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Lettings is a people business, not a property business.

Over the last few months, I have come across a few letting agents that have said, ‘Chris, I have seen what you do, I have seen the results and testimonials from people who have adopted them, but I just want to try something else first’. Now I do not have a monopoly on knowing what does and doesn’t work, but what I do have is experience of working for some rather large firms in the property  industry; including independent, corporate and franchised.

In my 20+ years in the industry, I have seen many campaigns tried (and mostly fail). In the last few years, my focus has been on lettings and I have seen every campaign under the sun. Cheap fee deals campaigns, Landlords wanted campaigns, We let a property every so many minutes campaigns, Landlords wanted campaigns (there have been a lot of them) , Bullet pointed A5 flyers listing all the services campaigns, more landlords wanted campaigns .. you get the drift.

.... but why do agents still persist with these types of campaigns. I don’t say this because I want your business. Hell no I have enough business to be going on with thanks. I say it because this is what I believe ... this lettings business is hard enough to succeed in, without spending many hours and thousands of pounds notes trying to compete with your competitors in your town. You see, if you want to succeed in lettings, you need to change your approach to the business of letting ... in my humble opinion ... it all boils down to these personal thoughts ..(the first one being very relevant)

1.       Lettings is a people business, not a property business.
2.       People (landlords) buy from people (letting agents) they like
3.       But people (landlords) don’t walk through the door of agents offices because people (landlords) don’t like to be sold to
4.       But all agents will say, just get a landlord sat in front of me and I will convert them
5.       ... but if you could give a reason to make a person (landlord) WANT to walk through your door BEFORE the tenant handed in their notice, surely if you could build a relationship with that person (landlord) whilst you were waiting for their tenant to hand in their notice (because no landlord will swap agents whilst there is a tenant in the property – no matter how much they love you), the landlord would give you their property to let out, because they like you better than the tolerated relationship they have with their current under performing agent at the moment

So, Mr (or Mrs) Letting agent, you have four choices ...

1.       Carry on doing nothing, treading water and not growing your business
2.       Carry on chucking out your cheap fee deals and landlord wanted leaflets (which we all know dont work)
3.       Spend stupid amounts of money buying the competition out
4.       Our follow this blog and start to implement the landlord farming techniques that it advocates

One of first agents who I taught the method to, has just celebrated their first birthday, and after 12 months, their income is £8,000 per month (not bad for a sleepy little market town in rural England), another one of my clients has seen turnover rise from £13k a month to £21k a month in 18 months .. not bad when you consider it had been stagnant for the previous 12 months.

Yes, I run courses in this if you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth and I can even do it for you  if you pay me, but just about all you need to know is in this blog.   Everything I teach and advocate is all about getting landlords to walk through your door BEFORE the tenant hands in their notice  ...if you can build relationships, because you care ... you will win. 

It takes months of graft, not in money (although a little bit does help) but in time and effort, but if you are patient, really patient, do the right way, I can guarantee you will get the results and the organic growth of 20% to 30% in your lettings income