I don’t know about you but I have been truly inspired by the Artemis II project. The sheer ambition of this endeavour was frankly (almost) unbelievable. The fact that the mission was so successful, despite challenges with the onboard toilet, was VERY impressive!

Yes, we may have already landed on the moon over 50 years ago but think about it. In 2026, despite all of the considerable troubles in the world, man has chosen in the form of a team from the USA to do something VERY difficult indeed.

Why? Well, there are so many reasons but I believe that it is explained at best by John F Kennedy in his famous utterance delivered September 1962…

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.”

Well, that exclamation certainly deals with the “why” but what about the “how”? Although the “why” question is at the very heart of most business projects in my opinion, “how” certainly matters. Indeed, it is critical to delivering a desired result. 

Which brings me to my next connected historical reference. A story which apparently took place in the same year that Kennedy made that famous speech on a visit to NASA.

During that visit, JFK apparently asked a cleaner at the building what he was doing. The cleaner replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” 

This story may or may not be literally true but it certainly illustrates an important lesson that we can all learn from. Everybody in a team contributes towards the overall success or failure of a mission and I mean everybody – whether they are aware of it or not! Their individual awareness of the importance of that contribution is important, even crucial, to the quality of their work.

Which got me thinking…

In reality, how much of what we achieve as a front line estate agent really is actually down to just us as an individual person as opposed to the efforts of the team that surrounds us?

I would suggest that even so-called “self employed” agents (such as myself at eXp), proud of our much promoted individual and personal approach to customers, are certainly only able to operate as part of a massive team. 

Of course, it’s also more obviously true of independent single office and multi-branch operations as well the “corporates”, with their significant head office resources all designed to support the front line. 

Whether it’s compliance, marketing, training, the person that erects our boards, photographers, our software providers and even the much-maligned conveyancers and property portals, they (and countless other colleagues and suppliers) ALL help ensure that we as the estate agent dealing with the sale or rental achieve the objective for our client.

Sometimes, though – and I confess I really could be wrong about this – I think agents often forget about this when accepting praise from a client for a job well done. I certainly do. It’s simply too easy to accept the praise and even believe that it really was just you as the front line agent who really achieved the success.

So the point of this piece is simply to remind you, should you need reminding, that it takes a team to sell or rent out a property and we should all regularly share our appreciation to those people and the very long list of suppliers who enable us to do our job. Perhaps, ask yourself this question…

When was the last time you actually thanked the individual who erects and changes your boards? And I mean thanked as opposed to simply paying the invoice. If the answer is “never”, you may want to review your approach to that person and indeed all of your suppliers, because without them feeling valued and motivated, it’s very unlikely that you will achieve your own objectives as efficiently as you would like.

As ever, feel free to disagree but I would urge you to remember the words from that cleaner who clearly perceived his actual value.

Simon Bradbury is a consultant specialising in securing new instructions and runs a (very) small estate agency powered by eXp.