Chris Watkin: “I had to find out more”

Well-known property expert and video interviewer Chris Watkin independently investigates how one piece of software is having such a big effect on estate agency.

Watkin says: “As with all my interviews, no monies or consideration was made by the company to me - it’s just so many of my clients were shouting about the software system and how it gets them so much business, I had to find out more.”

In 2021, something very significant happened in estate agency. Lifesycle 2 arrived. So what? New shiny tools hit the market every day, right? But the impact of this software landing looks increasingly like a meteor that landed in a remote location and has started a chain reaction of Tsunamis that are making their way around the world.

By late 2021, so many of Christopher Watkin's clients were raving about using Lifesycle 2 as their CRM and business generation tool that he felt he should investigate what exactly was going on and record the independent interviews for all to see, warts and all to find out why Lifesycle is not just ‘another’ software.

Those interviews have now started to be published on social media and on Chris’s own YouTube channel and are causing the tsunami to swell.

As Abigail Grey puts it in her interview with Watkin. “If you look at the systems that have been available historically to estate and letting agents, they have been based on the access database system by Microsoft and they were basically (electronic) filing cabinets for you to put your information in.”

Grey goes on to talk about how Lifesycle allows her team to see who to call by tracking what all of the contacts in her new CRM are looking at, be that articles on their website and social media or their properties, allowing them to get straight to the best calls for viewings, market appraisals and instructions every day.

She continues: “There is something about Mark (Burgess) and his team, that is very different to anyone else providing a CRM system”.

In another of Watkin’s interviews, Laura Howey, an award-winning agent from North Yorkshire says: “The only limit with Lifesycle is your imagination” and continues: “It is a moment in history. People will look back at this time and think ‘where did I go wrong’ because the agents that are using it now and the agents that are not will be in very different places in 5 years’ time.”

Mark Burgess, CEO and founder of Iceberg Digital, the creators of Lifesycle, says: “We all know the importance of timing in everything we do in life. Some people call it luck, but what if you could tilt that luck significantly in your favour so that you always made the right calls to the right people? Would your day be more productive if the 5 people you called to try and get a listing today were all thinking of selling their property soon? Working smarter in so many ways, is at the heart of Lifesycle.”

Chris Watkin questions if a computer can really do that when interviewing Dave Long from Newboulds Estate Agents, who has been in Estate Agency for 20 years, saying at one point: “Does Lifesycle actually decide names of people that you are supposed to be ringing for new business?” Long replies 'yes' and, in some disbelief, Watkin continues: “Does that actually work??” and in no uncertain terms Long replies “Very much so, yes” and goes on to list out all the different types of opportunities that they gather from Lifesycle's ‘audiences’ feature from new landlords and sellers right through to buyers or more long-term prospects.