Sarah Beeny: on the future of estate agents and how to succeed at business

We talk to property mogul Sarah Beeny about how her new businesses are shaking up old industries.

You may know her as the insightful presenter of Property Ladder, Britain’s Best Homes and Help! My House Is Falling Down, but Sarah Beeny is a redoubtable entrepreneur with a finger in some surprisingly disparate pies.

Sarah took a few minutes out of her busy schedule (she’s currently filming a new series) to talk about the lessons she’s learned from a life doing what she does.

The first difficulty we found was defining exactly what she does do, so we asked her how she would describe herself professionally to someone new.

“A bit manic sometimes! And it rather depends on who I am speaking to, but I’d probably say I own a couple of businesses and do a bit of telly,” she says.

Yet ‘a couple of businesses’ does not quite do justice to Sarah’s empire, which ranges from property development to a wedding venue to an online dating agency. Sarah clearly has an appetite for disrupting old industries with new technology.

We asked why she had made such forays into industries so far out of her specialty.

“Actually, they are more obvious than you’d think if you knew me well.

“My Single Friend was fun to start as it was a really disruptive business at the time because online dating was definitely not a normally thing to do. It changed the face of online dating and I’m really proud of that.

“And Rise Hall isn’t just for weddings – it’s a beautiful building that was a risk, but we wanted to transform it and give it a new lease of life.

We have all sorts of events happening there now, from yoga retreats and car launches to corporate training getaways and family parties.”

Of course, one of the most interesting businesses Sarah has been involved in must be Tepilo, the online estate agent that leans heavily upon her personal brand.

It initially launched as a free sales listings website for owners to advertise their homes but it relaunched in 2013 as an online-only estate agent.

Along with competitors such as Purple Bricks and eMoov, it’s part of a wave of businesses nibbling relentlessly away at the traditional selling model.

So is her company part of a complete change in how we buy and sell houses?

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The steady rise of the online estate agent

The rise of the online estate agent has been phenomenal in the last few years. While high street agents still take the bulk of the business, a large number of online platforms have sprung up and performed strongly.

Of course, at present they are not too much of a threat to their high street counterparts. The estate agent comparison website GetAgent analysed the market and found that the market share of online agents jumped from 1.1% in January 2015 to 3.7% in January this year.

That’s a huge increase in market share even if it is not yet a vast chunk of the overall business. Yet.

And Sarah has been at the forefront of this leap with her online estate agent Tepilo, one of the first to really take off.

So how far does she think the disruption will go? We asked her if online estate agents were poised to do to the brick agents what the download market did to the record shop.

“I think it will have a big impact on the market,” she says, “and I think we’ll see more agents operating online only as buyers demand fairer fees, but I don’t think we’ll see all high-street agents completely disappear for a long time yet.

“People buying certain properties – particularly those that are specialist or commercial – often still prefer to buy via traditional agents, so I think they’ll always be a demand for that.

“However, online agents do offer a far more cost-effective and more tech-led service than traditional agents and it’s these factors that are making so many people choose online agents.”

Making work work

While few of us have any expectations that we could launch a series of businesses on the scale of Sarah’s, more of us than ever are self-employed.

The Office for National Statistics has said that the rising number of self-employed workers has been one of the “defining characteristics” of the economic recovery.

In the first quarter of last year there were 4.7 million self-employed workers and there is nothing to suggest that figure has fallen.

Self-employment can blur the boundaries between work and home life, so we wanted to know how Sarah keeps a separation between the two when she has so many plates spinning.

“It’s really tricky, but I try to compartmentalise my life into work and home - it doesn’t always work but I constantly force myself to put things into perspective and that helps!

“I also try really hard to not work in front of the kids.”

She must need quite a few compartments!

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Profitable partnerships

While Sarah might be one of the best known business people in the country, she rarely works alone. Her projects and property developments have all involved working closely with investors and partners.

So what tips does she have for making those working partnerships succeed?

“I have no idea how to do it really and I’ve probably made a lot of mistakes along the way! And I actually find managing people quite hard as I’m an ideas person and not great at dealing with confrontation.

“I think the one lesson I have learned over the years is to try and be clear from the outset what everyone’s expectations are to avoid disappointment all round.”

And what advice does Sarah have for aspiring entrepreneurs who see her as a role model? “Be brave, be confident, try not to care too much when things don’t go to plan,” she urges.

“Most importantly, have plenty of bounce back when things don’t go right.”

Would it be possible for an entrepreneur starting out today to replicate Sarah’s success? Will the internet take greater market share from the high street? Do you do online dating? Share your thoughts on Sarah’s interview with us and other readers using the comments below.