OTM’s development shaped by ‘Town Halls’
Feedback from OnTheMarket's consultation with agents is what is behind recent rebranding, product offering and marketing initiatives, according to its CEO
Jason Tebb, CEO of OnTheMarket, has said that feedback from their ‘sold out’ Town Hall meetings were responsible for the recent shaping of the portal’s offering, image and branding – and more of the consultations are planned, giving agents an opportunity to have their say.
Following the first sessions of this year, which were fully-booked within hours of being announced, additional dates have been added to the original schedule of events, with attendee capacity expanded to cater for increasing interest from agents. In addition to continuing the virtual events, a series of in-person Town Halls will take place for the first time later this year.
Launched in early 2021, the Town Halls give all OnTheMarket members the opportunity to join a group meeting chaired by Tebb, to directly discuss any topic they wish. To date, the sessions have enabled representatives and business owners from over 1,000 agency brands to share their thoughts openly.
As well as adding an extra set of dates to the virtual Town Hall series, each virtual event due to take place throughout the rest of year will have double the capacity of previous events, with each session being open to 50 attendees rather than 25.
An in-person tour hosted by Jason Tebb will take place later this year, expanding the capacity of the events and giving a greater number of agents the opportunity to come together and engage with OnTheMarket. More details to be confirmed closer to the time.
Andrew Dewar, Joint Senior Partner, Curchods, shared his views on the initiative after having attended one of the virtual Town Hall sessions earlier this year. “An inspired move by the CEO to hold such meetings is rarely seen in this space. Jason is fearless about what he may hear and he is acting on the issues that really matter to agents.”
Jason Tebb commented, “Originally, I’d only planned to run events with our agents so I could understand what they wanted and where they felt OnTheMarket needed to do things differently. It became clear very early on that it wasn’t only me who found them useful, they did too.
“The key topics debated and discussed in those initial Town Hall sessions included what agents thought about the TV advert, our previous Market Appraisal Guides and the need for more functionality and services around lettings. As has been evident by our actions over the past few months, the team and I took all of this on board, leading to the launch of our new brand, website and TV advert in December, alongside our commercial partnerships with Sprift and Canopy that were announced earlier last year. All of these announcements were direct results of our Town Halls.”