Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Let's Talk let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast, let's Talk. Let's. I'm Heidi, the CEO of the Lettings Hub, the tenant referencing business that Got Good at tech and let's Talk Lets is our regular roundup of news and views on a whole range of subjects spanning the private rented sector. Today's podcast is our latest in the life of my life in Lettings, which I know so many of you listeners love listening to people's stories and it's a feature where we explore more about people's personal career stories across the whole lettings arena, their journey, any key moments in their lives and careers that have been the most impactful and taught them any important life lessons.
In this episode, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Valerie Bannister, who has been with LSL for an amazing 40 years. She currently holds the job of Letting's Technical Director. And Valerie is also one of the growing number of women who have held the position of the president of the ARLA Property Mark and won a very impressive Sunday Times award for outstanding contribution to the lettings industry.
And I don't think there's probably many of us that don't know Valerie. She's so vibrant, she's so colorful and always brings a beautiful smile to every single room. So let's get started. Valerie, thank you so much for joining me today. I don't think I've ever interviewed anyone that has had such a kind of a strong career, especially with one organization. So please introduce yourself to our listeners. Tell our listeners a little bit more about you, your family, and any kind of key points about your life in general before we start talking about your career.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yes, well, hello Heidi, and thank you very much to the Lettings Hub for this opportunity.
Yes, I have been 40 years with one company, which may sound strange to some of your listeners, but I've been very, very blessed that I've worked for a company that has always been evolving, which has actually given me lots more career opportunities. So I actually haven't had to leave the company to develop my career path. I have a son, he works for the Leaders Romans Group. So we have some interesting Sunday lunch chats at times as we are of course, cheerful competitors.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Excellent. And has he always been in property, like since he started his own career?
[00:02:47] Speaker A: No, my son actually wanted to be a translator. He's half Italian and that didn't quite work out as he wanted. So actually I gave him a job auditing our Gas safeties many years ago. He's got a university degree and he did it really, really well. He's got that eye for detail. Then he morphed into doing other things and then he actually became client account manager.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Oh, wow. There you go.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Leaders, Roman's group. And, you know, he deals with compliance and, you know, he loves his industry.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah. The reason I asked that is my children are younger, they're still primary school age at the moment, but they do have a genuine interest in what I do. And I just wonder, you know, are we kind of breeding the next generation of people to enter the property, kind of. Saxer, maybe you also mentioned one other thing there as well, is about, you know, you've been blessed, you said, to work with such a great company that have given you so many opportunities.
And I'm sure that's absolutely true. But for our listeners, how. What's kind of been your attitude, I suppose, along the way to work? Like how. How have those opportunities come to you? Have you had to go and find them? You know, any kind of tips and advice you would give people along the way to seek them out?
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Well, first of all, I have a positive attitude. I am definitely what you call a glass half full.
And I have a mantra. I've stayed with me for 40 years. Every day my plan is to do something that makes a difference to somebody. I am salaried, so I have to do a good job to remain working. But if I can support somebody, make sure we do something in a really good way, I'm always that person that wants my own personal achievement at the end of the day so I can tick my little box at the end of it. Yes, it's been a long, hard, grueling day, but I've. I've achieved something. Sometimes I achieve a lot in a day and I'm. I'm shocked at how much I'm like Superwoman, managing to do so many things. Then another day, it's just long, hard graft just to get one little inch of something that you need to get sorted out. But that's been my mantra. I've always worked very hard.
I always want to go that extra mile. I know it's a really bit of a corny phrase, but I always want to be the best at everything that I can do. And in fact, a former director I used to work for in the partnership firm, he left a note one night on my briefcase and said, you don't always have to be perfect.
It is okay to sometimes get something not quite right. And that's actually been a very useful piece of advice to know when, okay, I can keep going that extra mile, but now's okay. Everybody else thinks it's fabulous. I'd like to go a little bit further, but it's okay. So I've, I've learned that about myself.
I have very high standards. I'm not saying people around me don't, but I push myself a lot. I've always got that disposition of I don't expect to be handed things on a plate. I expect to be able to have my career path and the jobs that I've been able to do on my own merit.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I can absolutely see why LSL have wanted to hold on to you the whole way through now. I did an interview actually with a guy not too long ago and he said something to me and it really made me think just going what you were saying. He said, oh, I don't see one day as a day. I see it as two days. I have a morning and then at lunchtime I reset and then I've got a whole nother day in the afternoon. And I was like, do you know what? That's a really kind of different way of looking at your day to exactly what you said about I've got to achieve things. And actually sometimes like you said, it is hard. We all have hard days actually if you can reset lunchtime. It actually kind of helped me and changed my perspective a little bit. So I'm just sharing that just in case it helps.
But in terms of your, you know, like you say, your disposition, your personality, have you always been that way?
I imagine, you know, as a female in the property sector, sometimes it's been tough along the way But I imagine 40 years ago it was even harder to kind of make a name for yourself and progress. Tell us about that part of your journey and is that has your personality and your, you know, you having to work hard as you mentioned, near enough have to compensate for the fact that you've had a disadvantage or have you not ever felt that throughout your career?
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Well, I think it's how you look at things it 40 years ago factually it was a male dominated industry and therefore it was not for the faint hearted, shall we put it like that. So I was, I'm one of those people that I don't really take any notice of people's attitude around me. I am who I am and I'm going to be the best that I can ever be and I will make you respect me for my merit. I work very hard. You Know, I actually naturally do like people and it's very rarely that there's somebody I can't get on with or I don't like. So I make it my, my job to make sure that I can align myself to understand other people's thoughts and career ambitions. And does it mean we can align somewhere along, along the journey? So yes, there's been some tricky times. The partnership firm I worked for was, it was all male dominated actually, but it was a traditional estate agency offering a range of what I call traditional services, commercial auction, residential sales, lettings and ironically mortgages weren't such a thing in those days. And there was a part time mortgage consultant that would come in, in one of our main offices. But I, I know some of the guys I work with and I still see one or two of them occasionally now. You know, we had a gentleman's club in the town that I worked in and occasionally they said well we're going to the gentleman's club tonight, we're going to the club. And I couldn't go so I could choose to have a bottom lip tremble as I call it. I just said well okay, they want to go to the club, that's up to them. I'll do something else, you know. So I never let these things bother me and I always, I always have stood up for myself. I'm, I don't cave in very easily. I've got a brittle coat of armor probably because you know, lettings was very different 40 years ago and your working day, your day in a life of an agent, you couldn't be more diagonally opposite to what it is today. So I've got a lot of resilience.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: I'll definitely talk about resilience later because that is a key pet love of mine actually. But let's go back. So 40 years in one industry, as we've said, is a huge achievement. And I know LSL held a party in your honors this summer which I think is lovely.
But for our listeners the letting sector as you said, was very different 40 years ago. And actually I know we've got massive talk at the moment, especially today with the Renters Rights Bill having a second reading yesterday and new legislation coming. But back then not even the 1988 Housing act was around.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: No.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: And we keep talking about this is going to be the biggest shake up for 30 odd years. So tell us a little bit more about what was the letting sector like back when you entered it.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Well, it was all very manual.
Imagine a world with not one piece of tech, your communication with your customers was by a landline telephone handset.
You had to have really good face to face communication skill. We had a lot of footfall and everything would you believe was by post. So your written skill, the communication had to also be very good.
And the whole letting process was very slow because it would take up to 14 days to get your tenant reference back to allow a move in to go ahead.
But I did early days learn a lot about a two tier sector because we had the partnership firm I worked for had a very big department of what we would refer to now as the fair rents, the regulated tenancies. So that went on in one sector of our company and then we had our residential lettings, which was actually what I was involved with. And the private rented sector then really did facilitate mobility for labour, for people moving around to change their jobs. They may be a homeowner renting their house somewhere else and want to rent for the length of time for their assignment, or they were renting to understand what the area is like, what the schools were like with an intention to buy what the private rented sector wasn't.
It was never intended to be and it was not a solution or alternative solution for long term housing for families. It was very much on the whole a vibrant moving sands, if you like, transitional.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: Yeah, all the time.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: We also had, which was very topical at the time, I worked in a very large naval area. The next office along to me worked in a very large army area. So we had quite a large HM Forces client base because those landlords would either be redeployed elsewhere within the UK or a lot of them had assignments outside of the UK and they needed to rent their house out. So much so that our ops manager was also former army. So much so we even use the terminology to make them feel comfortable. So where we use terms like move in, move out, check in, check out, we would march in and we would march out because that was the terminology that they were used to from the forces if they rented forces accommodation wherever they were off to. So I saw a very big set, different sector and we had more big company. Let's like with Kodak, IBM, it was a very different marketplace. We didn't have a housing problem.
There was sufficient social housing properties available for those tenants that were eligible for social accommodation. And we didn't have too many tenants, you know, we didn't have a demand that outstripped supply. It was all fairly what I call balanced. I mean, I have to say we still have the same. You still have the same issues, you Know tenants that don't pay the rent. There's. There's damage at the end of a tenancy, there's a breach of varying degree during the tenancy. Nothing, nothing changes that over 40 years. That's still the same.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Did you used to deal with it differently, like.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Well, you could deal with it differently and I think it helped people differently because we weren't. We didn't have any legislation. So imagine a move in was just going to the property. I'd be. I'd be spending all day with wads of money because often people paid cash. There was cash handling. Obviously, I had to be careful of security, but I. But you did that. And in terms of legislation, you didn't have all of the prescribed documents and legislative requirements we must have in place now before a move in. Yes, of course, if there were visible defects, you would expect to get those fixed as usual. But I never had. I never had improvement notices to deal with from the council or hazards or anything to do with the property not being to a decent standard. And the other thing that I found very, I think was really useful to tenants that we would say are vulnerable. It was easier to help them because they would say, I don't know how to do this with the local council. And I would speak to the local council and I say, I've got, you know, Joey Brown next to me and they. They don't know how to fill their form in. They're going to rent. 14 Acacia Avenue. What are we going to do? We need the rent. We need whatever we need. And there was a lot more sort of working together without. I suppose now you'd call it a privacy breach, but you'd have the tenant with you and it was just to help the tenant in an easier way so that they could move into a property, we could sort the money out, sort their circumstances out. It was a lot easier. But to be fair to the local councils, they didn't have the volume that we have now. And I think there's something like over a million people on the combined council housing waiting lists across the country, you know, and. And they're being hit every day now with their housing obligations they have to meet. Well, back in the 80s, we didn't have this block. We didn't have a supply and demand issue and we probably weren't creating as many new households then as we do now. So the market was very different. I mean, for example, I barely remember, the only time we usually would rent to people from outside the UK was actually visiting overseas naval personnel. We had a navigation school near us and they used to train non UK naval personnel. So that was the only time we had some dealings with generally people outside of the uk. So the whole thing was very different.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: So over the, over the 40 years, what's been the, if you look back now, what has been the most pivotal change that kind of came into the industry that, you know, really made the biggest, the biggest difference, good or bad.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: The biggest change, I would say, was actually to do with the Housing act and the tenancy agreement. So the introduction of the assured tenancy, which then morphed its way into the assured short haul tenancy, has made a massive difference. I mean, back in 40 years ago we had a number of different housing acts we had to deal with and we had set timing when you had to serve notices and if you missed them, it wound on for another year. So I think making the Housing act framework more straightforward. Oh, because I don't know if you remember, but when you had an assured tenancy, you'd have to serve ground one because it was their owner occupier and they would rely on that ground to repossess their property. Probably a bit like the journey we're going on now with the Renters Rights Bill with the assured shorthold tenancy. It just made it so much easier. It didn't matter, unless you're a company, of course it didn't make. It didn't matter at all what you were. And I think that made a massive difference. It eased errors and emissions, technical errors and emissions. And then that was followed by the, the introduction of buy to let, because then that, that introduced more properties into the prop. Into the property market and actually became a viable option for people who wanted to move around to change jobs but didn't want to buy or maybe owned their home and wanted to keep it from wherever they first originated from. And actually there are people quite understandably who think, well, I like to rent, so you need a market that serves everybody's needs. So I think those, the big change was going to an assured short haul tenancy. And, you know, I was very relieved to no longer have some of these tricky notices and tenancy agreements that we had to use. And you know, technical points, if you've got a form wrong, it caused issues with the possession. So it eased all of that and I think it made it more straightforward.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: And if we kind of look forward then to, you know, the next. Well, probably less than a year actually. But if we look forward to the next year with the Renters Rights Bill coming into Fruition. What do you think, out of all of the changes, I guess, that are coming into legislation is going to be the biggest change in all of that for our industry this time round?
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Well, I think just literally, if. If Math Matthew Penny Cook has said it's day one, big bang. I think it's just the conversion from a minute to midnight. We've all got our various tenancy agreements a minute past midnight. Every single tenancy agreement will be on a periodic. And I think it's just getting your head round that massive transition and I.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Think yesterday when he was talking, he very much believes it is that, isn't it? Big bang all the way, job done. There was no wavering of that at all.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I don't want to be the difficulty. When you're a letting agent, it sounds like you're a turkey wanting to ban Christmas, isn't it? So you have to be very measured in your viewpoint. But an example I would give and hope to be writing to MPs with this. When we had the Tenant Fee act, we had three stages that you could work through. And I'm not sure I understand why we can't have a longer transitional period. I mean, on the Tenant Fee act, we had a transitional period from 1 June 2019 to 31 May 2020. I don't understand why we can't have a transitional period, even if it is just six months. Because for letting agents, particularly the large letting. Well, actually, I say particularly large. It doesn't matter what size you are, you've all got to change your procedures. And, you know, some of the webinars I'm doing now with Property Mark are about helping agents adapt to that change, your preparation beforehand, because there are a number of actions that need to be thought about. But if you start it in, you know, early enough, you can, you can be prepared. But there's no doubt about it, there are a number of changes. And I think it's, you know, it's letting agents need to try and hold their landlord steady and, you know, have a belief in our own expertise that we can guide and support landlords through the Renters Rights Bill.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah, and you're absolutely right, you know, the months that lead up to the change are actually quite interesting, aren't they? Because if we think about it now, I'm going to say let's assume it's coming in in the summer, just for a timeline point of view. Any tenancy that ends its fixed term now, there's no point really granting another fixed term. We may as well let them go periodic because it's less work for us, potentially when we get to the summer. But, you know, you're going to be granting a tenancy the day before, you know, and then the day after it changes, you know, the week before, the month before, the six months before. It's like so many different phases, isn't it? And actually you could see agents maybe making some changes earlier just to reduce the admin burden of how much there is. As we get close.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: I think that there's no reason for agents not to still have some fixed terms because it is a security to the tenant if the landlord wants to sell. So I still see there's some rationale behind a fixed term as long as you explain to the landlord exactly what it means. And I think also it would be really helpful for letting agents, landlords and tenants to sort of have a transitional period to bed in to this new legislation, so that we can have time to reflect and think, oh, actually that bit's working. There's bits that are working that are okay, yeah, there are other bits. Not sure about this and we've got time for some more dialogue. I'm not saying that they will change anything, but, you know, they, you know, Matthew Pennycook does have. He can have secondary legislation on some elements if that's what is required. So I think we all know the change is coming.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: One of the things that you mentioned earlier about yourself was resilience and actually, as a sector, I think we are very resilient and we're really good at coming up with solutions, aren't we, to the problems? It'd just be good to have a long enough Runway to come up with the right solutions quickly in the right way to suit both tenants, landlords and agents along the way. So as it's kind of about your life in lettings this session today, I'm going to bring this totally back to you. Did you always want to work in property or have you or did you have any other dreams along the way?
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Well, there are two answers to that. I originally went to music college and thought I wanted to be a musician, but I didn't think I'd be ever good enough to be the top of what I wanted to do. So I abandoned that and thought, no, that won't be for me. And what happened as I was living in Trinidad in the West Indies and back in the 80s and we had to rent our home out? Well, lettings was really almost like a cottage industry. It was a department that traditional estate agents may have offered a service with, and I can tell you a topical evening chat when I lived abroad was with the other expatriates about our letting agents, about the management of our homes and rent arrears and obviously communication, because bearing in mind communication was, well, by post.
And actually where I lived in Trinidad, I didn't even have a telephone. So even if an agent wanted to phone me, I didn't have a telephone. So it piqued my interest in lettings when I returned to the uk. But I had an open mind what I wanted to do. And then by chance, it's fate, isn't it? I bumped into somebody I used to be at primary school with. He was wildly excited. He was the new appointed sales manager of this partnership firm. They were looking for some admin support. They had nine interviews the next day and I saw, oh, I'm looking for a job. He said, oh, come along to the interview at the end of the day, you know, not what it is now, role profile, criteria based interview. So I said to him, oh, well, thanks. So I rushed back home and I said to my mother, oh my goodness, I've got an interview tomorrow. I don't have an interview wardrobe. My wardrobe comprised of bathing wear, beach wear, summer clothes, the odd winter woolies since I'd been back in the uk, but I certainly didn't have an interview out it. Yeah, my mother was a great seamstress so she made me a fabulous dress and I was ready presented the next day for, for an interview. Anyway, I, I had this interview, I think it went very well and I, I got home and I said to my husband, I said, well, I think it went okay but you know, they had so many people to see and I've got, I have, I've got portable skills, you know, I'm qualified in some, you know, certain things admin wise. But, you know, I haven't worked properly for five, six years because I've lived abroad and to my surprise, half past six that night, I always remember it, he phoned me, Johnny phoned me and said, yep, you've got the job, when can you start? And I started the following Monday and I loved it. I was working for Resi sales and lettings. It was great then, it was really vibrant. But I liked the lettings piece because it was very thinking on your feet. You had to find solutions. And within about three or four months the partnership firm said, oh, would you like to run our lettings and property management? I said yes, I would. So I thought, gosh, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but yes, I do want to do this. So I was moved into my own office. Now, I will tell listeners I'm going to use that term loosely, bearing in mind it's lettings. Bearing in mind it's the 80s. My office was the former cleaning cupboard. I just about had room. There was a, there was brooms and vacuum cleaner and stuff. I had to shove that somewhere. Just about could sidle a desk and a chair. I had heavy frosted glass panels, couldn't see out, nobody could see in, so not much daylight. And the thickest burglar bars ever. But that was my, my fiefdom at the time and I loved it, I made the best of it. And actually showcasing your properties for sales and lettings was very limited in the 80s. It was your shop window.
You had listings that you could give out to people and it was mainly about getting your photographs and your lettings available stock in the newspaper each week for advertising.
So I didn't get much window space because, remember, it was the 80s and your primary service delivery in those days was generally your residential sales. And we had a great big window, actually. So I'd always be wheedling, can I just have a bit of space? I've got this really great house, you know, So I was always cajoling, can I have some space? And sometimes, you know, I would win and I, I'd get some space. But that increased our footfall, that we were a proper lettings proposition of people coming through the office. They have to go through our lovely smart sales office, through the corridor, into our cleaning cupboard.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Okay, and then I'm going to fast forward now, and I know I mentioned this at the beginning in the introduction, but you won the Sunday Times Award for outstanding contribution to the lettings industry, which is just such an astonishing achievement. Massive Congratulations to you, Valerie. And it isn't an annual award, you know, this is an award based on merit and achievement alone.
Tell our listeners a little bit more about it. And is that kind of, you know, one of the absolute highlights of your career so far?
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Well, I think it's always a humbling highlight to have in your career when you're with your peer group and to have your contribution acknowledged. I mean, I have, I used to say, when I was the ARLA president, I'm going to patent this. I am working an eight day working week because I had to squeeze in presidential duties and I was still salaried. I had a day job with commitments, objectives and deliveries. So it was a massive amount to do. Also I used to help write some material for NVQs. I'd also prior to the Sunday Times award I'd also been fortunate to win a Women in Property awards elsewhere. So it was just that whole journey I was very busy dealing with media inquiries about lettings, doing media representation from iFirm for property Mark and I was just really immersed in this industry so it was a great privilege and I feel, I do feel very privileged that I have this accolade but you know, it's all about hard work, determination. I was never looking for any formal accolade at all or that I, that I do all that I do. I actually one of these old fashioned people. It sounds a bit corny but I really love my job. I think I'm lucky to be working in a job that's so exciting, diverse. I make so many great people. Of course I've had some tricky people. We all do, we deal with the public but that's our job and we choose to do it and we must do it to the best of our advantage. And so people might find it strange that I've stayed 40 years but the reason I've been here 40 years I've been involved in an involving company that's always been changing direction and my journey has meant I had other career opportunities that I seized with both hands and always delivered to the best of my advantage. But I also wanted to broaden my whole outlook and to have a much better holistic overview.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: I think as you describe it, like even your work in the sector over 40 years, it feels like there's many different careers along the way within it, isn't it? And like it just feels, you know, is so broad. Go, just go back to the award for a second. Did you, did somebody have to nominate you or how did you come about?
[00:32:07] Speaker A: I believe you have to be nominated and I believe, I don't know the mechanics of it, but I believe you have to be nominated and then there will be likely other nominations and they would have to be voting on it.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: Oh wow. Excellent. Amazing achievement as I said.
Now I know just from listening to you that obviously your work life, your career, your work family is obviously such a big part of actually your life. But I'm sure our listeners would love to learn more about you as a person, what else you do in your life. So how do you relax? What hobbies do you have?
[00:32:44] Speaker A: Well, relaxing is a tricky one in my life because I'm always interested in property. So I'm always seduced by something to do with Property. So I often find some of my downtime at the weekend. There's nothing better than I like to read a good property article. Now I know that might sound very sad and other people might be curling up with a lovely novel, but I am just besotted with this industry and wanting to know more and more and there's so much information out there. My brain is like a computer, it's kind of dragging in information and I'm one of those really odd people that suddenly pop out a bit of trivia information. And I'll say, where did that come from? Oh, I read an article on Sunday morning about whatever it happened to be. I do try and manage exercise though, because it's very easy to put that to one side. I live in a village. I've got a really nice walk with through a conservation area, running by a river, walking down to the beach. My friend has a beach hut. Very old, fat beach huts, very old fashioned. But we love it. We go down to the beach hut and I can tell you the best sunsets. And I've been, you know, I lived in Trinidad, I've been all over the West Indies. The best sunset ever. Hill head beach itch, changes every single night. And it's just a real pleasure to enjoy the simplicity of things around you. And I, I learned a big lesson from COVID about adapting because I'm obviously a people person, I like to be out and about. I found it very hard to adapt but obviously like everyone else, I did. But what came along that journey was a better appreciation of things on my doorstep.
And actually I've embraced more local breaks rather than keep going abroad to see other parts of the uk. And I. The other week I'd gone to the Isle of Wight and I just thought, how lucky am I? I'm going to pop across the Solent on the ferry. It's the most expensive ferry crossing in the world. I have told Isle of Wight services that on my feedback, but it was like being transported to another, another dimension and just, you know, I had looked around the estate agents windows, looked in the lettings windows. I always do that wherever I go. But. But I just loved the fact that we have so many lovely places in the UK to go to and just embracing more about what we take for granted but what's around us all the time. And it's made me, I think, more balanced.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. And even when you're describing it, you know, it's. You're infectious definitely in terms of how you feel about life and you have such kind of a cheery outlook. And I know I mentioned at the beginning that you're always so colorful. How has that always been like your. You like you? Or has that kind of developed more and more with time?
[00:35:43] Speaker A: I think it's. I'm a Gemini. And so you, the Gemini twins. I always say to lsr, you're very lucky to employ me because the price of one salary, you've got two people, because one day you've got this flamboyant, crazy person doing a hunt things at 100 miles an hour. Then the other day, you've got this really measured, thoughtful, calm person. And I think, oh, where's Valerie Bannister gone today? I've always liked to be who I am, and I like jolly things. I like. I like to be cheerful. And actually, my friends, they always run a little list. If we go out somewhere, we say, oh, we're going out, Valerie, today. How far are we going to get before pedestrians in the street stop and say, I love your headband, I love your neck, I love your dress. You know, so it becomes a bit of a joke. And in fact, the funniest thing, we were coming back.
I was a judge last year on the Negotiator Awards, and I'm a judge this year, actually. And I was coming back late from the Negotiator Awards with some of the Property Mart people, Nathan Emerson and Jan Heitsch and Katie Griffin. And we were on a side street. It's about half past one in the morning, and a group of people were coming towards us.
And they were all chaps, and they all. They all spontaneously started to bow. Oh, my God, the queen is coming down the street. You know, this is like 1:30 in the morning. They're complete stages. We all laugh. So I just laugh it off. But I am a serious person. But, you know, sometimes I have people, it's really. I feel really sorry. Some people say to me, oh, oh, I wish I could be like you and wear a headband. I said, wear it. People come and say to me, oh, my God, I love your tiara. I said, oh, darling, doesn't everybody wear a tiara on a Wednesday? And I make a joke of it. But honestly, you just need to be who you are, who you want to be. And it's about being happy with yourself. You can't worry all the time about what other people are going to think about you. I try to treat people with kindness and respect and hope that that's reciprocated. And when it's not, you have to be the Bigger person, and you must rise above it.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Obviously, I could. I could sit and listen to you all day, genuinely. But to kind of draw, obviously, the session to a close. So Danny isn't going to spend a week editing.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: I know. Sorry.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Sorry, Danny.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: And any kind of other kind of final messages or anything you would love to kind of give to our listeners about how to have a long and happy successful career in our sector, or actually in any sector, to have any.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Type of career path, you need to plan ahead.
Where do you think you see yourself in 3 to 5 years also? Where does that fit with your life journey? You know, I work with some amazing women who juggle all sorts of careers. You know, I work with Theresa Wallace. I've known her for a very long time through Arla, Jane Conwright Brown from Savors, Kate Faulkner, obe, and also I've worked with some really good guys, you know, that have been very supportive. David Nunes was our former md. He runs National Home Move. Gareth Samples was our former md. He's CEO of Property Franchise Group. And David Cox, who's now commercial director of rightmove. You know, we spent a huge amount of time together when I was on my presidential journey. He's got a legal background, he's fantastically clever. And I've learned things from. I'm like a sponge. I learn from lots of people and I work with some great women in our franchise team. We've got Kate, Ashley Ives, Hannah Gretton and Sarah Tucker, who I'm working with at the moment. She's head of our conveyancing. So we've got some really fabulous women. There's loads of women that I work with and I don't want anybody to feel that I've left them out because I've, you know, I've worked with Ellie Hall, Lucy Noonan. There's loads of people that I've worked with that have helped formulate me because I'm never too proud to learn from other people.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Valerie, tell me about a key person that you work with now that totally makes your job easier and more enjoyable.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: Well, within my working job within lsl. Paul Hardy is our managing director. He's hugely supportive of women in agency. I mean, as soon as the Women in Agency tickets were available, he said, right, we're going. And he's hugely supportive that we attend these events and it's really important for women that are listening. Culture is important, but you can help influence and change culture. I also would mention I do a lot of work with Nathan Emerson, who is the CEO of property mark. And he is a massive advocate of supporting women in agency and equal opportunity. So there are excellent women out there, but there are equally men that will champion the cause for women to be hurt.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Brilliant. Well, do you know what? That has been such a powerful and, you know, totally interesting session, but also really kind of uplifting. And I imagine anybody that's listening to this is going to kind of go to their next meeting or their next thing with actually a slightly different, more positive attitude, which is brilliant.
Before you go, our regular listeners of let's Talk let's will know we always try and end every podcast asking our guests for a funny story or anecdote or something that's happened in your career.
I'm sure there probably has been many, but do you have one?
[00:41:31] Speaker A: But this one, this one has always stayed with me. You will remember that I mentioned that when I managed to have an interview for the job in the partnership firm, I didn't have a dress or anything like that and my mother made me one. Well, I also thought I better have a necklace and a pair of earrings and matching shoes. So I went and bought these things. And in the middle of this interview, I don't quite. And that was a very formal, somber interview because there was a senior partner of lettings, there was the newly appointed sales manager and this ops manager. So I only knew Johnny from primary school. I didn't know these other very scary people. So in I was.
And halfway through the interview, spontaneously, my earrings, I had clip ons, I don't know why, it unclipped itself, it flicked across the room, it went into the area of the desk where there's always a gap in those old fashioned gaps. Yeah, I said to these three people who kind of watched something fly across the air. Oh, excuse me a minute. My earrings just fall off. I then dive to the floor, scrambling on the floor to find my earring, popped back onto my seat, plucked off the earring and popped it back on my ear and said yes. Now where were we? And they were all sort of sat. I would say still life shock vitally. But I just swept on in my inimitable style. As if you have imagined an earrings just popped off and I've scrabbled on the floor to pick it up again. But I left that interview thinking. I thought the interview went very well. When I went home, I said to my husband, I think the interview went very well, but I had a bit of a mishap over my wardrobe. I'm not sure if that's going to go against me to this day. I don't know if that's the reason they thought she's crazy, we're going to take her. Or it was nothing to do with the earring at all. I don't know. To this day.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: Or maybe that's where resilience comes in again, that you just kind of found a solution cracked on and.
Absolutely. So, Valerie, thank you so much. And for all of our listeners, to ensure you 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 you and thank you all so much for listening.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Let's Talk. Let's an original podcast from the Lettings Hub.
