Case Study: Dan Hemsley
Having worked in the property industry since 2006, and with over twenty years of sales experience, Dan Hemsley is an entrepreneur powering his real estate business through the KWUK network. Having begun his property adventure working with a large corporate outfit, initially as a Sales Executive, Dan’s career saw him become the Manager of a busy branch – a post he held until launching his own business in December 2022.
Like many post-pandemic Dan embarked upon a mission for a better work-life balance, with the goal of having more time to spend with his six-year-old son, who he co-parents. For Dan, “life is better than it was” since starting his own business, and whilst the time pressures of running a bespoke estate agency business are something he is all too aware of – Dan shares that since launching he has far more quality time with his son: “Having my own business has been absolutely life changing for me as a parent. When I have my son, I have better quality time than before, I can take him to school and enjoy special moments with him during these important years. Of course, when I don’t have him, I find myself working doubly as hard to allow me to fully enjoy our time together.”
Whilst Dan’s business is only four months old, since his launch he has attended twenty-six listing appointments and proudly shares that fifteen of these have become actual instructions – with three properties already under offer. For Dan the importance of reputation has been something he hasn’t lost sight of: “I’ve worked in this area for the last fifteen or so years, and I credit that with a lot of my early success. Hard work certainly pays off – and I am proud to have built a strong reputation and name locally.”
In the UK, you’ll often see statistics about slow starts for start-up businesses, however this hasn’t been the case for Dan. The reality of launching his business certainly exceeded his expectations: “I didn’t expect to be this deep into it with only three months behind me. The business has grown to a point where I am looking to hire someone to assist me.” Whilst he launched with significant corporate estate agency experience, Dan has been supported to learn the skills needed to run his own business, through the Keller Williams models and support structures, including his local market centre.
“My journey so far has been exceptionally positive, and I am thankful to the leadership at KW for their support and mentoring to date. For me the biggest challenge has been building the social media side of the business. Whilst I’ve used it personally before – I’ve never been a professional user of any social media platform. To put it simply, it just didn’t make sense for me to grow someone else’s business using it – however I have quickly got to grips with the power of this marketing channel”.
Dan is just one of over four hundred associates across the UK who are part of the KWUK network of real estate professionals; entrepreneurs who are empowered to build businesses around their life goals. Offering full training, mentoring and support to new start businesses, the UK arm of the world’s largest network of real estate agents prides itself upon its ability to bring someone with no experience – or as in Dan’s case, significant experience – to a place of successful business ownership.
When asked what advice he would give to someone considering becoming a business owner, Dan shared: “Often in property we hear ‘location, location, location’. For me business is all about ‘research, research, research’. Research your local market, research the current hold in the area and research your potential share of the local marketplace. I think the most important thing for any business owner is to know their numbers. I decided to use the support of Keller Williams to launch my business as it would enable me to launch with successful structures and processes in place from day one – without having to burn through cash whilst learning.” Dan continues “Above all else – I’d say just do it. It’ll be amazing, it’ll be challenging too and it isn’t something you should jump into without your research and planning. You won’t regret it.”
With local market centres across the country and a commitment to seeing a further ten open in 2023 – KWUK invites those considering a move into real estate business ownership to learn more through an informal discovery session by visiting lifebydesign.uk.
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About Keller Williams UK (KWUK)
KWUK currently has over 350 Associates and is part of the world’s largest real estate franchise by agent count. Keller Williams has more than 1,100 offices and 200,000 associates across 56 countries. Since 1983 the Austin, Texas-based company has cultivated an agent-centric, technology-driven and education-based culture that rewards agents as stakeholders.
The Keller Williams mission is to build careers worth having, businesses worth owning, lives worth living, experiences worth giving and legacies worth leaving.
Keller Williams’ philosophy is agent-centric and values-based, helping agents grow their own businesses using proven principles and models, training and technology and giving guidance, nurture and support to succeed.
Keller Williams is changing the face of real estate in the UK by moving the property industry from transactional to relationship-based engagement.
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