Hello and welcome to Opening the Gates to more listings for
Estate Agents with me, Simon Gates.
I'm delighted to join today by Mr. Craig Thompson.
Craig, thank you very much for joining me.
Good afternoon, Simon. It is.
It is afternoon. You've you've done with Jack.
I'm good mate, how are you? I'm, I'm very well, thank you
very much. So you've been very much behind
the scenes over the past, call it, half a dozen years and then
you've had like 2 podcast appearances in in a couple of
weeks. What's going on there?
I'm probably getting a bit of stick from the, I'm asking all
of my team to get in front of the camera.
So they're asking me to. We went, we went down to see Ben
and Ellis at Digital Sparks and I got involved in that and I
just thought, let's do a bit more of it.
I used to do it years ago when we first started.
But yeah, probably comes from the Digital Sparks thing.
And I've I've enjoyed seeing that video content going out,
particularly you and Kate vibing off each other.
There was a particular video the other day where you 2 just have
been cracking up the the way you were sort of adjusting each
other. Somebody was saying before we
should do like a Mr. and Misses thing to see how well we
actually know each other. 100% that'd be very good.
There you go. That that that should be the
next studio session. So for those of for those of my
listeners who don't know who you are, tell us a bit about Craig
Thompson and Northwall. OK, so Northwall first then.
So Northwall's been going just over 5 years, then 5 1/2 years
and it was kind of like a happy accident I suppose.
I started investing in property. Kate, my wife is, was has been
an agent for 20 plus years now and she didn't get very well
looked after when she was furloughed.
So we just thought let's have a go ourselves and how hard it's
going to be. That's where it started.
And then five years later, 20 people on the team.
It's been, it's been pretty tough.
But before that my sort of professional background and
academic background was mainly in and around media and music
and marketing and events and things like that.
So I used to spend a lot of time working with brands like
Heineken and Jack Daniels and Adidas and stuff like that.
And I kind of moved out of that as we started a family and
started investing in property. And then, yeah, that brings us
back to N 4. So I want to touch on point you
made about Kate not being looked after very well in COVID when it
comes to furlough, because I feel like that was such a, is
this the right phrase to use sliding doors moment for saving
within the industry where they thought they had the comfort at
the time of it, it, you know, employment, sick pay, holiday,
etcetera. And obviously a pandemic happens
and a lot of people felt like they were left to well, hang out
and dry. And whilst it was obviously such
a terrible thing that happened, it actually was a blessing in
disguise for many where it made them realise that they want to
like go do their own thing if they want to control their their
own destiny. So have you ever heard of
something called the Region Beta Paradox?
No, go on. So I I'll, I'll book trip, but
long short of it is for you have to have something bad to happen
for something good to happen. Oh yeah, like if you're.
You're in a comfortable job and you're not.
You're not overly happy with it, but you know it could be worse.
Nothing changes. But and then someone treats you
like a Dick during COVID and you go fuck this, I'm going to go do
my own thing. That's the the reason beats
paradox, basically. So that's the thing that I'm
talking about on that video that you're, you were talking about
earlier, the one with digital spot.
But I think what's the worst that can happen?
So I've had some pretty bad things happen to me in my life
actually. And before any of this, I was in
a job where I was treated like shit and I felt trapped and I
wasn't able to make the right decisions about what was next
whilst I was in that position. So I just handed my notice in
left on the 4th of July, Independence Day left and took a
month off an opportunity just fell into my lap.
So I've having been through that, I think that's kind of
built that resilience of what's the worst that can happen.
Kate had never been in that situation when that had
happened. So with her mindset now, this is
where it was 5-6 years ago when we first started talking about
it is night and day. But yeah.
But basically what happened was the agency that she she was
working for prior to COVID, when she was on maternity leave, it
closed down. She lost her job.
She got a job at a new agency. And three months after she
started, we went into lockdown. But the way that they structured
her package wasn't aligned with her contract.
And they were also expecting people to still work when they
were furloughed. So it was just, yeah, terrible.
I I did, yeah, I did see a bit of that behind the scenes when I
was working full time at home search where I was on calls with
people and they were furloughed. I was like, you should, I'm
pretty sure you shouldn't be working.
You're, you're furloughed and so I know obviously from the, the
relationship we've got what what an amazing agent Kate is.
But you've said about that sort of 20 years plus experience of
being an agent. What have you seen that she's
had to maybe unlearn, if that makes sense from corporate
environment going into being independent agent?
I think what she's always had underneath everything is a
really strong work ethic and a really strong set of values.
She'll always want to do everything for the client, but
she was doing that in a stack of high selling, cheap agency 750
prepaid 1% and was the best they'd ever get on a no sale, no
fee structure. And she would just have a diary
filled by the team and she would go out and do a listings and
convert a 70% and pass it back to the office.
So it was only in that re sort of learning what she was worth,
making her understand what she was worth and how that impacted
the client. Because when you look at how she
works, but how how Kate works is kind of what's formed our whole
approach and methodology, if you like.
And that's what gets us to the level of outcomes that we get
for our clients versus the sort of agency she used to work in.
And in terms of your results, I've said this to you guys
before and there's some of, if not the best results I see
across the country in terms of likelihood of selling, time to
find a buyer, price achieved in the back pocket, not needing to
reduce the asking price. And I see I, I speak to agents
all around the country and it will say I won't work in my town
or we've always done it this way.
That's not possible. You're in a a very competitive
market. So yeah, what are some of the,
without giving it obviously all of it away, what have been some
of the secrets of your success in terms of achieving those
sorts of results for your clients when others say it's not
possible? Do what you say you're going to
do when you're going to do is. That's probably the best way of
summing it up. I think when we started, it was
about making sure we would send every call and not being chased
as well, getting out ahead of it.
We wouldn't drop off. We were starting for 1% and we
didn't want to go in below that when we first started to make
sure we had enough breathing room and we didn't just take a
load of stock on and get too busy.
We've always invested in growth probably slightly before.
We need it in terms of team to make sure that capacity doesn't
drop. And it is getting harder by the
way to keep those numbers where they are the bigger we grow.
And it's harder in the market like this as well, where buyers
and sellers are second guessing things all the time because the
ability in the market. But I think the secret to it
really is that there isn't a secret.
It's just not taking on every single property just to get the
listing up. It's not about, but not
incentivizing the instruction and incentivizing the outcome.
Yeah, not all business is good business.
Exactly that. And I guess that maybe has been
and sort of maybe speaking on Kate's behalf it, but that would
have been tough for Kate over the years from the environment
she's come to where you've probably got an area of manager,
director or even Daniel Net saying you haven't hit your
target this week or this month. So you're used to just taking on
anything, even if you know it's not going to sell, do you?
You understand? Whereas in this it's, do I
believe I can sell this property?
Do I believe we're on the right fit for that kind and I can get
a mood. And if the answer is no,
respectfully, I'll let you go somewhere else.
But, and it's the same with you, the listers that have joined us
as well. So there's five of them now
including Kate. One came from one came from
small independent which was lettings fair sales second so
they were happy with £1500. One came from Purple Bricks
which I don't mean to go into. One came from a local
independent, newer came from a local independent group and they
were very much run like mini corporates.
Incentivize the instruction and not the outcome.
The most recent ones to join us. This is a second full month of
listing. She's never followed our
structure before. So at the moment we use flexible
fee model similar to in Preston's flexible fee model.
So she's never asked for upfront fees before.
I think of the properties she's listed this month, she's hit her
target and then some. And four of them we've got full
upfront fees, which is something she's never done.
So she's gone from like 9.75 S 1.8%, no sale, no fee.
And then somewhere in between as, as the upfront.
So like the the the shift in mindset, you have to have to be
able to go from that to that such a short space of time is
amazing. I, I was recording a podcast
earlier this morning and mindset came up and I've used the phrase
whether you think you can or whether you think you can't.
You're right. And I know I think talks about
that a lot in, in sort of his training of, of implementing
flexible fees is that if you're going in there thinking
something's not going to work, then it's not going to, you've
got to have like blind faith with it.
But I want to, so I'm going to like respectfully challenge
something you said. So I know we like to have a have
a debate on things because you, you've mentioned a couple of
Times Now and I know you're going to have an answer for it,
but you mentioned a couple of times around incentivizing
instructions in a traditional setup.
Yeah, you've just mentioned you use flexi fees in getting
upfront fees. So I'm going to play devil's
advocate and say, well, hang on a minute, where is the incentive
to sell a property if you've already been paid the money?
And yeah, I guess that's that's what the that's what the
prospective client in the living room is going to say all the
time, people, bricks clients have had for years etcetera and
all the other agents that do it. I think for us, we start off
with the data and we look at the outcomes that we achieve for our
clients. So we've got was 80 to 85%
completion rate is generally where we sort of hover around.
Can you just repeat that as well for anyone listening?
What was that number? Between 80 and 85% he.
He said that very light Lasse fare, but it like it's an.
Unfucking believable number. Well, thanks.
But the, the, the sellers that are motivated to pay, you know,
some, some of the upfront fees we've had this month are between
say 3 and 6000 lbs. So the sellers that are
motivated to pay that amount are bought into our approach.
They bought into our outcomes. They know they need to price
realistically. Our whole valuation methodology,
all of the communication around it is designed to discourage
people from listing at an over optimistic price and sitting on
the market for too long. And we educate them.
We're not, we're not valuing that.
I mean, as you know, when was the TCA as well with Dave and
James and and Ian? And I can't claim this is my
own. I know if they all like claiming
their own ideas, but gold dust and alchemy and all that, but
we're not there to necessarily value the house.
We're there to present a load of information about what the
market says the house is worth and present it in the best
possible way to give it the best possible chance of achieving
that outcome. And if, if we've conveyed that
effectively and someone's really committed to moving, then why
wouldn't they pay upfront? Because the data suggests that
we're going to get them what they want.
And actually the ones that do pay something upfront, they skew
probably higher than the 8085% or the the people that take us
to 8085%. Yeah.
But I, I think so back in the day when I was competing against
purple bricks, might like, I, I wish I'd known then what I know
now, because my thing would be, let's say Craig, you're thinking
of using them. I'd be like, but you're paying
them whether they sell it or not.
Where's the incentive? And you, the owner would go,
well, I'm, I'm going to end up moving and I'd be like, but
you're not, they've got no incentive.
But actually, because you've paid that money upfront, even if
it is a smaller amount, you're, you've got skin in the game,
right? Yeah, exactly that, yeah.
And I think from the agent point of view, I, and whether this is
right or wrong, if I was doing a flexi fee model now and I'm in
your living room and you're like, I, I get the whole upfront
fee thing and I can save a bit of money, but you just haven't
got the incentive, Simon. And I'd be like, well, what's,
it's going to look really bad if I take your money, I don't sell
your property. And then you go tell friends,
family, work colleagues where I just sent him 5 grand and he
didn't sell the property. So actually I'd argue I'm even
more incentivised. But you've paid upfront.
Exactly. And they sell no fee.
It's like. Well, Joe, what I think we
started doing it. In.
December 23. So I've been doing it for nearly
three years. And honestly, if we hadn't have
done it in 2024 because of what happened in 22, what am I
getting my years wrong there? Whatever happened, there was a
point in 2024 where our pipeline got decimated for one reason or
another. And if we hadn't have had the
ability to pull that up front feely, but I think it was about
July 24, we did run out of cash. We'd run out of runway that
month. We're not in that position now,
but it saved our bacon then. And I think in that time, we've
only had one that's paid the whole thing upfront that hasn't
sold. They withdrew with their own
choice because of family members, health reasons.
They didn't want to move anymore.
So if they, if they come back to us, we'll, we'll honour them.
We'll honour what they've paid and we'll relist it when they're
ready. And we check in with them every
now and again without being, you know, too pressured about it.
But we don't want that on our books.
We, we, we don't want knowing that someone's paid a big chunk
of cash to us and then we didn't get the outcome they wanted.
What a powerful statue just shared there.
Out of the people who paid money upfront, only one has not ended
up selling. And that was through their own
choice that took it off the market.
Again, the the confidence in the living room to say that to a
seller. And I've like what an amazing
differentiate from the living room, right.
You know, from you're not an estate agent where most home
owners are going to go. Well, you're all the same.
You stick it on right move. You wait for the phone to ring.
You wait, you know, you, you open some doors.
So we're just going to go with the cheapest of the shit.
It's agent. Whereas if I've had two agents
come through my door, say I'm 1% no sale, no fee, I'll have you
on right move by the end of the week.
Now I've got this Cape lady saying, oh, you know, we have
this kind of flexible option where if you actually are that
committed to moving, if you pay something upfront, you'll save
at the end. I'm like, I've not heard that
before. That sounds good.
Yeah, I've forgotten who the two other agents are.
And I think, like if you give them the pay everything,
something for no sale, no fee, all of a sudden you're three of
the five options on the table, right?
So you go from a one in three potential chance of winning that
business to 60 something percent.
I've never thought about it like that.
It is so if you so if you think so three of three of five is 60%
go from 33% to 60%. So that's 2733.
It's an 80. Yeah.
An 82% increase in in chance of winning the business by
presenting three options. And you're not you're not
overcomplicating it. So I think some agents might go
they're going to get they're going to get complicated about
it. No, you can literally have it on
one page on an iPad or however you do it.
Literally, this is how it. Works.
Yeah, I've never thought about it that way.
That's really powerful. I'm going to, I'm going to use
that if you don't mind. But I think like you said there
though about most clients think that all agents are the same
like that there's so many good agents that are working so hard
to dispel that myth. And I even the term no sale, no
fee, just it dreams to me of like Better Call Saul or a
backstreet ambulance chasing solicitor.
Do you know what? I mean, I was just thinking
that, yeah. Yeah.
And it's not, it doesn't really convey what we what we do or the
the ones that are operating are the kind of it's not, you know,
the industry if qualifications come in, I think it's a good
thing. I think the problem with bar to
entry just needs to be a bit higher, probably needs to be
kind of seen as being more professional service than it
currently is because like you say, clients just think we're
all the same. We're just doing it for the
cash, yeah. And you've a few things you've
touched on already. I know how what so I'm looking
here, I'm going to say passionate you are about doing
things differently, delivering great results and thinking
outside the box. So I had written down before we
jumped on this call the complete agent who already spoken about
you mentioned about having good values earlier, which made me
think of the ethical agent network and then I know that
you're with the Property Academy as well.
So. Yeah.
They've been huge things for you and they're not cheat as
significant investment there in in time and money.
So what? What have you taken out of being
involved in in those? And and Stephen Brown, we
invested in Stephen Brown as well.
So I know that's a slightly different thing.
It's not, we don't, we're not involved in this mastermind.
But in terms of accessing as a resource and a training
resource, that's been invaluable too.
And I have to say that because he told me often not mentioning
it on a previous podcast now. Love you, Stephen.
Thank you very much. So the Academy or leaders in
because it is now is great. I see that as more for me as
business owner. So that's that's as much about
the value that you get from Peter and Richard and all of the
other sort of guest facilitators that and speakers that come in
as it is about the network of agents in the group that I'm in.
Then the group that I'm in is is phenomenal.
There's some amazing agents in there, different models,
different parts of the country, but the support as agency owner
in that is phenomenal and complete agent is it has got
aspects of that, but it's more about everybody in there is
trying pretty much to do the same, the same, a version of the
same thing. So in the Academy, everyone's
got a slightly different model in this, everyone's trying to do
the same thing. And that's really good for
helping people like John in the team help to kind of standardise
and codify what what high performance looks like.
I guess in marketing, in sales and communication, in language
and design and everything. And that's been really
invaluable to us. And I don't think we'd have got
our fees to where we are, what we have without them or not.
We've done it consistently. And then ethical agent network,
I mean, Jerry's great and Nick now as well.
I think what what they try and do for what they do do.
For agents, regardless of size or, or standing or perception,
because I know some people think that some groups can be quite
cliquey. It's kind of the opposite of
that. It's really inclusive, really
supportive. It's a really great place to be
and it's nice. You know, you never want to be
the smartest person in the room, do you?
And I think within those groups, there's so much to take from
everybody in it. I think it's.
They're all really valuable in the room, right And across.
I think like in terms of what you've mentioned about those
different groups, don't know if I said this on a podcast the
other day, but and I'll use let's choose Cristiano Ronaldo
as an example. And he's he wants to go to, he
doesn't have one person who looks after nutrition.
Then is the masseuse then is the coach, right?
Having a different person for each bit.
That's what I kind of got from what you were saying.
But if I was to put them all together throughout the
different groups you're involved in, what are the what are the
common traits or attributes that keep coming up time and time
again from the highest to highest performers?
Well, that's a good question. I would say all of them have got
a really good, strong sort of moral compass.
So whether we're going to talk about ethics or values, I think
that they always want to do the right thing.
And I think they're always asking the question, how do we
make this better? How do we make it better for the
client? How do we make it better for the
team as well? It's not just about extracting,
extracting value from a client. It's, well, if this process
isn't working well internally, that's an issue as well.
It's not just about, not just about a client.
And I think as well, none of them rest on the laurels.
They're always looking at not, not just about improvement, but
growth as well. Not just growth for growth sake,
but how, how can they reach more people with what it is that
they're trying to do? So if I was to flip that on its
head, there's like 3 points you made.
Do the public think agents are that ethical?
We know that they don't trust them very much.
I think that the second point, so many agents have a mindset of
that will do like I've just changed your price from 300 to
295, not even got it on a price point, for example.
And I don't need to go take another photo.
But hang on, it's been on the market since January and there's
snow that will do. And then the final point, what
was the final point you made? Always looking to like move the
needle again, I can't if I use the phrase in this particular
conversation, but the my town mentality and I've completely
stolen that from Magenta called Stewart who was on the podcast a
while ago. When people say we've always
done it that way, that won't work in this market, whereas
it's OK, that hasn't ever been done in this market before.
Is is it something that can work?
Can we do it and will will the clients benefit from it?
The end. I think in my home search days,
a real tell for me when I would speak of agents, when they'd be
like, how does this benefit me? I think you're probably not
going to be the right fit for this.
When someone says how does it benefit the consumer?
Therefore the byproduct is we win.
I'm like, right, you're going to get it.
Because at the time, I think early days at home search, the
market was booming and there was just not enough property on the
market. So when I'd say to an estate
agent, you know your buyers who can't find some of your sellers
who can't find somewhere, you can use the Explorer tool, find
properties not yet on the market and send letters on their
behalf. And they'd go, I get it.
And then I'm going to get a response from a seller and then
I sell that property on a fee. Yeah, that's how you, that's how
you got us signed up. Yeah, I met, you know, I
remember actually that that conversation was, I was, I'm
definitely not in an air conditioned office today.
I'm absolutely sweating my body. So I'm sorry for that language.
I've got three fans here but I was in an in an office at
Bayswater which was air conditioned and remember
chatting to you, we'd never spoke before, never come across
each other I don't think. And I thought from that moment I
was like top, top bloke he is, even if he's a Tottenham fan.
And I think we we hit it off from day one, didn't we?
I think so, mate, Yeah. I was talking to JK the other
day about it as well. Do you remember the first time
we spoke, James, because Simon introduced us?
I don't, I don't think he can quite remember, but yeah.
But thank you for for that. There's something else you said
there. What was, what was the second
and Third Point you made then not to go back to to that?
That will do. That's it.
That'll do I that. And the second one was is well,
we've always done it that way. Well, I'm like why?
Like why does it have to be that way?
But that will do thing. I wrote something about this the
other day. I think I used to say we had
like a manifesto when we started and one of the points was like,
good enough isn't good enough isn't good enough.
But I'm not sure that that's why healthy enough for the team.
So maybe we're asking about how things get better and even
better if maybe we just sort of put a more positive spin on
that. But yeah, I've never in any
business I've ever been in, any job I've ever had, I've always
wanted to do the best I possibly can, whether it was pulling a
pint or flipping a burger. And case is exactly the same.
Yeah. So I don't know if this is
directly comparable to what we were just discussing, but it's a
really good saying. Success has many fathers.
Failure is an orphan. Now if I go back to 2021 when
the market was on fire and I see agents online being like record
year, record year, record year and you're like, I expect you to
have a record year when money's practically free and stampedes
holiday, whatever. I sound really harsh here.
But then when it gets to 2023 and it's our turnovers down 10%
on last year, it's like, yeah, but you, you blame, you did
you're blaming the market for poor performance in 2023, but
you weren't thanking the market for your performance in 2021.
Yeah, I think I saw a lot of agents in 21 maybe buying the
nicer car, the nicer house, Da, da, da, da, da.
And again, Warren Buffett, quite.
I think when others are greedy, be scared.
When others are scared, be greedy.
Yeah. Thanks to ages over overspending
perhaps in in 2122, but those who were going well, this isn't
going to last. Let's make sure we preserve for
when the market does turn. And then they doubled down and I
think definitely saw you, you guys do this.
You know, when the market would have been tough in that 2223
period, you didn't rest in your laurels.
You kept going even if it was tough at that time.
Now you come out the other side and and look at the stuff you're
doing now, whereas other agents out there who are still doing
what they were doing and they're struggling.
Yeah, I think, I mean, we've always had to invest heavily in
marketing, one, because that that's part of my background,
but two, because we were an unknown brand and we went on the
High Street. So we we've, the minute we
stopped spending money on marketing, the minute we went
invisible. So it's always been a big part
of what we do. You don't always get it right.
You know, you're always, you're always trying to make sure
measure and measure your success, aren't you?
And tweak what needs tweaking and then double down on the
stuff that does work. Yeah, on the you just mentioned
High Street there and she joked how you said about alchemy and
the classic, well, the classic Rory Sutherland story of if
you're going to create a competitor to Coca-Cola, it
would taste better come in a small in a bigger can and it
would cost less, right. And then Red Bull comes along,
doesn't taste as good. Taste tests have proven that in
a smaller can that costs more money.
So you're kind of thinking you've gone along and gone,
right? And there must be another point
to this and you might be able to help me with this.
But you've gone right? We're not going to be on the
High Street. That's a bit weird.
OK. And we're going to charge higher
fees than anyone else, right? OK, that doesn't sound like it's
going to be successful. You're not on the High Street.
Numbers are. And you're going to charge more
because what do most agents do when they set up a newer stages?
They go, well, we need to be on the High Street because everyone
else is. And what does everyone else
charge that's trying to undercut them?
Yeah, instructory offer not .5%. Yeah, let's let's feel right
move with a little stock that's not going to sell.
I think we're kind of leaning more and more into that all the
time now as we sort of expand into new patches ourselves.
You know, we can talk about our offer, we can talk about our
positioning, we can talk about our outcomes.
But I think when you package it all up in the right way, and we
can't wait for our new brand to come online when the new website
is ready, which will be, it'll probably be ready in August, but
we're going to be away in August.
So we'll probably go live in September.
And I'm trying to convey all that in such a way that when
you're introducing yourself to a new customer, the confidence in
that proposition or the confident enough to go off the
High Street and the confident enough to rule themselves out of
different parts of the market because they know who they're
for and who they're not for. It's the complete opposite of
being a whole of market agent. I'm really, really excited about
that. So is that essentially it's like
the it's that forms part of the N wall 2 point O that's.
What we're calling it internally as a project, yeah.
And you think you're half a dozen years in and it's N wall 2
point O? Yeah.
I walked down high streets where the estate agent window still
looks like it did 20-30 years ago.
Yeah. I don't, I don't know why that I
don't want to be like disparaging because some of
those High Street agents have got fantastic businesses,
haven't they? Yeah.
But some of them haven't and that maybe they're not
reflective enough. Maybe they don't really if you,
I guess I'm we've got the benefit of having somebody who's
not been in agency for 20 years and I haven't just left
university or school or college or whatever and just think that
that's the only way of doing it. So that we bring other things to
it. And there are other people in
the team that are the same. So it might be that that makes
us sort of be a bit more, I don't know, we reflect more on
what it is that we're doing. Well, I think when you say about
all the experience you bring to the table, but you've not been
an agent, you're not conditioned.
But obviously when, when your wife has been an agent for as
many years as Kate has, you're going to hear hear the
conversations from her as well. But I guess that's the the Ying
to the Yang, right? How many people go into business
with someone just like them and cover each other's blind spots?
I mean, neither of us could have done this without each other
when we, when we started. So I was doing like property
trading stuff and, and flips. And there were people kind of in
my network in the Northwest who were going through a similar
thought process to me during during lockdown and COVID where
they had kind of a pipeline of leads of sellers.
Prices were going up. Their investors to buy a sort of
off market investment stock didn't want to pay market rate
or even above market rate, but they were expecting prices to
come down because of lockdown. But the opposite happened.
So everyone was looking for an exit for the for those lines.
And we announced that we were setting up the agency and this,
I won't name names, but this guy rang me and said, no, no, no,
you come to Exp, come to Exp and Exp.
Like, you know, I went to the conference last year.
I spent a lot of time with that day and having a tie.
And there's nothing against the Exp.
But at the time, it wasn't what it was doing now.
And the barrier to entry was really low.
And I just felt that for Kate, it was probably the wrong place
because Kate, if Kate was where she is, if this had all happened
now, I'd probably plug Kate straight into one of those
network writers and she'd flourish.
But I wanted to be able to build a brand and stand for something.
I didn't feel at the time that we could have done that as part
of somebody else's structure. And then they evolved the team
model and maybe we could have moved the agency over and all
that. But I guess the the point I'm
trying to make is that I don't know what the point is I'm
trying to make but lost my train of thought actually saying.
That's all right. I, I can, I can be guilty of
doing that as well. And to be honest, I can't even
remember what my question was in the 1st place.
It makes two of us. I the point was around Ying and
Yang, where too many people go into business.
People just like them. So you, you, you cover each
other's blind spots. Yeah.
So if I so if I was like that person and I have a bit of me
and a bit of Kate about me, like Ian Story or James Kendall or
Dave Warburton, one person who can sort of visualize what they
want the business to be, set it up and go and list in people's
front rooms. Whereas me and Kate were never
that. It was always very clear what
she was very good at and it was very clear what I was OK.
And together we were quite formidable, but separately we
probably wouldn't have been as strong.
So it was we had to build something together to get it, to
get what we've created. That was my point.
And knowing what you know now, obviously hindsight's a
wonderful thing, but if there's any, if there's one thing you
could do differently, if you could turn back the clocks, what
would it be? A really good question.
Some of the hires we've made probably haven't been right.
You know they say the highest low fires just.
Thinking that, yeah. Yeah.
But it's tough in a business like ours and when we were, when
we were really small and you can see someone's wrong for the
business, but then going creates a massive capacity vacuum that
you then go to fill. But it's like, it's not like
playing drafts. You're playing chess.
You've got it's, it's the bigger we get, that becomes a bit
easier. That may be that I think
probably dabbling with new builds when we went really set
up for it was a problem because that ended up costing us money
because the developers that we went with were let's say
unreliable and they've massively damaged our numbers.
By the way, we've got new bills that we sold, they're starting
to complete now. Time from sale agreed to
completions like 506 hundred days, unbelievable.
And I'd say the other thing is probably we should have been
stronger in picking our segment of the market earlier rather
than going whole on market. So even though we protected our
fee, I think that we didn't want initially, we didn't want to
appear to be snobby and just go for high end stuff.
And instead we made it about how we present a beautiful home.
And it was about working with the right sellers, with the
right mindset, irregardless of the value of the property.
And over time that slips as we grew, we just listed anything
and then we've we've contracted that back in.
That's probably the biggest and most damaging thing we've done
all. Right, very interesting.
So we touched our own FDA agent network, what was property
Academy now leaders in TCA, Stephen Brown.
So let's say you've got partnerships there in terms of
training, coaching, mentorship, consultancy, etcetera.
What about on the tech side? How important are the are the
technology companies you partnered if you already
mentioned Cateni? Stack you mean?
Yeah, your tech stack, Yeah, yeah.
So we were with St. as our main CRM inspector for their
marketing sides. It's been great.
I mean, it's not with those challenges.
And I don't think there's a single piece of software that's
absolutely flawless. And every, every agency has got
their own work flows. But yeah, Catini, St.
Spectre, we use Prospector Pro as well.
So I used to, I mean, I used to be part of JP's mastermind
before I joined Leaders Inc. And JP was really great in the
early days helping the sort of systemize and stuff prospects of
pro has been good for us. And what I would say though that
what we find and it's probably because of all of the things
we've talked about the sort of outside of agency experience.
It's the 8020 thing with a lot of suppliers that that set up to
cater for 80% of the industry that don't really think and
operate like we do because we're not set up and structured or
operate like a traditional agency.
So I find it sometimes quite difficult to get everything that
we need from from one supplier, but often we want to think about
how we can execute something ourselves.
And I think that's even worse on the Latin side, by the way.
But yeah. So yeah, I, I was kind of, when
you first said the 8020 thing and I was like, what do you mean
by that? And then I kind of was casting
my mind back to home search days where an agent would say, are
you able to do X? And like, yeah, no, don't do
that. I that that would be quite a
frequent conversation. I've been on the letting side.
Yeah, it did frustrate me. I'd have plenty of conversations
with letting agents. I I love all this.
Be great if you do something for lettings.
I can't say like a week wouldn't go by where I didn't say to Mom
keep getting asked about lettings, lettings, lettings.
And you've kind of got I'm, I'm not a tech guy, but it's like,
it's not on the road map. And it's like, what who decides
what's on this road map? Is it is it in the back office
who are not on the front line? We're having conversations with
estate agents and they're telling us what they want.
Now, the customer's not always right.
Like there might be things they're asking for, which is
just stupid. But you've got to at least think
about it and have a meeting and go, OK, if that keeps coming up
time and time again, maybe we should be looking at what we
offer and and changing it. Yeah, and I think, you know,
there's there's plenty of agents who are happy to buy in content,
for example, from from one of the multiple suppliers out there
or use other, you know, they might do their they're
canvassing their prospects in through something else with
inspector. There's so many different tools
out there and not really think a lot about it.
They'll just use they'll just use a template.
It's designed. They'll use copy that's provided
they're buying the copy for socials without really tweaking
it. But because of my background,
I'm always going to make sure that that's run through some
kind of filter to make sure it sounds like us and feels like us
to the point where actually we're probably just going to
produce some more of this stuff ourselves and build our own in
house creative team to to execute that.
I remember as social media, I think it was an Instagram
carousel or something a few years ago, you guys did, and it
was following a meeting we'd had.
And I remember because the start of the carousel, you chopped me
out of the picture. Do you remember that?
Yeah. Yeah.
And but it was the way he turned stats into stories.
So rather than it being the classic right move pie chart
thing, it wasn't just a, you know, way more likely to sell,
get you more money in a quicker time.
It was the story behind the stats.
Yeah, I think. I think the average, the
average, you know, let's say we'd achieved 102% of asking
price whatever over a 12 month period and we worked out what
that meant in cash figures and it was let's say it was 56
grand. Well, you know, that's price of
a new bathroom. Yeah, that we just made it a bit
more relevant. And that flipped it on its head
because going back 10 years ago, I don't know if it was the
purple brakes or someone similar where in their fee slider on
their website it would go traditional agent charges 1.5%
where 1000 LB whatever it was. And as you flipped your property
price, it would say new bathroom, new kitchen, holiday
da da da da da. So yeah, it's flipping it on its
head of it. Or look at how much more money
you get in your back pocket and and what you could do with that
money as well. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Love that, definitely. Bricks, aren't they?
Say that again they're. Very clever and purple bricks.
I mean, as much as the estate industry likes to, to moan about
them and the way they went about things at the time, they, they
called out a lot of home truth which agents didn't like.
I remember being as, as being a proud High Street agent at the
time. I was fuming and I was like, how
dare you do this? You can't do this.
I, I look back now and I go, you know, a lot, a lot of it.
They they taught sense it. Needed disrupting.
It needed shaking up, definitely.
Yeah, 100 and 100% and and that disruption still needs
continuing on now. And I think that when I went
into the supplier world, I had these rose tinted glasses
because I'd worked for a very reputable estate agent.
Yeah. When I then had people within a
team going across state agents as shit, aren't they?
I was like, what are you on about?
They're amazing. And David went by.
I was like, there are some really, really bad estates that
so I could understand more of the marketing that they did.
A decade. I'll say something else.
So we talk about suppliers. So at the moment, right, we were
the only portal that we work with.
We came off the other two. We were two main ones and John
drove a lot of that. And John was interrogating the
not that portals are only there to supply seller leads, but
let's look at the valuation leads that came through from the
other two portals. How many of them actually
converted to evaluation? How many of those converted to
an instruction and of those actually went on to sell and the
amount of time that was spent on that, it was completely
disproportionate. And when, and John comes from a
completely different background, he couldn't get his head around
how the reps not just from the bulls, but from other suppliers
as well when we didn't ask to interrogate the data.
Or can we get a bit more targeted and can we think about
the value of the properties that we're going to in the areas that
we're in? Obviously that is technically
that's possible, but it's not something that's provided they,
their response was, well, just just don't go to those leads or
don't go to those valuations or don't ring those sellers.
That's what other agents do. And John, wow, is the bar really
that low that it's accepted to advise a client that somebody's
selected your brand within their portal.
They've asked you to to value their home or to at least give
them a call to try and book that in and tell you more about their
business. And then their suggestion to us
was don't ring them. I mean, like that was just, it's
the complete opposite of that. Good enough isn't good enough
thing, isn't it? It's like it just blew John's
mind and that's what that's what caused us to move away.
Interesting. But I think so to use Right Move
as an example, this is to not get into a debate around Right
Move, but I remember going to AI, don't know what you call it,
a seminar that Right Move put on several years ago.
And I was thinking and looking back, it's like, well, if the
agents are in the room, they're going to be forward thinking
agents. Otherwise they wouldn't be in
that room. They'd be sat in their office a
bit like the agent citizens podcast are open minded
otherwise wouldn't be listening to it.
And they said in that room that over half they they mystery
shocked everyone and over half the leads didn't get responded
to. Yeah.
And I was like, that's got to be bullshit.
Like it's criminal up. Yeah, it is.
But what was, I can't remember the exact.
I would have spoke about this before and I can't remember the
exact details, but I was looking around going that is terrible.
And then I went, I bloody hope we responded to the lead.
But I was so particular about notes in the system, like every
morning was looking back at the last day.
There's not a note on the system.
And my colleague might go, yeah, I called them, OK, but if it's
not on the system, that did not happen like I need system.
And it turned out that we did respond to the lead, but I think
I can't remember, it took more than an hour.
And in the lead it said basically two things like we
have a property to sell in area and then it asked a question.
So we responded to the lead. So we did the we did the
minimum, but we didn't respond within an hour, which was
criminal for me. They said that they had a house
to sell the e-mail response, didn't they actually?
Said that as well. That's.
Not yes, this is what they did in the mystery shops was they
highlighted we have a, it's, do you have a property to sell?
Yes, not yet on market. And it gave a full address
within that area. And then the other thing was
they asked a question about the property.
It'd be like, I don't know what's the council tax or what's
the EPC or something like that. So you know, we've done, we
don't, we've responded to the inquiry.
Over half of people hadn't. And then we've done it same day.
But the amount of people in the room who didn't respond to the
inquiry, like it, it it was mad. So I yeah, I go to, I speak to a
lot of agents where they're talking about, all right, you
need to spend a load of market, need to spend a load of money on
marketing. And we need to go send letters
da, da, da, da, da. And then you're like, well over
half your stock on the market unsold.
Yeah. So what are you doing about
getting them sold? And it's like the people who
already in your database, what you're doing about talking STEM
And then also are you looking at the enquiries you've got coming
through? Because I've, whilst obviously
I'll be intrigued to get your opinion on AI actually is
something to discuss a little bit further.
But when I and I like this, but when I see CRMS or AI tools
saying we've built systems that will tell you when there's
someone in your database who has a house sat in your area.
Yeah. I'm like, what the fuck is that?
I I knew it like I had my brain knew who was in my CRM, who had
a house to sell that was not yet on the market.
Like I didn't I didn't need a piece of techno like sorry, I
would have a report. So the the CRM I would have the
field set up and I'd save it as a report.
But like it. It baffles me.
But agents don't already have that.
I I get, but you, I mean without sort of blowing smoke up your
ass, you obviously were an exceptional agent and you worked
works in a way that most agents don't or most agents aren't
trained to do. And you probably did a lot of it
off your own back actually, because you understood where the
value was rather than being trained to do it.
Well, honest, so honest CRM. So I think, again, this won't be
the case for people listening to this, but if I asked 1000 agents
what does CRM stand for, I don't think they'd know what those
initials stand for. And they don't use it as a
customer relation relationship management system.
That and I was in a decent company, but I'd say the older
guy didn't sound a little bit ageist, but they would literally
use it as a diary. Yeah, so right tells me where
I'm going or right, I need to phone someone.
What's the contact details? They wouldn't be going.
How can I build reports to see where the withdrawn listings,
where the buys and houses sell, where the properties have been
out to see that went on with someone else it Yeah.
I think, yeah, at times we've, we've been guilty of just using
it as a place to deposit information that we then go back
back to retrieve when we need it.
But it's something that we've like we we did an exercise a
couple of weeks ago where we pulled a couple of those lists
and gave them to some members of the team.
And you know, Berryman were a low volume agency.
I think we booked 12 valuations just from two or three different
lists that one of the girls Diaries went from being
virtually empties eventually fought for the rest of the
month. So there's massive value in it.
I think that the trick is making sure they understand what
they're doing, why they're doing it, what the win is, and then
get them to do it consistently. Because as soon as the phones
start ringing back, that's the stuff that stops, isn't it?
The outbound stuff that that database management stuff just
stops. Yeah, so.
Tom Panos would have said it in the time that I've spent with
you in the past couple of weeks. Ryan Sohan says it on socials
and his books. It's like AM find business, PM
do business. So it's fine to keep do.
So. Ryan Sohan right First couple of
hours a day on generating business, then the next few
hours it's maintaining the business I've already got and
then right in the afternoon I'm going to go out there and do the
business. So how many agents I would have
been guilty of the Soviets. One of the best piece of advice
I got when I went from seeing negotiators running a branch, I
said to a guy who got loads of experience, what's the best
advice you can give me about to start running a branch?
And he said always think 90 days ahead.
Now, at the time, young, young site went what shit advice.
And then I was like, you know, I was crazy excited, like running
this office, right, I've got a point to prove and then realized
the role of coaster of right. I was focusing too much time on
generating leads. But hang on a minute.
You weren't focusing on selling them.
And it's oh, I mean, now I need to sell them.
Oh, now I need to progress them. And in 90 days time you're like,
oh shit, I don't have any leads at the top of the funnel because
I've forgotten about that. So it's yeah, fine business,
keep business, do business every day.
Spitting that into threes. And that's the game, isn't it?
It's like it's like whack A mole basic game.
But then you think about the models that we've got as well.
So like Ian's still got to be impressed in that kind of
partner agent model. And it's similar to the
brokerage models, I suppose, where the agent is doing more of
that work themselves on an end to end basis with the support of
of a team until they're kind of big enough that they can then
maybe outsource some of that more administrative stuff.
But it's difficult then because if you've sold yourself and that
service to a client and then you're passing people over back
to a team, you set yourself up in opposition to a traditional
model and then you revert to it as soon as you start making a
bit of money because you get the admin off your debt.
Then, you know, there's maybe that's not quite, I don't know,
difficult to manage, I would imagine.
Yeah, I had that exact conversation recently.
I think it, I think it was on on a on a podcast episode where
someone leaves a High Street corporate role and says you get
to deal with me from start to finish.
And they moan online saying I'm thank God in this heat wave.
I don't have to ask anyone if I need to take my tie off or
whatever. But then they do such a good job
that they don't have to employ team members and then they need
to put them somewhere. So go get High Street office and
you're like, if you go back to your post a few years ago,
you've turned arguably turned into what you said that you've
left and you're against. Yeah.
So we've got like a hybrid model.
So I guess we've still got, you know, we might have different
terminology for them. But in general terms, we've
still got sales progressive, we've still got next, we've
still got salary listers and we've got Kate working as a
partner agent. We did have another partner
agent that we had to let go of, but they're self-employed
partner agents. And the latent, the latent
team's, the latent team, and the way we see it is that when
people join us, they kind of come in at Level 3 and they're a
competent agent and they match those on values because they've
been through the interview process.
And once they get to a certain point, once they're through the
probation, hopefully they're at level 2, which means that
they're hitting target consistently.
The conversion remains where it needs to be.
Their stock is actually going on to sell and then they're at
level 1. And if when it gets to the upper
end of level 1, which is where you're at, what we see is case
level and you can kind of operate under your own steam a
little bit. You've got the option of going
self-employed if you want to and getting getting a bit of a
bigger piece of the party. But that means putting a bit
more of yourself into the role. That's the trade off.
And you've still got the team and the brand.
And we will still support in terms of marketing spend, not
just access to ACRM. You know, it's it's much more
wrap around than that. Rather than it just being a I'm
your access to a portal or you've got ACRM to it's having
that back end support and making sure that the time the agents
are spending is on dollar productive activities rather
than administrative tasks that someone else can do from.
So they will still manage the like Kate will still, you know,
Kate does a lot of her own viewing still.
And that's probably where she gets a lot of selling clients
from because she she'll work with them for a year to try and
find them the right house. And then when they're ready,
they'll instruct through that takes a long time to compound.
And that's kind of sitting in between the Australian American
model of buying and selling agents.
So she's kind of got both hats on there.
She doesn't, she's got support. She's got Kate's got her own
dedicated neg and progressor in the office and then the main
office team will support her team of two when they're needed.
And then when when other than the other girls in the teams
here, Carly, etcetera get to that level, they'll all have
like dedicated admin support and then they'll have the wrap
around support from marketing and brand and finance and
everything else. Yeah.
So they're not just it's that what do they say when you when
you start a business as an entrepreneur, it's still kind of
the $1.00 task, the $10 task that it's kind of like that
methodology really, Yeah. Right.
So before we get into the end of the podcast now, is there
anything I haven't asked you that I still don't know,
anything we should be discussing?
Is Fernandez going to go to United or is he going to sign
for Tottenham? And what's going on with
Tsunami? I mean, I have no idea on that,
no comment, but let's just touch on Tottenham for a second.
Will you do better next season than you have done?
I hope so. I hope so.
I mean I was, I had mixed feelings about Ange going like
it wasn't wasn't going to last forever.
But I don't really think he had a fair run.
He had no, he had no defence when he was there and then you
get rid of him bringing Frank, who's a more pragmatic manager
and he had no forward line really.
He only had one creative outlaw and that was Cougas.
But I went Stephen actually Stephen Brown took me to
Tottenham and Villa at home early on in the season.
I remember half time testing my mates and I know this is early
but I just don't. I don't think this is this is
the one. I don't think Thomas Frank's the
1. So I think we will do better.
I'm a big fan of what deserve is done.
It's good to see Madison coming back and let's see those players
coming back. They can't do any worse.
Can't we? Otherwise we'd get relegated.
Yeah, I I don't know, I'm quite confident.
I just think you guys are going to do big season for you.
Yeah. How will we do?
I think that the difficulty there is in slots.
First season he overachieved, right?
I mean, we would have snatched your arm off to get Champions
League football in the first season he goes and wins the
league. So he's become a victim of his
own success. Then we've had players go that
weren't replaced and then towards the end of his time he's
just too, I don't know, very, let's say very well media
trained, whereas Klopp was just always where his heart and his
sleeve, which Liverpool fans love.
And then going forward now, new manager has done incredible
things at Bournemouth. But as we've seen numerous times
over the years at very big clubs, some of these wonders at
a smaller club, does it translate into a big club?
Who knows? I hope that we're given plenty
of time and I think if we can get back into Champions League
football again that would be a success.
But we need to reinvest in the squad massively.
You do, and maybe MO's regret regretting his his decision now
that slots gone. But I I guess you need to hope
that you've got a Pochettino, not a Potter.
I like that very good. Right.
OK, so coming to to the end of the podcast now, Craig, before
the closing tradition, I've got a new thing I'm now doing with a
few impossible decisions. So the little game of big
choices. It's a bit of would you rather?
OK, OK, so. This feels like a drinking game,
by the way, I. I mean, it could, it could be,
yeah. But this is a professional
podcast, right? So would you rather get rich
through hard work or by winning the lottery?
Hard work. I knew you would say that.
Would you rather start your life over as a child or skip forward
in your life by five years? Oh, that's a really tough
question, isn't it? Because I don't want to.
I wouldn't want to change all the things that have happened
because they've got us here. And I don't want to miss the
journey of where we're getting to either, because that's the
fun bit. Maybe I'd want to do the journey
again. Maybe I'd go back, but not
because I regret things, but just because I understand that
enjoying the journey is. Yeah, is the thing OK.
Cool. Would you rather lose all your
memories or you can't? Or you can't create new
memories? What the hell?
Can't create new no race. OK, and then final one, this is
this is an easier tongue in cheek.
Would you rather have to sew all your own clothes or grow all
your own food? I'd rather grow my own food.
OK, but I'm. Not nimble enough for a needle?
Living off the earth, right? OK, final question.
So the Stephen Bartlett Diaras CEO cards.
I've got all these weird twist cards in the middle of the pack
and I have no idea what they mean.
Can I ask you about that memory one?
Yeah. What would you rather?
What? Your old memories or no new
ones. It's really hard ones I think.
You don't want to lose all the amazing memories you've had, but
if you can't create any new memories, it sounds really harsh
but you're dead. What's the point in living if
you can't create new memories? You're just living in the past,
maybe. Oh, maybe you're living in the
present all the time. Or maybe you're living in the
present. Yeah.
Different for me, I've got kids and.
Yeah, Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, yeah.
So I think for me actually in terms of what is to come in
life, it would be I'd still want to create new memories because
I've got plenty more to come. Yeah.
That's that's the right answer. Right.
OK, Final question, which was asked by Cody Sanchez.
Oh yeah, I like Freddy Sanchez. I do like Freddy Sanchez as
well. It talks a lot of sense.
So the question I want you to ask, the answer is, is there
something you wanted to do in your life that you didn't do
because you were afraid? I said it's more than what I
wanted to move to America when I was in my 20s.
Different. I had different opportunities to
do it. I was offered a master, the
opportunity to do a master's degree in California, and I
didn't go. And then when I was in my late
20s, I've just been to New York, fell in love with New York, and
I was just going to stop everything I was doing and move
over there. They're probably the big things.
Yeah. I think if I hadn't started a
business, maybe that would have been it.
I did. So yeah.
Nice. Well, it's been a great
conversation, Craig. I knew it'd be jam packed of
value. I think it's been really good to
have a conversation with someone who I think there'll be plenty
of people listening to this who won't necessarily be too
familiar with you because you're more behind the scenes.
You put your post on on LinkedIn.
That gets me thinking. But no, it's been great to have
you on this. Obviously you've been a complete
agent recently as well. So for anyone listening, if you
have enjoyed what Craig has had to say, do go check out the
Complete agent as well. Remember to like, review,
subscribe, follow, share. And that just leaves me to say,
Mr. Craig Thompson, thank you very much for being an amazing
guest. I appreciate it.
Thank you.