Of course
they will.
So shouldn’t you keep all your knowledge, your secrets of the trade
to your special landlords?
Yes, you could do, but aren’t you preaching to the
converted? You want new landlords, and if you get a landlord, you can give them
your ‘special knowledge and secrets’ ... yeah, that sounds good, or does it?
You might
have the best knowledge and secrets about your lettings market, but you know
that, but do the landlords of other agents know that? Or you could be generous
with your knowledge. Generosity is not merely giving a discount, or
giving what you do away for free. It’s far more complex than that. Some
thoughts:
When someone is generous, that creates trust, but also worth noting that trust is required to provide generosity. If a little old lady person started generously leaving homemade Victoria Sponges around the Grantham (or your town) town centre, on walls and public seats, her goal probably wouldn’t be achieved, because we just don’t trust random cakes on benches left anonymously in public places.
You see most agents can’t get round their head about giving your ideas (or knowledge or secrets) to complete strangers (who are hopefully landlords with other agents in your town) away .... online.... for free. But if you want to succeed, you have to give to receive. You have to lay it all on the line.
In an effort to be generous, to gain someone’s (hopefully a new landlords) trust is time consuming and dissuades 99% of letting agents from going down this path. It doesn’t cost anything to set up a blog and write ones thoughts. .. but it does take a lots of time and thought. Sometimes this mental effort leads agents to take shortcuts, cut corners, all in a self justified but in the end deluded effort to appear be generous.
When a person takes the time to share a finite resource (what’s inside your head as a letting agent), without ANY expectation of getting something back in return, generosity happens. Remember though, if you are going to be generous but you do it begrudgingly, saying that you would only help just this one time, with a face scrunched with tension, then no, it doesn’t feel generous.
That is what I teach my trainees on their course, even to the point of helping to sell other agents properties on behalf of the agent, without any commission... sounds weird but that is what I teach people to do ... not just on the course ... even if they ring me up. I give anyone who rings me up advice and opinion. Why .... because I believe givers receive ..and trust me .. it does come back. I now have clients who were people who picked my brain recommending me. Clients who have had an brilliant blog, working on this ethos have seen combined turnover increase from £450k a year to £650k.
Take the time to read this blog and you don’t need to come on my courses, hell, you don’t even need to ring me .. plenty of agents have contacted me saying they have just done what I have advocated and they are starting to see the results. Prove it Watkin you might ask...
Well go to my Linkedin profile and scroll down to the recommendations, for my current and then my last few roles, and then decide for yourself
uk.linkedin.com/in/christopherwatkin/
I can’t make you trust me, but I can be generous with my advice in my blog .. trust is in the eye of the beholder. But why don’t you just adopt some of the things I advocate .. you have nothing to lose. Take your time and read all the posts going back to December (there’s over a 100 of them) and JFDI. Or, just carry on the lettings mousewheel like the 98% of letting agents out there do, pushing your cheap fee deals (that you know don’t work) and your incentives for tenants to recommend their landlord to you (that you know don’t work). .. or touting boards with leaflets (that don’t work) or you could try something new. Something that has been proved to work (see Linkedin above) .. something that will increase monthly turnover by 20% to 30% within one year.
The thing is though, if what I say is true and you don’t adopt it, but another agent in your town does ? Well, that’s another story .........what comes around goes around