Most letting agents are short sighted and only look at what is in front of them right now. They believe the value of a landlord is what it brings to them in a year, because that is how they run and see their business ..so in the North of England, each landlords’ property will be worth around £800 to the letting agent (as that is roughly what the agent will earn from that property within a year), a landlord in The Midlands is worth £1,050, in the South is worth £1,400 and London £1,800.
Again, you are way off the mark. Most landlords will stay with you once you have them. A good friend of mine, Kate Faulkner, said it can be on average 20 years that a landlord stays with a letting agency .. so let’s look back at our London landlord, instead a London landlord being worth £2,700 to £3,240, our landlord is worth £36,000. OK, I haven’t taken into account inflation and DMV (diminishing marginal values – one for all you commercial surveyors out there), but still, £36,000 is a hell of lot more than £1,800, £2,700 or even £3,240.
If you begin your marketing and customer service plans with the thought that each landlord is worth £36,000 in London (or £16,000 in the North /£21,000 in the Midlands / £28,000 in the South and if you lose one you lose £36,000 etc etc, then a lot of the conversation changes. As a teenager, when your boyfriend/girlfriend left you, your Mum would say “Don’t worry, there’s plenty other fish in the sea.” A lot of letting agencies take that approach. ”Ahh forget him, he’s only one landlord.” .. yeah one that’s worth thousands and thousands of pounds .. that changes it completely doesn’t it?
If agents tasked their marketing departments to produce advertisements to get more landlords and each landlord would be worth between £16,000 to £36,000, there would be uproar if the all the marketing dept chucked out inane leaflets that said;
- ‘tenants waiting’,
- ‘We are the most professional agent in Sheffield (replace location with your town)’,
- ‘Landlords trust Headingly’s award winning letting agent’,
- ‘Your first choice for lettings’,
- ‘Want to know where the property market is going?’,
- ‘Attention landlords .... call us now for expert advice’
- ‘LANDLORDS WANTED’
You see social media is bringing us back to the past when word of mouth was the only way to market a business. As always, I went off on a couple of tangents but I hope you got the message. Landlords are worth more than the annual pound note value for that year. If a landlord is worth, in the long term; £16,000 to £36,000 – and remember if a landlord has multiple properties, he or she could be worth £50,000 to £100,000 – you need to put some thought into capturing them and getting them to use your agency.
Normal marketing doesn’t work .. you know it doesn’t – so why do you letting agents persist with that rubbish mentioned above. You have to get inside the landlords head and talk the language they are talking ...’What is happening to the LOCAL property market?’ and ‘Where is the next BTL property I want to buy?’ .. Landlords aren’t easy go, so aren’t easy come .. but if they worth all those tens of thousands of pounds .. surely its worth the effort?.. isn’t it?
Before I go, had some lovely testimnials over the weekend ..
Gareth Samples, MD of Brief Your market and ex Big Cheese at Your Move posted this Reccomendation on Linkedin "Christopher has very quickly established himself as one of the leading lights in how to grow a lettings business by taking 2 or 3 very simple steps to grow Market share - if you haven't yet had a conversation with Christopher and want to look at ways to grow your lettings portfolio - get in touch with him"
Paul Tobias-Gibbins, Top Letting agent in the London suburbs posted on Linkedin at the weekend
I have been using the technics that Christopher had shared with me on his course back in July this year. We have had four new clients approach us and have secure 8 new rental properties - clients were impressed by out information emails and advertorials. We did not have to compromise on fees or service to secure this new business
Want to read other testimonials .. they are all here .. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0d59TaH3c33RXNiTjhNdXVOU2s/edit?usp=sharing
Photograph by ~ FurSid