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According to Rightmove and The Property Academy .... these guys are the Best Estate Agents in the UK
The best out of all 26,000 of you
So go and find out how the hell they won that award?
Chris Watkin with Matthew and Elle for Orchard estates
in sunny South Somerset
You won this award here ....
What did you win this for?
Some Under 11 Football Team?
Its the Sunday School Pubs League!
okay so what is this thing?
It was the Cup from Rightmove
and The Property Academy for being ranked as the bestest estate agency office in the Country
OK ... why don't you tell the story of how you set this agency up then? ....
Okay so ... when did you set up your estate agency?
Was it the pair of you to start with?
No ..... I opened the business myself back in 2014
What was your background before that?
I'd started as a trainee negotiator in the corporate world....
became Branch Manager ...became an Area Manager .... left I did a few different things
....then came back into agency as an Area Manager again and basically realised
there was a better way of doing things what I thought was a better way of doing things
So and when did you decide that you wanted to set your own agency ...
Was it the year before or a few years?
It was about two years before I set it up
So what were your hopes of setting an estate agency up?
What were your dreams?
I suppose that the main dream was just to actually start enjoying it again
Get back to the roots of agency which was helping people move not not just helping
to hit a head office target for something that wasn't really the right
product to necessary sell someone
Get back to being honest
But why? Deep deep Why?
.... because you know... all estate agents do is just sell houses isnt it?
No .... well but that's what a lot of public think.
.... but I think it's helping someone's life
it's a massive part of someone's life and very stressful .... so we often are counselors
psychologists, home stagers, photographers, removal organisers, liaison with the
solicitors .... so getting the deal Prevention Unit [little dig at Solicitors] to actually move things forward
yes there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes which that the public dont know we do
okay so did you have any fears when you
set up your own agency?
Loads!
... because I was doing was different slightly different
Was Elle on board at this time?
No
We will come to you in a bit in the next episode
You wanted to set your own agency up ... You could have set it up just like that .. but you took two /
three years there's people out there that take three /four /five years
What were you doing what I'm still doing ?
I was still doing the job I was doing but I was doing a lot of
researching around that I'm really looking at the market and looking at all
the data to work out what bits were good for the for the customer and what this
weren't really very good customers I could distill it down to to the getting
the right things done and getting the right ethos for the business as well
... but setting your own business up is really scary
Yes it is ...
What Fears? .... What kept you up at night?
Actually stepping over the precipice is the hardest thing
Getting it all planned ... taking that step whereyou to raise the money to do it
I remortgaged the house .. I then actually rented the house .......
I got rid of everything
that I had ...so I was putting everything at risk about my life too
... and did that keep you up at night?
Yeah yeah ...
as a lot of worries
.. a lot of times I step back and asked if was really doing the right thing
and how did that make you feel?
Scared ...
but at the same time excited
I think its like that sort of fair ground fear isn't it you
can't deep down you know it's gonna be okay because you put faith in your own ability
but there's still that what if?
What if ...what if it doesn't work so you
So you remortgage the house
even renting it out
so well did you live?
I basically sofa surfed for a while
I lived in the office
for first several months was because it was
working 24/7 seven days a week
So just was getting help from friends and
staying odd rooms here in there to get a business going
Elle ... I would like to bring you on board here
You were working there at the time
you must be one of the first employees there... I was
What was it like?
It was intense it was exciting as well
because we were doing something that was very different from the normal pattern
of the estate agency at that time because Purplebricks wasn't a big name and so
the online presence was unusual in terms of not being on the high street
so we had a lot of naysayers
So your office isn't on the high street
No no we're tucked
away in a small village in almost it's almost like a business park except
they're actually on stables owned by the Duchy of Cornwall
So the Prince is your Landlord
Yeah ....which is amazing! Does he come round with the rent book?
No .. but he did come down last year y first started there were a lot of people
When we started there lots of people telling us that it wouldn't work and it wouldn't be possible and we were working
every hour God sends to prove that would work
So what was Matthew doing at this time?
Was he rolling in at 10am and going home at 5pm?
I think he was in
the office before anybody was else was in but that's because he was living
there so I think he was pretty much up and working at five o'clock in the
morning and then I would go home and he was still there eight / nine / ten o'clock
at night still working I think he was only sleeping about three or four hours
a night yeah
So tell the guys about the story
you told me earlier on because it was absolutely great ....you know what Matthew went
through and when he started the agency
well he meet Tom and employed Tom and then a few weeks later lucky enough to meet me
and employed me and so around him he was already starting to build a really good
team and me and Tom
[Tom is a really nice guy]
So we both did everything we could to look after him
So we would invite him round for dinners and make sure he had some hot
food and we would take his laundry and make sure he had some clean knickers then
... offered our bathroom so he could actually have a proper bath and really
soak the stress
You really did put everything into this?
Yeah yeah everything
that's kind of scary if you don't mind me saying
It was ...
I didn't realise how scary at the time
Why do you say that?
....just because I believed in what was doing ... absolute total belief
that it was going to work and the way that we were doing things was better
okay okay so you are now a couple
How did that happen?
because obviously well you're a couple now ..... did you just like fall in love over the photocopier?
We ended up single roughly at the same time and every single mate date that we never
been on seemed to collide into one moment where we realised that we've
actually been probably dating for two and a half years without knowing if it
as we've just been at work 70hrs a week together ...
So you are getting married in 2018 ...
Yes
So what have you learned by coming together with regard to the business ?
That its our baby
Its made us a lot stronger at work
.... because I been there guys it's like it's like
a big family ... it's amazing
It is a family of people we joke about it being the
fruit bowl and you know we've got these old bits of
fruit that have just come together to create a fruit salad and that
works very well everyone in the team is part of the family and it's important
that everyone we look after everyone and they look after us
well they do say Richard Branson does say you look after the team and the team will look after
you customers .... let's bring it back to the customers and the clients
What magic spark do you think you guys have got a Orchards that make you so different?
Is it the people... oh definitely the team yeah yeah the people ... the team ..they are
absolutely committed to giving
People talk about going the extra mile
.... that that's where they start
Thats an enthusiasm and energy everybody brings to the fruit bowl and
they they all act as if it's their business ....no one acts like they're
working for the man up you know in some kind of ivory tower
everybody gives it their hundred percent all of the time and that's just incredible to see
people doing that when you know they are employees but they treat it like it's their own
they're empowered they're empowered to make their own decisions
and come up with great ideas
Have you got any stories that you want to share
with the guys out there where they've gone not the extra mile but the extra
ten miles .... 20 miles
CONTINUED IN PART TWO