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Showing posts from July, 2015

Is Corporate Agency living on borrowed time?

I honestly believe the big agencies with their big brands are living on borrowed time, as the importance of an agency’s brand and branding to be successful are slipping with every year that passes into the 21 st Century. In the 1900’s, when information was short supply, curtailed and slow, people depended on a brand’s goodwill for quality assurance. However, things have changed in every industry since the Millennium, and it’s a matter of time that it will change in estate agency and lettings. I honestly believe that anyone with enough passion, drive, intelligence and patience can open up or even grow a stagnant lettings agency (or lettings and estate agency) and compete and beat the mega brands of Connells, Countrywide, YourMove, the franchised brands, even the likes of Savills and Knight Frank. It won’t take a huge multi million pound budget either.  The three barriers to opening an agency Let me explain ..before social media and the tinterweb, if yo

Easy tiger!

Firms produce goods and services and then People (consumers) buy that stuff, that’s the way our economy works.  I don't just mean people who buy stuff at the Sainsburys... it happens everywhere in the economy, so when I say people, I mean people buying a house, a car, a holiday, a TV, even services like a house seller needs an estate agency to sell their house or a landlord to find (and possibly manage) their rental property.   Can I ask you a question, do you care about the solicitors practice down the road who have 5 solicitors offering 30 different types of legal advice, or the fact they have 10 offices or won an award recently, or the fact they have over 1,000 clients on their books?  No, of course not .. so why do you think people would be interested in your agency, your awards, the number of people who use you? Consumers don't care about you at all. Sorry to be harsh, but they just don't care. When you have too much choice but not enough time .. it’s a da

My biggest mistake in lettings

Morning everyone, hope everyone is well today. Just had my Nespresso for the morning (aren’t those coffee pod machines ace! – gold star for the person who invented them) and fed the dog (Joey   aka Lettings Dog) and so I thought I would put down my thoughts for today before I crack on with the work.  Yesterday, I had an interesting chat with an agent on the South Coast.   I asked him why he rang me and why now, to which he replied he had been reading my blog for a few months ago and liked the idea of becoming his town’s property guru. That is in essence is what this is all about, because, as an agent, you can become the leading light on a topic that all the homeowners and landlords in your town are obsessed about .. property.  Why do you think the Savs and Knight Franks of this world have multi million pound Research Depts, producing stats and figures that the Sunday papers lap up quicker than Joey eating a particularly juicy slice of chicken (his favourite)? They are creat