Over the last few months, I have come across a few letting
agents that have said, ‘Chris, I have seen what you do, I have seen the results
and testimonials from people who have adopted them, but I just want to try
something else first’. Now I do not have a monopoly on knowing what does and
doesn’t work, but what I do have is experience of working for some rather large
firms in the property industry;
including independent, corporate and franchised.
In my 20+ years in the industry, I have seen many campaigns
tried (and mostly fail). In the last few years, my focus has been on lettings
and I have seen every campaign under the sun. Cheap fee deals campaigns,
Landlords wanted campaigns, We let a property every so many minutes campaigns,
Landlords wanted campaigns (there have been a lot of them) , Bullet pointed A5
flyers listing all the services campaigns, more landlords wanted campaigns ..
you get the drift.
.... but why do agents still persist with these types of
campaigns. I don’t say this because I want your business. Hell no I have enough business to be going on with thanks. I say it because this is what I believe ... this lettings business is hard enough to succeed in, without spending many hours and thousands of pounds notes trying to compete with your competitors in your town. You see, if you want to succeed in lettings, you need to change your approach to the business of letting ... in my humble opinion ... it all boils down to these personal thoughts ..(the first one being very relevant)
1.
Lettings is a people business, not a property
business.
2.
People (landlords) buy from people (letting
agents) they like
3.
But people (landlords) don’t walk through the
door of agents offices because people (landlords) don’t like to be sold to
4.
But all agents will say, just get a landlord sat
in front of me and I will convert them
5.
... but if you could give a reason to make a
person (landlord) WANT to walk through your door BEFORE the tenant handed in
their notice, surely if you could build a relationship with that person
(landlord) whilst you were waiting for their tenant to hand in their notice
(because no landlord will swap agents whilst there is a tenant in the property
– no matter how much they love you), the landlord would give you their property
to let out, because they like you better than the tolerated relationship they
have with their current under performing agent at the moment
So, Mr (or Mrs) Letting agent, you have four choices ...
1.
Carry on doing nothing, treading water and not growing your business
2.
Carry on chucking out your cheap fee deals and
landlord wanted leaflets (which we all know dont work)
3.
Spend stupid amounts of money buying the
competition out
4.
Our follow this blog and start to implement the
landlord farming techniques that it advocates
One of first agents who I taught the method to, has just
celebrated their first birthday, and after 12 months, their income is £8,000
per month (not bad for a sleepy little market town in rural England), another
one of my clients has seen turnover rise from £13k a month to £21k a month in
18 months .. not bad when you consider it had been stagnant for the previous 12
months.
Yes, I run courses in this if you want to hear it from the
horse’s mouth and I can even do it for you if you pay me, but just about all you need to know
is in this blog. Everything I teach and advocate is all about
getting landlords to walk through your door BEFORE the tenant hands in their
notice ...if you can build
relationships, because you care ... you will win.
It takes months of graft, not in money (although a little bit does help) but in time and effort, but if you are patient, really patient, do the right way, I can guarantee you will get the results and the organic growth of 20% to 30% in your lettings income