Why Agents Stop Growing (With Russell Jervis)

In this episode of the Estate Agency X Podcast, Mark Burgess and Rob Brady speak with Russell Jervis about why estate agents and agency businesses stop growing. Russell shares lessons from a career that started as a negotiator in 1987 and led to becoming managing director of one of the UK’s largest estate agency groups.

The conversation explores people, process, recruitment, leadership, prospecting and the difference between activity and outcomes. For independent estate agents, agency owners and self-employed agents, this episode offers clear insight into what really creates sustainable growth.

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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 They replace outdated CRMs, disconnected marketing tools, and manual prospecting with one intelligent, AI-driven ecosystem, built to increase revenue per employee and future-proof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

Welcome And Russell’s Journey

Speaker 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Estate Agency X. Today, me and Rob are talking to Russell Jervis, the Oracle of Estate Agency. We're going all the way back to him being a first-time estate agent in 1987, all the way through to being managing director of one of the country's, if not one of the world's biggest estate agencies. The things that he learned along the way, he's now managing director of Rayner personnel, probably the top recruitment agency in estate agency, and how people use staff the right way, how people use the wrong way, all the things he's learnt along the way. It's absolute gold. Hope you enjoy. Estate Agency X, the UK's number one Estate Agency podcast discussing the future of Estate Agency, entrepreneurship and business. Host Mark Burgess and Rob Brady. Russell, thanks for coming in. Tube Strike and everything, you still managed to make it. Only because I only walked. Right, okay. So uh you're one of the most well-known uh figures in the industry. But for anybody that doesn't know, can you give us a brief history of time on Russell Jervis? Very kind of you. Um well for th for those thanks for having me on. Th those who don't know me, which I imagine there's quite a few people, um I was an estate agent, still like think I am sometimes, for probably 35 years. Um started at Strutdaughters in Colchester, um, that then got sold to Connells, David Connells, then moved through to town and country property services, and where um probably most people know me, um, then moved to Spicer McColl and the history of Spicer Heart that then became um through acquisitions and growth, um, and became managing director of the Spicer Heart estate agency division, which included new homes, corporate sales, various parts of it, main board director in 2003, and then um left there in 2019. So, well, 8th of December 2019. Um now uh managing director of Rayner Personnel. So still heavily connected to the property industry, working with uh companies, uh independents, corporates in uh sales, lettings, property management, new homes, block management, um, and also the prop tech side. So yeah, so I run the I run the the the franchise side for Raider Personnel, um, along with my partner, the the wonderful Joshua Rayner. Yeah, Josh has been on. Josh has been on, yeah, he has. Um so the oracle of a state agency, let's

How A 1987 Trial Won Him

Speaker 2:45

say. Um so so if we go all the way back to those first uh moments in a state agency, how did you end up getting into a state agency? Uh well I got into a state agency. I was working um at the Royal London. I was on a um uh YTS scheme. I didn't think it was a YTS thing, I think it was called something else, but um it was that was the basic principle. So I worked at the Royal London. Um and a friend of mine, Sean, uh best man to me, I was best man to him. He's still actively in the industry, still see Sean um regularly. Um he worked at Strut Daughters, um, and it looked to me like he was having the absolute time of his life. So they're good at doing that at State, isn't it? Yeah, honestly, it was it was he was he was living his life um through uh a state agency. Um and he said, Look, you know, you should have a go at this. And so I went for an interview, um, had a had an interview with Alex Smith. I can remember at 64 North Hill in the back office. Um, he told me all the money I was gonna earn on this magic calculator that became quite legendary. Um, and uh I went home to my mum and dad and said, Look, I'm uh I'm gonna leave this and become an estate agent, but before I get the job, I've got to do uh Thursday evening, Friday evening, all day Saturday as a trial. So I used to finish Raw London at half past three, race home, um, get into town for for 4:30 in my Debanham suit. I think I've just finished paying off, and um I would uh be given applicant cards, properties to phone out on, sat at the back of the office and and phoned out. So I did um Thursday Thursday evenings, Friday evenings, and every Friday evening you got taken to the pub. So I thought, wow, this is this is unbelievable. That's why Sean liked it so much. Um and um I I worked with some incredible um uh people still in the industry now. Um and yep, I was the back desk, eventually got got offered the job. I think it was £2,000 basic and 2% commission that was worked out to be £22,000 somehow. Um and I left my job at Royal London. I just got f off the scheme and and started at Struck Daughters in Colchester uh 64 North Hill. What year was that was roughly 1987. 87. Wow 1987. So so yes, I I I m I I I was a negotiator, you know, that that was it. Um with some uh there was me, gentlemen named Lee Riley. Sean moved to the house to the office, my manager, who I still see very regularly now, John Palmer had uh he's got a um uh Palmer and Partners Estate agents throughout sort of Essex and Suffolk. Um he was he was my manager and yeah, I'd be doing phoning out and um crazy. Working away from there. That was that was my starting to estate agency. And so from there, what year do you remember what year you were made managing director of Spicer Heart? Of the group, uh 2003. 2003, right? So 2 years ago. I'm thinking from 1987. Sixteen years to two thousand and three, sixteen years, right? Sixteen-year journey. Yeah. Uh which is was the it was the the the career dream, I guess, for anybody would be like to start as a trainee, work your way all the way up to managing director. Oh, I was living the dream every day. Absolutely. Well, I got a branch manager's job, I was like, wow, yeah, I didn't expect to get that. So And it must have been a crazy roller coaster to go from you know, that company that you joined at the time where where Alec was just what, just running a was it a single branch? No, no, strut Strutz had eleven or twelve branches, I think it was. And they sold out to Connells. Uh Alec went on the main board of Connells, Paul became the regional director of his own his old company, effectively. Um and um we we we were all when they left the they left the Connells Group after a uh uh a small um while my manager, Andrew Guest, he um he then bought into another estate agency in Colchester. I followed him, uh which then got bought out by Town and Country property services and Town and Country Building Society famously um insured themselves against uh the mortgage indemnity guarantee. So they went bust and took over by the Woolwich. Um I carried on with the guy who bought out Town and Country, but couldn't really see a future there. And um uh Alec and Paul, their office was opposite where I was working. Um and Alec said to me, Oh, why why don't you consider coming um and running financial services? And this was Spice McCall or Spice McCall, original Spice McCall, yeah. So uh Spice McCall opened up um about 1989, I think. And I I I was gonna go with there was two partnerships, and I was gonna go with one of the partnerships that were gonna still be running um Spice McCall. And um that that didn't come off. And Alex said, Look, why don't you come over? And Paul said, come over and and run our um financial services business. I was like, Right, I think I was about 23. Um I was thinking, Financial services, okay. Well my dad um had been in mortgage services and financial services for years and he was. Oh, you're qualified. So I was I was I was ready to go. And um and I so I I went and did my exams. Well, I I I played hard to get for a while, so I kept getting a beer off Alec every Tuesday night and see if I was going to come across. And um I I yeah took my exams and and we launched Spice McCall Financial Services, which then became Mortgages Direct. Yeah. And I worked for Mortgages Direct. I know. And so Mortgages Direct, but it enabled us to take this mortgage business that was servicing uh Spice McCall's three or four offices. Um and then then we we we we started servicing some other independent agents. And then do you remember Beezer Homes were a large house builder and we managed to get a contract with Beezer Homes to do their mortgages, new homes mortgages, and and our mortgage business just grew and grew and grew, which got the attention of Winter Life, um, who were then known as Provident Life, who came to us. I remember about June, we were called to a meeting, they said they were coming to see us, and I think Adakampall, like, what have you done wrong? You know, it must be a compliance, there must be something we've we've not ticked the right box, because we we wrote a lot of mortgages. Yeah. Not sure how compliant it was at that time. Um, but we we we wrote a lot of business, um, so we'd got their attention. Plus they knew we had huge appetites to expand the Spice for Core business, wanted to expand and grow. Um and they came to us and said, Look, you you're delivering incredible results. Um we we want to back your growth. We've been left with the cornerstone empire, part of it. Um do you want a slice? Yeah. So a slice. So there was other conversations I wasn't privy to, but um fast forward to the 15th of September 1995, yeah. I think we took 78 or so officers of the Cornerstone network, and then we were three. Yeah. Part-time payroll, part-time accountant, yeah, and then took over um the this this uh this beast of a of a business. And then and then bought Woolage. In two years later, yeah, or two, three years later, Woolish property services were um acquired um by someone Alec had known from various meetings. I think they both had history back in the brewery. I think the story goes they were on have to be on the same train. And he said, Yeah, I've got this head of Woolwich Bank or Building Society, I've got this thorn in my side, Woolish Property Services. Well, I've got an estate agent that wants to grow rapidly, and we've got Winter want to back and back and back.

Building Fast Through Deals And Risk

Speaker 10:30

Um and then yes, I think 1997 uh we took over I think about 180 offices of Woolish property services, which then became Heart. Heart is where the home is for that great source strap line. Um and a huge amount of indigestion because you've got Spicer McCall was on, as you know, was on rapid growth. We were opening I I'd get a phone call from Alex saying I'm in Folkestone. I go, Oh, hello? Yeah, what are you doing there? So we've just completed a lease, you need to get it open in in three months. Um so yeah, j juggling um an awful lot of balls, but we we had an awful lot of fun there from 95 to probably 2001, I think for those six years, we were a business that you know had come from nowhere, nobody had heard of Spice and McCall. Um and you know, who are these Essex boys telling us what what to do? And we're well, I remember, you know, we used to be on. I was almost I was doing the lot of the recruitment, I was almost begging people to trust us and come on board. And then we managed to get to you know, get some good people with us and tw 2001, 2002 start to start to become more of an attraction business because people saw we were chang changing the way agency was was was being done. And and um we were proving the data's wrong. We were we were still there. Because it had grew grown so fast, I guess, as well, it had a a sort of it was a it's a weird sort of independent corporate type thing, wasn't it? Do you know what I mean? It was like it's a like the people that were working there were very much working in an independent state agency. Each branch was like its own sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. But that you were part of this sort of network where you'd like to. Yeah, you create we tried to create a create create a culture, create a cult, create um I I felt also along with a lot of my fellow MDs or regional directors, you know, visibility was was was massive. And and being in the in the offices, in the trenches and um, you know, being there, actually not just not just turning up and doing a bun run. Um although I'm sure I was accused of doing some bun runs over over the years of, you know, alright, I've been there, I've ticked that off. But actually being with managers, negotiators, um mortgage brokers, sitting with them, helping them uh uh overcome objections to maybe sometimes outstanding our welcome and you know the awards evening culture we we really embraced, really brought into it. Um and I th I think that helped to um create you know teams within teams that that really drove a competitive edge, which ultimately you know would help the customer because they they were getting service because people want to improve their performance. But um it comes with its definite growth pains. Yeah. Do you think do you think uh that'll do you think that'll ever be done again? Like you're seeing it quite now in um I I I I I don't know the intricate workings of some of the businesses like Lowman and um and leaders seeing their their growth and buying those independent um agents that they're buying up. They don't seem to be growing it as as as one company though, if you see what I mean. Like this will they're building a group that has a lot lot I know I know in the end Spicer Heart had a lot of different brands as well, but you know, it started as Spicer McCall and then it Spice of Heart, but uh even at Spice of Heart, it was 200 odd. Yeah, yeah, I think 267 at its peak. Um and that and that journey as well of like, you know, uh a a negotiator going through to be a manager and director. Like I'm just wondering whether any of that whether that period of time will ever whether it could ever be done again, you know, whether whether I I'm I'm sure sometime at some point that that journey to the top. I was reading um I think it was an article in Pi today, and it was a lady that's you know been with a business for 25 years, just just been promoted to a regional managing director, started at 17. Um so yeah, I think there will be those stories out there. Whether there'll be the entrepreneurial growth and rise the way that we did it or you know, the the the the business did it. Um probably uh unlikely, especially with the amount of cold starts. I mean um before the acquisition of uh uh acquisition of the Woolwich, it's fine for call was on a massive cold start programme because Winterter were driving distribution. We opened um just we're sitting here in the city of London, we opened twelve offices of Felicity J. Lord, you know, which was bang opening. O opening, you know, in Clarkenwell and with Daniel Derbyshire and um uh and and whopping uh with Chris Lee and open sorry, whopping with um Warren Black and then over to um Chad Thames with Chris Lee, these people who are still in agency now, um start starting in in this area. It was like big brave brave move to break into to new. To do it all at once, yeah. And it's exciting. I'm just sitting there just like listening and thinking like here, growth, here growth, here growth, acquisition, growth, people here, managing people, taking more people on, right? How did you as an individual work within that? Like what did you what did you do? What did you learn? Like Well, I I I I I I started so in '95 when we took over, I I became the financial services director. So um uh I I it was slightly I didn't have quite as many people to deal with because I was uh dealing one-on-one with mortgage brokers. So that was um probably a little bit of an advantage to me, to my estate agency colleagues. I think Damon Carter at the time had come into East London and you know, he'd gone from managing the Colchester office of Spicebook All to now managing uh I don't know, 12 offices of Cornerstone in East London and and getting all these big personalities to try and buy into the way we wanted to do things. And remember, the company that they previously worked for got big head office, you know, they were getting new cars delivered left, right, and centre, they were getting you know expenses all sent up, returned, all done, phone IT. Everything worked. We hadn't built the head office structure. We we'd built personalities. Um and um so I think they had more people to deal with. Um so I I got to have a bit more of a one-on-one relationship, which I think helped me. Um and then I moved back into a state agency in I think it was 98 and took over part of the region. Um and and I I I got some great people on board. So um people like Jackie White was already with um the group, she'd left and come back, and then um uh you know, she took over, I came for more and more officers within uh East London. Mark Harris came in, a good personality, um, you know, and and and really brought some good people around them. So I I tried to manage through not around, which I got wrong often. Um but you know, if you've got a great leader, then back the leader, get them to back the people. But you also have to sometimes help them to understand that they they're being paid by the company, so you you you you can't be a player manager. But um yeah, so good regional leaders um was was where the wins were. Um and equally I got that wrong probably as many times as I got it right. So sometimes you know you just get the wrong type of person. Does that work then like, you know, so like you know, you've got all that experience of seeing it from the top all that way top down, and now in recruitment as well, like what's the wrong person? Yeah, what is the wrong person? Because not everybody's right for every company, right? I I I I I wish I knew more about profiling back then. Um I do I I I did an awful lot on gut feel and interviews and um you know word of mouth and I mean in the early days, like with with the rapid growth, it literally you had to have a heartbeat, right? I'm opening an office next week to finish it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But was well we we we leaned on recruitment, we leaned on um uh we had recruitment companies. Uh it must have Ian Dobrin must have had a uh fill day when we bought the Woolwich because I think he had a contract to fill a hundred mortgage brokers. Um it still talks about now. Trevor Burrus, Jr. But in hindsight, like you know, the ones that work, the ones that didn't, where you started to see like, huh, these people fit and these people don't. We we we we

Culture In The Trenches

Speaker 19:39

I can remember Kent. We went into Kent um and we you know it was I think the agents in Kent were quite fearful of us, so much so. Um I can remember one particular gentleman who might be listening to this, you know, went right through the interview process with me, but uh as and then met with Paul and Alec and and he we actually think found out he was literally on a spying mission, you know, to actually really find out uh what we were doing. And we we made a mistake that often that we would go and recruit a senior person from the market leader. Um and it's just a different skill set to and we think, well, the market leader, they're gonna Pie Piper, they're gonna bring a load of brilliant people along, um, and on paper, that all works. Um and that that was some of our biggest failures because um they were working in an attraction business. They they weren't working in a business where you needed to really hunt out the the business, the the process, the door knocking, the gamuting, the prospecting um to to to to really bring people in. It's such a great point. And I I used to we uh you know I had a top 75. I don't know if it's still going now, I have no contact really for the last six years, but one of the big things that used to come out every single month was the top 75, which was the most profitable offices within the group. Um and I would look down and in that top 75, homegrown, homegrown, homegrown, homegrown, homegrown, homegrown. You you you had to go an awful long way down to find somebody who'd joined the organisation and and and really adapted and made it. I've got a friend who's still in the industry but in corporate, and he was getting a bit fed up about corporate life, and I've and he was talking about whether to go to jump for the self-employed. Um, and I was just sort of explaining to him the difference of maybe looking to go for s an independent because you tend to find you get more of a a hustle style, like you said, go out and get the business, you're not just a coggy in the machine where you sit in a position, you've got you're the valuer, go out and do the valuations, but the valuations are coming in for you. Whereas, like in an independent, you don't necessarily have that. You have to like we I the amount of times we're recruited from your ward and partners or your your countrywide, your man in countrywise, and they'd come into the office and they'd sit there and they'd go, So where's my valuations today? Uh you've got to try and hustle it. Yeah. Um and I've we that we've had over the years there's certain people that have obviously come from that background. You get a big you get a CV from someone who works at Google, you're gonna be impressed by it, aren't you? You think that they're gonna bring something to the organisation, but it turns out they're just Work for Google, they're just yeah, yeah. They're just they're not doing the they're not they're not the Goodler. They didn't start it. Yeah, yeah. That's it. Yeah, exactly that. And um I I I don't know, it's interesting because in the recruitment world and um you know, over the last six years, really understanding what what people want from a company. Um it it's it's fascinating. We've just done our first we've got our team meeting on Thursday and we've just done our whole stats to review um this this this year so far. And and it's a it's Dead split. 50% of people have gone to independent. 50% of people have gone to corporates. And I think some of the corporates do some incredible things. And some of you know there's there's there's offices in there turning over millions of pounds. And then there's independents that are turning over millions of pounds. There's independents going bust, you know, there's corporates closing offices. And I think the biggest common denominator just comes down to right people being led in the right way with the right technology, get the in for you, um, and um uh m making sure that the leaders have the freedom to make the right decisions. Yeah, which is where the independence wins, I think. You said homegrown talent, right? So, like what would you say the behaviours that you notice the word homegrown talent? That that if you've got someone out there who's thinking, I I want to grow the the next because we have some owners there in the past, they've sat there, they're they they think they're capped, and that's where they're in this business going. Or if not, they're going downwards, and they've got a team of people around them that are sort of not necessarily the the right people, but they're scared to necessarily find the right what do I who do I need to try and attract. Yeah. And the problem I think sometimes is they'd like they said, I just need another neck. Yeah. But really, for like, maybe for someone listening out there, like what would you say are some of the great behaviours that you've seen over the years in all your experience that someone might be like, I've got to try and find people with this sort of look. Um I I I I believe you you you need to find people. Um we used to run a manager induction course um and we'd talk about what we looked for, and we looked for the compliant best. Because if you're gonna work in an independent the size of Spice H or other agencies are available, um you know they've they've got corporate behaviours because you have to. You know, when a business gets to a certain size, it's gonna get messy. You have a head office, you have you know a centralized accounts function. One of the biggest problems I had when we acquired businesses, and I remember one in Stoke Newington, uh the staff are all up in arms about giving us some figures on a Friday night. You're micromanaging us. No, no, no. What you've done. Um and you know, I remember one of them, um, we bought the business from a lady called Lynn Brooks. She was amazing um lady in in Stoke Newington. I went to her house to to agree the deal, um, and you know, she was just brilliantly eccentric, had a wonderful business. But the staff said, Oh yeah, Lynn used to give us 50 quid on a Friday night out a bit of cash. I said, No, we just can't we just can't do that. We can give you virtual 50 quids in the way of um you know some uh team rewards and and and that part, but we just can't do it. So if you're gonna go and work for um a corporate um and you you are not that person who's got massive entrepreneurial spirit that needs to, you know, do your own thing, you're you're you're you're gonna struggle. You're a you're a square peg in a in a round hole. But if you're into right, I want a career, I want to, I want, I want the safety net of you know, someone's doing my accounts for me, someone's doing uh this, and there's a good training program and there's a career path uh for me to go up to. So we we very much talked about the compliant best. I I I need I want people who who want to be in a structure, but I promise you, within the structure, there's gonna be lots of fun and lots of um you know good rewards and people are big, big money. So we'd look for the compliant best, somebody who had some traits in their life that they they've been part of something. Whereas um you know now if you an i an independent is

Why Some Hires Never Fit

Speaker 26:29

is really looking at those you know free-spirited people I think who um really really are pushing all the time. Yeah, yeah. That's that that's uh yeah, the compliant best would be how I used to sum out the phone. It's interesting. I was talking to an agent the other day about how a lot of small independent agents had have worked in a uh corporate estate agency, and then they go, Well, I could do this, and they open an estate agency. But when they worked in the corporate estate agency, um, because as you say, there is a machine behind it, uh what they actually worked in was the SAW's office of a corporate estate agency. So they had a whiteboard on the wall with figures on it, and to them that was the business. Yeah. And they opened a business and they put a whiteboard on the wall and they kept it. But they've got no HR and they've got no operations and they've got no marketing, and they've got because that was all being done. And they're they're the bits that they don't realise like that's what makes this all work. This all work. Yeah. It's not just the sales office that you worked in on the desk with the plant on there. And I think sometimes people get into this like, well, you know, they're telling me to do that, I'm not going to do it, and this buffer and it's it's crazy because actually, if you wherever you work, if you follow the process that the owner of that business, whoever they be, has prescribed, it is probably there to be successful. So there's a very good likelihood that if you follow that process, you will succeed. If you try and break the process and tell everyone it's no corporate here, or um, you know, or that I've got a better way, um you you you're gonna you're gonna fail. Um you've had it I've had it in recruitment, I've had it in agency, the world of video. We brought out the world of video, right? Everyone, you know, we need some video properties, we need to do this. And you get people going, I don't want to be on camera, no, don't like it. Recruitment, you know, LinkedIn algorithm will pick up video more than it will pick up text or a static advert. So um a really good idea is to do video. Don't do crap ones, do good ones. Make sure that you watch it back and you'd have to post the first thing straight away and people go, yeah, I'm I'm not sure about that. Leave, sit up on their own. First thing they do. Video. Video. Um so I I I I read everywhere this model's broken, that's model's broken. I don't think any of the model's broken. I think it's the the people within it, at some point something clicks in you and says, I'm gonna throw myself into this process and and I'm I'm gonna and I I'm I'm I'm gonna follow this path. I'm gonna follow this plan. And if I do, I'll be successful. Yeah, we do uh we do a uh uh Rob runs a business accelerator program that goes over the course of a year with agents. We bring people in, and one of the ladies who comes in is this lady uh who spent 27 years building systems at McDonald's. And uh she was saying at one point they were opening a new restaurant every day. And it's being run by teenagers that can't even open, like can't even tidy their own bedroom. Yeah. And if you didn't have don't have no systems in place, like that's just gonna be a disaster. Yeah. But if you do have the systems in place, you go, this is how it works. And they would say to people, look, this is how it works. The fries go on for two minutes, two shakes of salt, and then two more minutes, and they're done. And if the person goes, Oh yeah, but I think they taste nicer if you cook them for a bit longer, you go, Well, open your own room. Yes, it doesn't work. Correct, correct. And that that's the great thing, isn't it? It used to be have the have the process of McDonald's, the marketing of Apple, and the spirit of virgin. You've got the But I I said this all the time, this corporate world. People go, Oh, we're so corporate. And I go, but what our virgin what are they corporate? No, no, no, they're independent, they're owned by Branson. No, but but it's a lot of people and planes around the world. Yeah. I'll tell you what, we'll take off 1030. Let's just get it. Give me 50 quid on a Friday and I'll fly the place. Yeah, it's a I mean state agency is is is full of entrepreneurial spirits, aren't they? And um I I think where corporates maybe just can get it wrong is you put lots of layers and layers and layers in, then they have to all do something. And that for me is probably where people get clogged. And and I always think what what we're doing now, or in my current world, um, you know, I always look at what are we doing for the percentage that we take. So, you know, we we're in a franchise model um at regular personnel. So we've got um a franchisee coming to us, they're they're running their territory, um, and there's a a split in the commission that comes to us for the support work and bits we do. And so the leadership team uh at regular personnel i i i i are are encouraged to every morning think what are we doing for our percentage here? How are we adding value? Yeah. So whether it be I come here today, we do this, this is this is this is a brand builder um for for for for a business, it will get more eyes on Rainer Personnel, possibly. It also gets great that we're discussing uh the industry that we're so well connected to. Um and and I think that that's maybe where a lot of these businesses can go wrong that you've got you know decisions being made but but it's not really identifying how it affects Johnny and Doncaster. How do you what's some of the main things that you've seen change over the years then? So like, you know, uh 1987 estate agency versus 2026 estate agency, or even how you see 20, you know, 2029 estate agency. Like all of the like you're saying the models, maybe they're broken, maybe they're not broken, but like where's the where's the big differences that you see? Um well I'm not frontline, so you know, I'm I'm giving you from a from a from a helicopter uh helicopter view. Um and I I I do sense that and I've thought this for a while, that the portals, um so you know, if I if I relate it back to um recruitment, 65% of our placements are made via hedgehunting. So, you know, proactive, outbound, outreach activity. Whereas in a state agency, um I think state agents deal with a lot of just the incoming inquiries. 100%, yeah. Um and very little cross-selling of other properties that I understand. You know, as I understand it. I don't I don't I don't if I pop into estate agents, I see estate agents, I've mentored some estate agents, um, and you know, one of the big frustrations that I will talk to business owners about is okay, so that person has viewed one or that's because the one they wanted to view. Yeah, but in in my world, this was right, you've got someone viewing, look after them, nurture them, love them. Find them in the house. Yeah, find them in the house. Yeah, yeah. Um and whether you've got that house or somebody else has got their house, find them the house. Um whereas I think it becomes a very transactional business of I've got an inquiry, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, book the viewing, on to the next. Do you think that that's like it's really interesting because like obviously I worked in the world that you're talking about as well, uh, whereby people but the people the difference I'm thinking is that I can still picture now this couple that came into the office, sat in front of me in the chair, and told me that they specifically wanted a house. High Street North or one street north, right? That they that they specifically wanted a house on Kimberley Avenue. And I know that either side of Kimberley Avenue, that's roads are very similar. And I and they want a two-bed yeah, and they want a two-bed house and they want it like this, and da-da-da-da-da. And I know I know the house they're talking about, and I'm gonna find it for them. For you five percent. For my yeah, yeah. Um so um but do you think that that that changed when it stopped being the person walking in having that conversation, it started being somebody saying, I want to view this house, end of conversation. Yeah. And they and I went, uh

Process, Systems, And Discipline

Speaker 34:59

okay. Uh where else can I find it? I don't want you to find me anything else. I want you to find me at my own. I think maybe uh uh a state agent's reputation uh is not the best amongst the British public, is it? So um maybe people have become that very close book. I want I want to view that. No, don't tell me. Yeah, don't I don't want to know anything else. I want to view that house. I mean I've I've I've I've spent time around agency and agency owners um you know all my life, but very much more recently, and and one of their frustrations will be they can't get their teams to do what we were exactly talking about. Yeah um because it's it's uh well, I haven't got it. So that's all I can do. Yeah. Um whereas um you know if you look at and tech obviously coming in will help identify with um the matchmaking type of services of someone um on the website looking for this and and then we'll present to them, what about this, what about this, what about this? It's really interesting. Automation, isn't it, rather than personalised? We had it really interesting. I had it with uh an agent only for last year now, but we were going through in our platform, you know, um predictive viewings, and in the viewing section, like he had a list of and they hadn't been looking at it for ages. I said, Why are you not in here? Because they were saying that they have viewing numbers and slowed down. I was like, here's the opportunities like systems already told you about it. And then he messaged me up a week later, so we had a great story where he said we had a we just put a property on the market, a guy looked at it a couple of times, but had booked a view and made an inquiry. So he reached out to him and asked him, and he was waiting for reductions to take place. Um it was when like the crane started kicking off, so everyone was a bit nervous. Um he ended up booking the person in because he had that call, and the guy paid 10 grand over asking price. Yeah. I said, This is this is a proper state agency. But if it none of that existed, if they've seen it, the opportunity going back to that lady who came in and registered with me, like she spoke to me and I knew the house would come up at some point. So I kept her applicant card because you throw away applicant cards, right? So I kept it and I waited for the day that you know Peter Bauman walked in and said, I've got this. Tell ten. Tell one. Yeah, tell one. I've sold that. I'm selling that. I I don't know if that art is there anymore of the valuer ringing in, I've just got this. I I don't know if it happens. I think so much happens on on tech and um yeah, I I I I'd be just interested. Maybe should I go back. I used to love going back to the floor. Maybe I should go back to the floor. But it's a crazy so I'd I'd probably embarrass myself. So so you see that as like a big shift that's happened, and uh probably probably for the worst generally, then. Uh like you say, like so the portals have made it that way. So and you were getting onto the point whereby, but in a state in recruitment, see the interesting thing is that I left the state agency to go into recruitment. I came into the city and I did IT recruitment, so it was right at the cutting edge of computers and all of that stuff. And at that point, all recruitment was being done through the computer. Yeah. Uh and you're saying it's not very much for us. There's a huge well, it's it's I know friends who say also say it's switched as well now. It's very much more than so. We're on Indeed, we're on other um platforms, so you know, effectively every buyer is on Indeed or on RightMove. You know, so their CVs are there. Um and a company, if they got an Indeed account, they could find the same people we could find. Um but we we don't tend to work below valuer, manager, CNEC. And and and the ones most companies want are not the ones on Indeed. They're the ones that are quite happy in their current role. So you need to have a reason why to talk to them and you need to put yourself out there too. Interesting. Talk to them. And do you do you think estate agency will then are you do you does that mean that you feel like it will come more away from the portals, or do you think it will go further towards the portals or neither? I I I come from a time when we were paying, I think, £2,000 a page in the evening standard. Yeah. So um I know agents are up in arms about right move and right move costs, and uh that my my partner on my podcast is very passionate about it, but I think, you know, if you're you're paying £2,000 a branch, I just pay £2,000 for a page in a newspaper. So it's just the value, isn't it? How many inquiries come from this? I remember I remember watching an interview with Steve Jobs where just j they were too he was talking about releasing the iPad. He hadn't released it yet, and he was on this interview, and the guy was saying, Yeah, but you're talking about you know it costing people this much money and like do you really think people are going to pay that? And he was sort of saying, Well, I guess the market will tell us whether they think it's worth it or not. And that's the trust. But I don't see many agents walking from right move. I mean, a a AI, isn't it? And um, you know, the the perplexity and was it Claude and ChatGPT and everything coming in and your own platform, you know, uh uh should at one point play a part. But I imagine I haven't been to Right Move's head office for a long time. But I imagine there is a floor pretty much dedicated to Wouldn't think so, wouldn't you? AI. Certainly should be. Or if not, someone's missed someone's missed the memo. We find AI. What's that? We find with a lot of our clients who are have got established businesses, have gone through that but maybe that necessity to grow. You say grow up from a lot of estate agency, people who who worked in a state agency sub a business and still in estate agents run a business, not to be business owners who are estate agents. Yeah. Yeah, they just run the business from the whiteboard. Yeah, and those and those what we've what we've noticed with the clients that we deal with, none of them moan about right move because I just see it as a necessity towards their acquisition of leading. But if it's right move, get aid then. They're advertised somewhere. Yeah, they're gonna have some cost. Yes. But I think sometimes I always find it's almost like um, I don't know, like maybe like you know, when you've maybe you've got a a bad relationship or a bad thing that might be happening in your life, you you direct against this thing, but actually, really, the the big bug bear is to looking in the mirror and saying, like, okay, well, why why am I frustrated the pack I've got to pay two and a half grand that the business can't even support that? Uh have I reduced my fees because I haven't worked on my pitch well enough? Yeah, I'm having to compete with everyone because I haven't really worked that out. I think everyone's focused on almost this vision of of looking at everything and afraid of missing out on something that sometimes they just don't look at what's in front of them. I was asked in uh December, was it December, nov November, um, to talk at Sanjay Gandhi's um mastermind group. So Josh said, Will you go and talk to them? So I thought, well, what am I gonna talk about? Um so I I I dusted off a little bit of um my history of what I did before um and did a little dive into each of their businesses just on the portals um to talk to them about it. And you think, well, you're you' you you if you're gonna spend money on this, make sure your property, your content stands out, looks incredible, um, and you know, really demonstrates your your your value to a customer and showcases your vendors' homes. Um and I think you know everyone can keep thinking about AI's gonna solve this or this bit tech's gonna solve this or or some future bit. I think you just need to stand and look at your your your your window and think, right, how does my office look? Um looks really clean, looks crisp, you know, I'm proud of it. I go inside, carpet looks great, chairs look great, everything looks great. What do my staff look like? Do they are they fitting fitting the brand? Yeah, they're fitting the brand as well. Right. Now let's look at our process. Um and you need to get that consistency, I think. Um, because you I walked down High Street in Wolfhamstow um about three weeks ago, I went to see a client, and I didn't look at the market share, but I would I reckon just from looking at the offices, I could tell you who was one, two, three. I think you probably could, yeah. And the activity that they were doing on the phone. It's quite interesting, actually. Uh years and years ago, I remember walking down my old high street and you you did exactly that in an evening. How does the offices look compared to ours? The McDonald's lady said was I remember her telling us that like part of the branch manager's job is every I think it's like every 40 minutes or something, and they have to take a 10-minute walk away from the uh restaurant and walk back and see what the experience is like and come to the restaurant and walk in and go in the toilets and come out, check the tables and then go back to work. But they've got a great marketing campaign at the moment, haven't they? I heard it on the radio. It's a 23-year-old running Croydon with 32 staff, which is literally following the process. Yeah. Where franchising is is a great tool with um with what we're doing now. We've spent six years defining and refining a process. Um and it's five steps. And if you do those five steps, you will make this placement. And what and with regards to your franchising side, what what have you found? Like your you know, your wealth of knowledge, the amount that you obviously sat at,

Portals, Nurture, And Real Prospecting

Speaker 43:44

and the knowledge you have for all those years in different positions, and now obviously you're now the managing director of the franchise recruitment side to it. The franchisees coming in, are they from estate agents? Are they? Yeah, all all of our franchisees are estate agents. Yeah. So every one of them has a sales or lettings background. We failed on recruiters to yeah, we we we we've we've had um people who've had solely recruitment experience. Um recurring theme, that, right? Yeah. People that think that they already know how to do it. Well, trying to explain property managers, block managers, branch managers, is it's it's it's it's those pieces that they've um struggled with. And also sometimes, you know, just providing if you're recruiting for hotels or managers that the the the the the brief is huge. Whereas the brief that we get ninety-nine percent of the time is I need a value. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so We've we we've we've we've had to ask ourselves those challenging questions on why have certain people failed and and that was because we took on free-spirited people thinking they're coming to us to be free spirited. But we're a franchise that you need to follow this process and if you do you'll you'll be successful. And for for your uh so I we speak to a lot of agents who have gone they might be independent and they're looking to do the self-employed thing because that's the the route to go down. And they might be stuck in an independent and then trying to do the self-employed on the side, I know such and such is out of our patch and we'll just take them on. And I'm like, and or or we've got agents that have set up a self-employed model and they're trying to do the franchisee part to it. And I'm I'm I'm forever saying to them, it's no different than when you list a when you're out on the reflip side, you're out valuing, and you're trying to win business against another estate agent, and like you just haven't really worked out what makes you different, they're always going to come back to like what percentage that Southern Ployed model's gonna give you. Yes, and like anything else with it. Have you what do you find with regards to like the maybe learning that franchisee side to recruitment that maybe I think the big the biggest mistake we made was calling it self-employed for the first few years. It was a franchise when uh um uh when I joined Josh, then it was it was a franchise business. Then we converted it to a license model, which was heavily built on your self-employed. Well, w when you say to people, and I used to get this quote to me all the time, you can't tell me what to do, I'm self-employed. No, I'm not telling you what I'm to do. What I'm doing is suggesting that if you do this, you will remain. You will remain having this freedom. And um when I did work with David Lee when we started the um Journey for them in their their self-employed partnership offering, it it was very much that actually you're gonna work harder in this than you ever have done before. And you you need to dedicate the first six, eighteen months of of your life to this, seven days a week. The payback of that will be your start to get freedom of your time. Um and I think when you're employed, you're you're heavily taxed both uh in finances and in time. So the one thing I think you you get back is it's it's all your time. So you don't no one else is pulling you left, right, saying it's it's your time. And if you follow that process, you you will be um successful. People buy a franchise, I think as well, you you you you should make the uh the the barrier to entry. You know, we we made that mistake. We we were very low. You can you know, first of all, yeah, get sign up, come on in. Um and if if people haven't got uh a financial commitment, um they they do. Come on in. Um whereas you know, our our program now, there's there's an upfront fear, there's a training program, there's ongoing, but there's so much support. Um and you know, we want to see people have got six months at least saved to come and do this. Because otherwise you smell badly of commission breath because you're desperate to that franchisee model, like how do you how how have you you know you said like this you know, we've been developing out, we've we've made good uh decisions, bad decisions, we've made mistakes, like that. How do you do that? Do you tend to do that with the franchisee uh current people that you are the really good ones, or is it a case of you do it more from your perspective, our perspective? All of the above, really. Um we had some very focal franchisees, we have some franchisees that have left and you know told me some home truths as they did. Um and I I I think you've just learned from everything. So um as much as that might have hurt to receive it, you digest it um and and think about it and think, why was it noise or have they got a valid point? We don't run such a steering group, but we've got some pretty vocal um people within our business who will tell us quite directly and um and we make sure that we um I I I don't it's not an open door policy, um, but it's uh you know, we're available, so ha what do you need? How how can I help? How can we all move forward in the right direction? Because ultimately it's a win-win. If they bill, then we take our feet. If they don't bill, we don't. I think like, you know, it's like everything in life. Like all of that can be summed up as like, you know, there is no uh shortcut, you know, like even when we do events, we found over the years like, oh, maybe maybe maybe the tickets are too expensive. Maybe we should do it for free. The people just don't turn up, there's no commitment. Like, um, so you the the same with like uh when you're recruiting. Everybody wants a white knight that just comes in. We haven't got a training programme, but if we hire a white knight, they'll come in and just take care of it all like that. No, they won't. They'll take a higher salary for six months and then you'll fire them because you're no better off than when you started. It's that you're half six months down the line, you've got less money. It's all hard. There's no shortcuts. There's no shortcuts. There isn't. No. You've got follow a process. Everything I think we've got to do. Hopefully, like you say, you can just learn from someone else's mistakes. It's a little bit less hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've they've yeah, they've made those mistakes, and we know we don't we don't teach you that bit. Um but that that'll be it. I think every single person at six years that we've has joined us has made a placement. So it's whether they've left, whether they didn't enjoy it or they went, but they they made that one placement by following the process. It's then have you got it in you to repeat, repeat, repeat. Yeah, absolutely. I remember talking to um Mike here from Avocado, and he was saying something similar whereby sit down with somebody, they take the take the license or the you know, s the franchise, they tell them the eight things that need to be done, they go through the process, the person goes, like, you know, yeah. I don't I don't know. I'm I might do it slightly differently to that. Yeah. And then, you

Franchise Truths And Commitment

Speaker 50:44

know, four, five, six months down the line, the person's back in their office going, This isn't working. And they're going, Yeah, it's interesting that. Because seems to be working for all these people that are following the process. And it doesn't seem to be a good thing. Well, um, Anna Smith at um in Eland um for for David Lee, now IAD, and and and Anna, you know, was coming back from maternity leave, uh, didn't want to know back into the office she was, and we said, Right, this is this exactly this, I would say, this is what I would do to get the business up and running. Um and she said, Okay, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna employ a photographer, I'm gonna make a video, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. I've read on LinkedIn, in their version of CAPT, she's five years in, but she's done it in four months. You know, it's just like, oh, what'd you do, Anna? I follow the process. Yeah. And I I say to all of our recruiters, so probably what it is that this year our most successful recruiter, Alex Bryant in Cambridge, a credible young man, just brilliantly driven, passionate, you know, gets up every morning ready for the day ahead. Um, there's people going, right, what's Alex do? What's Alex do to make all these placements? And I said, So what Alex does today? It's what Alex did five years ago when him and me started pretty much the same time and we went right. Do this. Phone every agent in Norwich. Yeah. Phone every agent in Cambridge and and just keep offering that that service. So yeah. Yeah. Process. Process. Follow the process. Routine and process will send you a lot of things. You have it the same. Rob coaches all of our agents, and like the same thing. We have a process. Like when people like join iceberg, they they want to change the way their business is working. And we have a process of showing them how you get to the end result. You follow it, like it works every time. But not everybody follows it. So it's the same in all in all the businesses, right? It's like like like I just said before, like some people have I've got some scars from stuff that hopefully you don't have to get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're in we're in the era of distraction, aren't we? People are distracted by everything. And you know, so so finding out if people have got that mental capacity to sit, follow a process, and you know give them the regular breaks because they need them to then come back in and go, right, let's go again. It's call stats and things like that, which, you know, I've I've I've championed, I've been there. So, you know, if you you could have with the with your couple back in East Ham, you know, if if you'd sold a house that day, you've sold a house. Yeah. But if you but if you didn't if you said, well, no, I can't really spend too much time with them because I've got 25 output bound goals, what's what's the better result? Absolutely. It's out it's outcomes over output. You know, that we're in a w it's so clear now, especially with AI, we're moving even more into a world of outcomes over output. I we I had a call just uh two weeks ago with an agent. We've got this we've got these this thing called AI Scouts. Um so the AI goes out, it finds all the addresses of the properties that are on the market, it monitors how long they're on the market for, uh, who's had price reductions, who's had fall-throughs, it finds the contact details that match up with that in their database, it finds what buyers they've got that match, what properties they've sold nearby, and it goes, here you go, here's all the low-hanging fruit, and here's what to say. Even writes the outreach. Uh the guy came back to me and said, Right, I've been using this now for three months, doesn't work. And I was like, All right, what doesn't work? He was like, Well, look, here's my Excel spreadsheet of what we've been doing. There's 43 properties here. We've all been on the market more than 10 weeks, all got the contact details, here's what we've done. Left message, like, you know, uh didn't get another sort of sent 43 letters, didn't get a single instruction. I'm like, right? He's like, so it doesn't work. No, you don't work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got the data. Yeah, yeah. Like the outcome is getting an instruction. Making phone calls and leaving voicemails is irrelevant now. Yeah. I've done that bit for you. Like the the piece of finding the data has already been done. Your job is finding instructions, not leaving voicemails. Yeah. You know, you're not in a in recruitment. Your job is making placements. Yeah. So you can do it in an hour. Here's somebody. Here's somebody who wants a job. Here's someone who wants to employ someone. Yeah. And if if they don't go together, like something's not right somewhere. Like that's the job is the outcome, like, not the output. So and speed, you know, it's all about for me speed. I think there's there's get get your system so simple so that everything can be done quickly. We're we're in a now world, aren't we? People want things uh you can get anything now. So um you need to be able to get that property to that person or that job to that person fast. I love it. Anything else that you want to ask? Great guest. I've always enjoyed um watching on LinkedIn videos, but it's nice to actually interview in person now. If there's anybody out there that um is either uh thinking to themselves, I need to I need to talk to Russell for whatever reason, recruitment, whatever. Where's it most, where are they most likely to get a reply from you? Uh LinkedIn. Um DM me on LinkedIn or just call me. My numbers are all on LinkedIn. Um I I will call call you back. So you can get hold of me in any which way you want. Awesome. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you, Jens. 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? Uh, 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 um 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.