I know that feeling intense remorse for not being able to attend a night out is not exactly a 1stworld problem given the horrors we’re witnessing around the world today, but still I can’t not feel this way because this week we were meant to have been down in wonderful Exmouth championing the retirement of one of the most stand up people I’ve known in agency.
Most people will know Lyndon Bent, and the thing I’ve noticed as I’ve got older (whilst still retaining my Peter Pan youth) is that the sign of someone having made their mark is the little, almost imperceptible, smile that people show when you mention that persons' name. Lyndon’s one of those. I’ve known him as the Commercial Director of Bradley’s for more years than I can remember, which is exactly 4 due to the failing capacity of my pickled mind if you’re interested, but it seems like I’ve always known Lyndon since I first started.
He’s been there in the 3 ages of Whale :
(BC) – Before Competence. Lyndon, in the kindest way possible, showed me I simply had to get better as I failed numerous times to sell him a plethora of CRM systems. Lyndon is no ones mug, unfortunately for my younger self. Those who don’t know Lyndon already nodding that they like the cut of his jib.
(AD) – After Dinner. Once I’d realised that my superhero skill was wining and dining I got to know Lyndon quite well. He finally allowed us to work together and I’d like to think we formed a quite tidy partnership akin to Batman & Robin with an estate agency / supplier flavour to it, albeit probably more the Only Fools & Horses version of the deadly duo.
(BE) - Bought Everything. With my growing portfolio of embarrassing photo’s on my phone (most of them it has to be said are me), we’d recently reached the stage where blackmail was no longer needed - there was no product line of Reapit he’d not bought and more than anything, he probably just wanted the quietest of lives without me attempting to hard sell. We reached an understanding.
Lyndon’s achievements are too many to mention here but I’m pretty sure one of his proudest is the fact that he is one of only two people who I failed to get a price increase out of in the rare times we did it. I’m not entirely sure he didn’t actually come away with a discount now I come to think about it.
He’s what people would call a proper agent, always fair but could also be fantastically blunt. As a certain dairy themed Supplier back in the day tried to seduce Lyndon with his shiny baubles, Lyndon gave him his honest appraisal at the end of his meeting “John Doe I’ve loved what you’ve had to show me but I’ll be honest it's you, I couldn’t work with you, you’d drive me completely crazy”. Those that know know what a lucky escape that turned out to be, and again showed a great judge of character.
I always think a leaders job is to act as a black hole for talent, attracting the best people around to drive the company forward and I think its testament to that skill that he’s leaving Bradley’s in such good hands with the people there now running the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of his legacy is that those people will often think ‘What would Lyndon do’ when faced with the normal day to day challenges.
Elder statesmen is used far too often, but I don’t have the language skills to be creative enough to come up with anything else, I know he’ll call me a ‘cheeky bastard’ for even referring to him as elder and to be fair he’s right he’s always just been ‘Lyndon’. It doesn’t take much but I’ll be raising more than one digital glass to you and I know many others will join me in wishing you the happiest of well deserved retirements.
This is why it feels the perfect excuse to launch our Influencers board today, aka the Hall of Fame for past and present. I’d watched with almost Michael Jackson Popcorn Gif-like joy as I saw the arguments rage on PIE as Simon Bradbury’s top 40 list of Industry Influencer series dominated the discussion daily.
“He’s included WHO!!!?”
“Absolutely insane you can’t have a who’s who without Grant Shapps being included, best Housing Minister EVER !”
“Why are there no commercial/northern/Morris dancer estate agents in this list !” (delete as appropriate)
“We demand a recount!! “
Despite Simon making the point quite clearly that this was his list and others would have theirs, it made me realise that this was going to have potential when it surfaced out of Kerfuffle labs. We’re going to be submitting a growing list of the movers and shakers both past and present and would love your feedback on their blogs and thought leadership articles. See what their background is, see why we think they’re worthy of inclusion and obviously fantastically useful for a site dedicated to agents working at their closest with suppliers see who the Influencers favourite partners are.
So please have a look and feel free to nominate if we’ve not included anyone you think is worthy of the title, albeit you might want to wait a few weeks as we launch those already signed up.
Check out Lyndon and the first entrants into the Hall of Fame here.
