John Grantham

Cambridgeshire Property Services Professional Launches Independent Estate Agency Business

Guest Blog from new Cambridgeshire startup

BY 

JOHN

 – DECEMBER 17, 2014POSTED IN: BUSINESS REGISTRATION, BUSINESS STARTUP, COMPANY FORMATION, COMPANY PROFILE

A serial achiever during 24 years with NatWest in a variety of management roles, John Grantham joined local property experts, Move with Us, in 2005. Several managerial roles followed including working as Manager of the LPA Receivership Team specialising in the sales and rental of residential property. Move with Us are a Sunday Times Fast Track and Profit 100 company providing risk management solutions and effective sales and marketing channels for residential property businesses. The company proved to be the ideal place for developing and honing the skills that John is about to draw on for his new business venture, Grantham Estate and Letting Agents Ltd.

Trading as an OptimHome independent estate agent, John’s business will focus on property in Cambridgeshire, particularly those in and around the market towns of St Ives, Huntingdon and St Neots. Someone who has lived and worked in the region for over 30 years, it is John’s mission to channel his extensive experience across all aspects of property services into providing a unique independent estate agent service that looks after client requirements every step of the way from the valuation to the completion of the sale.

We caught up with John this week to talk about his new business and what led him to go it alone.

Q – John, tell us about what prompted you to leave Move with Us and setup on your own?

A – “It was a combination of things really. Move with Us had just restructured and the conditions for taking the plunge with a new venture were right in that my children are now grown up and my wife is a successful professional in her own right. So I decided to take the redundancy package that was on offer and focus my efforts on starting my own business.

“In addition, after more than 30 years of working for other people I wanted to be my own boss. The idea of making my own decisions and not being answerable to anyone else was hugely appealing.”

Q – We notice you’ve decided to trade as an OptimHome independent estate agent. What was the thinking behind that?

A – “All of OptimHome agents are independent and community based so the opportunity to use a public facing trading name of an established brand was too good to miss. As a start-up business, I feel my association with OptimHome, who are established in Europe and launched in the UK this year, will strengthen my credibility in the marketplace.”

Q – When do you officially open for business and what have you been doing to prepare yourself?

A – “My company begins trading on 2nd January 2015. Aside from the administrative obligations, I’ve been doing as much research as I can obviously so that I can hit the ground running. I’ve also taken steps to secure an office space in St Ives. I was adamant that I wanted somewhere to work from that was away from home.  Most of the work in the office will not be customer facing though, as I plan to conduct client consultations in their own homes, so this will save on overheads in comparison to the other high street agents, which I will pass on to my clients.”

Q – What will set your business apart from the competition?

A – “As well as providing the complete range of property services that you would expect from the established high street chains, my business can offer a lower fee in comparison. I’m also a firm believer that customer service is everything, so my clients can expect both an outstanding service experience as well as excellent value for money.”

Q – Finally John, what is your main goal for 2015?

A – “It is my primary objective that we are able to put something in the region of 40 to 50 properties through the books over the first 12 months. If we are successful in hitting this target than we can probably look at employing some additional staff this time next year.”

For more information on the property services John offers as an OptimHome Independent Estate Agent and to arrange a free no obligation market appraisal of your property, visit his website at www.johngrantham.optimhome.co.uk

- See more at: http://blog.thecompanywarehouse.co.uk/2014/12/17/cambridgeshire-property-services-professional-launches-independent-estate-agency-business/#sthash.BAilMsgm.dpuf

 John Grantham
 Associate Estate Agent
 john.grantham@optimhome.co.uk www.johngrantham.optimhome.co.uk 

 The Whistlers, St Ives, PE27 3EE
 Tel: 01480 270 516 — Mobile: 07852 669 339 

Search

Re(SEARCH)ing the Markets for your Products

As we all discovered at last months "Marketing Strategy" event researching the target markets for your products or services is far harder than you think.

Richard Wishart of Delivery Management will give a practical tutorial of how to check out the best terms to use in your in your marketing communications. Most people dont realise that there is a lot of science available to help you in this difficult process. With his unique expertise in "Google for Work" - Richard will give a practical demonstration of the new Google Trends product. Everybody uses Google for search - make sure they are searching for you and your products.

Chris Thomas of Milton Contact Ltd is an expert at finding UK partners and customers for incoming German trade delegations.  Getting the right brief, finding the best matched UK companies and orchestrating the introductions (in spite of language issues) . Over the years some of Chris's briefs have been very obscure - so he has developed the "sleuth like" instincts of a latter day Sherlock Holmes. Chris will show you how he finds customers and Partners for his German delegates.

Huntingdonshire Business Network will be holding a Seminar on Friday 3rd October 1230-1430.

Researching the Markets for your Products     (click to book)

The event is part of the HBN Small Business Toolkit Series and after the event attendees should be able to:

1. Use the new Google Trend to test the effectiveness of your USP keywords

2. How to find the best customers/partners for your product or service
3. Create a persuasive 1 minute Elevator Pitch

The will CPD Certificates for all seminar attendees. Bring along the 3 best selling terms (or USPs) for your products and services.

#HBNSBT #HBNmember

The event will cost £5.00 for members and £10.00 for non-members. There will be a sandwich buffet lunch. All welcome

New HBN CPD program

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Huntingdonshire Business Network (HBN) has just launched its new Autumn Seminar Programme complete with CPD accreditation. The HBN seminars take place on the first Friday of every month at the WI Centre in Huntingdon.  They are open meetings and anybody can attend - with only a small charge for a sandwich lunch.  You can book to attend using the HBN meetup group http://www.meetup.com/Huntingdonshire-Business-Network/  

The first event of the new season was "Marketing Strategy" and this was led by 2 HBN members who are marketing experts  +Simon Atack of Ace Tech Training  and +Tracy Marshall of Approach Direct Marketing.  The event was very popular and a great success and Richard Wishart HBN Chairman (above) received the first CPD Completion Certificate from HBN

All recipients of the new CPD Completion Certificates are encouraged to take "Selfies" and post them on line. 

The Seminars are worth 1 CPD unit and can be used to complement the CPD requirements of any professional body or industry.  Micro-business tend to miss out on the formal professional development training given by larger companies but the new HBN scheme is designed to redress this balance.  

Written by Richard Wishart

HBN Chairman

#hbnseminar

#hbnmember

#cpd

Marketing Strategy Event

Creating a Marketing Strategy for your Business

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.  (Wikipedia)

As we get back into the “Cut and Thrust” of business after recharging ourselves during the summer break -  it is absolutely vital that you have a clearly defined Marketing Strategy for your business. As business owners we need very clear and precise definition of the market we are planning to address and the tools and techniques that we are going to use.

Producing a Marketing Plan that then languishes in your desk drawer is next to useless - It must be a living and dynamic document that drives action and is continually updated by new insights and practical experience.  A well documented and measurable  Marketing Plan is a superb tool for galvanising your Directors, Employees and Specialist Advisors to the same strategic business objectives.

Huntingdonshire Business Network will be holding a Seminar on Friday 5th September 1230-1430.  HBN Marketing Strategy Seminar

The event is part of the HBN Small Business Toolkit Series and after the event attendees should be able to:

1. Create an outline marketing strategy for their business
2. Provide a clear definition of the market to be addressed
3. Create a 10 Point Marketing Action Plan

The Seminar will be led by Simon Atack and Tracy Marshall -  two HBN members with considerable specialist marketing expertise.  Richard Wishart HBN Chairman will chair the event and ask the hard questions.

Simon Atack

Managing Director, Principal Trainer and Consultant at Ace Tech Training and Business Development Ltd

Ace Tech Training and Business Development Ltd are proud to be accredited as an official Registered Training Centre for Levels 1 to 6 of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management's Ofqual certificated Sales and Marketing courses.

Tracy Marshall

Owner,  Approach Telemarketing. All round marketeer, excels in telemarketing to deliver sales appointments, generate new leads and increase new business

Approach Direct Marketing Ltd is a professional business-to-business (B2B) direct marketing agency. We provide a full range of telemarketing, database building, email marketing services which culminate in managing targeted, effective and productive CRM campaigns.

#hbnmember

#Smallbusinesstoolkit

Written by Richard Wishart

Mentions

G+ "Mentions" within Blogger

I think it is great when you come across a significant feature that you have missed.  Came across this today and I had never seen it before but apparently it has been around for 18 months !! I had always been aware that you could "plus mention" within a G+ post - what I didn't know was that you could also "plus mention" within a Blogger post.

• When you type a "+" within the text and then start typing a name you will get suggestions of your connections for you to select and add.
• When you publish your post the mentioned names get added to the G+ post distribution
• When people are reading the post a "Hover card" appears when you hover the cursor over the mention which if clicked will take you to the persons G+ profile

So here is my first test of the "mention" function within Blogger to three of my very best networking buddies
+Chris Thomas +Mervyn Foster +Ann Hawkins

This is a really simple feature but for me it highlights the "social layer" concept within all Google products and how powerful this can be

What do you think?

Written by Richard Wishart

Parking in Huntingdon

Superb new Multi-Story car park in Huntingdon.  Fantastic design, well built and spotlessly maintained. Only one problem  - no cars !!  It would be really interesting to see the planning figures for "the number of cars" that formed the basis for the original Business Case.  When Sainsbury's moves to the other side of town I suspect there will be even fewer cars.

When I visited at 1600 on Monday the 4th of August there were only 6 cars in the whole new car park which has 300 parking spaces over 4 levels.  I make that a 2% fill rate.  More a statement on the attractiveness of Huntingdon Town Centre rather than the car park - but a very useful barometer of the fortunes of Huntingdon Town Centre

On Monday 20th October at 1300 there were only 30 cars in the car park - only a 10% fill rate.  Slightly better than when the car park opened but there were no cars on the 2nd and 3rd floors and the top floor is still closed.

So maybe this is the start of the Huntingdon "Car Park" index

Don't get me wrong - dramatic redevelopment of Huntingdon Town Centre is long overdue but building an empty car park will not change anything.  I do hope that Huntingdonshire District Council has some form of master plan that will increase retail business in Huntingdon and fill up the car park

My car is getting a bit lonely !!

Written by Richard Wishart

Trade with Poland

THE IMPORTANCE OF POLISH TRADE TO THE UK

The UK is Poland's second most important export market after Germany

#poland #trade #HMA