Property Natter - Inspiring and uplifting - but the challenge goes on

As most of the regular readers of this column will know (and because I’m not shy about admitting it) – I’ve been around a while.

As a result, it’s unusual for me to attend an industry event and feel absolutely gobsmacked…but I was last week.

The event I’m talking about is the Women in Estate Agency 2024 Conference. I mean….just…wow!

It really opened my eyes to the challenges that female workers in this business face on a day to day basis.

Speaking on behalf of modern, liberal-minded men, I know that we think that we know. But we simply don’t. We haven’t got a clue.

The day was totally inspiring and uplifting.

It’s not just about ‘safety’ and ‘awareness’ although those things are really important. It’s about the challenges women face as they rise up the career ladder with unconscious or even conscious bias – on a daily basis!

If anyone thinks the equality battle has been fought and won, think again. And keep thinking about it! My right-hand woman (Patsy) has been with me 20+ years and her daughter (Holly, our operations whizz) are prime examples of outstandingly impressive female colleagues.

Here at Angels I’m not aware that we have any workplace equality challenges. But do we? Really? And I guess that’s the way to overcome this. We all need to really think about this issue and shine a light on it within our organisations to ensure that we are doing everything we can for equality.

Oh – the other thing we need to do is to attend next year’s conference – Thursday 6^th March, 2025.

Male or female – you won’t regret it.

But then again, too few to mention

Talking of regrets, I was featured in Chris Buckler’s Estate Agency Mastery Podcast earlier this month. Chris asked me, what was my biggest professional regret? I had to pause and think for a minute (there were a few contenders) but years ago I was looking into rolling out my agency as a franchise and thinking about the self-employed model. In the end, I just left it and forgot about it.

Lo and behold, if you flick through the articles in this very features section of Estate Agent Today, you’ll see a fascinating piece on ‘The Personal Agent’ by Richard Rawlings which explores the growth of this very thing.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some…

Even so, I enjoyed doing the ‘pod’, if you haven’t caught it, you can listen here

Many happy returns, old ‘pal’

And while I’m in reflective mode, I’d like to wish a happy birthday to a very close ‘pal’ of mine.

ValPal (which, like the ‘Today’ news sites, is a brand of Angels Media) celebrates its 10^th anniversary this year – amazing, isn’t it?

Dismissed by some in the early days as a gimmick, this baby has clocked up 8.7 million leads in the last decade plus seller and landlord leads. The ValPal Network now has 4330 estate agency branch office members.

Not bad for an idea that came to me while I was out for a jog. And it’s still going stronger, better than ever with new features and refinements being introduced every year since its launch in 2014.

In fact, the latest one was just announced this week – it enables agents to discover whether their leads are already on the market with another firm. It came from TVPN’s partnership with our friends at data provider TwentyCi. Innovation and collaboration – two secrets of success in any business.

Sock it to them!

Last but by no means least, I wanted to give a shout out to the good folk at Dawson’s Estate Agents in Swansea. They put their best foot forward and donned striped socks to raise awareness for Rare Disease Day on the rarest day of the year, February 29^th. Apparently, 300 million people around the world are living with a rare disease including the son of Dawsons Marketing Communicator, Naomi Webborn, who suffers from the rare condition OA/TOF.

She said; “This year’s awareness week has been the most uplifting with so many more people getting involved and being aware of the rare community. After all, our goal is to raise awareness and to ensure the support is there for those coping with more than everyday life.”

A big hand for Dawsons…(or should that be a big stockinged foot?)

Until next time…

N

If you’ve got a story you’d like us to Natter about, drop us a line at press@estateagenttoday.co.uk