Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Let'S Talk Lets, an original podcast from the Lettings Hub. Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast, let's Talk Let. I'm Heidi Shackle, the CEO of the Lettings Hub, the tenant referencing business that got good at tech. Let's Talk Lets is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects, planning the private rented sector. Today's podcast is the latest episode in our regular feature where we learn more about people's personal career stories across the lettings arena, their journey and the moments in their lives and careers that have been the most impactful and taught them some important life lessons. For our next my Life in Lettings themed episode, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Benji, who is the founder of Hatton Home, an estate and lettings agency which he formed four years ago. Before that, Ben also spent much of his career with other big names in the property sector, including Romans, Foxton's and a long time at Marsh and Parsons before setting up his own venture. So let's get started. Ben, thank you so much for joining me today. Please introduce yourself to all of our listeners and let us find out a little bit more about you.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Thank you. Heidi, thank you for inviting me on. Wow, what an introduction that is. So, yes, I'm a longtime estate agent and you know what, even though I'm not on the front line as much as I used to be, I still very much call myself an estate agent. I sent a post out for this morning on LinkedIn saying that you've got to love this job because it's too difficult and too much of a roller coaster to do if you don't love it. And you know what, after 20 odd years, I still absolutely love it. So that's my introduction. I'm a proper estate agent.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: There's something infectious, isn't there, about the industry that once you come into it, you don't really ever want to leave and you can't imagine a life outside of it.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely right. You either do six months or life. Yeah, yeah, it's a life sentence, Heidi.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: So I mentioned in the, in the kind of opening part that your career started in the early 2000s and I'm kind of keen to know whether you always wanted to be in property, how your career started.
So start from the beginning.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, I think very few people actually want to be in property. I don't think they can, you know, come out of college or whatever and go, right, I want to be an estate agent. I think for a Lot of people, it's something you fall into. I was in catering, so I used to be a lighting designer a long time ago and then I was in catering, I was running a restaurant and we were doing a function for a well known owner of an estate agency, the owner of Romans. And, and I leaned over during this function. I was bored of what I was doing. I leaned over to him and, and just said, look, what does it take? What? I said, what qualifications do you need to be an estate agent? And he laughed and said, you don't need qualifications, you need to come and see me Monday. I went and saw him on Monday and he gave me a job and that's how I got into estate agency. I, I was bored of catering. I, I loved people. I was good at sales or I thought I was good at sales and, and I started with Romans and it was a great start in a career. Romans had great training. They were back then that was, you know, late, very late 90s, early 2000s. They were still really, you know, not, not as big, nowhere near as big as they are now, but they were through that growth stage. So it was really exciting. You know, you still had access to the senior management team but you knew that there was a buzz in the business, something was going on. They had some brilliant people teaching me, you know, the job and if you listen and you, you repeat, you'll do well in this, in this job. I think that's, that's where people go wrong, is they listen and repeat for three months and then they make up their own rules and then it goes wrong. So I was good at listening and repeating and yes, I, I started with Romans by accident really, like I think a lot of people. And I was there for, I guess I was there three years, something like that, three or four years. Hopped around a couple of offices and then I sold a, I sold a house to a guy who was working for Foxton's, so he was working in Richmond, he wanted to live in Warfield, I think it was. I sold him a house and he said, look, you should come to London. And, and Foxens used to do. I don't know whether, you know, they used to do. I think, I think they probably still do group interviews. So there'll be like 60 people come on a weekly basis or a fortnightly basis. I didn't know that though. I thought I was just going from an interview. So I turned up my little briefcase looking like a right pleb and it was a group interview. So you basically networked with some of the Directors in the, in the, in the lobby and what have you had a drink and that and, and then you had a five minute interview with one of the directors sitting down and that was it. And at the end of the night, I like a, a bit like sort of Britain's Got Talent or something. I think they basically stuck your photo up, chose who they would keep and, and you had to start that Monday. It was quite ferocious. You had to leave your job and get there. So I did.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: And I, you know, I've still got some friends at Romans who were my, who were my leaders at the time. I think they've forgiven me for, for that now because it was terrible, really. You know, no business should do that, but that's how they operated. So I trundled up to, up to London. I was working in Chiswick. Um, and my word, Fox, I mean, Romans is great, great training ground. It's a different market, London, it's a different pace of life. It's, it's a completely different market. We would do eight to eight, six days a week driving around in this little Mini that we got with flowers all over it and it was a Bachelor's of Fire. It was amazing. It was incredible. You know, I took, I took salesmanship to a whole new level. There, there was some, you know, John Hunt still, still had it at the time, Pete Rollins was md and you still, it was still, you know, it was getting big at that time, you know, but it was still growing. It was fantastic. What an opportunity.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: I thought it's the type of business, when you walk into Foxland, it feels different, doesn't it, in terms of the. It's alive.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, they've got an attitude. Yeah, back then they had an attitude. And I think actually what Guy Gittens is doing is bringing that attitude back now. And I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. You know, we went to war for our clients. That was a mantra back then. And you, you knew it. There was an edge about us. So you'd walk into an office and you felt that edge, as you say.
And then I think it got a bit soft actually, over the last sort of 10 years or so. And they've got their edge back again and they're doing fantastically, but what a business to train in. But you can only do that so long, you know. And Pete Rollins, who was MD of Foxen's, bought Martian Parsons and Martian Parsons was, was a very well respected but sleepy agency. So I think they still had like mahogany desks and, you know, Chesterfield Chairs and all that jazz. And. And he bought it over five offices, I think, at the time, all in Kingston, Chelsea and one in Fulham. And I basically went over there a year later, followed him over with a few. Few other people. And I was there for 13 years.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: What was interesting about Marshall Parsons is I was there from sort of five or six offices all the way till it grew till 32 offices. And every one of us, certainly during that early stage, that early five years of it, we felt we were part of that growth. It doesn't matter whether you're a negotiator, a manager or a director. And I was just a negotiator at the time, as a senior negotiator, I felt like I was part of that growth. We were in it together, you know. Yeah, it was. We had a mantra which was local know how better results. And we kept talking about local knowledge. We knew all the coffee shops, we definitely knew all the bars, I can tell you that. We knew all the restaurants. We knew everything about the area and we told people. And it was. It was probably much more so than Foxes. It was coupling service with great salesmanship. You know, Pete Rollins always says, you can't just be nice, but you can be nice.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: You know.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: And. And it was great. I was very lucky there. I. I went up through the ranks, you know, of, you know, assistant manager and director and. And for the last four years of my tenure, I was running up to 15 offices across west and central London, which was just fantastic. You know, I love people, I love leadership, I love giving knowledge people, I love creating leaders around. Around us. So that was fantastic.
But then, you know, things change.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Things change and just. I'm going to ask you a question about Martian Parsons, because 13 years in one company is actually unusual in our industry, isn't it? Like, there is, you know, we're known as attrition and a bit of a high turnover. I know you've alluded to some of the reasons, but what were the main reasons that kept you there for so long?
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Okay. The absolute primary reason were two people, which was Peter Rollins and Lisa J. Kelly, who owned it.
They. You wanted to work for them, you wanted to come in and do well for them, you know, and I think that's. I think that's a sign of a great leader, okay. That you want to follow them. You don't have to be dragged behind. You want to follow. So that was definitely the primary reason. And there were some great people there and we were growing as a business, so I knew that I was in a place that cared about training, cared about people, cared about their customers, which, you know, and offered something a bit different. I mean, you know, I didn't stay for their marketing, but their marketing is fantastic.
And it was just, it was a great growing company and we had fun. They did trips and we went bowling and we went go karting. We had drinks after work and it was all the great stuff at Foxton's and none of the crap.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Brilliant. And I know from. Obviously we're going to talk about what happened next, but that is definitely like an ethos. I guess you've learned you have some brilliant mentors. I guess there's people in your life, isn't there, that you just kind of remember. And there's some people you take things from and you think, okay, I'll take that, but I'll leave quite a lot of what I've learned there. And there are some people that you just absolutely want to soak it all up and go, you know, I want to not copy what they do, but I've learned so much by what they do and seen success in it. I want to replicate that.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't think there's anything wrong with copying either. Yeah, yeah, I don't think there's something. If there's something that works, you know, whiteboards in offices, Pete Rollins, if he listens to this, he'll laugh at that. Because, you know, white boys in offices. There is something about the physical activity of going up to whiteboard and writing your deal up, writing your offer up. So we have, we don't have white boards. We have whiteboard walls. Now, that's slightly different, bit more eco friendly, but. But we write our deals up, we write our instructions up. So when a manager comes back with a new instruction, they go, I've got a new instruction, guys. And they can write it on the board. That's a sales environment. And I think what the industry has lost a little bit is this sales environment, you know, where it's, it's about competition. So, you know, I mean, at Fox and they would ring a bell when they did a deal. You know, we don't do that. But. But yeah, I definitely have taken, you know, things I learned from Peter, things I learned from Lisa, Jane, things I learned from Foxton's, and sort of said, well, you know, they're the bits I like from my, you know, I would put into a business, and these are the things I'd leave behind.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a big whiteboard. It's a glassboard now. Actually, it's a bit more with it. But we have a bell. And honestly, even now, the pride that people take in ringing it when they've got a premium above a certain amount or they've, you know, hit a certain personal best or anything, and the whole department claps and it's, It's a brilliant feeling. But you're right, you know, every sale they make, they go up and they take it up on the board every day.
And it's just that moment of, you know, taking a little bit for yourself. I buy into that completely. But as you mentioned, there were some things that changed and your 13 years then were going to come to an end. What were kind of the main reasons for that?
[00:11:14] Speaker A: What did change without going to, you know, there was a leadership change in Martian parcels. LSL had bought it, what, six years before that or something like that. There are a couple of different CEOs that came in. I, I wasn't, I wasn't particularly loving the direction that I thought the company was going in. So, you know, and that was fine. You know, you don't have to love it all the time. I've done 13 years. It served me well. I've only got good things to say about the business. But it was time for a change. And I, I was, I was at this stage where I thought, well, I'm a regional sales director across 15 offices. There's only so many jobs out there for you. You know, do you go and be a sales director somewhere? Do you run a smaller company? Do you try and buy into a company? Do you start your own company? And it was, it was all. It was all sort of up in the air at the time. And then, and then there's a couple of other things that happened kind of pushed me in the direction of making my decision.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Okay, so let's kind of talk about those, because, Ben, you've been really open about talking about your diagnosis with Parkinson's about five years ago. And I know it was a real kind of defining moment in your life, one of which I guess many of us can barely imagine. But please tell our listeners as much as you feel comfortable about. About what must have been that shit, shattering news and how it actually then led you to change more than one thing, I guess, in your life.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So I had, I was a keen runner. I used to run a lot and I had this problem with my leg where it would cramp up and sort of my foot would fall beneath the leg when I was running. Nobody could work out what it was. It took Two years to diagnose me. You know, I had an operation at one point for compartment syndrome where they slashed my leg open. I've got a 14 inch scar on my leg. And, you know, it wasn't even that after all they couldn't work out was wrong. I went to see a sports therapist or something and she noticed my hand shaking and she said, I think you should go see a neurologist. So I did. He sent me off. I was very lucky. I had private healthcare insurance, which makes a big difference. Sent me off to Harley street. And they do something called a DAT scan, which is a gamma camera. So they inject you with some radioactive material. You have to stay very, very still. And this plate goes around your head. And Parkinson's is very easy to diagnose with a DAT scan. You've either got it or you haven't. It's binary.
I bloody well did. And I was 40 at this, 41 at the time, which is unbelievably young. There's only 18, 50 people in the UK with it under the age of 50, you know, out of 153, 000, there's not many people.
The problem I got is that the clinic at Harley street gave me the scans they shouldn't have done, but they gave me the scans. So I went home and googled what the scan looks like. I mean, it's awful, isn't it? So I kind of diagnosed myself before my neurologist rang me that evening. But he, we, he was, in fact, he said, it is what it is, come and see me, I'll talk you through it. And. And I went home and I cried because I had no idea what Parkinson's was. I'd just been diagnosed with an old person's disease. And I told my wife and she cried and we had a little cry and then we, about 45 minutes later said, right, let's get onto this. Should we just find out what we're doing here? Let's find out about Parkinson. So we researched and a great place for anybody to go is a Parkinson's UK website, which is parkinson's.org they had so much information and I learned about Parkinson's, you know, within that evening. And it was a hell of a shock because it's a progressive neurological condition. There's no known cause and there's no cure yet. Okay, you can, you can, you can alleviate some of the symptoms, you can deal with some of the symptoms, but you can't get rid of it. And you know, most people get it in their 70s, you don't die from it, you die with it. But it causes all sorts of problems, including dementia and etc. So I found out it had. You could get all these symptoms. Like I had a tremor at the time. Yeah, yeah, my hand would tremor.
But there were 40 symptoms you could get. And I'll tell you in a minute how they've developed over the last four or five years. But from a diagnosis point of view, we then thought, well, what are we going to do? You know, are we going to sit here and mope about, or are we going to take the positive step of saying, well, actually, this is what it is. We can learn about it, we can manage it, let's get on with our life. So we sat the kids down. They would be 8 and 10 at the time, I guess, something like that. And we told them. And that was the hardest conversation I've ever had. Because you're telling your children about something that's progressive and neurological and brain based, but it's. There's no defining anything to it. You know, there's not. You can't tell them how long you're going to live. You can't tell them what's going to happen to you.
And kids are so funny. They could not care less. They couldn't have cared less. I think, I think my little boy, Austin, I think I told him and I said, and dad's got Parkinson's disease. And he said, what's for dinner?
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: You know.
Yeah, kids are funny. Joe. It was the 24th of February, 2020. It's a day that changed my life, and it's a day that changed my life for the better. Because that was the moment I knew I didn't want to go to another company. I wanted to start my own business. And the reason I want to start my own business, and I'm very honest about this, I want to leave a legacy for my wife and children. Okay. I'm not going to be able to work forever. It's already getting, you know, not as easy as it was. I want to leave a legacy for my wife and children and I want to. I want to put my mark on a state agency. I'm not here to change the world. I'm not here to change the industry, but I am here to leave the industry. Whenever I do and say I made a mark, you know, I did it my way because I. I think my way is probably the right way that we all.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: What a brilliant saying.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So, yeah, Parkinson's, we've. We've. It's been my driving force for. If I just talk about it for a moment, it's been my driving force for the last five years in everything I do. We've raised150,000 pounds so far for Parkinson's UK. My team in Hatton Home are astonishing, astonishing at what they do for it. We've jumped out of planes, we've done Kate sales, we've done Three Peaks. We did a wing walk last year. You know, when you go on one of these old biplanes, Amazing. If you ever get the chance.
But it's getting harder. Yeah. There are things associated with it. You know, there's some mental health issues. You get, you get anxiety, depression, stuff like that. I get stiffness. I can't move as well as I used to. It's, you know, it's insomnia. Insomnia is the worst. I sleep three hours a night. It's awful. So I get up and work.
Oh, it's just. And you know what? I, I, I coined a phrase, I think I coined the phrase, or I nicked a phrase. The middle of the night is incredibly lonely. Yeah. You know, if you've ever been up in the middle of the night, it's the most lonely place. You're creeping around the house, trying not to wake anybody up. It's just awful. So, you know, it can be hard, Parkinson's. But you know what? You know, I've never compared myself against anybody else. I never say somebody's got cancer, so I, you know, that I'm, I'm better off than them because I don't think that's the way you should look at life. It's our pain, it's our disease, but it's not, you know, it's not, it's not killing me this week. You know, I've been given this opportunity, really. If you think it's a progressive disease that you don't die from straight away and you don't have to have horrendous treatment for, you know, anything else that gives you that, that kick up the bum that you need in life, you've got to get over first. So, you know, you might get, you might get a very bad cancer or something like that. And you've, you've got to either go through the treatment or whatever before you can then say, right, I'm going to start understanding. See, I didn't have that. I was given this gift, amazing gift. I could just get on with it. And so I got, I got on with it and I chose, I chose my own business.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: I think that's an interesting way to look at it because you're right at the beginning of that journey. You're at your strongest, aren't you, really? So it's like now or never. Let's. Let's get on with it, I suppose. And that was going to be my question, I suppose. Where do you get your strength from? Because I was saying to Ben before we started recording today, we've never met, ever in person, but I've only ever seen Ben once, and that was at the Negotiator Awards last year where Hatton Home won an award. And, and then you completely stood out to me as somebody with, you know, a team. Completely with you. Like completely with you. But you are so vibrant. You're a big, you know, character, and you just had such a vibrant and, you know, a can do positive attitude that must come from somewhere.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: We all do know what the thing that nobody can ever take away from us in life is choice. Okay? If somebody pulls out a junction, okay, in the morning when you're on your way to work, you've got a choice as to whether you beep at them and, you know, go right up the back of their car and, you know, make their life hell and get angry with yourself, or you've got a choice to say, oh, no worries, crack on, nobody hit each other, we're okay. And yeah, that's, that's kind of the choice we can make about every single thing in our life. You know, we have a choice. And if you make the choice to be positive, if you make the choice to be positive, that's what I do. It's not, I'm not always like that. You know, I've got a big beard rather than a big personality, so I stand out. I think what I said. But you mentioned something which is the team was with me, okay? That's because we're on a journey together. Everybody's on the bus. Yeah. And I might drive the bus, but I don't let you know, everybody's done it together. I've got an incredible team. And, you know, I think that that positivity, you know, comes from them, I guess, comes from being part of something where we feel like we're doing something interesting and important.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: I think when, you know, even when you were going back to talk about Martian Parsons, where you had that, you know, that social aspect of, of work as well as work and, you know, it's kind of work hard, play hard, whether that's the right phrase or not. But it's just about being like you know, work. Such a big part of our lives, isn't it? They can be, you know, part of your friends and family group as well. It makes such a difference. And I guess probably that's what you've obviously brought to Hat and Home. So let's kind of talk about that. You set up Hatton Home in the winter of 2020, which I imagine for many reasons was a fairly bold decision. Not just because of obviously, what we've talked about with Parkinson's, but obviously we were at the back end of COVID that year. And four years on from that talk to us, I guess, about what that journey has. Has actually been like.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Well, yes, it was brave, but you know what? It was the time. It was the time I was going to do it. Then you know what you're going to do. Wait. Actually, the market was very kind to us. You know, from a sales perspective, obviously, you know, Lessings, everybody sort of stayed put, but from a sales perspective, it was very kind to us. So it turned out to be a great move. I won't take any credit for that. It was. It was luck over judgment. I got a little unit in Wokingham in Berkshire. I put the bricks on the wall myself with my dad and my brother. We painted ourselves. You know, we spent as little money as we could by but making it look great. But it. It wasn't that. When I started Hatton Home, I. And this is what I learned from a guy called Marcus Flax Martian Parsons. Okay. He then went on to be marketing director at Stratton Parker.
Brand and People. Brand and People. They're your two greatest intangible trading assets. And we are very, very poor in the property industry. At Brand. We're not bad at advertising. You know, we're great at shouting. I'll let this for you. I'll do it. This fee, you know, the ones down the road are crap. We're better than them, but it's very shouty. What we don't do very well is brand. So I knew we needed something. The difference between that is brand is how you make somebody feel when they encounter your. Your products or marketing or whatever. What do they feel like? Can you get an emotional reaction from them? So I knew that was going to be important, and I knew people was going to be important. So I spent a lot of time developing that. I met a guy, a Brand guy who still does all our graphics and stuff now, who's unbelievably clever. And we were just chatting because I didn't know what to call it at the time, you know, I did, I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want Ben G and Sons, you know, it's just so.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: And I didn't want, you know, Vikings or whatever, you know, some awful masculine war cry that people used to call themselves, you know, to a degree. Foxes, I guess, is that so? I wanted something that kind of meant something. And he was saying, well, he said to me, what does, you know, home mean to you? I said, well, home's a place of safety, you know, for people and, you know, it's a, it's a place where you would develop relationships and you build relationships and relationships are lost and you make children and all that sort of jazz. You have Christmas there and it doesn't matter whether you've got a mansion or a one bed flat or a cottage by the river or, you know, a, a penthouse in the middle of town. Still home when you come in, wherever you lay your hat, that's your home. And he said it and then we both thought, well, that's the Paul Young song, terrible song, but we have a copy of the Paul Young album in every single office looking down at us. Wherever you lay your hat, that's your home. And one of us said, well, look, that's it, home, you know, that's great. And 20 minutes later this brand guy, they're brilliant. 20 minutes later he sent me a mock ups. It's our first ever conversation. He sent me a mock up of a for sale or for to let board with hat and home.co.uk and a bowler hat. Traditional values, great service. We needed to soften it down a bit, you know, because it was a bit masculine but, but we had something and we did and I think we had was hats. So I went home that evening, I said to my wife, we got a hat and home. She goes, I'm not convinced about hat and home. What's property got anything to do with hats? Then I said, we're going to do an advertising campaign where we're going to talk to people about the type of property they're going to buy and why they're moving by using hats as the vehicle to talk about it. And she said, you're nuts, what are you doing? But I knew we had something. So you can see, you see behind me, that's our first brand campaign over there. And we would have like a baby's bonnet and it would say, need a third bedroom. Or we'd have four. The one I love is four woolen hats in a row. It says I'm looking for a family home but next to it there's a, there's an old man's flat. Cabinet says, or one bed flat. There's something quite sad about that, but it's an emotional connection. So we, we did this and you know, we, I mean, I can't tell you the whole story in 20 minutes about Hanno, but so Brandon, people is important. So the people side. Let me tell you about that. A guy called Luke Shondower and we were just having a chat over lunch one day because I wanted to find out about who the agents were I'd be up against in Wokenham. And we clicked and we thought we should do this together.
And I thought up to that point I was the best estate agent in the uk. Of course, will do. When I met Luke, I thought, blimey, you're the best estate agent in the uk. He was just, he's just so on it. So we, he took the massive step of joining me and we've been on this journey together since, you know, nine months later we opened our second office, a third and fourth office. Two, two years ago we opened a million of financial services, which is our mortgage brokerage.
But we always get the best people. We, you know, you said a minute ago, Heidi, you said work hard, play hard. That's exactly what we do, you know, yeah, we go to Ascot races, we go, go karting, we do two trips a year. You know, we've gone to Chamonix last year and Marbella. I'm still recovering from that.
You know, we, we, we're old school sales. You know, when what we're not about, I don't care whether you make 60 or 70 or 80 calls a day. I do care about output, so I care about what they, you know, what people are doing, how they're doing it. You know, we, we live in a world where you've got to embrace, you know, other methods of communication rather than just the phone. You know, that's how you sell, that's how you do the magic. But it's not how you're a hold of people. So we're just old school but with a really fun brand around it. You know, if you, if you look around our head office at the moment I'm sitting in our head office, you know, I've got a pool table, you know, table tennis table, we've got a dartboard. You know, people wear casual clothes. If they want to wear sneakers, they can wear sneakers. They've just got to be clean. You know, we don't have Any problems with. With uniform or anything like that, we never have to speak to anybody because they're on the bus. They get it.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So how do you get the best people, then? Because that is. That is the magic, isn't it? Like, you know, in our. In our industry, our biggest asset is our people.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: They either come to you because they see all this going on and think, well, hang on, that's better than where I am. Or you develop them, and you develop them because you find something in them at that interview. You interview a lot of people and there's something about them. And one of our company values is sprinkle stardust. And frankly, that means, can you talk? If you were put on a dinner table with 10 other people you didn't know, would you be a shrinking violet? Or can you talk? Can you hold a conversation with 10 people that's sprinkling stardust, you know, so if they've got something about them, we'll train them. You can train people how to do the job, you can't train personality. And I'll tell you something that's really interesting is we have a vision statement in our business. It's our why. I read the book by Simon Sinek. Start with why. It's to make moving home a fantastic experience. Okay? That's our why. And if you ask anybody in the business, they all know it. They'll recite it. They know all our values, you know, because that's what we care about. So we tell people we care about it. They're brilliant. I've got a lovely team. They're amazing.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: It's funny, even. Go back to your story at the beginning here, where you said you were in catering and the director of Romans was there. That is how we often find our people, because we have really, like little business cards, you know, you stand out to me type thing. And when we're in the pub or when we're at the petrol station or wherever we are, if we find someone that has just got that sparkle, we absolutely try and get them. And some of our absolute best employees have come that way.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you know what? You are bang on. We used to have a similar card. And it works well. Yeah, it works well. And the airline industry is amazing as well. Anybody's been in the airline industry. Great, great source of. Source of people. But it's hard to find people because people.
I. I don't want to talk about generations, because things are different now. You know, our kids, our kids are growing up in a different world, so we can't Say it's better or worse than we grew up in, but there's definitely a different mentality. You know, people, people are more worried about the softer side of things, you know, then we give them their birthday off free. That matters to people now, you know, whereas, whereas when, when we were, you know, starting our careers, it was a badge of honor not to take holiday.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: So, so things have changed. But you know, you, you've got to change with it, you know, you've got to change with it. So yeah, it's, it's interesting.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: That is hugely inspiring and I think we could sit and listen to you all day. But how do you spend your free time? So when you're not totally involved in the business, what are your hobbies and what are your plans for 2025?
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Right.
I've been victim of working too hard and too much and because of that, and I think a lot of people in this industry, when you start a business, you start losing your hobbies. You know, you, you suddenly realize that you're not going to have your mates as much. You're not cooking. I loved cooking. I mean, I'm not doing that as much. I, I took my first motorcycle test, my cbt, the only easy one last, last year. I'm taking my proper test this year. I'm gonna get a motorbike. I'm gonna get a motorbike this year. That's my goal for this year. And there's a couple of other things I want to make sure I go on a holiday a couple of times with the kids and stuff, you know, but my K school now where they need our support, so that's important to me. I, I, you know, I, I, I, I always do stuff for Parkinson so I always get a challenge every year. I think we're probably going to go wing suit flying this year, so I don't need to climb a mountain or anything like that.
I am realizing very quickly that you can't buy time back with your family. Yeah, and I'm realizing it pretty, I'm realizing it quickly but late in life. And I've been very, very guilty of always looking at the destination and not living the journey.
And that's a failing of mine because it means that I've missed out on some really important parts of my kids lives. And what my goal for 2025 is to not do that is to change. My goal is to make sure that I give the business 100% but I also give my family 100%.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I Saw I'm quite like little sayings, like I live for them. Not that I share them with the team. I do write to the team every Friday and sometimes I'll talk about it. But I saw one this week where it was like time is the only currency you spend. You don't know when it runs out or you don't know how valuable it is. You know, something like that. And it's like that has totally stuck in my mind. It's true, isn't it, that we always make excuses about, well, I just need to do that today and I'm home a bit late or you know, and soon that just becomes the norm and it is about putting a bit of a stop on that and taking control of it.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's hard to do that because it means stopping work. It means, you know, there's our lists. They never, they never, they never go, they never finish all my to do list is never going to end. So you know, what I've done for probably most of my life is I've all I've tried to work up until when I go to bed to try and get as much of that list done. Well, I've missed out on too much. Now I'm not, you know, you can do both. You can do both. Yeah, I'm only just realizing that because I'm an idiot.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: But so it takes time, doesn't it?
What about empowering your team?
Does that come easy or do I mean, I know you've got a brilliant team and you value them, but are you, is it hard to let go of some of the reins when it's been your baby from the very beginning?
[00:31:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you know what? You create a culture and you know, you can't dictate your culture. What you do is you give a platform for people to perform at their best, to be their best self. Now if you do that, you get a great bunch of people all trying to better themselves. And I think that yes, I find it hard to let go, but I've got a great team just under me and I won't ever let go. You know, I'm not letting go. I'm just not on the front line as much. You know, we have a champions meeting every, every month where we celebrate the success of the last month. We throw, throw out champagne. It's very Fox esque throughout champagne. You know, we have the trip awards and stuff like that.
I think you empower people by giving them responsibility and don't treat them like idiots. You know, this whole industry has treated people like idiots by ringing them at 5 to 6am where are you monitoring their calls and not trusting people.
But if you can't trust somebody, they shouldn't be in your business anyway.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Agree? 100% agree. I guess it's getting that balance there, isn't it? Because it can tip one way or another really easily.
But I think obviously if you get.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: A rotten apple, if you get rotten apple in your business, that's bad. And Pete Rollins taught me, get rid of them quickly.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Yes, yes. There is a saying, isn't there? Fire fast.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Well, I think. But the thing is, if you put so much into something and actually you feel completely responsible for everybody else that works there in terms of what you promised them when they joined, in terms of having a brilliant business to grow in a brilliant environment to work in, brilliant people to work alongside. And if that changes, you need to do something about it really fast.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Okay. So, Ben, thank you so much. That is a real upbeat, inspiring session today. But before you go, our regular listeners of let's Talk let always know that we ask every podcast for a funny story or anecdote.
Okay, you have one for us today.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: I'm not a comedian, but I will, I'll tell you a little. I'll tell you a little story and anybody who's worked in a staying seat and has gone to an area they don't know will understand this. It was my first week at Foxton's and I was in Chiswick and I just been given a Mini and this, this applicant walked in and they wanted to go see a flat. And it was, I remember this, it was in Bassian Park Road, W12. I didn't know where it was, right? So I put this lady in the car, I got the key, put this lady in the car and asked her to, you know, read the map on the way there. Okay, what else you do? You know, sat nav wasn't, you know, this was 2005 or something. Satnav wasn't like it is now. You get a Tom Tom back then. So we, we, we probably took 25, 30 minutes to get to, you know, two miles in London. We got to Bassett Park Road. I went up to the door, put the key, and I had the wrong bloody keys. We had two flats in the same road. I had the wrong keys and she really wants it. So I was, I felt like an app, absolute idiot. Get back in the car. She then drives, reads the map on the way back. We've all done this, right? Get back to the office, swap the keys over, get back in the car. We find our way back there again. Go into. She absolutely hated it.
So we've all done that.
I think I, I used a swear word on the way back and said, I'm really sorry, you must think I'm an absolute.
And I, I got back to the office and I was telling my colleagues about this and it up pings this email and this email said, thanks for meeting me today. The flat's not for me, but you want to go out for a drink?
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: And she became my wife and we've been married 18 years. So it was my, my first applicant at Foxons and we were together. We've been together 19 odd years now. So, yeah. Always be closing. Always be closing.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: That is a brilliant story. Thank you very much. And for all of our listeners to never miss an episode of let's Talk, let's please follow us on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Please leave us a review. I think Ben's done amazing today and thank you all so much for listening. Let's Talk let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
