SPEAKER_01 0:00

What my gripe was and still is is businesses mandating staff in the office two days a week and at home three days a week. If you prioritise the consumer language, the property market is easy. If you prioritise the property language, it gets lost.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hi Sean and welcome to the Build to Perform podcast. Great to have you on. So what I'd really like to do is quickly get into who are you and why do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Okay, so I'm gonna keep this brief. Um I left school at 16, um, was pretty useless um with all things education. Um I always kind of had this kind of dealer mentality, even from kind of 11, 12 years old. I was kind of buying mobile phones on the weekend and trading them in the school playground. Um, I just wanted to get to work. I had after I did my GCCs and failed them all, um, I just kind of wanted to get to work. A lot of my mates were going to university and going travelling, but I just wanted to get to the big wild world. Um, commercial property wasn't something I kind of grew up with a kind of a desperation to be involved in. It wasn't like the big thing I always wanted to do, but just circumstances. My my dad had a friend and they were looking for a junior, and I got the job, and kind of one thing led to another, and it was kind of like all things happen for a reason, right? And commercial property was just my calling. I think um, I mean I've without kind of blowing smoke on my backside, but I've I've always been quite good at it. Um is in I'm quite good understanding people, I'm quite good reading people, I'm quite good communicating with people. Um, and as I said, I had this like hustler mentality where there's kind of deal deal deal. And I think when I combined um my skill set of kind of being a good communicator and a bit of a kind of a dealer, when you kind of combined those two together, um it kind of gave me a roadmap. And um I said I I started at 16, I'm now 41, so I'm now in my 26th year of doing this, um, which does make me feel incredibly old. Um, but that's kind of how I got into it. Um, and then worked for a few people. Um, I set up my own my first business when I was 27. Um, that was a business called Hatton Real Estate. Um, we sold that business after five years to Colliers International, and then after five years of working for Colliers International, we then launched Compton. And and and to be honest with you, I know we didn't kind of get into this, but Hatton and Compton, which were the kind of my two businesses, they are very, very similar. The way I kind of like to describe them to people is um Hatton was kind of the iPhone 10 and Compton's the uh the iPhone 16. Um principally, they do, I mean the iPhone 10, the iPhone 16, they do the same things. You can call people, you can go on the internet, um, take photos, but the iPhone 16 is kind of faster, more powerful, slicker, more intelligent, AI capabilities, more tech. Um, and that's kind of the way I describe Compton and Hatton. We are we've tried to create um, I don't love the word disruptive, but they're kind of disruptive agencies that kind of have looked at the market, um, looked at the way things are done. Um and whilst we kind of do all the traditional tick box items that we should be doing as an agency business, we've just we would like to think we've put a a layer or two on top that kind of gives us a variety of USPs that kind of make us stand out, and hopefully what I'd like to believe is the kind of the bedrock of the success we've had with both businesses today.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I think 100% you stand out in a market. Um, and what I've seen over the the years from learning from the Hatton stage all the way to now is it has been disruptive and it it's been exciting and fun to watch. Um founder, so founder twice now. Um that's part of the dealer, wheeler dealer mentality, uh do you think, or is it entrepreneurial? How would you describe yourself in that sense? Is there a reason for that?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

I it's funny, I I love working for myself, I like not being answerable to people. Um, and it's interesting when we sold Hatton real estate to colliers, um the immediate reaction from friends and peers was you're gonna absolutely hate it there. You're going into a big corporate environment. Um the ironically, I actually loved it there. Um, and I've kind of been on record saying that I was actually probably of the of the guys of all of us that left in terms of the owners of Hatton, I was probably the most keen to stay, which was a bizarre turn of events. But yes, I I listen, I enjoyed working for colliers, I enjoyed being part of a really big business, but for me personally, um I'm not uncontrollable. I'm I'm I'm not like a disruptive member of stuff, far from it. But I do believe I am a much better founder than I am employee. Um, and I think as I've got older and as I've matured, and not only just in terms of understanding the property game, but understanding business and how to run a business and how to um manage a team, um, I actually feel I'm quite good at it at running a business now. As in, I may not, I don't think I was this good when we set up Hatton, but I think the journey of Hatton, which was five years, selling that business, then being a relatively young senior person within a very big global business, has kind of set me up really, really nicely for this kind of Compton journey. So um I do think being a founder or a business owner was where I would always have ended up, is my gut, even though I wanted to stay at Colliers, it's probably where I always should have ended up. Um, but on the flip side, as I said, I've I I've worked for many people, um, including global businesses and small niches, um, and enjoyed it, but I feel like I'm I can add more value um under my own umbrella than someone else's.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, and how long were you at Colliers again for? Five years. Five years, yeah. So I felt I think I knew you guys during the Colliers thing, and I I still think you managed to retain some of that identity as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

It's it was important. So one of my favourite stories about the colliers. When we colliers tried to buy us after three years, um, we had a we had a we had about five offers to be bought after three years of setting it up. We ended up turning them all down, and we ended up um just doing a one-on-one with colliers two years later, so after five years. Um, and we had loads of conditions. Obviously, there was we it had to had to be the right number. Um, we wanted to be in charge of our own hiring and firing, we wanted our own PL, um, and we wanted to keep the name. So, our view was that kind of the Hatton real estate, it had brand identity, it had brand relevance, and we kind of said to colleagues when they were buying us, like, why do you want to get rid of the name? It just seems so it seems so backwards. They're like, we do multiple acquisitions a year. We cut a very long story short, they were happy to do all of our conditions apart from keep the name, and it was the one compromise we made. But actually, as important as the name was, um, what not keeping the name taught me is that property is a people business. Um, we we have I don't know 150 clients. Um, the move from Hatton to Colliers, we lost one client who just didn't want to have a big global firm working for them on this particular project. But it just kind of showed to me that actually, as important as brand and the name is, and it is important, um, when it comes to your client base and the people you work with, it's probably less important actually. Um, and I've I've said for years that property is a people business, and kind of make it about the people, which is, and I know we'll come onto this, but things like social activity, uh, personal brand, that's why that's incredibly important in the world we live in today.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

And just going back to the the business owner aspect as well, I think obviously you you see yourself as being really good at that. What what's the part of being a business owner which you dislike maybe? What what's a bit which you're not so interested in?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So listen, when we when Covid happened, and COVID it's a wild example, but it just to make the point, um when Covid happened, um obviously revenues plummeted, costs stayed the same, revenues plummeted, but I was kind of working for a big global business. It it kind of it didn't it it mattered because I care, but in the grand scheme of things, if if the collier's global business was was in trouble, I mean it was okay, I was employed by them, right? Today's today as Compton it's a very, very different pressure. We have there are over 30 of us now. Um we employ kind of uh it's mainly a young group of people, but um people who've got um wives or husbands and families and mortgages, and and it's a lot of pressure. I mean it's it's listen th a 30-person business is not enormous, far from it. But um, there's just a lot of pressure, um, pressure to perform, um, pressure to ensure um our staff are able to progress their careers, both in terms of what they're dealing with and what they're earning. Um, so it's a constant and and listen, agency, which is kind of where we specialise in in the majority of what we do, um, there is no recurring revenue, right? Um, the kind of the saying you're as good as your last deal is so prevalent. So it's funny, I I I get more excited when I agree a deal rather than when the deal happens. If anything, I'm a little bit sad when the deal happens because it's kind of done and I've got to start again. I mean, it's funny. When I when I got back from um over Christmas this year, I went on holiday. So I I left London about two weeks before New Year, and I came back to the office on the 7th, and I literally I was sprinting back to the office on the 7th of January. I couldn't wait to get back into the office, couldn't wait to get back at it. We had a great year last year, had a lovely family holiday at Christmas, and I was like buzzing to be back. And that it was Monday the 7th, and it was that evening, and I got home and I was miserable and I couldn't work it out. I couldn't work out, I was so miserable after being so desperate to get back in the office. So I went to the gym because the gym is kind of like my my place for therapy where I can kind of work things out, and I was sitting in the gym. It was a realization that Monday the 7th in the evening that yes, we had a great 2024, I've had a lovely hollow in my family, but it was the realisation on January the 7th that we are literally starting at zero again, right? So I think that's where I think my my main anxiety and pressure comes from. It's I love what I do, I love our business, I love the clients, I love the building, I love everything about it, but it is this constant pressure of needing to perform, and I and I appreciate that may be the case in a lot of people's businesses. I get that, but um, we are a business that is is is a brokerage model. We do have other things that we've started to kind of factor in that give us a bit more recurring revenue, but we're a brokerage and really we're as good as our last transaction. So for me, I think that's the pressure, um, and that's where the anxiety and the the stress spawns from.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah. It's interesting. We had a a guest earlier on today, um, which was talking to about the anxiety side of things, and it's something which as an industry we're we're not very good at opening up and talking about and admitting that we have these feelings, so it it's great to hear. It's not great that you have the anxiety, let's get that straight. But you know, it's it's good to hear someone in a senior position doing it.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

I'm cool with anxiety, and I know when it's coming because I said I've I'm now 41, so I kind of I'd like to believe I understand my brain and my body quite well, um, which I perhaps didn't maybe 10 years ago. Um, but I kind of know when it's coming, I know how to deal with it now. Um, but yeah, I mean listen, it's it's what we do, it's not rocket science. I've always said this. It's not like we're doctors, we're not we're not lawyers, we're not kind of we are it's it's transactional, but it it comes with a huge amount of stress and anxiety. And and if you're if you're if you're good at what you do, then you always want to be the best at what you do, you always want to be able to perform. So the anxiety I feel is all self-generated. Yeah, I mean my clients drive me mad and put me under pressure, but the anxiety comes from me wanting to perform, be the best at what we do, create care, and I fundamentally care, genuinely. I I really, really fundamentally care. Yeah, but yes, anxiety is I accept it, um, I do understand it, I know how to deal with it. Um, it's not like debilitating for me, but it's it's just part of what I do. I mean, I I don't think I would be human if I didn't, and admitting or not admitting it, I mean, I'm a pretty much an open book, which you'll probably find out over the course of the next half an hour.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, and so content is quite an innovative disruptive approach. I think you do you really stand out from the crowd, let's just put it that way.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yes, I and I I I get funny with the word disruptive because what we do the same as what everyone else does, and as I said before, we just kind of put another couple of layers on it. So it is disruptive, but I've just I'm just not a massive fan of that word.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

It's I think the reason why I use that word there is as an industry, and we talked about this off camera. We move slow, we do, we change slowly, and we don't like change, and m maybe how you view something as not being disruptive, someone typically in the industry is gonna say that is that's wild, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Fair, fair, fair, fair.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Compton TV, for example, that's that's hugely out there in comparison to what else is on the market in terms of the agency side of things and what other people are doing in the industry, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So, yeah, so so let me talk you through like the the the Compton TV or the or the filming we do. So when we had Hattam Real Estate, um we did filming, right? So we were the first agents to be in front of a camera. Um, myself and Michael Rabin at the time in particular were, and there's loads of footage on YouTube, but us outside a building with a camera in front of us, talking about the building, talking about the air conditioning system and who the landlord was, and whether it was had a raised floor or not, and we would there would be kind of 90 to 120-second videos that we would film, talk about the building, and we would kind of drop them on at the time Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. Um, and then that evolved, and we started kind of doing slightly cooler videos, but it was all still very property focused. Um, when we set up Compton, which was 11 years after we set up Hatton, obviously the whole rest of the market had kind of caught up with where we were at. Everyone was doing videos, everyone was kind of standing outside buildings talking about the air conditioning system and landlord and raised floors and all that kind of nonsense. And we just kind of wanted to to lift it and do something a bit different. But we'd also come to the acknowledgement that, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, but if I'm showing you a building, well, you're a bad example because you're in real estate, but let's pretend you're you are uh you're a tech company, okay, who employs 20 people. Do you really care who the landlord is? Really?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah. Not really.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

You don't really um you just you care about what the space looks like, how the space behaves and how much it costs. And what we found, the old videos we do, we were just giving people 90 seconds of information they didn't really want. And what we've tried to do with Compton TV is two things. We've got a variety of different series and and versions that we film. Um, we have the explainer films, so we did like a jargon buster. So we all in property we all talk about full repair and insuring leases. Now we can talk about full repair and insurance leases because we're in the industry, but if now you're morphing to your tech company and employs 20 people, do you know what full repair insurance leases are? Do you care what we should care what a full repair insurance? But someone needs to explain it to you. So we we try to be a bit more um educational in the we try to give learning. So without being patronizing, we're trying to kind of educate our audience as to what they're signing up for or what they're getting involved in. But we do it in a way that I'm not gonna say we're comedians, but we try to do it in a really relaxed comedic style where we don't take ourselves too seriously, we kind of make them short, sharp, and engaging. Um, but it's really kind of worked. I mean, some of the content we've created has had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views, and um, it's so incredible how far it goes. But we still do property videos, but we've we've cut out all the nonsense. Um, and this all really comes from um a belief that that we as a collective have. So if we just take a step back really quickly, it's it's this is probably the most important point. I probably should have started with this before I went into the videos, but we can go in this order. So if you in the olden days, if or the olden days, 10 10 years ago, if you were looking for office space, you would you would you would you may go on the internet to try and find what that space was, but you would probably call up an agent where you've got a referral, you walk around the streets looking for boards, and you kind of go through that process. It was quite difficult 10 years ago to get all of the information in one place because we commercial property didn't have a right move or a zoopla, we didn't have like a central area for all inventory to go. So, you as the consumer looking for office space would be kind of hunting around in all different places. You may retain an agent, so on and so forth. Today the market's very different, or the world is very different. If you're your tech company that I've pigeonholed you in, you either you will call in your PA to say, right, find me a new office, or you'll go on the internet yourself, and the first thing you're likely to do is office for rent in Clarkenwell, right? And if you get to offices for rent in Clarkenwell, um, what you end up with is all these websites or uh property agents who are spending lots of money to be on that first page, probably, or they're spending money on their SEO to get there. And then when you get there, it's really difficult to navigate. So we just took the view that the consumer, who fundamentally is what we're trying to target, we want to create a platform where anyone looking for office space can not only find all the information they want really easily, but the information they find is really relevant. So rather than having two photos, every building should have a minimum 10 photos, every building should have a video, it should all be very interactive. We have a we have a bot on our website where you can engage with us immediately through a WhatsApp um conversation. Um, you can book a viewing through the website, but it's all very easy. I won't mention the names of competitors, but some of our competitors, it takes you about 16 clicks to actually get to the real estate. On the Compton website, you're you're at you're looking at property within two clicks. And the analogy I'll give you is where do you buy most of your products?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Right. Everyone gives the same answer. And why do people use Amazon?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Easy.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

It's easy, it's quick, it's intuitive, it's it's informative, it's photo heavy, there's videos now on there. It is just easy. And I'm not saying company don't become Amazon, I wish, but it's unfortunately never gonna happen. But the theory is the same. The consumer, so we represent mainly landlords. We do obviously represent lots of we have a tenant rep department, but the main business is office leasing. Our responsibility as the agent representing the landlord is to make sure that we fill that building at the best possible terms in the quickest possible time period. And we believe that the way we have set up our business to be effectively consumer first is the way to do it. And where I think the property industry falls down is we're good at talking property. You you and I can talk property, we can use all the slogans and all the buzzwords and all the terminology, and we can have an easy conversation. But what we do as an industry is we then go and talk to the consumer in the same way, and they don't know what we're talking about, right? So what we have accepted and acknowledged is there is a language for the property market, there is a language for the consumer market. They are not the same. But our view is whereas most people in property, they will just they will prioritize the the property language, what we do is we prioritize the consumer language. Because our view is if you prioritize the consumer language, the property market is easy, it it will understand that. But if you prioritize the property language, it gets lost on the consumer. So for us, Compton, the best way to describe the our marketing endeavours with Compton is it's a consumer-first approach. We want to make sure that the collateral we're creating, the content we're creating, the way we're marketing is so easy for the consumer. We don't worry about the property market because we know that we'll get swept up if we create the right language for the consumer. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Makes a lot of sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Um, we are just I won't name names, right? But I was out recently, I was represented by a family trust who were looking to buy a building for their own occupation. And we had a big day of viewings, I think we were seeing seven or eight freehold buildings. And on one building, um, the landlord age the landlord agent was there, and one of the representatives from the landlord came and And we were on quite a tight schedule. Um, we were seeing seven buildings in like three hours or something. It was quite tight. Um, and this landlord, or the one of the representatives from the landlord, we sat outside the building, he was giving us an introduction for it, must have been eight minutes. The contractor they use, the warranty packages they have, the specification for pipe van calls, uh, BREAM, EPC, just going on and on and on. And and at the end of the viewing, we we walked off, and my client said, What the hell was going on before that viewing? And I was like, Do you know what I I know, like I could see the and I know the person from the land was just trying to do a really good and and to be fair, like if they were presenting that to property people, it would have been really engaging. But it's just about understanding your audience, and don't get me wrong, there are people within tenant businesses who need to understand technical stuff. But what often happens in my world is the people that are going out viewing stuff, they don't really care about the technical side. What they care about is do I like the office? Is it is it the environment we want to be? Is it suitable for our business? Are our team gonna like it? Are there great amenities close by? Can we afford it? All the technicalities is probably dealt with by someone else. And as I said, the the key message that I'm trying to get across to you here, and hopefully the viewers, is in the property market, we've got to we have got to understand the difference between communicating with people in property and people as who are our target audience, and it is a very, very, very different language for those two, and I don't think enough people in property have really understood that yet.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, and I think that going back to the way in which you handle the social and the the wider stuff, that's that's building that narrative for yourself and your team, isn't it? Ahead of ahead of any looking at a a building.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Listen, if I if I do a viewing, right, and I uh I do plenty of it, if I don't make the person I'm viewing, whether they like it or not, if I don't make them smile or laugh during that viewing, I consider it a failure. Genuinely. I always want to try and whether it's a joke or just you want to kind of it's about people skills, right? As I keep saying it, like properties of people business, whether it's it's managing the client you're representing or managing the occupier you're trying to either let or sell a building to, it's all about personality, it's all about putting on a show, it's all about the production. Um, and yeah, I think I'd like to think that's what we do as a business slightly different because perhaps as a as business owners, we've given our team and our business a lot more freedom um to express themselves than perhaps they would get elsewhere. Um, and maybe we lead from the front and they see us doing it and they then believe it's okay for them to do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

So culture big on culture. We can talk, I think we could talk quite a long time about culture and obviously how how you're building that out, and obviously, one of the things which is you're very obviously very passionate about building culture and how long it takes to build culture and how quickly you can lose it with making missteps, right? Um, and one of the parts of that for you is also you're very passionate about is working from the office five days a week as part of your thing, and obviously in the current climate, some people see that as maybe controversial, uh others I I don't see the controversy there myself. I see each each their own, and people are gonna have their own views on it, and it's it's great to have.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

I'm a bit misunderstood, by the way. I am a bit misunderstood. Listen, I've been working from home for 26 years, right? If my son's in a football match or my daughter's got a school play that starts at 11 o'clock, I'm not gonna finish that at one o'clock and then spend an hour travelling to the office. I work from home. What I found unacceptable during COVID was the the mandating, right? Yeah, having flexibility is part of it. I mean, my my PA called me this morning um saying uh one of our kids isn't isn't very well because you work from of course, just work from home, like whatever. It's not there, and there's this kind of there's this view in the market that I'm this I'm this Nazi around kind of working from home. I kind of get people into the office and they're chained to their desk. That's not what it was. But what what my gripe was and still is, is businesses mandating staff in the office two days a week and at home three days a week. I think it's an absolute farce. And again, just whilst we're on the topic, I believe it's bad for business generally, it's tragic for business culture, it's an abomination for personal business growth, and just quite frankly, it's just shit. I mean, who wants to sit at home on their own, not part of a team? And I appreciate there are certain businesses where, or certain individuals where it suits, that's fine. Good luck to you. I've got no issue with it at all. My issue was with this nonsense mandating which everyone got wrapped up in during COVID, and I've predicted it. Well, it's not really everything is being reversed. It's it's all being reversed. I mean, look at HSBC. Yeah, HSBC have just taken what was half a million, they've come out of Canary Wharf. I think we're in a million square feet in Canary Wharf, they've acquired five, six hundred thousand square feet in the city. No, they've just taken another two hundred thousand square feet because they've miscalculated. Yeah, that's quite an expensive miscalculation, right? And it was all because they thought work from home was gonna be here forever. It was a non- it was never gonna last. No, it was never, it's I know people do it, but people have always done it. It was just the the mandating of it, I just thought was an absolute nonsense.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

So um on the content, you've obviously focused heavily on City Fringe. Um, and I think historically you always have. Why why the City Fringe here?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

It was it was when I when I I was actually a West End agent for the first five years of my career, and then I moved over to work for Richard Suskind.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Um, and that's where I met Michael Rabin and Ricky Blair, who was my two partners in Hatton Real Estate. Um, when we left Richard, it was just what we did. It was we we'd all worked together in that patch. Um, Mike had been there um the five years I was in the West End, he was there. So Ricky had been there about three or four years. It was just what the market we understood. Um and when we launched Hatton in 2010, we we debated, should we go a bit further, but we were kind of known for being Eastern City fringe agent. So we were like, just make it work.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah, double down on it. Double down on it, exactly. Exactly. And as another thing which I from my project management days and being a building sphere, one of the things which I I witnessed um with Michael, um, because I've obviously worked with Michael in the past, um, and I think it's probably true to say across um across Compton, and when you're involved in you know refurbishment projects or repositioning a building, there's a real passion, a real passion for detail and design detail, and getting involved in that probably well beyond what I've I'd normally expected to see from an a an agent sort of function.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Um you're right. So for years we've kind of labelled ourselves as uh frustrated architects. Um but the answer is yeah. I mean, listen, it goes more than that. We're we're we're passionate about the product, um we we have very strong opinions on certain um aspects of a build, um, not because it's about us and our ego, but because we are so in tune with what the consumer is demanding. So we often say that we often see so many situations where clients they don't take advice and they end up going to spend loads of money and they've created this product that they think is fabulous, but it's not in keeping or in line with with occupier demand, and it ends up costing them more money having to unravel it. So we're very, very passionate about it because it enables A, we we're quite passionate about architecture and design, but it also is a kind of a selfish decision because actually, if we can be passionate about creating great products, we can lease that product quicker, we can probably lease that product for more money, so we can earn more money quicker. Um, and it's kind of it's gone beyond that now. So we're not only passionate about the product, we're not only passionate about the the architecture and the design, but it's also about the marketing as well, which kind of now plays into this new kind of consumer-led, very digital approach. So um, yeah, we are passionate about what we do, but what a great thing! Like, how great to have a team of people who are really passionate about something we don't even own.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Yeah. And on that though, I think that's quite a challenge, challenging and different approach to a design team, for example, to have that sort of input. How how did you navigate that? Because I think egos can get in the way, and people go, This is not how it's done, it's up to the architect, it's up to the so-and-so to be designing this or being involved with this, and then you've got yourselves coming in and saying we fundamentally not you must do this, but you we we believe in this and we're gonna challenge you.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

We're gonna we are it it's gotta be done collaboratively, right? So I have never I don't think I've ever had an architect who's been offended by us kind of going in with ideas because actually, and especially now, right? So if you kind of fast forward to today, um it's a challenging market. Like there there are there are some pockets of the market that are being really, really successful, there are other parts of the market that are really, really struggling. Now, if you're if you're I'm I'm I'm elevating you, so you're now no longer the owner of a of a 20-person tech company, you're now the owner of a of a 10,000 square foot building. Okay, so you congratulations from your promotion.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Brilliant, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Well done. Um now, if you've got a 10,000 square foot building, um, and you know that on the market at the moment, if a tenant goes out looking for a 10,000 square foot building, you know there are 30 other buildings that compete with with you. Now, do you just want to create a safe product that gets in line with what everyone else has done? Or do you want to be a bit bold, a bit brave, and a bit different, and a bit polarizing, and create something that doesn't? So let me walk you through the projects, or let me walk you through the process. So, tenant goes out looking for 10,000 square feet, they view your building and 15 others, they're all the same, right? All it is really is who's gonna give that tenant the best deal. So it becomes a race to the bottom. Who's gonna give me the cheapest rent, the biggest amount of incentives, the most amount of flexibility, who's gonna do that? Because that's the building we're gonna choose. You can play that game. So the same tenant goes out and they look at 15 buildings. Your building is the one that's slightly elevated, it's a bit different. We instead of instead of doing kind of boring wood floor, we've had a bit of fun with the wood floor, we had a bit of fun with the lighting, and we've had a bit of fun in reception in the common parts. Now, the point is you're the differentiator now. So this tenant's gone out to see 15 buildings, and there's 14 that all look the same, and you're the one that's different. Now, that tenant, if he doesn't like it, fair enough, okay. But for every tenant, in my view, for every tenant that doesn't like your building, there's gonna be someone who loves it. So instead of trying to be all things to all people, which is I think a a pro or a fault that a lot of landlords fall into, especially in a bad market, they just want to kind of create a product that everyone thinks is okay. My personal position is I would rather create a product that half the market absolutely despise. Because if half the market absolutely despise it, chances are half the market absolutely love it. And I know it's a terrible, terrible, terrible analogy, but look at Donald Trump, or you look at politics globally generally. Half the world or half of America hate Donald Trump, the other half love him, and he's now in power, right? I'm not saying I love or hate Donald Trump, but it's just a aversion. Now, same when it comes to personal brand. Loads of people don't like me. I know loads of people don't like me. They think I'm too outspoken, I'm too opinionated, and they don't like the fact that I had loads of photos to LinkedIn and I'm so opinionated about work from home. But do you know what? I'm cool with that. Because for every one that every person that doesn't like me, I know someone does. So, in terms of going back to your question, we always like to collaborate with architects more often than not, in the majority of cases, most architects or designers or fit accounters they welcome our involvement because they're like they want to be kind of let off. Everyone wants to create cool products. Why wouldn't you? Like, where where where's the fun in creating something boring? Yeah, and by the way, I'm not saying you need to go absolutely like berserk. I'm not saying you need to paint the floors yellow and the the ceilings pink and have all this weird stuff, but I'm just saying like do something a bit different, make yourself feel and and again, kind of looping this all through again. Clickbait. We talk about clickbait a lot. Now, when you are the consumer, and we go, I know we're going back a few steps, you're the consumer, you've you've googled offices for rent in Farrington, you know, right. There is now a right move for commercial, there's lots of other portals, there's also people's websites, there's a lot of stock on the market at the moment. Do you not want to be, if you go to Right Move Commercial and you're flicking through 400 properties in Farringdon of all different sizes, and you're looking at a thumbnail that's like two inches by two inches, would you not rather have that clickbait whereby your everyone else's photo is all this is all the same wood floor, the same lights? Would you not rather be that one that sticks out a little bit? Right? Yeah. So there's so many different reasons for wanting to kind of break the mould of keeping it safe. And just to temper my enthusiasm on this point, I'm not saying you create products that people don't like that are just so bombastic that no one's ever going to get their head round. But it's just about having a bit of bravery to not kind of fall into this trap of pleasing everyone.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah, for you as well, I think you're at that that the for at the at the front of that in terms of dealing with it and understanding industry trends and where they're going. And obviously, you we're talking about doing what everyone else is doing, but obviously being involved in the industry trends and trying to push that and the changes which go alongside that must be challenging as well. Um, if you think about how the industry has had to adapt, especially in the office market, you know, you you only have to go back say less than 10 years, ain't you? And you look at what a cat was into where we are where we are now, right? It's the expectation's grown, the expectation from the tenants grown, everything everything's changed. Everything's changed, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:12

And but we are so uh so our business is is we don't have an RD department, so that one of the things I loved about Colliers was just having just armies of people and in different departments. So we don't have RD. Um, but what we do have is totally unrivalled market intel. So you've got to remember you've got to consider that in a normal year we're transacting somewhere between 230 and 250 transactions, property deals, majority of those are leasing, right? So not only are we moving 230, 250 people into new buildings, but we're moving people out of buildings as well. So the amount of data that we're able to collect about the whys, the what's the hows, why are they moving, what's the reason for it, we have a huge amount of data. So whilst we don't have an RD department, the data we're collecting annually based on the the volume of transactions we're doing, it's it's it's pretty unbelievable. So we whilst we don't have that functionality, actually, it's arguably better than an RD department because it's like real data, it's just it's everyday we're we we we we can see trends, we can understand uh because we're doing such a high volume of of transactions. So um it is challenging trying to keep up, but I'd like to think we do it better than most based on the fact that we're an incredibly high volume brokerage business, um, which is quite unparalleled for most people of our of our size.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, and what sort of trends are you seeing at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Um location, I mean little some easy uh location, location, location. Um, I think to today location has become probably more important than again, probably any time I can remember in my in my career. Um, I think flexible listen, flexibility is important. Um the the 10-year lease, unless you're a really kind of large scale, is is kind of a thing of the past, quite frankly. Um obviously fit out. I think 80% of demand at the moment in central London, a bit more than that, is for fitted space. Um which is that's a hell a hell of a change in 10 years, isn't it? Um buildings with amenity um have people they want amenity. The the days of arriving at a building, waving to the reception, disappearing to your desk for 10 hours and then leaving those still exist for sure. We plenty of them, especially around here where you don't have very large buildings, but people demand more from their buildings, whether from a technology perspective, from an Intel perspective, from an ESG perspective. Um but really I I would say low location design amenity because quite frankly, going again, kind of connecting the dots as part of our conversation. Most business owners want to get their teams back into the office on a full-time basis. It's quite difficult to do that if you're in a crap building in an awful location that's hard to get to. So we have found that I mean, if you look at the city fringe market, for example, um Farrington is kind of almost back to where it was pre-COVID in terms of the volume and the activity we're seeing, especially at the smaller end, because product's grey, location's brilliant, and it's it's it's recovered a lot quicker because of its geographical influence and crossrail. Um, but yeah, I don't think I've said anything that should surprise you. It's the things that we all kind of know. Um, it's hard being a landlord today. I've got to be honest. It's tenants are demanding more, and in the same breath of demanding more from their buildings, they want more flexibility, more incentive, and lower rent. So being a landlord, right? I mean, we'll all these things, it's all cyclical, right? Um, and landlords had a wonderful time. They had a they had a 10, 12, 14-year run of only good things. Um, but right now we're in a kind of in the majority, apart from the absolute top end um of scale, it's an occupy market.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

So um big picture-wise, yep. Um commercial real estate. Um do you think it needs to change? Um and change how? It's a good question. In in your in your world, I guess, um, we've obviously talked about how you're doing things differently and your approach, the making it more people-led, um being more creative.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Yeah, it it's happening, right? And um I used to get really angry because like really angry when because a lot of our competitors, big the big guys and the small guys, they're just copying what we're doing. It used to really piss me off because we spent all this time and effort creating something, and then four weeks later the competitors basically just rip the whole thing off. They're even using the same terminology and the same sentences, they just branded up their thing. Um, but as I've kind of matured, I kind of use it as inspiration. So every time someone copies us, um, I see it as uh an opportunity to improve ourselves again, right? That that's that's the energy that that I now bring. So rather than getting pissed off about people copying, I'm like, okay, you guys want to kind of get up to where we're up to? That's great, we're now gonna go to the next level. Um, so I'm happy, I'm I'm happy with our position in the market trying to be a force for good because I think it is a force for good. Um, I do think the game is changing. I think I think we've discussed it in the sense of it's more the the demands of the consumer and the occupiers and how the landlords react to that. I think that's the fundamental piece. Um, I think all the the marketing and the social element and the social media and the videos, that's it's it's happening, right? So, yes, it that that's happening. The fact that you um the the the workmen business, I mean there would never that that would never have happened years ago, right? So workmen as a big property services business, you're modernising, right? So everyone's kind of jumping on the bandwagon, some faster than others. I do think the property market or the property world is in is for London especially is in really good shape. I think we I think the majority of the agents, the the professionals within the industry, and importantly the landlords, they understand the changes that the consumer wants, and I think we've adapted it. I mean, whenever I go on holiday, I always do when I was in Dubai, I went viewing offices. When I was writ in New York, I went viewing offices because I like to understand how. Other people in other countries are doing it. It's like a bit my it's like I spend a day on holiday whenever I'm on holiday or an afternoon going to view things. And we're miles ahead. London is an incredible, I know, I know we get quite bad press at the moment for a whole load of reasons, but the property sector, we are so far advanced compared to our competition in in other parts of the globe, like miles ahead. Um, so even though you may think we're a bit backwards or slow in comparison to where other industries are, in the property industry, I actually think we're London's in a really good place. And I feel that the more that people kind of jump on the bandwagon of being creative, doing things differently, pushing boundaries and trying to modernise, I think it's all it's all good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

And is there any big change in the office market which you think needs to happen, which isn't happening fast enough? Or um are we ahead of that?

SPEAKER_01 44:54

I mean it's a really boring topic, but unfortunately, I think a combination of the planning process, um, legislation, red tape, timing to get schemes done, the government are just do the government and their local authorities are just doing the an A star job of ballsing things up as much as they can for as many people. It is the the planning process is archaic, decision making is in a lot of cases I found to be unfair and unfounded. You've got people, in my opinion, who don't really who are not qualified to be making these decision making the wrong decisions, and I feel that the whole that whole side of the property industry needs a revamp because it's it's holding us back.

unknown 45:43

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

So which brings me really nicely on to my closing question which I have in the podcast, which is do you think commercial real estate requires evolution or revolution? Now it feels like there might be a bit of a split there, but it'd be good to hear your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

I just think I don't think it needs, I think it's it's a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Um but as I said, I think for London, I think London's in a great space. I think the I think pockets lots of the UK is in a in a de in a decent space. I think we've got very smart people in the UK, and we've got very smart people running lots of good buildings in London. Um I I just feel that listen, maybe maybe it's the old guard, maybe maybe it's a generational thing. Because it's funny, I I'm 41, so I kind of sit between kind of the the old guard that are still around, right? Um, and the nude and the next gen that are coming through. So I'm I'm in that generation that that understands both sides of it. There's a lot of like new gen guys that just don't get what the the old guys do. Um but I do think with the in the fullness of time, as the kind of a lot of the old guards start who are quite traditional in in format and process, I think as they start to retire and and and that happens, I just think the the new generation of of younger talent coming into the industry, it's inevitable that the kind of the direction Compton have been going in is only gonna um it's only gonna become bigger because actually the generation coming into it, they were born into this, right? So I was a I was a Facebook generation. I'm Facebook generation, I'm not TikTok generation. So um, but I understand TikTok. I don't I have an account now. I don't love TikTok, I love Instagram more than TikTok, but TikTok is like I as I said, I was the Facebook generation. The TikTok generation are gonna be the people replacing me, and they're gonna do a much better job, in my opinion, of the creative elements than I than I've done because they were born into it, but they're just gonna have to wait their turn.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Yeah. So and then so probably a bit of evolution and then just revolutionize the things like planning and things like that, and just go crazy there.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah, I mean it's it's just too much red tape, it's just it's it's out of control, totally out of control, and and decisions are being made for the wrong reasons. I mean, just one gripe affordable workspace, right? It was uh it was a policy that was designed. It was a policy that was designed when the market was flying. So what and I and I and it made sense at the time. Absolutely. So what was happening was market was London was flying, um, all the space was getting hoovered up at extortionate rents, and for small SME businesses, they were struggling to be able to find affordable office space in central London. Answer planners for any new build schemes or any space where you're adding additional square footage, we're gonna create a system whereby you've got to create or provide affordable workspace to the market. Brilliant idea, genuinely, brilliant idea. Like for part of the social platform that we operate in, absolutely nailed on. Brilliant. But that policy came in maybe what eight years ago. It was probably designed or dreamt up four years prior to that. They've still got the same policy today, and today we're not in that market. We're in a market where loads of availability, demand which has been weak but improving, but the the balance of supply and demand is out of kilter. Yet all these local authorities are still demanding for affordable workspace when no one bloody wants it, right? This is the problem. Like the government just need to wake up, they need to be more nimble. We no longer live in this uh non-digital world, like things can happen quickly. So, as a business, right, we we're quite nimble, we can make decisions really, really quickly. I know at government level it's hard to make decisions quickly, it's all we've done by committee, and you've got all these things, but you've got I'm not saying you could you can become like a small tech company that can make a decision within 15 minutes, but come on, like you've got an outdated policy around affordable workspace that is is hindering development, which is hard enough to build at the moment anyway. Just get rid of it, get rid of it, reintroduce it when the market's good again. But for now, get rid of it. It's just stupid. Anyway, what a way to end the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Yeah, nice. And yeah, on that note, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it, and you spending your time to come on.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

And um, really interesting insights, and I think we covered quite a bit and probably could cover a fair bit more if we had more time. But thank you again. Pleasure