A Tweet will not get you a free valuation, a Facebook
like will not get you the listing, a Linkedin post will not get you a landlord
to give you his or her portfolio. Social media will not DIRECTLY get you one
property- it never has done and never will – if you think it will get you more
landlords to use your lettings agency or more vendors to ring you up for a free
valuation .. sorry Mr(s) Agent – you are going to be sorely disappointed. Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin
(or any social media) won’t even qualify
your dream landlord or vendor (When I say
qualify I mean it wont get you landlords/vendors motivation, the reason for
selling, the address of the property that needs to be sold/lets, timescales or contact details etc).
Social media will not directly get you one property to
sell or let. The truth is this – social media is really just a type of
marketing.
The work you do using the social media is all about
IDENTIFYING your potential landlords and potential vendors. It’s about LISTENING to your potential
landlords and potential vendors. It’s about SHARING things that you think
potential landlords and potential vendors believe are important.... TO THEM.
So why won’t it get you the properties?
We all know that the free valuation / market appraisal is
the place to really to get to know the potential landlord or potential vendor,
ask the right questions, discovering what is really important to the
vendor/landlord, finding out what makes them tick and with an ends ...to get
the property and close the deal. You can’t
use social media to do that discovery work. The thing that makes discovery work
so powerful is that you are sitting eye to eye with your landlord/vendor,
allowing them to see
what you are about and letting them see you are really listening to them. It’s all about
letting them get a ‘feel’ about you as an agent, allowing them to confirm you
are ‘the man for the job’ .. building that
trust. You see, you can’t replicate all that on social media. Your
tweets, posts or any social media work doesn’t allow you to apply all those
years of you being an agent, that insight and knowledge you have gained as man
and boy, your ability to empathise with the potential landlord/vendors
challenges and opportunities.
The High Priests of estate agency and lettings social
media tell you not to sell but be helpful, share lots of fab content and never
ever ask for the business. I am sorry, you aren’t here for fun .. you have
bills to pay, mortgages to service, wages and rent to pay... but they are
right. Selling is all about getting someone (in our case potential vendors or
potential landlords) to buy our letting agency or estate agency services .. in essence the landlord / vendor
needs to commit to you as an agent .. but no one, not one landlord or vendor
will do that (commit to you) until THEY have committed their time to consider
what you have to offer, committed to explore
what your agency offers, committed thinking to weigh up the options between you
and the other agents and only then, once there is mutual consensus, move forward with the deal .
Bottom line time here fellow agents - You simply are not going
to build consensus with a Tweet or LinkedIn
post. You aren’t going to really help the portfolio landlord resolve their
concerns and fears with a tweet - even a really clever tweet. Social Media is
not a deal closer – it’s just a marketing tool – a bl**dy good marketing tool
for developing relationships, relationships that allow you to get face to face
with that portfolio landlord or home owners that want to sell.
If I wanted 3,000 agents to read what I had to say, ten
years ago, I would have had to pay £2,000 a month to one of the trade magazines
such as ‘The Neg- BassDrum –Property Thingge’ Magazine to have those sort of
eyeballs. I would have had to have paid £6,000 to have a 10 ft square stand at
one of the Agent Shows (yes – that is
how much they cost) – and even then most of you would have ignored me.
Now there is a thing called social media – it costs
nothing and it can help you share your ideas and gain your dream landlord’s or
vendor’s attention before they have met you. Social media is outstanding for setting
out your stall – showing people how different you are – how and why you are
different from the competition. If you do
social media right, and I mean right, it creates engagement with your potential
future client – that vendor, that landlord and from that engagement you can
build relationships with these potential landlords and vendors .. potential
landlords and vendors you haven’t even met.
When a potential client rings me up, one the first things
they often say is, ‘Chris, I have been
following your blog for months, watched your videos and I feel you are on my
wave length’ . My blog is my social media ‘sales funnel’ .. but I don’t try
and sell anything. I write stuff that my potential clients (letting and estate
agents) find of interest. It takes months
of blog posts to get a letting agent potential client to ring me so I can help
them get more landlords for their lettings agency... and when you start writing
articles about your local property market, it will take months and months
before landlords (and potential vendors wanting free vals for sale) to make
contact with you Mr Letting Agent and Mrs Estate Agent ... but it’s so much easier
when the potential clients come to you as opposed you to them.
If you are a fan of the sales funnel, all social media is,
is an above the sales funnel activity. It doesn’t get you the deal but helps
you with prospecting, the activity that you need to have a funnel in the first
place. Letting and Estate Agents need to be better marketers, because by being better
marketers, you can help yourself be a better agent. .... but before I go,
remember, social media isn’t selling, it won’t get you more properties to sell
or let - it’s just a fabulous marketing
tool for you to IDENTIFY your potential
landlords and potential vendors, to LISTEN to your potential landlords and
potential vendors, to SHARE things that you think potential landlords and
potential vendors believe are important.... really ,all social media is ... is
just clever marketing.