How many letting agents are there in your town? Two weeks
ago, when I did my 8 hour marathon training session in Reading to 15 letting
agents, I asked how many letting agents are there in your town? The lowest was 12 agents, the average 32 and
the highest was 124. Wow, that’s a lot of letting agents for a landlord to
choose from and in a world of too many options and too little time, like most
things in life, it’s easier to ignore all those options ( ie other letting
agents), especially if all of them are exactly the same dull boring cookie
cutter shaped letting agents.
What makes you, as a letting agent different? Your property
management skills ? Your ability to know all grounds of the Section 8 Notice ?
You know the Superstrike case word for word? Your ARLA exam scores were the
best in the UK? You might think that important, but to a landlord it isn’t.
Just like I would expect the car mechanic to have all the qualifications and
know the MOT rules, I wouldn’t go back the garage consistently to see them to
service it because in his advert he told me he had certainly qualifications or
visit his blog where he talked about the thickness of brake callipers and the
new EU rule changes on everything car wise .. this is dull.
You, Mr and Mrs letting agent need to grab the attention of
all the landlords in your town, and subtly get inside their head so at some
point in the future, they go .. “I want to talk to this guy (lady)”. You see, you will never get a landlord’s
interest until you get their attention and you will never get a landlord to
take action until they make a decision .. sound familiar .. yeah, because its
the AIDA principle .. a principle that all letting agents should adhere to if
you want more business .. because you all do want new business, don’t you?
You start by
grabbing the attention of the landlord and then getting them captivated,
inquisitive, or eager enough to keep reading. Then you build their interest in
what you have to offer, to the point that they start to relate what you talk
about to their own lives. At this point, you begin to whip up their desire. The
goal is to get them to want to do something, and that something is to come and
talk to you. Finally, you push that landlord over the tipping point so that they actually then come and talk
to you ... then the rest is history, because every letting agent tells me ... “Get
a landlord sat in front of me and I will convert them”.
So it goes, Attention, then Interest, then Desire, then Action .. in that order.
Grabbing someone’s attention is easy. Just shout at the top of voice in a street
and everyone will turn around. It’s the interest bit that is the hardest to
pull off. I am sorry Mr (Mrs) letting agent, but your
ace property management skills, your ability to know all grounds of the Section
8 Notices or your knowledge of the Superstrike case word for word isn’t
interesting to a landlord.
Only two things interest a landlord
..... firstly, how well is my current property performing (value, rent, yield,
voids etc) and secondly, where is the next BTL property I am going to buy? What
are you, Mr(s) letting agent doing to quench that thirst? No landlord gives two hoots about you, Mr(s)
letting agent. The world revolves around them, not you. Get inside their head and they will come to
you. It has been proven time and time
again.
How? Write decent content about your
local property market and put in the front the noses of all the landlords in
your town.
How do you write content? Well, have a
look at the examples I have given over the months and get inspiration from
those. If you want to hit the ground running, you can ask me to write them for
you OR you can come on one of courses where I will teach how to write them then
mentor you each month thereafter. You see coming up with the weekly storyies/
ideas is the tricky bit. How do you get that great info under the noses of all
the landlords, the fresh blood you need .. again, I teach you how to get those
details.
So, are you going to be different
letting agent, or are you or your marketing department just going to keep
banging out the same old rubbish (half price fees, trust us with your property,
we let a house every 20 minutes etc,etc, etc) If you aren’t the boss of your
lettings firm, but the lettings neg or lettings manager, do yourself a favour
and show this blog to the people at the top. Show them that there is another
way ... a way that has been proven to
increase business, organically by 20% to 30% a year.
Before I go .... Bathtime in Watkin household! ;-)
