Photos from week 2 learnings on my photography course

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As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I have enrolled and am participating in a photography course at the local college. It's a 20 week course, so the idea is that I am prepared to take brilliant photographs of people's homes when the time comes and I am marketing property. I will also extend my current website, where I have exhibited and sold my photographs- My new photos for this week are as follows- This is another experiment with depth of view, where I set the camera up to have a clear view of the first cupboard handle, with the others fading out of view. This is by setting a shallow aperture, and leaving the shutter speed at 1/60. Another experiment with depth of view was with the kids sitting on the sofa, playing on their iPods-

 


The next two photos are in the same style, working with the depth of field to get the subject at the front in focus, with a blurred background-





 Both are just attempts to play with my new camera and have an understanding of what I can do with it. The final photo for this week is using a very fast shutter speed to capture a single moment in time linked to the movement of my eldest when playing in the garden. He was throwing a conker and I managed to capture it's movement just as it was reaching the edge of the frame-




 Obviously these are basic exposures at the moment, and I'm experimenting with my Canon EOS 1200 digital SLR camera that I've only owned for 2 weeks.

The camera is a
 

The tripod I've bought and used is -

Timing is all important - can I make it perfect?

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When is the best time to set up my estate agency? I've thought about the perfect timing, but obviously there's no such thing as a perfect time to start a business. I want everything to be set up, ready to rock and roll from day 1 with no pending issues.

In my view, the housing market is split into two main areas of high trade. We have the post-Winter, early Spring market that peaks in and around Easter. The second starts as the kids go back to school in September where people want to make their move before Christmas.

My current plan is to open in May to start taking on property instructions ready to sell to the 2nd wave described above, the September to Christmas market.

I believe that this is the slightly smaller if the 2 markets, but you've got to start somewhere and I'm not confident that I'd be ready for the first market, which would mean starting early in the New Year to have taken on property instructions ready to sell houses at Easter.

I hope this goes some way to explaining my decision to pick a certain date, which is now only 234 days away…

Shop local is more than a slogan - it's my ethos!

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How can I establish links to my local community?

How can I use my local knowledge to network my services around my local community?

How can I let my local community into my business?

These are questions that have been occupying my brain today. I want to use the fact that I live in the town I'll be operating in to develop links to the local community and to promote my business. I want to let people know that the money I earn from selling their homes will stay in their local community and will be (mostly) spent in other local businesses rather than leave the town for companies registered elsewhere. I want to share the importance of local businesses with other businesses and the local community. I want the community to see my work, share in my passion and give me their instructions.

So, where to start?

I'm thinking of several ways of creating this feeling and way of working-

My website

I'm looking at adding a local community page to my website, and it will take one of two forms. Either a space for other local-owned, local-operated companies to be able to put their details on the site - hyperlink, ethos, local credentials, etc.  Or a community notice board for messages, local events, etc. my concern about the latter is that it would take some managing, and could become a forum for abuse or trolling.

Networking clubs

These are popular in many areas, but I don't know offhand whether there is one in my town. As I will be operating solely in one town, it feels pointless to go any further.

Blog on the local market

I'm thinking of adding to my existing blog portfolio by blogging on news and views of the local town. I think that people who live, or are thinking of living, in the area will find this useful and informative. It will establish my voice as an authority in the local market and mean that I will be the 'go-to-guy' when peoe want some knowledge or information about our housing market.

Links to local schools/charities/clubs/associations

I've long thought of this as a way to establish your credentials in a community and to build your business. My main ethos would be to operate a payd referral scheme. So I'd agree a project that the organisation wanted funding. For example, the local rugby club may want to invest in new goalposts at a cost of £1000. For every person who sells a house with me via a referral from the rugby club I'll donate a fee to the club, say £50. At this rate, after 20 referrals from the rugby club, their new goalposts would be paid for, courtesy of your friendly local estate agents!

A webcam in my home office

I think that if people can see me at work, can see where I operate from, can see what I'm doing, then they will see into my ethics and buy into me and my business.

Use my local base in my marketing

I will make sure that my website underlines the fact that I live locally and shop locally. It will explain why I think it's important and why I think peoe should support the principle.

Books on shopping and shop local from Amazon

Managing my home budget to save costs when the business first opens

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I've been looking at my finances, and how I can make them a little leaner for the first few months of the Estate Agency, when the income column will be at zero, or just above.  Family outgoings are a major concern of mine in relation to the cost of setting up an estate agency.  I currently have a full-time income that covers all of these costs with a little left over at the end of every month.  I would err on the side of caution with when the income starts to flow, and I think that probably 6 months is a good estimate for the process of-

• setting up the agency
• gaining instructions
• getting a sale agreed
• avoiding any fall-throughs
• completing the sale

On that basis, I have adapted my current spreadsheet as follows-

Date	Who	How much	First few months of estate agency
1st	Kids swimming lessons	£38.00	£38.00
2nd	Income Protection	£21.44	£0.00
2nd	TV licence	£12.18	£12.18
3rd	Car Insurance 1	£23.95	£20.00
3rd	Water	£43.28	£43.28
5th	Pension	£60.00	£0.00
8th	Car Insurance 2	£26.04	£26.04
8th	Home Insurance	£15.80	£15.80
9th	Critical Illness Insurance	£45.15	£45.15
10th	TV & Broadband Package	£96.35	£50.00
15th	Council Tax	£137.00	£137.00
15th	Gas & Electric	£120.00	£100.00
25th	Life Assurance	£15.32	£15.32
25th	Mobile Phone Bill	£23.20	£28.00
	TOTAL	£677.35	£530.41
	Plus-
	Savings Account	£100.00	£0.00
	I S A	£100.00	£0.00
	Petrol	£80.00	£80.00
	Car account	£20.00	£20.00
	Sundries	£50.00	£0.00
	Total Extras	£350.00	£100.00
	New full total	£1,027.35	£630.41

I can save on the extra savings I put aside, such as the pension, savings accounts and ISA, as these can be restarted when my income returns.

I can save on the TV by switching from the all-singing-all-dancing package I currently have to a more toned-down version or a cheaper supplier than Sky.  Anyway, I hopefully won't have enough time for TV!

My sundries is for snacks, drinks and meals when I'm out at work currently, but with the home office, these will all be taken at home from the food budget (the wife's department!)

The savings of £396.94 per month will provide a cushion in the first few months of the business while my attention is elsewhere, and I won't want the worry of having to focus on the day-to-day running of the house.

I don't know how I feel about laying this budget bare on the internet for all to see (should they want to) but in myself it aids the organisation of my life around the business and allows me to move forward in terms of control and understanding of where I want to be and need to be to make this business as successful as I possibly can.  It has also crystalised a discussion I had with my wife earlier today - I thought about opening the agency today, and then trying to piece it together as I went along.  I now know that I want it to be opened fully up-and-running and ready to trade from day 1.  So preparation is the key.

Budget Planners from Amazon

Is it a full-time job to set up a full-time business?

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I've often heard the phrase "finding a full-time job is a full-time job" but is starting a full-time business a full-time job?

I currently work 37.5 hours per week, add in lunch breaks and commutes then I'm out if the house for work just over 9 hours a day. Now regular readers will know that I'm looking at moving location with my employer and this will increase the time out of the house. Given the fact that I have a wife, 2 children and other commitments, do I leave myself enough time to go about setting up my estate agency?

These are all really rhetorical questions and are to get me thinking as much as anyone who reads this, but the point of open g an estate agency is because I believe that I'm very good at it and that I can do it far better than my competitors.

Am I doing myself and my fledgling business a disservice by not allowing enough time to be spent on setting it up properly?

I still don't know whether I think that the remaining 238 days I have set myself are a really short period of time or a really long period of time, in fact I regularly flit between the 2 states of mind.

Simple maths-

238 days /7 = 34 weeks

Every other week I have a day off in the week when the kids are ar school, and these are the best days to get anything done. This applies from 9am to 3pm.

Every week I start late on a Tuesday, so I get approximately 2.5 hours there to spend.

This is 11 hours per fortnight, so an average of 5.5 hours per week, so a rough total of 187 hours. Then take away the weeks where the kids are not at school, so it may be down to 150 hours.

It is clear to me that this isn't enough, even adding in extra for late evenings and  holiday days.

So, what's the answer? I need to pay the bills, feed the kids, etc but the long-term view is that I work for myself, work the hours I want and be happier and better off.

Monthly budgeting tomorrow. I'll show you my workings out.

Amazon Gift Certificates for business

How will I dress? How will I project myself?

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I have a question

What voice to use when dealing with customers?

Now I know this may seem like an odd question, but bear with me because I think it's an important consideration. I have met many, many estate agents and I think I know part of the problems that the industry faces in terms of image. We haven't found our voices yet.

It's a problem that not only estate agents face, it's a problem that occurs in many industries. There are so many estate agents that want, need, desire to be seen as estate agents. There are certain characteristics-

The suit

The tie

The language

The 'professionalism'

And all of these make estate agents seem similar, without distinction, just the same.

After reading a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto, I can see where these similarities come from. Corporate estate agents require a certain standard of dress, they impose a certain way if talking about the market, they want you to have the same customer experience if you buy from them in Aberdeen or in Brighton. It's like the McDonalds of the estate agency world.

As individual people, I need to find my individual voice at work. As an independent estate agent I will be able choose what I wear to work, yet I've been thinking about wearing a suit and tie. Is it what the customer expects? But the customer expects me to sell their house. The customer expects nothing else. Everything else is window dressing.

What you say is even more important than what you wear, but I still hear agent after agent speaking in bland, industry-expected language - most of which will make you sound like the next agent, a lot of which won't mean anything to your customers, some of which your customer won't understand. So why do we do it? 

"It's what the customer expects."

I've made a conscious decision to be smart, but not necessarily a suit, and if a suit then not necessarily a tie. A smart pair of trousers, a pressed shirt and a smart quality jumper will do some days. I will be speaking as myself, rather than trying to project an image of what I think the customer expects an estate agent to be. Oh and I'll try to cut out the jargon.

Wine offers from Amazon - including Help For Heroes charity wine cases

Don't give up the day job…yet

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After a day dedicated to nothing but my day job (day 241 to go) I'm back at work a full day again today. I have spoken to my line manager and asked for a transfer to another location, to try to ease my stress at working in poor conditions here.

The established, experienced core of the team are all disgruntled, to say the least, at the structure and leadership at present and all are looking at alternatives. The replacements as people leave are generally young girls, in the mould of the manager, and have been unreliable and of a poor standard. My employer pays poorly, has a poor reputation and offers no immediate career prospects, so it can be difficult to attract quality applicants.

I await the response from other locations in the region that are looking for staff, at what can be a busy time for the retail industry.

All part of keeping my sanity and preserving my work/life balance when I need to use my 'off-work' time in the most fruitful way possible.

This leads to my next quest - a timetable of events for the next 240 days to ensure I'm ready.

The NEW Amazon Fire phone

Clearing out my garage to make way for a home office

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I have taken on the task of clearing out 20 years worth of junk from my garage top make it a cleaner, safer area to set up a home office, so I can work in peace when I need to.  It did not all get cleared away today, as there was much more rubbish in there than I first feared.  eBay has found itself with the following items for sale added to it's already bulging inventory-

• 6 used (but still working) radiators
• 2 lampshades
• a king-size bed
• a wardrobe
• a dining room table
• countless soft toys and kids clothes
• a car radio
• 40 books
• 4 louvre rails, including 1 for a bay window

If you need any of this stuff then just get in touch!

The initial idea is that I have a refuge for when the kids are at home, somewhere that I can use to send emails, make calls and be creative.  It will also be the base for any other activities that I carry out, such as the blog, any photography work I get and my other business selling books and games online via Amazon and eBay.  It won't receive clients, as my estate agency will be online, so it can be my "den" where I can surround myself with things that inspire and comfort me.

It's a single-shell brick-built garage, and I live in a wet part of the UK, so the first step is to get it empty, get the floor, walls and ceiling interior sealed and check the roof (although I think it's in a pretty good state.)  From there I will decide how much time and money I want to put towards insulating the inside and then the interior decoration will be quite minimal, based on what I already own plus anything I find at car boot sales or online.  Basic comfort, plus the ability to be able to work in peace are the important considerations.

Once all the items are sold or disposed of, then I can start on preparing the interior.

Home Office furniture options from Amazon