Michael Finger is a natural optimist who believes opportunities are created and challenges are best faced head on. Michael is currently mentoring ASX 200 executives, social media entrepreneurs, growing trades businesses, leaders of mid-sized companies, individual real estate agents, and successful sole traders.
Seeing and seizing new revenue streams
Structuring prospecting
Early succession planning
Success in business
Strategically choosing associates
Nurturing team members
Knowing when to let high-flyers go
Defining leadership styles
Developing a peasant account
Clarifying and culling expenses
Investing opportunistically
Removing success blockers
Reaching one's personal and
professional potential
When I first met with Mike in October 2020 one of the first things Mike said was "My job is to change the way you think." After just twelve months of working closely with Mike I was constantly asking myself, "What would Mike do?"
Mike's guidance, support and experience has opened my mind allowing me to grow personally and professionally. His ability to make you see situations from a different angle has allowed me to tackle tough situations in more of a mature manner. His genuine care to get the best out of you is what makes Mike different.
As a leading mentor to a range of businesses, Michael is one of the few coaches out there who has genuinely walked-the-walk. He created a massive sales career from nothing and grew one of Australia’s most successful and longevous real estate businesses in one of the nation’s most cut-throat markets, and he owns a huge property portfolio in his own right. Michael shares all of his wisdom and insights with his clients, and he believes in your potential even more than you do.
I’ve been working with Mike for about 3 years now and via his wealth of knowledge and business experience, he’s provided me with a clarity in making many business decisions that I wouldn’t have otherwise had. He has been the voice of reason on many occasions and helped me navigate various business decisions, conundrums and guided me through the highs and lows of real estate over the years.
His no fuss, straight forward approach on matters has been greatly appreciated and I am know I am better equipped and knowledgeable with his mentoring.
Michael is one of the top real estate agents in Australia and has been a leader in the industry for over three decades. In the high-churn world of property, Michael created some of the biggest names in the industry today and a team of over 165 staff alongside his business partner. For 49 years, he has been operating as a salesperson and later a business owner in Sydney’s exclusive eastern suburbs. After selling his real estate business in 2018, he sells properties very selectively under the Ray White Double Bay business name for close friends, former clients, or owners of trophy real estate. He now professionally follows his true passion mentoring entrepreneurs, business owners, sales people, vendors and buyers.
The son of a holocaust surviver who arrived with just £50, Michael Finger was the driven instigator of one of the biggest and most enduring real estate businesses in Australia. He was one half of a successful 32 year partnership in an industry where most partnerships don’t survive longer than a few years.
In his late teens, Michael got his first job in a one-man valuation firm while studying at UNSW. Regulatory changes caused the collapse of the majority of the firm’s major clients which left him wallpapering the office until he found a new job. He was then taken on in a property management role: licking stamps and personally collecting rents in Sydney’s inner west. He rose up the ranks to eventually become a director of the eight-office business in his early thirties.
Over a decade, Michael’s sales and leadership successes sky-rocketed, but his inherent Jewish ambition to create his own business forced the hand of his employers - who had become like family over 14 years - to lock him and his colleagues out of their office and abruptly sever their relationship. Jobless and flabbergasted, he formed an improbable partnership on a whim and a handshake with two former colleagues: a talented property management director, and a lively 17-year old salesman. They took on a prestigious Sydney marketplace against well-established competitors, including their former employers, with no backing and little chance of success.
Today, that 17 year old salesperson is 59 year old Craig Pontey. He and Michael Finger, now 65, built an empire underpinned by one of the longest surviving real estate partnerships in Australia, selling one billion dollars in real estate annually and surviving innumerable market cycles, credit crunches, stock market crashes and property downturns.
At age 63 and somewhat ‘retired’, Michael still writes between $1.8 and $2.2 million in real estate sale commissions as well as coaching and growing the powerhouse Ray White Double Bay office. After nearly 50 years as a realestate agent, Michael Finger is an enduring leader who is respected by all in the Australian real estate industry. As a successful veteran and one of the founders of the office, he readily gives of his time to mentor and coach other agents around the country.
Today, Michael Finger is a gentle, generous mentor to many (in real estate and beyond), a quiet philanthropist, and a grandfather. Far from the days when he ran 15 auctions a month, he now conducts 1-3 auctions a month and focuses his time on mentoring agents and young entrepreneurs.
