First question on the Letting Agent Podcast, and Chris Watkin doesn't hang about.
"Why are estate and letting agents so different from each other? Talk to me."
"We could talk about this one for the entire day, Chris," I tell him.
And I mean it. Most of my answer ends up being about people, and the personality types you find in each part of an agency.
This was July 2019. I'd popped into Chris's studio in Grantham to record a set of short videos for letting and estate agents.
Two businesses under one roof
My first point was a simple one. Loads of agencies do both lettings and sales and try to run them as one business. They aren't one business. I said "lettings is very, very different to sales." One is about a long-term relationship. The other is rapid turnover, getting stuff on the books and getting it off again. It's a different model, and it suits different people.
Chris pointed out you've then got the boss in the middle, trying to keep both going. I said even that's a different personality type.
Welcome to the zoo
At the time I co-hosted a podcast called Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner. Nigel wrote a book called It's a Zoo Around Here, which puts everyone into one of four primary personality types, each one a zoo animal. If you know DISC, it maps across loosely.
The lion is assertive and quick to decide, very often the boss. High D. The monkey is high I. Outgoing, looking for external validation, short attention span, wants to have fun all the time, and very often hates processes. The elephant is the methodical one. Give them a system and a structure and they'll work through it, which makes them roughly a C.
Then there's the dolphin. "The dolphin is the, I love you, and I want to take care of you. So the dolphin's like the mother in the business."
Chris reckoned there aren't many of them in agencies. I said almost every office has got one anyway. They're the peacekeeper, the person everybody goes to with a problem, often in something like an office manager role.
The best bosses are zookeepers
Chris said most bosses are lions. I told him the most successful ones are something else. "The most successful ones are zookeepers."
If you want to lead the place, knowing yourself isn't enough. You need to understand "everybody's personality type and how to communicate with each of them, not just yours." Most of us work out what we are and build everything around that. The better question is what everyone else needs from you to bring the best out of them.
Which animal you are matters less than knowing it. A charismatic monkey can run a great business if they build the right team around them to fill in their blind spots. "I think anyone in any business, self-awareness is one of the most important things."
Confessions of a monkeyphant
Chris asked what a monkey-type valuer should do if they set up on their own. Systems, probably. "They won't want to do them, they won't want to follow them, but if they're going to build out a team that makes stuff replicable and consistent, they're going to need to."
So I owned up. "I'm 99I, 99D, and then I'm really low on S and C." I don't see myself as a fierce lion though, even if I can be decisive. I'm a monkeyphant.
"What the hell's one of those?" Chris asked.
"Because I'm predominantly a monkey, but I've had to train myself to be a little bit elephant, because otherwise I get nothing done."
I used project management tools just to manage me. I had routines and rituals to set my day up and block my week out, which is a big part of scheduling time to work on your business. I forced structure on myself even though I don't like structure. I was doing a lot of coaching and mentoring back then, and I believe you should only coach people on things you do yourself.
Then Chris asked about accountability. I was accountable to two groups at the time. Everyone else in one of them was in the US, so I'd been on a call with them until quite late the night before. We set rules about what it would cost if we didn't do what we said. On one project, every missed deadline meant a donation to someone they knew I didn't want to give money to. "It's like, okay, well, here's the ramifications of not doing it."
When you run your own business, that's hard to find. Your employees should be accountable to you, so there's a limit to how far they can hold you to account. Chris expected me to say get a coach. I'm in the personal development industry, and I'm always upfront about it. "And yes, people could come and work with me, but you might not need to."
Find three or four people in a similar business who you don't compete with. Get on a call once a week or once a fortnight and each lay down what you'll do by the next time you speak. Chris said ARLA Propertymark were already putting agents from non-competing towns together to do exactly that. "It doesn't necessarily need money, does it?"
Watch the full chat
First published July 2019 on Christopher Watkin's Letting Agent Podcast.
