At OneSearch, we believe our strength lies in the collective expertise, passion, and unique stories of the individuals who form our team. In our ‘Meet the Team’ series, we invite you to step behind the scenes and discover the diverse talents that drive our commitment to uncompromising quality. Today, we’re incredibly excited to introduce you to someone truly special: our Managing Director, Liz Jarvis. Known for her unique blend of wit, unwavering loyalty, and an inspiring passion for learning, Liz’s remarkable three-decade journey with OneSearch offers a unique window into the values and vision that truly make the OneSearch difference every single day.

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Liz Jarvis grew up on a diet of comedy. She loved Bill Hicks. And, like her parents, she adored Billy Connolly.

“We had all of his vinyl albums,” says Liz. “I would take them upstairs to listen to them. He does a big spiel called ‘The Crucifixion’. It’s around 30 minutes long. I could perform it word for word for word.”

Her OneSearch colleagues have often wondered aloud if she missed her calling as a comedian.

There’s far more to our Managing Director than an irrepressible ability to make people laugh, and as she marks a significant milestone, we thought it was a good time for our customers, colleagues and other industry professionals to find out more about the woman who:

• Lets squirrels climb on her monitor during Teams calls
• Was chucked out of a séance at York Dungeon for a fit of giggles, and
• Once gave a lift to a distraught man at Glasgow Royal Infirmary who, it transpired – much to husband Tom’s dismay – had got lost delivering a curry to a patient.

30 years and counting

Liz has been with OneSearch almost as long as we’ve been collecting data.

She’s now reached 30 years with the company and has seen OneSearch grow from its embryonic stage to where it is today. It has been quite the trajectory; for OneSearch and Liz.

• OneSearch has grown from a small town planning practice in West Dunbartonshire to a team of over 200 offering the most extensive range of property information datasets in the UK.
• Meanwhile, Liz has risen all the way up the ranks from a junior role in the data team to become Managing Director of OneSearch and Director of Legal & Search at Landmark. And her journey has been recognised by Scottish Business Insider magazine, which named her among Scotland’s most inspiring business women.

Things could have been very different were it not for a quirk in Liz’s employment history.

Tiptoeing past the typing test

Do you remember Ceefax?

Way back when TV only had five channels, before the words analogue or digital had entered common parlance, Ceefax (and its little sister Teletext) was the red button of its day. Working at Newstel after graduating from Leeds University, Liz was responsible for adding updates on the shipping forecasts and the day’s horoscopes.

Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger. North or northeast 3 to 5, occasionally 6 at first, except in Cromarty. Fair. Good, occasionally moderate …  Sagittarius. In a social setting, you could come across as a person who is eccentric and yet very interesting.

You might think that experience would have meant Liz was a fast typer. So did the founding partners of SPH (as OneSearch was originally called) when they were hiring her back in 1995. Such was their confidence in her typing skills that they excused Liz from having to take the company’s (then) mandatory typing test.

Liz is convinced, if she had been made to take it, she wouldn’t have passed. You had to achieve so many words per minute and she knew that, while meticulous, she simply wasn’t fast enough.

“I’m the only person they ever took on that they didn’t give the typing test to,” Liz tells us.

While Liz was spared that particular challenge, her upbringing taught her the importance of not avoiding difficult situations.

Being there for people

Brought up at The Big Hoose

Liz grew up at, but not in, Scotland’s largest prison.

Bar-L. The Big Hoose. HMP Barlinnie, where her dad was a prison warder. (Her mum was a conveyancer.)

Liz’s family lived in prison quarters. They were there during the famous riots when prisoners were launching slates off the roof. Many hit and smashed the family’s windows.

It taught her how to survive in an environment where people really don’t like you.

“We lived in a really tight-knit community, because all the prison officers lived together. Everybody looked out for one another. Everybody protected everyone else.”

It’s why Liz believes it’s so important for young people to feel safe.

“It’s my turn to do it”

Liz is passionate about helping younger people get into a better situation.

That’s why she’s excited about her new role as a member of Landmark’s Social Values programme. Part of Liz’ recent history has included working closely with the King’s Trust to support and provide opportunities for 15 to 18-year-olds.

“If you don’t catch people at a young age and steer them onto a path which is more sustainable and better for their self-esteem, then that’s when things can start to spiral and go wrong.”

Liz believes if you put people on a good path, they’ll start to thrive.

“I believe in giving people chances, because all the way along the road, everybody’s done that for me. I’m 52 now, and I think that it’s my turn to do it for other people.”

Not that Liz hasn’t already been helping people.

Steps to resilience

Since she was a student, Liz has always volunteered.

She’s worked at the Citizens Advice Bureau, taught adult literacy courses and worked in a Glasgow soup kitchen. Along the way, she’s met lots of interesting people.

So when Roy Stirrat, one of the founding partners of SPH and Chair of the Link Group, asked if she would like to join the board of LinkLiving – a trauma-informed charity that supports people’s health, wellbeing, independence and community inclusion – it didn’t take Liz long to answer. Four years later, she became the Chair, a position she held for five or six years.

“I absolutely loved that role. Going around the different projects, meeting a lot of the service users, you just realise how fortunate your life really is.”

One particular story sticks in her mind.

A 15-year-old girl was being bullied at school. So much so that she felt unable to go outside the house.

“Her parents were at their wits end. They didn’t know what to do as they watched her sink into depression. She couldn’t get out, couldn’t form relationships. Her self-esteem and confidence were at rock bottom. Then her school recommended she go on LinkLiving’s ‘Steps to Resilience’ programme.”

At the end of the 16-week course, she was a different person.

“You wouldn’t have recognised her. Her mother wrote this really touching letter. It would have brought a tear to a glass eye. She told us how it had completely changed her daughter’s life. How she could never have imagined at the start that she would have come out as this person. For the first time in two years, she was going on public transport. She couldn’t do that before. She had been so fearful of everything outside the front door.”

Volunteering: the gift that keeps on giving

Liz is convinced that one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to do things for other people.

“Helping other people brings continuous joy, and it’s so good for your own wellbeing. You also develop your own skills, empathy and understanding at the same time. It’s a totally two-way street.”

It doesn’t need to be a huge thing that you do. Something small, almost inconsequential to you, can make a massive impact on someone else’s life. “Human connection”, says Liz, “can make people suddenly feel they have a part to play in society and that somebody is looking out for them. Never underestimate what a difference small acts of kindness can make.”

Volunteering also gives you a chance to learn, which is something Liz loves, loves, loves to do.

An insatiable love of learning

Liz doesn’t think of herself as academic, but she’s always been interested in philosophy.

“I love deep and meaningful conversations. The problem is nobody ever wants to have them with me!” she says with a chuckle. “So I had to pay to do a course to have people talk about philosophy with me.”

During lockdown, Liz started attending evening classes with Glasgow University. Among others, she’s taken courses on:

• Existentialism
• Moral philosophy
• Contemporary ethics
• Nature versus nurture
• How to research the history of your house

One thing that Liz has realised from her studies is how “daft wee things can lead to other things.”

For that last course, Liz decided to research the history of her first house, an old tenement near Shawlands and Battlefield, on the south side of Glasgow. She started making TikTok videos about it, and then about the East End of Glasgow.

This caught the attention of the BBC and she was invited to take part in a documentary about her experience of growing up at Barlinnie. Liz being Liz, though, many of the stories she shared were too funny for her interview to make the final cut.

However, Liz has no regrets about it. Because her philosophy is simple: never say no to an opportunity.

It’s something she picked up from her mentors at OneSearch.

Believing in herself, believing in others

Who has had the greatest impact on Liz’s career?

Marcus Noble, the former chairman of OneSearch. Still a close friend, Marcus taught Liz to believe in herself.

“Every uncomfortable situation, he would say to me, ‘go and do it. Don’t wait. Do it now.’ Whether that was phoning someone up or standing my ground about something, he would force me to do it. My nature is more compliance. But his actions completely transformed my self-belief.”

Instilling belief in others is something Liz has taken into her own style of mentoring – an approach that has helped develop talent throughout OneSearch.

“If somebody gets an opportunity and doesn’t believe they can do it, give me one hour with that person and I will convince them it’s something they can do. You can get down the road and realise maybe that’s not quite right for me and then change direction. But you’ve got to go for it. Run at it at 100 miles an hour.”

Liz also takes great pride in seeing talent develop, whether that be taking on the challenge of senior roles or progressing their career elsewhere.

People like Carol Gildea at OneSearch. Zoe Fillingham and Rob Steadman at our sister company SearchFlow, and her old sidekick from their days on the road together in England: Karen Bartke, aka Officer Karen from the BBC Scotland mockumentary Scots Squad.

“Karen left because I encouraged her to chase her dreams. I told her, ‘you don’t want to be 65 standing at the bus stop somewhere with the rain running down your back, thinking if only I’d done it. You can do this. You can do it!’”

What advice would Liz give to someone starting out on their career?

1. Build relationships

“It’s so important to make good contacts and build great relationships with people.”

2. Be all over technology.

“In the past we were able to think, ‘oh, mañana, mañana.’ But everything moves at such a pace now, so if you’re not at the forefront of that, if you’re not researching it, you’re going to get left behind. You need to be in the forums. To be heard at these discussion groups, whether it’s local law societies or government steering groups. You need a place at the table.”

3. Never stop learning

“I’ve still got millions to learn. From courses. From colleagues. From people I work with. Along the way you pick up wee nuggets about things. You never ever stop learning.”

4. Surround yourself with people who know more than you

“I’m surrounded by brilliant people who are great at all the stuff that I’m not. And maybe for me, my biggest skill in life was simply being the glue in the middle that held other people together.”

It’s a fitting note to end on. But just then, our Teams call is joined by a special guest.

A squirrel hops up onto the window sill.

“Wee Sheena.” One of Liz’s regular guests, dropping by with the same easy familiarity as any OneSearch colleague.

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Looking for accurate data and reliable property searches? Connect with a OneSearch Business Development Manager in your area to get started with OneSearch today – visit our registration page.

As we kick off this year’s National Customer Service Week, we’re excited to introduce our new blog series, ‘Meet the Team’. At OneSearch, we believe that the key to exceptional service lies in the people behind our brand. In this series, we’ll delve into the stories and insights of our dedicated team members, showcasing the people that make us who we are – from Account Managers to Customer Service, Data experts to Road Agents, you’ll discover the individuals who make a difference every day.

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John Margett, OneSearch’s Client Relationship Manager, has some of the liveliest recommendations you’re ever likely to read on LinkedIn. He also has something you wouldn’t expect. A degree from a city he’s never been to.

Intrigued, we recently sat down with John to find out a little more about the man who one former colleague describes as “a gentleman of the phone and a dog with a bone.” In a fascinating chat, John talked us through his upbringing, shared his philosophy for building relationships and described his dream day, à la Off Menu podcast. But first…

Do you remember the 2017 Oscars?

The one where Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway opened the wrong envelope and for two minutes and 23 seconds La La Land beat Moonlight to the gong for Best Picture.

Most of the world wondered how on earth something like that could go wrong. Not John. Because when you’ve been involved in awards ceremonies, you know just how real the risk of an “Envelopegate” can be.

Before joining OneSearch, John was a project manager for Charlton Grant, the producer of Modern Law Magazine. He would help organise events such as the Modern Law Conveyancing Awards.

On the night of the awards ceremony, it was John’s role to hand out the ‘Highly Commended’ certificates while the award winners were taking the stage. His timing had to be spot on. He had to make sure the right company received the right certificate before the next award was announced. Not easy to do when guests have altered the seating plan or taken themselves off to the bar.

“You saw the table plan in front of you,” John recalls, “but quite a few had taken off the little table number on the stand. And the first one I went to, the company weren’t there. So I had to dash back to put the certificate back and get the next one ready to go.”

 Running back and forth, those Monday night 7-a-side football sessions proved their worth.

Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred

John grew up in Thirsk, wanting to be the next Bryan Robson. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite blessed with the talent.” Both his parents were teachers and, for four years, his father taught him English. What was that like? Did he see his dad differently at school?

“He was just his natural self. I just had to remember to call him ‘Sir’ rather than ‘Dad’. But he did have to ask me first if I would be okay with him teaching me.”

John now lives in Stone, in Staffordshire. When he goes back to Thirsk, he realises how lucky he was growing up where he did, with the family he had and the people he knew. “Looking back now, one thing which made me so happy was the friendships I made during that time.”

It was a carefree childhood. But you get the feeling John would have made friends wherever he was. It’s something he excels at.

Making friends for a living

John has been with OneSearch for 7 and a half years. What he loves is getting out and about and seeing clients face to face. Getting to know their needs as a company, but also getting to know them as people.

“Microsoft Teams is great, especially for people who are a long way off. But when you’ve got that time on a face-to-face appointment, you get to know them much, much better. You see the body language more easily. You really get to know what their needs are.”

With a degree in Communication Processes (graduating from what is now the University of Lincoln but was then the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside – based in Hull, not Lincoln) and a 27-year career in account management and business development under his belt, what would John say is the secret to building relationships?

Simply put, it’s about being nice to people.

“If you’re nice to somebody, if you listen to them and you’re interested in them, the chances are they’ll be nice to you and interested in you. That’s when a two-way conversation gets going and that’s how you build a relationship.”

How did John become a people person?

Anyone who has had the pleasure of speaking with John will know how personable he is. How effortlessly he builds rapport. But as an adolescent, he was relatively shy. So how did his confidence grow?

By doing things out of his comfort zone:

• Going on school language exchanges. A French exchange in Calais when he was 13 and a German exchange in Eislingen, near Stuttgart, the following year. The first of many such trips and the start of lifelong friendships.
• Trying out for the school play – playing parts such as Benjamin in Animal Farm and Les, the lollipop man, in Willy Russell’s Our Day Out, among others.
• Taking all sorts of one-day courses. For instance, he would join up with an orchestra for a day’s rehearsal and then play the violin in a concert at Ripon Cathedral the same evening.

John also has fond memories of his time at university. The friends for life he met. Joining the drama society and playing in the orchestra at neighbouring Hull University – not to mention the three summers he spent working as a music teacher and counsellor at a boys’ summer camp in Maryland, USA.

But what really stands out is when John did some work experience at the Tourist Information Centre in Northallerton. He was 15. All the other volunteers were retired. When the Head of the Centre reported back to John’s school, he commended him for his ability to raise and hold conversations with anybody of any age.

It’s an ability that has stood John in good stead ever since.

Like father, like daughter

John has his parents to thank for encouraging him to try new things. “Sadly, we lost Mum four years ago. I miss her terribly and will be forever blessed with the many fond memories I have of her. Dad continues to be an inspiration. I’m so grateful to them both for everything.”

A father to a teenager himself, now John’s the one doing the encouraging. 13-year-old daughter Isla is just back from her first school trip to France. She has taken to the stage. And, like her dad, she enjoys playing the piano, although her repertoire is more Taylor Swift than Clementi or Beethoven.

One thing father and daughter do have in common, though, is they both like the atmosphere at Manchester United Women’s matches..

John has a love of women’s sport in general. He traces his interest back to a particular tournament: the Women’s World Cup in Canada in 2015. The BBC was showing it on TV.

“I just had this epiphany moment. I lived in Wimbledon for a while and loved going to the Wimbledon Championships to watch men’s and women’s tennis equally. I’m a big fan of both men’s and women’s tennis. Why wasn’t I doing that with football? So I watched the 2015 World Cup and the Lionesses did really well. They were very unlucky not to get through to the final.”

Since then, John has loved seeing how much women’s sport has grown. He follows it just as much as men’s sport and has been to watch the Lionesses, Manchester United Women, and England women’s rugby team, the Red Roses. “I’m really happy to see the trajectory that women’s sport is taking now.”

And finally…

If you could design a dream day, what would it look like?

Morning

John’s dream day starts with an early morning walk around Lake Windermere with partner Laura, daughter Isla and Tibetan Terrier Wilson. Then it’s back home to Stone for a full English with poached eggs and – must of all musts – black pudding.

After breakfast, they’re back in the car listening to ‘This is the One’ by the Stone Roses. Some of the passengers even appreciate John’s singing.

They pop by Thirsk to visit John’s dad, sister and brother-in-law at what has been the family home since John was two. After a proper coffee, there’s just time for a quick walk up Sutton Bank before they’re off to Manchester.

Afternoon

First stop, Lou Macari’s for fish and chips. “It evokes memories of when I used to go to games with my dad when I was younger and it’s still a really good chippy.”

Second stop, Old Trafford to watch Manchester United – the women’s or men’s team, John doesn’t mind – beat Liverpool.

In this dream day, travel isn’t an issue. So, within minutes of leaving the ground, John and his family are sunbathing on a beach in Menorca. They stay in Menorca for dinner, which is a paella and a glass (call it two) of Sauvignon Blanc by the harbour in Ciutadella.

Evening

Time’s also not an issue. Suddenly it’s New Year’s Eve and we’re off to the Golden Hall at Vienna’s famous Musikverein for a celebration of music from the Strauss dynasty. Think Last Night of the Proms without the Union flags and all the bobbing up and down. 

Then it’s back home to Stone where John’s dream day ends like a good Saturday should: meeting up with friends for a couple of pints of real ale at the Crown Wharf pub. A jam-packed day!

But John still hasn’t been to Lincoln. Perhaps if the Lionesses were to play a game there one day…

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Looking for accurate data and reliable property searches? Connect with a OneSearch Business Development Manager in your area to get started with OneSearch today – visit our registration page.

To learn more about National Customer Service Week, visit the Institute of Customer Service website.