Welcome to the fourth edition of Inspire Your Story – Real Estate.

Last month I wrote about the career advice I never received, and something about the response stayed with me. Almost everyone who messaged me mentioned a person. Not a qualification, a course or even a promotion, but someone who had helped them at a particular point in their career.

It made me think about how much of our success is shaped by people whose contribution might never appear on our CV. Because behind most careers there is usually someone who opened a door, made an introduction, shared something they didn’t have to share or simply saw potential before there was enough evidence to prove it.

Someone backed me before I had the proof

Early in my career, when I was at Savills and still learning what business development really meant, I met someone at a conference in Manchester. Technically, they were a competitor. They had no particular reason to help me and certainly no obligation to teach me anything, but they did.

At the time, I understood that I needed to build relationships and create opportunities, but I didn’t yet understand how you actually did that well.

 

  • Who should I be speaking to?

  • How do you approach someone you’ve never met?

  • How do you build a network without every conversation feeling transactional?

  • How do you turn relationships into opportunities while still being genuine?

 

These things can look obvious once you’ve spent years in an industry, but when you’re starting out, nobody necessarily teaches you them.

This person did. They invested their time in helping me understand who I should be speaking to, how to approach people, how to build relationships properly and how business development actually worked beyond simply winning the next piece of work. They shared knowledge they could easily have kept to themselves, and over the years they continued to support me, back me and sometimes help me see beyond the version of myself I saw at the time.

Looking back, the greatest thing they gave me wasn’t a list of contacts or a clever business development technique. It was access to knowledge and confidence that shortened my learning curve.

Someone further ahead reached backward and helped me move forward.

I think many of us have had someone like that, although we don’t always recognise their significance at the time. Sometimes the person who changes your career doesn’t give you a job. They give you information. They make an introduction. They tell you something they learned the hard way so you don’t have to. They encourage you to apply for something you don’t think you’re ready for. Sometimes they simply tell you, at exactly the right moment, that they think you’re capable of more.

The conversations that change careers

One of the things I’ve learned about working in real estate is that some of the most important conversations about your career happen when you’re not in the room. Someone is discussing a project and says, “Have you spoken to her?” A client needs help and somebody says, “I know someone who would be brilliant for this.” A role is coming up and your name is mentioned before the job description has even been written. You may never know that conversation happened, but it can completely change the direction of your career.

We tend to think careers progress because we work hard, perform well and apply for the right opportunities. Of course those things matter, but there is another part of career progression that we don’t talk about enough: advocacy. It is having someone who knows what you can do and is prepared to put their own credibility behind saying it to somebody else.

The difference between mentoring and sponsorship

We talk a lot about mentoring in property, and mentoring absolutely matters. I’ve benefited from mentors and I believe strongly in creating opportunities for people to learn from those further ahead. But mentoring and sponsorship are different, and understanding that difference can change how you think about your own career.

A mentor talks to you. They give you advice, perspective and a safe place to think through decisions.

A sponsor talks about you. They put your name forward, recommend you for the project, introduce you to someone you need to know and advocate for you when you aren’t there to advocate for yourself.

 

The strongest careers probably need both. You need people who will tell you the truth, challenge your thinking and help you develop, but there comes a point when advice alone isn’t enough. You also need access.

If you’re earlier in your career, it is worth asking yourself not only, “Who can mentor me?” but, “Who really knows what I’m capable of?”

If you’re further ahead, there is another question worth asking: “Am I only giving people advice when I could also be giving them an opportunity?”

Opening a door costs something

There is another side to sponsorship that I understand much more now than I did when people first did it for me. When someone recommends you, they are lending you their reputation. If you deliver, they look like someone with good judgement. If you don’t deliver, a small part of that decision reflects on them too. That is why genuine sponsorship isn’t a throwaway favour. There is an element of risk involved.

I’ve now experienced this from both sides. I know what it feels like when someone takes a chance on you before you have all the evidence, and I also know what it feels like to put someone else’s name forward and hope they take the opportunity and run with it. There is something incredibly rewarding about watching someone grow into an opportunity they weren’t completely sure they were ready for.

It has also changed how I think about leadership. Leadership isn’t only about building your own career or becoming the most senior person in the room. At some point, it becomes about what happens to the people coming behind you. Who did you introduce? Who did you encourage? Who did you give their first opportunity to? Who became more confident because you trusted them with something bigger?

Your career isn’t only measured by the doors you walk through. Eventually, it is measured by the doors you hold open too.

Property is a relationship industry, but that works both ways

We often say property is a relationship industry, and it is one of the things I love about it. People move between organisations, former colleagues become clients, competitors become collaborators and someone you meet at an event can become the person who calls you years later with an opportunity. Relationships matter enormously.

But there is an uncomfortable side to that too. If opportunity travels through networks, what happens to the talented people who aren’t yet part of those networks? They may not be competing on ability at all. They may be competing on access. They don’t know the person who knows the person. They aren’t at the dinner or the event. Nobody has introduced them yet. Their name isn’t being mentioned because nobody in that particular room knows it.

That matters particularly in an industry that says it wants to become more diverse and create opportunities for people from different backgrounds. We can run mentoring programmes, panels and initiatives, and many of them do important work, but inclusion also happens in much smaller, everyday moments. It happens when somebody sitting in a meeting deliberately says the name that wouldn’t otherwise have been mentioned. It happens when someone shares information instead of guarding it. It happens when a senior person makes an introduction rather than simply saying, “Let me know if I can help.”

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t. The gap between the two is often access.

So, who are you opening the door for?

This is the part I want us all to think about, because it is very easy to read something like this and immediately remember the person who helped us. It is harder to turn the question around and ask what we are doing for somebody else.

Sponsorship doesn’t need to be formal. You don’t need a programme, a budget or a senior job title. Sometimes it is simply saying someone’s name when an opportunity comes up. Sometimes it is making the introduction rather than promising to make it one day. Sometimes it is sharing information early; telling someone that a role is coming, explaining what the client really cares about or giving them the context that everyone inside the room already has.

These actions can feel incredibly small to the person doing them and enormous to the person receiving them.

And perhaps that is the lesson I’ve taken from the people who have helped me. You don’t always know which conversation, introduction or piece of encouragement will stay with somebody for years. You don’t know which person is one opportunity away from discovering what they are capable of.

A final thought

I have worked hard for the career and business I have built, and I am proud of that. But I would never pretend I built it entirely alone. There were people along the way who shared knowledge with me, recommended me, challenged me, encouraged me, made introductions and saw something in me before I had enough evidence to see it clearly myself. Some of them probably don’t even realise how important those moments were.

I can’t repay every person who opened a door for me, and perhaps that isn’t really the point. Maybe the best way to repay it is to keep the door moving. Someone helps you through it, you build something with the opportunity, and eventually you find yourself in a position where you can hold it open for somebody else.

So I want to leave you with two questions this month:

  1. Who opened a door for you, and have you ever actually told them what difference it made?
  2. Whose name are you saying in rooms they’re not in?

If somebody immediately came to mind while you were reading this, send them a message. Better still, tag them in the comments and tell us what they did. I’d love this edition to become a place where we recognise some of the people across real estate who quietly changed somebody else’s career.

Careers aren’t built alone, however independent we like to sound when we tell the story afterwards.

Somebody opened a door. And one day, it becomes our turn to hold it open.

See you next month.

Asha Agarwal Founder of Inspire New Homes

Coming Next Month…

The Project That Didn’t Go to Plan

We’re very comfortable sharing the wins in real estate. We’re much less comfortable talking about the scheme that stalled, the launch that underperformed or the decision that turned out to be wrong. Next month, I’m writing about what actually happens when a project goes sideways, what failure teaches you that success often can’t, and why the ability to recover may be one of the most underrated skills in property.

P.S. Something new is coming to Inspire…

I’ve been thinking for a long time about what happens when talented women in real estate have the ambition and ability to progress, but don’t always have access to the right rooms, relationships or opportunities.

So we’re building something.

I’m not quite ready to reveal it yet, but it has been shaped around many of the things I’ve written about in this issue: access, development, relationships and creating opportunities that can genuinely move careers forward.

We’ll be revealing more very soon, with registrations opening shortly afterwards.

If you’re a woman building your career in real estate, or an organisation that wants to invest meaningfully in the women coming through your business, keep an eye on Inspire Your Story – Real Estate.

More soon.

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t. Let’s help close the gap.

About the Author

Asha Agarwal is the Founder of Inspire New Homes, a property consultancy advising local authorities, housing associations and developers on sales, marketing, lettings and customer strategy. With over 25 years in real estate, including senior roles at Hyde and Savills, Asha has built a career turning complex housing challenges into commercial results, supporting the delivery and sale of over £250m GDV and helping more than 1,000 first-time buyers into home ownership.

She sits on the board for Women in Social Housing (WISH) London, judges leading property industry awards and regularly speaks at industry events on leadership, diversity, career progression and the future of real estate. The part of her career that matters most to her is what comes next: helping the next generation find their place in the industry. Asha is particularly passionate about opening doors for young people and women who don’t always see people who look like them represented at senior level, helping them build confidence, navigate their careers and see a path to leadership.

Inspire Your Story – Real Estate is where Asha shares the lessons, conversations and career advice that aren’t always talked about openly, so the next generation can navigate their careers with more confidence, clarity and intention.