Ellie Rees: Disrupting Estate Agency with Feminism, Ethics & Fire

In this incendiary episode of The Viking Chats, Kristjan Byfield sits down with the remarkable Ellie Rees - co-founder of Brickworks, creator of the viral #DearSirs campaign, and one of the most fearless voices in the UK property industry.

What follows is less of an interview and more of a manifesto. A rallying cry. A challenge to the entire real estate sector to stop making excuses and start doing better - for clients, communities, women, and the wider world.

Ellie isn’t here to play nice. She’s here to call it out: the sexism, the stagnation, the superficiality. And she’s got the track record to back it up. From reimagining what an estate agency can look, sound and feel like, to launching a movement that’s shaking boardrooms across the UK, Ellie is reshaping the rules - and inviting the rest of us to do the same.

🎙️ In This Episode:

✅ The Origins of Brickworks: A Design-Led, Values-Driven Alternative
Ellie shares how a creative background, a passion for people, and a healthy dose of fury at industry clichés led to the creation of a brand that refuses to blend in. Discover how Brickworks has grown without compromising on integrity - and why that’s more commercially powerful than any cold call script.

✅ #DearSirs: The Campaign That Hit a Nerve
What started as an off-the-cuff social post turned into a viral movement, sparking thousands of comments, hundreds of testimonials, and real conversations at the top of major firms. Ellie talks about the personal stories behind the campaign, the resistance it triggered, and why it’s time for the property industry to face up to its deeply ingrained bias.

✅ Why Estate Agency Needs More Art, More Women, and More Outrage
From the design of your pitch pack to the language in your job ads, Ellie explains why aesthetic, ethics and equity aren’t afterthoughts - they’re essentials. This episode is a must-listen for agency leaders serious about building culture, not just cash flow.

✅ Toxic Cultures, Terrible Training, and the Problem with ‘Top Performers’
We tackle the elephant in the room: why so many estate agency environments reward bad behaviour and burn out brilliant people. Ellie and Kristjan share war stories, and explore how to flip the script.

✅ Reclaiming Value: Clients, Not Commissions
Ellie talks candidly about why Brickworks refuses to chase fees at any cost, why they never say “vendor” or “stock”, and how real human-centred service builds long-term brand loyalty in a transactional world.

💥 Why This Episode Matters

The UK property sector is long overdue a reckoning. For too long, the dominant narrative has been alpha-driven, male-dominated, and profit-obsessed. Ellie Rees is part of a growing wave of founders, leaders and disruptors who are proving that you can be principled and profitable - and that actually, the future depends on it.

Whether you’re an independent agent trying to define your brand, a corporate player thinking about legacy, or simply someone who believes property should be more inclusive, ethical and emotionally intelligent - this episode delivers fuel for the fire.

It’s not about “softening” estate agency. It’s about strengthening it with substance.

👀 Who Should Tune In?

• Estate agents and founders redefining agency culture
• Female leaders (and allies) navigating a male-skewed industry
• Marketing & brand directors looking to build trust, not just leads
• HR teams aiming to fix recruitment and retention with real values
• Anyone tired of “business as usual” in the PRS, BTR or sales world

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome back to the latest episode of The Viking Chat and I'm delighted today to be joined by none other than Sir Ellie Rees. Thank you for joining me. I did really think Cathy was going to introduce me. I thought you'd like that one. I did and I like Cathy that was very good. Thank you Sir Christian. So, there we go. Thank you. I'll take that title and run with it. Thank you. Fabulous. So, Ellie, for those who don't know who you are, do I just introduce yourself a little bit? Yeah, sure. I'm Ellie Rees and I founded an own and run an estate agency called Brickworks. We mainly sell property with sales only, Rosie sales and we're London based. We sort of sojourned to the Kent coast, softly, organically, Brickworks by sea. So in Ramsgate, Margate in that pop world now, which is lovely. I'm a fine artist by training, so I'm sort of like constantly apologising for my estate agency status. Which is... - Look, I don't think that's uncommon. - It's not, and I'm conflicted by it because I also want to own it, right? So I am an estate agent. I buy and sell houses for people on behalf of other people. And yet, I suppose I still consider myself a fine artist. It's like a big fine art project. - So I've been on a journey with that. So it's one of the reasons why we called base, base property specialists and not base letting agents or estate agents. Was when we started base in 2004, I was ashamed to be an estate agent. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, it was that thing of, you'd go to dinner parties and be like, "What do you do?" I'd say, "I work in property." - We started so much more glamorous. be like oh you're a developer and I'd be like you know kind of although that's less ethical maybe but they weren't quite as demonic as they you know 21 years ago maybe as they are perceived now but but it's not like saying I'm an architect no and I think look I think a lot of people come in and I've fallen in love with our industry, building base, but when I started it, I was embarrassed for, you know, quite honestly, I was quite embarrassed for people to know that I was an estate and letting it. What's your background? Uh, actor. So I trained as a professional stage actor. Did you? Yeah. Why is that not surprising? My shy demure, softest bacon quiet from the background. What gave - Leave it away. - But what a lovely way of putting it, that you fell in love with the industry, because I think probably like us, one of the things you realize that you're able to do is change things from the inside out, right? If you're sort of entrepreneurial of spirit and you start up your own business. And I think that for me, if I'm being really honest, I am a bit of a snob. And there is snobbery attached to agency for loads of reasons. One of them is education. And I come from a really-- - It's not a recognized profession. It's an industry, not a professional. Yeah, and that is a, it's a major issue in all ways. And I'm probably guilty of it myself. You know, so I caveat with that, that I'm probably guilty of it myself. But I think there's also a reason to it, right? There's also this thing. We attract certain people. But we also know there is a reality to our industry. There's a reason our industry has the reputation it does. And that's because, if we're honest, half of our industry Hire! does a less than brilliant job. If we're lucky, half. Yeah, there's a reason the consumer feels the way about our industry and we've all had friends and had personal experiences and heard those nightmare stories. We've also had interaction with other, you know, it's not like, I wouldn't say loads of my best friends are agents. Interestingly, we are in a it's not litigious yet, but potentially sort of litigious dispute with applying about not paying fees. And I needed to call on somebody who had loads of industry experience just to get their angle. And there weren't that many people I could think of that would be non competitive, genuinely, genuinely knowledgeable and also be really, really honest with me. And that I could say, I need your subjective opinion in a kind of supportive way, like emotionally and otherwise, very few. In fact, I'm just trying to think, I think there were two people, should I say who it was? - Name them, I mean, I always like recognizing fabulous people. - And superhero. - You know, probably, I don't know, But probably we don't even agree on like everything all the time. Since when do you have to agree? And in some ways we are competitive with each other. But when like the nut, when it came down to it, it was like, I can trust this person. And I think that's really rare. It's just really rare. I think it's one of the things that's made me fall in love with this industry. And like we said, we talk to them before they in love. I think the first probably the at least the first five, if not the first 10 years of building base. I'm not sure I was in love with the industry. Did you hate it? I'm not sure. Maybe. I mean, part of our reason for starting base was we felt that landlords and especially tenants were treated like filth. And it's still a problem, particularly with tenants. There's this default psychology that runs through every business, almost every letting business. and you only have to sit in the office and listen. If you get to listen in an unfiltered office environment, the language used around tenants is shockingly consistent in our industry about, oh, the tenant office. I think buyers and sellers too, you know. I think sales is potentially not as bad. I don't think sales is, yeah, I don't think sales is bad. I think as a default kind of attitude towards that thing. But also, it was the bullshit bravado. That our industry's well known for. The pinstripe suit, the loud tie, the flash watching car, that brash kind of 1980s-esque kind of image of what our industry is. And there was still a lot of that, but what's made me fall in love with the industry is people like Vicky and Spencer Lawrence and Sue Guidney and Theresa Wallace and Ellie and certainly Reeves. And you know, what I've loved is, but also the different businesses that have come out. So, like or low them, I hate the way they attack the industry, but Purple Bricks drove a significant shift in some mindsets about an agent's attitude to what a consumer wants from an experience. - Well, it's democratized. - That they don't understand what's involved, different. But then, Modern House, you know, loved what Modern House and then in our go have done in terms of questioning what an agent is on that approach. And I would, I feel that kind of moralized, in many ways with what you've done, a more artistic, architectural approach to it, very designed, your listings feel like you're looking through a glamorous interior's magazine. - Marketing, I mean, they just upped the bar and upped the ante with marketing in a way that, they said, let's make it editorial. They came from editorial. - And we never, I find it fascinating that we don't talk about them more in the industry because they have, - Because I want to. - They have avoided agents. They don't hire agents. - No, not do we actually, but I've tried to talk about them more. The one time I did it on a podcast, I got really shut down and I got... - By the podcast? Or by comments after? - No, by the post of the podcast. - See, I find that fascinating. - Because, well, people are jealous. People are jealous because it's so successful and it's such a good idea, right? It's fear. We only ever get really, really angry if we feel something deeply unfair just or we're frightened, right? And this is, I would say in general, like forget the modern house as an example, because there's been a paradigm shift in marketing and presentation of homes since they came along. It's indisputable. So let's not try to dispute it. You know, they don't do everything in the way that I would. And I think there's room for difference and distinction. There is no one right way, right? Absolutely not. It's just calling you out to question how you do it. But could we have started our agency without their idea, by the way, they took their idea from America. I mean, everything comes from a, doesn't come from a vacuum. What I'm interested in is that movement, how we borrow from each other. And it was nothing rocket science. I don't think it was anything, none of us, you know. But they did it. I, I, I raised with a, I was raised in a house where my father was an art director. advertising. So I was raised constantly questioning everything I saw. How did it make me feel? How did the layout? Did I like it? Did it resonate with me? So I've always had that kind of... And particularly upper market sales, you know, prior to Modern House, you know, I've looked at the market, particularly someone who works in nettings, I've looked at the market. Just Daniel Dagers. I'm just like... Just the Dagers. You're selling a five million pound house and you've taken photos on your iPhone. you've only taken two. - Yeah. - That's what I really don't understand. So the volume of photos on such expensive property or the write up doesn't, you know, the copy isn't like descriptive or really well written prose. It's like, why haven't you hired a copywriter for this massive fee that you're gonna get? - Yeah, exactly. - The copywriter, by the way, would cost you 120 by pounds. - 120 by pounds, yeah. - That you're gonna get. - But okay, we mustn't go too much like that otherwise. We won't get to the nub of the thing. But this idea that we are threatened, I think the other thing about the modern house that's quite interesting is that, I do think they are snobby, right? And I think-- - Oh, for sure. - But that snobbishness is something that I would say the overwhelming majority of ages-- - They've embraced the snobbishness that-- - They've embraced it. So you could even say it's elitist, right? - They've embraced the snobbishness that we've admitted to ourselves. - Yes, but it's kind of next level, because the way that theirs works is sort of scarcity marketing, right? So they wear, we're going to reject you if you're not good enough to be part of our club. That's a badge of honour. Yeah. Right? Now, it's really clever and it's brilliant for their business. And I really admire it. I mean, I have to be like very clear, I really admire it. It's not my way. No. Because I still, because that's not who I am. I'm a more kind of political person. I'm a more, I think there should be a more human element. I think it should be less about design. I think it should be more home. - I think interestingly, it hasn't evolved. - But there's room for that. - Yeah. - There's room for this and there's room for, you know, the market isn't so saturated. - What they do hasn't really evolved past that initial, we're reimagining property marketing. - Yeah. - They said it hasn't, you go in now and I don't, it doesn't feel or look substantially different to how it did, I don't know when they launched, five, six, seven, eight years ago. - Oh God, much longer, 20. - 10, 20, blimey. I didn't realise it was quite that old. But yeah, I don't really feel like it's changed again, but then their aesthetic and their look and their feel is such a part of their brand. - It's such a strong, so it doesn't need to be, but they've almost become like a content creator as well. - For sure, you look at their social follow-ups. - It's amazing, and I know that a million followers on Instagram doesn't mean that those people are buying those properties at a party point. - But it doesn't hurt, right? - And it doesn't hurt, And it's great for the brand. What I think is really interesting is then taking, you know, you can take all the good parts of all agencies and the bad parts. You identify what's good and you use it and you bring something of yourself to it and you identify the bad things and you eradicate them. I think where we came in was we, 'cause Rex worked at the Modern House, right, at the very, very beginning. - Right, I think I knew that actually. Culturally, it wasn't what he was looking for. And I think some of these design-led, kind of bootie-c agencies, not just them, and there are a few now. - No, I mean, you've got ones like Story of Home. - Story of Home and a coot, which has been taken, was David McVicar, who's now set up a buying agency called Sec4r with Rosie Faulkner, who's also ex-modern. I mean, all these people are, you know, like in all agency, it's a small world. - Yeah. I think that scratch the surface of a lot of them. And I'm not saying they're like Fockstones or Dexter's underneath, but I do think that some of the kind of pillars of the business models are not as progressive as, say, Brickworks is, or you would like to hope when you look at the way it's presented. - Yeah. - You know, soft and touchy feeling, and then underneath the surface, it's still bottom line. it's still individual commission. I think a lot of the stuff that needs to be identified and kind of addressed and dealt with is invisible. - Yeah. - And I don't know about their business in particular and I wouldn't want to comment. - No, and that's one thing I have no idea of P&L within that business. - A lot of it is. - It's a fabulous looking business. - A lot of it's superficial, which isn't to negate the success. - No. - You can't, right? But then there's room for loads of other really exciting innovations happen. And I think we always talk about this kind of conflict, because politically, you may laugh, but we're basically socialists and property. I mean, I'm very happy with that label. I'd say 98% of estate agents have just twitched and had a fit. We're what? I know. Simon Whale and Tom McGee are about the only two other people I know. And one of those isn't even an agent who's just sat up and gone, I've known that Tom, but I love him. That's David Mintz. Mintz, there we go. We've found a four. And he's an ex agent. Yeah, he's not even an agent. And yeah, and I'm aware of that, but what a great place to be, like position wise, what a great place to be in an industry. You're like the total outlier. Like that's why this has happened, right? Because we're tiny, proportionately within the industry. We are tiny. We have like no market share. We don't have a massive turnover. Most people know who BritQuokes are. Very similar with base, right? Small business, tiny business. Big industry footprint. You know, it's a kind of, and that's, it's hugely flattering, but it's because of that distinction. And we talk about difference a lot. And then somebody recently was an executive coach said to me, you know, difference is one thing, but difference doesn't create recognition distinction creates recognition. You can be different and doing different for like 10 years and nobody would know about it. Right. And that's, that's, I think, like really crystallizes the thing. And so then we so, so we would describe ourselves kind of politically very left of center. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's like, and incongruous within the industry is kind of oxymoronic people sort of don't know what to do with it I came in going oh I'm a feminist and everyone was like you know very well known women's group in the state agency sort of called we're kind of like we're not feminists you know it was sorted very we're not we're not and it's like it's okay it's okay it's okay and by the way you are because of the way that you're behaving the things that you're saying we want the same thing, it's all right, you know. And I think... And what that is is different to everyone, right? There are some basic tenets. Of course, but the visualization of what a feminist is, this kind of bra burning like... Yeah, and again, it's language. Okay, so people are... There's a stigma, like there is with estate agents, feminism. And I think that... So if you take the political kind of position and just who Rex and I are, Rex is my husband by the way. For those who don't know, Ellie's not talking about the CRM system. Sorry guys. And you can sort of, you can take the principles of your life and the thing and look at an industry and identify stuff and then you can kind of go okay what's interesting here is because I had a fine art background and Rex had worked for like everyone you can imagine, Winkworth, SKFH, Felicity J, he did like done it. - He's got the checklist. - He really has. - He's earned his stripes. - He's earned his stripes. - And he was a very high performing sales agent. Really didn't like the culture and was really unhappy. And so you can kind of, you know, it's a bit like a big, it's not even a business plan. It was like a sort of big Venn diagram. And I came from the arts and he would say, well, this is what we do. And I'd go, why? - Yeah. - And then he'd say, well, this is what we do. And I go, why? - Yeah. - Not because I'm particularly intelligent or brilliant and not because it's rocket science, like with the modern house. It's just because you sometimes need someone from the outside in to go, "Why?" - That inability to ask why, and I don't think this is unique to our industry, but the inability to ask why is the biggest thing that holds our industry back. This thing of like, "Oh, we do it "because that's how it's always been done. "We do it because that's how I was trained to do it." - Dissemination is tradition. - Yeah. Yeah. But then when you start to shake that, that's when it becomes threatening. Yeah. Because you're shaking the status quo. Yeah. Which is shaking the patriarchy, which is shaking the boards of directors and they are, you know, we know. It's fascinating isn't it that they get so shaken by something that really, I know the overarching objective is bigger, but fundamentally it's a very superficial, very simple. Yes. And a lot of the time I'm just kind of like, oh it's little old me. Yeah. one, it's just me going, I mean, sometimes I'm probably too assertive. But, you know, I'd be aggressive if I was a woman and assertive if I was a man. But sometimes I'm probably, but you know, you just sort of going, Well, actually, that's not true, you know, your gender pay gap is this, or, you know, you're not, we're not dealing with subjective opinion. A lot of the time it's facts. Yeah. And people do not like it. They do not being like being called out. Yeah. Well, I've had no response to that. Solicitor. So for those who didn't see, Ellie and I had a quick interaction of many because we had a Solicitor email as finalization documents, land registry documents from our office renewal. And the Solicitor emailed me, addressed the email just to me, but copied and my business partner into the email had previously directed directly with Anne knew she was a co-founder and fellow company director but didn't feel the need to address the email to both of us. And we've talked about this before, like weirdly, if he'd just sent the email to me and not copied her in, probably wouldn't have been an issue. No. But the fact that he had the thought to manually copy her into the email, he had that thought of, "Oh, I must include Anne," but then didn't think it was remotely appropriate, appropriate to send an email to one company director and completely ignore the other. And so, you know, I just sent a reply back saying, thanks for getting this through. Can't believe it took 11 months. Either way, it is 2025. If you're going to send an email, you should really send it to all the company directors and address all of them, particularly when this related to initially relating to base and everyone within our two businesses knows, you know, and now 90% of bass is and yeah, and my focus is predominantly on depository now so if you're going to recognize one come one of the company directors within bass, pick the right one. But no, I called it out very politely, but I had a bit facetious though, were you a bit kind of like, well, you said I don't know if you've noticed it's 2025. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's That's my style. I'm always a little bit. I will always have a little poke in the ribs. But I won't call someone incompetent or unprofessional or be more spiteful than that. But no, there will always be a proverbial ribbing of, "Dude, you can do better." But I think what's fascinating is there was zero acknowledgement about that. There was know like, "Whoops, sorry, did it in a rush," or "No, you're absolutely right. I'll make a note of that for next time." Or, "I never thought of that before." Yeah. And interestingly, or, "I didn't do it." Yeah, or "Defend it." Like, there was nothing. Oh my goodness. I totally was on automatic pilot and I just got to the, "Look, what's been so, can you imagine how many non-replies I've had from the dis-ers?" Oh my God. You know, what's been interesting is just such a a broad range of responses to to disses and when you do it when you call it out one by one some of the justifications must be well alarming and hilarious but i mean i've got some really good top drawer lines like what do you want me to say dear amoeba someone said that dear amoeba i was like no not really just not disses i don't want to be called an amoeba either you know if the sort of appears more than kind of, you know, I, what do they want to identify as a table? You know, it's that, it's that, isn't it? It's the woke thing. It's just, it's just anti-woke. It's like a big generic, huge nebulous mass of people who are anti-woke. Fabulous label. And so non-specific as well. But it's really interesting because I ended up my sort of comrades in the Diocese. Rise! [Laughter] quite interesting. Because I don't think that's necessarily important or crucial, but not really also find it telling not really high profile. I tell you who's always been really, really supportive. And I can't remember. I can't remember his name, well, the name of the business and I could blame that on the menopause. Peter Ambrose and the partnership love Peter. OK, so I did hope that's where you go. I'm like, I don't know, not a slipper, but I do know Peter. Yeah, Pete, you know, not the vice president of law society, but within our industry really well respected and just lovely and been sort of beating that drum. But also he's one of those ones like us, he asks why, you know, they were one of the first agents and they didn't scream about it that had a proper kind of case tracking portal. And it was just that thing of, you know, why are we hiding this information from clients? And I heard him speak and he's so eloquent and that's the other thing. It's about it. Actually, it's not about education. It's about thought and consideration. And I think a lot of the time what is happening, it is the it is the ask why, but it's beyond the ask why it's like. You have to go further than why and you have to actually interrogate things. Really, if you really want to do something really well and you want to be at the top of your game, it's like. this sort of interrogation. - Was questioning the subtleties, isn't it? So like-- - And the nuance and all the variables. - You know, I created a business, and now two businesses with a female co-founder and partner. That was never a question that entered my mind of going into business with Anne. No point was there a question relating to the fact that she happened to be a woman. - Yeah. about whether I wanted to do a business with her or, you know, so I think the thing I've found interesting, running a business with a woman, you know, absolutely before we've almost always had a 50% or more balance of women within the business. We're also usually 50% or more LGBTQ. But a lot of that has kind of just happened naturally. There hasn't been a lot of forethought to that. But what I've found interesting, you know, and as people like yourselves have raised this question and this debate and this, you know, the need to question this stuff, is it the subtleties, the, the dear sirs, the emails without, you know, I replied to that slister and I copied and into it. And you know, this is someone who, you know, we've lived and breathed together for 21, 22 years. you know, and I get an email back man going, God, you're bloody lovely, aren't you? You know, and it's, but I think what's fascinating for me, it's the silent sufferance for women, the variety of shit that you put up with throughout your lives from being, you know, fledgling women into careers and then on into later life, menopause and everything else. it's this array of small and big battles that you face throughout your life, for a myriad of reasons, that you all quietly, or typically quietly bear, and you have your support network, but for me as a bloke, what's been interesting for me the last 10 years is kind of getting to peek behind that curtain a little bit and having this dialogue opened up and being like, "Fuck hell." But in a way, the conflict that's created is where the interesting stuff kind of comes from. So going back to this, we're socialists, but working within is like, starkly capitalist model because like, property is theft, right? So property is like, it's the cornerstone of that, of capitalism, of capitalism in some ways. We know that it's, you know, in many ways one of the cornerstones of the British economy. like it's and post that to the onus the cultural cultural ideas around the ownership of property which is why we have the culture of friends and value as a human being your value is your success the metrics by which we measure ourselves you know monetarily and I think that's why we've got a problem so many young people now because we've taken away what has for the last 50 60 70 80 years been considered one of the cornerstones of achievement and success right and now for a lot young people, short of inheritance winning the lottery and inheritance is questionable with many generations now, the idea of property ownership is something either very far down the line, if unimaginable. And I think that's also why we've got a lot of problems at the moment with younger people in the workplace. Aspiration-ly, what are we asking them to to achieve, you know, we see this talked about a lot. - Which is why I did it, Sarah's is really important because you are not going to have a generation of people who will put up with that. Because the conversation for younger people, I've got 13 years old, the conversation for younger people is not are you a boy or are you a girl by the way. - No, no they couldn't give shit. - It's way more complicated. And like even non-binary is an umbrella term. There are, and you know, you can call it woke until you're blue in the face. There are still hundreds of thousands, millions of these people and they are going to be the new workforce and we'll be dead. So it's irrelevant. And we can fight against it all we like or we can, going back to this conflict thing, it's like actually the really when you're in the weeds of this, you know, it's almost a sort of intellectual and philosophical debate, that kind of asking of the why and that kind of questioning. And what I think is, the state agency became so transactional that any kind of idea of the philosophy or notion of home just got lost. So then of course you stop asking those questions and there's not enough time because of volume and it's busy and sell, sell, sell and onto the next one and bottom line and that's what creates this short-term gain. It's like if you sell, it's KPIs, it's those monetary metrics. If you sell this many houses in this amount of time, you'll be flown around Canary Wharf in a helicopter. You'll go to Dubai. Yeah, you'll go to Dubai. Who tortured their princesses? No. You know, it's a short-term monetary gain only. Can you edit this, by the way? Oh, no, no. We don't edit it. No, I was just checking all the time just because I'm very good at waffling and I think we're definitely going to use the time. - No, it's good. - So, you know, there's, you've made me lose my train of thought and it's like the menopause. (laughing) - We were talking about a simplistic target in the drive so capitalism. - Let's call it what it is. It's the fox's dexter. It's short term and you'll get a car and this and that and it's like, and if you don't, you'll be left at home and you'll have to sit in the office and in the basement of the office. - But I think even that's, you know, bringing it again back to this thing, 'cause there was an interesting interview with Chris Watkin, and I forget the lady's name. I'm pretty sure she was a Bellevoir, I'm pretty sure she was the Bellevoir franchisee, and it was, you know, why are 20 something so entitled? I mean, it was something along that line. It was very close to that. And look, I think all businesses, every generation, struggle with the new generation. We are not the first generation to go, oh, young people. Every generation has bemoaned young people, but it's understanding that shift of priorities, aligned, what motivates you, what drives you. It was interesting, I was at the Unchained Voice of the Agent conference last week. And what was really interesting in there was we had Experian and YouGov. Simon Ledbetter might say he was a socialist. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Or boarded Leaning. A data led socialist. As long as it's data led, I think he's on board with pretty much anything. But what was really interesting was we had YouGov and Experian, do you talk back back to back about data and there was quite a big focus in there. Look at Gen Z, just a fun way and it was you know it was saying oh this is what we do know about Gen Z and it was you know they were funny things like they're less likely to like beans on toast you know there was there was random stuff in there but there was stuff about you know they will choose a business based on its environmental credentials based on its social ethics and so on and so forth. And again, it was really interesting because it was asking this question and this wasn't even looking at a staff as an employment basis, it was looking at it as a customer or client basis and it was like, right, they're not your client yet, but in 10 years they absolutely will be. So 10 years from now, how does your business look to your new primary client base? That's the long game. And that is a fascinating question. And then my thing I bring it back to as an employer because, like I said, we've had our struggles. I've talked to a lot of agents this year who I love and respect as people in businesses. And also they are incredibly focused on the people in their business and how they support and motivate and drive those people in terms of learning and questioning what that looks like. But there is definitely this kind of black hole of aspiration, I feel like at the moment, for a lot of young people because it's you know whether you go for a really like money money money sales driven role or you choose to go into a different approach to agency. I think we all fundamentally turn up to work hopefully to get some enjoyment satisfaction from the work we actually do but we also fundamentally do it to earn a living and to achieve certain things and as we've touched on you know one of those has always been owning your own home. You do this you put in your 10 years hard graft you can get yourself on the property ladder and then you can start eating your way along. By the way I just want to caveat I own my own home. Yeah I don't and you know I'm not I do realize that there's hypocrisy here and double standards and that is also Also what is part of it being interesting, and that's where I also think the good ideas can come from because it's conflict. It's, you know, there is, you've got to ask yourself big questions then as well. Well, I wonder with young people, if we're kind of, we've come to a point in society where there are substantial changes, you know, A, access to housing, B, this new era of AI, You know, we're entering a very interesting phase into the way further education is being perceived. It's over expanded. The simple fact of the matter is there are way too many kids going and getting shitty degrees that aren't worth anything coming out with a shit ton of debt. And then the degree is worth. It's the debt, isn't it? I was the last year that didn't have to pay fees. Yeah. And I just wonder if with these things, we're kind of asking the wrong question of not like, "Oh, how do we manage them?" and "How do we kind of contain this challenge?" But how do we understand why that is going there? And if there is no big reward for going above and beyond, and you're not saving the environment or changing your local society, why would you give a shit? Why would you turn up? And you've got an employer who pays you just over the minimum wage or splashes out on living wage for you. Again, you look at our industry and income. And again, this is another thing. I think it was Simon Unchained who did some analysis other day and was looking at what a typical negotiator makes versus a shelf stacker in a supermarket. Not much difference. And yet, very simple job, turn up, no high pressure sales meetings, no pressure over targets, no working into the evenings, no Saturday or if it is, it's very much, you know, much more structured. You know, so what are we doing to attract people at the offset? - But then the dream has always been that there are a few people who can reap huge rewards, right? - There are, but are we willing to let that, I think that number shrinks as our industry goes on, that number is shrinking. - For sure. we run an industry on 5% of the industry having a successful career whilst the other 95% and okay. But then you just have to change the commission structure for it's salary, your start. But commission structure, we've got rid of pretty much all commissions years ago. We felt it was the wrong motivation. We've taken an attitude of always paying good salaries. We pay kind of top 5% of the industry for roles and we've kind of always taken that we're very much on par with any of your big blue chip companies in terms of you know, one of our roles are roles that run the day to day business. We don't have this negotiator or sales role. We see it as a it's a it's all part of the sales process. Well, letting's for us it's all part of you know, we're not trying to trick someone into renting a home that they didn't completely want and paying more than we think it's worth. We want people to move into a home that they love and they're happy with. I don't envy you by getting that. I love it. We love it. You know, genuinely love it. Like most of the time, most of the time, yes, you have those fringe things, you have those tenants who you will never, will never be happy no matter what. You've got those landlords who will never be happy no matter what. The style and we're very direct about how we are as a business. And that's the nice thing when you become a more mature business, when you hit that five, 10 years, you can, if you haven't already, put, set out your stall, so to speak. And I've said many times, one of the best things we did after about ten years was when we finally turned around and we asked ten clients to leave. We wrote a very polite email to ten clients. No clients. And it was the best thing we ever did because five of them we barely heard a word from. Fine. Whatever. You know. And the other five people were with you anyway. The other five picked up, the other five were on the phone within five minutes of that email hitting their inbox. What have I done? Yeah. And they Almost overnight went from being one of our most difficult clients to one of our best clients and best advocates. No, it's so interesting. Which is fascinating. We need question. And again, it comes into this thing of, you know, how people, I know I'm guilty of this with sales calls, cold sales calls. I try not to be, it depends what, what mood they catch me in. Usually I will, like I say most of the time, I'm like, dude, appreciate the job, not for me. Take me off your database, please don't call me again. But occasionally will catch me when I'm feeling not as quiet and they will get the rough edge of my attitude and not justified. They're just doing their job, they're doing what's paid. I have obviously given my contact details at some point to someone in some business where I've allowed that information to be used for sales purposes. But yeah, I think that default reaction is what I'm talking about. talking about so many issues. And I think that that's what's really interesting about property and estate agency. But going back to this idea of young people, you know, Simon Sinek just says, just listen, I mean, we just don't listen, we're just not like you say, maybe we're not asking the right questions, but we're not just listening to what it is that they are saying and we're too quick to shut it down. And Mary Porto has really kind of taken that and run with that. And I really like the way it is. I think also some of the women are so big, they're terrifying. So because they're so big, it's like, whoa. Well, they're in some, it feels insurmountable. And I think going back to Dearser's, what was interesting about that was, I, you know, I can't challenge sexism and society on my own. It can be completely and utterly impossible. And so it's this thing of you identify something that is within your control, that you can potentially act on this really small and it's like this tiny little thread that you start to pull and that's how we dismantle it all and really kind of start to look at it and deal with it and address it and make things better for ourselves, the consumer. by yourself you take a little nibble but you find your crowd and you can actually devour a whole shop. But these small kind of customs of industry if you like, accepted ones that have just always been the way it's been done, whatever it might be called calling or whatever it might be, it's just the accumulation of the thing. It isn't the thing it's so factored by itself, it's the same as the tip of the iceberg thing. And so once you, then it becomes manageable, it becomes accessible, you know, first stop disorders, next stop, you know, bam, the boards or whatever. You can, you can, taking something really small and achieving something off the back of that makes you realise that actually you are, no, I can't tackle misogyny single-handedly. - I mean. - But I've done my own bit. - Don't tell yourself, sure, Ellie, I think. - But I've done my own bit. - Well, and that's it. And I think that's all you can do, right? I think it's that thing of, yeah, you never know what the outcome of your efforts will be, but it's that old habit, right? As long as you can go home at the end of the day and look yourself in the mirror and be like, you tried. - Yeah. And that's about, you know, this notion of, I've only come across this quite recently, which probably just makes me very naive and ignorant. But like that notion of a legacy business, rather than a business that only exists to make money for the people who work for it at any given time, the end. And I really like that idea. - Yeah. - Cultural shifts, paradigm shifts, political shifts, because you want to create a legacy. I mean Anita Roddick is the best. Anita and Gordon Roddick are the best example. I'm not comparing myself to her. But you know, the body shot, - I just like, I mean, - Changed everything. - And the lush, you know, lush is kind of been the millennium's version of body shot, right? You know, they're starting on social media. You know, there's some really powerful and how fascinating that two kind of beauty product shops. - And still we go into lush and we spend a million pounds on a couple of watermelon shaped bath bombs. I mean, this is the other thing when I talk about politics is that, you know, there has to be a space where we can, it's okay to feel a certain way politically and not be money grabbing and greedy and still want to have a nice cup of coffee and buy a handbag. - That's something I think interesting I find with our industry is this, you know, like you, very outspoken about stuff. I've been very outspoken about housing issues for quite a long time. The lack of social housing, I think, is the number one contributor to pretty much every pain point within housing at the moment. But I'm very outspoken politically. I try to keep context to it. I mean, I'm very quick to highlight when our next housing minister comes in, how many we've been through, and what shit show we've got with the revolving door of housing ministers and so on and so forth. I think what's interesting with our industry is there is a lot of political caution. Oh, we can't possibly say that because the chancellor might not like it and might decide to do XYZ. And it's like, I don't know, do we really think politicians are that petty? I mean, maybe. But also small people politics in that I've been so surprised how few people are prepared, for example, socially, sorry, in terms of social media, like publicly online, to actually say what they think. Like how many conversations have you had privately that are just not just a bit different, but like the polar opposite of what that person actually thinks? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I've had conversations and I've actually said to people to their face I wish you would put this person online just because this is way more interesting and it's disappointing it's so disappointing because actually I've called people out but is it surprising right I still at pretty much every industry event or conference I go to I will still over here at least one conversation about what an estate agent should wear. And I'm like... Yeah but Christian now we have to face the truth which is that we're talking about loads of people that we know and loads of people that will be watching this podcast. That's fine. Well it is fine but what it means is so for it I'm going to talk about this a little bit because what's happened to me is I've just had to become a complete lone wolf. Not complete loanable. There are some people who are like deeply supportive, but very few. Like you can get yourself ostracised really quickly. And that's because people don't want the status quo to change because it doesn't suit them. It has to be. There isn't another reason or they're genuinely worried for their jobs. I think that is part of it. I think it is. I think also part of it are people people are just overwhelmed with just trying to do the day to day. Yes. And I'm not saying that, you know, right or wrong, whatever, but I do think there are lots of people who they don't see that as a relevant or essential part of their working life. No. They just see their job as something they turn up. But it is intrinsically part of their working life. I mean, that's the other... want things to change and if we want a better industry and a better society then yes everything we do should always be called into question. I think you should always be questioning whether you're at work or on holiday or in a shop or at a restaurant. For sure and I can't remember who said it. It was probably like Eleanor Moves about someone like that and this is definitely a misquote but like you know when people say don't be political about something like pull it everything's political. Everything's politics. Right? So we have to start with everything that's political. It just is. You know, whether we choose to buy our coffee at Starbucks or whether we choose to buy our coffee, you know, at the independent down the road, that we're making a decision that speaks to who we are and what our values are and what we believe in and whether we believe in like ethical trade or whether we believe in like huge multinational conglomerates and tax avoidance. - What was it the other day? They did a study on businesses with the greatest imbalance between CEO and average income. And Starbucks won! They won! - They were over there. - Their CEO earns 6,666 times what their average employee makes. And not only that, I think they've recently sacked 15,000 staff, but they'd put the CEO's pay up by more than they'd saved by sacking those people. But people are voting with their feet and I think coffee is a terrible example and I've used it before. We also have this weird thing about making money, right? There is this weird idolisation of people, you know, I mean, musks, trillion dollar pay packet. Yeah. It's revolting. they're going no no no but he's worth it. But it's also as a woman so this I don't know if you know Cindy Gallup but she yes to you yeah she's amazing. I'm right I think advertising world right? Yeah yeah yeah. Crazy balls like. Like just she just absolutely like. She says I am the Michael Bay. Yeah she's yeah. And I blow shit off. Yeah no yeah she's awesome. She's incredible and LinkedIn are shutting down her algorithms so that she's so you know she's got a bazillion followers and she's not getting you know that it's really sinister actually in some way. She advertised she interviewed Divina McColl recently about menopause and stuff because that's her thing isn't it at the moment which is great but um she was saying and now I've forgotten she was saying for women what we can't do is we We also can't kind of go money is the enemy and money is wrong and money equals being greedy because actually for women in particular we have to have financial independence because unless we are creating a kind of ecosystem of our own in terms of like a female economy then we can't, because we know startups for example and like funding that goes to female startups and CEOs, it's like nothing. To drop of a drop. It's nothing. even in an established industry, you know, 13% of, less than 13% of a state agency owner's are women, like, you know, the, the discrepancy is massive. It's not a bit, it's massive, the gender pay gap in our industry, much, much higher than the national average. And so she's saying we kind of, we need to sort of reframe and rethink our relationship with money so that it becomes not necessarily ipso facto a bad thing to want. Money is not a dirty word. Well, to create this ecosystem for women to be able to fund each other, support each other, donate to each other. And, you know, one of the reasons we have an all-female team, again, not by design. It happened that way, but it has become a distinction that really works. But I think it's interesting when we talk about wealth, I think this is often where the waters get muddied is we start to talk about wealth and all of a sudden there's this belief that that includes people who earn, if you earn £100,000 you're rich. No you're fucking not. In most countries, in most modern western societies, if you earn £100,000 you are not rich. You're doing well, you are a successful individual, you will be in the top 5% of earners. You still need a double income to buy a house in London. Absolutely. You know, and it's, you know, I think that it's a really important point is that, you know, when I talk about what I talk about insane wealth, I genuinely don't think you mean tax the rich you mean like the yachts and can't even exist like no no human is worth a billion pounds or a billion dollars no one should have assets certainly not a trillion but yes we we absolutely but in that whole conversation this whole idea of starving entrepreneurs by saying wealth or success is wrong. No, absolutely not. You know, I think everyone should be enfranchised to achieve what their own perception of success is. And I think it's also naive and quite great test to say what a legitimate, you know, if you want to live in a football style mansion and have three Ferraris on your drive, good for you. Wicked. If that's your idea of sex, of success. - Excellent. (laughing) - Freudian slip there. - It took a really strange turn. - And that's when it got spicy. - And I don't even have the menopause to blame on that. (laughing) But no, if that's your idea of success, awesome. Like each to their own. I think, you know, the debate I've seen, this conversation out there that is basically like, let's look at 10 million plus. - Yeah. - People who have assets and cash over 10 million quid. I don't think anyone can argue that someone with 10 million pounds or more in cash or asset is struggling in any You know you are set for life Yeah, no, you know unless you've got literally like a million children You know your family is set for life if you've got 10 million quid plus you're good And but you trickle down from that and they're a question. So I think it's I think it's a really interesting topic and again when we talk about the perception by some of society probably by a third of Britain that 100,000 if you earn 100,000 you're rich because for that segment of society earning that amount is unfathomable that's as unfathomable as becoming a million hour a billion. We are we are still you know food banks are you know running out of things. And opening faster than ever. We've got more and more everywhere. And yet we've got vying political leaders going on news channels at the moment, talking about how the minimum wage is too high. And that's what's stifling business. I mean we're in danger of going into just the broadest... We're really... I'm looking over the cliff. I'm feeling like I'm on a precipice and I need to take some steps back. But yeah, I mean it's complicated though and it's very difficult to talk... Like I'm not an economist, I'm also not a politics specialist and a lot of it I don't understand. I can talk about what I can talk about with experience within the industry. And I think and what we can do and again, that goes back to the bite size chunks thing. And I think that it's kind of morality and ethics as much as it is anything else. Other ones are in danger of being a hypocrite as well, but one is not you. You know, I'm aware we're going to have to bring this around to some sort of conclusion in a minute. And you know, as always, I don't know what we're going up. We go out for lunch, we'll continue this conversation off record. But look, I think, you know, do call people out and do call situations out. They're not necessarily to call people out but call out situations. Find safe ways to question something that you don't think is right. I think... What does that mean? What do you...safe means sounds like a euphemism. because I think that what I've tried, I have tried to call people out privately. It's yeah I mean and it's made no difference whatsoever and I don't get any acknowledgement whatsoever. The only time anything has actually been affected is when someone's embarrassed. And it's difficult, it's different given the person's sex, the person's age, sexual orientation, career path, what business they're in everything else. The only thing I can relate to personally, probably the clearest point where I've put my foot down in an environment was actually the Zoot  Blessings Advisory Board. So that's now been running three years, four years now. It's now 11 people. I think When we started it, it was six. And we very quickly established that we needed more people around the table. I think six months a year in, we were like, we need more minds, we need more voices at the table. At the time, there was one woman around the table. Was there anybody from the global majority or is everybody white? White. One LGBTQ. BTQ. Because we don't talk about racial cultural ethnicity in this industry either. It's a massive tragedy. As you know, we had Nicola Thieveson who was the one woman on the board and is also of mixed ethnicity. But yes, it was very... It wasn't diverse. But the interesting thing was we all agreed we need to grow this, we need to make it bigger. We should go from six to 11. And as we did in the casual thing, it was like, right, who do we think would be a great addition to the board? And we went round and everyone gave a name or two. And it was a man's name, and it was a man's name, and it was a man's name, and it was a man's name, and it got The nice thing was, that was the reaction from the whole table. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It was, I always liked, as I said earlier on, I will always give a little poke in the ribs and I will call stuff out. - That means a standing ovation. - But I will do it with a smile on my face and a wink and be like, I'm not saying you're all misogynist prex, but let's just look around the table and be like, actually. - But also, you are a white man and it's your privilege that you can do that without a backlash. I've sort of done that before and I have just like had hellfire. Is if I've sort of like murdered someone's granny, you can't believe it. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not a woman of colour. And that's why I say, you know, it's easy for me to say this because I sit in this highly privileged demographic. And so do I, by the way. Of great education, you know, middle class background, why, etc. So do I. So, but sometimes, and I'm not gonna call it, but I was a meetup with a supplier group recently, or the forming of a potential supplier group. There was 14 people in the room, one woman. Now, fairness to the person who organized it, four women had originally agreed to attend, and in the two days before three of them had said, sorry, had something come up. but four to 14 is still not a good enough balance. - We were shortlisted for an award recently. - Well, the interesting thing was we called it out. The person who organized it was like, yeah, but it's not that easy, is it? And I just went with the greatest of respect, it really fucking is. I was like, you can't guarantee week in, week out, it's gonna be bang on 15. - No, but-- - But guess what? Sometimes it's gonna be 60% women, and sometimes it will be 60% men, because shit happens and life changes. But I was like, every business represented around this table has at least one senior woman or founder at the helm. And yet none of them are in the room. So it's just awareness. And as the organizer of the event, it falls on you. You organize the event. How do you want this event and this potential group to be perceived? - Yeah. - And sometimes it really is that fucking easy. And with Zoopla, like I said, I made that cheeky comment. Everyone had a chuckle, and we were all like, "Nee, absolutely right." And then we set out to make the board more diverse. And unfortunately, we struggled to make it more ethnically diverse. And I'm not gonna, we're way too late in the chat for us to wade into that now. And that is a very nuanced and very difficult and challenging subject, because my ambitions there were very honest and very true, but I'd really hit some brick walls on that. - Yeah. - But what we did manage to do was bring four or five women onto the board and it is pretty much 50/50 now. And interesting, what I also sought out to do with that was making sure that the women were diverse, ages, businesses. - Yeah. But that's affirmative action, isn't it? It's what used to be called positive discrimination. And people don't like that either. - But this is the fight, this injury thing of, oh, but you can't set out to be like, you absolutely fucking can. - It's not fair. Well, you absolutely have to. There's an imperative that we do, otherwise going back to what you were saying earlier, there will be no change. If we really want some kind of cultural change and shift and a paradigm shift, you have to. You have to say this is actually my explicit aim. - Because you can also add caveats to it, right? - Of course. Obviously, you know, if you say, right, we need to hire five women to bring balance to this business. You are not going to hire categorically five women if you can find four that you believe are right or right enough for the business. And the fifth, you think is going to be a toxic fucking disaster, but you're like, I've got to tick that box. You know, no one's saying you have to be a fucking idiot and throw business principles out the window. But also, there has to be the acceptance. But if you're not finding the right candidates, are you looking hard enough? Are you asking the right questions? has to be the acceptance that we don't live in a meritocracy. So the argument is, you know, it has to be fair and then it has to be given to the person who is right for the job and best for the job and has the most experience and all that kind of stuff. But there might not have been any of those opportunities. Who decides those parameters, but also we don't start at the same starting block. We don't we don't live in a fair situation. So of course, if you are, you know, the typically privileged white male and then there's things like mini me recruitment which is recruiting in you know the mirror image of yourself which is how you know boards end up all looking the same because people are kind of like oh you're like me you're me ten years ago. There's more CEOs called Phil or something. John yeah Sally in the 3100. Hilarious and equally terrifying. Terrifying. Hilarious. So yeah you absolutely have to. You have to say we're this head on and it is uncomfortable. It's quite difficult to have these conversations. It's a bit like, you know, the trans debate and the gender conversation at the moment with a younger generation, which I'm not going to get into. You can't go into these things thinking, oh God, there's going to be loads of like potholes here for me to fall into because there are, but you're going to say something wrong. You know, you're going to use outdated language. You don't have to get it all right. You might say something that sounds like a contradiction or, but there's George Montbieut says this thing, which is I would rather be hypocritical and making mistakes and, you know, sort of sounding like I potentially got double standards or I haven't got it all quite worked out and trying really hard to do the right thing, then be a bystander on the sideline, not doing anything, not creating any action whatsoever and just calling out the person who's trying really hard. because we can't do this in a perfect way. No, no, you can't get a perfect. We have to imagine that we're going to trip up and fail and embarrass ourselves. It's like any business, you know, you talk about improving your business, you don't go out and overnight improve a business by 35-40% by some miracle cure. It is those one or two percent increments that you implement. And it keeps happening, you keep learning. Exactly, and it's language and it's attitude and it's culture and it's how you frame it. And like you said, and just own the mistakes. Whoops. I had no idea. And I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry it goes a really long way. Yeah, yeah, it's really quite a simple thing to say. And I'm sorry it's a really good thing and no is a really good thing and also, and maybe this could end things, you also, when you really believe that something is morally right or not, you can also go, I get it and it might make me unpopular but I'm not necessarily here just to make friends, there's something else bigger at stake. And that's also quite empowering. - And on that note, I'm sorry to say, we have run out of time. So the delicate-- - If you've got this far. (laughing) If you're still with us. - You know, Ellie and I struggling to find words in there and really like, you know, struggling to find topics to cover up. - It was so awkward. - A lot of fun. I think there's probably gonna have to be an Ellie part two at some point down the line. But look, hopefully we've touched on some things that get people's thoughts going. If you're not already familiar with Ellie and Brickworks, reach out, connect, check out the business. Yeah, ask questions, engage with the debate, the stuff we've talked about today, engage with one of us, both of us, any of us, none of us. - This has as an override there because, you know, the Law Society put these new guidance out, but we've got to get the SRA on board fully and yeah. - Yeah, I mean, Ellie and I, I think both used to not being everyone's cup of tea. I don't think anyone should ever be anyone's cup of tea. So if you do think we're absolutely full of it and you just wanna call us a bunch of, you know. - No, don't. - Waffley, Waffley, you know. Come at me. Ellie's had enough, you can focus it on me. Ellie's had enough of that shit, come at me. But no, hopefully we've triggered some, started some itches that you, it's scratches you might want itch, you wanna scratch, there we go. a big socialism conversation now. I was trying to end this really nice and cleanly and I'm waffling again so I'm sorry I'm waffling again but we are wrapping that one up. Yeah hope you enjoy it as that was known and be back soon. Bye.