, zeroing in on the timeline of, ending that journey of searching into now, let's take the next step. You're the obvious choice. Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it. And you are. It applies to many industries. So in this case, you know, for us as a real estate technology provider, you know, it's the 95% of time that you're not buying a house that we, you know, help you get really good for that 5% when you're ready to go. And I think a lot of great real estate agents do the same thing. It's how they nurture, you know, how they keep in touch with you, how they send you information for those years where you're not looking to buy a house.

or sell a house, so when you are ready, you go to them. You know, it makes me think of other analogies, you know, I think of, you know, self-defense, right? You might spend years and years of training for something better to happen once or twice your life, a time when you need to use your reactions or your senses. So, you know, or, you know, where that's true of a game, you know, you're a football player. You train for 40 hours a week, you know, for a one-hour game. So I think all these analogies are very good about, you know, there's preseason and game time's actually really short. 100% and you need to be on your sharpest behavior.

You know, I guess we can't continue a conversation these days about technology without bringing into the conversation, artificial intelligence and AI. What are you guys seeing in the industry how AI is helping with what you're providing to your clients? Yeah, it's very interesting because things like AI have this, I'll call it like, sexy stuff, right? You know, AI came out, chat GPT came out, you know, almost a year ago. It went from zero to 100 million users in five months. You know, it was going to change everything. And I think it's still well.

But the interesting is I speak to a lot of real estate agents. I'll say for 99% of them, it has changed very little about their daily workflow. Change for a little, right? They still doing the same thing fundamentally. Maybe they visit chat GPT every down there and put something in there and have a play. But for 99% of them, they're doing it. the same thing 12 months ago as they are now. But I would say a few things about that. AI is already changing things in small ways. So, you know, whether you're a Google, for example,

you've already been using AI for 10 years, trying to make natural language queries better. You know, for us, we're exploring how we use AI to make our app better. Right now, if you want to go look for a property, you're pretty parameters, you press search, you get served a bunch of stuff, a bunch of properties in that area that meet the cracks you. It's a good result. It's predictable. It's fast. But AI can do some cool things like try and figure out your intent based on the words you're using and based your past behavior to serve you properties that you might actually really need, but not be looking for. Maybe in different areas, maybe outside your normal search terms, but using your intent to generate properties that would be interesting for you. So again,

has that come to the market? No, but companies like ours and our competitors are working on it. And I think the call to get AI is, I'll always compare it to it to the iPhone. You know, when the iPhone came out in 2007, you know, people thought, oh my goodness, this is people literally called it the Jesus phone. This isn't going to change everything, right? This is going to be how, you know, everything happens. And for 1% of people, it did. They were totally with the iPhone, with the smartphone.

But for 9% of people, it didn't. It was only a few years later that you got truly game-changing things. So the iPhone made possible, like, you know, Uber, right? I used to work. Uber would not have been impossible without the smartphone. without the iPhone. It's something that truly could not have been done without an iPhone. But it took three or four years to actually get all the piece in place, people know how to use it, people to make the most of the combination of GPS, you know, a really great user interface and user ratings

and their trust. And I think it's true to say with AI, even though Generative AI really took off less than 12 months ago. And there's a cool part about it and 1% of people and start to get on the bandwagon, it's only in a few years time that you'll see things that were truly undoable, before Generative I came about and used by the majority of the population, not just a small niche. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I love that iPhone analogy because every iteration is bigger and better. And when you're smart, you are delivering to your consumers what they didn't even know that they needed. When a feature comes out, like maybe even on your platform, it's like, I had no clue that I really needed to have this in my,

search for real estate, but wow, I'm glad that this came out. So you need to, let's use that another analogy of, you've probably heard Wayne Gretzky Hockies that quote that says, I skate where the puck is headed. Well, John needs to know where the industry is headed and to be right there so that when consumers are in the need of this feature, this request, this opportunity regarding searching for real estate, that your platform is. already working on it. Oh, wait, my favorite, repeat the question. I didn't fully understand where you're going with that question.

Oh, I was, it was not even a question. It was just a point to say you guys are already in the sense of providing your technology so that when people are in the need for a new way to search, that here comes this feature you're already working on it. They didn't even know that they had it. So I think what I would ask now is what are some of the things that you feel like could be, not that's in the works, not it's coming out tomorrow. But what are some of the things that some people searching for real estate may need?

Where could the industry go in the future? You know, I think it's a great point. It reminds you that Henry Ford quote, you know, if I asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Yes. And he was the one to go up with the first car. You know, I think for us with real estate, it's a very interesting industry because a lot of predictions have been made about the demise of real estate agents or how things such as technology

would change real estate like it did travel you know you travel a generation ago all travel was booked through a travel agent you know and now very very little and even when you book through travel agent it's often through an automated self-serve you know interface uh we now just talk themselves but real estate's very different you're not transacting most people real estate every day real estate is something you might transact 10 times your whole lifetime talking potentially millions of dollars it requires a lot of trust, a lot of handholding. It's a scary process. And I think a lot of success in the real estate industry,

whether you're an investor, a real estate agent, or a broker or whatever, comes from bringing and building confidence in a process that's very scary. If you are able to hold someone's hand where they're selling the house that they spent the last 20 or 30 years in, and I want to get the best price for it and give that money to their children or they're worried at their retirement, it's a scary process. and if you can hold their hand and say, hey, here's how I'm going to make your house sell at the best possible price. Here's how I'm going to track the most relevant buyers, you know, to your cause.

Here's how I'm going to help you feel like you have someone to contern to, get your questions answered. Hold your hand during this process. Those are the real estate agents who are going to get a disproportionate share of the market. And I think that's what we are trying to do from a technology point of view. we're trying to provide both people selling and buying their houses with help, but we're trying to help the people like these real estate agents who are also helping those in customers. And a lot of that is through providing great data.

Although that's through providing technology that helps them only do what they can do and technology to automate as much as possible. And then, of course, to now use things such as AI to provide insights and recommendations so they can help give their customers great advice and build their customers and confidence in the buying or selling process. Yep. You know, John, you mentioned a couple of points in your past. What would you pick as a couple of milestones in your professional past

where you learned some lessons that prepared you for what you guys are doing right now? You know, I grew up in Australia. I spent my teenage, my birth and teenage in early 20s here, and then I spent about 17 years traveling the world, half the time in Europe, half the time in the US. I think the most formative milestone for me was when I was about 16, I made a, I guess, a decision, which didn't have eventually any. But that decision was I felt really called not to be in the business world,

but to be in the nonprofit world. I was doing a lot of volunteering at my church at the time. I really wanted to serve, I guess, God and serve other people in a really meaningful way. And for me, that was a very pivotal decision, because it started to change how I think about my life. And my life was not, oh, I'm going to get lots of money, or I want to achieve all these things. I mean, those things, you know, I guess I've always thought of as well.

But I began to think my life in terms of servant leadership, what can I do in order to best serve others? What could I do to have the most impact on the most amount of people in whatever field that ends up be? And the reason why that, at the age of 16, that was really important was it started to form my decisions. It started to make me prioritize, schools of leadership. So I decided to go to college and study degree in technology of leadership.

I decided to take a job as a consultant where the big selling point was a company called McKinsey, where they build themselves as a CEO factory. They will teach you general leadership skills you can use. I decide to go for an MBA program because those are really leadership schools, trying to teach you how to be a leader. I decided to take on a management job at Google. This is almost 20 years ago because their billing was will help you be a leader. And for me, that's a decision at the age of 16 really helped shape the decisions I made in the rest of my life to try and what Malcolm Gladwell calls like get your 10,000 hours up. How can I get 10,000 hours of leadership, 10,000 hours in a amount of time that you need to invest in something,

whether it's leading or sport or still to get really, really good at it. And I guess I was lucky that, you know, through a lot of my experience of my childhood, that became a priority for me. And so I just worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. And you know, I think for now my perception of where I'm going to end up, there's always changing. I was convinced I'd be a pastor in a church by now. I'd be running a nonprofit or doing something like that. Still, I'm investing. I'm in business. I'm, you know, I get to, you know, lead 500 people in this really cool company working on something really important and who knows what happens next. But I think for me, that was the biggest milestone, which led to all these other milestones, which culminated

around shaping my leadership journey. I love it. I think that is just spectacular, John. Well, If someone is interested in learning more about you and your journey and your tool and helping with their real estate journey, what is the best way they can learn more and also reach out and connect with you? Sure. Best way to get me is on LinkedIn. I want to listen to a lot. I love reading about other people's professional stories and the lessons there. So just looking at LinkedIn, there's only one or two of me in Australia. John Fung, F-O-O-N-G, and the company I work for is domain.

So you'll find me soon enough on LinkedIn. If you're interested or working in Australian property, you would have heard of us, Domain.com.com.com.com.com.com.com slash research is where you can see all our white papers where we talk about a lot of these things or our main portal is there as well. Excellent. Well, John, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you today. I know it's Mike. It's great to thank you for your service. You can do a wonderful job trying to elevate leaders in the industry and help people lead themselves and their families, particularly financial sense, but much broader as well. So thanks to your service and a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders.

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