My Business Life: Roisin Cahill

Roisin Cahill of Emerald Sage Property Buying Consultants shares her life and business lessons.

Cahill is the founder of Emerald Sage Property Buying Consultants.

Roisin works exclusively for buyers, helping them to navigate the property buying process in Ireland from beginning to end.

Tell us about your background, what journey did you take to arrive at where you are?

My career began in healthcare. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in my healthcare roles which took place both in Ireland and abroad, but all the time I was growing up the ranks in healthcare I also had an interest in property.

I really have a heart for what I call the ugly buildings of Ireland. I know their potential, and so I did a lot of buying, selling and renovating in my spare time. This “side hustle” so to speak grew and grew until I made the leap full-time into property. And so this is where I am now as the founder of Emerald Sage Property Buying Consultants.

Emerald Sage also came into being due to my own experience of buying property in Ireland.

I had my own experience of how difficult it is to actually buy property in Ireland. And how you can go to see a house and you could be one of 10 or 20 people going through the house at the same time.

You could put offers in and have the agents choose not to accept your offer for one reason or another. This might be vendor dictated, but it’s still, it’s very frustrating when you’re on the buyer side.

So I thought, well, why don’t I just help other people buy houses with my knowledge that I’ve gained over the last 15 or 20 years and use that knowledge to help other people find their own properties.

Why are you doing what you are doing? What need are you meeting? What’s your USP? 

Buying a property is going to be the biggest investment many people make in their lives.

Yet often a buyer gets one opportunity only to see a property, walk through it and decide, “yes, I like it” or “no, I don’t like it”.

Then the buyer spends hundreds of thousands on this property. But that’s not the end of the story. I read an article recently of how 50% of people can have buyers’ regret within the first 12 months of buying a new property.

Think of how significant that is when you’ve paid so much money for this property and now you’re unhappy. You can’t just move, and you’ve put so much time and energy into getting the surveys done, your insurance costs and your solicitor’s fees. You’re definitely not moving within a year of buying a property.

And think of the emotional impact of living in a property you don’t like.

This has more of an impact that people realise. We all know stories and have heard of people who bought during the boom times who got stuck with properties and are only now nearly 20 years later in a position to be able to sell them.

And what impact has that had on that person for 20 years? What kind of a different life would they have had if they had better advice around buying or just taking a little bit more time to, to, to look into the property in the area and the potential pros and cons of the property. In some other countries, people don’t dream of buying a property without getting some expert advice.

We all know of the selling sunset concept where you get your agent to help you to buy the house. My own sister used an agent when she was buying property in America.

It’s just something that’s very common across the world because you’re making such a huge investment. And in Ireland, you’re relying on either your own or your neighbours or your family’s knowledge, which may or may not be ideal.

How did you fund and start the business and what are your growth plans?

It was in 2015 that I started putting the groundworks in place for being a business-owner. I saved really hard from my healthcare salary so I could be in a position to not earn a salary in the beginning stages of running my business. More recently I have availed of a small business from Microfinance Ireland which I received through my LEO.

What are your key skills and qualities that set you apart?

Well, at the more foundational level I’m a property buyer’s agent that has deep knowledge about the Irish property market. But what I believe truly set me apart is actually my healthcare background. Working in a medical trauma care environment really taught me how to listen, how to communicate and how to hear what the person was saying when they weren’t quite saying things verbally.

It can sound counterintuitive, but one of the testimonials I’ve received that means the most to me is from a man who said “Roisin stopped me buying a property. She made me realise I was bulldozing myself into buying a property that wasn’t what I wanted.”

I ask my clients a lot of questions and I don’t rush them through the process.

I’ve had another client, you know, we started off with one type of property and we pivoted. She’s actually ended up buying a completely different type of property and she’s really excited about it.

It’s just really interesting to tease out what does the buyer want the property for? What do you see in the short term, medium term and long term? And my communication skills would help with this. There’s a whole element of psychology that goes into it.

What (or whom) has helped you most along the way? Who was your greatest mentor/inspiration?

I’ve been really lucky to have met so many really helpful people along the way.

One mentor in particular comes to mind.

At the time, I was just about to make the leap full-time into my business but I was full of nerves to leave my established healthcare career. I asked him, “what if it all goes wrong?” And he said to me, “well, you will take what you learned and you bring that back to healthcare and you apply it and you’ll be better than ever before.”

Him saying that to me was greatly reassuring and gave me the confidence to make the move. I also have to call out my family and friends, my colleague Cathal McKenna and my networking group here.

My family and friends cheer me every step of the way. They are never too busy to listen to me and they show up for the highs and lows in equal measure. Cathal is the Chief Negotiating Officer for Emerald Sage. He is extremely experienced in the negotiating end of things, and he is an invaluable resource to me and Emerald Sage’s clients.

What was the greatest piece of business advice you ever received?

I’ve already mentioned what my mentor said to me and how this has become such a guiding piece of wisdom for me.

I’ve also listened to the business advice I’ve received on failures. Or what we perceive as failures.

If something goes wrong, I look at how I can correct things and what I can learn from the experience. I will always take stock and review what happened. Failures are par for the course, so don’t let them hold you back.

What circumstances, qualities or events can mark the difference between success or failure in life or business?

Firstly, it’s about getting clear about what success means to you individually. I’m sure we all have different definitions of success. A big part of my definition of success is am I doing what I set out to do?

Running a business is tough. And in the last two years I’ve had a number of obstacles I’ve had to overcome. Some of these, disappointingly, have arisen due to people not doing what they said they’d do.

So I’ve had to toughen up a bit, put deadlines in place, add milestones etc. to ensure that if I’m working with someone we both understand what success looks like.

It’s also really important to learn to depersonalize things. If something isn’t working for my business now, I deal with it quickly.

What was the most challenging aspect of either starting or growing the business?

Well, I’m still in the early stages of running my business, but one thing I’m learning is that starting a business is one thing and maintaining it is another.

You need way more marketing and branding to get the message of how your business can help people out there than you think you do. I didn’t realise just how much marketing I needed to do. But I’ve learnt quickly!

How did you navigate your business through the pandemic and what lessons do you learn?

I set my business up post-pandemic, but one of the ways that the pandemic has influenced the way I’ve done it is I’ve built digital processes from the word go.

What the pandemic did was it showed people that you can do business transactions virtually through video calls because people spent two years doing that, right? So it’s now part of our culture that you can make a business transaction online, which means that I can now help people who aren’t in Ireland to, to come home, to help them invest back in Ireland and to have something set up for them when they come home.

So I would say to the pandemic: Thank you for creating this world of virtual business that we never had before or that was more for bigger businesses. Now, you know, a small SME can run a global business from Ireland too.

How has digital transformation been affected in your journey so far, and do you believe Irish firms are utilising digital technology sufficiently?

This is a personal one that each entrepreneur would need to answer for themselves.

In my opinion, informed by my own experience, I’d say probably not. There are so many digital tools out that knowing exactly which ones to integrate in your business can be a challenge. So you live and learn, but I know there are ways I haven’t considered yet on how technology could streamline my business.

If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Oh, I’d start marketing with advertising and PR so much earlier on!

Every time I’ve shared my idea with a networking group, I’ve been told what a great idea it is or something along the lines of “My son has just come home from Australia. He could have used you a year ago. So it was like, I was getting all this really positive feedback about how great an idea it was and how useful a service it was and how people were like, oh, I could have really used you last year.”

But the customers don’t just line up at your door. You have to really go and find them.

I think if I could do something differently, I would have made better planning in the beginning for that.

Who inspires you in business today?  

Personally, I have a couple of family members who are doing well in business. And in the famous people stakes, I love how mission-aligned Simon Sinek and Steven Bartlett are.

What advice/guidance do you give new hires and how do you nurture talent in your organisation?

I would communicate the purpose of the company and the purpose of the task from the outset – and keep communicating that.

What business books do you read or would recommend?

Failing Forward – John C. Maxwell

Start With Why – Simon Sinek

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life – Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles

What technologies/tools do you use personally to keep you on track?

A very old fashioned whiteboard! And then I’ve just installed the Calendly/Zoom integration on my website. Game-changer!

What social media platforms do you prefer and why?

LinkedIn is my favourite, because I learn when I’m on it. I enjoy a scroll through LinkedIn when I’m having my coffee.

What are your thoughts on where technology overall is heading and how it will apply to business generally and your business particularly? 

Technology is growing at an unprecedented rate. This comes with both good and bad aspects. The efficiency it enables is beyond compare, but losing the human touch is something we need to be aware of.

Finally, if you had advice for your 21-year-old self – knowing what you know now – what would it be?

I would advise 21 year old me to read the book How to Make Friends and Influence People and to apply the principles in it!

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