What have my mother, a multi-million pound shopping centre, an airline and a five-star hotel got in common with selling a house?

The answer is that they have all helped me fine-tune my skills as an estate agent. My very first experiences of the business were at my mother’s knee – she was an agent too and I grew up listening to the terminology of closing dates, fixed prices and exchanges.

She encouraged me and now here I am. In fair weather and foul, I have spent nearly 25 years selling some of the finest properties in Scotland and now oversee Savills network of residential offices across the country.

An estate agent’s expertise comes through experiences and learning from others. For me it was my early days sitting next to commercial colleagues in our Glasgow office that taught me one of my most important lessons.

While I handled 50 or 60 deals each year, they would work on perhaps just three or four, trading major assets such as shopping centres, office developments and hotels. I saw the undivided attention they gave their clients, their boldness when it came to negotiating price and their ability to spot exactly when to bring negotiations to a close. I knew all these attributes would help me provide the best service I could to my own clients, regardless of how many houses I was instructed to sell.

It’s no coincidence that when we organise training for Savills residential agents we also look beyond the property industry to draw on the customer service experiences of the world’s top hotels and airlines. Today’s expectation of service is extremely high and that level of focus is what our clients require and deserve.

And that service should not stop once a buyer is found, in fact that’s when the hard work really begins. Knowing how to negotiate on both price and contractual conditions is vital but it takes patience and skill to see a deal through to the end. To do all that, experience matters now more than ever.

Voices of Experience

'The only source of knowledge is experience' is part of Voices of Experience, a series of blogs inspired by the new Savills marketing campaign. In this series some of our most experienced agents will be sharing what they’ve learned about the property market over the decades.