Ground-breaking agent mentoring scheme wins lavish praise

A self-employed agent has gone public to lavish praise on the mentoring scheme which is part of the Agents Together charity.

Cameron Carter, who this summer moved from being a self-employed agent at Purplebricks to the Keller Williams UK operation, was one of the first mentees following the launch of Agents Together 11 weeks ago.

He has done a video interview with Chris Watkin - the industry consultant who is one of the charity’s volunteer mentors - praising the arrival of the charity, which he says fills a gap in offering mentoring and advice to agents.

“I’d never heard of anything like that. It surprised me because in every other agency … there’s some form of mentorship or outside guidance. We’ve never had anything in agency - you’ve always had to find your own mentor or someone you believe in” explains Carter, who moved from the military to Countrywide to begin his agency career. 

“I saw the calibre of people coming on to it, for me it was a no brainer” says Carter, who wanted specific help on how to win new business and grow his activities as a self-employed agent. 

His mentor - selected by chance - was Kenny Bruce, a founder of Purplebricks and also, with brother Michael, one of the founders of Agents Together. Carter has spoken with Kenny Bruce subsequently to continue the assistance in winning new business.

The charity’s chief executive, Sarah Edmundson - formerly an estate agent and now of the Agency AllStars training body - says: “We’re incredibly proud to announce that we have now made 111 mentorship matches. Day in day out we get more applications from fantastic mentors and mentees from a variety of backgrounds. 

“We also have some big names from inside and outside the industry lined up for the autumn including football legend Sam Allardyce. The feedback from this has been overwhelming, with many mentees reaching out to tell us that it has changed their lives, something which we are incredibly humbled by as a team.” 

The charity has now commissioned a survey called Mental Health in the Workplace  in a bid to get a greater understanding of the industry’s awareness and requirements mental health. You can see the survey, which closes on September 14, here.

The autumn will also see the charity undertaking a Bouncing Back from Redundancy series of workshops, specialist advice clinics and one-to-one mentoring. 

The Cameron Carter/Chris Watkin interview is eight minutes long and you can see it below.