UK Real Estate – It’s Just About the Basics

The first few days of our World Cup trip were spent in London, and Irene and I were able to spend some time with Peter Rollings, one of the leading estate agents in the UK.

Peter ran the Foxtons operation in London for 20+ years taking it to the number 1 position in the London market with over 25% market share. Nearly 3 years ago Peter left Foxtons and bought a local London operation of 12 offices, Marsh and Parsons and has set about transforming that business.

The interesting thing about speaking with Peter was that although the real estate business is very different in the UK from New Zealand and Australia, the challenges are the same. How do you find, recruit and retain great people? How do you help your people to perform? How do you educate your sellers to the current market conditions?

And the really interesting thing was that no matter what country you operate in or what the market conditions are, the basics are the same -

1. Constantly recruit – every day
2. Really care about your people and their success
3. Create an awesome environment for people to work in – recognition, reward and growth
4. Have systems in place and follow them
5. Be manic about the detail

All very easy, but hard to do consistently.

There’s no doubt that whether you are selling, running a business or in fact whatever role you are playing, there are a set of basics that are the key – identify them, put them in place and then do them consistently and you will become incredibly successful.

Talking to the very successful in the UK, Europe, the States, Australia or New Zealand, it’s always the same – they are very focused and work incredibly hard on the basics.

How did it all go so wrong?

Well, reading my two World Cup posts, what was I thinking! It’s been a long 4 years, it’s going to be an even longer 4 years ahead. How did it all go so wrong?

It looked so good – the All Blacks were the best prepared they’ve ever been. Winning both the Tri Nations and Bledisloe Cup, they looked ready and were favourites for the World Cup. 24,000 supporters travelled from New Zealand to cheer them on. A strong pool round with over 300 points scored and no major injuries.

We should have started to wonder as we watched the English beat Australia before the All Blacks met France in their quarter – a crazy result. 

And there we were, in Cardiff at the Quarter Final – All Blacks v France. It all started so well, 10 nil up after about 15 minutes, we were quietly confident. It was almost like a home game, there were Kiwis everywhere. Half time, 13-6, and we were still reasonably confident the AB’s fitness would see them roll over the French in the second half.

Whatever was said to the French at half time should be used in training manuals forever. They came out a different team. That’s when things started to go pear shaped, and once again we sat in the stand and could see it all unfolding – two tries to the French, and that is all she wrote . . . . one was clearly after a very forward pass, but the result was in the next morning’s papers – 20-18 to France and the tournament favourites, once again were heading home early.

Fortunately we headed to Crete the very next morning and the Greeks didn’t care about the Rugby World Cup or what was happening so we didn’t hear a word about it for a week, which gave us a chance to mourn and then move on.

And move on we must! What a bizarre tournament! Argentina beat France twice, but we couldn’t beat them once! England beat Australia – the first time in 4 years! And we Kiwis were left cheering for South Africa in the final – unbelievable!

Still, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so bring on 2011 and the next world cup – I won’t be there, after 3 in a row I don’t think I could survive a fourth! 

Where is everyone going?

When you travel, you get to spend a lot of time sitting and watching people, and if you take the time to observe and think about it, you have to wonder, where are they all going?

Flying from Brisbane to London, you spend 3 hours in Singapore, which is the hub for Singapore Airlines with thousands of people every day passing through Changi Airport.

It’s amazing to look around and actually notice the travellers and wonder what their stories are. There is a huge percentage of men on their own, so you’d expect the majority of them are travelling for business. Some even in business suits – for an 8 hour flight, put something comfortable on!

There are a number of couples, probably a third of the number of men on their own, but you would guess they are on holiday. And then there is a smaller percentage again, families, which are either on holiday or emigrating. And in amongst all this you realise how big and diverse the World really with a myriad of languages being spoken all around you.

Overall though, there is constantly, a huge number of people travelling. I remember reading once that you couldn’t have every plane in the world land and be on the ground at the same time, because there just isn’t enough room for them at all the airports. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it sounds feasible!

You have to wonder though, do all these people really need to spend all this time travelling – there’s so much time wasted in ques, airports and on planes. I sometimes suspect a lot of people get caught up in travelling for travellings sake. Where is everyone going?

Daylight Saving in Queensland?

I can’t believe that even though two thirds of the Queensland population supports day light saving, there will be no referendum at the very least.

Clearly the majority want to see Queensland come in line with the rest of the country and world for that matter, and yet the wider population aren’t given the opportunity to have their say on a very important issue. The disruption no daylight saving causes because Queensland is out of step with the rest of the country and New Zealand is significant and so, therefore is the cost. The impact is across countless areas of business, not to mention the community.

Compounding the problem I believe, is that there appears to be a significant number of those who oppose it that actually don’t understand it. A “Relationship Counsellor” in this mornings Courier Mail said that he is against daylight saving as he has children and the change would mean they are up for an extra hour! A, you’re meant to enjoy your children and spend more time with them, which an hour longer evening twilight would mean, B, the sun sets currently at around 6.30pm, so with daylight saving introduced it would be setting at 7.30pm, not late enough to make a difference to the kids’ bedtime, and C, forgetting both of those, they’ll still spend around the same amount of time awake, so wont make any difference! Another in the paper said that it is ‘unnatural to change our environmental settings’ – you must be joking! And of course the curtains will fade and the cows won’t milk! Unbelievable!

So, I am simply at a loss to understand the logic of no daylight saving for Queensland just as much as no referendum. As was once famously asked – please explain?

Stefan Swanepoel

I recently wrote about Tom Peters, and his powerful and insightful presentation on leadership and business. He has spent over 30 years studying business, companies and leaders, writing and speaking extensively about the various strengths of each.

The real estate equivalent is Stefan Swanepoel. Stefan is a student of our industry having spent years studying the trends and has over the past 5 years really established himself as the number one real estate visionary in the world. I have seen Stefan speak a number of times both in the US, in New Zealand and here in Australia. He has the rare ability to step back from the day to day and look at the wider picture and clearly identify the major trends as they impact on our industry.

His website is www.swanepoel.com His books, and now DVD’s on the 10 or 15 (2006) major trends are outstanding – the most recent, a DVD on the 10 top trends in 2007 is well worth ordering.