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Showing posts from November, 2016

Silver Bullet for Your Lettings Agency

Just think what you could if you had silver bullet for your lettings agency .. something that with blink of an eye could get you more stock, more ‘new instructions’, more market share, higher fees, the discovery, the vision, the stimulus, the shortcut to be a better letting agent ... Sorry, but The Silver Bullet Shop closed down in the 19 th  Century when Beast of Gévaudan, a legendary gigantic werewolf, was killed by a hunter with the name of Argent (which is Latin for  silver) , wielding a gun loaded with  silver bullets . … after that, there wasn’t the demand.. That is until the 1950’s when it reopened for a few years to supply The Lone Ranger with his silver bullets .. but demand waned and it closed down again. Some think these Online Valuation Plugins (eg ValPal) are the Silver Bullet whilst others think Cheap Fees or going on Online are the quick win answers – they arent . Now that you know that there are no silver bullets in lettings (or estate agency), a better q

Complaining about Estate/Lettings Agents

Estate / Lettings Agents - how would you like people to ring you to complain they haven't received your marketing flyer this month? Before we answer that .. let us have a look how 99% of agents do their flyers .. Would anyone miss these if you stopped dropping them?  Would anyone complain? No This is unsolicited junk mail ... but you will say, they do work. If you throw enough sh*t at the wall, some of it will stick. You have to drop 5,000 to 10,000 to get one free valuation .. 10 years ago if you dropped 5,000 to 10,000 you used to get double digit numbers of free vals. These leaflets don't work as well nowadays  because of a few things (compared to 10 years ago) Every other agent does them now People don't like to be sold to They just talk about the agent and how wonderful they are They aren't personal They aren't relevant People don't look forward to them However, what if your leaflet was anticipated, personal and relev

5.5 WAYS ON HOW TO GET MORE INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR ESTATE AND LETTING AGENCY

Most agents say the hardest part of getting more listings, greater numbers of new instructions, more landlords, more free valuations is knowing where to begin. That’s because we as estate and letting agents start in the wrong place, with the wrong question—at the ‘how to’. Instead of wondering  what  we should do or say, we as agents need to start our marketing / message by asking  who  the marketing/message is for, and then by asking  why  this marketing/message will resonate with that particular audience. Telling potential landlords and house sellers you are wonderful, you have 180 branches, you open 26 hours a day, 8 days a week, you have sold 10 properties this week, you are No.1 on Rightmove Plus, You opened in 2BC .. might be fascinating  to you  … but is it interesting, intriguing, educational, remarkable for the potential landlord or house seller? Yes, its interesting to you (and your Mum) .. but not landlords and vendors out there. If you dont believe me .. just think

My Story of a Neg that got too big for her boots

I came to Estate and Lettings Agency Management quite late in life, 32 years old to be precise. I had risen through the ranks of Junior TeaBoy, Senior Teaboy; all the way up to the rank of Senior Valuer. Back in 2003, I was Senior Valuer for two branches of the Halifax, while there was a Manager for the Banking side of the Branch. These were happy times with fantastic bonuses. WE had a red hot resi-sales team, and the Banking team could sell PPP and other Consumer Finance products with their eyes closed – so much so we were always in the top 10 Banking branches in the UK for selling FS products – happy .. then one day the Bank Manager of the office got a promotion to Area FS person. You would have thought the applications for the role of this very lucrative branch would be as long as your arm. No .. not one person applied. They didn’t apply because the staff in both the resi-sales and banking had a reputation that spanned back years. A predominately female environment, words lik

12 Letting Agents in My Town

There are four nearby Coffee Shops in Grantham .. all serve froffy coffee, nice cakes or paninis for lunch. There are three mini supermarkets along the  High Street, and all stock the same brands of sweets, mummy fuel (wine), nibbles and emergency loo rolls. And their websites that promote them were each built using identical lines of HTML code. The twelve letting agents in Grantham are all based on the High Street (or just off it), all use Rightmove, all have a website, all have to let boards, all have brochures, all doing viewings, all vet tenants, all of them manage property… but they all fundamentally do the same thing … let houses When any business (letting agent or not) with access to the same resources are creating comparable services where does our sustainable advantage lie? Just because you have been in your office for ten years (with a managed portfolio of 300 to 500 managed properties) doesn’t mean you are safe (see the PS section) We are in a new world and