Hello and welcome to Opening the Gates to more listings for
Estate agents with me, Simon Gates.
And I'm delighted to be joined today by Mr. Ian Mackenzie.
Ian, thank you very much for joining me.
Thank you for the invite, Simon. We're really looking forward to
this. I am too.
It's like having a state agency Royalty on the podcast today.
Right who? Who else is joining?
Us, No, I think I said to you when we first properly actually
had a conversation, I don't know, a couple of months ago
now, when a few of us had lunch in London.
Yeah, kind of. We'd seen each other in passing
at events, but I've probably had a few beverages and not talking
much sense. And then we were both playing
golf in Scotland as well. So we've got to know each other
a little bit in recent. We did.
Yeah, we did. Yeah.
I played well the first day, you played well the second day, and
then we probably best not to talk about the third day.
Yeah. Is there a lesson in that?
But we shouldn't play golf with each other.
But we need. To yeah, probably, unless,
unless we're talking about something on the way around and
then we can forget all the bad shots that we're playing.
Exactly. So yeah, I've, I've been wanting
to get you on the podcast for, for a while now and I thought it
was great to do it after we've got to know each other a little
bit, as I said, over over lunch and, and playing golf up in
Scotland. So for those who don't know you
who've been living under a Rock, You are the CEO at the Guild of
Property Professionals, correct? Correct.
Yes. And for anyone who doesn't know
you or what the Guild is, what what exactly does that entail?
What's what's your day today and what is the Guild?
So the Guild is a network of independent agents.
We strictly have an exclusivity model.
That's one agent per town. It's not where they trade to,
it's where they trade from. We're staunch believers in the
High Street estate agency business, which actually I
believe that AI is going to enhance and not and not detract.
And we offer a magnificent suite.
Of course, I would say this wouldn't a magnificent suite of
tools and services to Guild, to members.
Everything you can possibly imagine the the the stalwart is
the compliance offering with the infamous Paul Loffley.
Paul was voted. We did a survey of our members
and it's the ninth reason why members join compliance because
it's the thing that nobody wants, but everybody needs.
But it was actually the one thing that they felt that was
the most valuable. But it's then they're just a
collection of marketing tools, advice, tips, data.
We aggregate, we aggregate our network, we we buy products in
for cheaper than agents can get them themselves.
And so our reason d'etre is that the membership, yes, it costs
you money, but you should be at least breaking even.
And there's members making 25, forty, 50,000 lbs profit out of
all of the tools and services that we give them.
Nice. What an elevated pitch that was,
by the way, Bang. He's done this before.
I remember in my early days at home search when we went into a
pandemic and and Sam Hunter, Giles Elwood came to some
agreement with the Guild. I remember doing loads of like
training with Guild agents. And I remember at the time, like
I said, early days of home search leaving essentially
behind. And I knew what a big deal the
Guild was. And I was very impressed with
all the agents we were dealing with within the Guild.
And I've built up some really good relationships with some of
those agents, so. Yeah, we got lovely, lovely
members and we got brilliant agency, brilliant agencies.
I was, you know, chatting to a few this morning and they're
just smashing it at the moment. So you say about them smashing
at the moment. That's that's funny you say
that. So we're recording this on
Tuesday, the 30th of June. And I don't know about you, but
I find it funny how you can have a conversation in the morning
with one agent who is smashing out of the park and then in the
afternoon an agent goes, it's really challenging out there at
the moment here. Yeah.
Yeah, there are. And this is the one mistake that
I made when I first came. There's been many, many
mistakes, but the first mistake that I made when I became CEO of
the girl is that I assume that all markets were the same.
I assume that it'd be the same in the north or the east or the
South or the West. And it, and life actually isn't
like that. So the, the broader principle is
that you need to recognise that there are micro, micro markets
because there's different patterns of behaviour and
different demographics of people that buy in those locations.
But this is where the smart agents are smart, is that they
understand that and then they adapt their style based upon the
type of customers that they're dealing, dealing with.
You know, we know that. We know that at the moment,
London and the Southeast is strucking a little bit.
And so you then just have to adapt your style in terms of the
communication with your customers to make sure that
you're offering the right advice at all times.
So on on that advice there and be intrigued on your answering
this with with all your experience in estate agencies.
So how do you find this balance of trying to get out in
marketing to sellers now is a good time to sell, but then also
flipping on its head and saying to buyers, now it's a good time
to buy? The, I mean, there's some
caveats with what I'm just about to say.
Yeah, right. The caveat is this.
It depends on the equity that you've got in your property.
So we have to remember you've had a look at my, you've seen,
firstly, you've met me. So you see, you've seen how old
I am. I started in agency in 1987.
So we had the boom period at the end of the 80s and we had a
significant bust at the late 80s and early 90s.
So dependent upon negative equity.
And I am a person that personally had negative equity
when I first bought my house. So I've gone for about 7 years.
So, so long as we're not talking to a customer with a bigger
mortgage than the the value of their home.
There's an expression that I used many, many, many times for
probably the 1st 20 years of my agency, which was what you lose
on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts.
I've heard you say that before. Yeah, I love it.
Yeah. And what that mean And there's
another expression that I use with agents, which is mind the
gap and I and on evaluation, I would honestly say Simon,
subject to the size of your mortgage, I generally don't give
a monkey's what your house sells for.
What I am obsessed about is the fact that you're looking for a,
you're looking to add £50,000 extra to the pot and I'm
obsessed about finding you the home that is your dream home
with a 50,000 differential. The rest of it is superfluous.
Yeah, I love that I've and. That's what you need to do in
this marketplace with with prices going up and down and
people moving to different territories and all that sort of
thing. You've just got to forget the
ego of the house price and concentrate on the actual
process and get delivering the end result.
So, right, so there's a couple of things on what you said that
I'm hope I'm going to keep both thoughts in my head.
The first one in terms of swings and roundabouts and like the the
changeover cost, I've literally just just changed cars.
And the way it was sold to me was we can have you in an
upgraded model. What you're already in, you'll
need to put down X, but you've just taxed your car.
Haven't you missed the gates? Yes, well, you're going to get
that straight back and this one's going to be taxed for next
year. And then also you're not going
to have your monthly payment because we've just set, we were
about to settle on your car. So actually we in theory going
to be giving you money to then give you a new car and it's
upgraded at the same price. Like the whole, because if, if
they hadn't explained that the right way and go, Oh, get it
you, you put money. And I think that I remember
going to that car dealership, I think a couple of years ago now,
and I said to the salesperson, I was like, when I challenged you
and I can't remember what it was at the time, whatever you said
was like brilliant. And I was like, obviously your
team, your other team members are not hearing this
conversation, but how would they have handled that objection?
It's like, yeah, you you wouldn't have been buying a car.
They would have gone. All right, Mr. Gates, I
understand. Goodbye.
It's it's called, it's a, it's a technique called objection
blockers. So if you know through, if you
know through, I love data by the way.
So I'm an old boy that loves data.
But if you know through observation of the objections
that you get that ruin the deal and you factor those into an
objection blocker, which is you talk about them and make them go
away before you get to the to ask you, you've done your job.
And I can remember set, I can remember recruiting A lad a long
time ago who worked for DFS, you know, the furniture people.
DFS is the only place that Theresa May went to.
She's she's the only person in the UK that she was negotiating
Brexit at the time. And she came out of DFS having
paid the full price for her sofa.
But that's not bad at negotiation she was anyway.
And he basically used to say the biggest, he said, we I said to
him, we do cross sells. He said, yeah, yeah, we do cross
sells. So what cross sells do you get
you have to get the sofa sprayed and protected and we got extra
pillows and all that sort of stuff.
And he said, how do you get over the objection blocking?
And he said, so how do you, how do you sell that?
He said, well, I'm the top salesperson in the country for
it. And I said, well, that OK, you
always get that answer. How?
Tell me how? Don't tell me that you're funny.
Make that answer. And he said it was really easy.
He said I would get a person. And they said we, we like this
sofa. And I would say to them, are you
really, really think it's comfortable right now?
Yeah, it's really, really comfortable, Right.
So just so you know, when you get this sofa, it's not going to
be quite as soft to this. So how many, how many hours a
day do you reckon you're sat on the sofa?
And be honest with me. And they say, well, about 5
hours, 5 or 6 hours a day. Yeah, like me, I, I just veg out
every evening and then. And so he's got that.
And then when he gets to the end of talking about the protection
of it, he says, right, so I've worked out that you're going to
be sat on the sofa this year, 3000 hours.
Well, a 15115 hundred hours. We need to get protection added
on to it and the reason he did it that way and he said it's
only £1.20 a day or whatever it was, then minimize it.
Yeah, it's 2 pence a day. Because he'd worked out that the
biggest objection that he was getting when he talked about the
protection, which would cost an extra £500, the answer was we
don't sit on the sofa very much so we don't need it.
But he'd in the very early part of it worked out that they sit
on it every five hours, five hours every day.
Does that make sense? So he literally became the
objection completely before it arose.
Makes complete sense. And I guess there's a before and
after in this story, but I was fortunate enough to see Jordan
Belfort of Wolf of Wall Street speak at Wembley a couple of
years ago and he kind of talked about the ethical way of selling
rather than his sex, drugs and rock'n'roll Wolf of Wall Street
film sightings. And he kind of said his straight
line selling system early on, he had people working for him and
they were saying, Jordan, there's just too many
objections, objections, objections, objections.
And he went, OK, got a white board out and went tell me every
single objection you get. And what's every event anymore
anymore anymore. And I think he said in the end
there was about 9 objections they found when in in their line
of business. He went, So when you say there's
hundreds, there's nine, What we're going to do is we're going
to combat them head on. You know what objections are
going to come. So we're going to just sort that
out at the start of the conversation and then move on
from there. So no, I, I love that.
I, I find that we tend to kind of move away from friction,
right, rather than towards it. And moving towards it is where
we're actually going to get actually what the client wants.
So what I think you're saying about gentleman as well was he's
actually offering what the client does need, not what they
want, like you said, what they need, but it's demonstrating in
a way that helps them understand.
Correct. Exactly that, yeah.
Yeah, very interesting. I want to go back to a point.
Well, actually, no. Before I go back to that, I use
this line all the time, and I might have actually nicked it
from you when you did Homestretch podcast.
Don't Tell Me You're funny. Make Me laugh.
Yeah, I say that so many times to estate agents when it comes
to their direct mail content. Yeah, letter content is saying
that you're funny, not making them laugh.
So I'm an amazing estate agent. Rather than saying that, show
them how you helped a seller just like them.
Yeah. Who was on the market failing
with someone else? Sell their property.
Laugh, not tell them you're funny.
Exactly. You made a point right at the
start in terms of AI enhancing the High Street agent.
Yeah. So I found that a really
interesting point because I think there'd be a lot of people
out there saying that's going to kill the High Street.
So can you elaborate on the enhancement?
Yeah, very gladly. I need to go back to go forward.
OK. Back in, back in the olden days,
there were newspaper advertising.
Yeah. And my business in Winchester,
we took out six pages of advertising every single week.
Why? Because it had a 30,000
distribution. So that's 180,000 pages that
I've got distributed and I could show and demonstrate to the
general public because every Thursday night they get the,
the, the rag out and have a look.
I could demonstrate how good we were.
I also put wanted in it. And I also put success
testimonials before testimonials existed.
Yeah. And if there was an agent down
the road that only listed one house that week, they wouldn't
take 6 pages, would they? They'd take a quarter page
because they would manage their cash flow accordingly by their
needs. So it was an unlevel playing
field. My, my business became a self
perpetuating model through success.
Then came the, the Internet. Then came the portals and it and
it created a level playing field in that it became less about
individual brands and it became more about going to a platform
that aggregated data and aggregated the display.
So the consumer wouldn't notice that I put 20 houses on that
month. They would only see the houses
in the price range they were looking at.
And it might be that Gates and Co had one that was a good one.
And it's your only instruction that month.
Yeah. So it created the level, A more
level playing field. So that's the first thing.
Press gave an advantage to larger agencies, but it also
gave the benefit to smaller agencies of cash flow
management. Yeah, then then.
So that's been the case for the since 22,000 and two, in the
last couple of years there's been a unlevel playing field
that's been created by social media and video content.
And, and what we've seen is that those agents, and I'll include
the self-employed personal model within that, which I don't have
any problem with, by the way, but invariably you tend to find
that they're very good at social media and video activity.
And the more traditional, more established estate agency
haven't been. Yeah.
So it's become a little bit of an unlevel playing field again,
AI is going to help people like me that don't necessarily like
to be in front of a video do it for me.
It's going to write the content. I can get a digital twin, I can
create or we can create anything that we want through AI moving
forward. And so put then change that to
the the viewpoint of the consumer, it's going to be very
difficult for the consumer to articulate a point of
differentiation between every estate agent moving forward.
In fact, any business moving forward, it's not just our
sector because AOAI will start to level the playing field in
terms of professionalism of delivery to with anything that
we do. Yeah.
And This is why I think that the High Street is going to actually
come into a new golden era because in, if you look at the
expression, the camera never lies.
That was out there 30 years ago. The camera only ever lies now.
And, and So what are people going to do?
They're going to revert to a feeling of trust.
They're going to seek guidance and support from one to one
contact. So will AI embed within this
industry, 1000%. We're already working on it for
Guild members. We've got some great things that
we're going to be announcing fairly shortly, but that'll be
back office automation, process automation.
So we're not going to have to make 20 calls to arrange a
viewing anymore that that'll be done through our WhatsApp pal
that's integrated to our CRMS and our Diaries.
And it'll do it all for you. But the bit that the consumer is
going to seek, I think is it the reassurance and the confidence
and the trust of actually the eyes to eyes, nose to nose and
toes to toes. But, and, and I would say this
wouldn't I, because I'm head of the Guild, but physically
knowing where to go to meet a person.
And that for me is a High Street office or a service suite.
Yeah, so right. The camera never lies lying.
That's another one I'm stealing from you because that's that's
so true. People don't know what's real
and what's not real these days. Another thing that came to mind
in what you're saying was my girlfriend's brother bought his
first house earlier this year and he is 30.
I'm going to say I'm 35. So I think he's, I'm a
millennial. He's Gen.
Z. And knowing what I do for a
living, he was like, can I come around your house?
I just want you to read the contract before I sign it to
exchange contracts. And I, I sort of said to him, as
I mean, I've like pretended to read.
I said like, it's a freaking contract.
And I, I said to him, I signed it.
I've witnessed it. I was like, mate, you like you,
you just needed comfort from a human being who's who's done
what you're about to do, didn't you?
That's, that's what it was. Because everything has been kind
of over e-mail. It's all digital stuff you can
ask these days, ChatGPT questions, whatever, but you
just wanted to speak to a human who's been there, done that, got
the T-shirt. It's like 100%.
We're herd. We're herd animals.
Yeah, 100%. And and on that, so the other
thing as well. And I actually just shared this
story with an agent earlier today who is actually a
self-employed agent. And I use a story that Rory
Sutherland has used. I'm probably butcher it, but
it's around kebab shop, OK. And his analogy, I think if I
tell it correctly is it's a Friday night, you've had a few
drinks and you go right. I can't wait to go have a kebab
and you're on your High Street, you've got 2 choices.
You've got this kebab shop which has been there for years and
you're like well it's been there for years.
It's not going anywhere. And they probably have a lease
that they're paying out for many years to come.
And then next to it I've got this like mobile kebab van, same
menu, like looks OK but I'm just nervous.
But what if they poison me because they could just go on to
the next town the next day? That's a great analogy.
And and like the way he shares it is, is brilliant.
And I'm like, that's so true. And there's a really good saying
people. And this isn't me discrediting
the High Street. I'm very passionate about High
Street as a High Street agent, but people prefer predictable
hell over an unpredictable heaven.
OK, so I'm not, that's not me slating the High Street, but
there are still, there are agents who perhaps are very
large and have been around for a very long time who maybe don't
get the best results. And I've got the new kid on the
block saying Simon, well, why do they still keep getting business
right? Because they they are.
There's comfort there. People have walked past them on
that High Street every day on the way to the tube when they
get their newspaper, whatever it is.
So, yeah, better, better. The devil you know.
I I I really hope that doesn't come across as.
No, I, I don't think, I don't think it.
I don't think that ring fences, any category 'cause you got the
corporates, the regional independence, the local local
independence, self-employed model, et cetera.
I think you could get either a predictable hell or an
unpredictable heaven out of any of those, couldn't you?
Yeah. I think the the difference with
a High Street office is that if you get a predictable hell you
know where to go and complain. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. If you get a predictable and
unpredictable heaven, you know where to go and drop off the
bottle of Scots to say thank you.
Yeah, but that's my take. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, 107.
So another term you used was, I think, a new golden era.
Yes. And again, the way the way my
brain went on, that was when social media or let's say e-mail
became the thing and social media, it was all exciting.
Oh my God, I got an e-mail. Oh my God, I got a friend
request on social media. Now it's flipped on its head
where it's like, my God, I get so many emails.
I get so many social media notifications.
Oh, it's so rare that I receive a letter.
It's exciting when I get a letter in the post.
So it's kind of like that flip on its head.
And I think I heard Josh Vegan say it, that relationships
transcend all market conditions. It doesn't matter what what
model comes and go, what technology comes and go.
You've seen plenty of change in your career.
But the estate agents who succeeded, the ones who are very
good at creating, building, maintaining relationships.
Yeah. So there's, so the, the first
instance is so when I started my business in Winchester, we
wanted to be, our definition was we wanted to be the agent of
choice. And what did we mean by that?
What was that internal? The choice was that we're one of
three that gets called out on, on 50, sixty, 70% of the
valuations in the market. Because if, if I knew that with
our approach, our professionalism, our, our
network and I was a Guild member for 10 years, that we would have
a better than average chance of winning that instruction.
That's the first thing. The second thing that the other
driver for me, and This is why I feel very passionate about our
state agency. I honestly, we work so hard and
so tirelessly because our mindset was that we needed to
protect the public from other agencies that were not as good
as us. And so we considered ourselves
the 4th emergency service because at a time of need, when
genuinely when you're in a different difficult market,
conditions or finances are tough, etcetera, it's not about
just saying that you're funny. It is about making them laugh,
but you know, help helping them make the right decisions for
themselves. And that comes with
responsibility in my mind. So I'd say on so first of all,
it I, I don't know if you saw me sort of laughing to myself when
you said emergency service because I've got that written
down in my books. I've heard you say it numerous
times. I never heard it before.
And the first time you said it on a podcast, I was like, that
is so freaking true. IA week does not go by.
I literally had it on Sunday. My best mate messaged me.
Let me find I'll find it quickly.
Actually, where is it? And it's funny because all my
friends take the piss out of me for how much I talk about the
property market. Yeah, whenever there's help
needed in the property market, who they come to it's.
Not a job, it's an it's an obsession.
Yeah. And so, so on that.
So I'll come back to message in a second.
I am in Jake Humphrey and Damien Hughes's latest book on high
performance. There was a chapter in there
about a job, a career, a calling.
And you know, a job is 9 to 5 check in, check out, take your
hours, lunch, take holiday, maybe take advantage of sick
pay. Like that's just your, your
worker. You then got a career.
People who, you know, like their job, they want to go up the
ladder, but they're not obsessed by it.
Whereas you and I and I think plenty of people we know and
people have this podcast, this industry is their calling.
Like obsessed about it, so passionate about it.
I, I want, I want this industry to, I want people to be proud to
say they work in estate agency rather than be like, oh, I don't
want people to know that because the, the perception.
And I also want, I hate when people say I fell into it by
accident. They're offering me a company
car and I didn't have any qualifications.
I didn't know what to do. I want people to be saying I
want to be an estate agent. I would love that for the
industry. So the text my friend sent to
me, so he forwarded on a message, it said Matt do you
think your mate who works in property might take a quick look
at this listing and give us his opinion on whether it's worth a
guy price or if we should go in lower?
Yeah. I get that sort of message every
single week from friends or friends of friends, people I've
met at weddings, funerals, like coming in, going.
We want to make sure we're not overpaying.
Yeah. For a, for a property.
So yeah, it happens all the time.
And I wanted to make that point because I say to agents, if you
drive past a for sale board of another agent and you truly
think that it's being under marketed, under serviced and you
are the best agent, I'd argue you have a duty of care to knock
on their door or send them a letter or phone them and say I
think you deserve better. So back in the olden days when
estate agents used to 1st chase their their old valuations, it's
an absolute true story. I went and valued the house in
in Oliver's Battery Winchester big plot.
Chase them, chase them. No, not ready, Chase no not
ready. Six months later picked up the
phone to them and said we've agreed a sale.
And I said, I'm going to ask you a really personal question now
and you're not going to want to give me the answer to it, but I
can promise you that I asked this question with the best of
intent. That's what that's where I'm
going to leave it. Could you tell me the name of
your buyer, please? And they said, you're right.
I don't want to tell you. I said, OK, let me just tell
you, give you a little bit more. You've got a building plot on
the side of your property. We discussed that.
And I just want to check out and see who it is that's buying it
because I'll know whether it's a developer and they're buying it
cheap. I said, well, so if you don't
want to tell me, tell me what they're paying for it.
He said, well, this we went for the we went for, I'll make it
up. Can't remember, it's long time
ago, 500 grand. I said OK, I said now I'm really
going to press for the answer. Could you tell me who's buying
it please move forward. They were selling it to a
developer that hadn't disclosed himself as a developer.
The agent was taking an introduction fee from the
developer to get it off market without a subject to planning
deal. I ended up selling that for them
for about 100,000 lbs more, about 25% more on a subject to
planning deal and they ended up being delighted.
Now, if I hadn't have pushed, pushed, and this is my, this was
my objective all the time, we're not just looking to sell
people's houses and getting to move, we're looking to help
them. Yeah, yeah.
And if I hadn't asked the right questions and been passionate
enough and cared enough about the answer, then I would have
just let that go. And I, and again, I just think
that that's that moral obligation.
So the Guild is the perfect home for me because I'm salesy, I
want to make money, I'm commercial, but I also have a
really strong calling for moral obligation all the time.
So you reminded me of a quote I heard Tom Panos say in the past
couple of weeks when spent some time with him and it was on a
podcast, a recorded room actually, which come out in the
future. And he said something along the
lines of impact and income can go together.
But so many people think like, oh, it's salesy income, but like
morals and ethics, it's like, no, they can go in line so you
can have a real positive impact and make an income for it.
You made me think of similar sort of story.
I've know a dozen years ago, I went to see a lady, inherited a
home doing a probate valuation. It was going to go on the
market. I think I was one of three
agents and I was the only agent to say you're a bungalow sitting
very centrally. There's a building plot at the
back. Now, if you do have the
resources, time, money, I can introduce you to someone that's
the right thing for you to do. And she was like, oh, the other
two agents said, yeah, get it on the market.
Don't worry about probate. We can sort that out in the
future. Like get it on.
I was like, you slow down, make sure everything's right now.
That was the the right thing to do.
There's no like thinking, I wasn't thinking of the future
compound effect of that. But a very Long story short, a
developer bought the bungalow, renovated it, resold it.
So I got 2 sales there. They then bought the building
plot. So I got that sale.
They then built the house. I then got that.
The person who bought that house, I sold theirs.
And then the developer said, oh Simon, I've got a gated
development of a dozen units, 6 barn conversions and six brand
new. Do you want to sell them?
So as I say, we're talking, I say best part of, I don't know,
200 grand worth of fees because I I gave the ethical advice
expecting nothing in return. Yeah, correct.
Yeah, like that very good. That's the right thing.
It's just the right thing to do. And everyone was happy because
there was total transparency. That's the thing that's really
important with it. Yeah, and I I it's funny on on
my first day of estate agency work experience in the summer of
O7I bore people all the time of the story.
I asked the negotiator what's the best advice you can give
her? Wet behind the ears.
Naive 16 year old. I probably didn't use that
language as a 16 year old. And she said always be honest.
And at the time was 16. I was like what shit advice but
then going through my career and I I got introduced at a Golf
Club. I joined and they said this is
Simon a new member shiny suit has a clip or clip or can't
trust him and someone said not another fucking estate agent.
So as like all these things kept happening.
I check out the veracity index every year.
Only a third of the public trust estate agents to tell the truth.
And so it takes me back to that 16 year old Simon going.
I get what you meant now, but I always be honest.
So like, if you don't know the answer, tell them you don't
know. But I'll go find out and I'll
come back to you. Yeah.
Exactly right. So I want to go back on on the
point you made earlier in terms of the emergency service.
So I love that point and below that I had written down
something, but I've heard you say several times when I've
heard you speak and I think it's about a litmus test in terms of
transaction levels in the country.
So can you elaborate on on that? Because I think it's brilliant
if you. Haven't said that this time.
Rather litmus test in terms of trans.
Oh, give me some more. Give me, give me a little bit
more. So I think you basically, So
what you would have said is like when the recession happened in
the yeah, I know what you're saying.
Yeah, I know what you're saying, right.
So, so, so here we are at the moment.
We're always obsessed by transactional volume, aren't we?
So, yeah, the point is that as a trading agent, I genuinely
wouldn't give a monkey's where the prices are going up or
prices are going down. That is, that is a different
communication pattern, different words that you used to need to
to articulate to the customer what's actually happening.
Generally don't care subject of course to equity.
I've got that, that the equity they've got in the home.
But the only thing I do obsess about is, is transactional
volume. What we know from a data
perspective, we know that in 2008 and 2009 that transactional
volume went down from at the peak of 1.6 million or 1.8
million a couple of years before down to 700,000 transactions.
They're non discretionary. Those are people that had to
move. They didn't want to move.
They didn't choose to move in a global financial crash, they had
to. So when the last time it was
stress tested, that was the line in the sand 700,000.
Anything above that is discretionary, IE people want to
or choose to move. And so your marketing strategy
for me has to have two objectives.
Number one, as an estate agent, you want to be perceived to be
the agent of, of choice through trust, through performance,
through behaviour, through when I really, when my back's against
the wall and I need to sell non discretionary, I'm going to go
to McKenzie and Co when it, when it is a discretionary lifestyle
change, whatever the other marketing strategy that you have
should be to, to that which is fulfilling dreams, helping
people move to their dream homes, getting the best price,
etcetera. And where, where will we see
transactions this year? I mean, it's the mute point at
the moment, but somewhere around 1,000,000 is 1.1 last year 1.15
I think it was, it ended up last year.
I won the Chris Watkins Award for getting most predictions
right, by the way. You didn't have you didn't have
stiff competition. I did you Russell Quirk and.
Russell Quirk might be Prime Minister in a few years.
Yeah, we bet we we we better keep him close if he if he is.
Exactly. But I reckon we'll be around
about a million transactions, which is a little bit low, lower
than it has been with more agencies in there, you know,
more self-employed. So you know more, you know, more
people eating the the slice of the pie.
And so that's where you really need to think about your
marketing strategies. And for me when I was in
Winchester, when I first set up in Winchester, I made the
decision, this is pre data really, so it's a bit harder.
So you're going on your gut feel and knowledge of the area.
But I wanted to dominate when I first set up three locations,
Kingsworthy, Cold and Common and Badger Farm, they were the three
big estates. I knew that if I got one house
in the market, I'd get 2. I knew that I'd turn 1 LB pound
worth of revenue into £1.75 because I'd cross sell into my
mortgages and my conveyancing and pick up some lettings.
And so we, the only marketing strategy that we had in those
days were those three locations didn't boil the ocean, didn't
have enough money was just very specific in terms of those
locations. And we knew the market so well
that if we put a house on the market, A3 bed detached in
Silverwood close, we were going hand delivers.
I'm talking 27 years ago, by the way, we're going hand deliver
those detail, those details to another, another Rd. in Badger
Farm, Badger Farm Rd. because they had a 2 bed and they wanted
to move up to three just listed this house.
Call me if you want to view it. And but now there's technology
that can do that. You know, there's, you can drive
the cost of that down dramatically.
So we would understand the areas that we wanted, we'd spend our
money in those areas and then we'd understand the
demographics. Now in today's world, it it is
the most eclectic client base that estate agencies ever had.
You've in in one household, you've got techno phobes and
techno bods. You've got different
generations, those that won't use text because it's too slow,
they'll only use WhatsApp and tick.
And I was going to say tick tock.
It's not, it's not Snapchat you've got.
So you nowadays, how would I evolve my thinking?
I'd still probably want to identify the areas that I'd
wanted to dominate. I'd then look at the demographic
profile of the people that live within them and I'll build an
Omni channel marketing strategy that would then work for each of
those locations. Definitely social, definitely
video, some e-mail campaigns, but I'll be really specific
about the the the subject line, which people delete based upon
the subject line. I would definitely have print
included within it. I'll definitely have magazines
because magazines are, you know, just supportive going to all of
the, the, the nice hotels and the doctor surgery.
And coincidentally, we give away free magazines within the Guild
to see what I did. I knew you were doing that.
And yeah, I'll build out the right the right demographic
campaign for the areas that I want.
And I would, I'd be a cheeky bugger.
I'd go and do videos. If you put a house on the market
in the area that I want, I'd come outside and say Simon's
just lifted an absolute Corker of a house.
It's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'll talk about your
house and you'd get really annoyed with me and I'll relate
that back to what we used to do. We used to work our local own
local applicants that hadn't found something every when Right
Move first came out. For me, it was like the godsend.
We would get in at 8:00 in the morning, but have a look and see
what's new. We'd have our morning late
meeting and the first calls that we would make in the morning
were to the people whose houses that we'd valued that we thought
that they would want the house that and it used to be Fox and
Sunset. It's Adam Sparks.
He's a Guild member now. Hello, Sparksy.
If you're listening, I'd phone, I'd phone up and say Mr. Brown,
and this is true story. Mr. Brown.
I remember his name. Mr. Brown.
Fox and Sons has just listed a bungalow in the road that you
want. Do you want me to arrange a
viewing for you? We used to do that all the time.
We used to hot phone or oppose new instructions not to try and
gain the fee, but knowing that Fox and Sons would have found it
and then I'd have been cut out of the loop on the go back to
revalue his house. Yeah.
So we would be, we'd be acute to that sort of behaviour in terms
of making sure that if there's a house that we wanted, we'd over
index to try and get it. Yeah, love that language over
index, right? For everyone listening, like the
whole podcast I've been loving, like I'm sure we could talk all
day in on this, but particularly last five minutes, just rewind
and re listen to what Ian said because it was just full of
absolute gold, proper, proper estate agency and a couple of
bits. I just want to run back through
in terms of what you said on the CRM system I used when I was an
agent, there were three reports I had set up buyers with houses
to sell within my patch, withdrawn properties and lost
market appraisals. So every morning in the morning
meeting, it was I because I worked in a dozen branch network
and I was landlocked. So I was surrounded by all the
other offices. So someone might register with
the Milton Keynes office and have a house to sell in Newport
Pagnell. So I'm immediately saying to
Milton Keynes at 8:00 in the morning, I can't see any notes
in the file saying you've offered them evaluation.
So it's like right, I'm going to drop an e-mail to them.
And towards the end of my time as an agent, and I was using
home search in its infancy, I'd e-mail, Dear Mr. McKenzie, I see
you registered Milton Keynes office looking for somewhere to
buy. And then she got a property in
Newport Pagnell. Click here to read a free report
I've created for you. And obviously you click on it.
I see you clicked on it. And people would say, I love
this report, Simon. Only problem is there's no price
on it. And I left that off on purpose.
So I'd say great, when's a good time for me to come out and see
you because that's the value of your home.
So love that. In terms of the magazine side of
things, Michael Graham, we used to have the acquire magazine,
which would come out quarterly. That was unbelievable for me.
So for once a quarter, I'd take out whoever was like my junior
leg at that time. One of us who would be driving,
1 would be in the passenger seat and we'd just circulate our
patch in terms of the pubs, the coffee shops, the doctor's
surgery, the dentist, the places, the middle to higher end
of the market buyers, homeowners would be hanging around.
Yeah, put our magazines around. And then again, lost appraisals,
withdrawn properties, unconverted appraisals, just
dropping those magazines through the door.
And what was quite funny was that we'd have board meetings
once 1/4 at head office. I was such a teacher's pet, like
the other managers must have hated me.
But I also made sure that when I'd walk into the boardroom, I'd
always sit in the chair by the front, by the front entrance.
And the reason I did that was that the MD would always sit
right next to it. And I knew you don't want to be
in the design line if you're 90° left or right.
If he's having a bad day, you're probably not in the firing line.
But he'd go around the room being like, so how are we
getting on with the choir magazines?
And the managers would go, yeah, they're really shit.
Don't get anything from them. They go, that's interesting
because all the freaking boxes are still downstairs and one
person's taking the boxes away and that's Simon.
And who's the person who's in profit every year, Simon.
So he's delivering the magazines.
So true and you know you can't kill a kidder.
That gentleman or lady would have got to their position
through experience and they know that if you get the tools, I
mean, it's like going down. There's an old joke, isn't it,
which is I joined the gym six months ago and I haven't lost
weight or put on any muscle. I'm going down in person for the
first time to see what's happening.
Yeah, yeah, it's so true. Yeah, very true.
On the, what did you call it over indexing?
Over indexing, yeah. Yeah, I love that.
So when you were sort of telling that example, I think the last
Property Academy home moving trend survey or whatever it's
called highlighted that 76% of people surveyed said they didn't
put their property on the market for sale until they found
somewhere to buy. Yeah.
Now most agents, we know their marketing will be along lines of
free valuation. We need more houses to sell, but
work your buyers because how many buyers are typically going
to be local? I appreciate all vary around the
country and then double bubble. If you do a good job in helping
find somewhere, they're probably going to sell for you or.
I've got, I've got a push back on that.
This is the line, I promise you that.
We used to say in my business a lot if you would, if you, if we
were doing a role play now and you'd say, yeah, I'm not going
to get a valuation because I want to, but find somewhere
first. I would say, Simon, can I just
tell you what I've heard and you'll say, yes, I'll say right.
What I've just heard is I want to pay the full asking price for
the house I fall in love with, but I want to undersell my home.
Yeah, love that. And you'll say no, no, no,
that's not what I said. And I'll say, well, after 25
years of experience in this industry, unfortunately it's
what you have said, you just don't realise you've said it.
I and I absolutely love that and I'm, I'm not disputing that for
a second. I think it's crazy how backwards
we do things in this country. But if we know how most buyers
think and get in a conversation with them about what they're
looking for and then drop that absolute golden nugget for them
to go, holy shit, Ian's right. I wouldn't be paying an
understanding. You just didn't say, listen,
this is what's going to happen. You're invariably going to find
a house through me because I'm market leader, right?
I, I work for the seller then and I'm going to say to you that
you need to offer full asking price to secure it.
You're then going to put your house on the market and you'll
come to me because I sell more houses.
And I'm then going to say we need to be lean on price to get
it sold quickly because I've got five more viewings on the one
that you want to go for, put your house on the market.
We can even test the price by a few percentage points if we want
to. And you into any offers that
come in, you accept it subject to finding a house.
We send out holder holding letters.
We don't instruct solicitors until you've found something.
There's zero cost to you. That's how we used to do it.
And I'm, I'm a fully fledged signed up member to that
complete completely agree with it.
I just, I again, going back to the over indexing of I think the
point we're trying to get at in terms of I don't know if it's
the right language, but you might is it lose the battle but
win the war. So like, OK, well, the other
agents got that listing and they've gone and bought it.
I've not earned a fee. So I've lost the battle, but I'm
going to win the war because I've over indexed them.
I've done such an amazing job. They're now going to sell
through me. So I've I've got, I had a
conversation with an agent the other day and this happens quite
frequently where they're like Simon, I go and have a
conversation with Mr. McKenzie, who's on the market with another
agent. Poor marketing, too much money.
But if I tell him what he needs to hear, he'll go straight back
to his agent, his agent will implement it, they'll sell it
and then I'll lose out on the business.
And I'll be interested to get your opinion on this because I'm
like, well one, you didn't have the business in the 1st place,
not yours to lose. Might lose the battle, but
you'll win the war because whilst you might not get
commissioned that time round, they're then going to rave about
you to friends, family and work colleagues because it was your
advice that got themselves. You might not have got the
Commission this time around, but you'll get it further down the
line. They'll come back to you in the
future, but I would say that most often you'll give that
advice to the owner. The estate agent who already has
a listing is probably not going to implement it because if
they're going to implement it, it probably would have done.
You might lose the odd one, but I think that you're not looking
at the bigger picture. Yeah, I think there's also the
social proofing that comes with it.
So there's, if you've got a house that's overpriced, not
selling that is affecting your ability to bring the next 5
houses in the same St. on at the right price because they'll see
that one at more money and say, well, they went to the money for
that. So I wanted to try it that
whereas actually, if you can, if we could all it, you know, if
there was, I often said in, in a declining marketplace, and we're
not in a declining marketplace for the, for the purposes of
clarity where we are today. But when, when the market was
very tough, I used to say, if there was an active government
that said that every house price asking price had to drop by 20%
overnight, the housing market would be stimulated again.
And, and that's probably where we are at the moment is how
trained are the, the teams, the people that are listening at
this are actually talking about price corrections.
And, and it glinks back to it's, it's like Hansel and Gretel
dropping the sweeties on the pathway so they could find their
way home. How you position the valuation,
the price of time evaluation, how you articulate the service,
how you factor in revisits after four weeks, all those sorts of
things. Those that have done that are
having a really good time now. Those that are on evaluation,
pin in the tail on the donkey and using language like will
definitely get this price for it are not maybe having such a good
time. Yeah, and it's scary how
accurate that language is in terms.
Of what it really is, yeah. And again lines.
So Connells have said that they'll sell it quickly for you.
Yes. Why have they off?
Why have they said that they need a 26 week contract?
Do you think it contradicts itself?
And the other thing is why would you want to sell your most
expensive asset quickly? Surely you want to take a bit, a
little bit of time and get the right price for it, for it,
don't you? Love that dropping absolute
golden Nuggets here. And I knew you were that's why I
wanted you on. So you mentioned about not being
in a declining market. So as I said earlier, recording
this at the end of June, I mean, the news is always busy, whether
it's there's always been going on.
Obviously at the time of recording, Keir Starmer has
recently resigned. Andy Burnham is a clear front
runner to to the next PM. So what do we think in terms of
political environment and what that means for a property market
moving forward? Right.
So the, the one of the early bits of advice I had was you
can't but the trend. So actually that trend in the
economy is a trend in the economy.
You just got to adapt your style to actually, you know, mitigate
those stormy waters. And so it is understanding
what's going on in your marketplace and then being able
to articulate and communicate the right advice.
And the bit that's really important with this is that are
you allowed to swear on this podcast?
I've already sworn several times, so yeah.
I can remember a negotiator of mine many years ago who said to
a first time buyer, Dave, we're men of the world, aren't we?
And he said, yes, Tony, His name was Tony.
Tony McGee. Hi, Tony, if you're listening,
yes, Tony, we are, He said, good.
Are you going to buy this fucking house or not?
And they did it in the office and I pulled him out of the
back, said you can't behave like that.
He said I've been out with him for two hours, He swears all the
time. I was mirroring his behaviour
and it worked. So the point I'm making is that
depending on where you are in the UK, use the right language.
So if I were to go to some parts of the UK, I'd sound like a posh
twat and I wouldn't get, you know, that I wouldn't do so
well. But actually what I would really
do is, is adapt my style to use the language that mirror the
behaviour. So find the right words that you
need to deliver to explain the market conditions to the people
in your towns is the point I'm making.
Second thing is that you need to have the right fight story for
sellers and maybe a different fight story for buyers to get
them to influence them positively to come up with the
right result. So interestingly, both my
children are buying a house at the moment.
One Lily's just agreed it yesterday in Twyford, just
outside Winchester and Neve is buying a flat in London and the
flat in London the lady pulled out after a month, which is just
really annoying because sadly she's not very well and she
can't sell at the moment, but she needs to sell before the tax
year next year. So I Neve called me up and said
so like the that they called it for the price, don't they?
And I said, right, get the agent to say this to the seller.
Keir Starmer just resigned. It's odds on that that Andy
Burnham's going to come in. If I were Andy Burnham, I'd call
a general election personally, because I'd want to get.
He hasn't tarnished his reputation and he needs a five
year mandate. He's only got 2 1/2 years left,
Right. So the market's going to go
through political instability. And that what happens if general
elections are caused is that the invariably data shows us that
the housing market treads water for a time.
Yeah, you need to sell your flat, Mrs. Megan's and you need
to be out by by April next year. That means you could have got
effectively with the average convincing time frame for a flat
in London, you've got three months to find a buyer, but it's
just taking you 6 months to find a buyer.
So I don't even know why you're thinking of pulling out.
That's the first thing. Second thing is, is that Andy,
if Andy Burnham gets in, he's going to do a land tax, he's
going to, he's going to tax, you know, potentially, we don't
know, but potentially tax higher value properties, etcetera.
So what do you think is going to happen to flats in London if
that happens? Do you think there'll be more
supply or less supply more great?
What do you think is going to happen to prices as a
consequence of that? And, you know, I gave this
advice to Navy and then dictated it all into ChatGPT and it put
it into bullet points for me. And she delivered it to the to
the agent and we haven't heard back yet in fairness.
But who knows, maybe, maybe the lady will see Sanson sell to
her. So you, you said earlier in the
conversation around let's say it's going to be one
1,000,051.1, whatever transactions there's going to be
this year. Yeah, how, how, how many, what
percentage higher transaction levels are just sat out there
waiting to happen, right. Just by agents being really well
trained and having those conversations and everything
you've been discussing throughout the podcast.
It's a great question. Here's here's again, going back
to go forward. How good are agents in today's
world are actually dealing with passive applicants, Those those
people that didn't that don't intend to move but then end up
moving. I think that that's the
marketplace that's eroded with probably with the portals,
because in the olden days you'd get the paper on a Thursday or
you'd see it for sale board. Now you have to go to all the
behave. Current behaviour is that you go
to a portal to actively look or the you're active, you're not
passive. And so I always used to roughly
work out the data that 20% of my house sales were people that
just saw something and moved to passive applicants.
So I reckon there's a good 20% in the, I reckon there's good.
So Rory Sutherland. I love Rory Sutherland, by the
way. Again, I he said that I saw him
give this speech at the final country conference.
He said I was at, he said hands up, who is trying to sell their
house at the moment? And he said and about 5% of the
room put their hands up. He said hands up who would sell
their house if the right price came in.
And he said more than 50% put the house their hands up.
Yeah. That says everything doesn't.
It yeah, there's, yeah, there are.
There's so many opportunities out there.
There's images I use in presentations.
I do research from Zoopa and right move in terms of the
mindset of, of an audience that's not just those on those
portals. And you'll find that there is
that high percentage who if a price was right or if they could
find their dream home, yeah, they, they would make a move.
And there's, there's a few different Tik Toks out there of
Rory Sutherland talking about the property market.
There's ones he uses Alan Sugar as an example, where Alan Sugar,
obviously very famous man, very, very wealthy, very powerful.
He literally did some handwritten letters to a street
he wanted to live in, in Chigwell saying I want to buy
your house, ring me if you're interested.
And it results in buying his house.
Well, that that was passive. They weren't on the market.
Someone didn't wake up that day going I want to sell my house
today. A letter came through the door
and went, do you know if we could get the right price?
Yeah, right. Coming towards the end of the
podcast. So I have a closing tradition,
which we'll come to in a second. But before that, I've got this
crazy puzzle, Ian, that my girlfriend Louise brought back
from a business trip. And it is called Impossible
Decisions, the little game of big choices.
Oh, OK, I'm going to give you some random questions, right.
Would you rather be constantly gossiped about or never talked
about at all? Never talked about at all.
OK. Would you have more commercial
advantage by by having that? OK, nice.
Interesting. Would you rather be able to make
an imaginary thing real by drawing it, or make a real thing
disappear by erasing it? Imaginary thing real by drawing
it. OK.
And would that be drawing Virgil Van Dyke lift in the Champions
League in the Premier? League, yeah.
Quadruple, yeah. Right, final one on this before
the last question. Would you rather let your
parents read your secret diary or have to read the secret diary
belonging to one of your parents?
Oh bloody hell. God, I'd read mine.
I'd I'd be in distress reading this.
Right. OK.
So final question for you. In my closing tradition, I've
completely ripped off from Stephen Bartlett's podcast.
He gets the last guest asked, the next guest question not
knowing who they are, and then he very cleverly monetizes it
into his conversation cards. So I'm going to get you to
answer one of these random. Questions.
OK, Yeah. So the question I want you to
answer and no pressure because it's been a brilliant
conversation. So you need to end it on a high.
OK, what is the craziest idea you have ever had that turned
out to be right? Blimey, the craziest idea.
I could give you a flippant answer that my, my, the lady
that I went out to the to the bar and asked for a drink would
find me attractive and marry me, probably.
Thank you. Thank you, Nicola, for doing
that. But that's a, that's a flipping
1A crazy idea. I'm going to answer it in a very
strange way. I think that actually, if you've
considered the stance, you've, you've looked at the
possibilities of an idea and rather than it being just an
idea, you've actually had some substance behind it with some
data where possible or a belief and you really believe yourself
and then you do everything that you can to make it happen.
I don't think there is such a thing as a crazy idea.
I think that there is a business plan that you just call it
something else. Yeah, I love that.
There's never a bad time to start a good business, and
there's never a good time to start a bad business.
Correct. Love it, right?
For everyone at home listening, remember to like review,
subscribe, follow, share. It's been an amazing
conversation, Ian, and that just leaves me safe.
Thank you very much for being an amazing guest.
I appreciate it. I've really enjoyed it.
It's been brilliant. Thank you so much.