Why 99% Distrust Estate Agents | How Self-Employed Models Are Changing Public Perception!

Welcome to The Elite Agent Masterclass—the podcast where estate agency meets innovation, ambition, and transformation. In this episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Ross McKenzie, a trailblazer in the self-employed estate agency world and the visionary founder of Isla Alexander and Open Moove.

Why do 99% of the public distrust estate agents? It’s a shocking statistic, but one Ross is tackling head-on. Together, we unpack the deep-rooted issues within the property industry, from outdated processes to siloed systems that frustrate home movers and professionals alike. Ross shares his journey of challenging these perceptions, driving change, and inspiring collaboration across the sector.

We dive into the rise of self-employed estate agents and the way they’re reshaping the industry. Ross explains how this movement is forcing corporates, independents, and high-street agencies to raise their game, delivering better service and value to clients. Through his experiences, we also explore the shift from quantity-driven models to quality-focused businesses that prioritise relationships over transactions.

This episode is packed with actionable insights, including:

• The truth behind the public’s distrust of estate agents—and how to change it.
• The pivotal role self-employed agents play in raising industry standards.
• Why collaboration between estate agents, mortgage brokers, and conveyancers is vital.
• The mindset and systems needed to transition from self-employed agent to business owner.
• How Open Moove is set to revolutionise the property journey with accountability, education, and transparency at its core.

Ross also highlights the power of coaching in unlocking success and shares how his own mindset shifted dramatically after working with a coach. He explains why investing in yourself is the best decision you can make, whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale your business.

This is more than just an industry deep dive—it’s a blueprint for anyone striving to make their mark in estate agency. Whether you’re an experienced agent, a budding entrepreneur, or simply interested in the future of property, this episode will leave you inspired, informed, and ready to take action.

Tune in to The Elite Agent Masterclass now for an unmissable conversation with Ross McKenzie. Discover

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Transcript

So welcome to another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass. Today, myself and Jack Durkin are joined by none other than Mr. Ross McKenzie, the man that's doing magical things in self-employed estate agency down in South Wales, but also has an interesting journey connected to that. Out of pure frustration, he's launched another business. He would be deemed what is now becoming a serial entrepreneur. I read something the other day, and it'd be interesting to put your brains on it, Ross. We'll probably start there, actually. I read something the other day. I subscribed to this newsletter. I get an email through from this business guy. And the question, the title was, have you got entrepreneurial ADHD? And the point he was making is, is that do you kind of like the idea of creating new businesses, building them? And then it's like, OK, cool, I've built that. Let's have a look at another one. Let's start there. Firstly, thanks for that intro. I think I might put that on my gravestone or something. That was pretty cool. Thanks, pal. So yeah, I definitely have that, if that is a thing. I mean, I work with a coach at the moment, and he is so good at asking brilliant questions and getting good stuff out of me. And I just come to the conclusion since I've been working with him that I just like building stuff. I like building stuff as long as it's for the right reason. right intentions and they align you know nicely with your morals and principles then it's just fun right um we're trying to solve some big problems in the industry at the moment which is really cool as well and um yeah it's it's it's definitely if that was a diagnosis I'd definitely be kind of top of the list I reckon pal that's for sure brilliant That kind of leads on to one of the questions I've got. I think it ties into, and probably one of the reasons why you've launched some of the businesses that you've launched for us. What would you say is the biggest challenge or the biggest frustration that we've got in the industry at the moment? I think the process is just broken, full stop. One of the biggest things that frustrates me, Jack, is the fact that, I think it's going back about ten years now, but there was a poll and it turned out that only one percent of the UK population trusted estate agents. I think that that has improved slightly recently. But when you think about the fact that everyone that we know within the industry perhaps minus one percent, are exceptionally good people, family people. They work hard. They do a fantastic job for the benefit of their customer. But we still have got this bad reputation for a process that's just outdated, archaic. It's not our fault. I just think that's unfair. So from my perspective, one of the biggest challenges that I'm trying to tackle right now is that perception of what a state agency actually is. and who we are as a group of people. That at the moment is stretching across the property industry with conveyances and mortgage brokers as well. Because I think that at the moment today, one of the biggest issues is that we're all working in silos. We're all working individually when in reality, the best thing that we could possibly do for the benefit of the home mover is encourage collaboration and bring everyone together so that's probably my biggest frustration right now and that's probably the biggest problem that I foresee is that there's nothing out there today and hopefully there is to come but there's nothing out there today which is encouraging that collaboration and making it easier for the home mover as a priority I like that. You mentioned you feel that the perceptions have changed a little recently. Do you think that's potentially due to the rise of self-employed estate agency? I think I've got a natural bias towards self-employed estate agency. Like you boys, I've got a brokerage myself, right? But I think that it probably... It plays its part in the change. I think that the rise of self-employed estate agency has led to, you know, whether it's high streets, corporates, independents actually raising their game as well. So, yeah, I'm a big believer in self-employed estate agency. I'm sure we'll kind of go into that a little bit more as we go through the call. But actually, I think that. Self-employed estate agencies become more and more prevalent. That's fantastic. But because our competitors out there understand now that we're not going anywhere and that it's only going to grow, we're actually seeing some improvements across the board. So I've got to give credit where credit's due. And other than perhaps some of the big corporates who are very stuck in their ways, I'm seeing a lot of independents kind of jumping on the bandwagon and delivering for their customers, which is, at the end of the day, what I'm most concerned about. We've got to make this better for the home mover. Yeah, I agree. I think at the core of good businesses, regardless of their infrastructure and set up, if the customer comes at the center. But before that, in my opinion, the people within the business that is serving the customer, if they're well looked after, they're well supported, they're well compensated. Because you mentioned earlier, only one percent of the public actually trust estate agents. I have a feeling on why that is. And I do think it's because the industry has become very volume focused rather than quality focused. So many businesses and this predates the likes of Purple Bricks. You know, that's that's how the three of us came up, I guess. You and I met there, Ross. And I think a lot of blame is placed at Purple Bricks' door for the commoditization of the industry and the reduction in fees. But you only have to look at some of the data that Chris Watkins shares to say that that isn't the case. Fees were dropping before Purple Bricks' inception. All they did was catalyze that machine. Where do you stand around the issue? Where do you stand around why the public have a ninety nine percent distaste and distrust of the industry? Coming back to your point firstly around Purple Bricks and the blame game around fees, the reason that the industry's fees went down wasn't because Purple Bricks was introduced, it's because everyone else failed to increase their value. Purple Bricks' business model was genius. Absolutely genius. You have to look at Kenny and Michael's bank balance to understand that. But the reality is that the reason the industry went on that slippery slope is because of what you've just said there. It's a quantity-based business at the moment. And I think that self-employed estate agency, going back to your previous point as well, has really helped clients and agents as well. And the industry as a whole just understand that actually, if you take a quality approach over the quantity approach, not only can you justify your fees a little bit better, which might mean that you get a little bit more balance back in your life because you only need to sell two houses rather than twenty. But actually, for the benefit of the home mover, unless you are kind of really, really focused on every single interaction with them, really focusing on the quality that you're delivering, really working day in, day out on your value proposition. The way that the world's going at the moment, people just aren't gonna want to work with you, right? So the options are out there. The more choice for the consumer, the better. I'm a firm believer in that. So I don't think the high street's going away. I don't think self-employed estate is going anywhere and everything in between. But as long as the customer's got choice and that choice is full of huge value, then the industry is only gonna continue to go in the right direction. I just think now that we're looking at it kind of holistically and we're looking at it from the whole of the market perspective, process is also broken so we could be the best estate agents in the world we could deliver the most incredible service but because the process is broken the client might not have the best experience and because there's a lack of education out there today what that leads to is them putting the blame on someone and invariably that is the agent very fair very fair Your journey then, so post Purple Bricks, obviously you then, if I have got this chronologically right, you then went from Purple Bricks to Keller Williams? Almost. I took a... Purple Bricks was great, firstly, right? Us boys met at Purple Bricks. And I've got to say, like, that kind of five years of my career, very similar to you boys, I kind of climbed that ladder and it gave me some fantastic opportunities that we hadn't had before, which was fab. We also had some fun, but we won't talk about that because I'm pretty sure our wives are probably... No, I'm only joking. But it was good, right? But when I left, it was the right time to leave. And actually, I don't know why I did this, to be honest, but I went back to Countrywide for six months. I don't really know what my mindset was at the time, if I'm completely honest, because looking back, I don't think that decision was based on any kind of logic whatsoever. But it was a real eye-opener for me because we talked earlier about some corporate estate agencies being very stuck in their ways. This is nothing personal against the people that work within that business or within Connells as it now is. But in my humble opinion, that is the broken model. That is the model that for me won't be around forever because it just is a quantity over quality approach. But yeah, I went from Countrywide after realizing it definitely wasn't for me into Keller Williams. And I was there for a good period of time. Got a lot of respect for those guys. And okay, they've kind of taken the backseat to eXp recently. I'm a big fan of both models. But what Keller Williams did for me is kind of open up some doors in terms of expanding my kind of mindset and my thought processes around what a state agency should be. They were brilliant at training and coaching and helping people understand that what we do is a relationship-based game. So, you know, speaking with their American agents, their coaches, it was a real education for me, which I'm really, really grateful for. But what it also did was open up my mind to the point that actually I probably should be doing this myself. So from Keller Williams where, you know, I learned a hell of a lot, but things didn't quite go as planned. In the background, I always had my mind on setting up my own brokerage, which is where Isla Alexander came into play. And that's kind of where we are now, Isla Alexander. So talk us through that. How old is Isla Alexander? What's the journey been like? What have been the learns along the way? Because I think Jack and I would be both humble enough to say we've learned so much in the three and a half years since we launched the avenue around. What has worked amazingly well? What works really well in terms of partnerships? What didn't work so well? What could actually crash a business? What's your take on all of that? Yeah, it's an interesting journey, right? So IA is two and a half years old. So two and a half years feels like I've been doing it for twenty and a half years. It's just been crazy, but it's been the best experience ever. So I launched the business from a fifteen thousand pound remortgage and borrowed a couple of thousand pounds from my mum. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I knew that I had to do something and I knew the money I needed to kind of get this off the ground. And what that business looked like two and a half years ago in comparison to what it is today, it's just a complete kind of it's a different beast, which is something that we're really proud of. But the reason it's a different beast is because one thing that I think that we've done quite well is fail really, really quickly, learn from our mistakes, but then not be afraid to change our approach very, very quickly as well. So it doesn't matter whether you do what you guys do and what we do in terms of building your own brokerage, or you're going to go into a model like EXP or Kelly Williams or whatever that might look like, or partner with us. I think one of the key messages that I've got for people is just get comfortable with the uncomfortable because there's going to be phases through your self-employed journey or your business ownership journey where the does hit the fan you know you're in a position where you know you've got to make decisions which you know might not from the outside seem like the right thing to do but unless you make those decisions actually you're going to be ten to ten steps backward very very quickly So our business model changed ever so slightly. People have come, people have gone now, but it's all been for the right reasons. And I think that as a business owner, one of the most important lessons that I've learned, something that I share very often with my guys and the people that I coach, is that actually if what you're doing aligns constantly with your morals and principles, and you can put your head on the pillow at the end of the night, understanding that what you're doing is for the right reasons, then you're not doing a bad job at all. But I think that sometimes when people fail in business, it's because they get led too quickly to the wrong things, that they think that success is an overnight journey, when in reality, it's the graph that nobody sees. It's the ridiculous hours that you put in and the sacrifices that you make that get you to where you want to get to over time, right? So get comfortable with the uncomfortable is the message that I've got because it ain't easy, but is it worth it? Absolutely. Yeah, we have a very similar phrase in our business as well. And Ross, for anyone, so there's a lot of different models out there and we've mentioned a few different self-employed models and brokerages. For anyone that's considering going into self-employed, what advice would you give them? Because there are so many different options out there. How is it that they can choose the fit that's going to be right for them? And again, I think it's fantastic there is so much choice out there. That's definitely an advantage for all of us within the world of estate agency because it's only going to drive the standards up. Like I said, we'll talk about open move later, but that is all about making the home mover front and centre always. And certainly that's what I think that the self-employed estate agency movement is doing right now. In terms of a bit of advice that I can give people, you've got to really decide what you want. So As an example, I think every self-employed brokerage in the land right now has to kind of be a cheerleader of eXp. because they're the ones at the forefront of this, six hundred agents. Adam's done a great job and they are the driving force within this kind of sector today. So if they win, the rest of us will win, like fact. However, what I would say to people looking at the different models is that you've really got to understand how self-employed estate agency works. And the reality is, is that when you're a self-employed estate agent, when you stop selling houses, guess what happens? you stop earning money, right? And I think that a lot of the self-employed brokerages out there today kind of push the ideology of, you know, this is fantastic. It's gonna be a game changer for you. Your life's gonna change overnight. You can have all the time back in the world and it's gonna be, you know, all lovely stuff. But the reality is far from that. Because the people that you see out there who've got hundred, hundred and fifty, two hundred grand pipelines, which is incredible, you know, to think that there's estate agents out there who are going to be earning half a million pounds a year. The craft that they put in is exceptional. So I think the key word that I think that I would share with you today that every single self-employed estate agent should look for within the businesses that they're thinking about joining is leverage. How much leverage is the business that you're going to be joining going to provide you to enable you to do the things that you love to do? i.e., have they got a back office support team? Do they answer all of your calls and book your appointments on your behalf? Have they got an in-house media team? Have they got social media support? Every single facet, the technology stack that they're using, every single facet of agency, full stop, are they providing you with that tool? Because in reality, I think that the best self-employed brokerages out there today are the ones that enable their agents to just focus on winning business and building relationships. I completely concur, and I wrote down, I wasn't sure whether you were going to go there because I think the route you've gone is absolutely one I'd agree with, having leverage, having the right support mechanisms. I think what I would be inclined to say is that a lot of – so I agree entirely with everything you've just said, but I think one of the big things that really, really good estate agents miss coming from, let's say, the online world of the purple bricks of the world or the traditional, because we're then the hybrid in the middle, right? Yeah. What they they don't really acknowledge is the learning required associated with building a business. And so that I feel probably then complements your leverage comment, because having the right support, having the right tools, having the right coaching. You know, we onboarded a couple of agents last week and one of them literally said, you know, How can anyone join this business and fail with the amount of tools and support and resource? How can they fail? And that's kind of what my goal was with building our onboarding process was very much get them thinking that way, because that then develops a level of confidence. But when they go on that journey, when they start hitting certain milestones, I feel the biggest trap that a lot of self-employed agents will start to fall into is they're very good at doing the job. are they good at being business owners? So I was on Rob Graves' podcast a couple of months ago, and I spoke about this kind of difference between self-employment and business ownership. And like I said, going back five minutes or so, what happens when you stop selling houses as a self-employed estate agent? you stop earning money. And I think that it's the real kind of interesting bottleneck that our industry is going to go through over the next five years, because you could have all the success in the world. You could be in hundreds of thousands of pounds as a self-employed broker, all the nice things that come with it. I'd be happy as Larry. But if you're not thinking like a business owner, when that comes to the stage where you do want to kind of start working on your business rather than in it, and you haven't got the systems and processes around you to enable you to do so, you're pretty screwed. So I think on that education piece, a huge part of our responsibility as estate agency brokerage owners is to educate our partners And all of those around us to enable them to think in the right way that will enable them to learn in the right way as to how they can build their business to enable them to have the life that they want to live. And that looks like leverage. That looks like growing a team. That looks like putting things in place where they've got passive income for life. Because otherwise, when it does come to that stage where they want to stop selling houses, they either can't. Or quite simply, they're just going to have no money in the bank. So that's going to be a real problem that we've got to solve over the coming years for sure. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. But I'd say for the industry and for the individuals, because as I say, I very much subscribe to the Richard Branson philosophy of look after the people and they will look after the customers. And so that's a nice problem to have. If we're in a position two, three, four, five years from now, I like Xander in the avenue, you know, you and I and Jack are having a conversation over a beer or a coffee. And we're like, so the big challenge we've got right now is that we've got all these people earning six figures a year doing really well. The customer's loving life. How do we make sure that they're financially secure for the future and can get off the hamster wheel? That's a nice problem to be having to try and solve. It's one of the best headaches that we could possibly provide, right? But it's certainly one that we've got to think about now because what we don't want it to do is smack us around the face in a few years' time when it actually happens. And look, I know you boys have had incredible success and a few of my agents are at the stage now where they're in six figures and they're kind of letting a team out and doing all the nice things, which is fantastic. But yeah, we definitely have to solve that because yeah, is someone having hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of income a year better than someone being stuck in an office on a twenty grand basic and ten grand commission on top? Yeah, I think so. But like I say, the kind of legacy issue there is helping people understand that with great power comes great responsibility. And what you do with that money to safeguard the rest of your family's future is vital. It's a completely different problem to have, isn't it? Like you've just said, we've got one agent in the business currently that is earning six figures, multi six figures, and is in a great position. Her challenge now is letting go and being able to buy back her time. It's a book that I'm reading at the moment, actually, that James recommended. But being able to buy back time, put the measures in place, put the systems and processes in place that's going to give her more time. to have that with family or folks. So like three books on that, right? So Rich Dad, Poor Dad is the obvious one because it helps you understand why becoming a business owner is so important, et cetera, et cetera. We know that one. But two other good ones in terms of systems and processes. You've got the e-myth. It's the entrepreneurial myth built to sell. Both are about systemizing your business to the point where when it does come time to step away, someone else can step in and it will just run seamlessly. Like the McDonald's handbook, as an example. That's what it's all about, right? So, yeah, it's an interesting kind of period of time when you go from working in your business to working on it. But it's one of the most empowering things if you get it right. absolutely absolutely it's an exciting time in the industry and I think the momentum is definitely gathering and like you said earlier you have to give props to the likes of exp they are the driving force um in the self-employed space so you have to give them massive props but it doesn't mean that that is the one size that will fit all um I think we've certainly recognized that our niche, and I'd imagine, and I wanna understand this from your perspective and whether you've now established this. In the early stages, we did see some agents come and go, as you referred to earlier, but I think we've now hit this groove where we really clearly understand, we knew what our niche was in terms of our client, in terms of customers, home sellers, but we carved out our niche along the journey around understanding who our target agent is, and it isn't everyone. Have you kind of come to the same conclusion with IA? Yeah. So, you know, you boys will know because, you know, you followed my journey as closely as I followed yours, that when we first launched, it was kind of throwing shit at a wall and trying to make it stick because we were just doing everything that we can to get through that first twelve to eighteen months. Whereas what's happened recently is we've aggregated our business to become South Wales based. We've grown the lettings business, the mortgage business. alongside the sales business. I've now got three directors and each of those who own shares within each business kind of running the day to day. And what that's enabled me to do is kind of take a step back and understand how we can improve the business from a kind of, you know, long-term kind of point of view and the kind of conclusion that I've come to is that yes we do rely on these kind of big boys with huge American backing taking the market by storm and proving that the concept works but I'm actually banking on the fact that self-employed estate agency will actually become a little bit more local in the future. And what I mean by that is that I'm a big believer in community. So if you can become the go-to person within your local community when anyone who thinks of property thinks of you, it's not a bad place to start, right? So I do anticipate that, you know, we've all got slightly different business models, but the Avenue, Isla Alexander, Avocado, Marco Harris, more geographically based agents who might have aspirations to grow, but actually never losing sight of where you've come from and the communities that have got you there. That's probably where self-employed estate agency will end up. So I think community and kind of, you know, local hubs where people can come together and kind of collaborate. I use that word again at a really high level for the benefit of the home mover. That's where I'm banking on the industry heading. I like that. Yeah, I can see that as well. Before we move into your latest venture, and if anyone is on LinkedIn and is in any way remotely connected to the world, or a state agency, and isn't aware of this brand that you're about to unveil in the new year, then they must be living under a rock. But before we go there, my question to you, and you've mentioned it probably, I've been counting it up, I might have missed one, at least maybe four, possibly five times, the word coach or coaching. And you obviously mentioned that you have a coach that you work with. You placed a lot of value there, right? Huge, huge. So I started working with a guy called Phil Hanlon probably three months ago, genuinely only three months ago. I have previously worked with other coaches purely on a business point of view and perspective, specifically within a state agency, especially when I was at Keller Williams, in all fairness. But working with Phil over the last three, four months has really just opened my mind to what's achievable. it's opened my mind to the support networks that are out there and it's got me thinking in a way that's so different to what my old mindset was that my vision for what my future and what my family's future looks like has gone from a twelve-year plan to a four-year plan um and that's significant so it's where open move has come from it's it's an incredible kind of period of time in my life that I'm going through right now because at the end of the day I wasn't expecting to have a tech business at the start of twenty twenty four. But by working with a coach who enables me to do what I need to do kind of in my thought process and giving me that kind of room to think properly, it really has given me all the opportunity in the world. So if anyone out there doesn't work with a coach currently or doesn't have an accountability partner within the business that they work with as a bare minimum, you absolutely have to. Because it just is a game changer on so many different levels. Love that. I love that. And the reason I touched on it is, A, you've mentioned it half a dozen times. B, I knew that it was something that was really important to you. And I knew that you would articulate the message around how important coaching is. And I can't get the message across enough to support what you've just said in so much as the best investment any human being will ever make is not in property. It's not in stocks and shares. It's not in crypto. It's in themselves. Yeah. I've just come off a call with Simon Gates, literally just before we jumped on together. And we're gonna be working closely together on a couple of bits and pieces over the coming months. So keep an eye on that as well, which is really exciting. But we talk about it all the time, all the time. And it's almost like we have little check-ins with each other because we understand the importance of that accountability piece. It doesn't matter what kind of coach that you work with, whether it be purely business, purely personal or a mixture of both. Having someone by your side who can hold you to account, can tell you some real hard truths when it's needed, but to also give you the leg up that you need sometimes. Like I see Phil on a Monday afternoon and I've had a pretty tough week personally, a couple of bereavements of the family and things like that. And I wasn't down in the dumps, but you're in a reflective mood sometimes. And I came out of the hour and a half that I had with him yesterday and I was like a different bloke. Like that's the power of it, right? It's that mental capacity to enable you to do what you do best. So anyone listening to this who hasn't worked with a coach previously, please just go and get your free session at least because it works. Love it. Your advice. A hundred percent. Go on then. I haven't been busting to talk about it for the last twenty six minutes. I promise. Come on then. Let's unlock that gate. Yeah, okay. So I probably have been doing people's heads in a little bit on LinkedIn because at the end of the day, we're building a brand, right? But the nice thing here is that we're building a brand for the right reason. Just before we jumped on this call, I briefly said to you boys, the reason that I'm doing this is because I've got a little bit pissed off with the industry as a whole. And that's the whole of the property industry to include us as agents, your conveyances and your mortgage brokers. because I think the lack of collaboration and transparency within our industry only dampens our experience but actually the worst bit about it is that the person that suffers most is the home mover now I don't think that's intentional at all like zero I have zero kind of thought processes in my mind that lead me towards the conclusion that any any part of that is intentional But what we have to realise as an industry, that unfortunately, there are parts of the estate agency conveyancing and mortgage brokerage journey and processes that are a little bit archaic and a little bit broken. So what OpenMove is, is not going to try and change that process. That's up to Keir Starmer, not Ross McKenzie. What it is gonna do is tackle some of the issues head on and really encourage all of us to come together for the benefits of the home mover. And boys, I know from your perspective and with The Avenue, the customer's at the forefront of everything that you do, right? Absolutely. That's what it's all about, your partners and the client. And for the first time ever, us as a community of agents working with our preferred conveyancers or the client's choice of conveyancer and the mortgage broker are going to have the opportunity to come together work on behalf of the home mover together provide all communication channels in one place so there's no more multiple whatsapp groups and scrambling around for updates and constantly chasing a sale and I'm so passionate about the fact that if we do this right and if we get this right for the home mover Our industry could change forever because the trust rating won't be at ten percent anymore. It'll be at sixty, seventy percent. I think nurses are at eighty percent and they're the most trusted in the UK, which is amazing, of course. But our industry is full of good people. So now is the opportunity from my perspective to start showcasing that. Yeah you've mentioned a lot about collaboration it sounds like this is really going to do what it's needed to collaborate and bring everyone together and I'm sure everyone's busy estate agents mortgage advisors solicitors everyone is really really busy and I think the reason there's so much frustration is because we're everyone's so busy you end up taking out on those others that you're supposed to be working with not against and we're all looking to get the same outcome so I think, like you said, you keep mentioning collaboration. I think it's so important for us to be able to collaborate more for, like you said, for the client. Essentially, they're going to get better experience. And I think that we're ready for it. Going back to one of our earlier kind of conversations within this, we were talking about the kind of developments of South Port Estate Agency and the kind of high streeters or whatever we want to call them, getting that act together and really starting to improve what they do. And I think it's fantastic. I think, you know, before I started the OpenMove journey and I'll kind of talk you through the product in a second, but before I started the journey, one of the biggest concerns for me was conveyances. But actually every single conveyance that I'm speaking to and choosing to speak to, that's important. We don't want to open the floodgates to everyone. We want people who use OpenMove to be, you know, the most highly rated, the most highly respected. It's going to be a stamp of authority. And it's something that your clients can look at and say, yeah, I want to be part of that because I know you're associated with OpenMove. But of the conveyances that I have spoken to, absolutely every single one of them has said, look, if this is going to benefit my client's journey, I'm in. And they've also said if it stops the estate agents calling me three hundred times a day, I'm also in. So there's clear benefit there too. that you know where I'm coming from right so look our launch is december the twelfth um we've got so many exciting things coming on the road map um that are just gonna you know really really make your lives easier as a community of property experts but actually our minimum viable product that the product that we're launching to the market on december the twelfth is all about collaboration jack um what it's going to enable the customer to do is build their own team with recommendations from you as their agent as well. So say your client downloads the OpenMove app, you're going to be able to recommend your chosen mortgage advisor. you're going to be able to recommend your chosen conveyancer. They'll also have the opportunity to shop around within our marketplace and see within their local area who is the best conveyancer based on reviews, who is the best broker based on time to completion and time to offer and so on and so forth. But actually, once they've chosen their team, the golden nugget for me is the ability to bring all three of those service providers together into one really cool chat function alongside the HomeMover. So you can send market updates. You can do AML checks. You've got a few of the bells and whistles that we're gonna build into the product over the coming months as well, all in one place. But the key element for this is that there's been no more chasing. The seller is going to be updated at the click of a button. And that kind of really straightforward and easy way to collaborate between the chain is going to be vital. We can communicate up the chain and down the chain by email at the moment. So again, that's going to take an element of workload from the support teams around you. And I'm just so excited to see how it pans out. Like deep down, I am so kind of passionate about this from a point of view that if we just bring everyone together and the home mover has a better experience, we've just got nothing to lose. On that basis, it can't, go wrong because communication is the number one reason people get upset right that that's the reality if communication was more fluid around for example if there are search delays if there was better communication channels around that then people won't get frustrated at the conveyancer and saying it's taking too bloody long because the but they don't know why they don't ask for why they just simply place blame whereas in this scenario if it can be dropped in look we've applied for searches we've been told the estimated date of of return is this. This is what we're expecting in terms of mortgage offer. This is what this draft contract has been issued. These are the inquiries that all of a sudden it's all in one place. And like you say, it removes that. You said it tongue in cheek, but it's true. You know, it's not just state agents. It's mortgage brokers now are equally chasing solicitors as hard. And you've got whole not brokerages, the intermediaries who are putting teams and teams and team people in place just to be that middleman, just to be that conduit in the middle that essentially open move almost makes redundant. The beauty of this is that it's all home mover centric, right? And the benefits of the home mover are so obvious that it's not even worth us talking about them. everything's going to be available to them in one place with everyone available to them at the click of a button we are going to limit the amount of messages that people can send because we don't want you know karen sending a thousand messages a week saying what's the update what's the update we want people working together collaboratively but um yeah like there's there's obvious benefits to the home mover but the benefits to the estate agents are huge you know how long do we spend every single week every single month chasing solicitors for an update that should take two seconds. But because people are busy through no fault of their own, because they've got huge workloads through no fault of their own, and because clients are also very, very demanding, that small update that we could actually get at the click of a button takes eight phone calls, plenty of left messages, plenty of calling back, they miss you. You know what it gets like, right? So we can save you a lot of time. We can obviously look at speed of completion as well. You know, I think there's a lot of products out there claiming to make things quicker. So I'm not going to kind of sing from the rooftops about that. But I think that's pretty obvious that it could help that as well. Maybe start seeing our pipeline four times a year rather than three that we're seeing at the moment. But one of the best parts about this, and I've said this a few times on various different podcasts over the past month, is that it's the accountability piece for me that's important. That in-house fighting between conveyances and estate agents with mortgage brokers just backing off in the background and saying, oh, I don't want to get involved, it's gone. Because the home mover can see everything. And what that means is that if someone is not putting their weight within that transaction, actually that will clearly be highlighted throughout the whole journey. So the home seller will know exactly who they need to go to to get things fixed. Because the final two parts of what we're doing is education and accountability. So education, you've mentioned already, we're gonna have a moving journey tracker within that chat function. And at every single stage where we need to help the seller understand what's happening, we're gonna provide educational documents to them. So, for instance, the box has been ticked to say inquiries have been raised. Well, instantly our AI bot is going to come in and say, hey, here's our article on what this means, what you now need to do. Now the inquiries have been raised and this is what the answer should look like. What we're also enabling ourselves to do for the benefit of the home mover and the service providers as well is implement AI within to the chat. And this is a little bit controversial, but I bloody love it. Say the box has been ticked to say that searches have been applied for two weeks ago by the conveyancer. And we have data at OpenMove that tells us that within Cardiff, the geographical area, the local authority search takes ten days and we're two weeks down the track, the AI bot will come in and say, hey, you haven't given us the update yet to say that the searches have actually come on to file and inquiries haven't been raised. What's going on? So we're also using AI to really push the chain forward and make sure that the completion date happens when it should happen. That's fantastic. That's the thing is that sometimes I feel things aren't happening sometimes quickly enough. But then especially for the home mover, they either haven't moved for such a long time or it could be the first time they're actually moving, buying and selling. So they don't know how long these things are expected to take. They don't know what the next step is. So I think the education piece is huge. I think if we can improve that back end as well, I think a lot of sellers think once they've marketed the house, they get excited to say it's amazing and they sell their property and they're even more excited. But then there's still a long way to go from there, isn't there? From when we agree that sale, there's still weeks that we have to wait for completion to take place and for them to move on to the next chapter. One hundred percent, Jack. And what we don't want to do with OpenMove is provide extra workflows for you and your teams. What we want to do is reduce the workflows whilst increasing the touch points. So the introduction of AI holding people to account. Yes, it will be in there once a fortnight saying, has the seller had their update from a marketing perspective? It will be in there saying to the solicitor, hey, we're two weeks in and draft contracts haven't gone out. It will be in there saying to the mortgage broker, hey, I know you applied for the mortgage a month ago. When's the offer due in? But that's so important, because at the moment, what happens is that the estate agents asking those questions to the conveyancer, the conveyancer gets their backs up and say, well, I'm doing the best I can. And actually, rather than having that in-house fighting, let's collaborate and work together to make this better. And that accountability piece is going to really make that happen. So yeah, not only am I excited to bring people together and really encourage you know, everything being centered around the client. I'm secretly a little bit excited about the AI piece and making sure that the standards are industry improved as well. And I really like that. I think as well, there's probably less chasing that's going to happen because if you know the search is not due back for two weeks, if you do chase during that time to ask for the searches, then the solicitor or whoever is well within their right to say, piss off, we're in two weeks time, leave us to it. But if you know when they're expected, then you don't need to chase. Yeah, it was an interesting kind of realization when we, this has happened quite a few times with various different things, but searches in particular, like the data is available to everyone. Like everyone can see the data that's available in terms of how quickly a local authority is getting searches back. So we were like, well, if we've got that data, let's bloody use it. And at the end of the day, it's just gonna benefit the home mover and the purchasers and the chain. Jack knows this about me. I love an acronym. So you mentioned it earlier about having systems and processes. So in the avenue, we've got the playbook and it's got lots of bits and pieces, basically an agent journey. But then I was thinking to myself, as you were talking through their collaboration, education, accountability, I'm like, what you've created there is ACE. accountability collaboration and education it's just ace that's why I love you mate because that's all I'm asking booklets now but you know it is though you know it just it works because ultimately it's all well and good collaborating but if there isn't an education for the client they're still going to chase things that they aren't educated on and don't understand and If there isn't accountability, then having the collaboration is just going to lead to infighting just in a different format. So in reality, you've covered all the bases within the OpenMove framework, and it's ace. I love that. And that's why I love you. Like I say, super important to us as well. Like I say, less workflows, more touch points. We're doing things like integrating with CRM systems. We've had some fantastic meetings with Rex, with Loop, with Streets, and we're working closely with those guys and other case management systems from a conveyances perspective. to ensure that any communication that happens within the OpenMove platform from your perspective and the OpenMove app from the client's perspective, all notes can get pulled through into your CRM system seamlessly. So it's just happening, right? So we don't want this to become a solution for the solution's sake. We're not just creating problems for the sake of creating problems. The industry is broke. But what we're doing is creating a new way of doing things that is home mover centric is actually just going to fit in seamlessly to what anyone is actually doing right now because it's all at the click of a button. So it's exciting, boys. I'm super kind of when you're launching any new business, there's a mixture of apprehension and excitement and all those things that go on. I really couldn't have wished for a better kind of reaction from the industry. We've got some really big names signed up and we're offering a three-month trial to everyone. And I'm just super grateful to have the opportunity to see if I can help people's businesses. That's what it's all about, right? Love that. So if people want to connect with you, Ross, in order to find out more about OpenMove and how they can get the more detailed demo, I think you've given a really robust explanation on the pod right here in the last ten minutes or so. But if anyone wants to go that little bit deeper, how can they connect with you and how can they find out more? Yeah, for sure. So I'm probably doing everyone's heading on LinkedIn at the moment, posting about it every single day anyway. So you can certainly find me on there. And any support is greatly received in terms of likes and shares, because genuinely, this is just about improving the process for the home mover and the service providers in one place. But LinkedIn is always the place to be. But obviously, from my perspective, launch on December the twelfth is going to be a huge day for us where we can really start sharing the full capabilities of what it is that we can do. And we're just looking to work with good people, good people who deliver a fantastic service. It doesn't matter if you sell one house a month or a thousand houses a month. If you're a good service provider and you enable your clients to understand what the journey should really look like, then we'd love to hear from you because we can certainly help. Love it. Love it. Well, we're right behind you. We've got involved in the launch trial. So interested and keen to explore how it unfolds. And maybe it's worth a chat offline in case you need some intros to certain people that you haven't mentioned that you're talking to. But Ross, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us. And I really look forward to seeing the continued growth of IA, but equally the launch and I've no doubt success of OpenMove. So mate, thank you for joining us. Boys, I really appreciate it. And I think it just comes back your way to say that you guys need to keep doing what you're doing with the avenue because a lot of us are looking up to you guys right now and you're doing an incredible job within the industry. So keep it going, lads. Thank you, man. You're a gem. Thank you. Until next month.