TRAINING


should directly increase productivity and has a very high return.” However, Peter Bolton King


amount from £547 (in 2007) to £258 (2010) reflected a diminished gravity of complaints. Many training company managers


agree with Peter that basic training needs to be given a higher priority. Adam Walker says, “McDonalds gives more training than many junior negotiators get. You can’t flip a burger without training.” Yet the cost of giving someone a burger that’s a bit overdone or with the wrong relish is small – the cost of a junior negotiator mishandling a booking could be several thousands of pounds in commission. “The returns of basic training are such a no-brainer, it’s hard to believe companies can miss it.” Yet miss it they do. Phil Bowden


says, “Compliance training is vital; you need to do it for your own defence” – in malpractice cases, the fact that training has been carried out forms a valid legal defence. “But a lot of firms just don’t do it.” Peter Knight, of The Property


Academy, also believes the Technical Award is useful. However, he says, its impact on business performance is limited. “I’m a fan of the Technical Award because anything that raises standards is to be supported, but it doesn’t necessarily make a good estate agent or help them be more productive.” For that, a different style of training is needed, focusing on productivity rather than compliance. Adam Walker also believes “The


two are completely different objectives – some companies do one and not the other, a very few do both.” He warns that some companies get obsessed with health and safety training and compliance training, that have a very limited return on investment. “These qualifications are very laudable but not connected to increasing profitability, whereas sales training


At McDonalds you can’t flip a burger without training – but you can be an estate agent!


believes that compliance and productivity aren’t necessarily opposed to each other. He says, “One would hope that one is linked to the other. Best practice should mean better service, with fewer sales and lettings falling through.” But he admits that while the Technical Award covers business processes and the use of KPIs, “it is not going to do everything as far as productivity is concerned”.


Continuous training There’s also a huge requirement for continuous training on compliance, as James Trimble, new franchising manager at Winkworth says, “Regulations come, and like HIPs, they go, you have to keep yourself up to date” – one reason that they run regular courses for franchise staff. That’s particularly true in lettings, which tends to be more technical than sales. Peter Bolton King says “some standards we see are appalling” – mentioning recent queries from lettings agents who wanted to know whether they needed to get gas safety certificates for let properties, and whether they had to lodge deposits with one of the registered schemes. It’s only fair to point out that these agents were not ARLA members. Moving beyond compliance training does seem to be where the returns are. Sales techniques can greatly improve productivity and profitability; even simple things such as training staff to elicit maximum information from potential clients when booking a valuation appointment can improve the firm’s win rate. While information-based training


such as the Technical Award is easy to deliver, training on sales techniques and management skills has to be linked to the individual


For independents it’s about productivity; corporates want qualifications for


their negotiators.” PHiLiP BoWDEn BoWDEn tMs


firm’s culture and business strategy. What works for a high end estate agent may not work so well for a lettings agent dealing mainly with student accommodation. Peter Knight says that before they


think about hiring a training company, agencies need to decide specifically what they want from their training. “For instance, they might say ‘What is our instruction rate? What can we do to improve that?’ – then they need to focus the training on addressing that issue.” That’s one reason that 90 per cent of his firm’s training is on a bespoke basis, rather than off the shelf courses. Bespoke training can take into account the company’s culture, marketing, branding, and how its IT system works, the local market and competitors.


DELivEring suCCEss – tHE HoListiC aPProaCH At a certain level, it can be difficult to differentiate training from management consulting; many questions are the same – how to improve the business, how to compete better. Knight says, “I don’t know where training starts and finishes to be honest, the edges are blurred.” But while consultancy will deliver a recommendation, training goes a lot further. “It’s about not just saying what to do, but coaching people how to do it.” Adam Walker agrees, he offers


both management consultancy and training and it is sometimes difficult to divide the two. “A client might come to me for a training course, but then they say ‘We can’t do this because our PC doesn’t let us do it’, or ‘We don’t have enough staff’, so training leads to consulting.” Most of his training courses focus on highly specific areas, such as how to qualify buyers, rather than general sales or management skills, they concentrate on topics such as refining the business plan, or motivating staff, linking into their everyday objectives; “I start off by showing them how what they’re going to learn makes them money; it’s all day to day nitty gritty.” Phil Bowden’s clients include


corporates such as Savills and Countrywide, as well as some


PROPERTYdrum SEPTEMBER 2011 41


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