The former managing director of Countrywide Estate Agents, Bob Scarff, has described the firm’s insistence that it is all about retail as ludicrous.
Scarff, who parted company with Countrywide last spring after 38 years, said: “I don’t buy the idea that people at Countrywide really think that, because the concept is preposterous.
“Homes are not commodities – as agents, we are dealing with people’s hopes and dreams. No two transactions are the same.
“If I had been told to put the word ‘retail’ on my business card, I would have left anyway.”
A number of Countrywide executives now do have the word on their business cards, including Sam Tyrer (managing director retail), Margaret Longden (retail programme director) and Alison Nunez (retail director).
Scarff added that he felt the term was merely shorthand for CEO Alison Platt’s way of trying to convey that Countrywide is somehow different from other agents.
That difference has yet to pay off: Countrywide’s results for last year, issued a week ago, revealed a 37% drop in operating profits.
Platt, who initiated the Building our Future programme, admitted: “We took our eye off the ball.”
Scarff said: “Countrywide clearly gained market share in mortgages and surveys, but lost market share on estate agency, their core business.”
Scarff believes that the new regime does not always think things through properly.
As an example, he cited the decision to put every single managing director in the estate agency division on notice last September that they were at risk of redundancy.
That, he says, demonstrated lack of market knowledge: “September is such a key month for estate agents in terms of new instructions and activity.
“So, to have your key people worrying about their own futures at such a crucial time was stupid. It was the worst possible month to do it.”
Scarff, for the first time, this week spoke to EYE about the events surrounding his departure.
He referred to an interview we ran last June (see below) in which Platt said that it had been “time [for Scarff] to go and on that basis we shook hands and said goodbye”.
Scarff said: “She might have thought it was time for me to go, but I certainly didn’t. I had been looking forward to working with a new boss and thought I was going to be part of the future.
“I felt I had plenty to contribute.
“When it happened, I was terribly hurt. It was a huge wrench. For the first six or seven weeks, it was like an out-of-body experience.
“I never saw it coming. If I had, I might have been better prepared, but I honestly felt I had done enough to earn my place in her team.
“I think my fate was probably sealed because I complied with Alison’s stereotype of an estate agent – being white, male and middle aged.
“I also have a capacity for questioning, which could have made things awkward.
“I would have questioned decisions and could see myself saying ‘Over my dead body’ on a number of occasions.
“I think Alison saw it too and so she decided to shoot me first.”
He said that on the day he was told his fate, “I just thought it was going to be a routine meeting, although I knew she wanted to talk to me about my future. I thought it might be a promotion.
“Instead, Alison told me she did not see a place for me in her team. We were both polite and very professional. That was the middle of April. It was announced at the end of April, and I eventually left at the end of May.
“During that time, I felt like a lame duck. However, it did enable me to get round to say my goodbyes – and it wasn’t just me who was upset and in a state of shock.”
Scarff’s head was not, of course, the only one to roll at Countrywide, which last year spent some £3m on redundancies.
Out of eight people on the executive team at the time of Countrywide’s IPO, just three are left. Scarff also feels strongly about the departures among the next layer of management, saying that Countrywide has lost talented people who should have been its future.
Scarff says that in the after-shock of his own departure, he felt he had something to prove and seriously explored the idea of setting up his own agency, which would have been a hybrid model.
Despite having secured strong backing, he stood the idea down at Christmas: “I did so because during my enforced time off, I have discovered that I actually enjoy lying on the beach and spending time with my family.
“A new business requires more than full-time commitment and I wasn’t prepared to give up my new-found work-life balance.”
However, he is now firmly back in action – having also spent a lot of last year visiting agents all over the UK: “I would just talk to them, have coffee and get people’s take on the industry.”
He and his son-in-law have launched an IT recruitment business, which may eventually morph into estate agency recruitment, plus training and development.
He is also offering his services as an adviser to medium-sized agency businesses and is aiming to pick up four or five such roles.
Of Countrywide’s decision to sell nearly half its stake in Zoopla in order to buy back its own shares, Scarff said: “The surprise to me was that they chose to do a buy-back rather than issue a special dividend.
“Countrywide has a long-term commitment to Zoopla, but probably just thought it more sensible to invest in its own shares.”
How does Scarff see the future of estate agency generally?
He does feel that the way to go is a hybrid model, but added: “I don’t believe anyone yet has an answer, with one exception.
“I think Foxtons have sorted it and are the only firm to ‘get it’ in terms of excellent technology and a very sound business.
“I have visited Chiswick Park [where Foxtons have their headquarters] twice in the last six months, and to me, they are easily the best estate agent in the country.”
So, after all the turmoil and poor results, will Countrywide succeed?
“I do hope so, for the sake of the hundreds and thousands of really good people there.
“I also have to say that I do admire Alison for having the nerve to take such difficult decisions. It is a high-risk strategy.”
Comments (25)
Andy Hornby brought retail to the Halifax Property Services – anybody know where that went?
Agency is personal for sellers – never forget that
For buyers it becomes personal when they don’t get what they want when they want it – control and convenience reign until the stress kicks in
as more personal agents enter the market, medium and larger firms will almost have to use futuristic technology to help them Ho back in time – to become more human
Sorry , go back not Ho back – have big thumbs 🙁
Retail is about simple commerce. In Digital its about e-commerce. Make it easy to find, easy to use and easy to buy. That’s what I would mean about bringing the retail model to agency. That’s what Uber did for hailing taxis.
By bringing all the things that makes it easy to sell or buy product whatever it is – a Home, you create a simpler two party commerce model. It doesn’t need to be such a mystery. We can simplify Property commerce – it has a geolocation, it’s land with or without a building, comes in different shapes and sizes and it has price with terms of lease or ownership.
What’s hard for the consumer is selling and buying at the same time with what’s happening currently invisible.
We all know that the deal itself is compromised by a conflict of interest. The market will be disrupted at some point because the Uber crowd sourcing model allows for anyone to work for themselves providing scaling and cost effectiveness to the consumer without all the overhead built into the price. This will come to estate agency soon on a more Global scale than Purplebricks who are only half way there and haven’t solved the above.
You turn that into your business model centred around e-commerce and you have a more lean mean and turnstile estate agency that is basically heading in the direction of FMCG as its development journey.
I’ve been in the technology side of this industry for 16 years and can say for sure that this model is coming, even if CountryWide don’t do it. Their team, in my opinion, at the moment is missing key Digital people to spearhead the online solution to this problem for a heterogeneous group of agencies. Someone soon will undoubtedly create the AirBNB of Property Selling/Letting. If not this year then in the very near future. It’s a core team of the right people that will make this happen. I wish Allison all the best. I don’t believe she yet has this piece of the puzzle covered as she is not from a Digital background and unless she reaches out to someone who gets this space digitally, CW will miss the boat.
Are you the sort of key digital person Countrywide is missing? If not who have you got in mind?
They, or whomever is the disruptor, need a few key digital personnel here from Digital Creatives to Digital Marketing and Advertiser who gets Hyper local and programmatic media, to a CIO who knows how to setup and manage Development teams that can be hired and fired in an instant. Where he/she can say we are not doing laptops anymore, your department is fired, attitude. The ability to move and move fast – beyond agile. A CIO who can tie up tech deals with Telcos and other partners. A couple of top Mckinsey guys to feed in the analysis and engagement as fast as it succeeds or fails and help define the key objectives for each of the digital gunners. Yes I could do one of these jobs with my background and track record.
Big companies are often scared companies that work to minimise any variation and effectively by-pass one thing that matters to homeowners- someone that cares for them and the community. Our passion for this industry comes from who we are, not what we sell and how we sell it. Those relying on a tech future fail to understand the emotion in a sales process. They assume that logical decisions will always prevail and that fast, easy to use, easy to buy options are what vendors are missing. Those without the humanity can hide behind an IT mask, but trust is built on hints that agents give us in their vocal tones, in the stance they take on irrelevant issues such as football and how well they enunciate their message.
Economies of scale brought about by technology have little bearing on the ability of an agent to persuade and to inspire. No technology can instill faith and trust, without which life is one long slog.
Bish, bash, bosh, jobs a goodun? You make it sound so easy!
Being human or being an agent?
But Technologist80 what do you know about front line estate agency? Tech plays an important part, but it should only replicate the best parts of the best processes and sales techniques negs and managers need to use in office, when negotiating and when taking listings on and why their agency should get instructed.
Tech alone can’t pitch a vendor to win the instruction.
Trevor, perhaps you should read what I wrote properly. I never suggested what you are pointing out, which is something I do not disagree with. So I agree with you except that agents don’t actually need offices but they do facilitate walk-ins and brand presence so arguably have some value though this is declining. Why do agents still insist applicants want to talk to them. They often don’t. You don’t need to speak to someone to arrange a viewing, you don’t even need your agent to conduct the viewing it could be you or someone else. You don’t need to speak to someone to place an offer. It all starts with the customer. I say stop trying to give an agent a job to do that doesn’t need doing and justifying it. The market is wiser and more able to move technically to do some of this using crowdsourcing and automating appointments and attendees like deliveries – That’s retail. This won’t remove the need to sell or negotiate using people. This won’t remove people doing viewings. Putting the parties that are needed to do what is required in a simpler way is what technology achieves. So the traditional sales process model can still exist, but facilitated by tech and people together resourcing the needed services on demand will prevail as its in the best interests of the consumer and their pocket – hence AirBNB and Uber.
I like Bobs article, it almost sounds human. Lets be clear though, Grenville was head of a group of BDMs that was it, Head of Intermediary sales and he came in with no experience other than a degree. Bob i,m sure is Human but he presided over a decline way before Alison Platt and along with Grenville he also aided the promotions of others who made incredibly bad decisions. remote secretaries, Countrywide property lawyers (just google it) and dismantled subsidiaries that were making profit. People work for people not companies and the restructure that Bob instigated saw the decline starting. There was turmoil in the branches and he presided over bigger subsidiaries where the MD would never visit. Subsequently the rot set in. You cannot blame Alison Platt…yet
Before anyone starts blaming her please just count transactions from previous P&L per branch and for those agents who are no longer on the board you will only have to take one sock off as you don,t need to count too high.
I have no doubt all of the ex board members are nice people it,s just that some would like to confuse bank balance and titles with ability. As I recall the ex change Director presided over the disappearance of most of the FS laptops when B&B joined, Oh and of course they had one broker who had his own company just behind the office. Right under his nose. He was promoted?
Under the direction of Gerry and Harry Hill Countrywide was a great place to work
Good Luck Alison
You really didn’t like being made redundant from your nice little number as an MD of 10 offices or the like, with an over inflated salary, Jaguar XJS. Jobs for the boys when Gerry was in charge and not sustainable when the good times ended in 08 but then you would know that if you had been around to see it.
TESCO’S, ASDA, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s to all take others stock off their shelves and sell only their own.
Seriously. Access to property should be more like retail.
You mean a bit like the Aston Martin dealer keeps a stock of XK’s just in case he can’t flog a Vantage? The people selling have a right to a bespoke SERVICE, they want to feel special. Diluting the choice available to any applicant by adding additional choice to an agents register works against a client’s interest.
Mr Heinz will be a bit miffed if he finds his exclusive placement of beans is assisting sales of Cross and Blackwell!
Mr Mealham
You made the same sort of ‘pro-retail’ comment to the last CW-related article.
To remind, you said:
“Agency should be more like retail… Imagine if supermarkets only had a few coffee choices on the shelf rather than dozens.”
To which I said
‘Oh, dear.
The corporatesque ethos here being chuck as many jars on the shelf as possible in the hope that people will buy some of them.
Sorry, Mr Mealham. My vendors employ ME to help THEM sell THEIR HOMES.
I don’t deal in coffee… beans… or any such consumable item.
I don’t stack shelves for a living.
If that is what you advocate and how you advocate it be done then you are in the wrong industry.’
I stand by every one of those words every bit as much as you clearly still stand by those you posted.
PeeBee, you sell houses. Supermarkets sell goods, Holiday companies sell holidays. Insurance brokers insurances. Mortgage companies offer 100’s of mortgage products.
The odd one out is that an estate agent in the UK normally just sells their own stock.
As such opening stock to others means more buyers can come from others, thus bring more buyers to the table = a main agents client gets a best buyer. Isn’t it more important to gain sellers greater exposure. And give people looking access to more stock (even if not our own direct listings) Sorry portals alone don’t fully achieve this.
Retail could also cover (not just mass stocking) but provision of other services. Best removal quote, best conveyance quote etc etc etc.
Me, Myself and I Property Services is a selfish way of restricting what could be offered in many instances in the different processes to list and achieve a sale.
I guess estate agents are Cartels then!
Trevor i think the thing you are overlooking is estate agents spend out a massive amount of money to secure instructions. Advertising, meetings, drafting details, photography, floor plans, videos, and a manner of other stuff. We all do this for FREE.
And in this market we get somewhere between just 0.75% and 1.5% once its sold from the buyer.
So our sole selling rights are incredible important to us.
I do not believe multi listing works in the UK. i am not going to split my fee with another agent and .5% is not worth me spending time on selling another agents.
The USA is different circa 5% to sell and also a buyers premium of around 5% you can multi list and it makes sense.
Mortgage brokers do not have to buy their mortgages they just place them, same as holiday companies and insurance brokers.
Disappointing to see how Bob Scarff has been treated.
About 25 years ago when I was a young negotiator at Countrywide (Dixons), I remember Bob being appointed as the new MD. The first thing he did when he arrived was to get rid of the Jaguar XJS company car he’d inherited from the outgoing MD and give himself a standard fleet Ford Orion 1.6 to drive around in. This won him a certain amount of instant respect from the foot soldiers, from which ranks he had of course emerged. I got the impression he wasn’t one for the usual corporate bull***t, so its unsurprising that he has been outed by the new regime.
I suspect Countrywide may struggle looking ahead, but of course there won’t be too many tears shed on the high street.
A touching human story and a reminder that if you work for other people, no matter how exalted or important the role, your destiny is in their hands.
Well, after all the hype, I was expecting the answer to life, the universe and everything today from PIE. Clearly ’42’ still holds constant
I still want to now how the chuff they get Teflon to stick to the frying pan…
Don’t get mad, get even!
Fantastic story.
Really interesting and well written.
Bob really seems to have had the corporate burden removed from him. And seems to “Get it” shame the current board do not.
How long until the old management team try for a take over…….
The sadness is for all the independent firms snuffled up by Countrywide; respected local firms, staff and reputations that now have no control over process and procedure. Being blunt the selling public have no idea who Alison Platt is and will care very little all they will understand that the firm they bought from and liked all those years ago isn’t like that any more.
Precisely right Mr May as there has been no attempt on CW behalf to explain what ‘retail estate agency’ is and certainly not to the general public. Speaking to some former colleagues still there it doesn’t seem a huge amount clearer to them either and morale is very low but that might be down to the staff having find out changes taking place either through this site or press releases! The proposed changes to working hours for example had not been communicated internally before a press release was issued so all the staff were unaware of it and found it out in the property press!!