Elders takes its 2022 rural real estate conference and planning day to Mandurah

A diverse array of guest speakers informed, entertained and brought a focus to team work and self improvement strategies.

Elders' State finance and operations manager Shayne Paskins and senior rural real estate executive Simon Cheetham were also future focussed, but took time to hand out a few accolades and plenty of 'pats on the back' for solid recent results.

Reflecting on the past five years, Mr Cheetham highlighted the outstanding growth generated from an all-in team effort.

"In less than five years, we have experienced huge growth in our rural real estate business with the total value of our farmland sales more than tripling," Mr Cheetham said.

"And in just 12 months the team managed to increase the number of farms sold by more than 25 per cent, significantly increasing our market share in a very competitive market.

"We have had great results so far, but the challenge now is keeping that sort of momentum going and that is what today is all about."

Mr Paskins said it was unusual for all agricultural commodities to be firing at the same time and WA had performed extremely well overall, helped by real estate.

"We have exceeded budget and are on track to record a strong finish to the financial year," Mr Paskins said.

"As we push for further growth, we are mindful of the need to provide a good working environment for staff and better facilities for clients and as a result we have earmarked sites for rebuilds or redevelopments.

"You have already seen what can be achieved with our state-of-the-art flagship branch at Muchea.

"Other sites we are working on, although certainly not to the same scale as the $3 million greenfields site at Muchea, are Beverley, Corrigin, Moora, Cranbrook, Pingelly, Northam and Narrogin.

"This is part of setting us up for the next 20 years and to provide functional and safe workplaces for our staff and clients."

Guest speaker sessions that followed included Sarab Singh, Corporate Sherpas.

Mr Singh delved into the workings of the human mind, highlighting that what is projected in attitude and dialogue determines what is reflected in response and that working as a team, despite being a group of individuals, provides greater power to a common good.

Social media specialist Ellie Clare, CLP Advertising & Promotion, drove a message of the importance of connecting with the local community, including hosting sponsored events through social media.

And Core Logic's Brendan Spicer walked attendees through the wealth of data available on its website.

Sales coach David James was also strong on community and the value of joining as many groups and events as possible to build networks, the need to continually self assess and ask 'have I performed to my full potential today' and don't dwell on that sale you missed but get on to the next things that you can affect and control.

Forestry and football were other topics in the mix.

Simcoa Operations mining and strategic projects manager Kees Visser gave a lesson in silicon, its application in life as a component in many products from mobile devices to mag wheels and his company's need to source charcoal to produce it, which in turn has forestry and land acquisition consequences.

In a one-on-one chat with Elders Real Estates' Don Fry, Bunbury, former West Coast Eagles footballer and Brownlow medallist Matt Priddis talked about his career journey in football and now as senior relationship manager at AgriFinance Australia, the choices rather than sacrifices made to achieve his goals and the importance of leveraging off your strengths while working on improving your weaknesses to succeed.

"Footy and farming are pretty similar in many ways," Mr Priddis said.

"Farmers go off to the beach for a summer holiday, we get four weeks off a year and many of us head to Dunsborough or the beach too, then we come back into pre-season training.

"Farmers get into preparing their machines for seeding, then the rain comes and they're into it.

"We start our footy season, everything is going well for both of us then the rain stops and Nic Nat does his knee and we both think sh.., you have to regroup and rethink, we start to win a few games and farmers get more rain, things are looking good come September then we lose the finals and farmers get hit with frost.

"There are plenty of challenges but we both go back to the drawing board, work out how we can do things better, then get ready to go round again next year."