Breaking the Mould | Dan Cohen on Leaving Corporate for Real Connection

This week on The Elite Agent Masterclass, Jack is joined by Dan Cohen, founder of You, Me and Property — an agent redefining what “client care” really means in estate agency today.

With a background spanning Steve Gooch, Paul Carr, and a directorship through a management buyout, Dan shares an incredibly open and powerful conversation about what it takes to go from burnt out and misaligned… to building a values-led, client-first business rooted in relationships.

In this conversation, Dan shares:

🏡 How his earliest estate agency lessons came from sweeping the pavement and selling raffle tickets
 📈 What went wrong in his MBO experience — and the emotional cost of ignoring his gut
 🧠 Why “effort evidence” became the cornerstone of his brand (and results)
 🤝 How he builds freakishly strong relationships with clients who turn into friends
 📊 The balance between marketing for new business vs nurturing old clients
 💥 Why some agents stall after a few months and the mindset gap that separates top performers

This isn’t just another business origin story — it’s a candid look into the real mechanics of what it takes to serve your community, market homes properly, and stand out without shouting the loudest.

Dan also drops practical strategies on:

🛠 What to do when your portal listings aren’t getting traction
 🔁 How to turn your old client list into your future business pipeline
 📲 Blending old-school buyer hot boxes with new-school social media
 📣 Persistent consistency — why doing the work is only half of it
 🧭 Why pricing from fear is the downfall of most agents

Whether you’re new to agency, scaling your self-employed model, or trying to get back to basics in a tougher market — this episode is a practical masterclass in mindset, authenticity and sales process.

You, Me and Property isn’t just a brand — it’s a blueprint for agents who care about people more than just property.

📲 Subscribe now for weekly episodes to help you grow your business, your mindset, and your impact.

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass. Today, I'm joined by founder of You, Me and Property, Dan Cohen. Dan, how are you? Hi, mate. Yeah, Joe, I don't think I've ever actually heard it like that as well. The founder. Everyone's a founder these days. How did that come about? You mean property, the name, the business? Where did it all start? Where did it come about? Firstly, my first employee, Rocco, the dog, he's having a go now. He wants to get on the pod. He wants to answer the questions. Every member of my family is an attention seeker right now. Where did it come from? I spent, I got into the industry in about twenty thirteen, which I think a lot of people think, God, you've been in it much longer, but I haven't. I got into twenty thirteen at the age of about twenty three. And worked for a family firm. And then that was Gloucestershire and then moved to Birmingham. My wife was from here and started with another big local firm that you know really, really well. Fifteen offices, you know, a hundred employees, big, big, big company. Joined that in twenty sixteen, worked my way through that business to appoint a director. I had a great opportunity to do a management buyout when the owner decided to sell and leave. which is perhaps an opportunity I didn't realize would come around. I think when you're in these big firms, it tends to be a bit of a glass ceiling. I was always working towards perhaps the director's point. That was always what I saw. I'll become a director. I'll be able to influence massive sort of change within the organization, how I saw our industry working. And then when the owner decided to sell and I got approached that buyout, I thought, wow, amazing. This is it. Perfect. And that was probably about I forget the dates exactly. But it just wasn't what I thought it would be fundamentally. And weirdly, a blessing in disguise, because I suppose we're here today and you introduced me as the founder of You, Me and Property, which I probably never really expected. And when I joined the business that I joined in twenty sixteen, I said, oh, my name will be above this door. You know, it'll be incorporating Dan Cohen. I always felt that that's where it would be. But I think fundamentally sometimes it's like that, I think they call it gold medal syndrome, don't they? You know, you set a target, you set a goal, you get there, and it's just never what you thought it was going to feel like or be. Yeah, so why are you, me and Puppet here, not coding estate agents? I think... Two things, and it heavily sits on, one is, if I'm being brutally honest, ego. I'm probably not that guy. I don't actually, you know, I talk about attention, I don't actually want to make it all about me. What I love the most about any business and any organisation is the people within it. And I always felt that the scalability of a business around you, me and property, number one, demonstrated exactly what it says on the tin, what I believe in as estate agency. But also it said, this isn't just about me. This is about bringing people in that are going to feel valued, that are going to feel part of a business. And they are the you, the me, and obviously the property. I think that that's what it stems from. I'd love to say that it actually had that amount of thought in it before it started. But it didn't. It was progress over perfection. I was, I'm going to know, and should it be this? I had square one at one point. Back to basics. Square one homes. But then that seemed a bit too basic. So, you know, you mean property instead of down credit. It really stemmed from that. I didn't want to put my ego out there. I feel like you look around traditionally and estate agents are called the name of the owner. that was something that I didn't really want to do because once that owner disappears and having taken over a business which was owner named, it is always their business. And I think fundamentally, when you're trying to bring people in to something and you're trying to make it about them as well, when you're thinking about, you know, scaling and stuff, giving something that they can really buy into, plant their flag in, which isn't attached to someone's name, was more in line with what I was trying to do. Does that make sense? yeah yeah cool and probably syllabus to what we did with with our business at the same time as well it's you know having i think a lot of people do go with their own name it's an easy it's an easy idea isn't it an easy decision um but then like you said people that come into the business that work alongside you um don't feel as though it's ever going to be their business as as much um But yeah, the other thing you mentioned, you talk about it quite a lot, holding someone's hand through the whole process, making an experience, a journey. And I feel like the Unium property name kind of explains that quite well, I think. A hundred percent. We all remember that advert, don't we? Ron's Hill, does what it says on the tin. And I am keep it simple, stupid. It's just how I like to do things. I think basic are super important. And we live in a world. Everything looks amazing. All bells and whistles needs to be all shiny and all great. And that authenticity. And basics is probably what I believe is the key to most things being successful. So yeah, the you, me, property, handholding, going through the process, relationship building, which I think is probably the biggest core value of what we do. Eliminate property altogether. We're actually in a people business. And when you understand that, and you understand that you're in a people business and not a property business, I think that you actually probably find way more success than you would do. If you look at it in that sense, and I'll always go off on a few talents, you'll find this, but we manage in terms of promotion way less properties than we do people deal with so focusing on the property is the wrong way around if you focus on the big thing that you've got loads which is people there's loads of them and then there's a less properties on the market you probably find success in that so that was sort of the idea behind it Yeah, I think the sooner us as agents realise that, as well as, yeah, the quicker and better service, the better experience the clients will have when, yeah, agents remember that it's a people business over a property business. Property is just the thing that we are associated with. It's the people that we're working with and it's the people that we're offering a service to, isn't it? A million percent. I think, yeah, so the property is the product. That's the commodity. But it is the people is the key. Without the people, the... Yeah, exactly. Dan, I want to take it back as well, because you mentioned very briefly your background, your experience. But I want to delve that a little bit, a little bit further. So you mentioned initially you started around twenty three with an independent firm. I believe it was Steve Gooch estate agent. That's right. Yeah. and so tell us a little bit about that and i think what i really want to understand for each of your each of the companies that you've worked with what were the lessons what were the experiences what what's the good what's the bad um what did you take away from each of them and has that helped you form and create you me and property off the back of your experiences from the other businesses you worked with yeah so firstly i think what we might be surprised to hear is that the steve gooch journey was probably the least about property you could imagine um i turned up there as a as a young man um who didn't really want a job if i'm honest um i think my stepdad actually applied for the job for me and i turned up after a big night out went into the interview don't fancy this i'm sat there you know tied down here um and uh the owner of the business walks in and says to me um grab them chairs i'm thinking what he said grab them chairs so i grabbed his chairs and i'm wandering up the stairs with them and uh and when you're up do your tie up i'm like oh sorry you know mistake um this is it's only a mistake if you make it once you make it twice it's negligence bloody hell you know negligence is quite a bit deep for my tie but um those are the foundations that started to shift because i've never had that before i've worked in environments where i was the cheeky chappy and got away with most things taught me at Steve Guthrie some real core foundations of number one, how to behave. I was inappropriate. The things I used to talk about or say weren't relevant to what was going on and very, very highly opinionated. And realistically, my opinion didn't mean anything. I didn't have the experience or the knowledge to share an opinion at times. And I was fortunate to have a really strong, strong, strong manager in Nicky who was able to tell me that But I was also able to receive it. It was just at a point in my life that I was there. There's a number of things that she would have said to me at those times, which most people would just walk out and leave and wouldn't come back. You know, she would often tell me to shut up quite bluntly and tell me how inappropriate I was or how irrelevant the things that I was saying were. Now, that was quite difficult, but if we look at the beginning of that journey, which I still think are fundamental and I think is so important within our industry, because people talk about, we will often go on appointments and people will talk about the people or the agent that they met at the property. And often, unfortunately, the younger you are, the more stick you get. The young guy turned up, knew nothing about my property, he's never bought a house before, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the foundations that Steve used were critical, that they weren't really relating to that, but they were able to understand people. So my first jobs were sweeping the front of the office. That is the pathway outside the front of the office. And the windows, every single day, every single morning. And what that used to build up, Steve would always say, you'll get at least one listing or one client a month from doing that. But the actual skill that was being taught was conversational people that I never met, that I never knew, and they were engaging with me just outside of the office environment. The second job they gave me, which I felt, yeah, this is great, was selling raffle tickets. And I would go up and down the street into the co-op, into the hardware store, into the sandwich shop, selling raffle tickets. And the pride that I would have when I used to come back empty, no more, no raffle tickets in the book. Give me another one. I'll go get them gone. now they probably knew that they would all go because everyone in the in the town supported the agency and everyone wanted to do it but i felt amazing from doing so also i had to go in and build relationships with every single one of these businesses and every single one of these business knew who i was and they knew that i worked at steve cooch and they knew it was dan and they knew that i was approachable and it just built these skills within me to go and have these conversations with people that i've never met and you know those little things It's a confidence builder as well, isn't it? Having to go into places that you don't know those people, have conversations and essentially try and sell a product or service to them. It's a confidence builder, isn't it? A million percent. And that is key. But confidence is built on evidence time after time after time. So the way that they wouldn't let me get away with just doing something once. It had to happen time after time. I was always on the rapid tickets every quarter. I was always out sweeping the fund. But then I think where that business and sort of my journey began, where it was, they were ahead of their time, in my opinion. And interestingly, maybe we'll get to it. I think it's actually where the industry is going back to. And I think they still are ahead of their time. We've got two main forms of state agent in this country, the high street and then the broker model. And realistically, that online model that once upon a time was coming into the boom is not really there anymore. What Steve has done very, very well is every single person in that environment did every single aspect of the log and i think that's what you see a lot more from the broker now where the broker is bagging the property uh measuring up doing the viewings at property getting that sales progression and seeing it through that whole process and that was the process i learned twelve years ago thirteen years ago whatever it was that was the process that i learned Then when I stepped into a, probably a more normal high street role, and I realized, oh, there's a borrower, a lister, a sales aggressor. I mean, what's going on here? You know, why is there not one person taking this through? And then you saw the evolution, and now the, what you see now with estate agents and brokers across the country, and you go, hmm, okay. So now what we've got is what I first saw at Stitch all those years ago, without the high street presence, but people doing what I believe is the right way to do estate agency. And we're going to end up full circle where we have these real hub HQ offices with great high performing estate agents doing every part of the journey because that's what people want. So I was really lucky to be in an environment like that right at the beginning, day one. So I know that's something you've adopted in your business at UMian Property. You deal with a client from start to finish, don't you? And clearly that's something you experienced in your first role back at Steve Gooch. So then take us to, so after leaving there and relocating to Birmingham, you went and joined Paul Carr, one of the largest independent in the West Midlands. Talk us through that. What was the experience? What was the journey? What was the good things you took away from that? What were the lessons? Yes, firstly, loads of good things because fundamentally it's a business that was built and that's still now in excess of forty years on. And what we know from launching a business and starting a business is there are so many teething problems. What happens when you end up with a business like that is it's like a juggernaut was the term we used to use because it's just flying in one direction because everything is in place. All the little bits and bobs that you need in place to move that business forward are done. You haven't got to think. It's just moving. So when you join an organisation like that and every cog and wheel is going, it's pretty good and you can learn so much from that process. Branding, being part of the community, being in the environment where you need to be was key for them and really important. But I think if I'm completely honest and I'm jumping straight away, it was just that market share... I'm a big believer in market care and market share seems to be the most important thing, unfortunately, for a business of that size, because fundamentally it's got a hundred employees and everyone needs to be paid. So in order to pay everyone, you need to have the majority of the market. Now, when you're looking at market share, that market care inevitably drops because what the business is surrounded in is great people, good people wanting to do a great job, but being unable to do so because of volume and numbers. And I was able to, I suppose, see that because I'd come from a different environment where there were five elite performers in an office space dealing with, you know, twenty property transactions a month, four or five each at a time to going into an environment which was so separated and split, which one viewing leg had to run around doing fifteen, twenty properties at a time. One negotiator had to negotiate fifteen, twenty properties at a time. And it's too much work for one given person to do. So I walked into that environment day one. And I thought, gosh, this is a bit odd. So I'm saying, I'll do that. No, no, no, you don't do that. This person does that. Okay, all right, no worries. I'll get that bit done. No, no, no, this person does that. Oh, okay. So I'm sitting a bit within myself and I joined that business as a property consultant. And by the time I joined that business, I was valuing houses, listing houses, doing viewings at houses, negotiating offers and doing the sales progression. By the time I got there, I was doing everything. So it was a real sort of, okay, but I'm going to do this property consultant really, really well. But what you find from that is, and I had a great relationship with the person that I worked with, but I was still in the mindset of, right, I'll get in half an hour before everyone. I'll print off all the leads. Before everyone gets in that office in that morning, I'll have called all the leads. And then when they do get in the office, I'll just be hoovering away and tidying away and emptying the bins. And then they'll do a morning meeting and I'll crack on. And I will be the best at that job. Now, I was fortunate in that environment that there was another person that was quite, you know, wanted to work with me on that and really wanted to go for it. But as a business, they didn't like it. They wanted you to share the leads and you take one and you take one. But to me, that doesn't create a high-performance environment. I'd come from somewhere where you pick the phone up first, that's your client. So I would be, bang, phone, answer it. Can you bear with me one sec? I'm just going to put you on hold and boom, I'll take the other call. Hi, I'm just on another line. Name and number, please. Let me come back to you. That's the environment I came from. And now this is the one where... No, no, we just share it out. It's fine. How can you get to high performance with that? People aren't performing at their peaks when it's too comfortable. And that was just the feel that, you know, I had throughout. But that's when it kicked in to say, right, I'm going to work here. You know, number one, I can see my level and I can get somewhere here. And I went on a mission. I went on a mission in twenty sixteen. I went on a mission. I'm going to do that. I said to the guys in there, they laughed at me. My name will be above the door. You know, cheeky chappy. And everyone's like, whatever. Well, we got there in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. But I think it's interesting that we probably have similar experiences from the high street. And the one thing that I take away from having worked at the high street and again, the businesses that I work with, it was very much about volume. They wanted market share, and it was quite openly spoken about that. They wanted to have the largest market share in the area for those companies that I worked for previously. And I was on board with that at the time. Obviously, we both have businesses that aren't now aligned with that. It's very different. It's more about Amapo is never the biggest, always the best. So it's a slightly different vision and plan moving forward. But I was very much in that same camp with those other businesses. But one of the things that it definitely taught me and clearly similar for you is that competitive edge. If you've got other agents you're working alongside, you want to be the best. You want to be earning well. You want to be selling the most houses. You want to be helping the most clients. And therefore, you've got to be in early. You've got to be on those leads as quickly as you can. And that isn't for everyone because it was people that I worked with that didn't have that same work ethic or mindset. But there was a handful that that did. And those are the ones that went on to do really, really good things. That's the biggest you'll have within your business and I'll have to go in my business. What you can do. And I had this at Paul Carr where I was because I wanted to create a blueprint. blueprint to success okay you know uh i was often used as a bit of the poster boy on employment here's dan joined the business in twenty sixteen grew from a property consultant to an office manager to an area manager to a director to a part owner in a five six year period that could be you but i could present the blueprint of what i did to people which in arguably is perhaps what i wanted to try and do to build out a program um but not everyone would be able to do it because it has to come within fundamentally. You can train someone to be an estate agent. You can train someone to value homes. You can train someone to negotiate transactions. But if there isn't an absolute burning desire to win, fundamentally you will fail. And I think that we'll have seen it over the years. And certainly since you've launched your business and obviously myself being part of a bigger one, probably have a three month turnaround. You know, people are, I'm in the game, you know, I'm flying, I'm selling loads. and then the then the score changes and you see the other agent outperforming the other one and it's because people lose momentum or they lose interest because your things were going really really well when things were selling and then it got really difficult all of a sudden because things weren't selling anymore or properties were falling through and unless you really have that burning desire to win overall you'll look elsewhere, you'll find something else to do, or you'll look for the easier option out. And that's where people like ourselves will be slightly different. And that is, you can teach the blueprint, you can lay it out as much as you want, but unless you really want to stick it out and win it, you just won't succeed. And that's not in a state agency. That's in pretty much anything, but predominantly in our job, which is sales, if you don't want to win, you can have the best blueprint in the world, but you just won't succeed. I think that work ethic, it does get taught to you, and I think by the sounds of it, it came from working with Steve Gooch. They were giving you jobs to do, and you had no choice. You had to go out and deliver them. I worked with my dad for several years before I went into property, and my dad is the... one of the toughest people you will ever, ever work for. There is, there's no phones. There is no stopping unless there's, you know, you've got half an hour lunch break. Other than that, you are working, you're grafting, you know, that's, that's all that's happening. And will always be tougher on his son. Yeah, exactly. So that's where your work ethic came from. We talk about that and talk about work ethic, but like you said before to me, is that you do bring it back to small things. So Nikki, who is my boss and our idoliser still to this day, I'll pull it back to one thing that probably comes down. She used to say to me, walk faster. That's what I'm talking about. Walk faster. Walk with purpose. You need to be somewhere. You have to be doing something. And that fast walk will get you everything else that you need to be doing you'll walk into the office fast you'll drop your bag down fast you'll pick the phone up fast you'll talk fast you get the deal done fast and everyone around you be looking at you going that guy's got somewhere to be that guy's purpose and it just falls on that steel walk fast walk with purpose and it can change everything for you it's just military style military style work ethic isn't it yeah so so dan so obviously you worked your way up to director yeah at paul carr um and mentioned before it didn't quite work out you felt so you still didn't really have um the decision making to be able to yeah move the business in the way that you wanted to so you decided to go off and build your own business and tell us a little bit about that and you know the journey from then to going on to setting up you me and property i think the best way to put it i think is the best way to put it is um he's gonna say birds of a feather flock together Once I got to that position, we weren't flocking together. If anything, we were going apart. And it's interesting that full circle I'm here today speaking to you because birds of a feather flock together. Similar views, similar visions, similar beliefs. That naturally happens. And when I got into that position of the management buyout, it was a gelling of four different people with four different visions and four different views who were taking control of someone else's business. And it just never worked for me. And I said it to the owner at the time, the majority shareholder. I knew I made a mistake day one. I knew I made a mistake day one. I felt it. And I'm a feeler. That is how I do my business. That's how I manage people. Everything. Everything is about feel for me. I knew it day one. And I said it to him day two, I think it was. I made a mistake. Oh, my gosh. So I knew. I knew early. And I really tried to then commit myself to that journey and that process because I didn't want to give up on it. I'd always wanted it. I'd achieved it. I made promises to people that I would help their growth and their development within this business now that I was there. But fundamentally, it ran its course and it wasn't natural and it wasn't right. And then... coming not everybody has this and people end up stuck in that rather very supportive wife it was just said Dan you've achieved it you're not enjoying it move on because the person that she knew that was this go after it hungry guy was gone You know, it was a lot of tears, a lot of upset, a lot of turning up to work and just driving away because I couldn't face it anymore. And you sit and say, God, no way. Absolutely just couldn't do it. So being able to come away and actually having gone, right, this is a real big opportunity. And actually, I will just stop, actually. I had a bit of a moment when I exited the business. And I wanted to set up on my own. I was serving a non-compete. And during that process, I thought, can I really do it? Have I got it in me? Am I as good as I thought I was? Will I be able to start this business? I'm an estate agent. I'm not necessarily sure I'm a business owner. I think anyone that hasn't got those thoughts, those doubts, would be lying. Anyone that's gone into selling their own business or going self-employed or anything to do with quite a big risk, there's always that doubt that kicks in, isn't there? So you launched Umium Property. Yeah. And what was the reason for that? What's the direction you want to take that in? Where do you see the property market going and how does Umium Property fit around that? All right, let me try and answer it for you. Predominantly within the business and how I see it going. So starting it off at You, Me and Property, the goal was to just it be you, me and property. Give people what I believed they wanted based on the information I was getting back. from customers. Dan, we met you day one. We haven't really spoke to you since. We've lost touch. X, Y, and Z have been around doing viewings. They don't really get us. They don't really know the house. Can you come back and get involved? So it was about bringing back what I thought was super important about estate agency. And that was one main port of contact and really strong emotional relationships. Now, as I said before, I'm a feeler. So that was key critical. End of. So I set that business up on that value. And that is one hundred percent what I've done. The relationships that I have built are so strong. My wife says I build freakishly strong relationships with people that I've just met. She just doesn't understand it at all. And arguably, the client that I first ever listed at Beach Close went on holiday last week and got back on Sunday. And on Monday, we met up to have a chat about how their holiday was. They've been in their house nearly a year now. I went out for dinner last Wednesday with a client that I'd sold for the other week. This is what I've really built the business for, those really strong relationships. What that is enabling me to do in respect of scaling it, which is a really tough point to go through because you're like, how do I scale? When do I need to really push? Do I need to push? Because right now, the core... the growth of this business is actually working back. So I am still in contact with every single person that has either sold through me or bought through me. And I speak to them regularly and I get a feel for how they're getting on, what's going on. And all of a sudden, oh Dan, my friend's moving, can you speak to them? Yeah, absolutely, I'm coming to see you. So I'm sort of working backwards rather than pushing forwards. And that working backwards on all of my existing clients, past clients, is actually generating all of my future business at the moment. But to try and scale the business, because I want to touch more people. I want to give more people the benefit of what this business stands for, because I hear it too often that, you know, people don't feel valued. And, you know, they have got no relationship with the estate agent that came round to their home, which is the biggest emotional tie that you have. And that they've had a terrible experience. there's a there's a lovely little saying you get you get bored of my sayings but um effort evidence people don't need to sell they just want to see effort effort evidence i'll show people how hard i work for them i'm always on the phones and we speak two or three days a week you know just like this is what's going on this is maybe the plan moving forward i don't know if it's going to work but we'll give it a go super thanks very much dan effort evidence and that's what i want to build my business on um It's that transparency, isn't it? As long as a lot of the clients know it's a tough market, like there is no denying the market has been tough and it has been tough for quite a while now. And I think clients just want to know that the agent is doing everything they possibly can to try and get you a result. But ultimately, they also have to understand that we aren't the ones buying the property. So unless we get those people through the door, unless we get the opportunities, it's very difficult for us to generate a result. And as long as we can share our efforts, we've had a number of times where we've, you know, you've got that client where you feel as though sometimes you put the pressure on yourself as well. Don't you feel as though the client's not happy or, you know, are they thinking about going to another agency? You go around and sit down with them and have a coffee. And I just want to go through everything we've gone through. And they're like, Jack or Dan, we're not going to change agents. We're happy with everything you're doing. We can breathe a little bit. That's the war wounds, isn't it? That's the scars. That's the scars that you have from being in your other organisation, not really keeping in contact with people because you're absolutely swamped, and knowing that that one difficult phone call that you're going to have is probably going to be a withdrawal because you haven't done what you needed to do. Yeah. Because you don't have that now. You've got a relationship with them now. We've both had similar circumstances. I went to a client which is now moving. And I said, I'm really sorry. Here's your keys. I can't believe I haven't got the result. I think we're about twelve weeks in, which wasn't even that bad in the current climate. Where do you think I'm going? No one else is going to do what you're doing for me. Dan, put them keys back in your pocket. Don't scare me like that. And the response that you get is just so different. Relationship. I'm sure they can appreciate. I want to go back to something you touched on a little bit as well, which is going back to your previous clients and the relationships clearly you've built with, I won't even call them clients, you've turned these clients now into friends. But it's, I don't think enough people, enough agents work on the relationships that they've already got and the network that they've already built so i think everyone's always looking for a new client they're always spending money on new marketing strategies new ideas new lead gen letters social media ads you know they're investing so much money time and effort into trying to find a completely new client whereas actually they've got clients in their database or they've got clients in their phone book or they know clients really well that if they kept those relationships either going to sell with them again at some point or like you like you mentioned they're going to recommend you to someone else that they know and a recommendation is a much easier way to get through a door and win a winning instruction than having to warm that new kind of because these clients if they've been recommended to you they already are aware of you because you've been recommended they're gonna like you because someone that you know they know has used you already And they're going to trust you because they trust the advice that they've been given from their friend or a family member. So I think that's a really, really important thing to really touch on is that You don't always need to go after new clients. Like, work your database, work your network, work your friends, your family, your previous, your past clients. And those are probably where your next opportunities are going to come from, aren't they? One hundred percent. But interestingly, like you touched on them, that is almost still your next client. So, you know, your next customer is in your database. One million percent. Like one million percent. Your next client is there. But... And it's a big but. I arguably think, and look, I am a small boutique estate agency at the moment where I do one-to-one business. So many people would be scared by this, but I have got four available properties on the market at the moment, and I'm listing another one today. That'll be five. That's actually a real sweet spot for me, right? I am not proactively looking for new listings, which would frighten most because we're in an instructions business. Get listings, you're guaranteed to get your sales. But what I like to look at, and my clients know, like I said, arguably friends know, is that they are the most important thing to me. Everyone used to get frustrated, didn't they, that the banks would give deals to the new customers, but they wouldn't look after their existing customers that have been there for ten years. So right now, I have got four people's properties on the market. That is the business that I need to sell. Now, just because it's difficult and just because it hasn't sold really quickly or gone like a hot potato, that doesn't mean that my eye goes to the next new listing. Where can I find something that's going to move fast? That isn't what I'm about. I want to sell the property to the person that I made promises to, and I never, ever, ever promise to sell their home. It's that effort evidence thing. I promise to show my workings. but they are the most important thing to me. I don't need another five new instructions that are gonna sell fast because I've already made a pledge to the five that are on the market right now. So I'm gonna look at my board and say, what's on the market right? Okay, how do I sell it? Okay, so the online portals haven't worked for me. That hasn't got the activity levels that we wanna see. And number one, it's actually not engaging with them. So first things first, I'm gonna change that ad. I'm gonna become more attractive to the people that are looking online and on that portal. And then what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna think outside the box. This is what I wanted to unpack, really, because I'm sure for a lot of people, they're going to be thinking, okay, yeah, you've got property on the market, but if it's not getting interest, it's not selling, then what do you do? Because I think for those people that haven't worked in a tough market, they don't know how to... generate opportunities, find potential buyers, try and expose a property to a wider audience. So how do you do that and what can you share? When I started in this business, there was a property called Ivy Cottage. Steve Goode, they remember it. Busy main road. No one wanted to do viewings there. Petrified to park and then get out of the car. On the market for over a year. Yeah. You gotta get inventive, and also you have to get really, really good when people come and view it, because you're gonna get a small amount of opportunities, you have to take them. But let's do it back. So like I say, internet portals aren't working, all right? They're not getting you the interactions that you want, or maybe they're getting the views, but they're not getting you the inquiries. Okay, we need to change that ad, all right? We're gonna target something a little bit different. Maybe we're gonna put a call to action in the first sentence, and we're gonna rejig our photos. It's a little bit like a dating app said before, people swipe right, swipe right. miss out on really good dates because they didn't like a write-up or a photo, but you can tweak it, you can change it, and then maybe they're going to go on that date with you. First and foremost, let's get that done. Biggest shop window available to you. Next up is let's start to think outside the box. So I'm doing it right now, the property I've got on the market. It's a lovely property. It's in Cheshire. It's for some friends. I wouldn't normally go that far at all, but it is for some friends. And they tried the local agents for over a year. Now it hasn't worked. But what I bring differently to the table is that ideas game. So first things first, we're looking at architects. We're looking at wealth managers. We're looking at accountants. We're looking at sports players liaison. So, for example, in that area, there are football clubs and cricket clubs. Are there players and managers and team members, high net worth individuals? with over a million pounds to spend that i want to buy here i want to interact with you so there you've identified your potential target audience the the property i'm aware it's over a million pound isn't it on a really nice so yeah you've clearly identified the type of people that you think this would be But then you have to interact with them. And that's the key. You start to overwhelm yourself with too many, you can't interact with them, you don't have the time. So my promise is I'm gonna interact with them. So how do we do that? Well, we're gonna reach out by telephone. We're gonna reach out by letter. We're gonna reach out by email. These people have got office spaces. I'm going to go to them. I'm going to put a friendly face to it and say, hi, I'm Dan. I sent you that email. I dropped you that message. I've got that property down the road. If you have a client that comes to you that wants nine acres of land, that wants to actually maybe doesn't fall in love with my house, but wants to build a two-, three-, four-million-pound house on that site, this could be the one for you. Do you want to come down and do a visit on it? You have to think outside the box and you have to be different. And that's that effort evidence again. We're going to show that we're going to try. And when it comes down to it, you ain't going to sell everything you ever bring to market. It's impossible. There won't be an agent out there that has gone for a period of time that sold everything they've ever listed. But if we can turn around at the end of it and go, I've done X, I've done Y, I've done Z. To be fair, I've even done A, B, C, D, E. Didn't get it going for you. So that's what you can look at there. I think with the smaller, because we've got an audience where perhaps the core market they sell is two, three, four hundred thousand, where you're not looking for the large wealth management times. Let's get into Facebook groups. Let's look at local publications where people still read when they sit in the barbershop. Where can we be to get exposure for the properties that we are trying to attract people from? And do it. People just don't do it. I don't know. Embarrassed? Scared? I don't know. think it's a good point i think you've obviously you've clearly identified the ideal target audience and then the strategy that comes that falls off the back of that um is dependent on who you're targeting isn't it so like i said high network individuals if it's high value home if it's a low value home facebook group social media works really well uh for those types of people but you're probably right that you know the a lot of this stuff is it's not guaranteed to generate your result so is that why people are not as committed to doing it because it's not guaranteed. They haven't seen the results before. And is it going to generate a result or not? And I think the majority don't know how to do it. just because perhaps that's not where they go to naturally. Because we've come through markets, especially with the younger guys that are involved in our industry right now, and the older, actually. I'm not going to sort of actually put a demographic on this, because we had an incredible market after COVID. It was a market that lent itself to really fast money, quick sales, and a completely different way of working, which was list, list, list, list, list. Ten people queuing outside the front door, sold a ten grand over asking price, happy days. And the new guys never learned how to sell and the old guys forgot how to sell. And without that burning desire to do a great job for that singular person, You just drift. And fundamentally, people don't know how to do it. And that's what's gone missing. There's a couple of things for me as well in that is, one, going back to old school basics. I'm still quite often very old school with how we promote our property sometimes or how we organize. But it's going back to basics. I remember working in the high street. We used to have a hot box. For those that worked in the high street will remember that. And that was my go-to. I'd have my buyers that I knew were most motivated and were really serious and were looking for something specific. And they were the first people that we'd call out on as soon as we had a new listing or new opportunity. And it's going back to those basics. then on the flip side of that evolution has changed and social media has become a real real game changer for most businesses and the things that you can do on social media can have a huge impact on the interest and the exposure that you can get for your properties and for your clients and i think trying to blend the two is really important but i think you're right a lot of people have forgot the the basics because it was so easy for a couple of years off the back of COVID. And they haven't tested the new evolution, the new innovation, the new way of doing things. And I think if you can combine the two and have a real clear strategy on those two combined, then you've got the best chance of getting your clients the best results. I think one hundred percent you've just captured it really, really well. And I think that that's where if you look at the two alongside each other, when we both first started, We called them reviews at Steve Gooch. They were people that needed reviewing constantly. They were called reviews. I'm not sure why I've never heard it like that anywhere else. And we used to know our buyers, right? Everyone in the office had about ten that they were really working with at a time. That was sort of that golden number, and you really knew them. The majority of people that are watching this now will have no idea who is buying in their area. They'll have no idea. Right move changed that. Because what we had was we had a newspaper. And if you're the biggest agent, you took the center page spread and you got twelve pages in the center page or whatever you got. and you would dominate that space and people would come in and see you and say we're looking to move into the area or currently live in the area we've seen two or three properties here they are circled and i'll go right mr and mrs jones great fantastic first things first let's work on what you're looking for how we can get you there and we plan out their roadmap then they go into the box they'll go into the box in a different place maybe they're selling or maybe they're ready to buy whatever they are that they're categorized i know exactly who they are right now at this moment in time right move has changed the game because people are looking at properties every single day we've got people that are obsessed with property looking they're not even looking to move right but they're just looking on right move we've all got friends that are doing that our family are doing it because everyone's just looking at nosy we have no idea who our buyers are anymore So if you can just pull it back and say, I'm going to take a level of control because I can't find out who all my buyers are, and I'm going to really go back to that ten in my hot box, and I'm going to work on you. And what I'm going to try and do is identify properties for you rather than properties for the masses and hope it works out. Because, as I say, they've got no idea who you're looking at at the moment. There's hundreds of thousands of people out there looking at properties. In our demographic here in Sutton Cove, there must be thousands of people looking on Rightmove, Rightmove. We have no idea who they are. No idea what they want. I don't want to work with them. I want to work with the ten that know what they want and I can help them get there. Yeah, so it's those that you know are most motivated, aren't they? And like you said, flip it on its head rather than finding the buyer for the property. Let's do it the opposite way around. Let's see if we can find the property. It's what the customer wants as well. I think we're very good at listening to our customer base and it is what the customer wants. If you really listen and you listen to what they're after, they're after an agent that knows what they're looking for. that's helping on their search, that's removing the dating app for them and actually saying, got to kiss a few frogs. Come on, let's go and have a look at this one. I've got a great new listing coming on. I really understand them. I showed a guy around the property the other day, one of you, and he's not buying it. He can't get over the fact that I contacted him to show him it. Can't get over it. He's like, thank you so much. It's not quite right, but it was this close. But I knew my buyer. I knew what he wanted. The seller was happy because they didn't have to go through the rigged rule of advertising and marketing. And arguably, it will never get to that. It will never get there for me. Arguably, we really shouldn't have to list anything. We should just be able to go, all right, who's looking right now? Okay, them three want three-bed semis. Bear with me. Let's get these three rounds and see if one of them wants to buy it. It's probably going to determine what pricing you need to be at. It's probably going to determine a load of other factors. We should be working like that, really, which is stripping right back. If you can do that, it is a very good indication, isn't it, on whether – Yeah, pricing in this market is very difficult, isn't it, sometimes, especially when you've got very few comparables to look at. But if you've got potential buyers that you can take around and they can give you an indication of what they believe they would pay for it. Pricing is even more difficult. I was thinking about this, I was walking the dog the other day, and I was thinking about this. Pricing is even more difficult when you're pricing from a position of fear in this current market. So the majority of agents are really scared that they're not selling a lot of their stock. because it is slower to move they're needing to bring more stocks to the market to give them more opportunity to sell different things they know that there are two or three other agents going out there so they're valuing from a position of fear they inevitably put a couple of thousand pounds if not more on top of that value in order to secure that piece of business and then lo and behold it adds to their problem and it adds to your marketplace's problem as well So when you're not valuing from a position of fear, and something you touched on earlier where you're getting recommendation going in, it ends up being uncontested business. There's no other agents going in but you. And you're going in with a truthful angle, an honest angle, and a place that says, this is where the market dynamics really sit. And this is what allows you to move. It's so true, isn't it? It just goes full circle because you're right. You're fearful that the properties are not in line with what buyers' expectations are in the market. When you go out to a listing, you know you're up against the ragers. You know you need more business. You know you need to sell more houses. And you end up overvaluing that property potentially because you want to try and win the business. Exactly. And then, like you said, it's full circle. You're in the same position again, if not worse, because you've got more houses that aren't selling. So yeah, I think stripping it right back and taking your time to make sure that you can really get that price in as accurate as possible. I think it's so important in the current market alongside all the other things. But one of the things we touched on strategy, one of the top things amongst the strategy has to be making sure it's priced attractively and priced correctly. Dan, I'd love to hear what is your what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? And what's the worst piece of advice you've ever been given? Arguably, I'm going to pull it back on it because I've had so many good pieces of advice, honestly, to which I think we spoke about it. I'm gonna say it, walk fast, all right? It is the best piece of advice I was ever given. Walk fast, walk with purpose. It changes everything about how you feel. They say in sales, don't they, if you're gonna make a tough call, stand up, because you're gonna open your chest, you're gonna open your voice, you're gonna have a little bit more energy. So I'm gonna use that walk fast, but Paul Carr always told me something that you've touched on in this. He would say, he'd come over and he'd tap the top of my computer, and he said, your next business is in there. Stop looking everywhere else. It's in there. You just have to work it. You just have to work it. The worst piece of advice I ever get given was social media is never going to take off to sell houses. It's just, yeah, you never sell a house on social media. You never sell a house on social media. How many do you reckon you've sold now for social media? Do you know what? I definitely, whether I've sold from social media Oh, I've definitely done viewing some social media. I can't equate a sale to social media yet. Let's get things straight. I've only been using social media probably for just under twelve months. Right. I launched my business a bit longer than that and I made a commitment this year to use social media. But the interaction I've got, can I view that property that you just listed? Darren wasn't sure. I didn't because I use I use it as a bit of a shop window, a bit of a snapshot coming to market next week. You know, oh, Dan, can I come and see it? You would create urgency. Wicked, cool. So the majority of people that go on a viewing with me or evaluation with me, I always just send them out a little bit about me and how it's a viewing, whatever. Here's my Instagram. So they follow it. You'll get snapshots here. You'll see a few sneak peeks here. And it works. It offers because people like that quick, easy to see content. So and that is growing. But yeah, it was just social media won't have a place in the property. We've got a few cases that can prove that otherwise. We saw one at one point one million, actually, which the buyer had been following us for quite a while on socials. And she actually messaged to say, look, I wasn't really considering selling the house. I've just seen the one that you've listed. like we love it like coming around to view it and they did end up going on to buying that property so um it's proven i mean even i wasn't sure about tick tock so we we focused initially on facebook and instagram and we started doing tick tock probably eighteen or so months ago and and the exposure we've got on that was crazy we had a property that reached one point seven million views on tick tock one point five on instagram we had um thirty five viewings at the launch date went well over asking price and Yeah, and everyone else is out there breaking their back on marketing budgets and it's free. Exactly. Yeah, this was organic as well, no ad spend. But you're right. If it isn't a direct purchase from social media, inadvertently social media will have an impact on either what it sells for or the amount of interest that it attracts. And inadvertently, the amount of interest is going to help to achieve a better process. A million percent. And you know what? You'll have listeners and watchers of this that... that probably get told about social media all the time and then there's another word that comes along with social media which doesn't just impact social media it's everything that you do is consistency that gets batted around all the time and i do like to push another word in there and that's called persistent consistency because if you're not persistent in respect of what you do and go, did it quite work? I need to push on from that. I need to change that. I need to tweak that. It's the persistent consistency that pays off for me. Everyone can do things consistently, but if you're doing something consistently bad or consistently okay or consistently no results, you have to be persistent. Is that right? Is that getting the audience I want? Can I get something else? And it's just adding that into what you do on a daily basis because consistency gets battered about everywhere, you know, and everyone can be consistent to a level, you know, but consistency Can you be persistent with it? Can you really change? Can you really move the needle? Can you go up a level? That's what I would probably like to see with that. I've been doing this for just under twelve months and I need to be levelling that up. It's a good point you make, isn't it? Consistency is something we talk about quite often, but consistency in the right ways. So it's a good point you make. Look, Dan, I think we definitely said at the start, before we hit record, there's going to be, there has to be a part two to this. We could probably go on for another hour. But it's been really good. I think there's been some really good value that you've shared. And I'm sure it's going to be a really interesting one for people to listen to. And for those of you that want to want to find you, want to check you out on socials, how do they where do they find you? How do they find you? Yeah. So the focus right now for me is Instagram. I actually listened to one of your podcasts a long time ago, Jack, where you said focusing on one. And that's what I made an effort to do. So Instagram is the one and that is at one. You, me, property. The push for the twenty twenty six will definitely be linked in. I think that LinkedIn has got a really good demographic. I think that that speaks into what we spoke about before. But how do you add? Where's a new strategy? OK, I could reach someone on LinkedIn that could put me in contact with someone that could sell one of my properties. So LinkedIn for twenty twenty six. Watch this space. We'll share what that will be in part two. wicked sounds good dan it's been an absolute pleasure thank you for jumping on and for those that are listening in it thank you for listening