Where does your inspiration come from?

When I talk to people about my new business, people invariably ask what inspired me.  Of course the question does not always come in that form – sometimes it’s ‘what made you think of that?’ or a similar variation.

In my life I feel it’s important to reflect on these things and so I can identify a point in time where the seed was planted and this is the moment that I say inspired me.  Rarely accompnaied by a ray of light through the clouds and sometimes a ‘lightbulb’ moment but often an instinctive reaction to a situation, opportunity or problem.

So what inspires you?  Not in the necessarily in the Nelson Mandela sense, but in the everyday; what makes you get out of bed and do what you do?  Can you pin-point moments where people or events or something else provokes a thought, idea or response that inspires you to act, think or feel differently?

This picture represents my inspiration for creating thebigpropertylist.co.uk.

As I was on the way to the airport to leave the UK for 12 months I saw a home-made For Sale sign outside a house in  a small village in Hampshire and thought ‘good for them’, why not advertise your own house and sell it privately. Let’s face it estate agents haven’t got the best reputation, and they would save thousands of pounds in fees by selling their house themselves.

After doing my research I found that about a third of people find their new home by seeing a For Sale sign and that led me to find out that between two thirds and three quartners of people look for their new home on the internet.  I’d always bought property that I’d researched on the net or driven round an area and seen – so thought why not create a site that allows people to do just that – and give them all the advice and support they need to ‘axe the agent’ to coin the title of the BBC show hosted by Gary McCausland and Jonny Benarr.

So this explains a moment of inspiration that has sparked me to create a new business.  Maybe it won’t be the next ebay or Ford motorcars but at least I can say I followed my inspiration.  Of course I am inspired to other, much worthier, causes and actions in my life – such things that often get left behind in the rat-race but which I feel are important.  But those are for another blog, another day…

James Cole is a Director of thebigpropertylist.co.uk where you can search for property for sale by the owner or list your house for sale or rent with or without an estate agent.

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