1979-1982 B.Sc Land Management at Leicester Poly
I qualified with all I needed to become a Chartered Surveyor
1982-1988 Estate Agent
Volume Residential Sales in Leicester, Greater London, West Midlands and the South West culminating in managing offices for Black Horse Agencies then running my own estate agency for 18 months . This diverse work experience set me up perfectly for my later career – I learnt the intricacies of inclusive advertising, chargeable advertising, up front fees, disbursements, multiple agency, half-comms, joint agency, auctions etc. I also did a fair bit of lettings, property management plus building society surveys, housebuyers reports….
1988-2003 GMW Systems
Almost the first desktop PC estate agency software (I wrote it on an Amstrad PC), I rewrote it for MS Windows in the mid ’90s and it became the UK’s most widely used agency software. In 2000 I was lucky enough to sell it to Aviva’s fledgling Rightmove competitor called asserta home. I was made asserta home’s commercial director for a while but relinquished this to focus on software. I stayed until the end of my earn-out in 2003.
2004-2017 Expert Agent
I started and funded Expert Agent and, joined by Pete, Tom, Dave, Steve, Marcus, Neil and later Barbara, developed Expert Agent into a £4m pa turnover business supplying cloud based estate agency and letting agency software to over 2500 estate agency branches. Again, we became the most widely used product in the UK. We sold to private equity in 2013 and I stayed on. They sold to Zoopla in 2017 and I didn’t stay on!
2017- Independent Software Consultant
I work as an independent software consultant.
I advise small to medium sized estate agency businesses on how to get the best out of their existing software. Generally, this involves spending a whole day with them.
I help estate agency businesses work out their requirements for new software then I create and submit tender requests to the software companies, negotiating hard for the best deal.
I also advise software companies working in the estate agency space. I advise on strategy, marketing, documentation, support and product functionality.