The next book is almost ready - and I'm starting on the project after that!

I've finished draft one of the content for my next book. It's a book about writing a book! It will talk through the process of writing a top selling non-fiction book. What I have left to do is-

• Edit the content
• Add any extras, such as illustrations or charts
• Get the cover designed
• Publish
• Market the book

It's exciting stuff!

I've started the brainstorming for the next project and it will be entitled something like the following-

I'll show you how to become an estate agent

I want to produce a book, a MOOC (massive online open course), a support consultancy, a website and an app.

From here I think that I will be able to provide support for both startup estate agencies and marketing ideas for established agents. I will also make available a set of documents for estate agents-

• Contracts
• Letters
• Invoices
• Prospecting letters

These will be available to be bought singly or as a pack. Each document will be set up as both an administrative tool and a marketing tool.

As with all of the writing projects I've been doing, once the content is produced then it just sits there awaiting purchase. There will be annual reviews and updates (possibly more frequently than this for the MOOC) but essentially the work is done.

I've always wanted to have a set income coming through that frees me up to do other things and along with everything else I've written, this feels like it's getting there.

Everything slows down on the blogging front as Christmas approaches

-158

I'm starting to put my blogs to bed now until the New Year. The fact that many io the areas I blog about slow down dramatically at this time of year only adds to the fact that people's attention is drawn away to other places and things. Christmas is on the way and all of my blogs drop significantly in readership from early December until the start of January. Subsequently I'm starting to switch the blogs off-

Estate agency

This really is a quiet time for estate agents as the market starts to shut down for Christmas. People who have sales going through now want to be in their new home before Christmas. Most solicitors close completely for over a week and everything goes really quiet.

And likewise with my How to sell your home blog - there aren't many people starting to look at selling their home at this time of year.

Retail

Retailers are the opposite of estate agents at this time of year - they are too busy to do much reading. My blogs would bypass many of my potential readers because they are all busy at this time of year.

Mystery shopping

This is another area that goes really quiet at this time. In the same way that retailers want to concentrate on sales right now, they don't want their busiest season to be interrupted by a major mystery shopping programme. And because of this, the mystery shop companies cut back their activity to almost zero until the new year.

You'll see less of me during the next month or so on all of my blogs.

See how I'm using mass blogging sites, multiple blogs and social media to grow an audience

-152

I've been looking at different ways to increase the views on my blogs this week. The amount of people that read my right blogs is relatively low, in terms of the big online sites and I want to grow real views and clicks for three main reasons-

1- to have people view my estate agency blog that are interested in estate agency. This will increase my traffic for any blog on estate agency on my own website when the business is set up.

http://eaboost.blogspot.co.uk/

2- to have people interested in the Spennymoor property market as a ready-made audience for when I open up an estate agency in the town.

http://spennyproperty.blogspot.co.uk/

3- to have good click figures for potential buyers when it comes to selling my fiverr gigs to people who want exposure for whatever they are selling.

See my fiverr profile here-  https://uk.fiverr.com/homeestates

The ways that I have started to look at this include mass-blogging sites, featuring the blog wording on other sites and trying to increase my social media following.

Mass-blogging sites

The idea with these is that it takes my single blog on its own site and puts on a site that people will visit to read blogs. The plus side is that my blog suddenly appears somewhere that readers are expecting a blog. The down side is that I'm now faced with the competition of hundreds, thousands of other blogs.

Some of the sites I have tried include-

• Blogarama
• BlogFlux
• Super Blog Directory
• Blog Listing
• Bloggio

Basically you out in your blog RSS feed details and it will automatically feed any new entries to the respective sites.

It's only been around ten days but I can't really report any great increase in my readership as a result of this so far. I'm sure that in time it will add readers as my blogs gain traction but I don't think that it will change the world for me. I'm sure that every click counts when it comes to content and content marketing though, and I'm happy that I've done it.

Featuring the words on other sites

I've set up Wordpress sites of each of my blogs so the wording can be found in more than one place.

For the estate agency blog I've also uploaded some of my blog posts on an estate agency networking site. These for me are about establishing a presence and increasing networking. Apart from the links within the text, there's no actual prompt to read the initial Blogger blog in any of these. So my concern is that it may dilute rather than increase the readership. These are an even newer development than the mass blogging sites so I'll have to keep you posted in my progress here.

Increasing my social media following

I've been trying to naturally grow thew following I have for all of my Twitter accounts. Each account focusses on a different area of interest and I'm looking to quadruple the amount of followers I have on each. I am doing this by trying to follow people who have a similar interest and that tend to follow people that follow them. I'm determining this by the amount of followers and followed they have - if the figures are roughly similar then I believe that there's a good chance of being followed back. I'm trying to stay aware of Twitter's rules and they will block any accounts that routinely follow hundreds of people sat once. I'm following people with similar interests and only 15-50 per day at the most.

I find that Twitter gives me the best traction for my blogs on social media, although I maintain Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr accounts and sometimes upload my blog posts to LinkedIn.

As usual, I'll keep you updated with any progress or otherwise that I make.

Onwards and upwards!

Follow your dreams....and your taste buds!

-147

As regular readers of my blog will know, I’m attempting to startup my own estate agency. I like to look forward to all aspects of the estate agency business, and look back in some ways to the times when I worked for an estate agency before. Estate agents are known for their "work hard, play hard" ethic. Having worked with estate agents for years, they work long hours but do their out of work activities to the maximum as well.

There are estate agents I know that have attempted the Three Peaks Challenge-

https://www.justgiving.com/canterburysunrise/

And the Christmas parties and awards ceremonies that estate agents attend every year are a sight to behold!

I think it's just that estate agents like to live life to the extreme. And this also counts for their food. If I had to think of a food that typifies estate agents then I think I'd go for Mannys Sauces. There's a choice of sauces but it's the spice and heat that reminds me of estate agents. It's reminiscent of the spice and heat the they carry out their jobs with.

And if I had to choose just three of Mannys Sauces for estate agents to try, then it would be-

The Original Piri-Piri Sauce

This is the classic - and you don't mess with a classic! It's a taste that has to be tried to be believed. It mixes the heat of the chilli with the depth of flavour that you require from a sauce or marinade. In fact, Manny guarantees that it is the tastiest Piri-Piri in the land. Try it and you won’t be disappointed.

Curry Sauce

Make the most delicious and healthy curry in your own home, without any hard work or effort! Whether you use beef, lamb, chicken, fish or seafood, add this sauce to create the most delicious and flavoursome curry.

Meat Marinade

Excellent marinade created to marinate any meat, but can also be used with fish or seafood. Make the best BBQs, roasts, or stews. The contents of a 250ml bottle will marinate 3kg of meat.

Mannys Sauces were founded by Manny and here is his story-

“As any other person in the world, I had a huge dream - to open the first Piri-Piri Chicken Restaurant in the world, and then spread this dream to every corner of the planet. It wouldn’t be easy to achieve, but neither was it impossible. I had the will, the courage, the faith and family support to make it come true. Early in 1985, I sold my home to open the first piri-piri chicken restaurant outside of Mozambique. CHICKENLAND was the chosen name and Johannesburg, South Africa was the birth place of my dream! After a short while, I was making, bottling and selling a range of 5 different Piri-Piri Sauces and Marinades. After a slow start, the business was a stunning success! The name quickly spread across the city and everyone was talking about this new food place that was taking the food industry by storm.

The business success was proven! The next step was expansion to other parts of the city, country and abroad, and many people tried to get financially involved. Expansion included a need for capital and people, and so in 1987, I sold some of my business shares to two young men: one of Portuguese origin and the other, a South African of Jewish origin. Shortly after they joined, the business name was changed to NANDOS. Chickenland was a nice name, but according to marketing experts at the time, it was felt that the business should be backed by a personal name before the expansion took place. Between MANNYS and NANDOS, I was out-voted two to one, and the latter name was chosen. Despite a few initial problems, the expansion started taking off and now more than ever, the success was tremendous!

A few years later, the rug was pulled out from under my feet and I was forced to leave my business. I lost my dream; one of the best things in my life after my family. After this happened, I opened a few other restaurants including Chickenland in Portugal, but these weren’t my dream. It was a way to make a living, but it wasn’t my passion. It took me a long time to recover from what happened, but I was determined and pushed through until another dream emerged; to make the best sauces and speciality food products in the world! MANNYS SAUCES is now my new dream! Once again I can see this new dream taking shape and growing strong all the way to the TOP! The passion is back and I again have the will, the faith, the support of my family, and the support of so many loyal customers that know and appreciate the high quality products that we make. I am forever grateful to my family and my customers for their support and the divine forces for showing me the way.

Manny x”

Don’t forget the selection of cured meats. Paio is a great selection and is made of pork fillet with a maximum of 5% fat.

As any good estate agent will know, it pays to be found, and Mannys Sauces can be found at-

www.twitter.com/Mannyssauces

www.facebook.com/Mannyssauces

www.youtube.com/channel/UCPvHPFfaz5yJRTtlv_ViDPQ

www.mannyssauces.com

Three weeks off work after an eye operation leaves hours for reading

-107

It's been a while since I've been on any of my blogs and the main reason for that is an eye operation I had last Thursday. It was quite a major operation, and the main recuperative source of recovery has been to lie face down for fifty minutes out of every hour, day and night for five days and five nights. Quite frankly, it's been horrible.

What it has allowed me to do is catch up in some television (what I would have done without the ipad, Sky Go and the iPlayer I'm not sure) and catch up on some reading.

I've had a stack of books I've been meaning to to read for a while now. It's not that I haven't been reading at all, it's just that I've been reading other things. I think at the rate I'm going (and I still have nearly 3 weeks off work left) that I'll have read everything I currently own before Christmas and I'll be ready to start again. It's not been management, marketing and estate agency books for a little while though, and I need to get back into that as a matter of urgency.

The books I've been reading have been fiction with a little 1970's non-fiction work thrown in-

Brewster by Mark Slouka

This was picked up at Poundland and I found it started slowly hit really fired up towards the middle and end as you could see the potential conclusions forming before the actual end. It's a coming-of-age book set in small-town USA and I'd recommend anyone to read it - there's a style in there that engages and brings in the reader.

The Runner by Christopher Reich

This is an old book I picked up at a charity book sale for 50p and it was gripping. It's set at the end of World War II and is about a US attorney trying to find and stop a German soldier from a plot to reignite the war in some way. The book moves along at a great pace and is something that's difficult to put down.

Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen

This is a summary of some of the stranger, more paranoical aspects if the 1970's and was interesting in parts - particularly for someone like me who missed most of it! The fanciful situations and correspondences that politicians got themselves into made it feel like a fiction work. Some of the things you just couldn't make up.

The conclusion of reading these books, particularly the fiction books, is that I want to add some fiction to my bookshelf on Amazon. To do this, I need to take some steps towards making my work more creative and I need to think about some simple areas of creative writing. To this end, I'm going to sign up for a course on creative writing - I looked into one offered for free by the Open University last year. And I'll look again at a course in this area. I've decided that I'll skip photography level 2 course this year. The course at the college I studied level 1 last year has already started and I can't drive there for at least another 2 weeks, the next nearest course is on a Tuesday night (my only late night at work) and the next nearest is £400 more expensive than the others.

After the creative writing course, I'll look to a marketing course that's starting in January and I'll be ready to go back to photography next school year.

I'm running out of ways to stall moving the business forward!

69

The house and garden will be ready this week, the website is built and live, I'll have the office basically ready in terms of walls and flooring so I'm actually running out of ways to put off opening this estate agency! I've still got a lot to do, but as Spring arrives I can finally see the wood from the trees and start to put in place finalised plans for how I will go forward. I will admit to you, and to myself, that it won't happen in the timeframe of 245 days that I initially set out. I have booked a holiday for later this year, so the day I booked that was really the day I gave up in opening before the time of the holiday. As I will set up the agency on my own, with perhaps some help from my wife, then I will need to be present all the time for probably the first year. I have no qualms with this, in fact I'm looking forward to it, but I need to be in a position to do this. I have two young children and I currently cherish the free time I have with them and holiday are always part of this. I will probably try to get three holidays in between now and when the business opens to set myself up for that year.

My photography course finished yesterday with the exhibition of our work. It was a good night and we all enjoyed having people look over our photographs but this is now finished until September with level 2.

The office itself still needs a desk, the garage door changing, a curtain and pole putting up to keep put noise and weather and then a good sort out. The doors and subsequently the curtain will have to change later but I should get everything else done this week, with the next two days off. This will give me a chance to finalise everything that I want done to home, garden and office and put me in a position to move forward.

When I've done this, the targets are background items that I hope will generate and income for me. The blogs that I write bring in a trickle of an income and this will continue and continue to rise but it will only ever reach a modest amount. The website will be both another channel for the blog and will possibly generate another small income from advertising. I will be writing some training material for the website, which will be paid-for by users. I am also most of the way through writing my second Kindle book to sell on Amazon and this will supplement the modest income I get from the first Kindle book.

All in all, I'm looking to have a small background income to support me as I start on this venture. I will need an income to support the family and I, whilst I set about the process of starting my estate agency business and the time it takes to generate an income.

I am the answer, but I don't totally understand what the question is yet

96

I am the answer, but I don't totally understand what the question is yet.

I don't mind admitting that I sometimes have doubts over this new business estate agency thing. I suppose it's natural to have thoughts about maintaining the status quo, especially when I enjoy my life as it is. I have a many irons in the fire at the moment that I find I'm not concentrating on any one enough -

http://245daystogo.blogspot.com/2015/01/too-many-balls-to-juggle-what-to-let-go.html

I have to compartmentalise areas if my life and the what's next method has started to pay dividends -

http://245daystogo.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-next-my-new-strategy.html

I've refined it a little and now I'm having weeks concentrated in certain areas to emphasise and maximise the amount in each area I get done. This week is stuff around the house week and has consisted today of-

Filling and sanding bathroom ceiling

Painting hall and landing walls

Buying a new kettle and milk pan

Buying sealant for the bathroom

Tomorrow will be sorting out-

Painting the bathroom ceiling

Buying curtains for my bedroom

Buying curtains for the landing

Buying a beanbag for the newly-configured lounge

Buying a lampshade for the lamp in my bedroom

Buying a rug for the lounge

All might seem fairly mundane things but all need to be sorted so I can concentrate my efforts all in one place.

The quote at the start about being the answer but not knowing the question really related to the doubts I have and what I want to do to give me a contingency income to allow me to carry in with the estate agency without constantly worrying about money. The blogs, the self-published books, the photography, etc are designed to give me financial security and a small monthly income no matter what the business is doing. If I can add that to income from investments and perhaps rental income from a property, then it allows me to go for it and take the risks that may be necessary to become a success.

Ray, the walking estate agent

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I've worked with many people who consider themselves good salesmen. Watching The Apprentice this series makes me realise that some work really really hard at sales and others just have it naturally.

When watching the programme it makes me think back to people I've worked with in estate agency and how successful or otherwise they were in their sakes roles.

Some can use their gender and their natural spiral to strike a deal, without resorting to high innuendo. Roisin from this years programme struck a great deal with the diamond seller in last weeks episode probably in part because he found her alluring. But you can't have that connection with every customer. So what about different sellers and how they operate? I've come across a few.

There was a guy called Lesley and he played on this fact with customers. He often referred to himself as the man with a woman's name. It distinguished him from all of the other estate agents out there. And it got results - people remembered him.

Which brings me to Ray, the walking estate agent. He was the loveliest man. He had nothing but good to say about everyone, and everyone had nothing but good to say about Ray. He had a driving licence, but no car. So Ray walked everywhere. He'd leave for an appointment a mile away over an hour before so he could walk there and be in plenty of time. He wasn't the most dynamic of characters, he often needed reminding or prompting but he was just a wonderful guy. His vendors, buyers, landlords and renters loved him and just bought from him.

The walking everywhere was Ray's "man with a woman's name." What's yours?

How I'd have dealt with the changes in stamp duty this week

176

I'd share a basic stamp duty calculation to spark a conversation with your customers, both buyers and vendors.

The calculation is-

Someone buying at £185,000 would have paid £1,850 under the old stamp duty rules. Under the new rules, they will now pay £1,200, which is a saving of £600.

The reason I would use this calculation is to prompt a discussion, to pick up the phone. I have stated in a blog already that I believe you should speak to every one of your clients every week-

http://eaboost.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-often-do-you-talk-to-your-customers.html

This is the perfect opportunity and perfect timing to have this conversation. For my registered buyers, then they will no doubt be registered with more than one estate agent. It's the agent that services these clients, looks after them and has the right communication with them that will more than likely win the business and the recommendations.  I'm sure some buyers will have missed the changes in stamp duty or will have heard about them but maybe not understood what it means to them. A 2 minute chat will clear this up and may change their search criteria. What a valuable conversation to have!

Depending on the part of the country you are in, you may hand to tweak the above calculation but it's just an example and it's the communication with your clients (every week, remember) that's important.

Give it a try!

Ambition is infectious

187

Ambition is infectious. The sight of it imbues others with extra confidence. That is the Moeen Ali effect.

His cricket tangibly uplifts England. When he's involved - batting or bowling - the players have an extra spring in their step; their efforts are loaded with expectation; opponents visibly wilt. But natural talent is not enough. England need to play smarter cricket too. That's what this one-day international tour of Sri Lanka is about.

This section taken from the BBC website about the England cricketer Moeen Ali sums up how I want to go about my business. I want to be able to be this infectious ambition.

Picture 2 estate agents. One that works for an employer, clocks off at five, gets paid at the end of every month whether they sell your home or not. The other works for them self, can be contacted in the phone from 8am to 8pm, only earns if they sell your home. Which wpuld you choose?

If you could add to this an enthusiasm for their work, an understanding of marketing beyond a traditional estate  agent and beng a professional photographer.

Plus they are someone who can convey all of this when sat in your home at the time of market appraisal.

Hopefully, it's a no-brainier, because that estate agent is me!

Is any reading good reading?

189

I'm currently reading a biography if Robert Kennedy, by Evan Thomas. It's a really interesting book, filled with facts and opinion about RFK's life and how the brothers ran America as President and Attorney General. It has got me thinking -

Is any reading good reading?

I ask this because I'm trying to expand my mind and keep learning about this interesting world - not necessarily just reading books directly related to estate agency or marketing (although I've read many of these, as this blog will testify.) I have been thinking about my reading and whether the simple fact that I am reading and learning about something is as good (or near) as actually reading more and more material specifically about estate agency. I'm of the opinion that you can always pick up an idea or two from any source or activity. I'm the type that will sit through a day of seminars for the one gem that will give me an edge over my rivals, or an indication of one part of my operation that I need to question  and improve.

For example, from the book about the Robert Kennedy, I have picked up the relentless nature of his beliefs and how this transformed into the disciplined way he went about his, and his brothers, business. I will ensure that I have clearly defined business goals and I will make every decision and action with these in mind.

What's next on the non-business reading list?

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Fatherland by Robert Harris

Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen

The Fatal Touch by Conor Fitzgerald

Any further suggestions? 

Professional interest and personal panic

191

There's a professional interest and personal panic when I see a shop being renovated in the town I'm going to operate in. I think "is it an estate agents? What are they going to be like? Will they steal a march on me?"

Twice since I started the 245 days journey there have been actual estate agents open.

The first was not long after I started planning, and it was a low-key opening in a side street, and in the couple of months since they opened I haven't seen one of their boards, or any adverts in the local newspapers or any listings on Rightmove. I know that opsonise an estate agency is, and will be, a slow burner but I don't feel that they have started with a bang, or had a good presence, or offered anything different to the existing agents. Phew (so far.)

The second is starting to emerge this week, where an agent from a neighbouring market has decided to open up an office in town. I don't know a lot about the existing office or the new satellite office of this company but I'm going to research today and see what I can find out.  As it happens, I'm on the park and rude, travelling past their existing office in a minute or so...

It's a sales and lettings office (I was hoping for lettings only) and again, it doesn't look to offer anything substantially different to our existing agents, from first look.

I'm not afraid of competition, in fact I think that my experience and the proposition I am building will stand up well against the vast majority of estate agents I have encountered. In my view traditional estate agents have been left behind by the service levels offered in other service industries. Complaints about estate agents, particularly about fees and communication, are rising. This shows that customer service levels haven't reached the standards that they should. Simple conversations or disclosures about fees and basic agreements about contact with customers can eliminate most complaints of this nature. I will have a contact schedule written into my contract with clients that let them know how often I will contact them, and how.  Something like-

"I will call you weekly, on a Thursday between 1pm and 5pm, as this is your afternoon off work. This call will be to give you a marketing update and any alterations we need to make."

Inspiration to finish off my home office

196

I've just read a blog that sats a home office in the garden can add 5% to the value of a home-

http://www.shedworking.co.uk/2014/11/how-much-value-does-garden-office-add.html?m=1

This has made me happy in my pursuit if completing my home office to stsrt my estate agency in. I am actually no further forward than my last blog on this subject, but the news that it can add value to my home is another spur to get it completed - next phase us this Friday, my next day off. 

It will be to move the items to the back half of the garage and paint and waterproof the front half of the garage. This will be the final part if waterproofing and weather-proofing, before I start to assemble the cupboards, tables, chairs and units that will inhabit the garage whilst I use it. I want to create a mix between a conventional office, an inspiring place to freate some truly different marketing material, and a place that uses the extra furniture I already have stored in there.  Hopefully Friday will leave me set to assemble furniture and dress the place with inspiring materials to kick off the next stage in my startup - moving out of the house into the home office!

Is my degree a boost or a drain to my aspirations?

199

Yes, I'm on the park and ride bus blogging again. Or waiting for the bus to arrive this morning. Not usually at this time of day, but when I travel a little later, I'm often surrounded by university students travelling around the city. It takes me back to my university days and gets me thinking about the relevance of my degree to the rest of my life.

Going through secondary school and sixth form college, it was always said to me that I should go and do a degree in something that interested me. What interested me then and still does now is language. So I chose a degree in linguistics. I found it fascinating and completed the 3 year course before thinking "what now?"

Teaching or researching in the field of linguistics didn't appeal to me, so I went out into the world of commerce,

Now to a lot of ends, a degree in linguistics means very little to a potential estate agent. To a lot of ends it can mean a great deal.

In my opinion, estate agency when carried out to its best, is a marketing activity. A chunk of marketing involves words and how they are put together to, in this case, sell properties. Add to this the ability to be creative and you have the right mix to be a leading and innovative estate agent, in my opinion.

As I have previously mentioned, I am currently on a photography course to increase my awareness and skills in the area of photography to enable me to be the best agent in my town at this. My experience in many industries in many roles will help me to look at the whole picture.

I would say that the moral of the story is to decide at the outset that your degree will match your career aspirations or will be flexible enough to support you in whatever you want to do.

Photographs from my time away

209

I've been practicing my photography skills whilst away from "245 days" in the last week.  I am now trying to match the skills I am learning to the end product of photographing property and making it more saleable as a result.

This is my take on not following the crowd when I was in London and taking a photo of Big Ben.  I moved away from the tourist crowds and looked at the building through different eyes.  I hope to be able to use my eye for seeing something different and the framing effect when photographing houses.

This photo of the underside of a bridge in Central London is testament to my desire to overcome the fear of light and shadow in my photos.  In terms of taking photos of someone's property, the effect that light and shadows can have will add to the interest in the photo and hopefully this will translate into click-through.

The green and blues from the field and sky in this photo and setting up what I want to do when taking marketing photos of the gardens that belong to my client's property.  I see so many photos taken that do not conform to the rule of thirds, and this does the garden a disservice.  Being able to see the sky too will remind potential buyers of what they will be in the garden for.

I think that a lot of estate agents are afraid to embrace the seasons as they may date the property, and how long it has been on the market.  As an agent that believes he will sell every property quickly, I don't have this hang-up.  It's also really easy to go back to the property and re-take any photos that may be a giveaway that the property has been on the market for a little while - Autumn l;eaves, snow, Christmas decorations, paddling pools, etc.

Taking these photos has helped me to think about the photographer, estate agent and marketer that I want to be.

Options for my home office

221

I've started my home garage, changing it from this-

and now, today I've got to this point-

Whilst spending my day painting the walls and floor with a weatherproof sealant, I have been thinking about what the next steps will be in converting this space into an office that will allow me to work in quiet and comfort, whatever the weather conditions outside.  First consideration has been to waterproof the walls and floor, as the UK winter (and often the other seasons) can have a big impact on the security and safety of this potential workspace.  It has flooded more than once, through the walls from the outside garden flower beds, so I have accentuated the beds and put in more plants to soak up any excess water.  Next step is to make the office a place where I can work and be inspired to market properties as well as I can.

Options-

Option	Pros	Cons
Leave it as it is	Least cost and time/effort            Has the effect of a New York loft	Will be more expensive to heat, as there is no insulation
Another coat of white paint	Low cost and effort again            A blank canvas to add pictures and effects to inspire	Doesn’t solve the heat and insulation problem
Lining the walls with an insulating material	Will help to keep long-term heating costs down            Cheapest option that involves further action	Major concerns over building regulations            Brings fire safety issues in to play            Time and money to source the right materials at the right cost
Line the walls and then plaster/board over and decorate	Will look like a conventional office            Will be more insulated and save on heating costs	Expense starts to grow            Sourcing materials is even more costly and time consuming than above
Pay a builder to convert officially	Will add value to my home            Will be official and legitimate	High cost solution to what may be a temporary problem            Will accentuate my desire to permanently work from home, rather than eventually build up the business to an office base.

I am genuinely undecided about the best way forward, as I want this to be a low-cost solution to a problem, for the time period that I am working from home, and I also want it to be weather-proof, comfortable, safe and inspiring.

Decision time will be my next full day off work, 2 weeks from now.

Enthusiasm sometimes gets the better of me

223

I'm having to rein in my imagination and enthusiasm a little today, I'm raring to go with my estate agency and I'd open it tomorrow if I was a bit more impetuous. It's been a long-standing dream and I won't rest until I get to do this for myself, but it has to open right and correct. I want to take my local market by storm, so I have to get everything properly formed before I start advertising and get people on the phone to start me marketing their property.

Imagination and enthusiasm

This has run away with me a little over the last few days. I want to have a website, 4 blogs, 2 You Tube accounts, 4 accounts in other social media, market every day and still have time to do all the other things I carry out now - surveys, consumer trials, mystery shopping, writing books and buying and selling books and video games. I have to be realistic and decide when to switch these things off to concentrate on getting this business right. It will be after Christmas to start switching things off, with the most time-consuming going first.

I have also got to rein in my ideas for the business. I'm sure that loads of tech and kit will make it interesting for me, but it needs to be cost-effective and the right thing for my customers. I've looked at tech for showing properties to customers, for sale boards with tech to contact customers walking or driving by, expensive laptops, producing glossy brochures for advertising each property for sale, etc.

I've consigned all of this to the trash pile, as it's a group of things that I would believe added a small amount to the process but at a high cost to the business - and ultimately to the customer.

I'm focussing on the things I need to get in order first, and developing my ideas about where I want to go with this, what I want to be and what I want to achieve.

Social media as a platform to reach other like-minded professionals

230 I've been getting involved in discussions with other estate agents and entrepreneurs on various social media platforms. I think a debate, and the ability to have discussions, share ideas and generally talk about the industry with other people is heartening and useful. I'm mainly coming across useful content and discussions on LinkedIn social media site, under the Estate Agents UK Networking Group. Once on there, you can ask questions, start discussions, respond to other people's content, or just have a read of what other people have put there. I have found posting specific questions about marketing get a good response and generally start a lively debate, where people share their experience of that particular subject and usually have some strong views about it. I have developed in other areas on LinkedIn as well, as I have started to make connections with people I have worked alongside in estate agency over many years in the past. I think that having a network of people that you have shared experiences with and can trust their opinion will give you a testing ground for ideas and marketing projects. On other social media, I have developed another blog, based on the property market in my town - the idea is that as my knowledge of the market develops, and the content specifically related to the town builds, then I will become an authority in the property market where I will operate. This should lead to me being trusted and being sought out both by home sellers and landlords, for my experience and knowledge. This is also being serialised on the Facebook page that I have set up relating to the town I will operate in. I am using the town for my photography practice, and posting these photos on the page as well. I also add links to local events and local news to ensure that the page stays fresh and interesting. I use Twitter to publish links to my Blogger pages, so that I can reach a wider audience with my blog, and likewise with Tumblr, where I can also share a lot more of my photos and my thoughts about them. All-in-all I am finding that the links I can make via social media are becoming more and more useful to establish my presence in the local market and to add to my connections with people who have a similar outlook and will give me honest feedback. I urge anyone to give it a go!


 

Facing my fears

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Ive had a couple of nights of poor sleep and I think I know why. I'm formulating, cojitating, weighing up and thinking about setting up my own estate agency with every spare minute, and the parts I fear loss of control over are starting to get to me. I don't lie awake at night specifically thinking about these things, but I'm sure that the constant thought and planning must weigh on my mind most of the time. 

I always find looking over these issues and then talking them over quite cathartic, so I'll put them in print here, and then discuss them with my wife later today or early tomorrow, and look at how to tackle these issues. There are 2 main issues that are starting to bother me at the moment.

The Rightmove question

This one for me is the biggest question, and possibly the biggest monthly overhead. My intention at first is to either go without Rightmove from the beginning, or to offer it to customers as a pay-up-front additional extra. I do not believe that Rightmove is the be-all-and-end-all for estate agents, and I'm willing to back my judgement on that by not signing up with them.

However, I don't want to lose potential instructions by not offering it. I don't want to give the other agents in town a way to knocks service by stating that I'm missing a vital piece if the jigsaw.

Action : Speak to Rightmove and find out the cost of monthly listings. Also find out the possibility of pay-per-listing and the cost of this. From there I can see what a potential cost to my customer may be. I also need to provide a solid, reasoned argument as to why I won't be using Rightmove and have this ready to proactively address my customers concerns.

Industry resistance to online-only agents

I know that I shouldn't overly worry about what other people think of me, but it's not their thoughts, it's their potential actions. I read with interest, the following article last week-

http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/campaign-way-get-north-east-agents-quit-existing-portals-day/

And it regards estate agents in the North East of England coming together to all agree to remove themselves from Rightmove and Zoopla and all list their properties only in a new portal that specifically excludes online-only estate agents. Now this isn't my patch, but news can spread, and the ill feeling that estate agents with High Street offices have towards online-only agents is quite widespread. I don't want to end up

operating in a town with this level of animosity.

Action : To ensure that I know my own reasons and arguments for being an online-only estate agent. I will highlight my lower overheads, and explain that is why I am cheaper than the local agents with a High Street office and a team of staff they have to pay for whether bust or not. I thnk I'll push this as a selling point, rather than a weakness.

Everything I think I need to sort out before opening

228 After a whirlwind and scattergun start to my plans for opening an estate agency next year, I have decided that the next best step is to gather together all the aspects that I think I need to cover before the grand opening.

Here goes (in no particular order)-

• A new computer or laptop. My current one is fine for family use but I need a separate workstation with more memory.
• A dedicated telephone line for the business.  Either an extra landline at home or a dedicated mobile phone and number.
• Sorting out the 2nd garage at the rear of the house that I will convert into an office space.
• Furniture for this home office, including a desk, lockable filing cabinets, chairs and stationery.  I have an old dining room table, dining chairs, an office chair, a sideboard, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and some other smaller pieces of furniture in the garage already, so some of these will be re-used or upcycled.
• A cashflow forecast and business plan for the first year of trading.
• I need a website designed and built.  The design and content are still to be decided, and will take the form of a complete blog of it's own.
• I need to source a provider of for sale boards, design what my boards will look like and have them produced.
• I need to get a grip on what advertising I will use, how it will look, where it will appear, etc.  This is a massive subject and will be it's own blog subject in the future.
• I'm looking at links to the local community to run alongside my advertising and other marketing.  I'm thinking about links to a local school, a local sports club and some other community projects.  I will provide them with support and financial help, maybe with a twist.
• I will need a solicitor for 2 reasons.  Firstly for advice for setting up my business as a legal entitiy, then a reliable referral point for any conveyancing business that I come across.
• An accountant, for the setting up of the business as well.  I will need advice regarding how to set up the business, whether a sole tradership, a partnership or a limited company will best serve my needs.
• I will need to open a business bank account, with online access, but also a local branch for paying in any rent money taken in cash or by cheque.
• A final decision on whether I open with sales and lettings.  If I have lettings as well then I will need contacts for the management of the properties, such as electricians, plumbers, glaziers and central heating engineers.
• I will be looking into the availability of business grants in my area to help with the set-up costs.  As I type this, I have now put this to the top of my mental list.
• I have an idea about becoming a "hybrid" of online and offline state agents by using the window of a High Street business to display my properties and contact details.  I'll need to look into this and start to speak to local businesses about the possibility of this.
• I will need to register with the ombudsman service for estate agency, look at membership of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and, if relevant, the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA)
• I will need to look at contacting, and forging a working relationship with a local mortgage adviser that will be able to assist my clients with their financial needs.
• Likewise with a local surveyor, especially for clients that are buying without arranging finance.
• I have spoken to several companies in the past that supply a software tool for managing an estate agency.  A sort of client and property database, with the ability to upload properties to portals, match clients with properties, email property details to clients and other daily functions.
• On that note, I will need to look at which property portals I am considering and from there, look at costs and fit this into my marketing plan.
• I will need to look at several levels of insurance - any changes to my car insurance, any changes to my home insurance from having a business operate from home and any business insurance I need for operating in clients homes.
• I will most probably set up a charitable foundation where any fundraising will go.  I also intend to donate a percentage of my profits to this charitable foundation.  In the early stages of my thought process, I want some of this money to go to a local charity and some to go to a charity related to housing, maybe Shelter.

I know that this won't be a comprehensive list, and other things will pop up as time goes by.  If anyone has any ideas, suggestions or can see any glaring ommissions then please let me know!