How can one well known uber posh supermarket chain charge £3
for a bag of apples, that is £2 in another supermarket down the road that is
nice but not as nice as the first, £1.50 in another supermarket thats very good
but not posh, to £1.20 from in one the supermarkets that are from Yorkshire and
99p at the ‘Pile them high don’t worry about taking stuff out of the packing boxes’
supermarkets?
Are the well known nice supermarket apples (£2 a bag) twice
as nice as the others ones from ‘ Don’t bother with packaging’ supermarket at 99p?? or three times better (at £3) from that really posh supermarket (that even has a whole
isle for hummus because of the number of all the flavour combinations they
have) than the ones at the supermarket (at 99p) that has those huge cardboard boxes the
size of a Mini Car that they drag around the isles filling up with empty
cardboard boxes?
You see the well known uber posh '£3 a bag of apples' supermarket is spinning us a yarn, almost telling fibs (if you were being cinical - could it be described as ... and i dont say this lightly ...lying.
BUT.. and here is the big BUT... WE dont care beacuse WE believe they are better - so we end up paying
the £3 (which we know are cheaper down the road but we choose to pay that, we
tell ourselves they are better apples) .. but is it true they are better apples???
.. probably not, but that’s not the point, WE believe they are better apples.
You see lots of
things that are true ... are true because WE believe them to be true... not because they are
necessarily true (an apple can’t be three times better – can it?). If you think
that Chateau Neuf du Pape at £14 a
bottle is better than supermarket £4.99 Côtes du Rhone Villages , then it
is (but they both come from the Rhone valley in France and made in the same way with Grenache grapes ).
You see supermarkets sell diet Lemonade, 95P for a two litre
bottle of Taste the Difference Lemonade with a squeeze of lemon from Sicily,
45p for their Classic two litre bottle with a squeeze of lemon juice (they don’t
tell you where the lemon came from) and 20p for their Savers Lemonade, with
natural flavourings (bet its lemon) ... apart from the Sicilian twist, they
have the same ingredients (water, sweetener, CO2 and flavourings), but some
people believe the Taste the Difference s better. In fact they are paying five
times as much as the Savers one, so it must be five times as good because people pay
five times as much.
We as human beings (people, letting agents and even
landlords) believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it
becomes a self fulfilling truth. Once we move beyond the simple satisfaction of
NEEDS, we move into the complex satisfaction of WANTS ... and WANTS are hard to
measure and difficult to understand.
Landlords are people and people are landlords. You need the
name of your lettings agency to spread far and wide. You want landlords to come
to you, not for you have to hunt them down. But people (and hence landlords)
are being bombarded with stuff on a minute by minute basis .. people trying to
sell them stuff. They want to believe in a letting agent that will go the extra
mile, care for their property as if it were their own and help them every step
of the way .. but unfortunately (apart your firm fellow blog reader because you are the most caring and trustworthy agent in your town .. even County !!! ;-p ), just as people don’t love their banks and
have a love/hate tolerated relationship with their bank, that is how most
landlords feel about their letting agent
(come one .... have you ever wondered why landlords don’t change from those
agents in your town (and every town has them) that are so awful and dreadful
with their service but landlords don’t swap.
You have to make them WANT to speak you, not NEED to speak to you because
they have a rental property that has been on the market 10 weeks without a let
(.. with no rent coming as the tenant moved out weeks ago ... and lets be
honest it isn’t the type of house you want because if its been on 10 weeks its
either too much money or not very nice)
How do you get inside their head (the landlord), so they
believe you are different and WANT to speak to you? Easy, telling stories make it easier to understand
the world. Stories are the only way we know to spread an idea. The only person
who cares about the name of your firm is you and your Mum. All people
(landlords) care about is themselves. If you can’t answer these three
questions, then you are doomed as a letting agent (and estate agent .... in fact
any firm)
- “What’s your story?”
- “Will the people who need to hear this story believe it?”
- “Is it true?”
If what you do, as a letting agent, matters to your current
and potential clients (ie landlords), I mean really matters, then if you take
the time to tell a story, a story that resonates, that story can and will
become true.
So, go tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate, tell a
different one. When you find a story that works, live that story, make it
truthful, interesting, authentic, and subject to scrutiny. So if you need to
tell a story that a landlord needs to hear and believes, then you need to get
inside the landlords head, which is the easy part.(see below to see a perfect
example of stories)
Just like I don’t want to know what type of car is selling
well this week, or that more people walked in for Audis than BMW’s, or that EU
rules have changed on Brake Disc measurements ... landlords and homeowners
don’t care what you have sold or the change in law over Letting Agent redress or more people are looking for 3 bed semis than 2 bed semis.
They know they NEED a letting agent ... but you are all the same and like I said couldn't give a monkeys about you, the name of your form or what you offer ... all landlords care about is and
more important WANT to know is ...
- Q1 ... What is happening to the local property market ... (and here is the important bit) ... TO MY PROPERTY
- Q2 ... Where is the next Buy to let property I WANT TO BUY? (only applicable to portfolio landlords .. which are the best.)
No one cares about your website, what services you offer .. They know they NEED a letting agent .. But they already have one. But talk about something they WANT to know about (Q1 and Q2 above) and you wil be on a winner. So just talk about what is happening to your local property market and where
the next BTL buy is ... Do this with editorial, newsletters and a blog that answers both these questions by bwriting stories ..AND YOU WILL WIN LOADS OF LANDLORDS ... Come on .. I am not selling you anything here .. Just copy someone else doing it. This isn’t Jackanory kids.. this hard core lettings and it’s
serious and if you do it right .. you will increase your lettings business by
20% and in some cases, 30% a year .. fact
Just look at this guy .. This is how it's done!
Email me if you can tell which day they answer Q1 number?..
and which day/s they answer Q2?
You see, have you ever
wondered how Foxtons and the big boys can get away with charging 12%
management, 14% management? How the posh sales agents can get away with
charging 2%, 2.5% plus disbursements whilst you bust a gut at 1% inclusive of
VAT .. maybe they spin a yarn ..... but here is the best bit .. people (landlords and
vendors) believe them.
Are you a Waitrose agent? Are you a Sainsbury’s agent? Are
you a Morrison’s agent or are you a Aldi agent? Wake up and smell the coffee
guys! You will never beat these big agents at their own game .. but you can
play a different game .. a game that the landlord wants to play because you are
talking about something the landlord is interested in (ie Q1 and Q2 above)
Stop treading water letting agents, stop wasting your time ringing Gumtree landlords, stop delivering thousands of 'Landlords Wanted' leaflets, stop doing half price fees .. Start telling your own stories that landlords want to read and eventually you will get a trickle of landlords at the start then a flood .. Then you can charge what you are worth just by talking and telling stories about the local property market to the local landlords in your because it's something they are intersted in .. ie Q1 and Q2 above. If you need any help or guidance or for me to point you in the direction of someone who can tell the stories on your behalf, pick up the phone on 07950 147 572 or email on christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk