Opening The Gates To More Listings

Today's guest is turning property businesses into the best-known name in their patch and is Co-Founder of House of Marque. He spent a decade running marketing inside national property networks, finishing as Head of Brand for one of the largest property groups in the country before co-founding House of Marque with Lucy Collinge. He now works as a marketing partner for ambitious property businesses across the UK, spanning estate and letting agents, mortgage and protection advisers, new homes developers and housebuilders, and B2B and proptech businesses. This episode has been a long time coming. We first met at The ESTAS back in 2021, I missed the last train home, and it’s taken until now to get him on the podcast. He has held senior marketing roles at Hunters, TPFG and Lomond, and has worked with over a thousand estate agents in the last ten years. He’s seen where agents spend money well and where they waste it. This episode is packed. We talk about why your shop window is your most expensive asset and is being wasted on A3 cards. We talk about why word of mouth isn’t a strategy, and why most agents compete on function when the person in front of them is making an emotional decision. He also shares the three questions to ask every customer to find a USP that’s really yours. Then there’s the business with 70,000 records in their CRM and only 48,000 chimney pots on their patch. And a line that really stuck with me: if a customer can find you there and you’re not there, you need to be there. It’s that simple. P.S. Remember to like, review, subscribe, follow and share the podcast👌🏼 P.P.S. Comment below or send me a DM if you would like a presentation of the key takeaways from the episode sending to you✌🏼

EA Masters 2026, John McGrath, Lewis Moody and a Rate Rise Almost a decade ago I stood in a lift at EA Masters holding an award for the branch I ran. The owner of the business told me he was proud of me, and I think it was the only time he ever said it. Last week I was back at the same event. In this solo special I take you inside EA Masters 2026, the conference and the awards in one day, and what it all means for your agency. You’ll hear: Chris Watkin’s numbers that matter. Only 54% of homes listed in the UK exchange, and 94% of sales agreed within 25 days make it through. Guy Gittins on how he put Foxtons back on top, and why service and retention now drive reward. Heather Staff from Street on Amara’s Law, and why now is the time to switch back on to AI. The agents and conveyancers who are cutting transaction times by moving the back to the front. Leadership lessons from Ireland, Dubai, Australia and New Zealand, including the agent you’d recommend to a friend. John McGrath, arguably the greatest estate agent of all time, on why leaders get the team they deserve, why every listing is two conversations from being sold, and how one agent went from £380,000 to £10 million in fees. The awards night. Location Location are Sales Agency of the Year for the second year running, Chemmy Alcott says you win or you learn, and the best line I heard all night was “people swear by us, not at us”. I also cover the Bank of England raising the base rate to 4%, and what to tell your buyers, sellers and remortgagers. And I finish with an evening with Lewis Moody, World Cup winner, on his MND diagnosis, passing the baton, and why hope is irrelevant without action. A huge thank you to Peter Knight for the invite. If you haven’t heard my conversation with Peter on episode 332, go back and listen to that too.

Another solo special, and this one comes from three very different rooms. I went to see Chris Williamson of Modern Wisdom live at the Hammersmith Apollo, with James Smith warming up. I was at EAX 11 in London, put on by Iceberg Digital, with talks from Mark Burgess, James Peach and Chris Hunt, Rob Brady hosting, and two world class agency panels. And I watched Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote online at the eXp conference in America, which I think is one of the most useful things any UK agent could watch right now. A comedy and philosophy show, an industry conference and a marketing keynote. You’d think there’d be no overlap. There was loads. In this episode: Why the vendor who leaves feeling clever is the one who instructs you, and the Disraeli lesson behind it The curse of competence, and why hitting target never feels like enough Outputs versus outcomes: new listings, viewings, offers and exchanges, and why nobody recommends an agent for updating the CRM Revenue per employee, and whether you’re hiring to grow or hiring to cope Why it’s never the fee, it’s the presentation “It’s not marketing to consumers, it’s mattering to people” Gary Vee’s barbell theory, and how to use digital to go analogue Becoming the mayor of your town Chris Hunt’s mental game toolkit for agents Why the answer to all of it is: do it anyway If one line from this episode gets you, tell me which one and what you’re going to do with it in the next seven days.

On the 26th of October 2025, I pressed publish on the first edition of the Opening the Gates journal, not even sure anybody would read it. Fifty two Mondays later it has just turned one, and I haven’t missed a single week. To mark the anniversary, I sat down and read every edition back, from the very first to the most recent. What surprised me was how often the same few ideas kept coming back. Seneca in December, Alex Hormozi in September, Tom Panos over lunch in June, an Olympic rowing crew and a snooker player. Different people, different weeks, all telling me the same handful of things. So in this solo special, I’ve pulled out the seven biggest lessons from a year of writing to the estate agency community, where each one came from, and what I think it actually means for you, your branch and your diary. In this episode: How the journal sat empty for three months, and the late nights in Marrakesh, a hotel room and after a stag do in Mallorca that kept the streak going Lesson one: stop waiting for perfect information, plus Alex Hormozi’s two decision hack Lesson two: execution beats education, the forgetting curve, and how Dean Coleman won a £1 million instruction within minutes of a chat Lesson three: consistency and the boring middle, and what Ben Hunt-Davis and the British rowing eight can teach agents Lesson four: making your own luck, from James Clear’s dartboard to Dr James Austin’s four types of luck Lesson five: why the market is never the excuse, from the credit crunch through to permacrisis Lesson six: your fees, your worth and the people you surround yourself with Lesson seven: confidence, and looking after your head Some of my favourite things that made me laugh this year, including Mark from Perfect Property, South Park and a half eaten fry up on Rightmove Why a quote often credited to Bill Gates (no relation, sadly) ties it all together If one of the lessons makes you shift in your seat a bit, write down one thing you’re going to do about it and do it in the next seven days. The journal lands every Monday and it’s completely free. Subscribe at simongates.substack.com, or find everything else I do at linktr.ee/Gatesy91.

The Autumn Budget, what it means for the property market, and what to do about it this week. On Wednesday I was on back to back calls while the Chancellor was on his feet. Then I got a train down to London for The Spectator’s post Budget briefing at the Emmanuel Centre, chaired by Michael Gove, with James Kendall. I got home at midnight and was back at my desk at 6am the next morning reading through the lot. That meant the Budget documents, the OBR’s 200-page forecast, the Lloyds Market Insights call, and the reactions from Rightmove, Zoopla, Savills, Knight Frank, Moneyfacts, the brokers and plenty of agents. This episode is the bits that actually matter for our industry, explained the way your clients will want to hear them. I cover what was announced and, just as importantly, what wasn’t. Stamp duty is unchanged, and the big tax reliefs that protect homeowners all survived. Then the bit that barely made the news. How the gilt markets reacted, how gilts feed into swap rates and fixed rate mortgages, why “boring” was the best result your buyers could have hoped for, and why that still doesn’t mean cheaper mortgages are coming. Your First Home, the new 2.5% deposit scheme for first time buyers. How it works, the small print, and why Rightmove found most new builds in some areas wouldn’t qualify. What it means for sellers, including the mansion tax bands, and why your lettings book could be your best source of sales instructions after landlords took their second tax rise in twelve months. What it means for tenants and rents, what the government’s own forecaster expects for prices, sales and new homes over the next five years, and what happened to the market around the last four Budgets. Plus what the Spectator panel and Lloyds’ economists think could happen next, from rate rises to election talk, and why every time you hear it, you should think gilts, swaps, mortgages. And finally, the six things I want you to do this week. Starting Monday. Your clients don’t need you to have an opinion on the Chancellor. They need you to explain what it means for their move, calmly and accurately, before anyone else does. If you have any questions at all, or want a copy of my written Budget article to share with your own clients, send me a message and I’ll happily share it with you.