Hello and welcome to Open the Gates to more listings for
Estate Agents for me, Simon Gates.
I'm delighted to be joined today by Mr. Simon Ledbetter.
Simon, thank you very much for joining me.
Fancy being here again? It's alright.
I've lost, I've lost count of how many appearance it is.
But in terms of like the 2026 volume, we've done Part 1, Part
2 and Part 3 of voice the age of 2026, we're now into Part 4,
which is salary and people, right?
Yes, absolutely. Yes.
What we realized quite early on is the the annual report was
actually quite a hefty tome. So we broke it down to
quarterly, then monthly. I think it's made it more
digestible. So and I will say now for the
benefit of anyone listing all completely freely available that
we're Unchained. So what some are I going to talk
about is available to everyone. So please do we get several 100
downloads, but I'm disappointed it's not several 1000.
Yeah, there, there should be more and in terms of the the
market insights it offers, you know if I was well it helps on
the supplier side as well. If I was a practicing estate
agent today, the amount of data for an insight I'd get from each
of at each of the voice agent surveys that would then help me
run my business. It's very helpful.
So part part, let's start again for those playing along at home,
page 13 is where we're going to start.
So the question asked was which if any of the following levels
of management best describe your level of responsibility at work?
And I think no surprise, but a very even split between male,
male and female of a few more women in industry.
But as we know from many events and other research previously,
when it gets to the senior management and board level,
there's a massive discrepancy compared to the kind of averages
across industry. Yeah, and this is data we take
from you, Gov. So it's completely impartial,
genuinely representative research.
It's not like a self selecting sample.
It's actually proper, you know, world class standard research.
And we've been tracking this data really since women in a
state agency started. And I had an interest when I was
working at Knight Frank and there's a lady called Aviva
Wittenberg Cox who coded some gender consultancy at night
frame. I know.
Great name, great Canadian lady, a brilliant.
Go and see a Ted Talks if you haven't.
She's a formidable woman. My favorite line of hers is
women aren't the problem, men aren't the enemy.
That is that's, I tell you what we could in terms of this part,
we could just end on that sentence, I mean.
Yeah, she's done, she's done some amazing Ted talks and I
strongly recommend anyone who's interested in this should go and
listen to a Ted Talk. She's she's genuinely someone
who's interested in addressing this rather than virtue
signaling or browbeating or making enemies.
Anyway, just like, look, this is a, this is a problem we all
have. So how do we solve it?
So she went to the gender jaws. We did them at Knight Frank.
They were horrific. So I've been tracking them
across various industries ever since because it's just
fascinating illustration of this gender jaw things.
Really easy to work, really easy to understand.
And you're right, you know, as an industry, we're pretty evenly
split. I mean, some data in Mercedes,
53 percent, 47, we got 5446. So that's kind of you'd expect
52% of the population as women anyway.
So that's kind of not a surprise.
But then you watch it from the most junior level, 78% women,
22% men, to the most senior, 58% men and 42% women, it just
reverses. And I share this with Verona
Frankish from Yopa last year's conference and I tried it this
year. And the frustrating thing is in
several years of tracking, it's not really shifting.
It is, it is. And I think you know, and we all
know there's some incredible women in senior positions,
aforementioned Verona, Alice Bullard, Steph Walker, you know,
some amazing women leading organisations in this country.
You know, you'll send the slaughter running marketing now
for IAD and Avocado, but as an industry we are quite male, pale
and stale. And I know I am a male Bale
stale individual. So, you know, and it's not that
how to put this in the right way because obviously it's two
blokes talking about this is kind of an interesting one
anyway to pale Male sales talking about it is we've
designed an economic system that only works for half the
population. Yeah.
And this isn't about that. They're not going to talk too
much about that. But it was a real realisation.
Finally the scales came of my eyes where with Aviva's work and
what she talked about, it is we've literally created an
economic system that makes it really crap for women and for
all sorts of reasons. And unless you understand that
as a bloke, you're kind of a bit blind to the reality.
And when you do, people go like, it's just, it's just, you know,
the best rise at the top. No, no, no, no, no, it doesn't.
It doesn't rise to the top. The best men rise to well,
that's not even true. The best men rise to the top.
But the system we've created literally excludes women.
And you know, women see on so much talent.
Yeah, so I so again conscious that we're coming at this from
point of views as 2 white men, but.
Tread carefully, Simon. Tread carefully.
Both. We could both be cancelled.
I was going to say that like my early years of estate agency, so
when I first did work experience, the branch manager
was a very powerful, formidable lady who scared me.
I didn't want to get on the wrong side of her.
And then like the senior negotiator in the office was
again a very formidable lady. In my early years of full time
estate agency, when I first started, I had again, a
brilliant estate agent who she ran rings around me and she was
the seniors in the office and then the one of the officers I
spent a lot of time in. I ended up running, I took over
from a lady who went on to maternity leave, but her and the
scene negotiator were women. So the point I'm trying to make
is that in my what am I trying to say in the four walls of
business I was in and also I get a finance director who was a
female. I never saw any issues like that
for my like blinded corner of of the state agency.
So it certainly opened my eyes across the industry.
At the same time, I find it really, really actually, this
will sound really weird because I appreciate how privileged like
you and I are being born as white men in the UK.
But I thought I'm finding it very tough in recent times where
you're damned if you do damned if you don't when you're in like
our position. Like I had an instance where
women were invited to an event and couldn't make it and it
didn't even cross my mind as to what it would look like.
And then there was some from it which I could understand where
people come from, but not understanding the context of it
was actually there were women invited.
And what I found, and Chris Watkins said this, I think in an
interview with Annalise Walmsley recently.
And the the data's there from, from a few different things on
this where when I have done podcasts or events, and I think
we will come on to a second, when I have invited women, if
there's someone who says no or doesn't just doesn't turn up or
cancels last minute, it's more likely to be a woman.
And I think, I don't know if it's from your research or, or
research you shared from somewhere else.
And Verona had said it on stage at a woman in the state embassy,
not a conference was where men need to take, let's say, a few
boxes out of 10 to go for the promotion.
Whereas a woman like I need to sit 10 out of 10.
If I don't sit 10 out of 10, I'm not turning up.
And I've seen that in when I tried to do things myself, I've
pushed really, really hard to try and get more women in the
room. And I just get, I've got to a
point where I'm like, I've tried so hard, not got women in the
room. And then I'm getting backlash
for it. I'm like, damned if I do, damned
if I don't. Yeah, I mean, it is difficult
and you know, I mean, the reality is in a lot of
situations and I it surprises me, we home educate our kids.
I'm my, my wife and I are business partners 5050.
But it, it would be untrue that I take half the burden for the
children of the house. That's just not the case.
And you know, in these situations, you know, if
something's wrong with the kids, they'll call the mum.
If there's something wrong with the house, the mum will deal
with it or the woman will deal with it.
Generally speaking, I mean, basically many useless.
We're there for lifting. We're basically there for
lifting things and opening things in the nicest possible
way. And I think you're right, it is.
I've had exactly the same experience.
I've always tried to have quite representative, not for any
tokenism, but you want a diversity of voices on a panel
rather than a bunch of white men talking to each other.
Because I want to see that go to any industry conference in any
industry. You know, you want you to be
some of it in some way different and have a diversity of voices.
But yeah, I've had the same experiences either.
Women don't want to come on these things for various reasons
and we need to get into that more as an industry of why do we
not feel they should be there? Because they should.
And in every something will come up in their lives that means
they can't they, they cannot deny the privilege I have in a
sense. So people go, oh, woke and I'm
not woke. I'm just awake to the fact that
I have these advantages. It is far less like if I can
commit to something, I will make it.
And it would have to take the kids literally dying, possibly,
for me to change my plans. I don't think my wife could say
the same. Yeah.
And we've got to recognize that
there is an imbalance. If that imbalance exists and
know it of your own family, it may not be the case for your
family. Well done.
Brilliant. But if it is the case, be aware
of it. And I think just as women tend
to be have to be twice as good to get the same level of success
as a chap, chaps have to be twice as good if they're putting
on events to get women present. Because we already know all the
barriers exist. Yeah, I understand.
Yeah, that is interesting. And I mean.
You're not going to love this one because I haven't published
yet and I just, I don't know if I want to because it just, I
know it's going to land badly with some people.
I did an analysis of men and women in real estate and they're
interested in sport. It's massively different.
We kind of know that anyway. Women are generally, as a rule,
on average, based on all the data, not as interested in sport
as men and specifically things like football and golf.
Yeah. And going to the pub after work,
now that's not a sport, but we certainly treat it like 1.
And I just think we need to try and create opportunities that
represent the interests of both parts.
And I know people aren't listening to go, Oh, virtue
signaling. Why No, I mean, I was raised by
a single mum. I've had, like you, lots of
really impressive female female bosses and completely
capitalistically right wing blood and tooth and claw want to
make as much money as possible. Why would you squander half your
talent? That doesn't make sense to me
now for all the right reasons as well.
The ethical moral, you know, genuinely decent fare diversity
and that stuff. But economically, why would you
want not want everyone to contribute the most that they
can in the best possible way? Yeah.
So that's why I keep publishing it because, like, I think as an
industry, we miss out on some huge talent because we did some
research in 2024 and then I'll shut up.
And we asked about discrimination.
We're going to update it this September.
And it was Mark Shorrock, the editor of Estate Agent today.
I sent him the data, and he came back to me and said, he's never
done this before. Is this data real on
discrimination? I mean, statistically, samples,
I said, said, yeah, it's true. Over 80% of women had suffered
some sort of discrimination from colleagues, more from clients
and men. Yes, there was discrimination,
but a far lower, lower, much lower level.
We have a problem and I think we probably need to talk about it
more as an industry. Yeah.
So you've actually just ticked off what was going to be next
subject on page 14 was that discrimination piece.
Oh yeah, I did. So we did touch it, didn't We
didn't show the spread. We didn't show the Dacey.
Yeah. Yeah, so it's just going back
quickly to on the points you made.
Interesting what you said about football goal from the pub,
because if you were to paint a picture of I'm going to say what
my client avatar would look like.
It's an estate agent in his 30s or 40s who likes football, plays
golf and fancies a beer or two like that, that and that's and
that's me, right? And I'm going to try I'm
attracting the kind of person like me.
And then my, if I look at the podcast analytics, and I've
tried really, really, really hard on this, but 80% of my
listeners are men, 20% are women.
And funnily enough, 20% of my guests are women invited by very
hard to try and get that higher. And then again, if you look at
the typical listener office podcast, it's a man in his late
30s. So it's like quite, I mean, I'm
35 to mid 30s. I am, but again, it's attracting
a similar type. And naturally, you know, we, we
do, we are drawn to people like us on every single factor,
politically, economically, gender based in every way.
We're a try. We're a tribal or a herd based
creature. That's inevitable.
But I think you know, you know, you will run one of the most
successful and well listened to podcasts in the industry.
I publish a piece of research that's right and touches the
whole industry. We have an extra responsibility,
I think as to anyone who's got any kind of public profile to
just do that bit better. And yeah, yeah, I've never
joined in the Flack on people who've basically posted stuff.
But when they are post, I saw one the other day and I haven't,
I nearly shared it because basically it was a team of like
80 people all together for property event.
And I basically got AI to scan it and say what is the gender
split here and what's the ethnic split here?
It was 99% white, 8590% men. And these were the senior
decision makers celebrating their successors of a major
company in our industry. And I thought I, as a global
CMO, would not have let that picture go out because while
that may be the reality, that image stinks.
Yeah. Because what does it say if you
happen to be a woman, if you happen to be black, if you
happen to be a black woman? Don't work here.
Yeah, I think I'd say on on that point now when I've been to, I
mean, I go to many, many conferences and on, you know,
wanting to have more need and want more females on a panel.
But then to your point, actually having different ethnicities, so
age groups as well. Yeah, I hear from people who are
in their 20s, for example, rather than it just being an A
more stale panel, let's say. I'm going to flip it on its head
slightly. I don't know if you have any
research on this, if we've discussed this before or if it's
in any of the like voice the agent research.
But I sit on the boys Club board, private Facebook group
for men in the industry. And if you look at all the
statistics and data out there in terms of the issues that men are
facing in terms of like taking their own lives, I, I'd be
interested if there was data around like in the industry of
mental health and. Yeah, we, we, we touched on 2024
and I, I don't know off the top of my head, but I think it's a
roundabout the instance of mental health in any given
years, about one in four people, I think it was like 43% in our
industry. Which is not surprising, yeah.
And the levels weren't that different between men and women.
So, but the point was it was still very, very high for both
men and women. The one thing I do know, and
I've talked to my wife about this, is US men.
Again, we're rubbish at talking about this and it wouldn't be
wrong to describe people who die from suicide.
Men who decide die from suicide as an epidemic.
That I was going to say that word, yeah.
And I should, we should have both said that trigger warning
before we got into it a bit because I know there are people
out there and people I know in the industry who've been
affected by it. It's quite deeply and it is
heartbreaking. Get emotional on my own that
people don't feel they can talk to someone because there always
is. But we, we have a problem, you
know, we have a real problem. And it lends again to this
slightly macho, everything's OK I'm tough, I'm perfect.
Whereas in reality, a lot of the people you know, when you speak
to them, get to know them, they sometimes go to bed in tears
because life is that hard. And that that is a men aren't
the enemy thing that we're not we, we're we're as messed up as
everyone else on this planet trying to make the most of it.
And you know, the we, we were the boys club and the other
groups on November and things like that, you know, trying to
get men to talk about what's going on.
Then there's nothing weak and there's nothing soft and there's
nothing bad about reaching out to someone.
Say, you know, if someone says how you doing?
I'm fine. It's fucking incapable of naming
emotions. That's what fine means.
If they say that, press a bit harder because we're not
addressing this issue. And it's it's, it's a silent
killer and it's it's tragic. And I got kids and I worry
about, you know, my kids in the world they're going into and I
know how hard it is. So, you know, we need to be
better at having this conversation.
The boys club, women estate agency and all the great things
going. They are so important.
And anyone who's not part of the boys club, hey, I'm part of the
Facebook group. I joined it.
I don't participate as much as I'd like to, but I do listen to
the conversations and I am fully supportive of what it does.
And I spend both my life in therapy outside podcasts.
So thank you for the the plug there on, on the the boys club
group. There has been some fantastic
engagement in recent months with it, which has been brilliant to
see. But it also highlights in a
closed private environment, your point of how many men out there
do struggle. So any men in industry listening
to this, you're not already a member of the Facebook group.
Please do go join it. And if you ever need anyone to
speak to, please do reach out. And on Simon's point there as
well, in terms of the word fine, it's a little bit like asking
someone, are you OK? And they go, yeah, I'm OK.
Ask the second time, Are you sure you're OK?
I have someone do that to me only this week, which was very
kind of them. And so Hill Bloom, who's someone
I follow closely who is brilliant.
He literally changed his whole life because a friend of his
said are you OK twice, Like, are you OK?
Right. Yeah.
You know, busy like that badge one that we wear.
And then he asked the second time, are you actually OK?
And he went, no, not really. Imagine if he'd if that friend
had never asked that second. Are you OK?
So yeah, it. Wasn't.
To talk right, Page 23 moving on to wages.
So what I see there essentially is if I'm someone coming out of
education and wanting to get into the workforce and I want to
earn some money and try and have a bit of a decent life, the
state agency is not looking at appetizing from a financial
point of view. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't
it? I mean, I think, you know,
there's a challenge of again, it's a generational thing.
It's hard to talk about what it's like for young people and
entering this industry because everything is so different from
when we both entered it. So we got to be careful and go,
well, you know, I didn't earn that much when I started and OK,
stop there. Half of them may well have gone
to university and have got an enormous amount of student debt
because they were mis sold what that was all about.
And I'm actually, I'm posting about that.
That post will have gone out by the time this is released and
what it actually means. We've got to kind of understand
that who is our competitor for the people that we want.
If we pay the lowest possible salaries we can get away with,
we will not attract the best talent.
And while yes, they can earn considerably more if they're
successful, to be successful, it is bloody hard work.
It is not as simple as, oh, end of the year you get a big fat
bonus. You're not being paid enough to
really live on. And you need to offset that with
Commission on the work that you do.
And you need to do a hell of a lot of work to earn that
Commission. And it's, I mean, I, I, my
friends who saw me 10 years ago joined the property industry and
now I'm the biggest advocate and defender of estate and letting
agents is this isn't an easy job.
This is not we, we should pay these people more for the work
that they have to do. And when I see someone driving a
Ferrari saying they can't pay, afford to pay their staff more,
I am a bit like maybe don't have 4 skiing holidays a year.
Maybe don't. And maybe give some of them more
of the reward to your people who are actually doing all the
flipping work and actually as a career choice.
And we talk about this in a, in a, in a later page, but it's
important is actually, I think this is quite an AI insulated
industry and therefore it's a great opportunity, but you still
got to pay enough for people to be able to live and recognise
the pressures they're under. And that chart tells the whole
story where the bottom of the table.
Yeah. That's terrible.
You never want to be the bottom of any table.
And then I guess that then perhaps is part of the issue as
to why only about half the properties, call it 55% actually
go on to sell. Because if you haven't got, if
you can't pay the right sort of money, you're not going to get
the right calibre of people who can then deliver those results.
Because if you're paying ship money and you're going to get
ship work, sounds really harsh, but you're then not going to get
the results right. Because the great people are
going into other industries. And the amount of people I've
come across who've come from other industries into a state
agency and they're like, Oh my God, this like from a tech point
of view, I'll use as an example, I couldn't like when I left the
state, interesting joined home search.
I thought I was stupid. I couldn't believe like my lack
of tech proficiency because we're still so paper based where
where I was. So yeah, it's interesting.
And I, I get like on the, I don't know if this is part of
this or if it comes in later, but if you kind of look at the
gap or lack of gap between like minimum wage, so like basic
entry level into a state agency and then what an experienced
negotiator would be earning, it'd be like, so I'm going to do
all this extra work and this junior reports to me.
But if you actually work out the gap between what they're earning
and what I'm earning, like, is it worth it?
The the classic line that gets used?
You could actually go and stack shelves at a supermarket and
actually. And you would generally be
treated quite well. You'd be fed, you'd be warm, you
wouldn't have to go to people's houses, you wouldn't have to
bunch meet a bunch of freaks. Which let's face it, at least
half of people in this country are sub average because that's
how statistics work. Whichever context you can sell
it to. The average being I'm not making
any value judgements here, but whatever you think normal is,
half people will be lower than normal, whatever that is.
And you know, they did everyone in the industry deserves Why is
that? Like things like the esters and
the many other awards that exist in our industry is actually, you
know what these people do need a bloody medal for the job they
do. I also think they could do with
a bit more money and you can see why the attraction of
self-employment where you get more of the reward.
But we'll talk about that later. The implications of that are.
But the reality is I don't think you should be that far down a
league table on payment and nor should you be at the bottom of
it by that margin. I know things are changing.
I know O'connell's Countrywide has changed their paid
structure. I know other things are going on
the industry, but it's a competitive market out there and
good people are drawn by the best possible packages.
I mean, I like the fact as an industry, you know, I've got all
the letters after my name and all that kind of stuff after it.
I like working industry where because academics are massively
overrated, unless you want to be a professor, massively
overrated. I've seen some genuinely
brilliant people in this industry who I've learnt so much
from, who left school at 16 or 18 and I love that about the
industry. I love the fact that it's
created a root for people who've not gone down the the sausage
machine of going to university and getting a degree in a
massive amount of debt that it's created an opportunity for them.
But I don't think the rewards are commensurate with the work
that's being done. And it wouldn't be take too much
to level it out a little bit. So that's kind of my, my thing.
And I think we don't want to throw the baby out with the
bathwater. I think the fact that you don't
need a degree to do this, this, this industry is great.
I think that gives a route for people through.
But I think what we need to do is invest much more in training.
We need to invest much more in an environment that's more
conducive to both men and women. I think we need to be less old
fashioned in the way we treat the workplace and just pay
people a bit more, just a bit more.
I mean, it doesn't seem too much to ask for is actually quite a
profitable industry. I mean, the average industry
margins, what 9%, is it bad? So if I, if I challenge you on
that from stuff I see on socials from business owners within the
industry who are saying how tough it is with minimum wage,
rising National Insurance, pension contribution, etcetera,
etcetera. And they will say, and Simon, if
anyone listening rather than watching is like, hold my beer.
I'm about to show you some data. I'm just saying anecdotally from
the, from the posts I see, they're like, it's, it's in like
it's impossible to run a business da da, da, da, da.
I can't pay people more on. But like you just said, yet some
of those same people are driving the Ferrari that you're talking
about, but they're saying we're getting we're getting killed
here. OK, so we're saying this is a a
profession you don't need a degree in.
So that means you're leaving school at 16 or 18?
Yeah. National Living Wage doesn't
kick in until you're 21. Yeah.
So how does that affect? And I think there's something
true. I wish I had the data in front
of me, but in fact, I'm going to do it now.
What about National Insurance? He types into perplexity, I
think, and I should have known this because I didn't know going
down this route, but I think if I'm right, National Insurance,
again, I'll have to check. I'll I'll find it and we'll put
a link to it. But I'm fairly confident that
National Insurance has a similar thing too.
And the changes that people are bemoaning are don't kick in on
particularly young people, IE entry level people.
And it is an element of I, I do struggle with people who are
doing particularly well saying that they can't afford to pay
people. And I just, I find that's a
little. And I think you, you, you are
within your rights to make a choice.
You can say I would rather have the extra holiday.
I, I, I, I would never take or I would never criticize anyone's
freedom to that is your business.
But don't blame it on something else for the fact that you can't
pay the people what they deserve.
And quite frankly, remember my business lecture?
Am I saying if you can't pay afford to pay someone a living
wage you're a crap business person?
Yeah. If you need the government to
support your staff salaries, you are a terrible business person.
How is that capitalism that is privatised socialism that, that
is just BS isn't it? You know, oh oh I'm a capitalist
and I can't possibly afford to pay my people a proper salary so
I'll let the state pay for it. Hello, Socialist.
Yeah, you, you made the point earlier.
I think of I feel like in this industry there is a lot of
what's the least we can get away with paying someone rather than
what what what's the most we can possibly pay someone because
they really deserve it And again, not begrudging anyone of
this, but I, you know towards I got fed up year after year.
I made profit every single year I ran a branch yeah.
I didn't feel myself getting any richer.
Yeah, you look at the extra holidays, the nicer car, the
bigger houses of, of certain people.
But then at the same time, in the end I went, I've had enough
of this. I'm, I'm in control of my own
destiny. I'm going to make a change,
which I did and thankfully touch wood.
As things go. I'm in a much, you know, better
place professionally, personally than I was several years ago
when I left. But I, I think there's quite a
few younger people who expect everything on a plate right now,
like instant gratification. That's not me being ageist
because I think there's some incredibly hard working younger
people out there, but there are also some people who aren't
prepared to do you know, those few years of hard graft in the
dark to get. Do you know, do you know who we
should blame for that? The parents.
Yeah. The very people who've raised
these people, who've raised a bunch of indolent, selfish,
entitled people, IE the parents who are moaning about how young
people behave, are exactly the people who raised them.
Yeah, fair comment. And I think we need to look
harder in the mirror of why things are happening, the right
thing. And I, to be honest with you, I,
I know so many lazy old people. I mean, seriously, I mean the
idea. I mean, I, I know tons of
entitled pensioners. I know, you know, I don't buy
this whole generational thing. I think pretty much people are
similar in certain ways. I think yes, people are slightly
more distracted. I think younger generation are
living a world where they see all the time.
And we could up with the biggest social experiment on a group,
group of people that could ever be conducted without that
mission or consent, which is social media to show them these
amazing worlds. They can live 247365 and expect
them to have a normal sense of reality.
Well, who voted for that? We did.
We didn't. We, we the old did not create a
system that protected our children and I know it.
You know those sketches you see of kids where they've drawn
pictures of their parents and the parents faces are blocked
down because they're behind mobile phones?
I mean, know thyself. Remove the plank out of your own
eye before you criticize the young.
I mean, it is a bit it, it, it, it annoys me that people aren't
aware of their own bias. And you've seen on 30 years of
marketing, the course I do is everything you know is wrong and
you are just basically ridden with 186 biases.
So at least start being aware of that and approach the world from
that position rather than I've got a Ferrari, but it's National
Insurance fault. I'm going for another afternoon
playing golf. But the young are the lazy ones,
so. I'll get I'll.
Get off my soapbox now, but. I'm I'm desperately trying to
find a quote now, which I don't. Ah, here we go.
So I read this in a newsletter the other day and we are
massively going off on a tangent so we need to get back on track
in a second. Simon.
Go on, go. You're in charge, Simon.
You charge. Charlie Munger said I have what
I call an iron prescription that helps me keep saying when I
naturally drift toward preferring 1 ideology over
another. And that is I say I'm not
entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state
the arguments against my position better than the people
do who are supporting it. I think only when I reach that
stage am I qualified to speak. That is an exemplary.
Good isn't. That that is exemplary.
There's I'm just, I'm again, I'm going to, Socrates said.
I am wiser only in this. I do not suppose that I know
what I do not know. And we'd all be, I mean it.
In Greek times, I don't know, was a virtue.
Yeah. Whereas here you have to have
everything with absolute certainty and everything's in
tribes. You know, there was a guy who's
been commenting to me around on LinkedIn.
He's going, oh, you're so left wing, Simon.
And it's like I I would at the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail.
I worked in the city. I was the CEO of finding country
around marketing for Knight Frank.
I've always run my own businesses.
I've been I'm in the private industry in my entire life.
How am I right? How am I left?
Sorry, left wing. And what I'm not is I'm not, so
I'm not. I'm not tied the football scarf
so tight around my neck I've lost the ability to think
critically. I'm not tribal.
I mean a plague on all the houses of the pot of the pot.
Party parties. I wouldn't associate with any of
them. I think most of them are
incompetent. But what I do like is data.
Yeah. And just on the like, the bias
side of things and you're, you're going to your course as a
great example of, of saying about that internal BIOS.
We all we all have. I try and go to various
different events both inside and outside of industry.
Even if I'm like, I don't like this person, but I'm going to
I'm going to go attend that event and hear them speak in
person because I want to get someone else's opinion, but I
don't necessarily agree with to have a more balanced view rather
than just, you know, classic social media feeding you what
you already think and know to reiterate your points.
Yeah, right. Let's get back on track.
So pages 30313233 because I'm conscious of time trying to get
them all together. I'm putting you on the spot now,
but you've got on those pages kind of pay structure through or
pay paid amount via seniority, size of turnover and location.
Is that if I can take all those forwards?
Is there anything in particular you would take away from from
those I? Mean the reality is if you want
to earn more money in this industry and it's semi teaching
grandmothers like gags earn more.
You earn more by being in a larger company, more senior with
a higher turnover in the South and London.
Yeah, yeah. Wow, that is so revelatory.
But it is interesting in terms of, you know that the the charts
aren't as extreme as you might expect.
There's a good opportunity to apart from the seniority thing,
which is very steep, but you kind of expect that.
And that's true of every organization is the regional one
was interesting. They're not as varied as I
thought they would be. London and the Southeast do come
out quite significantly, but the rest of the country is pretty
similar. So that's kind of interesting.
And the curves in terms of, you know, by turnover and size of
business, OK, they rise as the organisations get bigger, but
it's not a steep climb. It's not like you're going to
earn vastly more. So what it does say to me is
find the kind of work environment that you're happiest
in because you may be happiest in a large business and with
large turnover and large number of employees and you will on
average earn more because that's the nature of things.
But if you prefer the smaller, more family base, more
independent, you know, the more kind of like close to the
community that you're in, choose to work somewhere you're happy
because the difference to your salary will be there, but it's
probably not as big as you think it is unless you rise to the
very top. Very succinctly put for a few
pages in one there. There we go.
So moving on to page 34, very far, but employed versus
self-employed. So average of all 38,611
employee 39,651, self-employed 36,061.
So if I've read that correctly, is self-employed everything it's
cracked up to be from a monetary point of view as an average?
So I think there's several things going on there.
Self-employment works perfectly if you want to be self-employed
and I don't buy the lie that everyone can be self-employed.
It's not true, it's not for everybody.
I mean, I've been self-employed since 2003.
I've had amazing times and I've had terrible times, but I'm
basically unemployable. So it's self-employment.
The end person who would hire me is me, basically.
I think in the scheme of things, So it works for me, works for
some people. Yeah.
You are much more likely, not much.
You are more likely to earn a higher salary than if you're
self-employed than if you're employed.
Sorry, but you're also more likely to earn a lower salary
than if you're employed. Yeah.
So the two ends of the the curve, it's like a reverse bell
curve, whatever that's called an unbelled curve is basically
you'll earn more, like to earn less and you're more unlike to
mine more. But the number of people who
earn more in employed or self-employed isn't very many
anyway. But what we need to uncouple
from that is the flexibility that self-employment gives you.
For example, you could be a working parent and make more
time for looking after kids. It might be a part time gig
aside your main time job. And I really want to get into
that in 2027 and try and explore those factors more because you
need to kind of control for all the variables.
That's quite hard to do in an industry that doesn't like doing
surveys about money. So I need to get into that a
little bit further and this way that there's ways around I can
do that. But the myth that is dangerous
is being self-employed means you learn £100,000 or more BS.
Yeah. The data doesn't bear that out.
You are marginally more like to earn that.
But a very small fraction of people employed or self-employed
do earn that. And I think again, I say again,
for some people, self-employment is literally the best thing they
could ever do. They will have amazing lives
that are much more flexible. They'll have to work bloody hard
because there's no real support in terms of what a corporation
would give. There's some great trainers,
mentors and support systems within all the self-employed
models, to be honest with you, but it's not the same as a
monthly paycheck. So the best advice I can give is
to have very honest conversation with your significant other
because basically, if you're going to do it, you're going to
jump together and you can put them through a lot of
uncertainty, have a really long runway financially, it'll take
far longer than you think. And I would strongly recommend.
You've got to learn from the best.
There's some amazing mentors and individuals in self-employment.
Learn from them, but also download the voice of the agent
and copy everything it says the growth agents do.
And that's kind of like what I do.
But strap in, because it's bloody hard work to be a
success. Yeah, I agree.
I think that, yeah, a lot of sold the dream, aren't they,
that you can pick your kids up from school and you work part
time, da, da, da, da, da. And I was listening to Russell
Jervis on a podcast whilst walking the dogs earlier and
Russell was like, you know, if he was mentoring agents, he'd be
saying what, you know, strap in that first 1218 months, you're
going to work harder than you ever have.
But you know, if you, if you do the right things, follow the
processes, you, you should get the reward at the end.
So don't believe everything you see on social media.
And also my funny thing is for when people say I love and I'm
going a bit off now, but they're like, Oh yeah, I get to do the
school run. My mum and dad hated doing the
school run. I couldn't think of anything
worse. I'd happily go chained to a
desk. I wouldn't have to do a school
run. But that might just be just be
me on that right. We're going to shoot quite far
forward now, yeah. There's a whole bunch of tables
on that. I'm not sure how much I want to
get into the downs. And then we are going forward to
Page 56. Well.
That's the kind of process of progress we like.
Yeah, we've we've we've flown by on this so so anyone playing
along at home. So blue is agents, green is the
great British public. Yeah, yeah.
So if you look kind of at the middle of the chart, what if I'm
reading it right, is the estate agents compared to the British
public, are more likely to be motivated by career, the money,
willing to sacrifice to get ahead.
They are worried about the direction of their professional
life. A little bit more spontaneous,
but very much work hard, play hard, that pub culture, and then
very much love their job. Yeah, I'd like you to elaborate
on that. But just before you do, the one
point I'm going to make is, and I think kind of the biggest
difference I see there is that I love my job because I find when
I catch up with polite friends, they're always ask and monitor
the property market. Right.
How's the property market? They love asking, but how's work
going? Like what's going on?
I'm like, yeah, what about your work?
They're like, oh shit, I hate it.
Let's not talk about that. Like everyone's always like, oh,
yeah, I hate my job. Yeah.
People in typically an estate agency match up with a survey of
yeah, I love what I do. Yeah, I mean, I found it really.
And again, This is why, you know, I remain an advocate of
the not remain. I am an advocate of the
industry. You know, I, you know, I've seen
done this data on tons of industries and seeing that level
of I love my job and nearly 50% say they love their job.
Well, actually, you know, 52% it is 50 percent, 52% say they love
their job and then on 4550% more like the population hold to do
so. You know, that's an amazing
metric to have. That's something the industry
should be proud of. It almost should be used in the
recruitment is go people who work in this industry love this
industry and that, and that's kind of like that's really good
and it's interesting, you know, but you know this industry for
you, if you're prepared to sacrifice free time to get ahead
that if that's not you don't come here because you'll be
asked to do that. You know it is interesting also
and this is def a failure of employers and some of the models
out there that kind of bring people on board is that kind of
worried about direction of professional life.
A business's job is to show that and convey that and say this is
where you could go not myths and legends and unicorns and 600,000
lbs salaries. But realistically where here
training comes into that, paying for them to go on courses and
becoming more rounded human beings, giving them free time,
duvet days and some flexibility that would make it more more
pleasant to do that job because they work bloody hard.
If they're successful, you want to look after the talent.
And if you're an employer of a high strategy, you don't want
them to be self-employed because they're your rain makers.
So there's lots you could do. But I think the central stat
behind all that, and you point out straight away, is people in
this industry love their job. And you're right, I've said on
several occasions after leaving various companies, I'm never
going back into a state agency. I've ended back up on it and
I've now stuck to it now for a decade.
And I've made more professional friends who are now friends.
I've had more fun in this industry than many others.
And yeah, I it's addictive. And you're right, what's really
nice about it is everyone will always ask you about your job
and what you do for a living. But not in a hostile way, in a
genuinely curious way. Yeah.
If you work in banking in the city, you are the enemy, you
know, What do you live at? I work for the city, in the City
of London. For a bank.
Oh, well, I was a banker. Yeah, there we go.
And I know estate aliens are often the butt of the joke, but
what's happening to the property market?
I don't know. Christopher Watkin jokes about
this. What you always ask at every
event? I get asked it all the time.
It's like, no, bloody no. I haven't got my 20 A open.
Is it all right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with
you. I think such a valid point you
make in terms from a recruitment point of view, as an industry we
should be saying what a high percentage of people say they
love their job compared to the the.
Literally get vox pops of people saying in industry I love being
a state agent because I literally find people that their
dream home. Yeah, brilliant.
And I think on the willing to sacrifice to get ahead actually
and worried about direction professional life.
So on the direction professional life, I sat running a branch for
several years, made profit every year and I just looked one day
outside and went I think this is me for the next 30-40 years if I
don't do anything. How depressing there was, there
was a ceiling. It was like when I'm waiting for
someone to to die because it's just older people, I just got to
wait for them to go extinct and then the willing sacrifice to go
ahead. This isn't like our poor old me,
but the amount of things I missed out on over the years
from working weekends, Bank holidays where my mates who go
to things because they worked in Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00.
But I guess maybe they're a bit weekend millionaires, if that
makes sense. They were living for the
weekend. They hated their job so much.
At least they got the weekend. I'm sat there going.
This is so annoying. I have to work back weekends and
back holidays. I'm missing out on time with my
friends. But actually I was loving what I
was doing. There's always a positive to a
negative, isn't there? Yeah.
Absolutely. The willing to sacrifice to get
ahead as well. I love a Tom Panos saying which
I'm probably going to butcher, but real estate is the hardest
working. Sorry, Highest paid, hardest
working or lowest paid easy work, but but it's like you can
go into it to your point at 16 me no qualifications and you
know, rise through the ranks and pretty good money if you if you
sacrifice and you work hard at it.
Right. Last one on part 4 is page 58.
Did you know I was talking about that?
Yeah, yeah. Can you can, I'm, I'm slightly
confused by it. So can you just elaborate?
I knew that it was of interest, but I I didn't quite 100%
understand. It so basically the essence of
it is we have quite a lot of people who are going to move
jobs. Is that in the industry?
In in the industry, that's how this is the industry compared to
itself. So this is the next 12 months
versus the past 12 months? Right, that's why I wasn't sure.
That's, that's the, this isn't now comparing to TV, this is the
industry looking at itself is what do you intend to do in the
next 12 months? What have you done in the last
12 months? So we've got baked in.
So last 12 months, 35% of the people churned so they left
their jobs, 25% have already said they intend to do it in the
next 12 months. So one in four people in our
industry expected to churn as in leave.
Leave the industry altogether? Yeah, Wow, we're losing great
people out of the industry. Oh yeah, I think we definitely
are. Again, I think there's some
incredible people who go. You know what it's that was he
called quiet retirement. And I think it's an element of
actually the rewards don't match the amount of work I have to do.
And for someone who is really, really good, but they're an
employee and they see their colleagues who are particularly
motivated to be self-employed, doing so much fantastically
better. But they're honest enough
themselves they couldn't be self-employed because that's not
who they are. Or that that partner doesn't
support them in doing it or they don't have a runway.
And all the good reasons they might actually go, you know
what, I'm going to go and get an easier job that pays me.
Do you want an easier job that pays you more?
And it's kind of like, yeah, and you're no longer the butt of the
jokes if you're not an estate or lettings agents anymore.
You you can point that Simon, sorry to cut across to you.
That's fine. Easier, let's say easier work
paid better was why I left estate agencies going to Procter
and and and the owner of business like you are.
What are you doing? You're an absolute lunatic to
leave behind this career you've built.
I was like, no weekends, no bank holidays, more holiday.
The work is, I'm going to say easier because it's B to B.
I've not got the emotion of the public and I'm actually going to
get paid better. What like, come on, if you're in
my shoes, what would you do? And I got told to fuck off.
And that was the end of that. But but like, it's it like,
yeah, it's it, it, it's crazy. So it it makes sense that that's
what the what the survey revealed.
I was actually see, I can bring it really quickly because I did,
I, I didn't put it in because again, you got to kind of limit
what data is out there. But I'm sure there's a would
switch career if money was no option.
Yeah, 20% of people of industry would switch money if no was
option was no option. So again, we're one in five, one
in four people in the industry are kind of like they've got 1
foot out the door. Yeah.
And I think we need to look at that as an industry and what
that means and how we address it.
But we've written the reason why we do this people and Salary 1
is I think it's top. You know, I know Devil Smith, I
don't know, Raina personnel and a few others have produced
really good reports on this stuff.
But I don't think they get the coverage in the airing that they
need because it's such an important industry is how do we
motivate our people and how to reward our people.
And as we'll see in September, how do we stop our people being
discriminated against? Because the interesting thing
about that was our people are more likely to be discriminated
by clients. It's bad by colleagues, but it's
worse by clients. And it's like we need to just
work that one out and make this a better, safer place to work,
which is kind of the whole essence of the report, really.
Yeah, agreed. Right.
So that is the close of part 4 to voice the agent 2026 before I
sign this off as usual, Simon, this is your chance to plug
events coming up. We've got no shame here, so plug
the way. Simon, What?
What have you got coming up that you you're going to talk to us
about? So in the report we launched and
called the faculty, which is me and the fantastic Joe Bourne,
Claire Yates and Danny Nash have come together essentially, we've
been talking a long time about, you know, could we we all do our
own training. Can we all come together and do
a day where we just show what each of us does?
So for one day you can get the Benet yet 4 for the price of one
basically. And that would really help the
industry in terms because we're all committed to helping
industry better. So date for the diary location
is not announced yet, but it'll be somewhere in the South, I
suspect, but the 14th of October and that'll be the four of us
for a day. We'll make it inexpensive, be
limited numbers, but it'll be a good fun day.
And anyone who's been on any of Danny's courses or certainly Joe
and Claire's women estate agent courses, they brought along me
to make it a bit more gender diverse because those white men
were really suffering in this economy.
All those old white men. But no, generally we all get on
really well. We all really respect each other
and we all really do each other's courses.
We all been on each other's courses.
So we thought we should do this. 14th of October date, location
to be announced and then final date for that is 20th of
November at the University of Oxford.
The reasons for that will soon be revealed, but it's going to
be a second run of the Voice of the Asian Conference where
genuinely, if you want to know what's going to happen in the
future, you want to be in that room because the best thinkers
will be there. And me.
Awesome, There we go. It's as if he's done plugs
before. He knows what he's doing, guys
and girls. Thanks for everyone listening.
Please do remember to like, review, subscribe, follow, share
the podcast and stay tuned for part 5 coming out very soon.
So, as always, that just leaves me to say Mr. Simon Ledbetter,
thank you very much for being an amazing.
Guest always a pleasure.