Name: From estate agent to business coach: ask Rob Graves anything (live Q&A)
Uploaded: 2026-05-15T12:56:09.960Z
Duration: 38 min 44 s
Description: From estate agent to business coach: ask Rob Graves anything (live Q&A)

Transcript for "From estate agent to business coach: ask Rob Graves anything (live Q&A)": Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Emma, and I'm a senior education specialist here at Alto. And I will be hosting today's session for you. Just a quick note on the format before we get started. This is a live thirty minute q and a. So there's no pictures. There's no demos. We promise. You had a chance to submit some of your questions before when you registered. And today is just all about getting those honest answers to the real challenges that we're all facing, who you're facing as agents and we're facing in the industry, facing, from an expert business coach. So the best person to give you answers to those questions. But I'm sure a lot of you are joining with new questions in mind. So if you've got a question that comes to you during the session, pop it in the chat, and I'll pick up as many as we can at the end. We're just gonna go through and get as many questions answered as possible. And the chat is just to the right of the, screen that you should see in that black box there. And so do add any any chat in there, any thoughts and feelings, even just say hello, and use that as we go. But without further ado, I'm genuinely delighted to introduce today's guests. So we've got Rob here. Rob Graves is one of the most respected business coaches working with agents in The UK right now. I'm gonna make you blush, Rob, because. I've got I've, got, Emma. Yes. but he has he's worked his way up from the bottom, and he's built, scaled, and sold a multi branch 7 figure agency himself. And now he works with agents like you across the country to help them grow faster, build better teams, and just honestly do less of the stuff that doesn't quite make an impact, and focus on the really, really impactful changes that they can make. So who better to get advice from than Rob Graves? But you also know Alta. Well, not poking it. I promise. But he has used the platform, and so he understands the operational realities that your questions will have when it comes to the concerns of CRMs, which is exactly why the conversation felt worth having from for all of us, really. But, Rob, brilliant to have you. Thank you very much for joining us. And, also, I'm just gonna share my next slide. You can see I've been shamelessly stalking Yes. you before I have your website and LinkedIn. I've pulled up your seven key principles and also a lovely quote on what you do for agents. But I think I should just hand it over to you to introduce yourself in your own words and give everyone a sense of what you do and who you typically work with as well. So over to you. Oh, thanks, Emma. Thanks for having me on. And you're right. Yes. I am blushing a bit after that intro. Now now I hope I live up to it after all that and Yes. don't get caught out by a tricky question halfway through. But, yeah, I guess my my specialist subject is as a business consultant. So I'm probably not here to teach people about estate agency skills. I'm here to answer questions about their business and how their biz business structure works and some of the opportunities within their business. And and I guess my my connection with Alto is, yes, I have used Alto. I wouldn't put myself as any expert on it, because by the time I had Alto, I was in the an office out the way of the front line. But I do understand Alto, and I do understand how important a CRM is in terms of the functionality for all estate agency businesses, businesses, whether that be sales, lettings, or property management. I think that's the key. The heart of it, isn't it? If if you don't have that understanding, then how can you really give advice on what what agents are doing day to day? Because for most of them, their whole days are encompassed through that one CRM and how it's helping them. So, yeah, def definitely an expert in the field, including with Alta, I think as well. Well, I'll give you that one. But we won't we won't hold up the conversation anymore. We've only got half an hour, and like I said, we wanna get through as many questions as possible, and we have got a few, that are already presubmitted. But, like I said, do use the chat and to the right hand side and ask ask your questions as we go. But let's jump straight in then, put you in the hot seat and ask you some questions. So we're gonna start off with, one of our agents asked, can a CRM provide a competitive edge to a state agency and their sales agent, whether that's relevant or not? So yes. Absolutely. I think probably the difficulty for most people is maximizing the use of the CRM. Most of the time when I go out and visit different branches out there, very few are maximizing the potential of the CRM. And I think if they would do, it certainly improves service standards. And if you want to add value so that you can increase your fees, that sort of thing, it's it's a major stepping stone to doing that. So investing time in understanding your CRM will improve your service standards and therefore improves the value you offer customers. So vitally important in my mind, Emma. Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you. And I know it's always I mean, things are changing all the time in CRMs, aren't they? And I think I know myself that I was a previous agent and, actually, you do the same things and you do the basics and you do the the daily task and all your monthly tasks and things like that. But, actually, there might be stuff in your CRMs that you've had for years in the agency that no one knows what to do because they've just been tucked away and you haven't uncovered them yet. Yeah. We well, that. data is hugely valuable, isn't it? And and now with things like, Alta IQ, where you can just go on and ask that's a question, and it'll you know, I I think in one of our clients, we said, who are the top 10 people to ring if I want to book a market appraisal? And it gave a list of the prioritized 10 people. So you can use those tools to really hone in and get the most out of your database that sits in the background there. Yeah. Definitely an interesting nod as well to the fact that AI is being now utilized in across platforms, really. And like you said, the l two I q, which we've introduced, to to answer questions on the go and to actually be be able to answer stuff that wasn't previously available as well on the system. But all of that is developing all the time. So there's a constant need to to stay on top of, yeah, the learnings and the new releases because all of it's being brought in to make day to day life easier. We've got another agent who's asked best tip for growing my business faster. Again, the the easiest one one of my specialties is profitability. I think lots of us can end up being very busy, you know, and I did this certainly in the early days. I was very busy and not seeming to get a a lot of return for my hard work and effort. So probably one of the easiest ways to do it is actually to look at the fees you're charging. So if you increase your fees by 25%, it's more than 20 it increases your revenue by 25%. But in terms of your profit, it it'll probably double it or close to it. So, yeah, it's one of the most biggest impactful things. If if you look at fees across The UK at the moment, on average, they're 1.16% on instruction, and they're 1% on exchange of contracts. Personally, I think that's an average, and I wouldn't want to be average. I want to be better than that. So you can start to measure yourself against that. And and I think if you're going to increase your fees, I often say that the the purpose of a business is to add value. And if you add value, it will get you profit. So look at what app value you're adding to your customers and try and work out what you could do to add more value to justify that fee. I'm not a great one in believing there's there's a clever word pattern to trick somebody into paying a higher fee. I think you genuinely have to offer customers greater value. And if you do that, they'll they'll happily part with it. So fees is the obvious first point that I would head for straightaway when I'm doing a diagnostic. That's what I look at. And then the next place, Emma, that I go is typically conversion rates. What I'm trying to do is always make more out of what you've already got. So if you if I start with the market appraisal numbers that you've got, what I'm trying to do is convert those market appraisals into more instructions at better fees with more sales, so higher numbers at the end of the funnel when it comes through. So look at each of the processes on the way down through that. Does. that help does that answer that question? yeah. Definitely. I guess a a follow-up question that pops into my head off the back of that because when you've got so many competing agents in. a a small sort of area, really, you I think that's when you then tend to find that you get that competitive fee offer because you're obviously trying to win the instruction. How does an agent go about putting a higher fee and then almost having the confidence to stand by? Is it just having that evidence of we can do a good job and being happy to lose some instructions? Yeah. I mean, there there's there's a really interesting, research done by Princeton University in California. They they did this in really interesting what what they were asked to do is they were asked to look into Californian wines, and the Californian wines asked them how how can they make their their wines match their counterparts in France, in the French wines. And they they did all this research on, production, grapes, soil, all the fermentation, every bit of the process in order to make wine. And what they eventually discovered was actually putting the price up was the most effective thing. And they they did this survey where they got they got three different wines where they they labeled them, one really expensive, one medium, and one low priced. And and what they they did when they they had done all that is they discovered that people derive far more satisfaction, better value, and felt that the expensive wine was the best tasting wine by far. And, actually, they were all tasting exactly the same wine. And it's effect. yeah. Our brains are are prepoposed to the fact that if it costs more, we're getting something that's better. And and quite often, I think that's a really interesting policy because we'll turn up on a market appraisal and turn around to people and say, we need to I don't know. We do this much more, and we do that, and we do this. But then if you turn around and say, we do all that and we're the same price as everybody else, the brain actually goes, well, that doesn't really work, does it? So, actually, Right. the confidence bit about just asking the fee is a really big part of it. But I also think you need to try and differentiate yourself, decide what it is you stand for, be that agent, and add value. Yeah. Definitely. Also, there I think there's something in an agent playing a bit harder to get, but, actually, if they if they know their worth and they're not gonna budge on the price, I think that could leave an impact on that that seller of going, oh, well, that they must be really confident in what they do because they're not trying to desperately win my instruction. They must have enough. They must be busy. So, yeah, there's gotta be something in that as well, but Richard Rawlings talks a lot about the fact that if you negotiate your fee, what are you gonna do with their asking price? yeah. Very true. And there's a lot of different tactics that go in with that, isn't there, Yeah. whether Absolutely. and I guess a good advice for if you're selling to get multiple options because you just don't know really what that first price that comes from an agent is. Is it is it gonna be exact? Is it gonna be slightly high? Is it gonna be slightly low? It could be anywhere in that remit as well. Absolutely. But, no, that's brilliant. We also had one, a a late question actually added in. Do prospecting strategies vary from region to region, or is there a single universal approach to getting new clients regardless of location? There's a single way of getting clients. The one common denominator about what I do, Emma, when I go and see agents is nearly everybody says it's different here. And I I work I work with agents up and down the country. I I work with agents in Ireland. I work with agents in Scotland that have different laws, and their problems are identical. I think it's fair to say it's all downhill from a really good market appraisal. If you can get that bit of the process really good, it it really helps. But getting market appraisals, as the question rightly talks about, is the tricky bit, generating market appraisals. But I would probably say, obviously, Alto has a tool to do that at the moment. I think the the biggest one around this is the fact that as estate agents, we all think about it a lot, and we're really good at having good ideas, but we're not very good at sticking to something and seeing it through. So this week, we think, I know I'll do leaflet drops. And then next week, we think, I know I'll do social media. And the week after that, we think, I know I'll use, Alto with the spiff tool and I'll canvas lots of properties. So probably the most important thing is just to stick at something relentlessly. It it takes longer than you think. Unfortunately, it costs more than you think, and that just comes with the process. So I think sometimes we're too guilty of flipping around from one to the other. But. for me, the priority is to let as many people know that you exist. That's that know, like, trust, and. get people to know who you are, get people to like you. And the trust bit comes by, you know, actually turning up and doing a a really good market appraisal. Yeah. Is there a is there sort of, like, one of those avenues that you personally think is stronger? So, say, if an agent is considering either focusing on touting, focusing on their social media presence, focusing on, I don't know, showing up locally for events and having an actual physical presence in front of people. Is there one that should be focused on more than the others, or is it, just try and keep keep working at all three? I think I think you work at the ones that work for you, and you'll soon work work out what those are. So for me, personally, I'm an old school estate agent, and leaflet drops or direct mail, as it's called, you know, where you write to somebody directly has a really good I knew what my response rates were. I knew. I I had to send out a 178 letters to get one inquiry. I needed two inquiries for every instruct for every market appraisal. So I knew my numbers. So I knew how many letters I had to send out, and I love my letters. The other thing that I I was in 2014, I set up my business. And at that stage, Facebook had really favorable algorithms, and I mastered Facebook. I was really good on Facebook. And, you know, if if anybody mentioned, I don't know, moms in Exeter said, who should we recommend? I was all over it. I got my friends to turn around and say, recommend me, all that sort of thing. And yeah. Yes. End of the game. And I think that and in those in those early days, it saved my bacon. It really did. When you first start off and you're cash strapped and you're bootstrapping it from the very beginning, it is tough. So but yeah. But I I I honed in on Facebook, and I'm I didn't let off for ten years. Yeah. I guess, the the good thing about utilizing social media platforms, even though it can be really tricky and really competitive and trying to find that algorithm that works and getting through to people is really, really hard to crack, but it is a free marketing platform, isn't it? And, actually, people using it sort of more than more than anything else because they're sitting at home each day and looking through it. So, yeah, it's definitely a a tool that's worth considering because it's not costing you anything more, just maybe more time, Yep. but it's it's there ready to use. So my one with social media, Emma, is as a step before you start using social media, you really need to get right. And I I say be known for something. Decide what it is you're going to stand for and be that agent. And and that it doesn't matter whether you're gonna stand for being the agent who, you know, doggedly gets the best price, whatever happens, then that that's great. Communicate that. Or whether you're the agent that makes sure the sale goes through. You you know, you're gonna spend every minute making sure every transaction goes through. But whatever you decide you want to be known for, start using that message relentlessly. I think sometimes we're not quite sure what we stand for, or we try and stand for everything for everybody, and that sort of thing doesn't work on social media. You need. to be really clear on your messaging, what you wanna stand for, what you wanna be, and what you want them to be known for within your marketplace. Yeah. So use it as a as a way of pushing your what you want your brand to be in that brand identity and brand message, you know, Yeah. as much as possible. Yeah. That's very relevant. And you mentioned as well, obviously, auto prospecting. Yeah. So but for those who aren't auto customers or who don't know what that is, so we've brought in a platform, that you can basically arrange tar like, targeted touting, I'm gonna say, to go out automatically or to select areas to select groups properties, filtering it down by what properties you want, what areas you want. And it it is a game changer, and it's amazing to me that tools like this exist now because it wasn't that long since I was an estate agent. And I was going through the various platforms, looking at houses that have been marketed, trying to search through ones that have been recently withdrawn or recently reduced, and then taking the road name and then trying to work out where that property is in the road so that you could. do some counting. Very time consuming. And the fact that now you can use it in multiple ways of being able to, yeah, automate, tell him to go out or just a way of finding addresses because it has all of that information now, is absolutely amazing. So, yeah, if anyone wants any information on out of prospecting, let us know. But, also just look at tools like that because it is a a massive game changer to estate agents. So, yeah, thank you for liking that one as, well. anyway, I'm I'm a bit older than you. So back in the day, once a month, we used to drive down every street looking for the new boards that have gone up, and we'd add those to the Canvas list and we'd start doing it. And as you say, now it's all automated. It all happens. One of the things I. would say about that, one of my tips is that they're they're actually quite common now, these tools, and I think most of people listening will recognize that and know that. My tip is try and work out which people aren't gonna get 15 letters a week. I would say go for things like withdrawn properties. I think it's something like 86% of withdrawn properties will resell within twelve months. So rather than focusing on the properties that are on the market along with the other 15 agents in town, look for things that you know will be good. Sort of give you an indication that these people are likely to move in the near future. That's really interesting, actually, as a a niche to focus on. So, yeah, great shout there. I can see Mark as well as backstage has added a little banner at the bottom. So if anyone does wanna click in into auto prospecting and have a look, then do that as well. Right, move on to another question. So, we've got I've been looking at several CRMs who've said I should start again when it comes to data so everything is clean. I'm a bit worried about that. What's your perspective on it? So yeah. No. Data's too valuable. In in short, it's the the short answer. It it's funny, Emma, with this. I I mentioned this in the last thing. Back in the eighties, big insurance companies bought us purely for the data, and they spent millions of pounds buying up estate agency businesses because they were after our data in the background. Now as it turned out, well, they got all this data and they didn't know what to do with it back then. But I truly believe that AI is now unlocking that valuable data so that you can use it. And, yeah, I mean, I I think about the number of people that I had on my database. It was in excess of over 45,000 people, and that is. valuable to have. 45,000 home in nine years, nine and a bit years or something. To have 45,000 homeowners details is a really, really valuable asset. So, no, please take your data with you. Some shape, some there's there's many different ways to take your data with you, but do not lose your data. It's finally, after all these years of hanging on to all this stuff, become really valuable, and you have access to it. So don't lose that access. So if there was ever a time not to lose. it, now is the time not to do that. well, also, it stood up to me as I read that that, you know, you're you're sort of sitting on a gold mine a lot of the time when you've got even, like, applicants registered that you've got to stay up to date with them and make sure their situation is updated on your on your CRM. But, actually, you could have a your whole host of buyers and potential future sellers. and tenants and anyone really just sat within your data already. And they're probably gonna all be registered with multiple estate agents if they're if they're looking or if they're actively if they've actively been doing anything. And so, yeah, it seems a shame to lose that. Well, there's this phenomenal stats that apparently 86% of buyers don't resell their property through the agent they bought through. And and a. lot of that yeah. Yeah. It's it's terrifying. And lots of people say, oh, it's because the all those estate agents are terrible. I don't believe that is the case. I I actually believe that, actually, if you think about it, once somebody's bought with they typically are not gonna move for sort of somewhere between nine and seventeen years. So what's the point of looking after that customer? You you focus on the other 20 customers that might well be moving. But now with with AI, you can nurture those clients for ten to seventeen years. It's it'll do it all automated in the background for you so that you don't have to. Yeah. And keep that relationship growing as well. And, also, I think it does stand out for as if you're just, say, a viewer, even if you're not a viewer that is, in, like, a really amazing position at the time. Every experience, every interaction you have within the state agent stays in your memory, doesn't it? And so even I I'd say from an agent perspective, if there are viewers, potential buyers, people that you are looking at and thinking, oh, might be a waste of time, It might be at that immediate moment, but longer term, that could have an impact on your relationship if they think that you've done an amazing view and an amazing service, and they'll keep you in their mind as a a really top agent. Whereas if they feel like they're a bit of a waste of time, then they're gonna also remember that. So, yeah, it's a good I remember keep we we used to talk about advocacy. So everybody we met, including the postman, we would try and turn into advocates for our business. So somebody might not move for, you know, nine to seventeen years, but they could recommend you three times. a year to families and friends and that sort of thing. So we were really focused in on turning people into advocates for our business, and and that was really valuable. But, you know, if you want your conversion rates to go through the roof, get referrals. It's brilliant. For me, I think I said yeah. A great message to take away from it because, actually, word-of-mouth is so powerful in a positive or negative way that. you really wanna harness that and make it positive. Don't you? Yeah. Let's jump into another question then, because the half an hour is flying by. I'm just you know, I'll speak it out as have to come back and do it for an hour. I know because, one of the, one of the agents says they're doing all the right things. They're active. They know their patch. They follow-up, but they're still not winning instructions, at the rate they think they should be. Is there something that's usually going wrong in that situation? Yes. In short. And this is gonna sound harsh, but they're probably not doing everything right, are they? I know they believe they are, and that's all in in good faith. But and where I would go with that is I would look at the the numbers. I would look at the conversion rates. So you'd look at well, so how many market appraisals do you excuse me. How many market appraisals are you getting? How many instructions do you get from those? How many of the instructions actually sell? How many of the sales actually go through to exchange of contracts? Normally, something jumps off the page when I go through that and you spot in it, conversion. You think that's not right. There's something wrong there. But, yeah, in most cases, I can when I ran that, I ran 17 branches for Barnard Marcus in Central London. I could sit there with a spreadsheet of numbers, and I could know which process or which procedure an office had dropped in an office 20 miles away just by looking at the numbers. So, yeah, that you can normally and if and if I there you go. If anybody wants me to have a look at their numbers to try and work out why that might be, I'm happy to do that free of. charge. It's it's all cool. I'll happily point you in the right direction and try and help out in any way I can. Amazing. Thank you. And, from a digital perspective, is there a sales CRM which really propels agents through the full client vendor journey from inquiry to valuation to listings, and also where it can nurture inquiries as well. So yeah. I mean, certainly, I mean, obviously, we're on an auto call at the moment, and I'm auto biased because I work with you guys, so appropriately. So if if you look at how your workflows work, we'll we'll call them processes and procedures. And it's always interesting working in the tech world about how the language is slightly different. But how you work, you you talk about workflows. So take it also, for example. You have the the contact list that comes into the customer contact initially. And if you want to own that contact, you then allocate it to somebody, and then they deal with it, and they take it to the next step and the next step, and they've got each workflows. But if if you just take that one process, that one so I work with about three clients who use Alto, and every single one of them has the contact list out of control. They've got more contacts than they've been able to manage. And it's it's just and the moment that workflow breaks, it's really difficult to press the reset button and start again and tidy up your processes. But. yeah. So if you stuck to what the CRM asked you to do, yeah, you'd be absolutely fine, but I think doing it can be a lot harder to say than actually doing Right. Yeah. So, actually, if you are gonna do it, then if you are gonna use these these platforms that work through the workflows, then, actually, it's good to stay on top of it so that you're getting the most. from the system, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You need to commit to it, and it it it seems like and it for lots of people quite often, whether that's Alta or all the other CRMs that that I've dealt with, trying to press that reset button can be difficult. And I think also that one of the things that's interesting now, Altos like this, it it gives you lots of options in the setup at the beginning, which is brilliant. Really good. Gives you loads of options so you can build the CRM to suit you and your needs. But then what happens over nine years or certainly what happened to me over nine years is my business grew, changed, developed, and it had new problems nine years later than it did in year one. So sometimes you need to go back and have a look at that and see how you can, if you like, reset, have a look at it again, see what the demands of your business are. I I think one of the services you guys offer is the health check, which I think is really good. I've I've got all of my clients to do the health check, much to the annoyance of Paul. Abby, I think it is. He's running around doing health checks for me. It just makes the check back in, though, doesn't it? And just. actually make the I mean, it it's not none of these CRMs across the board are gonna be cheap. It all comes at a cost, and so Yeah. make sure that that cost is then giving you back as much as you can get out of it. And, yeah, I I completely agree with that, and I think it's another shout out to join the updates and keep track of what has changed and what's updated and what's new because that's gonna be the best bet of staying on top of anything new functionality that you wouldn't have had before as well. Yeah. I think it's difficult for for agents as a business owner myself. yeah. I I know that. I didn't like spending money, Emma. don't think I'm from the I'm. from the North originally anyway, so I didn't like spending too much money. And so every penny needs to be justified. But I think one. of the biggest underestimated things is it's worth investing on extra training on your CRM. I know. you think it's an extra expense, and I often hear people will say, why would I pay that out? I said, well, you you bet you're spending a lot of money on me. Why not spend a bit of money improving how you use your CRM? I think it's a reasonable investment to make sure you're on top of it because it it'll do a lot of the leg work for you. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I hope that's a brilliant place to leave it. And, if anyone does want any alto trading, let us know because we do offer that as well. But, Rob, thank you so much for that. That was fantastic, and I hope everyone's taken away at least something. I feel like I have I've taken away everything. It was exactly the kind of session we wanted. And just, yeah, hearing straight to the point, honest dancers, is brilliant. And I'll also share as well because we, have got just a quick flag for you and just from Alto. So if today has got you thinking about systems, and are they working as hard as they should be? And is there anything that can be doing anything better for you? If you want to just see what out it can do, we're happy to do a demo for you. We'd love to show you. And also for today, we've got a thank you for you, and that's 10% off your Alta subscription. And it's Rob ten. So it's featuring. Rob. Thank you. So do use that. The the, directions to do it is just to fill out the contact us form, and that's in the docs tab. So just above the chat, there's a docs tab, and there's a contact us form there. So just quote Rob ten in there as well. But also, if you'd like to get in touch with Rob, and I'm sure loads of you will because he is just a fountain of knowledge, we've also linked his website in our resources tab as well. So in that docs tab, but we'll send that out on a follow-up email as well with the on demand session, recording of this webinar too. So you can rewatch it and take notes and take everything you want from it as well. But, yeah, thank you, Rob, so much for being here with us today. Thank you, Emma. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you, and thank you everyone for joining. Take care, everyone.