Creating Freedom Through Structure | How Estate Agents Can Transform Their Business Overnight

In this eye-opening episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass, we welcome the brilliant Holly Boylan, the operational powerhouse behind The Avenue. Holly is the backbone of the business, running everything from customer service to partner support, ensuring every process is seamless and every client has a premium experience. Her insights are invaluable for anyone looking to bring structure and efficiency to their estate agency business.

If you're a self-employed estate agent striving for freedom—whether that’s financial freedom, time freedom, or simply freedom from the chaos of reactive working—this episode is for you. Holly reveals how implementing systems and processes can reduce stress, streamline operations, and create consistency in your business, without compromising on quality or creativity.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The power of a "perfectly repeatable week": How to create a schedule that balances productivity and flexibility.
• Why structure equals freedom: Debunking the myth that systems stifle creativity.
• Breaking down lead generation: Practical ways to measure success and improve results through metrics.
• Delegation and automation tips: Learn how to identify your "£10 tasks" and delegate or automate them effectively.
• AI tools like ChatGPT: How to use them to save time, boost creativity, and level up your marketing game.

Holly also shares practical examples of how systems can be tailored to individual businesses, helping agents avoid common pitfalls and focus on what truly matters: growth, client satisfaction, and achieving their goals.

Whether you’re just launching your self-employed estate agency or looking to scale to new heights, this episode will leave you with actionable tips and renewed inspiration. Holly's no-nonsense approach and wealth of knowledge make this an unmissable listen for estate agents who want to systemise their success and reclaim control of their time.

Tune in now and start your journey towards creating a business that works for you, not the other way around.

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass. Today I am joined by none other than Miss Holly Boylan. Holly Boylan is the beating heart of the Avenue business, running all of the operations, the customer service, the client experience, the processes, everything that goes on behind the scenes to support the partners in terms of process and structure. Holly has a handle on it. So Holly, welcome to the Elite Agent Masterclass. How are you? I'm good. Thank you very much for having me. It's been a long time coming, I feel. What a way to start. You know, I'm kind of a big deal, Holly. Well, no, I think that the agents need to be able to do what they do. So the back end does need to be strong. Absolutely agree. And that's why we wanted to get you on. Obviously, you run the operational side of things for us within the avenue. But the idea behind the shares today was really for those that aren't a part of our brand, that want to systemize their business, that want to create more leads on autopilot, that want to be able to serve their clients in a much cleaner way. You can give some insight into how that might look. So first off, before we go into that, How did you end up in a position of running the ops? I think, to be honest, I don't actually know exactly how it happened, but long and short of it, I've always been really good at following a very strict process at any point in my career. So when it actually came to joining the avenue in a partner capacity and having you know, there wasn't all that infrastructure ready on day one. I think feeling that on the other side to then come into behind the scenes of the business, I understand how to lay out a clear usable process that will actually help them not hinder them. Okay. But processes for me have always been the way that I can conquer in a role no matter what it was. And I've always very much appreciated when someone's already thinking of the next logical step. Love that. And I think for a lot of estate agents, listen to this. A lot of estate agents are quite... Let's call them... I want to be respectful because it isn't meant or intended to be disrespectful, but quite reactive beasts, quite reactive to scenarios. And... Where am I leading there? Things get done in the moment rather than, you know, structured and considered and thought through. I think especially in the world of self-employed estate agency. So give some context around what you then do to make life easier through process and structure. Because I think for most people that come from a sales environment in particular, process and structure is like the antichrist to them. So how does it help? Have I articulated the question clearly enough for you to kind of... Yeah, no, I'm clear. I think... Yeah, exactly that. It's not the most enjoyable thing to set up and integrate. It's one of the more boring tasks when you're visiting, you know, beautiful properties and clients that just share stories with you. Of course, it's the last priority of the day. But, and it's easy to let that go when you're working with volume, because you've got to serve what's right in front of your face. And it's quite hard to get away from that. But especially if you're steering your own shift, There's no good trying to implement process when you're already suffering with the problem. The whole idea of having processes is that you already know at what point you are going to face such challenges. So you get ahead of that and it feels easier, the transition, while it's not necessarily needed, but it's a nice to have at that moment. OK, so building processes in as part of the foundations. So the point of this episode is to help people with the idea of building processes and structure into their business, not to promote the avenue. I must make that very, very clear. But obviously you build out the processes and operational stuff for us at the avenue to help the partners. So I think what I'm going to ask you here is to give some examples of the types of things that people could build into their business. You know, some like what can they take away off the back of this call and go, right, that is going to make my life easier. or it's going to make the client experience better. It's going to generate me more opportunities, or it's going to do something that's going to put my business into autopilot, but without compromising on quality. So, I think the main thing that I cling on to there is that you should have a rinse and repeat for every single property and the way that leads come in. So if you treat the leads with the same milestones, but not necessarily the same approach, you will know what part of that process you need to work on if you, for example, struggle with lead gen coming into your business. If you're at a successful point in your business where you've got organic clients, you're attracting clients, and it's not always about the chase, then you definitely need to consider how you can up fees to serve those clients. But we're putting processes in. So, for example, if you're not running a repeatable week of having the same diary structure for the same triggers each week, I would heavily advise that you should always look at tasks that you're regularly doing. If you're not seeing, you know, fruits of the reward from like lead gen input, it's because probably you're not measuring the metrics behind that. So if you're not measuring your metrics of how much it's taking you to get leads into your business, I would definitely start there no matter what. So it's hard to give exacts of where you could go. But I think you need, first of all, you need to understand where your problems lie. Is it with them coming in? Is it serving the clients that are currently in your business? Or is it about attracting recurring clients? OK, so I think to put that into almost an acronym that we use, I guess it's then having structure and process connected to the iLaser framework. Right. So if you haven't got enough leads coming in, which is the L in iLaser, then you've got to look at the inputs, which is the I. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So in that scenario, if lead generation is the agent's problem, they then need to look at the inputs and then understand them. So if I understand what you're sharing with us there, if, for example, we use, let's say, direct mail as the lead generation strategy, they then need to be looking at, OK, how many letters have gone out? If there is then an action that the person needs to take, so a lot of our direct mail will have either a QR code or a URL that redirects the person to gain more information, et cetera. So measuring then the amount of letters that have gone, the amount of next steps that have been taken. So that might be QR code scanned or URLs that have been typed in because that can all be tracked and measured. And then how many people have then picked up the phone to have a conversation around the content that they've received. And how many of those have turned into market appraisals? And then how many of those have turned into instructions? So that then is then a measurable for that one piece of lead gen. Yeah, exactly. Because if you if you say your problem, for example, is leads and it's an overarching big umbrella, that can feel quite overwhelming to try and fix or improve in your business. But if you scale it back into subcategories like that, then you can understand what needs changing. So you can make minor changes. Don't change everything at once. Monitor how it's been since you've made that minor change and then look at the other areas that could possibly improve. Because if you keep changing using the instance of direct mail, If you send a different letter each time, you're not going to know whether it's a good letter or not. There's no such thing as, you know, the perfect magic letter because it can't achieve what you want it to achieve in one hit. Yeah. Yeah, no, and again, I guess the context behind that would be the copy within the letter. If you change that and then you change the QR code or you change what was behind the QR code or you change the URL and you did it all in one go, you're never actually going to know what worked. Yeah, and you're doing work for the sake of it, and that's going to put you to a place in your business where you're being busy for the sake of it, not actually... reaping the reward because most agents go into self-employed agency for the work-life balance to not have to serve the volume. So if you're constantly busy with mind tasks, it doesn't achieve your overall goal. I think there's a big piece to this as well. A recurring theme from a lot of people that I speak to that are looking at becoming self-employed or that are already in the self-employed space, whether it be within the Avenue brand or other brands, one of the big words that comes up is freedom. whether that be financial freedom or whether it be freedom time freedom. The word freedom is at the heart of a lot of the decision making. And the way I interpret your role and the way I interpret what you do is that by having systems and processes and what we've referred to as a perfectly repeatable week, which we'll double back on in a minute, A lot of people will go, but that feels like I'm putting constraints in place. I'm having to measure stuff all the time. And I've got to do that thing on repeat over and over and over again. And I think that could be very easy for people listening in to go that are very sales focused, that are very in the disc profile, very eye dominant. They just want to do the thing. They want to interact with lots of people. They just want to do loads and loads of stuff. They could look at that as being a bit suffocating, having all this process and structure and perfectly repeatable weeks and all this sort of stuff. I, as the person that historically would have resisted structure and process, and I like to do, I'm a doer, I actually look at it now and I think that's actually provided me with freedom. Having that structure, having that perfectly repeatable week, I know what I've got to do. It removes the stress. It removes the overwhelm because I haven't got to think about it. I just go in and go, okay, it's Tuesday. Today I have two hours allocated in my morning diary to creating marketing material that will be distributed across social media for the rest of the week. Cool. Let's go. I don't have to think about it. I just do it. Yeah, and I think – go on, James. No, no, no. I think freedom, a lot of people usually think that that is like the financial freedom statement, but that's such a different kettle of fish. But to me, the freedom just comes in by... you can actually then like disassociate with your job outside of those working hours. Because if you are constantly chasing your tail with the minor things in your business that can easily be put into a system and a process, then you'll never actually have in that downtime outside of the business. Because a lot of people would say, Oh, I could never run my own business, I need a life, I need the work life balance, I like that you can shut the laptop at five o'clock. But You can do that by running your own business as long as it's systemized and processed. You can have holidays and not even engage because you put things in place. Totally agree. And I think that then comes through the phases, doesn't it? A lot of the conversation that we have on the podcast is geared towards agents first launching their businesses. But I think a lot of what we're sharing today is about once you have launched and you've put these basic foundational processes and structures in place, When you hit certain milestones, you can then tweak those processes and structures. But equally, there are also milestone triggers where you need to start considering the work that you're doing. And for example, we quantify jobs based on their value and what they bring to the business, right? So a ten pound task, a hundred pound task, a thousand pound task or a ten thousand pound task. And when an agent first launches, they have to do all tasks, right? but there will that be that trigger point that comes in the journey where they need to start really assessing their business and going okay let's look at these ten pound tasks what are they and what can I do with them how can I delegate them how can I automate them and I think that's what you do very well within the avenue brand is looking at those ten pound tasks and then as people as agents then scale through their businesses and they start earning more and they attract more clients organically they need to start looking at delegating the hundred pound tasks Yeah, if people resist it because they think that it's, you know, putting the cash straight out that's coming into the business, those milestones that we're referring to, your time is so much more valuable than ten pound or a hundred pound and eventually a thousand pound where you are just costing yourself in the long run anyway and resisting what could really help you push back beyond the next barriers. Totally agree. Totally agree. And I just wanted to just reassure myself that the calculation I've been on a few calls today. So I just wanted to reassure that the calculation I was just working out was correct. So as an exercise for those of you that are listening in, there's an exercise that I'd encourage you to do to work out what your hourly buyback rate is. So if you are looking at going self-employed, you can put these milestones in place. And the way it works is you take your annual salary as it is today, divide it by two thousand. So, for example, let's use a nominal figure. Yeah. So if someone was earning around thirty K, I'm just trying to take what a typical estate agency salary would be. So thirty K a year. Live demo look divided by two thousand. That means that someone who is earning thirty thousand pound a year has a fifteen pound an hour buyback rate. OK. Oh, sorry. That's the hourly rate. So. The way the maths then works is twenty five percent of that becomes your buyback rate. Apologies. So fifteen pound an hour for someone who's on thirty thousand pound a year. a typical week which is about thirty eight to forty hours works out fifteen pound an hour so the buyback rate should be twenty five percent of that figure so it works out about three pounds seventy five in this scenario now you could be sitting there thinking okay I can't delegate anything for three pounds seventy five an hour okay in the world of employment that may be true but for a self-employed agent there will be key milestones let's for argument's sake say um if they were earning seventy five thousand pound a year divided by the two thousand gives them thirty seven pound fifty an hour times twenty five percent means they've got a buyback rate of nine pound thirty eight and again some people are listening thinking what can what can you do to buy back at nine pound thirty eight well there are vas in other parts of the world for between three and ten dollars an hour that are very capable of doing a lot of what we call the ten pound tasks And it's then about looking outside the box to go, OK, cool. What have I got on my workload that one of these people that can support me remotely can then do for me based on my buyback rate? And by doing it on twenty five percent of your hourly rate, it means that that hour you've got that entire hour back for twenty five percent of what the hour is paid you. And you can then repurpose that hour into generating thousands of pounds into your business. And that's quite a simple concept, right? Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily have to even be remote help. I mean, you could even consider that as a software or a tool in your business that makes a job that takes you manually an hour and a half each week to five minutes and a download time. For example, if you were looking at like editing software or like AI tools, it could just be AI that helps you do that, which is very low cost per year to use like ChatGPT, for example, even on a pro account. So it doesn't have to be that evil, but anything that is a process can be done by VAs. Anything. And I love the fact that you bring up that tech and tools and what have you can also play the part because ChatGPT, what a time saver. If you can prompt it in the right way, you could save hours, hours upon hours upon hours, as long as you can prompt it in the right way. And like you say, a pro account isn't expensive, but what it gives you back in terms of quality output is an absolute game changer in terms of time saving exercise and productivity. And some people might hear the quality output line that you just used and raise their eyebrow. But I promise you, if you're listening and you've used the AI tools and you've got a rubbish response back, it's because you give it a rubbish instruction. So whatever you feed the machine dictates what comes out the machine. And I have gone on such a journey with that in the last year since it first got introduced to me. And now I feel like I'm pretty much cracking it. And honestly, there's not much in my day now that I don't consult AI for. We did it the other day, didn't we? What were we working on? Oh, we were building something in Excel, weren't we? And we were both like, ah, I'm okay with Excel. I would like to think I'm actually quite good with it. And we were like, how do we connect back to that? And you went, ask chat. So we literally prompted Chachi PT with what it is we were trying to achieve. It gave us the code. We copied and pasted the code, changed some of the numbers, bingo, connected up what we wanted it to do. And Holly, I love what you said there. It's not the outcome that is the issue. It's the input being wrong that will dictate whether or not what you get back is good enough. Oh, a hundred percent. And the easiest way that people can start that journey is is download it on your iPhone or your Android, use the app, but instead of typing into chat, dictate, there's like a voice note feature, And by getting your tone, your speed, your accent, it gives it so much more to be able to give you responses more suited to you. And if you wanted to then take it to a next level, you could get your DISC profile done, attach that, put it into ChatGPT and then ask it to do what you're asking it to do, written as you, bearing in mind that this is your profile. And that's that's the mind blowing thing with ChatGPT now, isn't it? And all these different we're using ChatGPT in our business, but there's plenty of other equivalents out there. But it's the fact that it has a memory. So if you put your disk profile in and then ask it to talk according to your disk profile and also talk according to your tonality, the words you use dictating to it, it learns so much quicker how to communicate like you. A hundred percent. And for agents thinking, okay, but what do I use that for? Marketing ideas, captions on social media. You could even consult it for the copy in your direct mail, blogs, if you've got a microsite or a website, but even just, you know, professional emails that are just long to write, but you know what you want to do. It's quite straightforward. You could literally just save minutes a day by doing that. Totally agree. A bit of a pause on the line there, Holly. Do apologise. We froze, I think. It's all right. Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi problems. Gotta love Wi-Fi. We're talking about tech and AI and then the Wi-Fi's not working properly. You touched on something there. Content for social media. So some people are really uncomfortable with the idea of going on video, right? And so I thought the other day, there was one I can't remember who I suggested it to, and they're like, I just don't know what to say. I'm like, well, have you asked you at GPT? And they laughed at me. Why is it funny? Like you don't know what to say on a video to tell ChatGPT what it is you're trying to achieve and ask it to script it for you. But don't don't type it. Dictate to it. It will understand your tonality and the message you're trying to create. And equally, when you dictate to it, it will be a lot more raw than you thinking about what you're typing. What you type can probably skew the outcome. yeah so very very powerful anyone listening in that's not using chat gpt or an equivalent in their business um I would strongly urge you just to play with it play with chat gpt try and break it there's nothing it can't do so you know go on there and ask it if you're looking to get in you know this this episode will go out at the beginning of december so if you're like one of these new year's resolutioners that's got a plan to get fit in the new year ask it to create your workout plan See what happens. Ask it to create you a diet plan. See what happens. Ask it to create a schedule for you to create the perfectly repeatable week based on what you want to achieve. Interestingly, and this is where I think, Holly, you shared this with me and I was like, I really like that. We have all grown up in an era of Google, right? So with Google, we're very used to asking it questions and it gives us answers. Whereas with AI and ChatGPT and Gemini and all these various AI platforms, you need to learn to ask it questions. But equally, you need to learn to tell it what it needs to understand. And the best way to do that is to ask it questions. I want to do X. What questions can you ask me to help you understand how to help me do X? Yeah, honestly, when I first realized that, that it could give you feedback. I was a little bit blown away. You can even ask it if I'm trying to do X, is this the right prompt to give you? How can I improve my prompt if I want this outcome? If you're really clear on what you want the outcome to be, it can work backwards from that. You don't have to use your brain. Yeah. But equally, if you've nailed a prompt that you can use. again and again, but for a different category, for example, say if you're looking at social media, that then means it doesn't have to be you. So you can give that tool, give that prompt to a VA, and they can do the task a little bit closer as if you was doing it. hundred percent hundred percent so quite a big section on ai there and there's so much more that we could go through but I think there's a few little golden nuggets in there that people can take away we've mentioned it a couple of times we said we'd circle back on it perfectly repeatable week what does that mean in reality holes it means that if you consistently do that you will have a productive and efficient but a fulfilled week and I'm not someone pardon how does someone build one Start with your non-negotiables for the week. So that is things like, you know, your responsibilities at home or who you commit to, what you need to do, kids, animals, gym, anything that is non-negotiable in your week. Those are the big items that you're not going to move. It's not about sacrificing them. It's about building around them. The big ones. The big rock. Yeah, exactly. The second thing that you then put in is, you know, the project like tasks or the things that are already built into the week. If you've got any appointments already booked, that's where they're going. They're not going to be moved. Can I just can I just propose something on that? I've got this vision of the perfectly repeatable week for someone, let's say, that's launching their business. So. If they've put their big rocks in first, so let's say the gym goes in. So eight o'clock every morning, they are committed to going to the gym. So eight till nine, that's locked in. Okay, cool. So that doesn't get overrun by anything else. Should people then chunk their time? And what I mean by that is when their business starts to become more established, rather than just reacting to whenever clients want to book a viewing or book evaluation, should they have times during the week that are allocated specifically to conducting customer-facing business? Hundred percent. And when I first started my career in a state agency, that was obviously with you many years ago. That was a rule that you gave me. And I felt like I was fully in control of my day because it was like, no, viewings don't go in until one p.m. in the afternoon, minimum. No, not available. Not even a question. Obviously, adverse, adverse circumstances. But they would happen like, you know, a few times a quarter. But other than that. You have to allow a little bit of flex for anomalies. Right. But the idea is, is this this is the rule, not the exception. So there's always going to be exceptions, but the rule. So in my mind, if you end up just reacting to clients wins whenever they want you to be available to them, there is no time to do the really important stuff that keeps your business in momentum. And so that's why I brought it up because I think having times that are allocated, you know, the way my local business has been structured is that viewing appointments are on a Saturday. If the client can't make the Saturday, then Friday evening, four o'clock till six o'clock is available. They can't make that. Then we can make ourselves available on a Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon from free. There are lots of opportunities within the week for people to be able to view. And there are extenuating circumstances where we can flex. But without that structure, it means that our day can get written off. Because if you've got an appointment at ten a.m., then another one at twelve, then someone else that wants to book in at half four. By the time you've traveled to and from the appointment, you've done the appointment, you've done the follow up on that appointment. You've actually got no time to do any of the proactive and productive work that keeps your business in momentum. Right. Yeah, and a hundred percent. And especially if you're out and about, you'll then fall into the trap of, you know, getting lunch in the car, sitting in the car when that's probably not the most productive environment where you get into flow the easiest. unless that is your jam. But personally, I need to be my set environment for that flow to happen on especially more creative tasks. If I'm in front of people, I'll always be able to switch in, switch into mode and deliver. But it's not that easy to do with projects, unless you create that environment for yourself. And I think that's a very salesperson or estate agent type person challenge, isn't it? I think it would be wrong to say that an estate agent doesn't show up in front of people. That's our job. Primarily, first and foremost, it's to work with people. So I definitely can relate. For me, the way my diary is structured is, as I say, appointments per what I just shared. But then the first couple of hours of the day, every single day, are dedicated to creative work. Like I am... creatively the most sharp in the morning. This also depends on an individual's energy. So you've got to structure your diary according to your own energy. But for me, I am sharpest in the morning. So if I need to do creative work, nine till eleven every day is when that creative work can be done. So whether that be creating content for social media, whether it be direct mail content, whether it be any manner of things that are going to produce opportunities and leads into my business, Then I've got that period of time where it's like, OK, this time is allocated to growth of the business. So that might be following up past appointments, dealing with offers, et cetera, et cetera. And then the afternoon for appointments. And that'd be quite a simple framework for the perfectly repeatable week. Right. Yeah. And it's if you then just need to monitor it, give yourself feedback about what's working, what's not. Is there a more is there a better suited place for that task to be moved to? And it's not about filling your diary so it's all colour coded and every minute is accounted for. You need to leave some white space for anything that crops up, you know, especially in this industry, surveys, et cetera, like that. But it's not about filling it. It's just what are you definitely committing to each week that you are going to do no matter what? I like that. That's good advice because people can get carried away, can't they? And they could be taken listening in and going, yeah, I really relate and like the idea to having this perfectly repeatable week. And they'll go away and they'll look at their calendar and go, how can I jam it full of stuff? And that white space is really, really important to allow flex. Sometimes projects will overrun. Sometimes what you're working on might need more time. Sometimes an appointment will take longer, whatever. Or there might be something from left field, like you say, an offer renegotiation or a survey gets booked or whatever the case may be. You've got to allow that little bit of flex. Otherwise, the diary structure will very quickly fail. Yeah, and I think my last advice on that is that if something is in your diary and you consistently ignore it or push it back or move it, just delete it and replace it or commit to a different task. Because once you get in the mindset that you don't treat your diary as be all and end all, you start to then get in a dangerous trap of constantly wanting to chase your tail for the next day. Yeah, it's really, really sound advice, actually. If the task is in there and you're ignoring it, then just get rid of it. Really sound advice. I also think that people need to give themselves that little bit of flex. And I'm a big believer in what gets measured gets improved. We talked about it earlier, measuring lead generation, for example, all of the different points at which a client could interact, measuring them to see where you need to tweak. I think the same is true of a diary structure. I think someone should have time in their diary at the end of every week to reflect back on the week. and look at that calendar and go was that the most productive week it could have been equally did I stick to the structure that I've put in place and I think there should be a tolerance I think people should work to the eighty twenty principle if you got eighty percent of what you were supposed to do that week done according to the structure you've built then that's success but if you haven't then it needs reviewing and changing would you agree Yeah, a hundred percent. Like obviously I'm not customer facing, so mine looks a little bit different. But when I was an agent, the first thing I'd do within that close down time is go back through all messages, make sure everything's cleared off, emails, nothing would then go into the next day because I've already catered that I need to like clean down each day. But now I have a few set questions of what I ask myself on a Friday afternoon, right before I finish for the weekend. So then I've already planned what I need to do for next week. And I'm not then thinking Monday morning, where do I start? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going into it with a clear mind, which comes full circle right back to the beginning of the episode where I said there will be people out there in the sales environment that will resist the idea of structure. They like just flying by the seat of their pants. It comes full circle. Structure gives you freedom. A hundred percent. Freedom of the mind, at least. freedom of the mind at least. What a place to bring the episode to a close. Freedom of the mind through structure. Holly, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. Have a nice day. Until next time. Until next time.