Escaping the 60-Hour Trap

Thirty years in estate agency teaches you some hard truths. For Matt Giggs, one stands above all, you must choose between being an exceptional estate agent or building a business that works without you.

The relentless 60+ hour weeks of estate agency demand total commitment, yet many practitioners find themselves trapped in a cycle where they ARE the business. When Matt started Giggs & Co in 2012, he deliberately avoided this trap by immediately hiring a team rather than trying to do everything himself. This fundamental decision reflects a perspective gained from years in the corporate world, understanding the structural foundations needed for sustainable growth.

Matt pulls back the curtain on why so many self-employed models fail to deliver on their promise. Too often, agents jump ship from traditional agencies because they're unhappy, only to recreate the same problems in a new context. "The distractions are your downfall," Matt explains, highlighting how easily estate agents get seduced by the latest industry trend rather than solving the core problems in their existing business.

The conversation takes a profound turn when discussing personal motivation. Matt challenges listeners to ignore social comparison and truly define what success looks like for them. Is it spending more time with family? Taking regular holidays? Building passive income? This clarity becomes the compass for business decisions, preventing the chase of goals that weren't even on your radar until you saw someone else achieve them.

Currently, Matt finds himself in a transitional phase, moving from inspiration-based training to establishing concrete systems and processes. He's candid about his own struggles, the "years in the mud" where even successful business owners can lose direction after achieving their initial goals. This vulnerability offers valuable perspective for agents at any stage of their journey.

Whether you're just starting out, considering a self-employed model, or looking to scale your established agency, Matt's insights provide a roadmap for intentional growth. His coaching success stories from bedroom businesses to thriving agencies, demonstrate the power of having a clear vision and making decisions aligned with your authentic goals.

Ready to gain clarity on your estate agency journey? Subscribe now and join the conversation about building a business that serves your life, not the other way around.

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This episode is sponsored by Iceberg Digital, the AI Operating System for Estate Agents. They replace outdated CRMs, disconnected marketing tools, and manual prospecting with one intelligent, AI-driven ecosystem, built to increase revenue per employee and future-proof your agency. https://iceberg-digital.co.uk/

Transcript

Matt Giggs' 30-Year Estate Agency Journey

Speaker 1 0:00

Estate NCX the UK's number one estate NC podcast discussing the future of estate agency entrepreneurship and business. I'm your host, mark Burgess, and I'm Lord Brady On this episode of Estate NCX.

Speaker 2 0:13

Mark and I sit down with none other than Matt Giggs where we unpack 30 years of estate agency, business ownership, mentoring business owners out there, what Matt's learned in the last few years where the direction of where he wants to go in the future and basically what he's learned in the last 30 years of being in this industry. Matt, welcome back to another episode. It's been a while. The last time you came on was with Dave Gibbons. I think you put in the most light on the key ownership of business and leadership. So, for anyone listening out there and who lives under a rock, we've got Matt Jitson. So, matt, tell us a bit of background on like. Actually, where like Matt is today? Actually, because you've got, you know, a variety of different hats at the moment.

Speaker 3 0:57

Well, I talk a lot to Mark and I poked it the other day about something you spoke about too long ago, but I've been an estate agent for 29 years. Actually it's my 30th year this year. I've got a group of estate agents. I let an agency as part of that, be it Anglisher or Leppicher, and there's different partners who basically run the day to day and do the listings, they work with the teams and so on and so forth. As they work in the teams and so on and so forth.

Speaker 3 1:24

It's a bit more of a higher grade, a self-employed and full business ownership. As I help them with the business ownership part, give them the training, support, the mentorship and they just get on with freedom. It's yeah, it works for you. That's the main thing. That's been in my life for quite some time. In the side I've been mentoring other estate agents for probably 20 years, but more so in the last 10 outside of the corporate world and uh, yeah, that's the bit that's my sweet spot if my is is helping agents. I, um, I still like doing the day-to-day here and there and being out on the front line here and there, but it's very, very difficult to to do everything, so you've got to kind of what's the sweet spot? And that's the sweet spot, and that's the sweet spot is helping agents to build their dream business, their career, and that's the bit I'm moving towards full, full time.

Speaker 2 2:11

I'd say, though 29 years, mate, 30 years in there I've seen some younger photos in you. You seem to be getting. You seem to be getting younger on improves.

Speaker 3 2:20

It's very nice for you. It's great, nice for years, great as they go Years and years and years. It's a hard industry and I think anyone that's worked in it knows that you're doing one and a half full-time jobs. You know you're not a full-time 40 hours a week. You're working 60 hours a week. You're at the beck and call of customers if you're doing it really well and it is relentless. It's a relentless industry.

Balancing Business Ownership with Agency Work

Speaker 4 2:47

I uh, it takes a certain type, I would say, yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I always find interesting when I talk to you is that you you're one of the few people I talk to that has got. It seems like you wear these two hats whereby, like somewhere deep inside, when I hear you talk to other agents about how the jobs, the conversations that happen in estate agency work, you're brilliant with that side of things, like how to talk to somebody about something specific to estate agency. But you also have this other thing whereby you're building a business and many of these state agents that I took to they're they're one or the other.

Speaker 4 3:32

You know, rob mentioned before you came on a podcast with dave givens. He's not in a state agency in any way, shape or form. He goes businesses. Yeah, um and uh. You know, before you we were talking to laura howie. Now she has turned into a business owner, but she was very much an estate agent and trying to figure out why she wasn't a business owner and I talked to you. It's like and I wonder if you feel it's got something to do with the fact that you rose quite, you know, pretty high in the corporate world that when you set up your own agency. It wasn't, I'm just gonna go and be on the stage, and it was like no, I'm going to build a business yeah, and it.

Speaker 3 4:09

It was exactly that 16 years in the corporate world taught me structure yeah training and it taught me how to build a team around you and play to strengths. And that's exactly what I did when I started. I hired two people straight away and within three months there was like five of us, and then within the first year there was seven of us. And it was pivotal to do that in that first year because otherwise I would have got too good at doing the thing too soon and then too dependent and too reliable and I see.

Speaker 3 4:41

I speak to a lot of self-employed agents and one of the hardest things for those guys is a year. Year three is they are the thing, they are the business, they are everything to that buy-in and the moment they step away, it all falls down and it's catastrophic, in your word, because they haven't actually then got the time to train and develop the people around them. So I think you've got to make a conscious decision which way you're going to go when you start. Um, and now my conscious decision is to is to is to talk more, share more, listen more as I do, as you know I do and, um, from my perspective, get into the place where I can do more of what I love to do you, you know, really love to do, which is help other estate agents to become business owners or just build a fantastic self-employed lifestyle estate agency business, because that is it at the end of the day. It's either one or the other. It's very hard to wear both of those hats.

Speaker 4 5:39

I think that's such a great point as well. I was talking to someone about it just before that point as well. I was just. I was talking to someone about it just before that. They was asking me why I think that the bar in estate agents is quite low, or why so many estate agents I think it's okay to do a poor job, and I was saying that they actually did. That's how it started. They said why do I think so many estate agents think it's okay to do a poor job? And I was saying it's because the bar is so loved.

Speaker 4 6:03

If you're limited with choices in life, one of your choices is you can go and do estate agency like with a pen and paper and nothing more than that, really, and you'll probably make a better living than being a delivery driver. Um, but that's not. That's not setting up a business. Uh, the opposite of that would be what you just described, whereby I said, the minute that you set up gigs and co here was like we're going to need a person for this, a person for this, a person for this.

Speaker 4 6:29

You're setting up a business yeah and here are the here we are x amount of years later of our you own businesses, and there will be plenty of people out there who started their estate agency. In what year did you start gigs and co 2012, 2012 there'll'll be people listening to this that started 2012 or there and thereabouts that are working in an estate agency. So you know, do you think that? I don't know, does that come down to vision? Can you switch it at some point? When you bump into someone that's stuck in that rut, what is the advice that you're sort of giving them?

Speaker 3 6:59

What do they want and what do they need and why? That's the kind of coachy questions. But there's a lot of assumptions made around what you should do. I think with social media it's very easy to get swept along with other people's success, their idea of success, and when you actually break it down to what they're doing behind the scenes, it's very different. What I find incredible is when I meet, on paper or on social media, a very successful person and then you look behind it, you're on, you know, you lift the bonnet up and actually you find a lot of problems, and I think that's about knowing where that, where do you want to get to.

Corporate Background and Team Building

Speaker 3 7:39

So, for example, is I'm in a new phase, phase whereby we built the businesses on people development, personal development, training, inspiration. There's all this stuff that kind of goes above the surface. So there's stuff that I like right, because I love the conversations that we have with clients, I love the fee debates, I love the how to pitch your word, not mine but we've got to move away from it being just about that and actually building a business and we're talking about repeatable systems, processes, pitches, all of those things, because we've got to be able to plug people into things that they can learn from day one and then go again and know that the things that we're putting in place are future-proof and scalable. And scale always sounds like you're trying to grow something massive. Not really I don't want a big corporate organization, I just couldn't think of anything worse. But what I do know is that if we're going to bring committed people in and I'll come back to that in a second you need to put stuff that's tangibly renowned for working in front of them for them to apply themselves with, because over the business, the years that I've managed my own company, the toughest points have been around people management and they're the ones that give you the sleepless nights. You know those difficult conversations. You probably had this as well. I knew after rob when you worked in with people a lot over the years. But actually, if, if there's a clear process and there's clear training, they either do those things or they don't, and it really takes away the pressure to put on yourself to have the more difficult conversations, which can become very subjective.

Speaker 3 9:28

So building a business is actually the better way to go, even if you're a people person, because you can add your people skills and inspiration to the business and the business has to have systems, processes across the customer journey. I mean, we're going to be doing a lot with yourself and a lot with other people where the next 18 months are about building something that's sustainable. So it's, you know, it'll be two years, three years down the line. It will just be gradually improving and improving the people that are coming in.

Speaker 3 10:00

As opposed to you know, ollie does it very differently today and damien does it very differently to derek. Ollie does it very differently to Damien, damien does it very differently to Derek, derek does it very differently to myself, and whilst you want that individuality, there are things that bloody work and if you do them, that's surely going to help the people around you to be better agents than you, ie, derek myself. You know Damien and Ollie, so we've got to be able to build something that's sustainable, because you can see what the the world's like at the minute and you want to be in a position where you can plug people into something, show them how it works and then they add their personality what made you get into most people, obviously in your position, where you've you know you come from that corporate background.

Speaker 2 10:45

You've risen, you've managed multiple branches. Why did, when you set up given club, why did you go down the route of because you're quite early to the this style of model of like I'm going to partner with people and it's going to be under the group effectively, rather than going I like that person, there can be a branch manager in this. Yeah, I know, obviously, I know there's a greater part to it. Yeah, what made you think that initially when then getting stuck into that?

Speaker 3 11:11

love. I think I probably just had enough of running a load of offices with branch managers and the problems that it caused, because and that's no disrespect that was partly to do with where we were all at the time, but I kind of wanted to feel like I don't want to be in the way. I love estate agency, I love people, um, but I just can't be around everywhere and be all things to everyone. So I was very conscious that if I'm going to be with real high caliber people for our industry, then they're going to be out of the way as well, um, but they're going to need me for these things. So it was very clear that I could add value to those guys and then they have value back. So, talking about the partners, I only visited our newest office or area, if you like, which ollie's. In all, he's worked with me for 10 years prior to taking that over and he's now a business owner with us. I'd only been there once in 18 months.

Speaker 3 12:09

You know I don't really want to get involved, because once I start getting involved, I find it hard to yeah, to get out of it again, and that's been one of my biggest challenges in the last year because I made a conscious decision to really go back out on the front line and spend periods of doing. My aim was to do over 100 valuations and I'd done probably 140 or 150 last year. Do we call them valuations these days? I can't help being old school, but it was, and that's because I needed to see again and go through it and feel the losses and feel the conversations. When you know, when someone's looking at you and you know that you're a lot higher than everybody else and they give you that look and they don't really want to say anything, but they are saying something with the body language and having those kind of things, it just re-engagement back into the process and I think that's where I stepped away and went okay, the training needs.

Speaker 3 13:02

We need to scrap the whole what we've been doing. You start again. Um, I need to train properly. I need to get clear training in place. We need to have processes and systems which are synergistically working across all of the brands and then the brands can add their own personality and that's the leader. So, rather than having a branch manager in there which ultimately isn't going to make any decision day to day, they just can.

Speaker 3 13:29

And father, and I hate to say that. But in a corporate world you haven't got autonomy. Um, I want the guys to autonomic because I feel that people like freedom, they like, they like to feel trusted and then they like support. So if we can get all of those parts right, great. What we've got to do, you know, moving forward is round it all off. We've got good stuff. We've got good processes not great. We've got, um, good systems, but they could be better. You know, they're not the sort of things where I could bring robin tomorrow and go right, you go to any one of my brands and it will be the same from below, the personality. It's not, it needs to be, because then we've got a very clear proposition to attract the best people into, and I think that's, you know, that's ultimately where we've got to move away from and towards, and I think doing that it's about finding caliber. You know the low, low barrier for entry. A lot that's down to pay and it's down to, uh, the way people are hired. Um, you know, I think if you've got options which have no glass ceiling, that's how I see my world.

Speaker 3 14:41

So, if you want to be a partner, be a partner. If you want to be a partner. Be a partner. If you want to be a business owner, be a business owner. If you want to be an estate agent, be an estate agent, but with removing manager kind of titles, if you like, or senior manager kind of things.

Speaker 3 14:54

Because actually most of the people I've worked with over the last 30 years in estate agency who were really great estate agents, the vast majority weren't very good at building a team around them. So why put them in something that they're just not very good at and stop them from earning more money in what they're really good at? Because actually, if you I was in an interview earlier, another podcast, obviously not as good as this one, but the guy who was following me he does over half a million in personal revenue as an estate agent. So that's what I'm saying. There's no glass ceiling there. So for me it's about forgetting. There needs to be structure and there needs to be systems and there needs to be processes, but it's got to work within your model, your business, and I think the branch manager thing just doesn't really work for us business and um, I think the branch manager thing just doesn't really work for us.

Speaker 4 15:47

Do you think? When you think about the way you saw your company running when you started it in 2012, having, uh, what level, did you get up to your country where what was your title director?

Speaker 4 16:00

so, yeah having been a director of, you know, a massive corporate, um, um, do you think that you at that point I mean, maybe I'm wrong with this, I'm not saying you were, and just ask it do you think that you were looking at the whole thing, like, effectively, how a state agency works, but do you think that you'd already started looking at the general view of how business works?

Speaker 4 16:27

like, I forget, forget, just a state agency yeah these are the rules of business yeah do you think you'd already thought about that, or do you think it's that's something you looked at later, or do you?

Speaker 3 16:36

it's, um, when I was in the corporate world, you have the pnls because you play, you're paid on profit, so you're very conscious of profit, because my bonus is probably 30 or 40 percent of my annual earnings were profit related. So you know, yeah, you had to know how to run a business to a degree. Obviously, central overheads, yeah, we're always uh, a little bit. You can really ask too many questions about where they come from and those figures.

The Self-Employed Model Trap

Speaker 3 16:58

But it gave me an understanding, um, and I think, kind of going into my own business or go starting, starting gigs, I always knew that I had to start it off, I had to be the example, had to be the person on the front. I'd never touched social media until april 2012, which was about four weeks before we started gigs. And go home, um, because I had to have the person facebook account to open their company one, and that was a minefield because I really hated the idea of social media You'd laugh now because I reckon everywhere but I realised that that's part of lead generation, that's part of brand awareness, that's part of culture, it's part of attraction, and so I had an idea you never really know how to run a business until you start getting involved with it and you start that minefield, if you like.

Speaker 1 17:57

And.

Speaker 3 17:57

I think there's very fundamentally two different roles. You're either a great estate agent or you're a great business owner. You mentioned Dave Givens. He's a really good business owner, really good. You can see it. I mean he'd be an awesome estate agent. It's not what you're meant to do and you've got to commit to one of the two. I think. And I think if you commit to either one, you can learn it. You can, you can get under the bonnet of it. You can understand it, because there's so much to learn in each of those areas. But, like I said, you can get to over half a million quid earning as an estate agent if you're really successful, if you're in the right market with the right clients, and you can do the same as a business owner.

Speaker 4 18:35

Do you think there's a danger that the self-employed model blurs that for people, in the sense that a lot of agents ask me about? I'm thinking about setting up this self-employed model? They don't even ask me actually, it just comes up in conversation. I'm thinking about setting up this self-employed. They don't even ask me actually, it just comes up in conversation. I'm thinking about setting up this self-employed as I dig and dig and dig and dig and dig with them. Quite often the response that I end up getting to is I just fucking hate your state agency, but it took a while to get to there, but it took a while to get to there.

Speaker 4 19:11

It turns out that they've decided in essence, that they don't like being an estate agent. It's not giving them what they want out of life. They haven't been as successful at it as they thought they were going to be. And now what they've decided is that they think that they could be more successful when a completely different type of business, like you just alluded to, which is about, uh, running a network, if essentially, and taking money out for people for being part of your network, advising them on how to do estate agency, even though they hate it and didn't get what they wanted out of it. Like do you think that self-employed is in danger of? Because it's still just self-employed estate agency? People are not taking into account. This is not a state agency. This is. You're going to start a. You're going to start a business selling licenses. It's a totally different business.

Speaker 3 19:59

You recruit yeah it's a completely different business, but in in essence, I think this is a really great question, because because you've kind of done it a bit right you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think estate agents, if you don't really enjoy it and you're not really passionate about it, it's very hard to recruit people into it, because what are you saying to them, what are you able to?

Speaker 4 21:02

demonstrate. I'm guessing you can do it at the beginning, because of, like you know, I get the feeling that a lot of these people are looking for something. They're in a like, not desperate situation, yeah, and so you know, I do it to start with. But, like like any business, right you've got, you've got to figure out your customer journey, your processes, like everything that you just spoke about. The same for a like, same for selling licenses. Like, how do you, why would this person not just after a bit go like, well, matt's offering me a bit of a better commission. I'd rather have sent more there.

Speaker 3 21:34

I think there's a lot of blow-dries and I think some of them are. You know, if you're self-employed, you're not really a business owner. Let's be honest, because a business is something that's a profitable enterprise that runs without you in it, in a nice boss way. You can go away and there it goes. You can go away and there it goes. It's off and running, you know. But on the other hand, it technically is because you've set a limited company up and you're on company's house and off you go there. But it's the definition of that and actually there's a lot of estate agents that are doing very similar things to what they were doing when they were working with somebody else. So it's about trying to understand what it is you want to achieve the thing.

Speaker 3 22:12

For estate agents out there that are going into a slightly more of a recruiter place and I get the temptation to that because you know you're thinking well, I can earn as much, if not more, by getting other people to come in and do it. There's no easy fix. There's no easy fix. I mean, you know I could tell you all of the horror stories of dancing around different distractions and they all sounded brilliant but, honestly, fantastic, the vision great, but in the nicest possible way. The distractions are your downfall.

Speaker 3 22:51

The question you've got to ask is why do you actually dislike what you're doing anyway? Because there's fundamentally probably more to it in that area. So let's draw you back out of that for a second. And if you ask them the question, if you re-engaged into estate agency, done the way you would like it to be done for argument's sake, would you enjoy it more? Well, yeah, I would enjoy it more. Okay, for argument's sake, would you enjoy it more? Well, yeah, I would enjoy it more. Okay, or would you enjoy trying to get 20 or 30 estate agents to join your organization, which is going to be like pulling teeth and then follow a process and keep your brand aligned and then managing them, holding them accountable and then maybe firing a few of them, because for every 30, you're probably going to lose 10 at least another 10 to replace then you've got to find.

Speaker 3 23:34

So you've got to do another 100 interviews to find another 10. So that's all the stuff you've got to do. Haven't you kind of just got to hire vendors in the state agency? Really, you've got to attract vendors, you've got to coach them, you've got to hold them accountable, keep the houses smelling nice and looking good and you know, and everything else, and really it's a people, it's the same. You're working with people. So a lot of people have just a bit do you mind if I swear, just a bit fucked off, right, and they've got to a place where they were. Probably their perception of where they were has really taken them to a place where they're making a big decision on not being in a great place. Now, I think the biggest decisions should be made when you're in the best place because you know it's right.

Speaker 3 24:24

Yeah, so when I left countrywide, I was leaving on a high I knew I'd need, but I mean mentally I left the year before I left, if you but I couldn't do any more. I didn't see where I was going as a place that I wanted to be in front of dashboards, office reports, spreadsheets, giving people a hard time. I wanted to go and visit the offices and walk in and actually wanted to see me. You know, not be petrified of me turning up. So I knew that. But I felt at the time the reason I'm telling this story is I I went and interviewed outside of a state agency because I thought that was a state agency and then someone said to me why don't you just do it yourself?

Speaker 3 25:02

and I thought, no, no, I don't, I just do it myself.

Speaker 3 25:05

So I get the temptation for self-employed to go.

Speaker 3 25:09

I've got a bit more control over this and then I think it's where some people get to they they get overwhelmed in the business ownership part and it becomes sticky and messy and mother year and actually you know, we've talked about this there's a that really the hardest journey of entrepreneurship is scaling your business from maybe 30 people to 100, and we've been stuck in that place now for seven years, six years, and the only way I know we're going to get through it is tough work for the next two or three years.

Speaker 3 25:41

And the reason why I want to get out the other side of it is because my vision is to inspire and help estate agencies estate agents, excuse me to build their careers and dream businesses. So the only way to do that is to give them something that I know works from doing it myself. So I think you have to have a clear vision and you have to be committed to the things that you're going to need to do. So those estate agents are going through the thick of it a very tempted, a flip-flop between, yeah, different temptations forward and reverse and back and and and how many in two years or three years will be better than they are today?

Speaker 3 26:16

you know, or are. Are you closer, as you quote, I quote, you are you closer than you believe you are, to where you actually want to get to? So for me it was, you know, are what if you changed a few things? And what if you added a few things in? Where would you be and how would you feel doing that? And actually you think, oh, do you know what actually that would work for?

Speaker 4 26:38

me. I've done 13 years. What to be here? What do I want to do?

Speaker 3 26:40

let's try it see in fact, if I open my brain up with the help of ai and stuff like that, there's so much gold in there and actually that's the bit that excites me about future is it is the amount of quality that we can bring to someone and help them to have a business, a partnership, an employed role, you know, and give them the opportunity to say because what career do you really want? You know, because it's up to them. Really, it's not gonna be up to me. It's funny, isn't it? Because, like I say, like a lot of those businesses that are, you know, they're established's up to them?

Creating Systems vs Being the Business

Speaker 4 27:11

really, it's not going to be up to me. It's funny, isn't it? Because, like I say, like a lot of those businesses that are, you know they're established businesses and I'm flipping over to the board page and what do? Because they're unhappy with the same thing. Potentially, I mean there are some that aren't, but that's not the reason at all. But for those ones, if you say, like you said, what? What you're unhappy about staff gun and hers, okay, what else? Wish you made a bit more profit? All right, anything else, are they the main things? Okay, so if we solve two problems, two problems, then then what? Oh, then it will be all right, and instead of that, you're going to scrap the whole thing and you're going to start a new one where you're going to have the same problems but plus all the problems you had with they have the energy to start a whole youth.

Speaker 4 27:57

It's a crazy I mean it's just a crazy concept, but um, but yeah, it's just an interesting one from your.

Speaker 2 28:02

You know the way that you see it I think, though, like when you look at it, um, that you've alluded more to what you're. You know you always, you always come back to your why. I know you talk about it a lot, but why you're doing what you're doing, whereas a big bulk of them out there is almost like we'll pimp out. Right now with some software for you, you can come and join us, and I haven't got to pay that much money until you do actually save for me.

Speaker 2 28:24

Yeah but there's actually nothing really that's more deep and meaningful with that and also like that process, I think the difference with your how you do it is I still have an active business. It's my own entity, yeah, and I have groups of other ones, so I've got that experience.

Speaker 3 28:41

so and but the the candid approach you've even had on here, matt about I'm not perfect, I'm still going, I'm really learning this, and I quote Mark a lot, because the person I go to in the last two or three years when I've got some of these thoughts going on, is I'll go to Mark and he kind of listens. Then he'll ask me a couple of questions and then we'll go home again and think, yeah, I'm actually on the right course here.

Speaker 1 29:04

I just need to it. One needs a sounding board.

Speaker 2 29:08

I think you just do this, mark throw you some carapels sometimes but thank you, I think that's that's it in essence.

Speaker 3 29:15

It's knowing your why can sound very spiritual. It doesn't need to be. Ultimately, I want to have a lovely lifestyle and I want to enjoy what I do, and if I enjoy what I do, I'll have a lovely lifestyle. And if I enjoy what I do, I'll have a lovely lawyer's store. And I love helping inspiring estate agents. I had a call with someone this morning and this guy he's got. He had 1250 managed properties. This was about September, october last year and he's doing acquisitions only six years in five years in at the time. And he had a catch up this morning and he said hey, get on, these ones go through. We're going to be at four and a half thousand now.

Speaker 3 29:55

The difference is he's new to it, secure as in, he's committed, he knows why he's doing it and he's now hiring people and just the bit that I helped him it's and putifying where to find them and and, and actually, if you had those people around him, is he able to do the bit that he's really good at, because he's great at networking and and acquiring and new lettings portfolios, the deals he's pulling off, it's like right, I need you to come help me. You know, because he's amazing, though, and um, the thing is, people, I think if you don't kind of know where you want to get to and what that looks like, feels like why you want to get there, when things come across your, your desk or your phone, it's, they all look great and then you go, oh, should we do it now? And I think, with a state agency, prop tech and all of these lovely things that are out there, there's so much that it can. Often it can cause a lot of problems because you can sit, you can, you can spend all your time in the mud and not really getting through any of it because you want to.

Speaker 3 31:02

You you're just so easily distracted because you don't know where you're going, so you don't know, if you make a decision, is that actually part of this journey for the next 12 months? It's not. Well, then you go. Well, I shouldn't do it. I've had to do that in the last two months. There was a really tempting situation. And you think, well, that's you know great. And I think back to the last time I thought like that and it didn't really work out. And you think, well, actually that's not really where I'm heading now, so I need to just say, no, that's actually quite a nice feeling.

Speaker 4 31:35

Yeah, simplification is the ultimate sophistication. What?

Speaker 4 31:40

Because the strategy is quite simple, yeah, but like you say, like you know, there's so many angles. There's a guy that's doing acquisition and he's going to get out to four and a half thousand properties. Now there will be at least one person listening to this podcast, going I better do that. Well, hold on, it wasn't even on your fucking radar. Too many, and don't my biases, don't do it, no. But the point is, the point is, is this sounds great?

Speaker 4 32:02

You, everybody there's a lot of people that would, I don't know, let's say, their family as their front and center, why? I mean, that makes perfect sense, right, because you're going to love your family, you do everything for them. But that's not. You love your family anyway. That's not a gemontif. The objective isn't that, like, my objective was to have a family, otherwise your why is dumb? Objective isn't that, like my objective was to have a family, otherwise your why is dumb? If your why is to spend more time with your family doing this, then that will lead to the decisions that you make around the outside of it, like, so the why, like you say, it doesn't have to be some flowery thing, like if we take that away. Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. Yeah, we have to go like what's your objective in three years? Uh, I don't know, just to make a bit more money. Why money for what? Well, I just I don't feel like I, you know, I hope you're like I'm experiencing much in life.

Speaker 4 32:56

Okay, let's go into that a bit more. What do you mean? You're not experiencing much in life? I work all the hours. I never get to see the kids. We don't go on holidays. Right, she would like more holidays. He would like to see the kids some more. He would like more time off. Yeah, that'd be a start. Okay, let's start writing this stuff down. What's getting in the way of that? Will I do all the valuations? Okay, so you need a process. Teach people how to do valuations. Do so.

Speaker 3 33:21

You need to persist, teach people how to do that. Do you know it's? It's? It's when I coach people, I often call mentor people because I'm more of a mentor than a coach and, in admission, my wife's a day coach. Now she's got the questions down to a to a T.

Speaker 3 33:38

I was working with a couple of guys. They they were running a bedroom business, bedroom estate agency. One was in his bedroom at home and the other one was in a bedroom a few miles down the road. Um, based in the north, turning over 100 centi grand, doing, doing, well, doing good business, but it wasn't fulfilling and they didn't know that by done a lot of vision stuff, vision boarding, getting getting to them to extract what is it, what is the future that? How can you bring the future into the present, getting a real idea?

Speaker 3 34:06

And as I was doing, I was thinking I need to be like do you know what I mean? Because when you train people, you get back to yourself. But as we was doing, I mean just to share. I mean their journeys were phenomenal because they knew why they were doing it and what life they wanted to create for themselves. They've now got a team of five in their own office which looks exactly how they described it nearly 18 months two years ago. That was 18 months ago and they bought a commercial premises out of their net profit. They turned over £400,000 last year in a year when most estate agents turnover had gone backwards and their fees have rocketed up everything.

Finding Your Why in Estate Agency

Speaker 3 34:46

Now their challenge is going from being great estate agents to running a business yeah and I've said to him at the start of the year you've done really well, you know you. Technically you're 200 grand a year. Estate agents now these lads work for purple bricks once upon the time. So they then. They didn't come from a load of money, yeah, gimton, they come from a mindset of offering a, a fixed, cheap fee. But good, really good guys, and, um, they've created this, this, this, this place that they're at now.

Speaker 3 36:00

The biggest challenge for them is now looking at their next buy. What does that look like? You know, one of them's just about, he's probably having his little one shortly and there's loads of other meat on that bone. But that's the emotion that, yeah, we sometimes lock that bit away because of the logic, don't we? Which is let's compare myself to Mark or to Rob or to Stephen Bartlett or whoever.

Speaker 3 36:23

And actually you start getting into this place where you think I need to be as good as them. I need to be doing what they're doing. It's just a load of old shit. And actually the bit that I find the best is when I'm really truly thinking about what's important to me traveling. I want to go to Dubai and do a lot of podcasts there. I want to go to Australia and do a lot of podcasts there. I want to go to Australia and do a lot of podcasts there. I want to travel the world doing podcasts in this industry. Why? Because I really love the industry. I love meeting people, I love talking to people, I love listening to people and then I love sharing and debating the topics that are going to help people out.

Speaker 3 37:03

At the end of it, and you know, when you kind of start to get there, your shoulders pin back, your head lifts up again and off you go. But it's so easy If you're listening to this and you're sat in a wherever you're sat, you know, go and give yourself a day off somewhere and actually go for a walk or do something and just think about what you want for once, because I guarantee you most of us do things to please other people. We want to compare ourselves to other people. Everyone is different. So, if you can go away from this particular podcast and think of anything, think about what you actually want and why, and be honest with yourself. Think about what you actually want and why and be honest with yourself and it's don't compare it to anybody else's, because social media's got this beautiful habit of showing you stuff that you want, that you think it thinks you need, and your algorithms are set to drive you into a place of fear or jealousy or whatever it might look like. But actually most of us have got enough in our lives to control the outcome that we really want to get to.

Speaker 3 38:11

Yeah, and that's the bit that you got on knock, because everyone I coach and mentor was freaking different. So if I just sat down and done the same boring shit with everyone, I'd be bored because that's my brain. I'd switch off. You know, and I've been coaching people for 5-6 years and now they come and we just have chats. What you do with me, don't you charge me for it. You get much. You do actually, don't you indirectly? He's ours indirectly.

Speaker 3 38:38

But but the point is that you've got to think about. You can put a lot of time we said it at the start of the show 60 hours a week at least running a business. Stick another 40 on top right and then you're somewhere close and then just permanently in your mind Because when you wake up, what do you think about? When you go to bed, what do you think about? And you might say I just don't want that. Yeah, okay, that's fine. What a great like. Even that alone will release those shoulders from tensing up. And that's because it's yours, you're owning it. No other fucker, no one trying to bloody sell you something. It's your personal. Why? And actually a lot of people always say yes, my family, your family, love you regardless.

Speaker 1 39:25

Yeah, why?

Speaker 4 39:25

and actually a lot of people always say, yes, my family, your family, love you regardless yeah, and actually, like you know something that when you, when you, get into that process, you might find that the things that you're doing to make your family happy are inadvertently making everybody unhappy. Do you know what I mean right now? Because you might find that like, uh well, I, I know that you know they, my wife, you wife wants this type of house, or my husband might still want these types of holidays, or whatever it might be, and so everything is at the expense of getting to that thing, even the expense of the things that were actually going to make everybody happy.

Speaker 2 39:59

But you come to that real life and they're not there anymore. I've got a client that we've had for quite a few years and I only had the same conversation with him the other month and there's a team of three of them. They're a boutique agency. I remember another client going on their website and said do you want to follow up? And they go. I don't sell in many houses. I know.

Avoiding Distractions and Staying Focused

Speaker 2 40:18

He charges really good fees and he picks up his kids from school. They go on really nice holidays. He loves going to gigs, so he'd go away. He said we're going to go on holiday for like two weeks skiing wherever it might be or traveling. Yeah, I know the other two are backing it and we've got this reciprocation. He said like we don't need it, he doesn't need anything more, no-transcript like the ops element to it, and they just harmoniously do. And I thought you've hit you hit perfect sweet spot here as a, as a business owner, because he said yeah, I know like people think about scaling it and removing me out of selling it and stuff like that, but right now the business is running us into properties that we're building out. We've got a different way.

Speaker 3 41:13

We've got a different vision. I love that. It's a great example and you know, there'll be someone listening to this again who, just that, would have just pricked their ears up and they would think. But what I would encourage you to do is is think is that what you want? You know, because comparison is a thief of joy. So if you, if you're not careful, we can live outside of our authenticity and who we are.

Speaker 3 41:36

I had a few years now where it's felt like I've just been going through the mud. You know, trudging the way through, please, trying to please those guys there's, trying to help that one out there. That sounds like a great idea. I'll invest in that and yet, all the time on realizing deep down, this isn't that's not what I want, and I think you know. Going back to the guys that are doing this brokerage kind of thing, now, before you do it, do you owe it to yourself to just pause and actually have a real good thing about doing two pathways line down the page. Pathway one is the one that you're on and what would it take for you to get to the end of that pathway? And in pathway two, what would it take you to get to where you are right now. In other words, you know all of the years that you've already done. You've got to go and put all of those years back into the other bit. Yeah, and it might be the same brand. Okay, that's great, but it's a different proposition.

Speaker 4 42:35

I can't underestimate what it takes. It's a different possession business. You know, starting wide is hard enough.

Speaker 3 42:41

And I've got so much respect for what the likes of and just a couple of shout outs from the self-employed model Adam Day's done incredibly well. I mean, what he's built with the XP and the quality and calibre of a lot of those guys has been amazing and he's a nice guy. He's actually a top load, Top load and Steph at the Edge at CEK. But you can see that. You can see they're on this mission.

Speaker 1 43:05

Yeah, it's highly clear.

Speaker 3 43:06

Now imagine then suddenly going halfway in oh I know, man, it's employed. Then what happened to Purple Bricks, remember? They tried to change their noddle. I mean, they were probably close to getting back to where they needed to go by just making changes around their existing model. But what we do is we see what's going on in the industry and we react to it. But the trouble is, what's going on in the industry today won't be what's going on in the industry in six months, a year, two years, and you end up trying to. You're always trying to play catch up and if you're trying to play catch up, you're never going to get ahead.

Speaker 4 43:46

Well, we up. Yeah, and if you're trying to pay catch up, you're never going to get ahead. But we had, uh, you know, a couple of weeks ago we had the avocado guys on here cool, you guys should have mentioned that, yeah like they're so passionate about their way, just like I'm sage shelladef, just you mentioned adam day.

Speaker 4 43:58

Like there's no right or wrong. There is no. No, I answer it. There's multiple white answers. But whatever it is is going to be a lot of hard work and time and effort and passion. So, like you know, just going I'll just start a brokerage on the side is like very disrespectful to the work that those people do.

Speaker 2 44:15

Do you know, drew and Natchi, what you know you're talking about, which brokerage should not be? On the side of that? I spoke to one of them when we had our that day the other week and I'd like a day with us of people and I sat down with them and I remember one of them he said, um, but you were there at the same time. He said I went to one of their sort of network days was just the partners there? He actually went there as a as a, as a supplier, doing something else for them. And he said, and he was running the business himself, and then he actually was like, do you know what, like I, actually he now joined them.

Speaker 2 44:44

He was running the business himself and then he actually was like, do you know what, like I, actually he now joined them. He says, because the feeling you couldn't, I couldn't express the feeling, and that can only ever been done if it's a public business. They've got passion, they've got a proper direction, they've got a vision, they've got a feeling about why they're doing what they're doing. Can.

Speaker 4 45:00

I just ask a quick question question. You mentioned these a couple of years in the mud.

Speaker 3 45:03

I've been there myself yeah and like maybe still in it in some micro space. Do you think it happens?

Speaker 4 45:09

when you do, you think there's there's part of it that happens when you hit all those original goals and go beyond them, that you just like chill of it and you stop doing the goal setting and you stop doing the direction.

Speaker 3 45:25

Yeah, like life you chill of it and you stop doing the goal setting and you stop doing the direction. Yeah, life, um, you know, gets in the way, if you like, um, so you know that's not super, cut that bit out. So the life isn't is but a nice was around three children, um, and you've, you've got a lot of commitments and then when you're adding partnerships in, there's a lot that goes into each partnership and so on and so forth. So you can be quite consuming, so you can end up yeah, you can definitely end up in that place where you should rush it's wonderful if it's like.

Speaker 4 45:54

You know, like you mentioned, those guys like working out of their bedrooms this girl work. They've got the determination, got the why, they've got the vision. They're going to hit the finders. They're going to move into new offices, they're going to be there and at some point they're going to hit the finals. They're going to move into new offices, they're going to build and at some point they're going to. If their goal I don't know what it was, but if their goal was to hit, say, 600 grand, tell no, right, then they hit that and then they're going to hit 800, and then they're going to hit 900, and then there's a.

Speaker 3 46:13

For me, that's where the danger spot happens oh yeah, completely, and we had this conversation in the call last week because they were looking at an increased volume to achieve the increase of revenue. Now they've hired people and we'd actually break that down and actually let's do it on the same number of sales that you made last year and they were kind of like you know, or when they started the journey their fees were a lot lower than they are now. So actually, when they think you would love this, when we looked at some data and some statistics of area which are shared by a lot sign goes their statistics are off the scale, like so they get three percent more on average for their vendors in these two postcodes, three percent more, and then the average estate agent in those postcodes is reducing prices by six percent and then a further negotiation off of that. So we're now in excess of 10 difference. I said to him how do you feel about your fees now? And they laughed because they were worrying about half a percent, where actually it was quarter of a percent, looked a quarter percent. And we looked at one or two other little um little changes here and there, like how do we get more of that sort of property to market, and so on and so forth and then so they could achieve the extra, the growth, but actually working in the same volleys. But you're right.

Speaker 3 47:43

And there is when you're in sales you're often chasing. You know you often find yourself chasing. I've been in sales for 30 years, so you're in sales, you're often chasing. You know you often find yourself chasing, and been in sales for 30 years, so you're often, and when you get what you think you wanted, you never really think that's what I wanted, because you think there was something else to chase so you can. When does that really stop? When so the bit? What's the danger point? The danger point depends on who you are. It could be 100 000, could be 100,000, could be a million quid, could be 10 million, could be 100 million. But if you go and speak to somebody who's 100 million, they ain't happy with 100 million. They're thinking they've just got bigger problems. They have got way bigger problems. So that's why it has to come back down to you as an individual.

Life After Achieving Your Goals

Speaker 4 48:21

Yeah, I mean just to quantify. I don't know as an individual. Yeah, I mean just to quantify. I'm not big a financial problem, but you know they've still got the same vat bill problems. They're just a bigger number. Still the same people problems. Right, they're just bigger numbers. I I just like from my experience, like I just I found the bike when I'd overachieved all of the basic goals, the things that kicked in from my survival instinct. I moved into what have you ever read? A book called the Hard Thing About Hard Things. It's a good book and he refers to it. As I moved into a peacetime CEO, I created a wonderful culture and encouraged people and I give the team unlimited holidays and make sure that everybody's got a nice place to work. I give you autonomy to do this and I'll give you autonomy to do that. No, but I moved away from being a wartime ceo, which was like and at the bottom of all of that.

Speaker 3 49:15

This is our fucking objective and if we don't achieve our objective, nobody gets to fucking work here I say what's interesting now, if you're listening and I'm listening to what Mark's saying, I know which CEO I would rather be. So I know that I and there's a reason for that and my reason is just don't be stressed out yeah, I've enjoyed enough. I've got on 50, right, I know people that have pegged it in the last few years and you think, do you know what? I only want to be in that situation. I want to buy some reward. I want to do this. We'll do that on the travel.

Speaker 3 49:52

So I think it's got to really resonate your journey with and your why and like you've just described that. That's it. It's. It's what problems there are. Problems when you're earning 30 grand a year, because where you are in 30 grand a year is your mindset can only, is only used to dealing with a certain amount of problems. And and then 300 grand a year, you just got bigger challenges and the problems. But your mindset's equipped at that level because you've gone for a certain amount of resilience training to get there and problem solving and so on and so forth. But yeah, it's an interesting one, I think.

Speaker 2 50:22

I mean the podcast we only released last Friday. Then we actually actually it was like I don't know what it was like it's about we talked about Finding the Second Mountain on that one, which is a great book I love reading. But he, you know, he, from being a negotiator rises to ranks, management buyer 15 branches at the time, now 19 branches since he's left. But one did it all.

Speaker 2 50:47

That was what he thought and he said in that podcast he talks about the next day afterwards, after achieving everything he'd written for his son went and sat in an office thinking right, first office and we were going busy. He sat in a room of the office and thought, female, right, this ain't it. And he says at the end of his in mind what I used to do was like to change it myself. So then he's like right from that day and meant like I'd have to head off selling the shares I've just done the four or five year climb of that mountain to achieve. And going back to the starting point, because he realised that the pursuit of obviously how he felt was not what he thought it'd be isn't that interesting okay, that's brilliant.

Speaker 4 51:26

So just to focus on I got your set. You're. You're saying that one of the big learnings for you and for your clients that you help and mentor is to make sure that they know what direction they're supposed to be sailing the boat in and then choose the things that are going to help you to get there.

Speaker 3 51:45

Choose the people.

Speaker 4 51:46

And everything else is a distraction.

Speaker 3 51:48

Everything else is a distraction, because you can't get fully committed if you're distracted. And the difference between a great client or a shit client is their commitment or are they just interested in selling? If you're just interested in selling, don't go on the market because you're just going to add a time stamp on your listing. If you're just interested in being an estate agent, don't, because you're going to have to work 60 70 hours a week and you'll be paid a lot, so you might as well work in tesco's. If you're committed, however, you can work and be very, very successful and earn a very, very good living. Enjoy what you do. So it's it's. It's about knowing where you're going and then making the choices that are going to be able to get you there, and also finding people that are kind of got there.

Speaker 3 52:30

There's a lot of great advice out there. There's a lot of great people. Equally, as that's the opposite, there's people that maybe aren't qualified to to to take you on that journey, and I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about yourself and other people. Where that you've, you would have been inspired by someone. Message them, go and ask them to to spend. Go and say I'll come to your office, I'll take you for a coffee, or because most people actually like to help people. I've found and I've always chosen to do it that way and I think it tends to come back to you awesome. Thanks for listening to this estate agency x podcast can you make sure that?

Speaker 1 53:04

Thanks for listening to this Estate Agency X podcast. Can you make sure that you're actually subscribed to this podcast channel if you liked the content? It helps us massively to get better guests, and it just helps us generally. So you might think you're subscribed, but just have a double check whatever your podcast platform of preference is that you're actually subscribed and then that way we can continue to grow the channel and get better and better guests for you.