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Showing posts from May, 2015

Why wont that prospective landlord wont return your calls?

That landlord or prospective vendor won’t take your phone-calls or return your emails, whilst another prospective landlord or vendor takes your calls, but won’t commit to giving you time for the property on the market. The more you focus on what they won’t do, the less likely you are to get the reply you need. You have a plan, an approach, and a value proposition. Your dream client has a plan, too. Your plan is not working but their plan is. Let me tell you a home truth Mr(s) Letting or Estate Agent .. It is not them - It is YOU who is the problem . You see if you want your prospective landlord or vendor to react differently, you have to change their motivation to do so. You, Mr(s) Agent, have to change what you are doing ... and how you are doing it ... before they change how they respond TO YOU. Don’t get me wrong, persistence is the name of the game if you want to nail down a vendor or landlord. In fact, persistence is a key characteristic of  the letting and estate agents

Agents – Are you afraid of the word ‘No’?

I often hear agents say that they are waiting for something to take place before they call their prospective vendor or landlord. The biggest something is the ‘sands of time’, waiting for the calendar to flip over to next month, or the month after or the month after that. The agent says things like "I am waiting to that landlord in August when their AST is up" or  "I am waiting to call that vendor when her sole agency s up on the 22 nd of July."  The funny thing is this though, many agents believe that their prospective landlord or vendor recognises that they have allowed time to pass, and, as such, now has an enhanced opinion of the agent for having waited before contacting the landlord/vendor again. This is particularly true when the vendor/landlord has asked that the agent contact them at some time in the future. Sorry guys because nothing could be further from the truth. Why? Well can you remember taking a call from a   software or google adwords co

Dummies Guide to Estate and Lettings Agency

Have you read the book ‘43 year old Estate / Letting Agent in South West London needs more stock’ ?   No.1 Best Seller at Amazon you know, even a Sunday Times Best Seller and a Richard and Judy Book of the Week ! ..  but strangely all the sales of the book have been in Kingston-on-Thames and Wimbledon? Why, because if you are an agent in South East London or Hertfordshire or Birmingham, the book quite clearly won’t be relevant and complete work of fiction.  If I had a pound for every time an agent said to me ‘my town is different’, I would be a very rich man. Yes your town, your suburb is different to the next town or suburb .. but fundamentally, you are in the same position as all the other agents in other towns. All of you are all the same boat and you can all answer YES to all three questions  You are an agent There are landlords/vendors needing properties let or sold. There are too many competitor agents in town I am sorry Mr(s) Agent, but no one is going t

All you agents are the same

You all go on Rightmoving / Zoopsdeloops / OnThe Meerkat, you all put a board up, you all take a few pictures, you all (well those with High St offices) pop a window card in the window, you all pop it in the newspaper, you all print a few brochures off and sit on your backsides waiting for punters (tenants for our lettings readers and buyers for our estate agency readers) to trip along in. Both you and ‘cheap boy agent’ down the road have similar costs, but your fee is 1.5% of sale fee, and your competitor’s is 1%. (or in the case of lettings agents, you charge 10% whilst ‘mateyboy’ charges 6%). Your higher fee is enough to cause some potential vendors (and landlords in the lettings agency) to use your competitor. All things being equal, they’re right to pay the lower fee. However, all things are not equal. The service that you sell is superior to your competitor’s. You invest more money, more time and more effort to develop the very best agency service. Your agency