Simon Gates Unfiltered: Property, Podcasts & Playing the Long Game

In this powerhouse episode of The Viking Chat, Kristjan Byfield sits down with one of the UK property sector’s most authentic and disruptive voices - Simon Gates, co-founder of Opening The Gates and a man who has made it his mission to rewire how estate and letting agents think, speak and serve.

This isn’t just another industry chat. It’s an unfiltered, high-energy deep dive into what’s broken, what’s exciting, and what’s next for the UK agency landscape - all through the lens of a man who’s spent the last 20+ years learning by doing, leading by example, and lifting others as he climbs.

From estate agency culture to personal branding, CPD to content creation, vendor communication to mental health, nothing’s off the table in this honest and often hilarious hour of real talk, hard truths, and big ideas.

🎧 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ Why trust is the only KPI that really matters
Simon breaks down why brand voice, tone and delivery beat logos and leaflet drops every time - and how agents can build real connection by being themselves, not sales machines.

✅ The problem with '80s estate agency in a TikTok world
We talk about the legacy problems in property: command-and-control leadership, “numbers over nuance” mindsets, and the chronic lack of investment in personal development. Spoiler: your people aren’t just tools - they’re your brand.

✅ Why CPD needs CPR
Simon’s take on continuing professional development is anything but corporate. It’s about real-world learning, daily discipline, and ditching the idea that compliance is a checkbox rather than a culture.

✅ LinkedIn is the new market appraisal
Simon shares how he turned casual posts into genuine business - not by pitching, but by positioning. If you’re not showing up online, in your voice, with real insight and vulnerability, you’re missing the biggest free tool in the modern agent’s arsenal.

✅ Mental health in agency: enough pretending
From burnout and breakdowns to personal boundaries and growth, Simon gets candid about the emotional toll of the job - and why vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s leadership.

✅ The long game of letting (and why quick wins rarely stick)
We explore why patience, consistency and purpose-led strategy always outperform the agents chasing fast fees and short-term metrics - especially in lettings, where trust compounds over time.

🧠 Why This Episode Matters

The property industry is at a crossroads. Consumer expectations are rising. Talent is leaving. Fee pressure is up. And trust in the agency profession? Still not where it should be.

Simon Gates is part of the solution. Not because he’s reinventing agency, but because he’s helping people reconnect with why they got into it in the first place - and how to do it better, smarter, and more sustainably.

For letting agents and estate agents alike, this episode is a masterclass in modern relevance: the tools, tactics and truths that actually move the needle in a noisy, distracted, post-pandemic marketplace.

It’s also a reminder that being good at this job isn’t about saying the right thing. It’s about being the right person - for your clients, your team, and your future self.

💼 Who Should Tune In?

• Letting and estate agents looking to future-proof their personal brand
• Branch managers trying to inspire (not just instruct) their teams
• Agency owners who want to build legacy, not just listings
• Industry suppliers rethinking how to engage the sector meaningfully
• Anyone who believes the best agents are more than just dealmakers

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking chats and I'm delighted to be joined today by none other than Mr. Simon Gates of opening the gates. Thank you very much. Cheers for joining me. So for those agents out there living under a rock Who are you? Tell us a little bit about you. Simon Gates founder owner of opening the gates ystod y cyf I decided that three years ago. So that's kind of who I am. Well, what's my name, who I am and where I come from. - Nice, so we were chatting a little bit before this. So let's talk a little bit about your agency career before this. - Yeah. - So whereabouts, what kind of patch should we work on? - So I worked in three different offices during my stay in the career, which would have been which is the birthplace of a pancake grace. - There we go. - And the hymn Amazing Grace. I've actually been in the house where it was written in the study in the top floor of that house. There you go. Toaster or Tau Sester, the Americans. - Tau Sester. - And then Newport Pagnell, home of the service station in the M1. So I worked in those three offices. This is kind of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire kind of triangle. and that was for Michael Graham, Duzan Brancho, so I did that from the age of 16 in 2007, did work experience, weekend assistant, negotiator, manager. - So how long were you an agent for roughly about? - 2007 to 2020, if I include the time I was a weekend assistant. - So 13, yeah, I mean, still counts. - Yeah, 13 years. I mean, I spent more time in between '07 and '09 in an estate agent office than I did at school, doing my A-levels, 'cause I had no interest in, I was done in education at GCSE, my parents were like, I think trying to get the idea of being the state agent out of my head. So like, let's just go do A levels. - So that's really interesting, 'cause it's trying to cut you off there, but I find like quite a lot of people, myself included, fell into agency. Like, you know, I set out to be a professional actor, very quickly realized how bad shit that was. And then, yeah, it was that pivot of what can I go and do where there's an all right bit of money to be made and I don't have to go back to uni to retrain. But it sounds like that was different for you. You already had that kind of idea in your head and that passion, where did that come from? - My godfather owned the estate agent that I worked at. And I saw him driving around in very nice cars. Kids went to great schools, nice holidays. He had a housing empire. - And things that godfathers and uncles do always tend to be quite like. - Yeah. - You never quite drawn necessarily to what your parents do, but your godfather or your uncle, particularly if they're successful. - Yeah, yeah, so he was super successful, but in the summer of '07, I actually did work experience for him, I did work experience at houses of parliament and for Farrah's, which is the Royal Family's law firm, or was at the time. My parents were like trying to show me, let's say the bright lights in London, and you know, there's bigger and better things than just working on the local high street as an estate agent. But after that summer, they took me to the pub. I had to mention half of that stuff put you off, didn't it? It was like, no, I definitely want to be an agent. - Yeah, well, I think it was interesting, the being in parliament, so it would have been, I was seven, I feel like it was kind of Tony Blair was just leaving in Corden Brown. - Oh, it was just the under Blair one, yeah. - I'm pretty sure I might have even been on the balcony when Tony Blair might have even done his last speech in the Commons or something, which is at 16, I didn't understand, but that's quite a crazy thing to see. But I, as much as, and I will hold my hands up for this, We do give a lot of shit to MPs rightly so a lot of the time. I couldn't believe the hours they worked at 16. Like it was crazy. And it was the same at the law firm as well. The hours were insane. Whereas I go back to 2007, the markets booming, right? It was kind of, I was like, God, they're driving nice cars and they're going to the pub or a bar after work and it didn't seem that hard. At the time it's like you're answering phones and just being a nice person do what you say you're going to do. Having a chat. Just having a chat really. I was like, I think I can do that. I don't need to go qualify and it's nice. You learn on the job. So yeah, that's what appealed to me. I mean, I think that's something really interesting. It's kind of tangent off a bit. Something I find really interesting about the whole conversation about Roper or the licensing, the regulation of agents. And I suppose it doesn't really harm it in other countries where it is licensed because it just changes the attitude. But I think what's really interesting about agency and I think what has driven a lot of the more innovative agents within the marketplace and suppliers to agents is it's quite a common story that education didn't sit right, that kind of classroom formulated structure. But academia. I do more education now than I've done with education. I think. - Because it's relevance, right? - Yeah, yeah. - You know, you see it in a geography classroom and it's like, great, I'm so excited that that's how an oxbow lake is formed over 200 years. - I was at, I said to you before we hit record, I was at an event last night, Daniel Precie releasing his latest book. He's talking about how they don't like teach entrepreneurship in school and he's like, you know, they're teaching you Pythagoras theorem and pi and it's like, you know, you're gonna have to work out all these numbers 'cause you won't have a calculator when you're out in the big bad words, like, well, I've got a phone now. (laughing) - Yeah, that all went out the window, didn't it? You won't always have a calculator in your pocket. - No, I will have something that could launch a rocket into space. 'Cause that's the thing, right? The phone in your pocket now is more powerful than the computer's huge by NASA. - Okay, that wouldn't, yeah. - To launch the first rocket to the moon or something like that. - Yeah, that would surprise me. And the learning you can do on the phone, so on my way over here on the tube and walking between the tube in your office, I've got a podcast in my ears. When I'm walking the dogs every day, podcasting my ears. When I'm driving podcasting my ears. If you'd said to me when I was 16 and leaving school, oh, by the way-- - You're gonna spend 80% of your free time learning. - I'd be like, well, that sounds really boring and shit. (laughing) But I know, I absolutely, absolutely love it. And you said that a couple of minutes ago, it's finding that passion for it. And I think I was relatively okay as an estate agent, but I wanted to be even better. And as much as, again, there are agents out there who love to hate right move. And there's a whole tannery graph on that. But when I was an agent, I would log into the right-- - We'll come back to that later. - I'd log into RightMove Hub and it'd have webinars on there from Josh Vegans, Matt Giggs would do them back in the day. They'd have Tim Bannister when he's part of RightMove. They'd have all these webinars. to be amazing learnings there and I was like why is no one else look I think with any resource right is what you make of it I think you know with with right move there's a lot there's a lot else that they offer that isn't just hey click this button list your property with us I think like the let's use right move as the example I think when an agent just thinks of it as a it costs so much money to place a property on there. I hear that. However, it's like, do you use a right move best price guide when you go out on an appraiser? It's like, oh yeah, they're amazing. Right, so all of that data there. Imagine how difficult. So that would be a subscription with X, Y, or Z. Yeah, but when I worked at HomeSearch, you'd have agents say, God, I love, HomeSearch does this, but then you've got Spectre does a little bit this, or Sprift does this, PropOct does I'd love if everything was just in one place. I was like, "Careful what you wish for, because if there is a monopoly, you write your version two in the proptit world, they can charge you whatever you want." - Yeah. - Or whatever they want, shall I say. So yeah, you've got to have some choice out there as well. But yeah, there's all these different resources out there and I'm obsessed with learning, but I'm even more obsessed with implementation execution because too many will listen to podcasts, read the books, attend the conferences that we go to, - But nothing ever changes. - So look, this is something, I'm not an avid book reader. Just 'cause I just find I just don't really have the time and it just doesn't, for me, downtime needs to be proper switch off time, switch off brain. I do like my podcast 'cause it's that kind of passive - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Stick it on in the car. I love doing that when you're doing other things but you're free. So on the tube, in the car, that's quite good but I think there are people out there who kind of constantly like read this book, read that book, oh my god it was so amazing, oh my god I learned so much and then kind of you know six months later you look at them and their business and nothing's really changed, nothing's been applied and what was really interesting chatting with you before we came in here was your bit about Daniel Priestley. So Daniel Priestley, I know who you will know him much better for those who don't know do you want to just say a little bit about who the chap is? Yes he's Daniel Bruce's most well-known for well serial entrepreneur. Is he originally Kiwi? Australian. Yes Australian and kind of one of the stories he tells is like when he first turned up in London with no money to his name and no one knew who he was and I can't remember exact story but he basically went and networked very well and connected with the right people and did something along the lines of hey I'm putting on an event and these sorts of people are going to be there, would you like to attend? And then all of a sudden he got some great people in a room and that kind of started his business. Now interestingly we had a meet up probably a couple of months ago of various different kind of supplies to the estate industry and I said that and I was like right I want to get some of the who's who and some of the up and coming people in the room. And I digress slightly from the Daniel Pruitt's point, but a lot of people come up to me and go, "God, you've got a great network. You seem to be well connected. You know who's doing that, who's doing that, who's doing that." So a lot of agents come to me going, "Who would you recommend for a CRM? Who would you recommend for direct mail or whatever it might be?" So I've learned that from Daniel Preeti. He's launched and extended, I think, at multiple seven figure businesses. He's got Denk Global now, which is the kind of coaching entrepreneurs, but then he's got Score App as well, which I'd strongly recommend for any agents watching or listening to this. I'd 100% be using it in marketing. And he's released, he's just about to release a seventh book, which is what I was at last night. But the big two for me were Key Person of Influence and Oversubscribed. So when I was at home search at the start, it was not fun cold calling estate agents, ring off and getting told, yeah, fuck off mate. Or how did you get my number? It's on your website. Yeah. And come on, give me some slack. You're an estate agent. You're in sales too. Exactly. It's not salespeople don't like it. And I was like, yeah, not really, not really a fan of this, not not great at it either. Red key person of influence. I was like, okay, basically, that's what Sam Hunter had done with home search was again, good connect to good network. He found the influencers, went and said, hey, I've got this platform come and check it out. Then he'd launch his podcast. - It's super consistent online as well. His little morning posts, his little videos. This is what we're up to. - And there's so many different things I could share with Sam there, but he was a key person of influence. And then when Home Search launched, like unofficial launch, let's say, went out in the industry press, I think him and our colleague Dan at the time, like when that industry press release went out, it was just emails coming in of people wanting to join Homestead, bam, bam, bam, bam, on a free trial. So key parts of the influence and oversubscribed. So I've used both of those principles from Daniel Prisley's books to start my podcast as a hobby before and after work. Then that within six months had agent saying to me, can we pay you, come work with us? And then I went, I might be able to pay my mortgage. So quit my job at HomeSearch, started the business in March 23. and I've now worked with 230 plus different businesses. - Dude, that's amazing. So, I mean, it's interesting, we've come around to this in a different way. I was gonna, you know, one of the questions I kind of teed up in my head for you was, there's, in my eyes, there's been two kind of real breakout suppliers the last two or three years, and that's you and Atomic Consultancy. I'd say you two have achieved, or the perception is that you've achieved kind of a market awareness and a client adoption rate, which is relatively unheard of in the marketplace, regardless of how that's gone about. I mean, there have been much bigger funded companies that have either launched their UK operation or, you know, with lots of money behind them and adverts and stands at events and all this sort of stuff and they wish they could get the kind of traction that either of you guys have done and I think what's really nice is that although you've both gone about it in a very different way there are a lot of similarities in that you are both you know you and Lucy are both completely authentically yourselves online yeah you know you know your shit you walk the walk she's a better dancer than me I mean you know she's - It's the best dance of the most of us, and that's coming from Baby Spice, so. (laughing) But, I love, I mean, with these things, I love the fact that for what was a very kind of stuffy and small marketplace, they really breathed a lot of life and humor and fun into what was such a serious topic and was so kind of shrouded in mystery and... So on that point there, I think like when I was an agent and you'd have external training or I would seek out training, I felt it was an old, the old guard in a suit delivering great stuff, but I was like-- - He was doing what's always been done, right? There's something missing here. - There's something missing here, which is, yeah, which is the same as Jennifer. So, you know, if you'd said to me five years ago, or just so five years ago when I was still an agent, You'd be rocking off and you'll be wearing white trainers, cargo trousers and a hoodie. And it's like, but that's my brand and it's, I think, relatable, like with Lucy, the dancing, the thumbs up and stuff, like, yeah, authentically being myself. And I learned a lot of that from Sam because when I joined Home Search, it'd be very like, "Dear Christian, hope you're well, kind regards." And Sam's like, "May, fuck that off." - Yeah, that's not how you talk to people. - Do you talk to your mum like, "Hi, Mum." - Yes. as well, could one come over for dinner in there? (laughing) - Talk normally, but that's how it's been brought up in a state agency. - Yeah, you're a professional now, so you must converse in a professional way. Damn, Mr. Roberts. - Yeah, so yeah, not that on the head, but it's like, dressed like this can have a laugh, but I know my shit. - That's it, and I think that's the challenging thing for young people or fresh people to the industries. You don't have that knowledge that gives you an element of confidence to be like, "I know what I'm talking about." So I think that's why you get that fumbling at the start where people start their careers. And I think that's also where a lot of the public perception falters, as you deal with young starter people in the industry, and there's this kind of perception that there is some sort of entry-level requirement into our industry. And yeah, you get met with someone who might be their very first viewing and you turn up and they've got the wrong set of keys and the tenants haven't been notified and whatever else goes wrong. But yeah, I think it's interesting coming back to network. I mean, with us, with building our depository, I mean, base and depository have been two very different businesses, two very different journeys. But I mean, with base, we always wanted to be very authentic. We hated that stuffy, suited and booted kind of routine. We never really felt that was relevant to agency. I'm sure there are certain clients it resonates with. But we were always quite rebellious in that respect and that, yeah, always sat well. It's like you said, there is that, that instant authenticity when you walk in the door. And I've, to this day I've never met anyone like Anne in terms of if she gets her foot through the door with an appraisal, you know, 85-90% of the time she's coming away with that listing and it doesn't matter who she's in competition with. Getting her in front of that person, yeah, it's that blend of considerable knowledge. I mean, she's been an agent now for 25 years, that totally authentic, you know, take me as I am kind of. I think that like authenticity side of things, again kind of the way I present myself is that I think the modern forward thinking digital agent is going to go that guy's a bit of me whereas the older school estate agents who do things a certain way would look at the older person in the suit and go yeah he's gonna come and do a slideshow presentation which is... I'm comfortable with what you do. Here for example in Shoreditch, obviously a place you know very very well inside out I don't but from the outside looking in it's like I would kind of expect an estate agent to be hoodie or a bit dressed down. Yeah exactly walking around here suited and booted, but you go to make that. - But we've still got our Foxdons. I mean, Martian Parsons tried and failed around here, probably largely for that reason. I don't think it just really sat with the local edge. Although, you know, we've got Samples around here. We've got a lot of your kind of upper tier agents around here. But yeah, I mean, I think it's taken time. And we definitely kind of shook it up. I think the Rebels, when we started, like didn't wear a jacket or didn't wear a tie. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, and look with part, for most people, it takes experience and maturity and age to reach that. A lot of people when you come out of school, don't know what they wanna do, don't really know who they are really as a person. Very few people are fully kind of comfortable confident in their skin as an 18 year old or 16 year old or you know whatever. So I think that level of maturity and kind of security in who you are does come from an element of experience. I've never thought of it like what you said that might even cross my mind but I 100% agree with you. I think that level of maturity in understanding and knowing myself. I didn't fully know myself until the last few years I would say. It's learning. I couldn't realize until I'd left the state agency how unhappy and unfulfilled I was. But I didn't know that and then got offered an opportunity of home search, had this Jerry Maguire moment, where it's like, if I say no to this, I could be sat in the same desk in 20 years time going fuck my whole life is flashed before me and what if. I've always had this kind of niggle of my mates have gone to London and whilst I had didn't move to London I was working in London so it's like let's go try it out if it doesn't work out I can always go back and be an agent but now I kind of get I get to do all the fun parts in terms of like lead generation ideas and estate agency the data all that sort of stuff. Some people say to me, "Do you miss it?" And some days I do, but then I hear a state agent moaning about what buy-sellers tend to do. Yeah, the good times, the bad times. Yeah, you miss the good times, but you very quickly forget about the bad times, the broken chains, the... Yeah, well, I wouldn't be able to necessarily be doing this sort of thing. And I wouldn't be able to attend all the different conferences and the learnings I do and different events of evenings up and down the country. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was still sat doing an agent as I was. But yeah, I think, you know, coming back to kind of the original point on that one, like, you know, much like you, depository, you know, it's been a slower burn for us. But, you know, we had that very early phase choice of, you know, we had the concept, we did a very basic kind of wireframe MVP thing. And we just caught the kind of tail end of the PropTech hype cycle, kind of 2016. And we had people offering to throw money at us, you know, we were getting seven figure offers before we'd actually built a product. But we had to make that choice of, are we going to go that VC backed route and give away like 90% of the business before we've even launched and go on this like really aggressive growth cycle or are we going to kind of trust the process, trust our knowledge and go bit by bit, you know, and it's definitely both squeaky at times. But at the same time, being able to own that course, not being answerable, you know, because we knew with what we were building the finished product, the process, the refinement within the product was going to be everything. There was no like knobs and whistles that we were going to be able to kind of bolt onto this. We're tackling a really unsexy process. But you've made it sexy. - Yay, that is the day. (laughing) But yeah, we knew, and one of the things I knew was that if we raised money too fast, and I'm not against people taking investment or capital, I think too many businesses take it too early, and it puts too much pressure on the business, it puts pressure on growth too early in a business cycle, and I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it puts them in a really precarious position they're instantly giving away the lion's share of their idea and you kind of end up basically working for someone but you've just got a flashy title above the door. But yeah, you know for us, like you said, that networking, going to events, talking to people, more important, listening to people, really understanding, you know, with us, with software and again And it's applying, you know, there's so many suppliers in our space, but you talk to agents up and down the country and you just have to listen, you know, what do they like? When they talk about a supplier they love, what is it they're talking about? And interestingly, it's typically that the product keeps getting better, but it's also the fact that actually their support is there when they need it. They don't need it often, but when they need it, it's responsive, it's reactive. with it, you know. You know, and again, usability, integrations, all this sort of stuff, but all that stuff in tech takes time and resource. I mean, we've probably spent half a million pounds so far building out the deposit tree. You know, and it's still, we've still got a long way to go. There's still a lot we want to do with it, but definitely that thing of, like I said, meeting agents of all sizes from all parts of the market and just having conversations, just chatting without an agenda, without like, oh, how can I pivot this into a demo or a sale? - Well, like that meet the meetup recently, when I was like, there's no hidden agenda, there's no cost involved. I just want to get a group of what I think are approximately 20 suppliers to the industry, both experience and then up and coming in a room so we can all like share and love each other. But then I was also very purposeful in trying to have agents in the room as well. So you have a fit in both camps and then you're Matt Bulldox, you're Matt Geeks. - Ben Madden. - Ben Madden as an example. So you get it from both sides. You've been an agent with suppliers, you've supplied agents, which I was really, really tight on. On something you were saying, I don't know how much relevance this has, but I think it might. Have you heard the parable about the Mexican fishermen? Is this the one about all you can build bigger boats, bigger boats, bigger boats, and then one day you can chill and yeah. - Yeah, 'cause it's like, to your point of, and you said there's nothing wrong with like VC about business, it's deciding. - So for those who don't know that, for those who don't know that, sort of about a fisherman on a beach, guy comes up like, oh, why don't you have a boat and then you can catch more fish, and then when you get a boat, you can have more boats, and then you can basically end up with like a fleet of boats doing all the fishing. So one day, one day, you can just relax and sit on a beach and fish. And obviously the whole parable is you do this immense work cycle to end up. Back where you were. Back exactly where you were. And I've been fortunate enough to see a gentleman called Sir Hill Bloom speak a couple of times live. And his book, Five Types of Welfare is brilliant. And he talks about that parable of a Mexican fisherman. people think that the American investment manager, whatever he is, is right, sorry, is wrong, and the fisherman is right. Actually, they're both right. It depends on what you're-- - Depends on what you want. - Success and happiness. Some people want to scale really quickly and get an exit, or people go, "No, I want to own 99% of it and do it my way." - 'Cause what the parable doesn't talk about is you build that business, you can sell that business, and then that helps your five kids by their own home, or they inherit the business and they run it and they get to sit on a beach for the rest of their lives. So yeah, it is more complex than the simple thing. And like you said, it depends what your idea of success is. And again, there's no judgment on that. Different things make us happy. You know, if someone's idea of success is living in a kind of football mansion with five Bentley's on the driveway and going on seven star to buy holidays four times a year. Brilliant, if that is genuinely what puts a smile on your face and puts a skip in your step, fantastic. For other people like me, it's the aspiration of being a hippie in the middle of the countryside somewhere, not doing too much at some point. You know, and for others it's something different, but yeah, I think it's exactly, every one's idea of success is different. It doesn't matter what anyone else's idea or concept or opinion on what yours is, as long as you are happy and confident in it. And I think something really interesting you touched on earlier on, somehow keep kind of coming back to a lot of these chats is, probably 'cause I've got young kids and I know at some point, at some point in the relatively distant future, they will turn into young adults. And so I have this constant kind of coming back to kind of, it's not the plight of young people, but I think at the moment, there's a very challenging time for a lot of young adults. And when I say young adults, I consider really anyone under kind of 30, 35. In the professional space, I think are facing kind of a myriad of challenges at the moment. We've got whatever's happening with the economy at the moment. we've obviously got this huge wave of technology and AI and what that means to businesses and corporate structure and job opportunities. And again, particularly for entry level jobs, which is where all of us are taking. My biggest concern is, we've all started off doing those weekend jobs, those grunt jobs, those low pay jobs, that yes, they were grunt work. And yes, at the time, we probably didn't appreciate them and probably there was an element of like, "Oh God, I'm having to do this again." But what we got out of that, and we didn't appreciate the time, was that learning, that seeing other people doing the job, the making the silly mistakes and the big mistakes, the fortuitous wins, the, you know. And yeah, my concern for young people is, I think a lot of young people kind of limit that pursuit of joy in the workplace. I think there's, and that I don't think is anything new. I think a lot of people get stuck into this, like, oh, I've got to get a job that's got to pay the bills, which is absolutely true. But I think a lot of people, 'cause they don't have a clear vision of what they perceive their life or their career to look like. They kind of fall into a job that they're good enough at and it earns them enough money. And they kind of allow themselves to fall into that grind. And like I said, we've all got bills to pay. There is that grind at times, but I think people forget to keep looking, keep searching, keep trying things. 'Cause you will eventually stumble into something. You might figure it out, but you'll either figure it out or you'll stumble into something where you're like, I should genuinely fucking enjoy this. And you might not earn any more money, But as we all know, if you've got the choice between earning 30 grand and having a job you hate and earning 30 grand and having a job that 90% of the time you genuinely love, we know which one's winning out of that one, right? I think a really good example for myself on what you say about stumbling into something, like I said earlier, I was unfulfilled not knowing how unfulfilled I was when I was in a state age and kind of had achieved what I set out to be success when I'd started 18 was like run a branch, have a certain car on the driveway, have a Mrs and own a house. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick and get to my late 20s and I'm like, cool. Is that it? Done it? Yeah and I didn't go looking for anything but it found me because I put myself in the right place so I got coached by Matt Giggs, Matt introduced me to Sam and then started using Home Search. me and Sanke it on very well. He offers me a job. That's how that happens. And then I work hard at home search and then come through to where I am now. But the bit around, I've got definitely no, I've got friends who it's a paycheck. Like it's not for sure. For sure. I think for the vast majority of people. Yeah, which I feel really sorry for those people because I'm so passionate about a estate agency and yeah absolutely I bounce out of bed most days really looking forward to doing what I do but yeah I think you made me think of I think it's it's probably not original to him but Jimmy Cast saying on a podcast a while ago something along the lines of you know what what does the num what is the number that makes you give up on your dreams and for him whatever it was 30 grand a year at the time where he did whatever he did and he didn't go and look at his comedic route and then he went fuck this one day, quit that and became a comedian full-time but he probably did loads of shitty little shows above pubs paying peanuts to eventually get there and really random story very quickly but has no relevance for this agency but I'm pretty sure I'm right in what I'm saying. John Bishop, Scouse comedian, him and his wife I'm pretty sure had split up they had divorced or were divorcing and he was was deeply unhappy in whatever job he was doing. And when they were divorcing, maybe midlife crisis sort of thing, he decided to-- - Didn't he go and do a free mic or something? - Yeah, and his wife was there. - No way. - I've been known to him. And I don't know if it's wife, ex-wife, I'm sure it's, it's a story. - She was like, there's the man I fell in love with. - Exactly. - That's the spark in the eye, the cheeky, the banter, the laughter. - And they got back together. But I think, like you said about that young adult, so I am 34 turning 35 in January. And I find it really, really difficult thinking about this and also like protecting it out loud in terms of I know I've won the birth lottery. And what I mean by that is I'm a white man, middle class born in England. I can't really get it much better, right? - No, exactly. - Yeah, then there's billions of people in the world who talk places with me. But then I sit here and I go, okay, the next few years are gonna be really, really busy, chaotic, financially difficult terms of the plan for me is get engaged, get married, have kids, buy a bigger house. Now I've also got to balance into a cable. That all sounds very expensive. Work hard, earn more money to pay for it. Hang on a minute, you've got to free up more time to plan a wedding then also have babies, spend more time with your partner. She didn't propose to Lou up in the bullet hot air balloon. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Spend more time with friends. My grandmother is 98. and I need to see her more. She's my last grandparent. - Yeah, my dad's about 93, just went out to see him a half-term. - So I don't have children yet, and it's like, hang on a minute, I'm struggling to balance this, and I can be selfish right now. So I can work, I can get up early, I can go work later, I can go play. I can do all these things because I haven't got to worry about the other things. - The only thing you've got to factor in is Lou, and just balance those expectations and just make sure you set aside a little bit of makeup time. - Yeah, so it's like, oh God, like those next few years, it's like how on earth are you going to navigate that? But you know, plenty of people are talking to like, you just, you find a way when it happens. But yeah, I find it really tough to look after clients, try and grow my business, look after Louise, see my family, see my friends. And then selfishly, most importantly, is look after that. that's not looked after. - And I think that's the challenge for a lot of people now, like, we're, as a generalization, but we're so aware nowadays of the fact that we should be building some sort of career or financial legacy, but at the same time, we wanna be a present partner. If parents is on the cards, you wanna be a present parent, you wanna look after yourself, You wanna have time to be productive and develop yourselves as a human being. You wanna look after yourself physically and mentally. It's a lot. Clone yourself two or three times, we have breeze. Your day doing this. But yeah, I think that is the juggle. And that brings us kind of onto that, the conundrum of mental health nowadays. And I think that's, It's the overwhelming amount of challenges nowadays. You know, the relative simplicity of our parents or grandparents' lives in that respect. Like I look at my dad, who was, you know, career guy, worked in advertising. You know, we had, they had three kids. He never changed a single nappy, you know, throughout a lot of my youth, dad would, we lived in Gloucestershire. He would get up on a Monday morning, go to London and he would come home Friday night. And then he'd play cricket all weekend. (laughing) - My kind of guy. - Yeah, exactly. So, but you know, there was a simplicity nowadays and I think nowadays, both for men and women, there is this expectation that you need to try and succeed and be good at all those different elements and it is, yeah, utterly overwhelming. But I think, you know, I think for a lot of young people coming into work, I think retirement is so insanely far away when you're an 18, 19, 20 year old, thinking about what your life's gonna be like when you're 65, 70, you're like, don't be fucking dumb. You think a 35 year old's pretty old at that time, let alone anything beyond that. And so I think, for young people, those first few jobs, unless you've got a clear vision, which very few do, you kinda bounce around. I think a lot of young people get into a job that pays well enough and is kind, you know, they're good enough at and they just kind of slot into that mechanism. Like you said, you know, they've got the aspiration of right, I want to get married and I want to have kids and I want to have a house and law to that. I've got to achieve XYZ. And I think, you know, I think a lot of pressures for young people today is actually in a growing number of growing parts of the country, that just is not, I mean, obviously having kids is, but getting on the property ladder in growing parts of the country is just not fiscally realistic for a growing percentage of population. And then I think when I talked earlier about the plight of young people today, and I've been really fascinated, I've seen a lot of conversation recently and there was a lady on Watkins sofa the other day and the topic the classic Watkins click-baiting topic of the speech was something like I'm fed up with overprivileged 20-somethings or something like that and it was I think it was something worked in a Belvoir franchisee and she was talking about her, how she's kind of tearing her hair out with getting buy-in from young people coming into the business. And I think what's really interesting at the moment, and you know this isn't really an issue for agency to tackle, but I think it's a really interesting topic at the moment, is I think one of the challenges facing young people is you look at kind of our generation, particularly generations before, there were kind of key achievements to achieving life. And one of those for pretty much everyone was buy a home, own my own home, get on the property ladder, however you frame it. And I think really, and that would be a substantial motivator behind someone's attitude to their job, whether they loved the job or not, it was right to buy that house in that kind of street. It's gonna cost X, I've gotta be earning Y and save up Z. And that kept them very focused 'cause even if they didn't agree with kind of the mission of the business or they weren't brought into the career that they were doing, there was still that cool, but I can still achieve and the time I spend with my family on weekends and whatever else will justify that. I think what's fascinating now is that for a growing number people that is utterly inconceivable. And so I think that is a massive part of this kind of flailing youth in work at the moment is these big anchor points in life that you would kind of attach that first five or ten years of, do you know what, just get your fucking head down and just keep grinding, keep marching. And I think when you take away those big motivations and yes you can you know you can say oh but nice for living and its experiences and instead of that you can go off on holidays and all this that and the other and yes you create great memories and great experiences and we'll have a little chat about your Marrakesh trip for a minute but because that stuff is really important but that's still nice to have but you still want those those substantial yeah achievements in life. So couple things on what you said With myself and Louise, I own my house and we're looking to sell my house and buy somewhere together. Louise isn't a homeowner yet through her 20s she's travelled the world and I'm very envious that she's done that and she's very envious of my homeowner and it's like well I sacrificed the travel. It wasn't necessarily something in my 20s that appealed to me. I was very career focused and she was, "No, I want to go travel." Now, interestingly, some of the things you were saying as well, again, I guess it's different when you're an estate agent and you work in property, but it was drilled into me from the very start. I didn't know it at the time, but basically the owner of a business is trying to get you into debt so you can't leave. So I qualify for a car allowance very early on and it's like, oh, by the way, it needs to be a German car, so BMW, Audi, Mercedes, whatever. It needs to be less than three years old at all times. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And oh, yeah, it comes out of your pay packet so you get taxed on it. I'm 18 years old. I've got horrendous insurance. So all of a sudden I'm like, shit, all my pay packet is going on this bloody car. I can't quit my job. And then it's like, right, buy a house, buy a house, buy a house. I bought my first house at, I think it was 24 or 25, which is quite young. Yeah. The average first time in this country is early to mid-30s. And I didn't have any financial help from my parents. And it's interesting, we have a conversation before we hit record about, or the bank of mum and dad and helping plenty of first time buyers get on a property ladder. Whilst they didn't give me a deposit, I saved my deposit. I'm not naive to think, well actually, me being able to live in a family home for plenty of time, I paid a little bit of rent towards a food bill or electricity or something like that. But it's not as if I was going out and renting somewhere for a few years. No, a fraction of what you would have been if you were renting a room in the house. So being in that, let's just say typical middle class offering, it meant that I was in a fortune position but I could save money. But yeah, so we've got you've got two different things there and I think that that sort of generation after me is now in the Instant gratification world of everyone's instant, right? Taxi of Uber find your wife on Tinder. Let's say you can book a holiday very quickly all these different things So I think it's the same with a career there. Also look at your career I bet you the people in the business that you worked in aren't earning much if any different To what you were in 10 years. I did. Yeah, so I mean if I look at and what a property price has done in your area in that 10 years Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I so I was gonna say so you actually before we hit record I am Earning more when did I buy house 10 years ago? Oh, yeah about 10 years ago bought house. So I'm earning Considerably more money than I was 10 years ago because I've progressed through my career But if I was still doing the same job role I was 10 years ago branch manager. I'd be earning the same sort of money. Yeah, I Look at it now and I go how the fuck Did I at that time save the money? Yeah, and buy that house. I've actually so I've shared this story a lot of times before and the day I exchanged contracts my first purchase was the day the country voted to leave EU and Slister rang me and said Do you want to pull out? Why would I do that? The market's gonna crash isn't it? You're an estate agent. Yeah, and I was like me being a data guy I was like well, you know you 708 it went like that and then if you look if people held on to their asset Yeah, what's happened here? I had the opportunity to buy that house two years prior But got cold feet. Yeah, and it got up 50,000 pounds in the two years. So and fuck it. I'm doing it Yeah, now there's various different factors and variables in this But if I didn't buy that house when I did and I was renting at this time So I went and tried before you buy with yeah with with my behalf at a time We're renting if I continue renting and used every excuse over the last nine years not to buy a property The money I would have paid on rent The money would have lost out on equity the money I would have lost that on house price growth and then various other costs involved if I wanted to then get on the ladder today And I hadn't done that and I'd be £20,000 worse off and that contradicts the concept to an example we're having out there, but like flip reverse it, I completely get the other side of it, it makes sense at times to have that conversation off camera. But I don't know how I'd 10 years on if I was still in the same job. I just not a chance. And that's my thing now. I think, I think, you know, there's a lot of conversation at the moment about how do we get the, how do we attract the right talent into property? You know, that's generally a challenge in agency as a whole. I don't know that that's unique to agency. I think a lot of industries. - We get too obsessed about our own industry, don't we? - We, yeah, we are, I mean, I found anything, I always find anything with the interest, like the interest rates now, ah, they haven't done this, it's not gonna do that. It's like, cool, interest rates aren't there to drive the property market. It's like, I get it, not what you wanted, but one or more going on. We do get a bit obsessed. But now I think there's a lot of conversation about, like I said, attracting talent, the attitude of younger talent within the attitude, the perceived attitude and everything else. And I think, and again, this is much bigger than property. This is a societal issue at the moment. But I think it's being exacerbated by AI as well, 'cause that adds this extra fear level again, for the younger generation. for us, for us people building businesses and helping businesses develop. It's super exciting. But yeah, I think for Yonpa and I think we're missing the big piece of the puzzle. I think we're forgetting those, the importance of those key drivers in your life that whether you end up doing doing something you love or hate, having that bona fide motivation, that landmark achievement that you can get to and kind of whether you just get there and go, "Fuck, I've done it." Or whether you're like, "Cool, achievement one done, now achievement two, achievement three." You know, whatever your kind of mindset is, but I think for a lot of young people at the moment, because there aren't those obvious and clear key achievements, there is that kind of, that element of loss of motivation to really show up day in, day out, to put in the grind, to put in those extra hours, to offer to do a weekend viewing, to, you know. So yeah, I think, you know, I don't, there's not really any point to make with that, but just other than I think, you know, I think as business owners and builders, Ac rwy'n dweud â ymlaen i gweithio arall y byd yma ar gwe yn y cyfnod, mae'n who are absolute champions of culture and leadership and training and, you know, the team within their business. You know, and it was really interesting reaching, I've reached out a few times this year being, I need your help, I'm lost. And it was really interesting to get them back go, join the fucking club. And I think that's the problem at the moment, is there big problems to solve. that's not a problem as an employer you could easily solve. Like, oh, we just need to help them buy houses and it would be fine, we'll get the best people. But yeah, I do think for the vast majority of people they turn up to a job and that job is there primarily for a reason to put a roof over their head and food on their table and help them build a family. And I think, you know, entrepreneurially minded people, I think we approach these things in a different way. I love the evolution of business. And that motivates me more than money ever will. And I kind of take confidence in the fact that those key achievements people need, they'll happen. They'll come, I'm not really too stressed about it. That will land. But yeah, like I said, I don't know where it's going, but I'd be really interested to hear what other people think out there running businesses. and whether you can kind of reconcile with the fact that when people with a career don't have something substantial to aim for, what is their motivator to show up each day and to have buy-in and to really give a shit? But we will very quickly zip onto this last little bit 'cause we've definitely done the chatting. But we've been chatting before this about the trip to Marrakesh, to Morocco. Yeah, so I said kind of five minutes ago about how Louise travelled through her 20s and I'd worked my way out of a career ladder and bought her property. In more recent years I've done a lot more travelling, a lot down to Louise, she's good at organising it. But what I try and do is once a quarter have a break somewhere. So this year I've went to Poland with Louise. I've been to France playing golf. And then we went to Spain for a week. And then the last quarter was Marrakesh, which was very interesting culturally, as I said to you off camera. - Yeah, you said it was a proper kind of... - Yeah, crazy vibe twist between Mediterranean and Arabic. And yeah, it was when worlds collide really, because you could be in the most stunning rooftop restaurant bar thing, having the most incredible food, and there's a band playing, and then you walk downstairs out the door, and there are people on the streets eating. - Is it with monkeys, and charming snakes, and things? - Yeah, monkeys, and snake charmers and stuff, and it's like having that food on the rooftop bar, and I don't know, you're there with your knife and fork and stuff and then you walk downstairs and there's people literally on street corners cooking food in the corner, sitting on the floor, eating it with their hands. - And you could have gone back 50, 100 years in time and that street scene actually wouldn't really have changed. That would have. - And it was really nice to experience that. So yeah, I've tried to, as much as I can over recent years, yeah, do a lot more traveling to expand my mind. It's quite funny actually because one of my old colleagues at home search, my best friend's there, a guy called Dan, was originally from Canada and he moved back there, very, very long story short, in the summer of 23, he was moving back to Canada. He said, "Oh, you must come out and visit." I remember hugging him and being like, "Oh, I'm going to miss you, mate." A little tear in my eye and I walked back to the tube and I said to him, "I'm never seeing him again, am I? I'm not going to Canada." And he invites me into his wedding and I went, "I'm going there." - Yeah, I think in recent years I've had a, definitely last three years I've had a fuck it mentality to if you get invited somewhere, - Say yes. - Say yes, figure it out later. - Yeah. - And it's, yeah, it's worked really well for me. - Yeah, definitely a yes man. I think there's a lot of, the power of no, and I've talked about the power of no on quite a lot of chats, the power of no in a business is really important, but I think as a life opportunity, And it comes back to things like, you know, Branson's kind of screw it, let's do it attitude. This thing of, you know, and the analytics of men versus women at work, that kind of like, do you know what, just say yes. Don't worry about can you do it, how are you gonna do it? You know, just say yes and figure the rest of the shit out later. And if it goes brilliantly, then great. And if it doesn't, you're still learning something, you're still-- - I think whether it's professionally personally, say yes, figure it out later. make mistakes along the way because by the time you've figured out you've made your mistake and then you iterate and make it even better, the other rival is still umming and a-ring over whether they should say yes or no. And also what I've also found, talking about mistakes, it's fascinating how often A mistakes become some of the best lessons you ever learn and turn you into a better human, a better professional, whatever. But also if I'm not just mistakes, but things that feel like they go wrong. I mean, I can, you know, Anne and I talk about this regularly throughout our courses, business partners together of nearly 21 years. You know, there are key events throughout that journey. Right from the offset when we were starting base, we got absolutely shafted on our first shop the day before we were due to sign the contract. And every single one of these things felt epic in the moment they happened and potentially world-ending and yet every single time turned out to be the best thing at that moment in time that happened to us. It's a great saying the bag that the worst gifts no the best get it right Simon the best gifts in life come badly wrapped yeah which sums up what you were just saying. I like that which is why I always give my gifts unwrapped. When I was younger still at home with my parents teenage years where I would have had a paper round and maybe was waiting in a pub so I think I'd be able to get a bit of my own money and you're expected to maybe buy some gifts for your family which is fair enough. I would basically have like a Tesco carrier bag and I'd give a present to my dad and he'd open it and I'd go can you give me the bag back and I'd go back to my bedroom, get the next gift from the wardrobe, put it in the bag and go back. Wow, I wasn't that bad. I would wrap stuff in shit though like aluminium foil from the from the kitchen drawer, be like that, it'll do. It doesn't even need cellotape, it stays folded. - There you go. - And then after you fold it, put it back in the kitchen drawer. You could use that in the roast potatoes later. - There you go. - Dude, it's been an absolute pleasure. We've done our hour of chit chat, we've done our waffling. It's been great fun. Yeah, I love watching how you do and how you grow and how you go about that. So, more credit to you, dude, keep doing what you're doing. Thanks for coming down, thanks for spending time guys if you're not familiar with Simon obviously jump on the website find out more have a chat engage like a lot of great agency supporters Simon shares an incredible amount of information that is free and available through his social channels website everything else for you to implement a lot of what he practices and preachers and educates. And obviously when you see that stuff start to work in your business then pick up the phone, drop some on email and actually pay him to do more exciting stuff for your business. But for many of you out there, it's been of a tough market at the moment. Don't make the classic mistake of going, oh, it's a tough market, we've got to rein stuff in. Absolutely look at your business for sure, do your audit and trim the fact where needed. But when it comes to marketing, every industry, every business, Bible says that the worst time to cut your marketing is when times are tough. Because all you're going to do is you're going to strangle your supply right now, but also as the market recovers, I mean, no property always recovers, you want to be preparing yourself so as that picks up you are at the forefront of that and you're maximising that. So when you're going over your budgets save a little bit of budget for some end of tenancy software and keep the rest of it for your marketing and I say if you're not already talking to Simon get on the socials, get on the website, reach out, have a chat, see him talk at something somewhere which is everywhere. And enjoy at the next Friday? - Maybe. - Maybe. - Let's see. - Lucif, that sounds like a no to me. Guys, see you soon, bud. Thanks for coming. Take care, bye.