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Two thirds of Estate /Letting Agency Bosses manage their agency and team with fear and apprehension

The vast majority of Estate / Letting Agents are one office operators, probably with handful of staff. Through luck rather than judgement and by the skin of their teeth, they manage to get to the end of each month alive, chasing chains to get the exchanges through or dealing with tenants getting just enough money in to pay the bills. 

As the boss of the agency it’s your job to lead, manage, administer, coach and drive the yourself and your team each month… just to get the pound notes in to pay the bills .. for everything to reset to zero like the mileage odometer in a car on the 1stof the month .. its like walking uphill in treacle …with a 50kg back pack .. 

Like the blind leading the blind most Agency MD’s aren’t conscious of their management style and outlook they bring to their agency. 

Many consume a handful of the up-to-date management books, go to a few workshops yet gradually progress into a leadership style centred on their nature and personality…and here lies the issue.

Speaking to hundreds of estate and letting agents in the last 20+ years, I have noticed there is a direct correlation between you as the leader of the agency and your personal style of managing the team to how successful that person will be in as an agent.

I have noticed there are two camps of style of management with agents … firstly management by the dread of failure in their agency, or secondly, management by the quest of success in the agency.

Every MD I have met always settles towards one of these two management styles, and every choice you make in your agency, from easy day to day decisions, to big picture business direction tactical stuff, such as opening a second office, marketing, which portal to drop and employing/sacking staff, is ruled by your singular style as a person

I see so many agents rarely question why, or more significantly how, they make the decisions they do …  yet their individual style of management decrees the long term outlook for you and your agency.

I would say, and I must stress I haven’t seen every agent in the UK, yet I have seen hundreds  of agents in the last few years, so I believe I am in decent position to make a comment … and these are my findings …

Two Thirds of Estate /Letting Agents

Anecdotally, I would say nearly two thirds of MD’s have a fear of failure style of management. 

These are the agents that just plod along, month after month, year after year and barely ever get away from being an average middle-of-the-road agent – and the main reason is I believe is this …. their style of management, their decision-making process and their mindset …. all of which that leans towards a ‘fear of failure’ 

You see, my intuition tells me if you are a ‘fear of failure’ boss, you make every decision, no matter how large or small, founded upon defending or preserving what you have, and not on developing or increasing your agency.

I see the decision these people make are made to keep what they have going  .. albeit just a bit longer, their decisions are made to guard what they have achieved up to this point in time. These agents won’t invest in new gear, new marketing techniques or tech because they believe they can squeeze a few more years with what they have, even though as an agent, what they have is years past being competitive

… and this is the bit that makes my heart sink … these agency bosses dont spend the time or money to train their Negs and Valuers because they, as the boss man (or lady) train their staff, because they were a $hite hot Valuer with corporate ‘X’ back in the 80’s or 90’s …and they know their stuff.

Yet sorry Mr/s Baby Boomer boss – agency has moved on since you were king of the hill in 1990’s or early 2000’s…. and when their Negs and Valuers leave – then blame the Negs/Valuer instead of themselves .. because they are big dogs in the game

.. yet the game has moved on Big Dog .. 

That’s not your fault that the game has moved on .. but it is your responsibility to change to the new order of thing s in this 21stcentury world

I see it all the time … these agency bosses don’t pursue new ways of being an agent, they are in their 40’s, 50’s and or early 60’s and they are afraid of change .. afraid of the internet, social media, video and the 24-7 way millennials connect and interreact … they see the new ways of being an agent will lead to lost market share, lost listings, lost turnover and landlords. They never change anything because their existing landlord or vendors might criticise about the change, then possibly leave, not thinking about the potential vendors or landlords who would never contemplate using their agency because what the agency offers is so vanilla, so homogenous and cookie cutter and so out of date competitively.

These agency bosses won’t risk coming off the portals because one vendor (just one) said they weren’t going with a competitor 6 months ago because they weren’t on Zoopla … or even consider doing video marketing for example, because in their heads you never know when landlord might pull their leg about being on camera and they don’t want to look silly.

They have tried the one-off leaflet campaign or a back of a bus advert, and because that one of marketing venture failed to inundate the agency with free val or landlord leads in the first few weeks, they dropped it like a hot potato.  That’s same agency boss is still pi$$ed off that they didn’t get their money they spent on marketing back straightaway. These agents with this fear of failure mindset think that cash spent now on marketing is expected to return listings and landlords straight away now 

I see it all the time as these agency bosses always start but never follow through and finish anything to its end. I hear it all the time, I paid for one 10,000 leaflet drop campaign, I tried Facebook ads for a month, I sent my staff on a course yet because they never committed to the plan fully, stick with it, played the long game … it failed; but it wasn’t the notion of spending time and money to develop their staff that was unsuccessful, it was the agency boss who was so afraid to spend the appropriate time, effort and money to followup and make his staff accountable to the training that the effort to invest over time in the staff was condemned from the off

This fear of losing means every choice these agency bosses make leads to a relentless pulling in, or retreat of the agency. Over time, and I mean over the 5 or 10 years, the agency gets slowly worn out and less prosperous because the landlords and vendors will go somewhere new where the agency boss is responsive and not afraid to transform and modernise… like a slow death by a thousand cuts

So how do you know you might be one of the two thirds of agency bosses that runs their agency with the fear of failure .. only read this if you dare …. 

1.    Poor at Delegating or absolve responsibility

You are poor at delegating as you function in fear of failure. So much so, especially if you are on the lettings side, you can’t stop handling all the landlords yourself because you are afraid you will lose the property … even if you let go of even one. I see it all the time as you have a self-esteem issue because you believe every landlord asks for you because you are the top dog agent in your town, and only one, who can help really them… yes the boss person created the agency yet refuses to change. Or you are the other way .. you have never been out on a free val with your Valuer, you have never spent the whole morning sitting next to one neg, guiding and supporting them .. you just sit in your office

2.    Cant let go

This boss person employs property managers to manage the landlords, but the property managers are ineffectual because the boss can’t let go of the landlords in fear of losing them all. You are afraid your income will drop, or the landlords will leave for other letting agency if you don’t personally deal with every single last one of them. They micro manage landlords instead of beginning to trust their colleagues and then direct and work their lettings agency at a developed level. 

3.    Procrastination

These agents tend to over think, meaning they think it’s the right thing to take their time and make slow, considered decisions, yet that means they are slow to react because they are so fearful of making the wrong decision, and perhaps losing a few quid, or a landlord or vendor, and so they do everything they can do to slow the decision process down … yet end up deciding to do nothing at all.

4.    Snail Like Decision making followed by Panic Buying

These agents are very sluggish to react to market conditions. For example, they know they have stronger competition as each year goes by, but they will not respond fast enough to protect their agency by jeopardising investment now. Instead, I see so many agents waiting until it’s too late and are then forced to spend money on something (anything??) as a last roll of the dice to try to stay alive …. when in reality, it is too late to make a difference to their agency …and end up failing

I see so many agents being so afraid of making a choice, a decision because it might rock the boat, so as they fail to decide to ride with the storm, the boat is slowly leaking – a leak that will eventually sink them.  They put off the vital and significant things to look at in the Autumn .. then the Spring .. then .. then…

Their response to the fee ban is not to try attract new landlords, improve systems, become more efficient or even increase fees … but to only cut their costs even more to the bone, stripping down to base level to stay competitive.

Memorise this guys …  that no decision is still a decision because you decided to do nothing

Don’t get me wrong, doing nothing is sometimes the best thing to do, but in the speedy pace of estate and letting agency, doing nothing is the same as standing on a train track at 11pm a night with your eyes wide open and aninability or refusal to accept that something is true or real, waiting for the last train from London with its bright headlights steam through the night, the same headlights you have seen coming for miles, to run over your passive agency backside. The train is coming, and you can either react, or you get flattened.

What about the other third of Agents?

Their management style is by the ‘quest of success’, they are ones who live by a different faith and attain financial success beyond their equals, manage their estate / letting agencies and people by the continuous and endless quest for success.

Every decision they make, is made to grow the agency into the future. All their choices and decisions are vital, and are made by continuously countering to business trends, market conditions and the everchanging competitive backdrop.

The agents who fall into this category look at their agency’s growth, appraisal their  income, costs and borrowings every year, and then especially plans those liabilities/debt forward one/two/ three years hence so they may plough more money back into their agency to make sure they has the gear, structure, team and systems they need to keep their agency growing.

These agents recognise that when they opened they did everything yet is now at a point on the agency’s journey that they know if they can break through .. then they can really fly, if they push smart and hard. They know they can’t afford an extra member of staff or a £20k brand refresh, but they also realise if they don’t get help, they will stall and decline. Yet whilst the agency boss who defends his business because of fear as a style of management would not find the cash and would re-invent his agency’s brand himself to save the money whist ..

…. the agent whose style of management is quest for success would borrow the cash or go without changing his/her 4 year BeeMer or Jag this year, to enable them to push their agency brand, and take the risk of cash spent now compared to future chance of revenue.

Still not sure which camp you are in?

If you still aren’t sure which camp you fall into … here is a great tell-tale sign and it uses this simple test … the test is how you respond to the marketing of your competitors.

Those that tend to fall into the ‘fear of failure’ style of management camp are those agents who tend to wait and respond to the competitor letting and estate agents’ initiatives and adverts.

If the competitor drops their pants on fees, they do the same. If the competitors jump on one portal, they do. If the competitors do a leaflet drop, they do a leaflet drop. If some agents advertise in the local rag, sheep like they feel like they have to. If the competitors have video tours, they have video tours. If the competitor opens 8 days a week, they 8 open days a week etc etc or even worse is the knee-jerk reaction to the online Purple-Easy-Yopa threat by trying to under the cut them, with all the costs of a High Street presence. These agents adopt a feast and famine marketing. 

Whilst the fear agency bosses cut marketing first when times are tough, killing any future the listings they might get whereas the agency bosses chasing future success would rather sell their cars and rent out rooms in their homes or make staff redundant before ever contemplating reducing their marketing budget.

When things are going well, fear agency bosses cut their marketing because they don’t need it, then it goes quiet, so they panic, spend money on marketing hoping for instance results, it doesn’t work, so then panic.

However, those agents that practice the ‘pursuit of success’ management style … their marketing is persistent and constant every single day, every single week, month in month out, year after year … forcing the competitor agents to respond to them.

In these instances, one agency boss exists in cycle of fear, a fear something might be lost if a decision is made, whilst the other ‘quest for success’ agency boss makes choices best for the business over long term, knowing full well that decision might be a one step back to go three forward …. because the ‘quest for success’ agency boss understands losing 10 landlords/resi listings now …. will lead to 150 new landlords / listings in the future.

I have also noticed those bosses that live under a fear of failure seem always to be in the 1990’s and early 2000’s in their agency offerings and ‘make do’ … like the tenant fee ban, they are afraid to put their fees up because they are afraid if they make those change .. they will lose all their landlords and all might be lost

Yet, the ‘quest for success’ agency bosses will be putting their fees up (if haven’t already -  go on Sally Lawsons bootcamp for the tenant fee ban, where she teaches you a simple step by step guide to easily get your landlords to pay more)…and my agency clients have nothing but praise for her and the course

Those same ‘quest for success’ agency bosses appreciate you cant cut costs enough to get your agency into profit, because at some point, the agency has to grow and defending what you have does not work over a long term business cycle.

The fear of failure boss thought is, “What will I lose if, I change?”, whilst the ‘quest for success’ agency bosses thought is, “What will be the benefit if I do, and how can I best position my agency for success during the decade?

Please dont think I am having a go if you are a ‘fear of failure’ boss. I am saying this because I want to help you realise there a chance for you to change. I have been where you are and it’s really hard to break the mould, but it can be done. Hell, even I slip into fear mode every once in a  while. Its so hard, yet the one thing that I have found that worked for me  – and it should work for you is the next time you making a decision and worry about what you will lose… 

….in addition to that thought (because I don’t expect you to change overnight – I haven’t and like I say I still slip back – but I’m getting there) .. I want to you to ask an additional question on top .. 

‘What will be the gain long-term if I do this?” 

…. because you will find the long-term advantage often offsets the short term pain of change.

Now I am not a trainer or motivational guru. I produce these videos and articles because I enjoy doing them and if they help just one person, one agent – then I’m happy, so if you want to pick up the phone and have a chat, human to fellow human … ring me and let’s have a chat. 99.99% of you wont, but one of you might … and if I can help you – just one of you .. maybe you? Then its been worthwhile