Deep dive · Property services
Taking Cohen Handler from $3M to $12M.
How Z10 unified brand, paid media, and inbound sales for Cohen Handler — scaling from one office to multiple locations across states and countries in eighteen months, at a time when the buyer's agents category was still unknown in Australia.
- Client
- Cohen Handler, Australia's leading buyer's agency
- Timeframe
- Eighteen months
- Market
- Residential buyers, investors, expats
- Starting point
- $3M revenue, no marketing function
$12M
Top-line revenue, from a $3M base
10x
ROAS on the national TV campaign
~600%
Growth in digital and inbound revenue
100%
Year-on-year digital revenue growth, positive ROI
The challenge
A word-of-mouth business approaching its ceiling.
The business ran on referrals and the founder's personal brand. Revenue sat at $3M. There was no marketing function, no digital acquisition channel, and no inbound sales team. The company had never run a paid campaign of any kind.
The property market was hot, but Cohen Handler's growth depended entirely on word of mouth. That model had a ceiling, and the business was approaching it.
The approach
Turn marketing into a revenue centre with its own P&L.
The brief was to build the marketing and digital function from zero, create acquisition channels that could scale independently of the founder's network, and turn marketing into a revenue centre with its own P&L rather than a cost line buried in overheads.
Three objectives sat underneath it: launch paid digital and above-the-line campaigns, build an inbound sales capability to convert the leads those campaigns produced, and expand the brand into new markets and revenue streams.
What changed, in order.
- Hired a four-person marketing and inbound team, coached on the Sandler Method.
- Built an integrated paid mix across social, search, content, PR, events, and remarketing.
- Ran a national TV campaign that generated $680k in three months at 10x ROAS.
- Expanded internationally into the US and Singapore.
- Launched AuctionWiz (break-even in 14 weeks) and the Buyers Agent Institute.
- Launched CH Prestige and CH Investment Club, and brought the marketing P&L in-house at up to $100k per month.
Tactical execution
The plays that built the category leader.
We started with the basics — a team and a method — then layered acquisition, expansion, and brand extensions on top, running the media buying directly rather than through an agency.
An inbound sales engine on the Sandler Method.
Hired a small team of four across marketing and inbound sales, and trained the inbound team on the Sandler Method so they could qualify and convert leads rather than just take calls. The marketing P&L sat under our ownership, with budgets up to $100k per month run directly rather than through an agency.
An integrated campaign mix, led by a national TVC.
Built an integrated campaign mix across paid social, search, content, PR, events, and remarketing. The first major bet was a national TV campaign — production, creative, and media buying run in-house — that ran nationally and generated immediate pipeline.
$680k
Pipeline from the TV campaign in 3 months, at 10x ROAS
Expansion into new markets and revenue lines.
Co-led international expansion into the US (Cohen Handler USA) and Singapore, and launched two new business lines: AuctionWiz, a marketplace for buyers agents that hit break-even within 14 weeks, and the Buyers Agent Institute, an edtech platform for aspiring buyers agents that still operates independently.
14 wks
AuctionWiz to break-even
Brand extensions for the highest-value segment.
Introduced referral programs and launched CH Prestige, a premium brand extension targeting high-net-worth clients, alongside CH Investment Club — opening new revenue streams and strengthening word-of-mouth among the segment with the highest lifetime value.
$2.1M
Word-of-mouth revenue, up from $243k per annum
“Shiju is highly intelligent and confident with his planning, strategy and execution across marketing. Shiju was instrumental for geometrically increasing our sales revenue across a variety of marketing channels. Shiju also has a high level of integrity and has a deep passion for learning.”
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