Building BWC Real Estate – The 4 non-negotiables

Welcome back! In this next chapter, I’m excited to share with you the pivotal steps that took BWC from a mere concept to a fully operational business. Join me as we delve into a few of the challenges faced, the decisions made, and the strategies implemented to kickstart our journey. My hope is that by sharing these next steps with you, it will help inspire and motivate you to take that next step on your own path to Escaping Normal!

Chapter Two

Driving home from lunch, I couldn’t decide whether I’d just been handed the opportunity of a lifetime or booked a spot at the local graveyard. This wasn’t the type of commitment you can decide to back out of a few weeks or months down the line. This was a level of commitment I’d never experienced before. Luckily, through many years of my life committed to different forms of physical exercise, whether that be lifting weights in the gym or running around on the sports field, I developed and nurtured a mindset of resilience which I’ve been able to take into many other parts of my life.

Having only been in the Dubai real estate industry for a little over six months, I was way out of my depth. It didn’t help that I knew nothing about starting a business of this magnitude either. In front of me stood a mountain which, twelve months ago, looked like an impossible feat! It felt a bit like deciding to climb Mt Everest with one arm. I knew there was only one way I was ever going to reach the peak, and that was by keeping my chin up, head facing forward, focusing on one small step at a time.

Before anything began, I needed some sort of plan for how I was going to learn more about this industry I knew very little about! Having not been in the industry long enough to build any experienced connections I could run to for advice, I decided the best way for me to find out as much as I could about the industry was to go undercover as if I were looking for a job as a broker at another brokerage. Armed with a list full of questions, I went after fifteen of the top brokerages in Dubai who I saw as future competitors to find out more about where they were operating, how they were operating, why they were operating, and what exactly they were all offering. I remember one of the recruiters asking if I came to interview the company or was there to be interviewed – LOL.

After a few weeks of back-to-back interviews, it became pretty clear to me that in fact, they were all operating the same way. This exercise gave me a massive confidence boost, learning that most brokerages in the industry are all carbon copies of each other, solely focused on maximizing profits and neglecting the very people that were driving their success. There was a huge gap in the market for a brokerage that puts its people first and profitability second! An environment where everyone is driven towards a shared vision, fostering a culture of collaboration and mutual growth. After all, the highest-performing sports teams and companies in the world all represent a collaborative, team-driven mindset – so why should the real estate industry be any different?

The vision was set – create the best place to work for Dubai’s top-performing brokers!

Taking a step-back approach, I challenged myself on what I thought were the 4 non-negotiable steps that needed to be taken to achieve company objectives: 

1. Licensing – To ensure that we could legally proceed.
2. Physical office – So there was a place we could build a team.
3. Marketing – So we could tell the world that we existed.
4. Business Partner – Because there was no way I could do this alone!

There is no shying away from the fact that in the beginning, my anxiety on a daily basis was through the roof! I was struggling to sleep, and sometimes the thought of even getting out of bed in the morning was difficult. I started reading books for guidance and listening to podcasts for motivation, whilst I started chipping away at the challenge ahead.

“Focus on what you can control and ignore what you can’t.”

Government buildings are never a fun place to visit, no matter what country you’re in. Government officials always have a funny way of letting you know that in fact, you are a visitor in their country, so they work on their own time. “Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir” became part of my vocabulary. At first, the phrase “Come back again tomorrow” bothered me, but very soon it became expected. I wish I had advice to give on how best to navigate anything to do with government officials, but unfortunately, I don’t. Patience and an enthusiastic smile always seemed to be the best approach. In life, we always say to be proactive and not reactive, but government officials definitely test your reactive abilities.

Finding a strategically located office space that fits both the budget and size requirements was next on the list. From the start, recruitment was always the biggest topic on my mind which, until this day, is the number one cause of anxiety and stress. Getting a kitted-out office situated in a good location is what I knew was going to be instrumental in whether or not we were going to have any chance of attracting brokers. If we can get the design and location of this office right, our job was going to be that much easier! Luckily for us, we nailed that decision. Best location and office design in Dubai – even if I say so myself!

Next up, marketing! Luckily for me, this is where I felt most comfortable. I grew up immersed in the industry where my Mum was a Partner in a marketing agency and my stepdad an Art Director. I ended up completing a degree in Digital Marketing at college. If there was any part of the process I thought I had a fighting chance, this was it. Now, we’ve all grown up to understand that learning the theory of something is very different from actually putting things into practice. “Product, price, place, and promotion” didn’t quite seem to have all the answers as the marketing 101 college textbook might have suggested. It didn’t help either that I wasn’t much of an academic and didn’t pay any attention in college either. When in doubt, there is no better person to ask for advice than a mother. Luckily for me, mine had all the answers I needed! Establishing a polished and well-put-together brand is, in my opinion, the first and most important part in any business’s marketing journey. There is a saying which couldn’t describe it better: “Marketing is like asking someone on a date. Branding is the reason they say yes.” If you don’t get your branding correct from the start, any marketing efforts you make will either go unseen or ignored. (If you’re looking for a supplier who knows a thing or two about brand building, drop me a message and I’ll put you in touch)

From the start, this was never a journey I could or wanted to do on my own. There were too many unanswered questions that needed answering to establish a company of this size. I had crafted a vision, and it was now time to find the best person in the world to help execute that vision. With such limited real estate knowledge, I decided I needed to find a partner who had at the very least a few years more real estate experience than me. I approached numerous brokers with an opportunity and got shut down quicker than a door in a hurricane. Stuck at a dead end, one morning I received a call from one of my best mates asking for a bit of advice. Having taken a 6-month break surfing back home, he was unsure of his next moves. In life, sometimes luck comes knocking. In this case, luck came calling! I don’t think I’ll ever forget that phone call. It was a call where for the first time on this journey that I could physically feel the dots align. If you had to ask me to pick anyone in the world who I would want to partner with on a journey like this, it would be the very man seeking advice on what his next steps should be.

Matthew “Mad Matt” Whitmore, a modern-day Steve Jobs. Probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. A visionary like no other, this man is pure genius! There is no problem he doesn’t have a solution for – I even dare you to try and find him one. I proceeded with the most enthusiastic pitch I’ve ever delivered sharing my vision for BWC and the opportunity at hand. This call took place on the Friday, he flew out to Dubai for his first time on the Monday. He flew back home a week later, packed up all his shit and immigrated to Dubai 2 weeks later. Batman and Robin were united!

Having a partner on this journey made all the difference, making the climb a lot more enjoyable! Matt, being a qualified CA, having previously worked for Deloitte in London, had no real estate experience, but more importantly, what he did bring was knowledge around building scalable systems, processes, and structures, along with an ability to build a robust financial forecast, which I’ve come to learn is essential for any startup looking to scale. My financial jargon started and ended at the words profit & loss, and my knowledge around the integration of tech to build out process structure was even more limited, so this partnership couldn’t have worked out any better. 

Now confronted with our biggest challenge yet – Recruitment. Real estate recruitment is a beast on its own! It’s the most saturated brokerage-owned real estate market in the world with a massive shortage of quality brokers. Not to mention you’re dealing with egos larger than skyscrapers. Brokers also work off a commission-only salary, meaning there is no financial incentive to bring them over. To top it off, myself and Matt have combined real estate experience of 6 months with no connections in the industry…

As we brace ourselves for the next leg of our journey, facing the formidable challenge of recruitment, we stand resolute and undeterred. In the forthcoming chapter, I’ll take you through our journey of securing our initial team of brokers and swiftly scaling up to a formidable team of over 25 in just six months. Along the way, expect candid insights into the lessons learned and the inevitable missteps encountered, each contributing to our growth story. Welcome aboard as we continue our quest to Escape Normal!