You have a market appraisal booked in at 2.30pm. You were
meaning to get everything sorted this morning for the appraisal , but you needed
to sort that deposit dispute this morning. You have done market appraisals hundreds
of times before .. you can do them with your eyes closed. As you are going to
meet the landlord at his property, you might do a bit of homework (quick 30
second scan on Rightmove Plus), grab your landlord brochures and a couple of
business cards. No need to look at the Comps, you know your prices. If you get
it, it will earn you £1,250 a year in fees in a year (obviously the further
South you go, this figure goes up and drops as you go up North). So if you bag
it, that property will earn you £1,250. For you and your lettings agency,
that’s not a huge deal, and it isn’t a small deal either. It’s just slightly
larger than your average deal with a landlord. So you treat this £1,250
deal like it is no big deal.
But what if you looked at the deal through another pair of
eyes? What if you viewed this £1,200 landlord based on the lifetime value of
that landlord? What if you looked at the value to your lettings agency, based
on what that property will bring in over the next 10, 15 even 20 years?
Landlords don’t swap letting agents, so once you have them, if you do a decent
job, you will probably have them in 10, 15 even 20 years.... then they might
buy more properties and recommend you to their landlord friends.
Even if you keep your landlord for only 8 years, the deal
you are competing for is really worth £9,600 Mr Letting Agent. Would you treat
a £9,600 deal differently than a £1,200 deal? In fact, I said a few weeks ago, most
landlords have (but they never tell you) on average 3.34 properties and keep
their property long term (20+ years). Now, the life time value of a landlord
could be worth £1,250 x 3.34 (properties) x 20 years = £83,500.
So, I ask again, if the deal you are competing for is really
£83,500 Mr Letting Agent, would you treat an £83,500 deal differently to a £1,250
deal?
Let us be honest with each other, you prepare differently
for big deals than you do for small deals. You find out more about your
landlord (is he a business owner, what kind of business is he in, has he posted
on Linkedin or what Linkedin groups is he in (that tells you volumes, what his
interests are etc etc , even look at his Facebook page). You do your home work
on the local market. You prepare a report, even get the census figures for the
locality. You prepare collateral material to support your efforts, by printing
off lots of comps. You drive by the property the day before to check there will
be no nasty surprises... You leave nothing to chance.
For the appraisal, you will have ruled out a decent chunk of
time in your diary. You wouldn’t dream of slipping in a viewing 45 minutes
after the start time of the appraisal on the other side of town. You invest
more time with the landlord, discovering what exactly they wanted from their
letting agent and then selling to those needs and wants. You look at the
time for the appraisal (and preparation before) as an investment (not a chore
like a lot of people act like it is), because you know it is what it will take
to win a deal.
Also, as in any part of working life, you try a lot harder
to win the big deals.... don’t you? You work to do everything in your power to bag
that landlord. You engage more people inside your agency and you ensure that
your property management and Negs teams are involved, so that they feel some
ownership of the deal. You work harder to get your dream landlord
exactly what they need.
The letting agency services that you are selling are now bigger
than you believe. The opportunities that you are working right now are worth 20,
30, or 40 times as much as what the fees are worth over the course of the first
year. By looking at only a landlord’s potential first year’s revenue, you
aren’t selling as well as you might be. Mr/s Letting Agent, were you to take a
longer view of what that landlord could be worth to you, you might do things
differently? ... you might get more properties on your books?
