Several estate agents have been in touch with The Negotiator to register their surprise at the latest Ewemove ‘branch director’ to join the company.

He is a Dean Du Plessis (pictured), a former forestry worker recently arrived from South Africa who tells friends on LinkedIn that he is ‘starting again from scratch’ in the UK.

The agents we spoke to said although they wished him well, they are concerned that Ewemove is taking on such ‘green’ franchisees who are so lacking in experience of the UK housing, business or regulatory environment.

Ewemove says ‘many of its franchisees’ come to EweMove with no estate agency experience other than buying and selling their own property.

We put the agents’ criticisms of EweMove’s policy of giving newbie and operationally inexperienced franchisees titles such as ‘branch director’ to Propertymark. It wants to ‘professionalise‘ the industry, it has said recently.

“Dean is technically doing nothing wrong at this moment in time setting up as an estate agent whether independently or as part of a network regardless of his background and experience,” says CEO Nathan Emerson (pictured).

“With the current options available to him, he has joined an established franchise network and should have a structured support framework around him.

“Many franchise operations have successfully introduced new practitioners to the industry, and the majority are proactive in encouraging the undertaking of professional qualifications, although this is sadly not mandatory or regulated.

“It for this reason that the introduction of ROPA is so important, it will ensure that all practitioners will need a minimum professional standard in terms of industry knowledge and proficiency in order to operate.”

Ewemove’s response

“In our opinion and experience, what makes a successful estate agent is the ability to balance a few key skills in equal measure,” says Head Shepherd, Nick Neill (pictured).

“Namely, they are: Customer Focus – Sales Capability – Emotional stability – Business Management experience.

“We have seen very experienced estate agents – ‘listers’ for want of a better word – fail at running their own agency as they only have one skill, specifically sales.  And they fall short elsewhere as the whole gambit of skills required to be successful is missing.

“Equally, people from outside the industry who have oodles of customer service, sales, and business management experience, which has developed their emotional stability to handle the ups and downs of being a self-employed business owner, do well.

“We can train them on technical UK market components.  And in Dean’s case, he has run successful businesses himself and has all the core skills needed to succeed.

“Indeed, many of our top performers are from non-agency backgrounds.

“Even those from an agency background tend to perform much better than they did before joining us. This is because they can utilise our supported marketing and operational tools that most UK high street agents aren’t using. This gives the agent more time to do what they do best: meet people, win instructions, and provide an exceptional level of customer service.”