How to Build a Standout Estate Agency: Connor Harris' Journey

In this episode of Elite Agent Masterclass, Jack Durkin and James chat with Connor Harris, co-founder of Marco Harris. Connor shares his journey from the corporate world to building a successful estate agency brand. He dives into the importance of personal branding, creating the right environment, and the challenges of transitioning to self-employment. Packed with practical insights, this episode is perfect for anyone looking to elevate their estate agency career or business.

Connor’s Journey:

• Always had an entrepreneurial fire but felt restricted in corporate roles.
• His creativity was stifled by outdated industry practices and red tape.
• Decided to leave the traditional model and build something on his own terms.

Building Marco Harris:

• Connor and his partner Mark worked eighteen-hour days in the first year.
• Focused on creating an unmatched customer and agent experience.
• Developed a flexible work culture, allowing agents to work on their own terms.

Driving Success:

• Key to growth: creating an environment where agents can thrive.
• Success came from understanding both client and agent needs.
• Built a model that offers flexibility, creativity, and freedom for agents.

Work-Life Balance:

• It's tough at first. Connor put in long hours, but it’s led to freedom.
• As the business grew, he began delegating tasks to focus on strategy.
• Personal and family time is now prioritised, something that wasn’t possible in his employed roles.

Self-Employed Agent Model:

• Importance of backing yourself before jumping into self-employment.
• Transition from corporate to self-employed requires the right mindset and willingness to step out of your comfort zone.
• Aligning with the right brokerage is key to success.

Personal Branding and Social Media:

• Personal branding is critical in today’s market.
• Connor emphasised consistency in social media and showing your authentic self.
• He notes the importance of staying true to your personality and using platforms like Instagram and TikTok to connect with clients.

Advice to Aspiring Self-Employed Agents:

• Do your research before jumping into any self-employed model.
• Speak with agents in the field and und

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass. Today, myself and Jack Durkin are joined by Connor Harris. So Connor has a long history in the industry, a really strong background from several years back before transitioning into a world of creating his own business. He's got a really, really well-established brand on the South Coast, Marco Harris, and he's also moved down the media route. So Connor, welcome to the Elite Agent Masterclass. How are you, mate? Thanks for having me. What an intro. Make me sound like a hero. Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for having me on, boys. It's a pleasure to be chatting with both of you today. Both people that I idolise, look up to in certain aspects, and obviously we've been sharing ideas since the launch of The Avenue and with Marco Harris. So it's a pleasure to be on. Yeah, there's a lot of mutual respect there, mate. And I think that's why we wanted to get you on the pod just before we hit record. We were talking about the direction of travel for the podcast, the direction of travel for the Elite Agent Masterclass. And like we said, there's a real space in the industry that seemingly is gathering momentum. And it's about people being aligned on a common vision and a direction of travel for the industry. So we see what you're doing at Mark Harris and what you're doing individually, taking it that way. So we wanted to kind of get you in, pick your brains, understand what Elite Agency looks like to you. But first off, What was the journey? I think the first question is understanding sometimes the chronological journey for people. What was the journey that led you to the point where you're like, you know what, I want to create my own thing? Yeah, I think, like you boys as well, there's always been that entrepreneurial fire in my belly where I've always pushed, I suppose, the boundaries of any employed role that I've been involved in. And the red tapes always held me back plus my creativity. is always come out in no matter what role I'm in, but then been sort of ceilinged at a certain point, if you like, because I've not been able to press past what I believe the industry needs because of board meetings and so on and people's beliefs within the industry. So I think we, we work in a very, very outdated sector. I love property. I love people. It's a people business and people forget that. And, um, It just got to a point where I found a pattern in my employment where I was constantly becoming unhappy within the workplace that I was in. for whatever reason that may be, but the pattern remained the same. So I thought, you know, if I don't do this myself, then I need to look for a different industry. And actually, I think I can't, I'm not employable. It's as simple as that. So the only route for me was really to spread my wings, let that creativity flow and build something that I can do it my way. And service people properly would be one of the biggest things for me. Amazing. You've clearly built an incredibly successful business over the years as well. So, and you've just mentioned off air that you're having a really successful month so far, which is great. What do you think has been the driving success for you or for Marco Harris since you launched? I think myself and my business partner, Mark, working in the business, for the first kind of year non-stop, you know, eighteen hour days, seven days a week, really finding our feet with that customer journey process and understanding what good looks like and all the mistakes were made before we brought staff into the business. So we really narrowed down that customer experience and also that agent experience for us as to what we felt needed to be done before physically starting to grow the team with employed and self employed agents. So when we came to actually starting to implement that growth plan, we knew that we need to give a platform for people to come into our world and flourish. And what we've seen with a lot of the agents that now work within the brand is they've come from a similar place to where we came from, which was they were, they lost the fire in their belly for agency overall. And when they joined us, we reignited that flame and all of a sudden their Not only doing a job that they love again, but they're doing it in a world that's creative, flexible. They're doing it on their time, on their diary, servicing the customers at all times of the day as they see fit. Plus they get to work from wherever they want to work from. and have the flexibility to go and do the school run, walk the dog, go to the gym, look after their fitness a little bit more. And I think all of them things combined make it a really special place, like the Avenue I'm sure as well, make it a really special place for people to have a career within. And I think if I was to pinpoint one thing for our growth and success over the first five years of our trading, It would be that once we implemented that growth plan, we implemented it and said, these are the guidelines for our staff and self-employed agents. This is the environment we want to work in. We've continued that through. So they feel like they're in the best working space of their lives. And I believe that they've got that as well. Love that. I think one of the words that you use there, and I'm a big believer in this, is environment. And you also shared the journey you went on, the type of character you are. I feel like you and I are quite similar in so much as I've got this real creative side. And when I was in those employed roles, especially where we first met, I felt stifled. I felt like it was very much spreadsheet. Everyone is a number. There are no people. It's just a number on a spreadsheet. And I really struggled with that. It's really counterintuitive to the way I am as a person. And so, you know, you said the decision you made to create Marco Harris, it was all it could have been a coin toss of create something that's your own and put your stamp on it or leave the industry. I think the big thing for me in amongst all of that is that someone as good as you and as someone who's got so much to offer that you have could have made the decision to leave the industry. And that would have been a crying shame. And I think there are a lot of people out there that are in environments where they think they've got no other choice but to leave the industry. For sure. Yeah, a lot of the people that we've interviewed in recent times are also at that sort of crossroads as well, especially where there's been huge changes, I think, across our industry because of the cost of living, you know, everything that's going against us as an industry as well when it comes to the government. economy in the markets. I think it's become a tough industry to make some serious money in, especially in the employed world as a normal estate agent, as we know in the past. So a lot of these people that we're I'm making okay money as such but I'm really not happy within my role I cannot see anywhere else to go and actually there are I think there's there's a few outlets now we've got the large ones that we all know about across the uk that are trying to take the market share by storm and have these self-employed agents out there doing it for themselves and then we've got people like you and I who I believe are kind of in between the high street agents or the traditional agents, if you like, and these larger UK-wide ones that are given a platform that comes with a lot more support to enable people to move from the employed to the self-employed world and give them the time of day to really create a personal brand in their business. I think it's really important that front runners like us continue to work together like we do to raise that industry standards, but also to give a platform for people to feel comfortable enough to make that jump, to keep good individuals in the industry going back to your point. Yeah, I think you touched on it earlier as well, that you clearly built the foundations for agents. We've had quite a few agents that we've spoken to that have joined the model where they have been really deflated and they've considered leaving the industry. They've been in either employed roles or self-employed roles in other businesses where they haven't felt they had the support, the platform or the foundations and structure to be able to create a real success from it. So yeah, I love the fact you've built all the foundations. You and your business partner have been in the business working really hard. It sounds like there's been some hours that have been put in over the years as well. And we talk a lot about work-life balance. How do you find and manage that kind of in terms of the balance between work and managing all the agents you've got, the team and running the business at the same time as well? Yeah, for sure. I think it's... it's a good question because it's it's a forever evolving role I think as a business owner you you come on day one and you're spinning every single plate under the sun you know you're a entrepreneur you're a business owner you're an estate agent you're an administrator all of these things that roll in and effectively what I did over once we got to a year in and we knew what the growth plan was I started to look at ways the strategic approach that I took in order to make myself redundant so I can work on the business not in the business so um the step one was bringing on what we'd call a negotiator so that was someone who could assist me with taking care of the viewings that put x amount of units or time back in my diary I could then spend that thirty hours on doing things that were going to generate more revenue for the business, as well as working on larger projects that I didn't have the time to before. Once I saw that change, it was really easy for me then to understand what jobs were taking the most amount of storage out of my time and then being able to recruit in to be able to get to my situation where I'm what I call completely off the tools and working on the business. And that's where we sit today. So we're in our fifth year of trading and I'm now in a space where I focus generally on the larger projects, the strategic marketing, the day-to-day marketing for the business, the social media implementation, helping and coaching. so I don't do the valuations anymore I don't do anything customer facing anymore but I know that I I'm more valuable to my people and to the brand by doing what I'm doing today versus what I was doing five years ago so because I've been through that as well it's really helpful for the new self-employed agents that are coming through into our brand because I've been there and I've done it and I've also been there and done it and started it with a brand from scratch whereas they're coming in year four year five where they've already got a bit of brands brand awareness campaign around them that's supporting them so that step ahead is if that makes sense um but in terms of balancing balancing it all I've got two kids a wife and another obviously media business as you mentioned which is organically grown out with marco harris is If you're looking at this video, you're listening to this and you're thinking about setting up your estate agency from scratch on your own completely and being like a Jack James or a Connor, you need to be prepared to just pay back to your life for five years. But do you know what? In all fairness, I think it's about having the right support mechanisms around you at home. If you've got that and you've got understanding from the people that support you the most, then you can find that balance really nicely. five years and that was something I never did before in an employed role I go to every single event schooling event or sporting event or whatever it is for my kids which again never had the opportunity to do before and I saw a quote actually this week on on um I think it was on one of the social media platforms and it said something like If you've got time to nap, spend time with your kids and train during the day, gym, whatever it may be. And you're running your own business and still paying yourself. You're a successful business owner. And that resonated with me a little bit because for the last eight months, I've put more focus on my health, my family, as well as still doing the business stuff. And that's an amazing space to be in. I think a state agency at all, especially the self-employed world, gives people the ability to really take back lifestyle that potentially that they always aspire to have and uh give them the platform to make money and still grow a family an amazing lifestyle outside of work I think there's two things that come off of listening to you share that. Firstly, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when you're talking the way you do about the time you get to spend with your family and everything else, because it is so important that I think quite often people lose sight of how important that is. But the two things for me come again, environment. You know, you've been surrounded by a very supportive wife. a very supportive family, you know, a collective of people that just want to see Conor Harris win. And that's really, really crucial. And I think the second thing that is the spin off there is a phrase that I saw, I don't know, a couple of three months ago. And I thought, you know, that really it's choose your heart. Yeah. And so. you've chosen your hard and the hard has been that the last five years you've had to put the graft in. But the choices, like you're saying, the eighteen hour days. But that doesn't then mean that you've not taken the kids to school. It doesn't mean you've had to miss school events. It doesn't mean that you've had to make you've made sacrifice. But the alternative to that is you could have stayed in the employed role you were in before, which was well paid, which was in the time of business that was in its ascendancy. um which came with a lot of stress and with a lot of hours but with no autonomy no freedom so choosing your hard like do you want to work nine till six until you're sixty five or do you want to work eighteen hour days for five years and then have almost complete freedom one hundred percent and I think the other thing as well is building that again there's two levels to it but if you're thinking about got, first of all, the, the retention of the business is potentially worth something, you know, if you've got an exit in mind, if you're set for business to exit at some point, make a life changing amount of money, then It's like mortgage versus renting, right? You're investing your time into something that's going to pay in ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years, whatever it may be for you from an exit point of view. So actually choosing to do something that's really, really tough in the early stages, when you start to come out the other side, there is a kind of, I suppose, pot of gold at the end of the tunnel sort of thing. For me, that's important as well. This business may remain and we certainly haven't got the ambition to exit this business anytime soon. But if we're in a situation where we are building something that has a price tag attached to it, that's either a legacy business for my children or it's just actually, we come to the decision that it could be worth millions in the years to come. And if that is the case, that's a life changing amount of money, which again, is going to, it's going to have an effect on on our family. So having sort of thoughts around, is it worth me jumping into the self employed world? Is it worth me, you know, jumping into to be a full blown business owner, but actually, if you get a white team around you the right support the right network of people, If you're very, very good at something, you can always find people that are better than you at things that you're not so good at to help you and assist you grow that in order to build something really special. Totally. I'll pause there because there is a question. We've talked about your journey. We've talked about the business ownership piece as in your role within Marker Harris and et cetera. You've also talked about the fact that you've got this setup and structure whereby you've got self-employed agents joining you. And I think a large majority of people that listen to the Elite Agent Masterclass will either be business owners or self-employed or looking at aspiring to move into the self-employed space. So when you're having a conversation with someone who, let's say, is employed world at the minute, let's say they're a corporate, a Connells, a countrywide, and they're looking at making that transition from employed to self-employed. What's the number one piece of advice you give them? you need well to back yourself if you're sat in front of me as an employed individual and you're thinking about coming into the self-employed world and you're not one hundred percent confident that you're good enough to go out there and feel uncomfortable and put yourself outside of your comfort zone and graft then there's no point in myself in a conversation And I think that's one of the challenges that you and I will always face where we're trying to get seasoned and good estate agents into our brands that have been far too comfortable for far too long. So actually they're on the other side of seasons that we want because they're very good at what they do under the current banner and brand. But you stick them into a self-employed world where they've got to go back to basics and start generating business for themselves and so on and so forth. It's a whole different ballgame. So if you're willing to sacrifice a couple of years of your life to put that graft hat on and feel uncomfortable and get outside your comfort zone, then one hundred percent you need to be speaking to a company like ours or yours, because if you do that and you're willing to do it, the success on the other side of it is huge. I think it's also difficult because there's so many different models out there. I'm sure for a lot of people that are looking at the self-employed model, they're probably overwhelmed with the number of different models and different brokerages that are available. We touched on it a little bit earlier. We've spoken to a lot of people that have lost the passion. And it's tough. It's hard. Like you just said, you've got to work really hard, put yourself in uncomfortable positions, do things that sometimes you really don't want to do to build the business that you're looking to have. But would you agree that it's also really important to make sure that you align with the brokerage and the model and the vision and the direction that company is going in? We've got an agent that we spoke to yesterday. She's going to be joining us on the pod very soon. And she told us and asked us not to mention the work-life balance because she's been working so, so hard in her business recently, pinpointing so many hours in. But she's still living it at the same time. She's got three boys now. she still spends loads of time with them, but she puts a lot of hard work into her business, doing very, very long hours. However, she still loves it and gets up every day, really, really enjoying it because she loves the direction. She loves how she's growing the business. She loves the autonomy that she's got and she just loves everything about it. So I think for her, it's probably, she probably doesn't feel as though she's working hard because it doesn't feel as much like work to her. Yeah. You've hit the nail on the head. Like there is, because I've mentioned work-life balance a few times and actually, hours than I ever have done. And so my agents, but it doesn't feel like work. So it's that sort of, it's that enjoyment piece that that needs to be right. And then coming back to your question, I think I'll use an analogy, if you're If you're buying a product and that product's available in seven different stores in the local shopping place that is near to your home, you'll probably go to all seven stores to first of all see what sort of price you can get is the best one for you, what the service looks like. Is there an aftercare package for that product? What does the warranty look like? And you're making an educated decision once you've shot the market and done your research. And I think the same thing goes into people even more so when they're shopping to build their career. So if you are an estate agent and you are, I suppose, you've got some cloud there in terms of what does the self-employed world look like? What are my options? What's best for me? It's that two-way interview process for me. It's go and speak to every single self-employed model out there, speak to the business owners, speak to the people within that brand as well, and have a chat with people that are on the ground doing the job and find out what the ethos is. You'll tend to find... like you boys and I we're very transparent with the way that we operate our businesses and that's the only that that floods into the environment that we operate in the community that we offer the service that we offer to our clients as well and you'll tend to find that you'll get real honesty from from people like us when someone's joining because we know what it's like firsthand coming from the world that we have where you're in a role that potentially could financially make you commit suicide because you are on your on false promises rather than complete transparency so go and have conversations and and and do your research before jumping into one of these models Totally agree. And I think the analogy used is a really, really good one. And I also think it's very transferable from the point of view of being an estate agent as well, isn't it? When you're looking and doing your research to join a model, if you're in a headspace where you want the cheapest route to enter the space and nothing else matters, that's like the clients that want the cheapest estate agent, but actually does the cheapest estate agent get the best result, give the best, most value, give the best support to the client? Probably not because they can't afford to. Whereas like I look at it from an estate agency standpoint, as an agent, I am, if not the most expensive, one of the most expensive options for a client to choose, but they're investing in the value that I provide. And so when people are researching, looking at the value proposition, what are they getting back in return? And actually, the thing that I would probably say that people need to do, and you've alluded to it, Connor, is there's some really, really good estate agents out there within brands, within corporate structures that When we, in inverted commas, then qualify what really good looks like, they may be great at turning an MA into a listing or they may be really good at turning the listing into a sale, really good at negging the deal. But none of that involves front end lead gen. None of it involves being a three hundred and sixty degree agent. And so I think it's really having that long, hard look in the mirror and going, where are the flaws in my ability? Am I going to be shit hot at generating leads? Because if I'm not and aligning with a brand that's super cheap to enter the space, but doesn't offer any support around how to do the lead gen, well, then I'm going to flounder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One hundred percent. And I think that's why. coming back to that piece on on the agents that are out there the pool is so small for us in these counties to find the best decisions and actually we go to who's the lister who's the branch manager how long have they been there they're the best people to talk to and what I've found and I know we've spoken about this before is we're kind of at a point where we plateaued in speaking with everyone in certain areas where we go that's not really much else that we can do you know they don't want to leave that so if they want to don't want to jump into self-employment or we don't think that they're good enough naturally in our environment because they are good in theirs but not potentially in ours where do we go from there and that's where I think we need we need some real fresh blood into the industry that that don't come with that don't come from an employed position. If you look at the beauticians of this world, the hairdressers of this world, the barbers of this world, even the freelance creatives like your photographers, videographers, that space has been self-employed for years and years. It is very, very natural for them to rent a chair within a barbershop for five hundred pounds a month and they're going to pay a premium in the particular barbershop because it's on the best high street and they offer the best support or the most client walk through the door right it's exactly the same as self-employed estate agency but we are probably ten years out of date because we're waiting for people to catch up and for this to become the norm so the more people that make the jump and the more beautiful our brokerages look the more support we can give them the more profit that we have to spend back into our brands to give them support of whatever it may be that they need and the more fresh blood that we bring into the industry the better space it's going to become and I believe with company leads like us we'll be able to raise that standards across the board and make sure that the state agency doesn't become or continue to be looked upon as a shit industry, because let's be honest, we're not the most liked, right? So I want to change the face of that. And the only way we're going to do it is by having these conversations with like-minded people across the country, trying to change the standards. But we've just launched the Academy, as you know, and we've started to now bring people into the brand that are fresh to industry. In particular, we've got one gen who's just started with us. He's coming from a very comfortable employed position and completely out of industry with no property experience. And I suppose he's our first person that we're going to really put our time and effort into now over the next six months to see if we can build someone into a three-sixty estate agency role with no experience. This particular individual is articulate, tenacious. has the fire in the belly to create something for himself. And his words to us were, I'm sat in a shit dead end job that I really dislike. And I've watched you guys on social media and I love how much all of your people love what they do. I want that feeling and I want to be a part of your brand. And that for me is the right attitude carries the right characteristics to be able to take them from completely green to hopefully a well rounded, no bad habit agent working within a brand. If this works, then that will be the way forward that we breed, you know, new blood into the industry that are coming to come in and know nothing else but high standards and self employed estate agency. It's interesting, isn't it? Because I suppose there's a lot of talk about whether you have to have experience in the industry to go into the self-employed models or whether you could do it without. I think there's a lot of bad habits that people do create. whether you come in, especially for brands like ours, very forward thinking brands, we try and do things differently. We make sure that the service is really high, the market's really high. So I think for a lot of people, whether you're, in the industry or outside of the industry you've got to come into this with an open mind you've got to come into this being open to changing what you've done and changing things that you've been used to and that's sometimes a challenge I think when we all came from similar backgrounds so when I was at when james and I met purple bricks at the time and we set up the business the avenue we were going to do things completely different to what we'd been used to. And that was a real, I suppose, challenge for me at the start as well, being open-minded to doing things very differently, not charging the low fees that we're charging before and charging much higher fees. And it's a bit of a transitional change, isn't it? It can take a little bit of time getting used to. How have you taken your agents on that journey, Connor? You've got a few agents across the business. So how have you helped them transition into that? And has there been a lot of change for them Yeah, I think one of the biggest things I think is personal branding. And that's a hot word about brand at the moment, because we're drumming it big time. And I think if you're If your desire is to become a go-to agent within whatever respected area you're working in, your personal brand is so, so important. It started to become, in my opinion, one of the most important things that you can have or tool that you can have because people buy from people naturally, which we've always known. But our brand gets them through the door. That's how we look at it at the moment. Our brand will get you through the door, but we can only lead a horse to water, right? So in order to close that deal and actually get the property onto the market with that vendor, you need to sell yourself and understand why you're good and why people should be using your service. And personal branding and the power that that has these days is huge. But coming back to your point, it's really difficult to take a traditional estate agent from another brand bring them into this modern world and weird and wonderful forward thinking, crazy led business to then say, right, in the next two years, we're going to grow you a personal brand. And you're going to be talking on camera every day. You're going to be giving tours of property like you've never done before. You're going to be. jumping into pools in video tours, you know, stuff like that. This is crazy stuff that if you said to someone two years prior to being part of our company, you're going to be doing this in two years. They'd go, there's no way that I would be doing those things. So you do get, you know, there is some, there is some, there's some friction. There's some reluctantly. Sometimes there's some, I don't understand why I'm doing this sort of mindset. Yeah. And I suppose because, coming back to my point earlier, because in the early days we went through it and that foundation was built and we knew that we were getting business simply from our social media platforms and our personal branding, we know it works. we kind of from day one slowly introduce them into what this personal brand journey looks like instagram set up tick tock facebook you know that sort of stuff and then we slowly but surely you know build upon it but one of the things I will say is it's about finding it's about finding your personality and not trying to be this charismatic estate agent on camera that is so fake it's unbelievable because in the early days I was exactly the latter I was that you know hi guys come and have a look at this form it's just not it's not natural and you feel like an absolute not doing it and most people will as well but what we've found is actually being yourself and a hundred percent authentically is will give you a lot more than what it will you trying to be a shopper. And it's about, you're not going to have a hundred percent for fan base and they're not, everyone's not going to like you. And you will get some people going, what an absolute twat. And you are going to get some other people that go, oh, I can't stop this bloke just from his videos or this lady from her videos. But I don't care about the ten percent. It's the ninety percent I care about. And the ninety percent are going to be your future custom. So, not only are they going to be your future custom but you'll tend to find you'll get supporters and raven fans within your circle from your social platforms that you never even knew that you had since launching this business I've had more support from strangers than I have close friends and family with sharing content with helping me with certain things with being a believer and a supporter and passing business and referring business into us And once you get past that kind of feeling uncomfortable stage of doing the videos and being in front of camera and so on and so forth, the first time that you then get someone call you or message you off the back of one of these and they go, I've got a house that I want to sell in this location, or I've got a house that I want to rent out for you in this location. And I don't use pitch to me because I've learned and I feel like I know you from watching your videos for the last year. How much are your fees? Perfect. Don't even question it. Signed on the dotted line. I'm your customer for the next ten years. You've built your trust, which if we go back to our traditional days, it was we have a five minute phone call to do. Eighty percent of our job, which is eighty percent now done on our platforms behind us. So personal brand is super, super important. And again, it comes back to the interview process, the transparency. You need to be having an open conversation with these brands and go, actually, what do you expect? What's going to be the norm for me? Am I going to be in front of a camera? If you're saying, look, we're this forward-thinking brand and we're going to want you to set up an Instagram, build a personal brand, get outside your comfort zone, and you don't feel comfortable with that, then go and find someone who's not doing that sort of stuff, you know? I was going to say, I think that's quite an impactful piece. So where I asked you the question of what's the number one piece of advice, I think it all sort of ties back as well, because as I'm listening to what you're sharing there, I think it's as important to disqualify the wrong client or the wrong partner agent or the wrong business partner or whatever. It's as important to disqualify as it is to qualify. And I think if agents can transition in that mindset of, I don't want to be all things to all people. I'm not working in an environment now where there's this KPI-led approach that means that every single home I go into has to come on the market no matter what. You can transition to that place where I only want to work with people I get on with. I only want to work with people that are prepared to pay me the right amount of money. I only want to work with people that embrace our vision for the way in which we're going to sell their home. Most clients I meet with, I am giving them a pretty controversial approach to the way in which we're going to market the property. And as long as I explain myself properly, I come out on the right side of the conversation. It's when you're trying to be all things to all people. I met with a client the other day and they said to me three times in the meeting, are you sure that our house is a good fit for your model, sorry, for your business? Are you sure? They're questioning whether or not they're good enough for us. We get the same thing. And this is the point, isn't it? And I think so many people we speak to, so many people that may be listening to this go, oh, yeah, whatever. That's not going to happen to me. It can. Connor has just said, if you can breathe life into what Connor has just said about building your personal brand. I mean, to some extent, even some of the traditional agents out there, if you could start giving your brand and your business a personality, stop being just another colour on the high street, because that's all that differentiates estate agents right now. Red, pink, blue, orange, it doesn't matter. You're just a brand colour. Give it some personality. But be prepared for people not to be a good fit. Yeah. And be prepared for yourself. yeah like the same thing you know you you go back to being a branch manager all right you're going to get paid let's say ten percent you do ten thousand pounds worth of fees you get grants right in the self-employed world that's going to be a minimum of five thousand pounds and potentially up to something like eight nine thousand pounds as an agent that's what you're going to be earning the difference between being employed and and self-employed so When you're sat in front of a customer and you're in the lounge and you're talking to them about the brand and what we're going to do for them, and you're talking about the value of you, your fee, and everything that you're offering in terms of that support, if that customer doesn't understand it and they are stuck in the traditional ways and they want to use one of these brands that we all know on the high street and have been there for donkey's years, but they don't want that extra added value, then don't Don't work with that client. You know, you're well within your right as a self employed agent to, like you say, choose and pick because ultimately that time is so much more precious to you as a self employed because as a self employed agent, your time is worth, in my opinion, a lot more than what it is as an employee, because you need to understand over the course of the week, what you can actually earn. And if you break that down by minutes, by hours, the time that you have to be able to put in and get the output from is far greater in a self-employed role. So you should be choosing the properties and the clients that are going to fulfill you and your brand. Simple as that. I think we touched on it as well, the personal brand piece. And I think it's so, so important, the personal branding, because it will attract the right type of clients, won't it? And I'm glad we kind of... Moved on to the personal brand piece. I know you're very big and I've taken, I know we've all taken a lot of inspiration from the stuff you do on social media and how great your socials are and different things that you do with the creativity. So for someone, for an estate agent that's starting out their personal branding journey or their social media journey, What would you suggest? How did I get started? What would you suggest be the first steps for them? Because it can be quite daunting, can't it? Yeah, it's massively daunting, I think. First of all, just... You don't want to copy someone would be my first thing because again, it comes back to that being yourself and not trying just to be someone else because you think that that's the right thing to do because you fit in that box. of course we can take inspiration and I think we all do including our us and our brand we take inspiration from people's videos from from from overseas you know so do your research and see what the industry's doing but then once you've done that and you understand what good looks like and what bad looks like you need to make a decision on which sort of way that you want to go with your personal brands? Do you want to be completely open and give something a little bit more than just the property side of it? Do you want to be Connor Harris with family, with kids, with business, with everything all mixed into one on your platform? Or do you want to be Connor Harris just property. And you then need to just be consistent and show up every single day. So the biggest excuse that we get is I don't have the time. And it's the same when people don't go to the gym. It's the same when people don't want to don't do that run at six a.m. in the morning, right? Because they're telling you they don't have the time because they think they don't have the time, but actually it's their brain telling them that I don't know what to do. So it's not something that's on my agenda because I don't feel confident in it. I don't want to do it. So I'm going to put it to the bottom of my priority list. But Jack, you work out a lot and you run. And if you do not make that part of your everyday habit, then it will be one of the first things to just fall off because it's a hard task. So people generally like going for a ten K run because it is difficult, but actually the other side of it feels so, so nice. So it's about getting to that point rather than actually doing the task itself. So if you can teach yourself and build that habit to go, I need to be posting something on social media every single day. that comes with its challenge in itself because you can't just go and post shit. It needs to be meaningful. It needs to be educational. It needs to actually do something. Yeah. And that's then coming down to strategy and working with someone who actually understands getting a mentor that goes, right, okay, we need to push you in this direction. These are the sort of topics that we need to be talking about. These are the things that, that you as a personality, I think would be really good at, you know, our agents are all so different. You know, we've got someone who, maybe a bit more plain with their personality. We've got someone who's a bit more eccentric. We've got someone who's more outgoing. We've got someone who's introverted. Naturally, personalities are like that. So not everyone's going to be this big character on screen. So it's playing to your own strengths and it's finding your own path and creating your own rhythm. um so I could imagine on it that each of those agents will attract different types of clients then they've got different personalities so you've probably got very different clients that they attract yeah I said to one of our agents um I said to one of our agents last week I said he's I can't do talking videos and I'm like okay why well because I'm boring Well, actually, that's not the case, is it? Because if you were boring, then for the last year, you wouldn't be picking up the custom that you're picking up. Because if you were boring, you sat in a lounge with someone for the last forty five to an hour, they wouldn't be choosing you to sell their property because boring doesn't close doors. You know, it doesn't close deals for people. It's about finding, you might think you're boring, but actually someone on the other end of that screen watching you might think you're the most entertaining person in the world. And actually, this particular gen makes me laugh every time I'm around him because he's dry. He's just, he's got batter, but he's very much direct. He's what it is. So, You have to make a play on that personality and you need to find your custom, like you said, that will love to watch it. My daughter is obsessed with TikTok, right? And she watches people eat food in Korea and China and they don't say a thing. So you can't come to me and tell me that you can't talk in front of camera or you can't find a niche. You don't have to bloody talk. It's that limiting belief though, isn't it? He's probably believing that people aren't going to enjoy what he puts out there. But I think for people like to see just natural stuff, like some of the stuff that we've posted that is just raw, real. It's just a little bit about what we're doing throughout the day. Some people might think it's not that entertaining, but it's actually what gets the most interaction, surprisingly. Sometimes not even the property stuff. It's more the stuff that's happening behind the scenes. So I think just sharing a little bit about your day. some people might be boring but I think a lot of people find it quite interesting as well like the behind the scenes and the consistency because a lot of outsiders to our industry think we work in a real glamorous space it's all like selling sunset stuff and all that sort of jack chair which for you jack I know it is but for people like me and james is slightly different so when when you're sharing a little bit more about like what it is that we actually do. People find it quite interesting. So, oh, shit, I didn't really know that that was part of the role that they do. And just that consistency on timings as well. Like, you know, someone's looking at this and thinking, actually, I do want help for socials would be my bit of advice on top of what we've just gone through would be create yourself timeframes in which you post and make the times when things are going to be posted so there's some people that I follow outside of industry that do exactly that kind of seven o'clock in an evening I'm gonna be watching a story that's gonna have some sort of structure to it because I know that that's what they do um I follow some clothing brands that do reselling and they can drop their new stock at certain times it's now become a custom that I know that they're going to be dropping their stuff at certain times And it's like that kind of scarcity thing of need to go, I need to go watch it. I'm gonna miss out, you know, homo. So you need to kind of correct that with your stories. And you're posting as well, and just be a bit more strategic with find, you know, there's lots of tools behind the scenes on these social platforms, right? Analyze, understand, know when your clients are watching your stuff, know when people are coming off screen during your video. If you're posting something that's a minute and a half and then dropping out in seconds, why the fuck are you going to film a fucking minute and a half video the next day? Stop doing it. Do what they want. Yeah, yeah, such solid advice. There's so much in amongst what you've shared where it's like, yeah, those little simple things. I think that's the big thing with the industry, right, though, and I don't know whether you feel the same, Connor. You meet so many people and it's like the process ends up becoming more complicated than it needs to be. I think some of the things that I've picked out of what you're sharing – The environment is so important. The people you surround yourself is going to be critical to whether you can succeed or not. Your ability to just simply show up consistently, finding your message, be yourself. I mean, is there anything easier than just simply being who you really are? I mean, I can help. If you can't be yourself, then there's a real problem in the world. And so there's nothing complex in any of that. Then you've got, obviously, like you say, you've got to start analysing the data, but the data's there. You haven't got to go and gather it. You've just simply got to look at it and go, okay, like you say, someone's dropping off at thirty seconds. I've either got to make my content more engaging or shorten my content. And just keep, like, with all of that in mind, with them things that we're talking about for social only, and then the normal estate agency stuff, you package that in and self-organise your weeks in advance to give yourself time to do these things, then I don't think you can go, like you can't lose by doing that. You have to then stick to that structure and that will give you a nice real grounding for success in my opinion. hundred percent. It's never a case of people haven't got enough time. It's just, they've just, I think if people can re categorize that sentence in their mind from, I haven't got time to that thing, isn't important to me. And all of a sudden that whole, I haven't got time. We'll start to hit differently. Cause if, if you transfer, I haven't got time. Like if I said Stanley and Margo this morning, before I left to come and record this with you guys, Stanley, I haven't got time to play with you this morning. That if I recategorize that to, Stanley Margo, you're not important to me this morning. Like that, you're way more important than anything else in my world. Yeah, yeah. And so I think that realization is so, so critical. Connor, you've shared so much value. For those of you that aren't familiar with who you are or aren't connected to you, where can they find you? Where can they connect with you, mate? So the business is Marco Harris UK. The handle for that is on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. It's all the same. Marco Harris, all one word with UK at the end. And if you want to follow me personally and get some funny insights to my sassy daughter and nightmare of a son and my family and what happens in my crazy life, then it's Connor Harris with a five instead of an S at the end. Connor Harris. So Connor Harry at five. That's the one. love that connor it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on um there's loads of bits you've shared that's just reminded me how much synergy there is between the three of us so I don't doubt that there'll be some conversations that will be a bit of a spin-off off the back of this but really appreciate you jumping on the pod with us today mate and um until we speak next see you again soon thank you lads it's been my pleasure thank you connor