Determined Gary looking to shake up the customer experience
For Gary Horgan, his own poor experiences of moving home led him to a life-changing decision to join Martin & Co.
After more than 20 years in financial services, where he took on senior customer service and experience roles with Bradford-based Provident Financial, Gary made the leap into property in October 2021 when he purchased three branches of Martin & Co in West Yorkshire.
“It’s been a big learning curve,” chuckles Gary. “But that’s the huge bonus of being part of a franchise – there are training and systems in place to bring you up to speed really quickly.”
But back to those poor experiences.
“I’ve been involved in a lot of property sales over the years, and previously rented, and I always felt the level of service from estate agents was underwhelming,” says Gary.
“Moving house as a buyer, seller, or renter is a stressful time and I don’t think this is always reflected in the customer experience when dealing with estate and letting agents.
“When there’s a lot of stress involved for a customer, that’s when they expect the company they’re dealing with to dial up their customer service, to make things easier and less stressful for them.
“This wasn’t the experience I was getting, so it must be the same poor experience other people are getting in the property sector.
“When I last moved house, I said ‘if I ever leave financial services, I’m going to work in property and sort this out’.”
Like many of Martin & Co’s franchisees, Gary’s decision to look at franchising was sparked by a corporate redundancy offer.
“I was working in financial services and the opportunity came up to take redundancy at the end of 2021, so the decision I had was whether to stay in financial services or do something else,” he reflects.
“I was 50 in the summer of 2021, and it was a case of now or never if I was going to run my own business.
“Because of the experiences I’d had as a customer in the property sector, I kept getting drawn to that sector – because it was an industry I felt I could enter and really make a difference.
“I decided franchising was the route I wanted to go down, because of my lack of direct experience in running a property business.
“So, I looked around and spoke to franchises about various options, but it was Martin & Co that really stood out to me – both as a brand and as a franchise.
“The size of the business I was buying also helped to tip the balance in favour of Martin & Co.
“I’m used to manage multi-site locations and that’s what I’ve purchased with these three branches, whereas some of the other franchises could only offer single branches.
“Because the Saltaire and Keighley offices are well established, too, they had a much clearer management structure and one that I was used to.
“The other franchises would have needed me to go in and be more of a branch manager than an owner and that wasn’t what I was looking for.
“I was also mindful of my requirement to gain experience and with some of the smaller branches being offered by other franchises, any kind of staff turnover there would have left me exposed.
“With the Martin & Co branches, there’s an experienced, loyal management team in place and that’s enabled me to learn without that kind of pressure.”
The stars aligned for Gary when the Saltaire, Thackley, and Keighley branches came up for sale, as despite hailing from Birmingham, he’d been based in nearby Bradford with Provident Financial for the past 15 years.
And with that excellent local knowledge, franchisor support and superb teams in each of his branches, he’s been able to quickly turn his attention to growth.
“Customer service and experience should be at the heart of what all estate and letting agents do and that’s where the team’s focus will be,” says Gary.
“We have some short-term plans around the way the offices will work together, then long term we will start looking at growth through additional offices and acquisitions.
“It’s a hugely exciting time and I’m loving being a part of such an excellent, well-established franchise.”