Listen, it’s always sad when anyone loses their job – genuinely.
However, when that person has been pushing an investor-subsidised, deceptively cheap, ‘disruptive’ business model – one that makes it tougher for hard-working professionals in an industry to pay their own team members – then it’s much more difficult to generate sympathy than usual.
Sam Mitchell lost his job this week as CEO of Purplebricks, three weeks after ushering 100 colleagues out of theirs. He’s not the first from that hotseat to depart – Michael Bruce went because the shareholders that he sold the business to, who made him a multi-millionaire as a result, lost faith in his wild (international) market-expansion claims; Vic Darvey tried to put the genie back in the bottle and retrenched to the UK, sold everything at a loss and ended up with legal issues around tenancy deposits, the employment status of ‘Local Property Experts’, regular misleading advertising claims and review authenticity issues; then Helen Marston showed up to ‘fall-guy’ the collapse to £1.
This was when Sam Mitchell (I’m still pretty upset that no one thought my Eastenders’ picture gag was funny enough for comment) stepped in.
Acquiring PB for £1 may have felt like the sugar-rush from heaven, for a business (Strike) which had rarely troubled the branding influencers. That there were no other bidders for that £1 business – previously worth £1.3Bn – ought to have set off some alarm bells, one might think. But not for Sam.
Or, more likely, not for his backer Sir Charles Dunstone (whom I am obliged to say founded Carphone Warehouse, the name of which will date his fortune and business outlook quite specifically). Sir Chas is on record as stating that he wants to create “the Aldi or Ryanair” of estate agency – because selling your home is 100% like buying some dirt-cheap spuds or Stansteding a weekend in Torremolinos.
Chas has installed his erstwhile CEO at Carphone Warehouse, Andrew Harrison, as Executive Chairman at Purplebricks, He undoubtedly has proven himself incredible at connecting comms in cars from cavernous buildings. But is he any good at project-managing the attainment of people’s dreams, by selling their property to the right buyer, for the right price, in the desired timescale?
Guess we’re going to find out.
Meantime, I will say that I have met Sam Mitchell (not the Eastenders one) a couple of times before he became PB and he always seemed like a decent guy back then. As for anyone losing their jobs – including those that Purplebricks have a clear responsibility for, whether internal of external – it’s a shame for him. But let’s always remember that authenticity is important – if you’re going to go hard on something (say, that it’s better to sell a home for free) then you’re going to have to be ready to justify that even once you’re out of the privileged environment that you were leading.
Yeah Sam's a good guy