Samantha McLean

Leanne Pilkington spent years thinking of herself as “a great number two”. Then she bought into Laing+Simmons with a group of franchisees. Samantha McLean went back through her columns and conversations with Elite Agent for 30 lessons on backing yourself, leading people and having the conversations that matter.

In Track 02 of The Edit, Samantha McLean, Chris Hanley and Fiona Blayney examine the gap between managing people and developing them – and why AI efficiency cannot replace human coaching, communication and judgement.

He started at LJ Hooker Bondi Junction in 1995, learned soft skills at a Hollywood acting school on Mike Ferry's orders, and went top ten at McGrath in his first year working commission-only. For most of the time since, Claudio Encina has been coaching Australia's best agents – including, these days, top performers at The Agency. After mining the archives for the wisdom of Chris Hanley and Matt Lahood, Samantha McLean went back in for the coach who has been a good friend, and a part of the Elite Agent story from the very beginning. She found more than twenty recordings spanning 2016 to 2022, most of them made in markets at least as hard as this one. Here are the lessons worth revisiting and keeping

In 2014 I called a rabbi to help promote an event. He spent 30 minutes working on me instead, told me the headline act belonged in jail, and asked me to picture the year 2034. We are past halfway now, and he isn't here for the rest of it.

The wisdom of Chris Hanley – 30 lessons from a man who's never had a bad year in real estate

The transcript is the least interesting thing an AI meeting tool does. Here's the workflow and the prompts that turn it into something your agency actually runs on.

Anthropic's Fable 5 is the smartest model you can open in a browser, and from July 12 you'll pay for it by the token. After days of testing, Samantha McLean shares the briefing pattern – and the copy-paste prompts – that decide whether it feels like a jackpot or a slow leak in your marketing budget.

In Week 4 of the AI Sprint, Samantha McLean breaks down AI-first circle sales: repurposing one sale everywhere, process over price, and staying out of the slop bucket.

What if the way agents are paid is shaping the industry's biggest problems — from trust and burnout to who succeeds in the first place?

In an era where AI eliminates the "blank page," human judgment becomes the industry’s scarcest resource. Success now belongs to real estate leaders who prioritise strategic discernment over mere output.