The OnTheRecord podcast returned for a second series, with OnTheMarket Chief Executive, Jason Tebb, joined by John Williams, Sales Director at Fourwalls. Full transcript of the conversation below:
Jason Tebb: Welcome to the first episode in our second series of On the Record. I’m Jason Tebb, Cheif Executive of OnTheMarket and over the course of this season of podcasts I’ll be talking to the innovators and leading figures in our sector to discuss their journey in the industry, their views on proptech and their opinions on how adopting new technology can benefit every agent.
I’m delighted to welcome John Williams to the show, a passionate property photographer since his very early twenties – can you remember that far back John I don’t know? John spent 13 years shooting for some of London’s premier estate agents before moving to Foxtons to set up and run their in-house photography department, which as an ex-Foxtonite myself, was known as ‘protography’, we’ll probably talk about that later as well. He did that for nearly two decades and then moved on to Fourwalls, which is a property focused marketing and design agency. Within just two years, he’s managed to double the firm’s network of photographers and now heads that function as Sales Director, but still keeps his eye in, as you can see on his social media channels in terms of the photography. So it gives me huge pleasure to welcome John to the show. Hi John.
John Williams: Good morning Jason. It’s lovely to see you.
Jason Tebb: How are you?
John Williams: I’m on really great form thank you, as always. And it’s a pleasure to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while.
Jason Tebb: Good. Now we’ve known each other well over 20 years I can imagine now.
John Williams: Yes.
Jason Tebb: And seen lots of changes in that time.
John Williams: We have indeed.
Jason Tebb: I look forward to talking all about how technology has changed, but also how the industry has changed as well, I suppose.
John Williams: Oh, absolutely, and it has over that period of time, probably inevitably, but it really has and I think we’ve sort of kept an eye on each other’s progress over the years and our paths, so it’s exciting to catch up today.
Jason Tebb: Excellent. So I think just to start for the listeners, tell us a bit about your background, little summary of how you came to be in the agency sector in the first place and then maybe, what I’m interested to hear about, how your role has changed in obviously doing what you did at Foxtons, but now effectively ahead of the sales division at Fourwalls? Maybe just a bit background and what you’re doing today?
John Williams: So as a young man, I was a passionate, happy snapper and while I actually lived in Bagshot and literally there was a guy living next door to my dad’s business who had a photography business in London working for a estate agents. And he, my dad, as all good dads do, he built me up as being a great photographer. And I got this opportunity with this company in London that only had three or four photographers. So I spent the next 13years trawling up to London every day, but going around photographing some of the amazing properties for amazing agents.
Jason Tebb: Wow.
John Williams: Then one of those sort of moments that come along in your life and you have to make one of those decisions, and the inimitable John Hunt came knocking with this, what I thought was an almost crazy idea, where he wanted to set up an in-house department where he had one person processing a property in its entirety. And bear in mind, I was just a property photographer, so when I used to go to a property five minutes later, there would be a knock on the door from the floor plan guy, and we used to work independently, and this was way before the days of, you know, EPCs and drone and video and social media and all this type of stuff.
So, It was quite a radical thought process by him, but it was absolutely spot on. So I sort of took the plunge, joined him. I do joke with a lot of the new people that I meet that my, literally my first day was desk, phone, get on with it. Total, sort of, free reign because obviously it was joining a large, well, I say a large] estate agency, I joined when there was six offices and I left when there was 64. So, it was very much in its infancy then, but credit to John, he literally gave me free reign. We learned as we went along and then literally started to bolt all these other services on to individuals like the floor planning, like the infancy of virtual tours and that type of stuff. And then growing it into, you know, in-house magazine and the sort of forefront of property marketing in general.
Jason Tebb: So I joined in 2001, I joined Foxtons then and I’d never been an agent before, had no agency experience, and I just thought that was the norm. You know, that you get an instruction, I call you, I tell you where the address is, and then as if by magic, within 24 hours, someone arrives, they spend two, maybe three hours there. And even back then, this is 2001, for people who are listening, we had full photography with lifestyle shots as well, we had floorplans that at its time, was considered cutting edge and many agents nationally, nationwide didn’t have any floorplans at all. We also had what was called a virtual tour, which back then again was pretty revolutionary. There’s no doubt that the marketing strategy around the photography piece, which you ran, was absolutely leading the way in terms of innovation because you know, you fast forward 20 odd years and it’s just about the norm to have a virtual tour. But even then, you know, the quite small portion of agents do have virtual tours.
John Williams: Yes.
Jason Tebb: And I know the actual concept of the tour has changed. It’s now full, you know, HD video, whereas back then it was images that were spliced together and made to feel panning left and right, but nonetheless, that’s pretty radical stuff, you know, over two decades ago, wasn’t it?
John Williams: Oh absolutely. And you know, it was just trying to set yourself apart in the marketplace. And that’s what I think we’ll talk about a little bit later, because in those early days, that’s what John was trying to do. He wanted that control, he wanted the speed of getting to the market and obviously quite rightly, wanted to keep his costs down. So having an in-house department was the way to do that. I mean, it sort of moved on quite quickly, like you say Jason, from floor-planning to the infant (property tour) videos, right through to the writing the property details. Beause he was of the thought process that his managers and valuers, they were better spent, you know, listing property and selling property and writing property details. So we took that all, all off the front end to let them focus on what they do.
Jason Tebb: That’s such a good point. I’d forgotten that bit in the sense that even right down to the area, the location, the transport links, the schools, all of that was handled in-house by the photography team. Yeah, I’d forgotten that obviously I left a long time ago and it’s a really good point actually, because when I did leave and I went to another brand, it was assumed I knew all this stuff. It was assumed that I’d been writing property particulars for, you know, seven years, which is how long I was there at Foxtons. I hadn’t, and that’s, you know, that was a big education piece for me, knowing and learning that other agents don’t operate in that way. So I found that fascinating and a whole new skillset I needed to learn as well.
Tell us about Four Walls. Obviously you left Foxtons and you came to Fourwalls. Tell us about that journey, how you found yourself there and what you’re doing right now?
John Williams: Yes. I mean I moved on after 18 years at Foxtons. Very happy times there and obviously learned a lot. And you know, I’d gone from a very humble photographer to running a quite a serious department and running a marketing magazine, you know, with 40 photographers.
So I’d learned a lot as a young man, and obviously had a great opportunity with Fourwalls because I had the link with my boss Owen Turgoose who, at Foxtons, I was actually getting Fourwalls to draw the floor plans that the guys at Foxtons used to do. So I had a relationship with Owen on a friendly basis and on a business relationship.
So he very kindly did a little bit of reshuffling with the business and found me an opportunity to come in and very much do what I was doing at Foxtons. i.e. running his photography department and at that time when I joined, they had half employed and half freelance photographers and the sort of the remit was to try and get everyone employed to have that control, to have that speed of response and obviously to keep the cost down.
So very much trying to replicate what we did at Foxtons to a large extent. And then after probably two and a half years, Owen in his wisdom, so he is not unlike John Hunt with his sort of forward thinking, came to me and he said, “John, you seem to know everyone out there. You’ve got this wealth of experience. Why don’t you go and look after our clients and try and win some new business along the way?” And you know, I sort of said to him, “I’m not a salesperson. I’m a photographer at heart.” I’m a nice chap, but I’m, you know, it’s essentially, I didn’t know anything about sales. I’m not hardnosed. And he said, well, yeah, trust me. You know, you will be fine. And obviously I told my wife and she laughed at me. Ridiculous. But in most things, these guys and girls, they are right and it’s been amazing. And I’m not a hardnosed salesman, but I think I’ve always been passionate. I’ve always been genuine and I know the business and I think people obviously relate to that when they meet me.
Jason Tebb: People adapt very quickly when they know the industry. If you go into a different industry, it’s sometimes a bit of a leap too far. But you know, from what I know about you, and I have known you a long time, it’s the strength of your ability to build relationships that ultimately, that’s really what sales is.
We’ll move on from Foxtons in a minute, but going back to those Foxtons days, it was all about building relationships, gaining trust. Selling was described as the transfer of enthusiasm within that business, rather than anything else. And if you are enthusiastic and you’re passionate about what you do, that naturally will come across and you will build those relationships.
So you’re obviously doing a great job there and although it’s been a very different challenge, still within the same sector in the same industry and I suppose therefore it naturally lends itself to your skillset of being able to build and maintain those relationships for a long period of time.
John Williams: Oh, absolutely.
And I mean, it really has been a wonderful journey and I think, you know, I do joke, I’m absolutely living my best life now because, a lot of people think I just have the life of Riley, going around the country, meeting existing clients and talking to new people and bumping into people that I haven’t seen for years.
That is immensely satisfying. I mean, just last week I was up in York and Manchester and Harrogate and Chester talking to existing clients and checking out new business and yeah, (I) had a wonderful week.
Jason Tebb: Photography is, and I would call that digital marketing as well, is it just one part of the way that technology has changed the estate agency industry beyond all recognition. What do you think the main benefits of having all this technology at agents fingertips have been for those people who work in the sector?
John Williams: Well, it sort of stems right from the booking process. So we have a system (Fourwalls) you can talk to someone individually if you’d like to place the order, or you can go through our online portal. But also then when the photographers, and they’re even more multitasking than they’ve ever been now. We’ve got a business right across the country, so obviously a lot of the properties we do are quite large on large plots of land, so things like drone, pretty much all our photographers across the country have drones. The elevated mask if you don’t want to go that high. And then all of the sort of the various, the video products you mentioned, the sort of very basic virtual tours that we used to do, but now it’s sort of moving at such a pace with the various video products that we’ve developed, you know, be it for pure videography for the websites, you know, developing social media, for Instagram, TikTok it’s extraordinary. There’s, you know, at least five or six various different products out there for people depending on how they want to want to use it.
Jason Tebb: And do you think the clients or the vendors, sellers and landlords, do you think they either demand more now, or even dare I say expect more because they’re also aware of technology they see on social media the way properties are marketed? Do you think they expect more?
John Williams: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, property marketing is still fairly straightforward. You need a decent set of photographs, a an accurate floor plan. And then what do you to build it from there, depending on your take on it. We’ve got clients that have really embraced all the technology and all the platforms to really further the marketing of that property, but also, and which we’ve seen in the last year, people really trying to promote themselves their own personal brands within companies. Because obviously we all know what Instagram’s gone from, and an example of the social reels that we do, initially they were just about the property, then we were doing little agent introductions at the front door. Now as hopefully the weather improves and people are gaining more confidence, they’re talking in the property out in the garden, and they just look wonderful. So there’s that about the property, but also it’s getting you to really buy into that individual as the agent.
Jason Tebb: Yeah, it’s property and person, isn’t it?
John Williams: Totally.
Jason Tebb: And property and person for not just selling or letting the property, but selling and letting other properties that might come up in the future because someone else watches that video or that element on social media and goes, ‘do you know what, this is a person that I trust and like, and obviously understands digital marketing’, which you are again going back to what we were talking about earlier, they’re building their own potential trust with other potential clients in the future.
John Williams: Definitely. And the smart ones are really embracing that. I mean, he goes right back to, you know, when I was a young property photographer, I wasn’t the best property photographer, but I would always be smart, presentable, engaging, so hopefully the agent would buy into me, not the company. You want, ultimately, agents to want to work with your photographer.
Jason Tebb: Yeah, exactly.
John Williams: So it’s the same., You want punters to come to that agent.
Jason Tebb: Something else that was new to me when I was running my own estate agency, I’d never held a camera, and you know what we’ve described there is examples of agents who have relationships with either their local photographer, or indeed a business like yours, but there are still many agents out there who do their own photography, and there are some that they may outsource the floor plan or the EPC , but they will do their own photography. And we all know that there are varying degrees of success. Are there any things from your 20 odd years that if someone’s saying, ‘well, this is great, I’m listening to all this great stuff, but I get my five, ten instructions a month and I always do my own photography’, are there any little snippets or tips that you think are essentials to do?
John Williams: Well, it’s a challenge if you’re doing it yourself, unless you’ve got a real interest in it and have invested in some kit and some people do that and they, that’s their wherewithal and they just like it. But, you have challenges with the lighting and the post-production is such a massive part of property photography and photography in general these days. So, you know, the shadows and the highlights and the contrast and removals, you know, if you’ve haven’t removed a bin from the outside of the property for whatever reason, or, you need to add blue skies in on everything these days and that’s quite a challenge. It’s time consuming as well.
Jason Tebb: Yeah. I’m an amateur Photoshop enthusiast and I always used to get a little bit carried away because property in the tail end of southwest London looked like it was in Bermuda and I used to probably turn up the contrast a little bit too much and they always used to looked slightly unrealistic. But that was just my amateur approach. I do agree with you, we’ll come onto this in a minute, but I do agree particularly about the very basics, which is if you think about what an image does, it’s the equivalent of curb appeal before there were photos on the website.
John Williams: Absolutely.
Jason Tebb: So let’s go back 30 years now and say there were still people who walked up and down the high street to look in shop windows and looked in agents windows, looked at the details, and then would get in the car and drive by and I think this is the, not so necessarily modern but it’s just the way it’s done now, that that curb appeal is the first three images (you see online) in my opinion. And if the curb appeal equivalent is the first three images, if the first two images have got one of five bins which you can have now with recycling and glass and all sorts of stuff outside, three cars piled up outside, maybe some queuing traffic outside and a bit of rubbish in the corner, that’s the first impression ruined. And I suppose it’s that kind of detail, it’s about what words a potential buyer or tenant in that initial seven seconds when you’ve got to create an impression, what should they see and most importantly not see, I think that’s probably what it’s about.
Maybe it’s less about the focus and the imagery in terms of the composition of the images, but it’s all about what’s in it. It’s the content, I suppose, is the thing that makes the impression..
John Williams: The classic thing with property photography, and I bang on about it all the time to the guys and girls coming through, it’s consistency and attention to detail and it’s never changed. It’s never changed. When you do walk down the high street, and of course in places like London people are much more switched onto having professional services done, but as you go a little bit further you walk down the high street and you can clearly see the agents which haven’t employed a professional service, because you know they’re not straight, there’s no blue skies. You know, they’ve tried to blow them up a little bit too big in the window and they’ve gone a little bit grainy. But my message is, and because it is such a competitive industry for property marketing services, without getting into too much detail here, the cost of actually getting it done professionally is not expensive at all. It really isn’t. And I think this is why so many people, do go down the professional route because they can see for that fairly minimal outlay, a massive, massive upgrade.
Jason Tebb: Yeah. And if you’ve got a great portfolio and you have a portfolio of 25 active listings or more, depending on which part of the country you’re in, and they all look great, and I think the key point that you just mentioned there is consistency. If that portfolio of properties you have is consistently excellent, the impression that that creates, not to the buyer tenant, but to the potential seller and landlord of the future, is worth the investment. Because that, in a way, is a marketing strategy in itself, isn’t it?
John Williams: Absolutely. I mean, you know, it must be quite tough if you are going to pitch to a client and you don’t have a professional photography service, and as we know these days, they would’ve had other agents in, so you are probably on the back foot if you don’t have something in your armory. And this is where it’s moved on even further from the basics of photography and floor planning, because the really savvy agents now are utilizing everything from the videography, the social reels, the drone, where it’s relevant out in the country, or you know, town areas. So they’ve got everything to really win that listing.
Jason Tebb: Exactly, exactly.
You’re listening to OnTheRecord, the OnTheMarket podcast with me, your host, Jason Tebb. My guest this week, John Williams, we’ve been chatting about John’s career, his views on the use of technology in the property industry, and the importance of photography and the selling and letting process. Moving on from this we’re gonna talk about the dos and don’ts of property photography and to find out what John likes to do also when he doesn’t have a camera in his hands, which is by the sounds of it, is very, very rare.
So John, we’ve seen, I certainly have and I’m sure you’ve seen it as well, a full spectrum of approaches to property photography. Some good, some not so good. We have our own tech support team OnTheMarket who are very good at spotting anything that is a common issue and taking steps to contact the agent to help them correct it, but it’d be really interesting to see if my little list that I’ve created aligns with your list, or if I’ve missed something and if we get time, we’ll come on to maybe some of your shockers, best and worst examples that you’ve heard of in the past.
John Williams: Okay.
Jason Tebb: But some of my observations from doing this, and again as I say as an amateur, my sort of top 10 no-nos are; first of all dated photographs. So photographs that obviously show a particular time of year, I’m just thinking Christmas and snow. Agents grabbing an image either from another agent, which you shouldn’t do, or from Google Maps or something like that. I see that occasionally. That’s a no-no for me.
John Williams: Yeah.
Jason Tebb: Another big one is pixelated squashed images, resolution changes where they’ve taken it in a slightly different format and then they’ve stretched it without getting the composition right. The ratio therefore is always out. I’ve seen too many photos, which I didn’t think it was possible to do, but I’ve learned in agency that you give enough of the property to make someone want to come and have a look at it (but) not so much that it gives them a hundred reasons why not to view it.
John Williams: Yeah.
Jason Tebb: It’s that balance between too many and not enough. And likewise, I’ve also see this a lot, one image and sometimes it’s just one image of a lounge, and therefore (you ask) what’s the rest of the property like? The big one that we’ve already mentioned in the first part, which is bins and cars. Those two things stuck in my brain from my old days. Seeing yourself in a mirror as well, I’ve seen that.
John Williams: Oh yes, absolutely. We’ve gotta be careful with that, with the video as well. When you are walking around, you’ve gotta double check things afterwards.
Jason Tebb: Yeah, exactly. And then I suppose it’s just down to the other stuff like, turning the lights on if it’s dark. And also taking images, which if you’re doing this from a professional camera, particularly with the wide angle lenses, if you take it from the wrong angle, the whole room looks odd.
And sometimes you end up getting the focal point to be a different focal point from the one you wanted. So you get the shower and the toilet rather than the overall bathroom.
So there’s a list of things, many of those I’ve probably made all of those mistakes in the past. But is there anything I’ve missed or is there, is there anything that you see that are absolute dos and don’ts?
John Williams: Well, they’re all incredibly relevant, so you’ve done your legwork, which is good. I think in London, obviously the challenge (is) with the cars, and the bins especially, so that’s why you know all the guys carry elevated poles to get above, just that little bit above the cars. Because obviously in London it’s parked cars all on every street, pretty much.
Jason Tebb: Yeah.
John Williams: So that’s the benefit. Any sort of gaining in height is very beneficial. They’re the very basics you’ve talked about, quite rightly, but then (the question is) how do you set yourself as a property photographer apart from everyone else? And that then goes back to the consistency, back to the attention to detail. So we’ve just coming out of winter, so get those fires lit. Make sure all the cushions on the sofas are all nicely plumped up and that’s a very big thing. The little cushion out of place really stands out in a room. Gauging the situation, like you say, with lights on, lights off. Some agents actually have their preferences where they want all of the lights on and all of lights off on all of their instructions. So we’ve got preference settings for those, which is not a problem. And then obviously as we come into spring, it’s very much bringing the outside in, isn’t it? So get those patio doors open, get the cushions and the chairs out in the garden, get the covers off the pool if there is one. Even going to the extra mile, let’s get some flowers out there. Let’s get a little bottle of wine with a couple of glasses or some cordial just to really set the scene and to really set the moment and the location. It’s all about that, it’s selling the lifestyle. It’s imagining yourself living there, isn’t it?
Jason Tebb: Exactly. And that’s way more than just photography, that what we call, I suppose, lifestyle photography. It’s giving them the impression of living at the property. One thing that I always used to say, it’s only just come to me actually, is that there is quite a borderline unhealthy collection of photos of taps running, which I do see it a lot, you know, this kind of still image of a tap running that’s been frozen. Is that one of your little brainchilds? I do see it a lot and I see it all around.
John Williams: It was Tap Tuesday, wasn’t it?
Jason Tebb: I’m glad I remembered it in the same way as you do, but I never knew it was called Tap Tuesday. That’s brilliant.
John Williams: I’ll be perfectly honest, it was one of my things in the early days, because we were trying to get the guys and girls to move away from those generic property shots that you have to do on every listing. You have to, but then it’s like, because you get so into that routine if you go to a very character property or some very nice properties, with bespoke fixtures andfittings, and we’ve all seen it with homes and gardens and country living and all these types of things, so let’s get them to be a little bit more focused. And of course the tap thing just went a little bit too far.
Jason Tebb: I love it. I love it.
John Williams: A lot of them were taking just pictures of taps and those creative shots work when you are taking something like that, but in context of the wider thing.
Jason Tebb: Yeah. Well you’ll be pleased to hear that in my old agency, which I founded back in 2013, it was a regular feature. It wasn’t Tap Tuesday, I think it was tap every day, but nonetheless, that was a regular feature of our property photography. So your idea carried through other businesses, not just the one you were working in at the time. You should be proud of that.
John Williams: Even today we have one client who would like, where possible, 50% of photographs to be creative. And then I’ve got other agents that don’t want any creativity at all because they just want 10 really nice shots for the website, job done. And there isn’t that opportunity to be too crazy.
Jason Tebb: And one thing I’ve seen much more recently, over the last couple of years is pets are starting to find themselves in photographs, and not just an obvious ones, but sometimes hiding under the sofa (is a pet), or you see a dog lying by the fire, or you’ve got the dog in the garden and for some reason I always spot those. That’s a trend, isn’t it?
John Williams: That’s certainly a trend. Massively. I used to have ‘shot of the week’ at Foxtons because we had so much content, with so much stock and so many photographers. Here (at Fourwalls) we do ‘shot of the month’ and obviously set various competitions and pets is one of them, because there are so many. I always used to poo poo it and think, ‘no, you shouldn’t have a pet in a shot’. But the vendors, they love it. They love it and you can choose to use it, or not. Doing the shot is great. We encourage it..
Jason Tebb: I think it’s great. We are a nation of animal lovers anyway.
Oh, absolutely.
John Williams: And it goes even further, it’s not just cats and dogs. We’ve had some wonderful horses in paddocks and llamas and all sorts of things.
Jason Tebb: We could go on for another two hours about this, I’m sure.
John Williams: Oh, absolutely.
Jason Tebb: One of the things, maybe it’s a misconception, is removing personal elements. Removing personal, items, quite rightly for security reasons, a lot of people blur out photographs of photos that are on the wall or things like that, or anything that could pose a security risk. Is your view that you should declutter completely, or is your view that you still want to have some personality in the property and that is not a show home, it’s, it’s a place where somewhere lives. What’s your view?
John Williams: Totally. I mean, you shouldn’t declutter to that extent, but certainly clearing the decks in the kitchens and the bathrooms of personal items as much as possible, it would be a help. And I think, that’s where using a professional marketing company like Fourwalls is beneficial because just like the vendor comes to the agent, because they’re the professionals, we very much lead and guide the client on the presentation of their property. So before we even go there, we send out what we call a property information, flyer, telling them what they should do before the, the photographer arrives. So get the cars off the drives, get some flowers, cut the grass, make sure little Johnny’s out of bed by nine o’clock and the beds are made and declutter and any other number of things. And then when the photographer arrives, subject to his time constraints, he will have a conversation with the vendor. ‘Let’s lay the dining room table cause that would look wonderful. You do that while I crack on in the kitchen and bedrooms’, you know, obviously there’s time while they’re drawing the floor plan as well. So it’s instilling confidence in the vendor that we are in control, we understand property marketing and we are gonna help you make sure your property goes live in the best possible state.
Jason Tebb: And it’s a great experience for the vendor as well because what happens the few days before the property goes live is as important as when the property does go live. And if that experience is positive and feels like there are experts involved, then that creates the right impression with the seller or landlord between them and their agent as well.
John Williams: A lot of people in any market sometimes take a time to finally decide to come to the market and I think then it’s even more important to get that marketing right from day one at launch. So obviously as we know, the weather is a major consideration. So I think any good agent will instruct the vendor, ‘look, we are going to get this right. It’s gonna be sunny in a week’s time, that’s when we’re we’re going to do the photography, that’s when we’re going to do the drone and then we will make sure everything is pulled together and we will launch it looking absolutely fantastic.
Jason Tebb: Great. You travel up and down the country all the time. I always see you on social media and your travels, but when you’re not working in the day or so a week you might get some time off, what are you passionate about? What’s your hobbies? What’s your interests?
John Williams: I’m passionate about outdoor life. I’m a passionate sportsman. People who follow me know I’m always doing some sort of exercise every day and I’m trying to prolong life as much as possible, probably a bit like yourself. I love food. I love wine. I go to Italy as much as I can. We’ve got an allotment a mile from our house, which is quite large, that’s very enjoyable. And still photography. I just love still taking pictures and that’s the beauty of Instagram and what have you.
Jason Tebb: The channels to be able to display your work, for no other reason than it just gives you pleasure, are much better than they ever has been right?
John Williams: Exactly.
Jason Tebb: And I always look forward to your social media posts, and I mean this genuinely now because one thing that does carry through with everything that you do either on social channels or face-to-face when we meet up, is your incredibly positive mindset and outlook. There are sometimes when I’ve had a god awful week and we chat on a text or call or we meet up and I just find that you are always just inherently a very positive person. What inspires you and encourages you to have that outlook because not everyone has that, not everyone has that ability.
John Williams: No. And I totally appreciate that and I feel sometimes I can be a little bit over the top, but genuinely, I’m in a place in my life now where I just feel so grateful and I do enjoy life every day. I’ve got a wonderful job, work for a great company with incredible freedom. You know, spring is coming. There’s a lot to be optimistic about, but I fully appreciate it can be a challenge for others, but I’m a little bit older, there’s no denying that, so I’m just trying to en enjoy my life to the best. To deal with the people and the contacts that I’ve got is immensely satisfying.
Jason Tebb: Well, it certainly cheers me up. And, just to close, there’s a couple more things as we’re sadly running out of time, but I’ve never asked you this. What’s your fascination with pink? More often than not, I see you in pink shirt or pink attire or something related, what’s the backstory behind that?
John Williams: The backstory, like most things goes back to Foxtons, where it all emanated from. And we’ve talked about Tap Tuesday, we used to have Pink Shirt Friday, so the guys, we used to wear pink. Simple as that. We used to wear pink shirts on a Friday and it stuck.
Jason Tebb: All makes perfect sense to me. Now, just in the last couple of minutes, what do you think has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your career and how you overcame it?
John Williams: Think having worked at one company for a long period of time and had such pleasure and such autonomy there, to then leave and try and rebuild my career was an immense challenge and it took me a long time, even when I joined Fourwalls to get over it. All credit to Fourwalls and especially, Owen Turgouse, who gave me the opportunity, and again, certainly now as a sales director, the sort of freedom to try and help and build the business for Fourwalls and Owen.
Jason Tebb: Great. We’re coming to the end of the show, but we will share all the links to both Fourwalls and to John’s social media channels in the show notes.
If you want to find out more, don’t forget you can keep up to date with our next episodes by following usat OnTheMarket.Com on Twitter, you can follow us on all other social channels too, LinkedIn Instagram, and our new TikTok channel, or search for OnTheRecord in your favorite podcast app and hit follow. Just remains for me to say thank you once again to John Williams. Really good to chat and thanks for your time.
John Williams: Thank you, Jason. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
