Control What You Can Control

Control What You Can Control

By Nicola Broomham, Co-Founder of 2point0 Group

Last week Paul had his say about Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister and what it might mean for your business over the next few years. He offered some market predictions, some informed guesses, and some analysis based on what we already know about Burnham and on the choices he has made in his early speeches and Cabinet selection, which might hint at the roadmap ahead.

From a property market point of view, compliance and social effort are going to be key, and for property businesses, it is about planning ahead for this roadmap and thinking about what you could be doing now to get your business ready for it.

Long horizons. All very Paul.

This week you're stuck with me, though. Sorry.

I don't do five-year plans. I do them for other people, of course – in fact, that is exactly what we do. And they are vitally important.

But for myself, I am much more intent on the here and now and what the very next solution is.

It is why Paul and I work so well as a combo. Now, in Paul’s last article, he wasn’t second-guessing what’s to come; he was providing some thoughtful speculation based on what we know from Andy Burnham’s years as Mayor of Manchester and as a government minister before that under Blair and Brown.

Nevertheless, I’m one for leaning on the side of ‘things can change’ and ‘anything can happen’, personally.

This doesn’t mean to say I don’t believe in preparing for it in general – but perhaps it is more a case that I believe that any business should shore itself up for a range of circumstances and possibilities.

This isn’t my first Rodeo, after all. Many of you will know me from my previous business, Broomham Recruitment, which I launched three months before Covid hit and locked us all down. Who could have seen that one coming!?

Which brings me to the theme of this week’s article.

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Build Everyday Resilience into Your Business

Let’s park what might or might not happen in the future, for now, because where I am taking this article is in fact back in time – just a couple of weeks – to talk about what I heard at Leaders Inc, where we had the pleasure of listening to a talk by James Peach.

Peach is a man who has cycled 41,000km round the world, been Head of Brand at Uber, Innocent, and now Vinted, and yet somehow still has the energy and bandwidth to come along and present to a room full of property sector professionals on resilience.

The term he used was "Everyday Resilience".

Not the big, dramatic, gritted-teeth kind you need once to make it through a crisis, but the small, boring, repeatable kind you need every single week. How to turn pressure into a fuel source, so that it doesn’t beat you down. It’s about getting ahead of the wobble to build strength before you need it – in advance, in those ordinary moments, so it's there when you do have to reach for it.

It landed, because it's essentially the thing I've been talking about for years: control what you can control.

It speaks much more to my personality of not guessing so much about what is down the line, but concerning yourself with what you can do now to move forward from now whilst safeguarding against any potential pinch points that lie ahead.

It also struck a chord because it springboards perfectly from what Paul’s article suggested last week, and reinforced something I have touched on above. Because whilst Paul and I might approach the issue from two different angles, we still recognise an underlying truth: it is crucial to focus on controlling what you can control, rather than letting the uncontrollable dictate your every move.

Which brings us nicely to August.

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Use the Slower Summer to Your Advantage

Every summer, without fail, far too much of our sector quietly downs tools for six weeks. In fact, often not so quietly… ‘Out of Office On!’ they declare on their social media. I don’t want to disparage that – it is good to take a break, and usually these sorts of posts are to ram home the message that they have been hard at work and this is the time to relax and unwind.

But is it, actually?

The businesses that do well all year long are those which don't coast in August. They use it.

They might not be listing and selling or letting out more homes than normal – it’s not necessarily about that. But while others blame the quiet market or the fact that half the team is away on holiday, these businesses use quieter spells to actually look at the business properly. And that is exactly what you should be doing – because when it gets busy, you’ll have no time for it.

The summer is perfect to review where you’re at. Are you on plan? Have you drifted away from it without noticing? Are the systems and processes you’ve got in place still fit for a business that's grown since you first penned them? Have you, if you're honest, outgrown a few of them yourself?

And then there’s the people question – the one everyone avoids because it risks getting a little uncomfortable. But truly, have you got the right team? Or, potentially, have you actually got the right people, but they are sitting in the wrong roles, doing jobs that don't play to what they're good at or which they have outgrown? Has that negotiator you took on as a junior three years ago reached the stage where they need to be out listing, or running a branch, or are they proving themselves more detail-oriented and might suit a spell in a lettings role now instead to develop their career? Because if they are good people and you don’t give them enough, some other firm will.

There will be different people problems across different businesses, and they will come with a different fix. It's worth knowing which one you've got, to work out whether you have a structural issue, a people issue or an opportunity issue. All can be fixed – and August is a perfect time to look at them – ahead of that final push to see out the year.

August is also one of the best times of year to recruit. Everyone else has switched off, so there is less competition for good talent. If you get someone in and bedded in now, they're properly up to speed by the time Q4 lands in only a couple of months’ time.

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Control What You Can Control

So, what should you actually be thinking about right now? It hopefully isn’t "how do I survive the next six weeks?" – although if it is, we should certainly talk. But how about this as a question to ask yourself: what would this business look like if I used the next six weeks properly?

If trying to answer this leads to another question on the lines of "I need help, but I don't know how much," that's fine. That's a normal place to start, and it's genuinely what we're here for.

It doesn't have to mean a huge commitment. Sometimes it's Paul for a day. Sometimes it's just an hour! Have the conversation with him, work out what you actually need, and go from there.

And if it does turn out to be recruitment, we don't do quick fixes dressed up as strategy. We recruit properly, based on relationships, not on transaction. Yes, you will get the short-term gap filled – but we want to see you benefit from the long-term gain.

The bigger picture rumbles on regardless of what any of us do. We're all still getting used to a new Prime Minister. Angela Rayner has ruled out rent controls for now, but not forever. Andy Burnham has ruled out stamp duty reform this year but not forever. The Bank of England has made its decision on the base rate, but it will vote again in a few weeks’ time and a few weeks’ time again after that.

But whatever happens with rates, or policy, or stamp duty, or the market generally, it doesn't actually change what you need to do on Monday morning. It doesn’t change the job that your clients expect you to perform.

You can't control the Bank of England. You can't control government housing policy, however entertaining it is to have an opinion on it. But what you can control is your own business – your plan, your systems, your people, how you spend the next six weeks. Control what you can control. Build your everyday resilience.

Start there. Because it's the bit that's actually in your hands, and the businesses that build resilience today are the ones best placed for whatever tomorrow brings.