Hello and welcome to Opening the Gates to more listings for
Estate agents with me, Simon Gates.
I'm delighted to be joined today by Mr. Shane Harris.
Shane, thank you very much for joining me.
Thank. You for having me mate.
Much appreciated. Shame about Liverpool in the
background. You haven't said that at all
before. We had for me Shane for to give
you an understanding for behind the scenes of opening the gates
to more listings. We're having a lovely pleasant
conversation. And then once I hit record, he
mugs me off. So I did want to say when we
were whatsapping earlier, there was like a blue heart emoji and
I was going to sarcastically comment being like, I hope
that's not for Chelsea or something.
Is it Chelsea? No.
I'm a United. Fan Oh so oh OK Why was that
blue? Because you think City will win
the league? I think I actually do think City
will win the league. Yeah, I actually do think City
will win the league. But no, I'd just like to share a
bit of love between blokes. Blokes then tend to do things
like that. We're too macho.
So yeah, I'd like to send a little bit of heart out here and
there where I can mate. Yeah.
Right, so I said tune forward. Too romantic as well on it.
So. So I said before we hit record,
I can go off piece. I'm going to go straight off
piece now because this certainly isn't my notes.
But you, you've touched on a point now I think it is mental
health Awareness Week on the week commencing May 11th.
Not quite sure exactly when this is going to go out.
And I sit on the board for the Boys Club, which is a Facebook
group for males in the essentially industry and mental
health in males is a taboo subject.
It's still not spoken about enough.
You've got brilliant people like Rob Brady who obviously know
well who champions it. And I love everything Rob does.
But you launched your business nine years ago and it couldn't
have been plain sailing that whole 9 years.
So what's, what's that been like, if you don't mind me
asking, as a business owner? And your like your mental health
in that time. Yeah, Well, well, first and
foremost, I, I, I'm fortunate. I don't see myself as somebody
who struggles with mental health.
So it's really difficult to talk on a topic that I've got no real
experience on other than the fact of like, things are hard
for everybody. Don't get me wrong here.
But like, I, I wouldn't say I'm the type of person that really
does suffer. I've had moments in time over
the years where I felt particularly down.
But I know some people who really do suffer with mental
health. And so hats off to you for for
being a champion and ambassador of, of talking about things like
that because I think it is a really important issue.
I just think I'm fortunately touch with one of those people
who is naturally optimistically glass half full.
And so nothing really ever gets me down too much.
I'm very fortunate in that sense.
But yeah, it certainly wasn't plain sailing and it hasn't.
I mean, it's nine years now and it still isn't plain sailing.
I think the the roller coaster ride of business is a forever
thing, but that's the beauty of the game, right?
Like it's a business is an infinite game.
It doesn't stop until you get off the roller coaster.
So you keep going and keep riding the wave, but you have
ups and downs. It's it's never without its
challenges, but it's overall, I would say it's been a, it's been
a tough task to get to where we've got to.
But it certainly probably isn't like the whole doom and gloom
fear monger type thing that I think a lot of the Internet
might have you feel or the negative side of the the
Internet might have you feel where it's like, look, if you
want to run a business, you want to start this up.
There's sacrifices, don't get me wrong.
But if you're the type of person that is doesn't see sacrifice as
a problem and you see these issues as just the cost of
entry. This is just the cost of entry,
right? Like if you, if you position it
in the way of if you want to play the game, this is what it
costs to play the game, then you know that that's what you're
already in. If you're unaware of that's what
it's going to take, then yeah, it might take its toll on you,
but it's not for everybody. And if it isn't for you, then,
well, statistically it's not for everybody.
And so if it isn't for you, then that's fine too.
But on the flip side of that, actually this raises a good
point there, Simon. I think there's a, there's a big
like push towards like everyone should run their own business
and everybody should be their own boss and everybody should do
their own thing and have to like, it isn't for everybody.
I mean, you'll know from running your podcast business here how
difficult it is to keep going. And that's all right as well.
You can just work for somebody else, but you haven't got to go
through all of that stress. But yeah, it's, it's it's been
difficult. But to get to the answer of a
long winded answer. I'm I'm naturally an optimistic
person and so I probably haven't felt the gravity of it or
allowed it to overwhelm me too much.
I think your your optimistic outlook is why I was keen to get
you on the podcast and have this conversation.
I think I said to you when I first slid into your DMS on
LinkedIn was I'd heard you speak a few times, I think it was on
the World Class real estate podcast with Mark and Ian.
I think I'd heard you speak at an estate agency X event on a
panel. And then I think I'd also seen
you speak on Mac Geeks is the State Agent Showdown podcast.
And each time I was like, I need to get this guy on my podcast.
And then, you know, it's like life gets in the way.
You get busy. And then I'm looking at my phone
now. And you put that this post out
on LinkedIn saying this week I celebrated nine years in
business. Here are 9 lessons I've learned,
mostly the hard way. And I read through and I was
like, I freaking love this. And I was like, right, he needs
to come on the podcast and here we are.
That's very kind of you. Yeah, very kind of you.
So yeah, it is mostly the hard way as well, a lot of those
lessons because the when you are optimistic, there's an air of
like blind, I'd say arrogance without intending to be that
way, you know, like, of course, like it is, why would I not be
able to do this? Everything's worked out for me
in my life so far. This is going to work out as
well like. Well, that, that you said it's a
blind arrogance, you and your and I hope this doesn't come
across the wrong way when I've gone.
Oh, yeah, shame, blind arrogance.
Let's go. But you and your business
partner, Mark, right? Yes.
Correct. Yeah.
So I was watching a video from your website earlier today in
preparation for this and you guys went for like 1 beer and
then the rest is history, I think is the words you used in
that video. Yeah, Danny, I was.
Was that a bit of maybe blind arrogance or naivety there?
Which is somewhat blessing? Yeah, 100%, Yeah.
Sometimes like the fact that you, you, you don't know, they'd
say ignorance is bliss, right. And in often times in life that
is true because I hadn't had any experience of, although
fortunately Mark had had experience.
So Mark could run a business just down the road from where we
are here in Braintree. And there was 4 directors there
in that business. And it's difficult enough making
decisions with two people, let alone 4 people.
And obviously, we have Tracy as our business partner in
lettings, which she has full autonomy and runs that company.
So there's very little we have to argue about there.
But in the day-to-day of sales, we sort of butt heads.
But the fact that I hadn't had that prior experience and just
thought, yeah, cool. Like we can, I know estate
agency Marks run a business, combine those two things
together, then we can run in the state NC business, surely.
Sorry about the noise there. We can run in the state NC
business, surely. But it just isn't as simple as
that. But it had that.
If I had I'd known the things I'd known now, I probably would
have been put off by it in all honesty and thought, do you know
what was going? It's going to be hard, there's
going to be headaches and we're going to disagree and maybe I'll
do it on my own and, you know, but having partners around you
is invaluable. I think it's made such a
difference. Sorry, Mike.
But on on if I go back to the LinkedIn post, so you have
business partners there at the at the end of your post, you
said after 9 points bonus get a coach or mentor.
You'll accelerate your learning and minimise your mistakes.
So at what point did you get a coach or mentor?
So we had early days on. We had.
So I used to work at Spicer Heart.
Well, I started my career at Spicer Heart late, I think 2009
ish from memory. And at Spicer Heart, there was a
guy there you may know, Russell Jervis.
Love Russell? Yeah.
Wonderful guy. Yeah.
And Russell has got energy for days like he's the most and
he'll ever meet. Like he's always smiling.
His gloves is more than half full, like it's almost entirely
full unless something Uber bad has happened.
And Russell was one of the first people in agency that made me
believe in myself. Went to I went to AI, got a
manager job when I was 24. Way too soon, wasn't good
enough, didn't know what I was doing, thought I was a good
estate agent. So of course I'm going to make a
good manager. That whole like ignorance is
bliss arrogance thing. Now where you think well of of
course I can do this. Why would I not be able to do
this? Took over an office, felt like I
was massively out of my depth. Then as a manager, you normally
go to, you get your budget. At the end of the year, you set
your budget out, you go to head office, you meet the CEO, sit
down with Paul Russell, managing director, and you look at how
your budget for the year is going to work and how you're
going to make money. You present it to the room and
you leave that room hoping that you've done a good job and they
agree or you've done a really poor job and they're looking at
you thinking, what the hell have we got this guy in this position
for? And I'd done my budget, put it
together. I hadn't done one before.
And I was really a bit nervous, you know, going to the head
office thinking I've got to sit in front of the CEO and the
managing director and I don't know what I'm doing.
Really presented the budget, left the room.
And I thought that was terrible. Like that was awful.
And then I got an e-mail from Russell saying, just wanted to
say brilliant budget meeting best of the day, well done.
Looking forward to see how you do.
And I was like, of course he's going to say that.
Wants to make his managers feel a bit better.
He's really good at the culture stuff.
Emailed him back saying thanks for us, like you didn't need to
say that, but appreciate you giving me a bit of a pat on the
back. And he replied saying, no, no, I
mean what I say. Best budget of the day, really
well done. Hope you have a good year.
And I thought, oh, but maybe I can do it.
And that sort of spurred on the real belief in myself that I
could go a bit further in the industry.
And so to answer your question about mentors as well, I was
going with this, sorry to go from a tangent, was that
Russell, when I realised he was leaving, Spicer Hart was the
first person I reached out to to say, look, I don't know what
you're doing, where you're going, but it would be great to
have you as part of this business in some way, shape or
form. I'm sure you've got other plans
and you may have sort of agreements in your contract
where you can't work in agency per SE, but if we could do
anything together, it'd be wonderful.
And he sort of reached back and said, yeah, we'd love to work
with you guys and came on board as like a coach, mentor and
helped us develop the business sort of the first couple of
years in really. And he's been brilliant for us
ever since. So a Leeds fan has helped a Man
United fans of business? Is that what you're telling me?
We've got our differences aside. Yeah, that's correct.
Yeah. I am, I love, I love that
because it it's like the amount of Times Now I've heard from
people where it's that other person who believed in them
before they believed in themselves and that person for
me, you saying of Russell Jarvis, Matt Giggs was that
person for me, mate. So my background, I was in the
state agency from 16 to 29. I was running a branch doing, I
was doing really well, but I was like something missing here and
I wasn't getting what I needed from within the four walls of
business. My secretary used to work with
Matt at Countrywide and said you'll get on amazingly well
with Matt. And I am one of only two people
who's ever paid Matt out of their own pocket as an employed
person. And when the bill came through
and there's VAT on top of it and when he's coached me, I was
like, fuck it now, didn't expect that.
And then and then, you know, I've, I've got an amazing
relationship with him now where we've worked together.
And it's kind of like the going back to what you said at the
start, like you're working so hard that your mentors become
like your business partners, if that makes sense. 100% That's a
really special character actually.
I think in the industry we've got to give him his flowers
whilst he's doing what he's doing because he is another one
of those people that you're around him and his energy is
contagious. 100% He he also makes you feel like you're
capable of doing anything in a really he's got a lot of
humility. He does it in a real way where
he shows a lot of humility that is like, I'm not better than I
was talking weirdly somebody else about this this morning on
LinkedIn and he was talking to me about coaching and what
should I do and where do I go? And I said it's a lot like
therapy for me. And I don't know if you've ever
done any therapy yourself, but when you go through therapy,
it's a real like hierarchical, like I'm, you come here and I'll
fix your problems and I've got all the answers and you're
flawed and I'm not. And if they've got that sort of
feeling to it, when you sit in a room and they sort of quiz you
back and forth until you find the right person, and then the
right person makes you feel like, well, it's not just me, is
it? Everybody has these problems.
And like, I can talk to you about it.
You can make me feel better and you can make me a better person
from it. Matt does that, I think, too,
agents in a in a way that shows huge amounts of humility.
He knows that he hasn't got all of the answers, but he's got
enough of the answers that are going to help you get to where
you want to get to, depending on, of course, your level.
So yeah, shouts out to Matt. I didn't know you had a
relationship with him, but yeah, I like Matt a lot.
Yeah, no huge relationship with with Matt, but that's enough for
kissing his ass, so we need to move.
You've seen this, Yeah. From that now, so you've already
touched on Spicer Heart. So it wasn't it wasn't straight
from Spicer Heart to launching Harrison Woodright.
There was sequence in there as well.
So what is as I can be guilty on this podcast of, of bashing
corporates in terms of being too rigid and not agile enough.
So just to give some positivity and again, some like Matt came
from a corporate background. So what?
What are the things you that you still have instilled in you
today that you would have learnt when you're at the likes of
Spicer Heart and Working the Sequence groups are two of the
biggest organisations in the country.
Yeah, they are. They're fantastic training based
operations. I think if you look around the
industry from the independents that are thriving, 99% of them
have probably come from that background.
They're training infrastructure and this is probably where I
feel that we've done the industry a bit of a disservice.
As independents we should probably get a lot better than
that. Well, I say we I'll talk for our
business specifically is you come out of that structure,
they've they've got incredible until the last it's probably
12-18 months or so. We haven't put enough value on
structure and corporates have incredible structure.
When you infrastructure into a business into an independent
business immediately you hear the people go, this feels a bit
corporate as if that's a problem.
Like not everything in corporate is bad.
Otherwise they wouldn't work. Like structure and training is
one of the best things that corporate can offer a new, you
can code from, as I did, a 1819 year old selling coffee at Costa
to a manager of a branch at 24. But that's a short window of
time really. Yeah, but it's because they have
structure and training. And I think where we've, we've
grown as independents, we've taken all of that stuff and
we've gone great. We're really, really good estate
agents. We know how to win business, we
know how to sell houses, we know how to market and all this sort
of stuff. We combine all of that with our
natural flair and enthusiasm for the job and we'll be fantastic.
And then you get to a level and you go, yeah, that's great.
And then you start to employ people and you don't do as much
of the day-to-day stuff anymore. And you go, well, how come
they're not as good as me at that?
And like, you know, they sit next to me all day and they
probably and no, OK, well, yeah, fair enough.
And then you get a little bit big and you ask, well, we've got
a lot more people now and they actually need to be good.
And what if that person? And then you soon realise that
you can't build a business around people.
Processes have to outweigh individual brilliance every
single time because you become people dependent if Simon joins
the business. And then Simon goes, I'm off to
Australia for a year because I want to go travelling.
But we've built all of our listing process around how
brilliant Simon is individually. But then we don't really have a
business. We've got Simon and luck that he
doesn't leave. And so you have to get to a
point where you look at that corporate structure and go,
well, how they don't get lucky every time.
Like how do they always bring people in and they end up being
good? How do they consistently keep
people hitting targets and moving forward and thriving?
Like, yes, there are things that people don't agree with
corporate structure about. And a lot of that as you get
lost in the numbers, which is hard to do by the way, when
you're grown an independent business is make people feel
like they're not lost in the numbers.
But oh, and just another number here.
There's a glass ceiling. You know, I get all of that
about corporate and sometimes it's a little bit everything is
about the pound note and need to lose a little bit of that.
But they certainly have incredible structure and
incredible training, which if a lot more independent took
seriously, we'd developed better people in the industry and the
industry itself would thrive because I think we neglect that
side of things because we're individually brilliant and go,
I'll sit next to me and you'll learn it.
That's not training people really.
That's hoping that people sit around, absorb what you're doing
and move on. So you've got to give corporate
credit for how they build anybody who's come from any
background into a really good estate agent.
Yeah, I think it's spot on. I could I could reel off so many
people I know, even just locally to me who were in Countrywide in
their heyday and then have gone on to launch their own
businesses. And every time I ask that sort
of question on the podcast, there's a repetitive answer
around you look at the the business people they've bread
from it, who then gone on to launch successful business
himself, who are following some of that some of that structure.
I couldn't help but think I used to work at home search, so prop
tech company. And I was there when it was a
super fun, sexy start up, like pre revenue where we didn't, but
you imagine like a slide in the office kind of vibe.
Then we went and got a multi £1,000,000 investment.
And then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, you need to do this
bit of admin. Well, that's not why I joined
this place. Yeah.
Yes, really. I wanted to, I wanted to get
away from and it's like, yeah, but we're now going to the next,
the next level. And I I've found it myself.
So I'm in like my consultancy businesses, but you're like,
right. I want to like have this
lifestyle business sort of thing.
And then I have business interests elsewhere.
I'm like, hang on a minute. This is there needs to be more
structure in, in these things. So now I completely get where
where you come from. So you am I right in saying
you've just launched a fourth office?
Yes, correct. Yeah.
So I appreciate you've only just launched the 4th office, but the
question I'm going to try and ask is what's what's been the
toughest, the first one going from one to two or two to three
or three to four? First one was the easiest one.
Yeah, yeah, because it was, it was just me, Mark and one other
employee. And when you're doing it
yourself in that way, like there is no, there is no stress about
anything else going on. All I had to worry about I me
was putting house in the market. Mark would worry about how the
office was running and Marcus was the chap who was with us at
the start would worry about picking up the viewings and
generating a bit of business. And it was just fun really.
We were like just mates working with each other, having a bit of
fun. It was working.
And of course you have a natural advantage because it's your name
above the door and you're going out sending the services.
You're going to be way more passionate about your business
than anybody else. And there was no turning back
for us. It was either we make this work
or we have all of this money we owe people who have lend us the
money to open the business and there is no out like we don't
get to leave. So there was just look forward
and make it happen. I think the the second one was
the second one was actually probably the hardest.
Yeah, the second one we we open Whitam second and that was
probably the hardest in in the sense of it was a different
town, so. It was a cold start and we
didn't have, we didn't have enough structure within the
business that really allowed us to go well.
If we're not working in either of them, how do we make sure Bow
Farm running? So the learning curve of that,
it was really, really difficult of do we do we need to be over
there all the time? Like do we need to be a culture
all of the time? Like one of us need to be there,
both of us need to be there. Who does the culture piece?
Who does the numbers piece? That was a really difficult
learning curve. Figured it out the hard way.
And then three was a little bit easier and hopefully four.
We had our courtly meeting last yesterday.
We had a courtly meeting yesterday and the manager,
Elliot, who was running culture, was going over there and said,
like, my goal is to be the first branch who opens up and turns a
profit in Year 1. And we now have a better formula
to do that. And because we've done it twice
before. So yeah, the second one weirdly
was, yeah, was the hardest, yeah.
I thought if I was to put a bet on what your answer would be
before you answer. I typically see people say go
from 1:00 to 2:00. And I think for the reasons you
said in terms of like being between the two offices and I, I
subscribe to a lot of emails, listen to podcasts, watch
webinars, etcetera. I get these emails from I think
her name is pronounced Leila Hall Mosey, but as in the other
half of Alex Hall Mosey. And the e-mail, I think this
week was something along the lines of like one of the things
she said was around culture of being like, what are your people
within the four walls of business?
Like when you step outside? And then also judge it on the
most junior members of the team, because they're going to
replicate what they see from their seniors.
So observe the juniors actions. So if a juniors are, I don't
know, the top buttons undone and ties pulled down and I don't
know, their shoes are not polished or what, or they're not
clean shaven. When we said to be clean,
whatever it might be, it's like, well, that's they've they've
seen that from somewhere else where other standards have
slipped and they're they're following that.
So kind of I thought of that when you're saying it.
And then on that, did you say his name was Elliot?
Elliot, yeah. Elliot has been running one of
the other branches and you've launched a a new branch and he's
gone to run that. Yes.
How did that, if you don't mind me asking, how did that
conversation go? Did he say to you, I want to go?
Yeah. You did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I put that on LinkedIn a
couple of weeks ago. I thought I saw.
Something like that, yeah. Yeah, he was, he's he's the
Colchester was obviously our baby.
So a difficult office for anybody to run.
Ash, who's the manager of that now has, has found that that to
be the case because it is also the the, the biggest as far as
the numbers go. And so there's a lot of more
people to look after. There's a lot more expectation
there. And Elliot kind of just said,
well, look, I, I think I'll probably take in the office as
far as I can take it. And I would like a new
challenge. Everybody needs a bit of a right
in their life, right? And so he'd been there for five
years, I think, sat in the same seat in the same 4 walls with
relatively the same people, be it change here and there, but
the same job role. And he just said, look, I'm from
the area which is tendering the 4th office where we've opened
up. I know the area, I'm from the
area, I've got family in the area, I've got relations in the
area. I know I've never done a cold
start before. But listen, I think I can make
this work, you know, I know your expansion plans.
We know you want to grow the business out.
I think I can do it. And I think I can take that
office and I can make that business work.
So here's my budget. Here's what I think I can do.
I think the numbers make sense. Let's give it a go.
Yeah, let's give it a go. And.
How on earth do you find people like that?
Because every, every business I speak to, it's always people are
such an issue. So how how are you finding
people like Elliot and and retaining them?
Because it would be so easy for someone like that, that boredom
to set in or be unfulfilled. And we lose so many great people
from this industry because of that sort of thing.
But you've you've grown an environment where they're coming
to you and saying, I want to stay here and grow.
So yeah, what's what's a bit of a secret or formula behind that?
Well, we're really, we're really tight of the leadership team.
So like Elliot, Steve, Paul, Ash, now Justine who works in
that leadership team on the sales side, obviously we've got
lettings, Tracy Collarloo. We have a really good
relationship. Like we meet every week, those
guys, we have an hour and a half meeting every week.
We have an open candidness of what are the issues, what do we
need to resolve? And everybody gets to, as I
said, we did our Courtney meeting yesterday, Tuesday, and
we get to talk about anything that we feel is important or
anything that we feel is going to cause us an issue later down
the line. And the candidness is open to
critique of me, critique of Mark like yesterday's session, half
an hour that was spent on here's how you can improve, Shane.
Here's how you can. And you just don't get that at
other companies. And I think when people are able
to tell you honestly how they feel instead of tiptoeing around
the issue, you get to hear the issue.
And if you hear the issue, you get to resolve it.
You lose a lot of people because you never really get to hear the
issue. And don't be wrong.
Like we lose people, members of staff within the business, of
course, because I and Mark don't have those same relationships
with people. And you hope that the managers
would have the same relationships with their teams.
But people come and go for for different reasons.
But I'd like to think that everybody in the business feels
like they could say honestly how they felt at any given moment in
time. And I think having that culture
builds trust. And when you can trust people,
you tend to want to stay around those sorts of people.
So yeah, those guys are they are exceptional or what they do.
And he actually, funnily enough, he was the first person we
offered a job to when we opened the business and he turned us
down and said no at the time, there's too much of A risk for
him. So he joined us like 2 years
later when we'd established and proved ourselves to it.
So yeah, he, he'd been a friend of mine before as well.
So it was, I worked with him at William H Brown when I was
there. So I knew obviously and, and had
previous relationships with actually a lot of the branch
managers, Ashley came in most recently I worked with.
So I'd had a good relationship with him.
Steve, who's our manager at Whitam, I worked with when I was
at heart, so had a good relationship with him.
Paul, who is our manager of the Chester World Branch, he was a
rival agent at another agency in Colchester at the time and we
crossed paths regularly because he was on the road and I was on
the road. And so we always have mutual
respect for what each other did and he reached out to us.
So yeah, we've just been so far fortunate with the relationships
we've built in the industry. And like you don't actually
realise how, you know, you've probably heard this saying 100
times your network is your net worth and how important your
network is growing up. Like when I look back over the
course of my career or even just my adolescents, the
relationships I've built over that time have made massive
difference to now. But Tracy, who's our lettings
director, I haven't done a day's work in lettings in our life and
me or Mark, neither of us have. And that business has grown to
almost 600 managed units under Tracy's wing.
And that was a relationship I had from when I worked at heart.
So yeah, you don't realise actually the power of what is
already in your network. Yeah, so true.
And I, I've scrolled back to my phone when you were talking
because .4 in your nine points was you must have the right
people in the right seats. Yeah, RPRS, Yeah.
And with and with Tracy as well. She was in that video.
I, I was watching on your website and yeah, I did very
much get the impression from you, you and Mark being like, we
ain't got a clue about lettings, but Tracy's like, she's the
lettings person. Let's bring her in.
And I've seen that a lot. Again, I, I, I think of, if I
use Mike and Ian Avocado as an example, they are opposites of
each other. So many people go into business
with someone who's the exact same as them and it's a car
crash behind us. You've got 2 amazing like
Rockstar salespeople, but then you've got not got the person
who's making sure everything's ticking over.
So I think, yeah, too many people try and do everything and
ages like learning lettings, legislation and stuff.
It's like that. My time is better spent doing
the things I'm really good at. If I can bring it over to
someone else who is an expert, away we go.
Again, going back to corporate, like you said, early assignment,
like they have structure. And so you don't tend to find
that there is crossover. The thing is with an independent
business, obviously egos get in the way a lot of the time and
you don't know what you don't know.
You don't know how structure should be implemented into a
business. You don't know how to set seats
up. You don't know what major
functions every company are. You don't know who should sit in
the seats of those major functions.
You don't know how to manage the people who sits in the seats of
those major functions and who does what job and what task.
And then when you've got all of that figured out, like Mike and
Ian, I spent some time with them on their podcast a couple weeks
ago, and they are, you can tell that they're opposite of each
other. But even if they had
similarities, like you have to get the ego aside and say,
right, well, what seats do the business need and who's going to
sit in them? Because if that's my job, then
that's my job. If that's yours, then that's
yours. And until, as I say, probably 18
months, two years ago, we didn't really have any structure
around, well, who's doing what? And so everybody tended to do a
bit of everything. And you seem to get in each
other's way and trip up. But yeah, once you set them
aside and say, well, let me do, I'm good at you.
Do what you're good at. And here's what this seat
requires and you're in it. You do that and I'll leave you
alone. I'll do that.
You leave me alone, the business will move forward.
I think something you've reminded me of what you what
you're saying there to use it in avocado again, What I've noticed
from all the podcasts I've recorded, all the agents I've
spent time with up and down the country, all the podcasts I
listen to, there is very much more than one way to skin a cat.
Yes. You put your business next to
Ian's and you've got Ian here in a freaking pink.
Hoodie. Avocado emoji and you've got
Shane walking in looking sharp like, I think when you walked on
the stage at the stage. Yeah.
So I was like, who's this geezer?
He looks pretty sharp, right? And and you can get like I we're
recording this podcast. I've got a baseball cap on a
black T-shirt and I'm need a shave like.
And yeah, I was in an estate agency world where clean shaven
hair off her face, no tattoos, no jewellery.
And I kind of think sometimes like if Simon Gates launched an
estate agency tomorrow, what would it look like?
Would I go because we can bash again the all the corporate and
they wear a suit. But I like when I've seen your
attire and, and on your website and stuff, I'm like, I don't
look at you and go corporate. I go, they know their identity,
they look good, feel good, right.
And I kind of go, what would I be?
Would I, would I want to be Yeah, sharp and people.
And when me and my team walk down the street, they're like,
that's Simon Gates, estate agents.
Or would I be a hoodie cargoes and trainers and they go, oh,
that's that's Simon Gates, like estate agent, like that's.
A great point. Yeah.
And you and and again two different business models.
You've got High Street offices and there's some going down
self-employed route, like there's some who charge higher
fees, there are some who charge lower fees.
There are some who will take referral fees from solicitors,
some who won't. And like that's what I love
about I think where the industry is right now and where it's
going, the amount of collaboration and I guess
particularly within the network of sort of iceberg and life
cycle, you're obviously very much going.
We see the way that the industry is going and what Mark talks
about revenue per employee etcetera.
But you've all got different businesses.
You've all got a belief of like the way things should be done
and client, etcetera, etcetera. That's what I found from all the
conversations I've had. Oh, definitely, yeah.
It's a really unique group actually.
It's a really Stuart observation actually, Simon, because there
are so many different businesses in there.
And that's where, like really understanding your identity
comes into play because it's it's so tempting to be like, oh,
well, they do that. Maybe that's what we should do
now. And people don't want to see
suits and ties and shirts anymore.
They want to see hoodies and people relaxed and like, well,
if that's not you, then stay in your lane.
Like if you're, you feel better in a suit because you feel like
you've put your armour on and you're going to work.
And like you say, look, you feel like you look good, feel good,
play good. And if that's the way you want
to do it, then you should do it that way.
But really own it and stay in that lane.
But yeah, I think it's a, it is a lot more collaborative now.
And there are many ways to skin a cat.
I really do agree with that. Yeah.
I don't think there's this. I keep getting asked this
question all the time, like what's the better method?
self-employed or employed? I'm like, whoa, there is no
better method. That's like, so what's the
better drink, Coke or Pepsi? What do you prefer?
Like what? What do you want to do?
Like there is no right or wrong. It's both are working evidently
what works for you. So yeah, yeah, I'm agreeing with
that. That's a really good point.
So I know you have, I can think of 2, two businesses off the top
of my head, one who charges a a pretty good no sell no fee
percentage. And I can think of one who
charges a lower fee model. And the one who does the higher
no sell no fee would look at that low fee model and go shut
up your fees. I'm like, OK, revenues, vanity,
profit, sanity. Let's put your profit and loss
on the table and see who's making money and who's losing
money because I know the answer to that question and it's
certainly the lower fee model. But going back to what you said
there about structure systems, processes automation in place so
that they can do it at a lower fee, but actually it's a higher
fee business, really poor structure systems, process
automation where they're being really inefficient.
Yeah. And you know, we feel guilty of
that ourselves. You get to a point, you start to
scale the profit out of the business and you go, yeah, I
mean this is great. Like all of this extra stuff and
these extra add-ons and all these these these cool features.
But like, cost money and you're running a company and so is the
company here to make money or is the company here to look good
from the outside and, you know, tweak the yeah, well, maybe make
a little bit less. So what's, what's the goal here?
Ultimately, at the end of the day, the goal of any business,
unless you're a charity, should be to make money.
And but you need a purpose along the way.
You need to serve your customers and serve your clients and you
need to do it in the right way. But you need to make money
because you need to keep putting fuel in engine.
And so, but I agree with you. We've we've felt guilty of this.
And I have conversations with with with people in my business
around. Oh, well, yeah, so and so are so
cheap. And whenever they go into an
area, all they do is undercut fees and and I'm like, well, it
works for them. So look.
Here we go. They're in charge of .75 and
buying the market, but the process works, they make money
and that's just their model. Doesn't mean we agree with it,
but it doesn't mean it's shit and it doesn't work.
It works so. When, when we will, when we can
talk about as a as an industry about and I I can definitely be
guilty of this. I do a lot of sessions with
agents on this about the importance of pricing correctly
from the outset, like the data proves less likely to sell, more
likely to fall free, take longer etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Yeah, if you look at the Foxtons numbers.
Yeah. They quite clearly overvalue.
Please don't sue my ass Foxes by the way, they're quite clearly
overvalued. Tying to a long contract
allegedly price produced. I've got a funny story on that.
A second price produced 2 thirds 3/4 of what they list.
But when you see their numbers, you go Jesus Christ, like under
guy getting stewardship, they've gone back to the old fashioned
foxes and they're making a lot of money.
Yet there's an agent out there selling 80% of what they list
and they're going. I'm struggling to pay myself
each month and that is, you know, can be a bit of an issue
with the system very quickly allegedly thing.
I go to quite a few talks, whether that's sports, business,
love going to these kind of things and I've gone to a few
Liverpool Legends events and Bruce Grobola will quite often
be at these events and there's always this running jokes.
He obviously had his match fixing scandal thing and
whenever they talk about it, he always goes allegedly, like
everyone just burst out like it's just it's it's comical,
right? Something I want to ask you a
little bit less serious, the name Harrison Wood.
How did you like have an arm wrestler to decide whose name
came first? How long did that conversation
take? Yeah, not very long.
I mean if you when we said it out loud to start with Wood and
Harris, that doesn't sound great.
So that's, that was it. It was simple as that really.
We put both on the table and that's what we landed on.
But my, my area of expertise before we got into the business
was marketing. So we did that.
Me and my friend Robbie, who now runs a blank space, a company we
uses a lot of our marketing, come up with all of the design,
all of the, the logo, the name change.
And I trust his opinion on almost pretty much everything
when it comes to marketing and how it should land and how
people are going to read it. And he was like, yeah, it don't
make sense doing it that way around.
Like it just feels better doing it this way around.
And it was a 2 minute conversation.
And you and you and you slipped him a fiver when he said it was
your. Name.
And and in the in the video of you guys talking, there was a
mention about some billboard, but I don't know what was on
that billboard. Can you talk about that?
Yeah, we can. Yeah.
So, yeah, we put it up. So this was at a time when
that's such a good point because I still want to Rob Brady about
this. Rob was talking to me about the
authenticity of the brand. He put it in the iceberg life
cycle chat just to say like, you need to stick to who you are and
really own it. So here's a good example of what
the Harris and guys did. I can't even remember the year
we did it now, but no one was doing billboard ads.
And we thought actually tell you what would be good if like if we
just got a massive billboard near the station, North station
coast. It was super busy.
Everyone goes past it all the time.
And we just had a message on there that just made people's
head turn. So me and Robbie were sitting in
a room in Greyfriars Hotel in the town and we were going back
and forth on designs and what we could do for campaigns.
And we landed on, and why don't we do a billboard and then just
put something a bit like humorous, but that might shock
people on it. We used, I don't know if you
ever saw it. Do you remember Richard
Branson's Virgin brand? You know, when they put screens
on the back of planes for the first time?
And his logo slogan for that was 9 Inches of Pleasure.
No, I didn't see that. OK.
I thought it was brilliant. I loved it and I thought it's
imagine that you put screens on planes.
It's a pleasure like it's cheeky and fun.
And so we went back and forth for a load of different ideas
and we landed on nothing gets me more excited than a lovely semi
will help you find your perfect property.
I thought, well, it's it's not, I mean, it's true to a degree.
Like, you know, people love going, Oh, what a wonderful hat
like, but it's also a little bit fun and cheeky.
And I just thought, you know, that's our brand and people
loved it. Loved it, particularly within
the industry. Not within the industry here,
not within the industry in our town.
They're going. I wish I'd done that.
Yeah, you can't say that. That's ridiculous why they put
things like that. But then everyone else who
weren't competition, I had so many people messaged me, but
people up north that like Manchester, that's in the end
and was like, do you mind if I use that slogan and put it on
marketing and stuff here? Like think it's brilliant.
Of course, like not competition to you.
I don't own the words like you want to use it, but thanks for
reaching out. So yeah.
And it just sort of that moved our business into a whole other
direction of we really started to attract the clients who we
wanted to work with, which were just people who had a bit of
fun, who had a bit of humour, who didn't take everything so
seriously, who didn't want to be bogged down in the nitty gritty
back and forth of like, sales should be a dance, not a battle,
shouldn't be a fight. Like we shouldn't be in this
together. Should feel like it's you and me
trying to get the buyer to pay us what we wanted to pay.
Like it should be a relationship.
And oftentimes you end up in relationships with people in the
industry who actually are don't really want to be in a
relationship with you. I just tend to argue with you
and fight with you about why, why haven't we done this?
Why haven't we haven't done that?
Why haven't we? We don't do that.
That's not what we do. And when we got clear on the
message and what we do and what we don't do.
We've got clear on who we want to work with and who we don't
want to work with and you start to attract your tribe, don't
you? And that was that was a point
which I didn't realise until probably a few years later.
I think on that, one of the last points you're making there in
terms of finding your tribe, like the way a magnet works is
that it's there to attract the right people and also detract
the wrong people. You really want to push them
away. And if someone was to get
offended at that advert, just in this conversation we've had, I'd
be getting the feeling of I'd be getting the feeling of probably
don't want to work with this person if they're offended by
it. Like that's my humour.
Probably going to be a night nightmare going forward.
You've been. Amazing.
If I'm doing that magnet thing, I'm going to use it as.
My oh, you're welcome. I probably stole it from someone
else. Rory Sutherland.
Does that name ring a bell? Yes, Mark's ingenious, yeah.
So have you heard of his flat white or fuck off?
No. So in the world we now live in,
people going into coffee shops and ordering these crazy orders
and he's like at a train station, there should just be
one order at a coffee shop and it should be a flat 1.
And it's all over TikTok. And then these guys have
actually launched flat white or fuck off.
So I thought of actually said about the permission from like
wherever it was. So I went to Rory Sumner.
We want to launch flat white to fuck off.
And he's like, well, I don't own the idea.
You crack on. And I was like, that's such a
good point, isn't it? Like, And Rory Sutherland has
said it before, imagine just a cafe where the only thing they
serve is a bacon roll on white bread with tomato sauce.
And that's all you're going to get in there.
It's like, if it's like people in and out, yeah, I just want a
bacon sandwich. I like white bread, like tomato
sauce. But I think in the can be a
vanilla world, in the state agency where we all look and
sound the same, we're like, oh, but I don't want to put anyone
off. It's like.
Everything to to everyone. Yeah, I think like I there's
numerous things I'm trying to think of, but again, I, I have
this conversation myself and I'm like walking the dogs.
What would Simon Gates the stadium to look like?
And if I said I am the Newport Pagnell bungalow specialist, I
think people, if we've got a bungalow to sell in Newport
Pagnell are going to come to me and that's what I'm going to
talk about. But then I'm going to get
someone coming to me going. I've got a three bed semi.
It's not a bungalow. But I love like your marketing,
everything you do. Yeah, I'll sell it for you.
I wouldn't be shouting from the rooftops, but I'm saying
something. It's not a bungalow, but other
people are going to want to work with you if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does. Yeah.
You fish with a fish on, then your pond, like, expands, don't
I suppose so I get the point. It's a difficult one where you
get to draw the line, isn't it? Like, when do we say?
When do you say no? I think that's the famous Steve
Jobs quote, or I'm sure it was Steve.
It's like the things that you say no, like disciplines, the
things that you'd say no to. And if you're able to say no so
you're not distracted by the other shiny things that, yeah,
that probably does skate outside of my marketing campaign and
probably does skate outside of the type of people I want to
work with. But they're going to pay us some
money, and so we should work for them anyway.
Like there are points in business where you do have to
say no to the wrong thing because the magnet thing you
used, you want to attract the right thing and repel the wrong
thing. And all of a sudden you start
doing 3 bedroom semis all across the town and you go, now I'm not
a bungalow guy, Jim, Semi guy. On in terms of marketing as
well, and I heard you speak about your expertise and
interest in that field when you're on the podcast with Mark
and Ian. Absolutely love your your
marketing thing. It's fantastic.
And one thing I absolutely loved was I'm going to try and get
this right photography. Yeah.
That that looks sick on the website.
That's so good. Yeah, it was just, it was coined
because so James, who is a part of our media team now, one of
three people's part of our media team, he loves dogs, like, loves
dogs unhealthily. He really loves dogs.
And so he would, as part of the service, which was unbeknown to
me that he loved dogs so much. And so he would go out and shoot
houses. But I didn't know that a lot of
the time because he would do like two or three shoots a day.
And then we had a photographer who was in before him and we
were like, this guy's doing 5 or 6.
James, what is it that you're doing that is not as efficient
as this guy by like almost 50? What you doing?
And it transpired that he would spend like 20 minutes just
stroking the dog, playing the garden or taking photos.
And he just had all of these photos of people's dogs for him
that he would take and send to them outside of the photos of
the house. And they'd go, oh, here you go.
Like just his six photos of Jasper.
Like, I hope it was OK and nice to meet you today.
Just because he wanted to do it because he loved it so much.
And it started to become a thing.
And we were like, oh, actually, people really like that.
So let's just do it a little bit more.
And then when we've got enough, we'll put them all on the
website. And it just gives people
something to come back to us for.
Oh my dog's on the website. And love that.
Where photography came from, So James was our official
photographer. I love that you've made me think
of the ice cream story you told on in a Mark's pod of like those
those special moments that. Yeah, yeah, they are.
Yeah. The unexpected moments that you
think, wow, like that was really thoughtful and they can be such
small things. And it was just more of a
passion project for him. It wasn't my boss is telling me
to do it or it's part of what we do here.
He was just so passionate about delivering a great service for
people because he loved dogs. He's like, I would love it if
somebody come around my house who had the skills to take great
photos and some of the photos awesome.
Like get the dogs jumping up and catching balls and getting like
super slow MO and it'd be like action shots.
And I'm like, Jesus, this must take you ages.
Yeah, it does, but you need to more houses.
But like, this is lovely. And yeah, people just really
bought into it. We, I think I discussed it on
Ian's pod actually, about the surprise and delight thing.
And those little surprise and delight moments really do make a
big difference to people and they haven't really got to cost
you that much. It's so I think so on something
you said there, I, I try to make this point with, with agents at
the moment of in the world we now live in and with like, I'll
use LinkedIn, Facebook as an example.
You literally get a reminder when you have a friend or a
LinkedIn connection. It's their birthday, right.
Good morning, Shane, happy birthday.
Hope you have a good day. And you're like, oh, cheers
mate. Like thanks for that, like
people. Oh, that's nice.
If someone's remembered well, they haven't remembered.
It's just come up on their their phone and that that's worked
really well for me. I'm genuinely not trying to get
any business out of it. I just want to wish people happy
birthday because it feels nice. But you think that's actually so
easy to do in the world we now live in today that actually if
you were to send a happy birthday card to someone, like
how amazing does that feel when you get a card in the post?
Yeah, it doesn't happen these days.
And I was at a conference last week and someone said on stage,
like when someone is buying a property, they're obviously
giving over their ID and they will add buyers into a WhatsApp
group. They will get a notification
saying it's Shane's birthday, say straight into WhatsApp
group, happy birthday or send them a card.
And then you're like, wow, that's so nice of them.
Again, those tiny things that you you said about.
Yeah, I think they're easy to do, but they're easy not to do
it as well, which is why people don't do them.
It's just so easy to forget. But they they do make such a
difference. It's such power in doing that.
And yeah, I think like if, if as you were saying that if you do
it with genuine intent and it's personalized and individualized,
it will make a, it will make a really big difference because
like you see it on LinkedIn, LinkedIn is probably the worst
platform for it because the messages are the same, you know,
like LinkedIn give you the message.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. And then you get like seven of
those and you're like, oh, you've just pressed the button.
Like it's still nice that people have done it, but you know, it's
just, well, I've pressed that button and send you've still
gone out of your way to do it. Doesn't quite still have the
same feeling about the individualisation to it.
Make it personal to me. I spoke about this actually, I
think I've put it on LinkedIn a little while ago and business
and I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.
Actually, Simon, the way you think about things is, but
business is probably going more that way as well because
people's expectations are going more that way around.
Individualize this service to me.
If you go into McDonald's now, I take my kids and they would go,
yeah, I would like a hamburger, but I don't want any Pickles in
it. I don't want any cheese in
there. I don't want any onions in
there. Actually.
I don't need tomato in there. Actually.
Can you put this and you individualize it to that person?
Personalisation says hi, Shane Harris on an e-mail.
Individualization says, I know who you are, I know what you're
looking at and I know what you need and I'll adapt around you.
And I feel like business is probably doing a little bit more
of that. And if you can figure that bit
of gold out and how do we individualize the service
instead of people just feel like it's disingenuous.
Personalization of oh, hi, Shane H.
Well, it says Shane H because I've put my surname in as H
instead of Harris. Obviously it's not a individual
message to me. You can feel it sometimes, can't
you, When it's done, but it's done disingenuously.
Yeah, I think like with with tech and AI and of the you being
life cycle users and obviously like the way they have it where
they know what people are clicking on and people see
different things like that's unbelievable.
I'm a huge fan of what Mark, Rob and everyone is there is doing.
But and then this conversation, but let's say I'm not going to
do it because you're a Man U fan.
But let's say I, I don't know, I, I sent you a thank you card
in the post. I'm definitely not doing it
because you're a Man U fan, but thank you for that.
Hey, Shane, thanks for being a guest in the podcast and inside.
I don't know, it's a program to a unit like a, or a ticket from
a united game. And I've gone and looked up.
I know it's the date of your birthday or, I don't know, the
day you launch your business or something.
And like, that would cost peanuts, but you'd be like, wow,
that's incredible. It would make such a difference,
such a difference. I think like Mark and Rob and
all the guys at Iceberg and what they're doing in regards to sort
of AI and moving things forward is so wonderful that it, it
just, it's such advanced technology that it's so good.
It allows you to get back to the basics.
Exactly, Yeah. And I think that's where people
are sort of misconceiving the idea of like, Oh yeah, well,
everything just gets sent automatically.
And then like we never really have to have that human hand to
hand combat anymore. We could just have all the
computers do it. And I don't actually think
that's Marks idea. I think deep down underneath the
surface, it's like, I want to do all of this stuff for you so you
don't have to have all of the same amount of people doing
nothing all day, which a lot of people in businesses get
hideaway from and do not very much.
But because everything else is working around them, they're not
seen. So you don't really need to have
all of those people who don't want to contribute.
But we can take all of the mess away from the people who do want
to contribute, and they can get back to doing the human element,
which is actually speaking and dealing with people.
I think that's where Matt Giggs and Matt Burgess, Mark, Matt
Giggs and Mark Burgess initially didn't realise they're on the
same team. They fought, they're against
each other. I think they've said it's in the
podcast recently. It's like, no, no, we want the
same thing. And I think that I, I can never
remember exactly, but I think Mark has a saying of automate or
systemate, automate or systemizer repeatable.
So you can humanize the exceptional and that's
everything that the the tools are doing there is that you can
go sit in someone's living room and show them that you care.
Be a shoulder to cry on when they're having a difficult time
with their sale or purchase. Because maybe one day a robot
from the AI world will be able to do that.
But until that time, they can't go sit in someone's living room
and say, I'm really sorry. Look them in the eyes.
Your cell's falling through. But here's the plan.
Yeah, because it's relatable. Like the the the difference that
we have as humans over computers is we have lived experience.
There is no lived experience in AI.
It's yeah, I can take all the information from other people's
experience and distill it down to an answer if it's suitable
for you. But it's never genuine because
there isn't lived experience, which is why people struggle
with certain. But you know what?
People go, oh, and I don't want him showing me around because
he's young and like, they don't really mean that he's 19 and he
can't do it. They mean, but he doesn't have
any experience that I can relate to that makes me feel like it's
genuine when we talk face to face.
Unless he has and it surprises me.
So like, there's just no lived experience with AI.
Like the human element of it, your experience is really all
that matters. The experience that you can
offer clients is what matters. And if the experience is better
because the relationship is better, then yeah, of course AI
needs to do all the stuff that doesn't have anything to do with
the human experience. Very true.
You've made me think of in my early years as a branch manager,
I was 24 without a beard and looked about 12.
The question that would get asked would be something like,
so how long have you been an estate agent for?
I'm like, you're basically asking me how old am I?
Can I trust you to sell my house?
And I've been doing it at 24. I've been doing it like 8 years.
So I started at 16. So it's like about a decade.
And I'd like jokingly be like, do you want to know my
moisturizer like regime or something like ha, ha, ha, ha.
And then I have I'm I'm a proper data geek, but my way to like
win them over with my maturity of I wasn't very mature outside
of work. The maturity was knowing the
numbers inside out of because the other guy came out and just
put his finger in the air and went, yeah, I've sold loads of
these before. It's going to be 500.
Whereas I go the average pounds of square foot in the area is
this, but you've got a S facing garden, granite worked open
views, probably going to get 10% above the average for the area.
You're going to get 550 and like how the other guy didn't say
that really, OK. I'll tell you what I learned
from Mark Burgess is he's wonderful at giving you the
information that you need in order to trust him in the 1st
place. And I think he realizes it
because he knows, right. So like, he'll teach this, which
is have you ever seen him speak on stage?
Yeah, so he'll open up and you'll know this to be true.
He'll open up with Mark Burgess, who was addicted to drugs when I
was a teenager. And then I fell into a group of
entrepreneurs. And then in that group of
entrepreneurs there was these people.
And then I was on Forbes list of 100 most influential people in
business. Then I wrote 2 best selling
books and then I'm on 3rd best selling books.
And he gives you all of this stuff that tells you now the
stuff I'm about to tell you, You can trust me.
And so if you go on my LinkedIn now, this change because of Rob,
and Rob was like, this is what Mark does.
This is what Mark teaches. You need to do these things.
So if you go on my LinkedIn now, it will say my experience in the
industry. It will say I'm speaking on
podcasts and stages. It will say property X.
But it's all of those things that give me the establishment
to say. Now when I say these things, I'm
going to trust you because people need to know that really.
And you can be 19, you can be 24, you can be whatever age you
are, 24 years old of eight years experience like the guys in the
office should have been saying that when Simon comes out to see
you. Let me just tell you a little
bit about Simon Now. Simon has been about 8 years.
We've listed 500 properties over the last 12 months, 300 of those
actually very similar to yours. We've got experience in by
selling property in this particular location.
Simon's actually been the pioneer of leading that.
He's going to tell you how we get proven process, which is
proven for all of these customers, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. And then you go for that story.
And then it's like, OK, it doesn't really matter how old
Simon is because I just want Simon to give me the information
I need about this specific thing, which clearly he's an
expert at. And Mark's brilliant at that,
giving you the let me give you all of this stuff.
So now anything I say, you're just going to believe me because
I've got all of the credentials behind me to back it up.
Love that three things come to mind.
I couldn't help but think of Alan Hanson all those years ago
saying you'll never win anything with kids.
It was a little bit wrong with that.
We united your website, it says 5000 plus moved over 950 Google
reviews, 4.86 stars, over 12,000 followers on social.
So again, giving that that credibility.
And you actually, I think when I messaged you on LinkedIn, you
said something like PS loft of mission statement.
So when someone sees my LinkedIn by, I'm on a mission, and we'll
always be on that mission to be the most useful person to
follow. Yeah, I thought it was a really
good missing statement because it's it's not about you, it's
about everybody else. And I loved that.
Cool, right. Final question, Shane.
I have a closing tradition on the podcast which I've
completely ripped off from Stephen Butler on the Diary CEO.
So he gets his last guest to ask the next guest a question, not
knowing who they'll be, and then he monetises it and sees
conversation cards. I've got 3 packs of them so I'm
keeping him in the money so he can invest Dragons down.
So the question I want you to answer is.
Choose me a good one I. Was going to make a really bad
joke about Man United, but I'm not going to do that.
He's a United fan as well. Stephen Bartlett So.
He's a Man United fan, Yeah. Who in your life gave you a
chance or believed in you when no one else did?
When no one else did. Probably Russell.
I thought I've thought that when I was reading it, but from what
you said earlier. Yeah, probably Russell.
I don't know how much the latter is true.
Like, to put on the whole why me stuff, Nobody believed in me.
I think I've had, I think I've actually been quite fortunate
over in my life that most of the people who mean anything to me
anyway, their opinions, who've been anything to me that I
value, do believe in me anyway. But Russell was the one who made
me believe in me. And for that I'm, I'm eternally
grateful. Yeah.
I love that. What a beautiful way to end.
And Russell, if you're listening, you do still need to
come on this podcast, wink, wink and nudge, nudge and let that be
your your sign as you've got a couple of lovely mentions.
So for everyone listening, please do like review,
subscribe, follow, share the podcast.
And that just leaves me to say Mr. Shane Harris invo, you are a
Man United fan. Thank you very much for being an
amazing guest. I really appreciate it.
It's. Been awesome mate, thanks for
the chat, really appreciate it.