Fancy building something rather than just inheriting it?
Abbey Sales and Lettings Ltd, trading externally as Shires Estate & Letting Agents, are looking for a seriously driven, commercially minded and slightly unstoppable Head of New Business to join our growing business.
This isn't a traditional estate agency role.
You won't be sitting in a branch waiting for Rightmove leads to arrive, and you won't be managing a standard sales or lettings desk.
Instead, you'll be responsible for finding, creating and converting the opportunities that sit outside our day-to-day agency operation.
We've grown considerably, and that growth has created opportunities across our existing landlord portfolio, investment sales, land and new homes, refurbishment projects and commercial property.
We now need someone hungry enough to turn those opportunities into proper business.
There is a £35,000 basic salary with a genuinely achievable £75,000 OTE – and commission is uncapped.
If you're commercially sharp, confident picking up the phone, know the lettings industry inside out and get excited by building something from the ground up, keep reading.
The Job
This is a new senior position based from our Risby office and will initially involve leading a small team, with the expectation that the department and team will grow as you generate more business.
You'll have a broad remit, but one very simple objective:
Find new revenue opportunities and turn them into business.
There is already plenty to work with, particularly across our substantial existing landlord database, but this isn't a role for somebody who needs a constant stream of warm leads.
Some opportunities will be sitting right in front of you. Others you'll need to go out and find.
You'll primarily concentrate on a mixture of the following areas:
Let Only to Managed & Portfolio Reviews
We have a large portfolio of landlords who currently use us on a Let Only basis.
You'll proactively work through this portfolio, building relationships with landlords, reviewing their current arrangements and identifying opportunities to convert appropriate properties and portfolios onto our fully managed service.
This isn't about making one phone call and giving up.
You'll need to understand landlords, ask the right questions, identify their frustrations and demonstrate the genuine value of professional property management.
You'll also carry out wider portfolio reviews, identifying opportunities for landlords to sell, acquire, refurbish, restructure or expand their investments.
Investment Brokerage
We're developing our investment brokerage offering, connecting existing landlords who want to sell rental properties with investors looking to acquire them.
Rather than automatically putting every investment onto the open market, you'll identify opportunities to create off-market transactions where appropriate.
You'll build relationships with existing and new investors, understand their investment criteria and source suitable opportunities both from within our own portfolio and through properties being marketed elsewhere.
The aim is simple: make property investment easier.
Where possible, investors can acquire established rental properties with tenants already in place, creating a ready-made investment capable of producing rent from day one.
You'll be expected to build and maintain a genuine database of active investors – understanding their budgets, preferred locations, yields, property types and appetite for future purchases.
Land & New Homes
Our growth means we're now in a position to properly establish a Land & New Homes department.
We want you to help build it.
You'll proactively identify development opportunities, land, potential sites and new-build schemes, developing relationships with developers, landowners and investors.
You'll work alongside our existing branch network to identify opportunities within the areas we already operate, while also looking beyond the obvious.
This part of the role is very much a build.
There isn't a perfectly packaged department waiting for you on day one – and that's exactly the opportunity.
Refurbishment Opportunities
You'll identify properties where refurbishment could unlock additional value, rental income or investment potential.
This could involve working with existing landlords on properties already within their portfolios, identifying refurbishment opportunities connected to acquisitions, or sourcing suitable projects for investors.
You'll need enough property knowledge to spot an opportunity and enough commercial awareness to understand whether the numbers actually stack up.
Commercial Sales & Lettings
We already handle a smaller number of commercial sales and lettings across the business.
You'll take ownership of this area and work to grow it.
You'll develop relationships with commercial landlords, vendors, investors and businesses, generate instructions and ensure opportunities are properly followed through.
Again, we're not expecting somebody to inherit a huge commercial department.
We're looking for somebody who wants to create one.
Essentially...
You'll look after the opportunities that don't naturally fit inside a standard estate agency branch.
It's broad by design.
We want someone commercially curious enough to see opportunities across the business and hungry enough to actually do something with them.
You Will
- Take ownership of new business generation across the department
- Lead and develop a small initial team, growing the department as revenue increases
- Proactively contact our existing landlord database to identify new opportunities
- Drive Let Only to Managed conversions
- Conduct landlord portfolio reviews and identify opportunities across sales, lettings, management and investment
- Build relationships with active and prospective property investors
- Source investment properties internally and externally
- Develop our off-market investment brokerage proposition
- Build and maintain a database of investors and their buying criteria
- Establish and grow our Land & New Homes offering
- Build relationships with developers, landowners and housebuilders
- Identify potential development sites and new homes opportunities
- Source refurbishment and value-add opportunities
- Take responsibility for growing our commercial sales and lettings business
- Generate your own leads through calls, networking, relationships, research and prospecting
- Work closely with our existing branch teams to identify opportunities
- Track leads, opportunities, conversion rates, pipeline and revenue
- Report clearly on departmental performance and future pipeline
- Develop new ideas and revenue streams as the department grows
You Will Have
We're looking for someone with a strong lettings background who understands landlords, property investment and what makes a portfolio work.
You don't necessarily need to have personally headed up every area listed above before.
You do need to understand the property industry well enough to connect the dots.
You'll ideally have:
- Strong experience within residential lettings
- A proven ability to generate and convert new business
- Excellent knowledge of landlords, rental property and property investment
- A commercial understanding of yields, rental values and investment returns
- Confidence speaking with experienced landlords, investors and developers
- An understanding of residential property sales
- An understanding of investment property and tenanted sales
- Exposure to land, development, new homes or commercial property would be highly advantageous
- Strong negotiation and relationship-building skills
- Experience managing or developing people
- The confidence to pick up the phone and create an opportunity from nothing
- Excellent organisation and pipeline management
- A genuinely proactive approach to business development
- A full UK driving licence
Most importantly, you'll need to be hungry.
This is a fairly cold start.
There are opportunities, databases, relationships, infrastructure and an established branch network to work from, but nobody is going to hand you £40,000 worth of commission.
You'll need to create it.
For the right person, that's the exciting bit.
The Package
£35,000 basic salary
£40,000+ uncapped commission opportunity
£75,000 achievable OTE
We want the commission structure to reward genuine growth. If you significantly outperform the target, your earnings shouldn't suddenly stop because you've reached an arbitrary ceiling.
You'll also get:
- A senior position with genuine autonomy
- The opportunity to build and lead your own department
- A small initial team with scope to grow
- Access to our established landlord and client database
- The backing of our existing branch network
- The opportunity to develop completely new revenue streams
- On-site parking
- Discounted fees for sales, lettings and related services
- Genuine progression as the department expands
Us
Abbey Sales and Lettings Ltd trades externally as Shires Estate & Letting Agents.
We're an ambitious, independently owned property business that has grown significantly and intends to keep doing so.
Our growth has reached the point where there are increasingly valuable opportunities that don't neatly belong to one individual branch.
That's why we're creating this position.
We're big enough to provide the infrastructure, database, brand and opportunities to make this work, but independent enough that a good idea doesn't need approval from seven different departments before you can try it.
We care about:
- Developing our people
- Doing things properly
- Building long-term relationships
- Creating new opportunities
- Being commercially ambitious
- Learning and improving
- Giving good people room to perform
- Being professional without being painfully boring
Why You'll Love It Here
Because this is an opportunity to build something.
We're not recruiting someone to maintain a department exactly as they found it.
We want someone who can take the opportunity in front of them, create new revenue streams, build relationships, grow a team and ultimately develop New Business into a significant part of the company.
There will be targets. There will be plenty of prospecting. There will be days where you've heard "no" considerably more often than "yes".
But there is also a substantial existing client base, a growing business behind you, uncapped earning potential and the freedom to turn good ideas into revenue.
If you're currently in lettings, understand property investment, know you're commercially capable of more and fancy building something with your name on it, we'd like to hear from you.
Sound Like You?
Lovely. We should probably talk then.
Send us your CV and tell us why you think you'd be the right person to build our New Business department.
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Pay: £35,000.00-£75,000.00 per year
Benefits:
Experience:
- Lettings: 3 years (required)
Licence/Certification:
- Driving Licence (required)
Work Location: In person
