Have you read the book ‘43 year old Estate / Letting Agent in South West London needs more stock’?
No.1 Best Seller at Amazon you know, even a Sunday Times Best Seller and a Richard and Judy Book of the Week ! .. but strangely all the sales of the book have been in Kingston-on-Thames and Wimbledon? Why, because if you are an agent in South East London or Hertfordshire or Birmingham, the book quite clearly won’t be relevant and complete work of fiction.
No.1 Best Seller at Amazon you know, even a Sunday Times Best Seller and a Richard and Judy Book of the Week ! .. but strangely all the sales of the book have been in Kingston-on-Thames and Wimbledon? Why, because if you are an agent in South East London or Hertfordshire or Birmingham, the book quite clearly won’t be relevant and complete work of fiction.
If I had a pound for every time an agent said to me ‘my town
is different’, I would be a very rich man. Yes your town, your suburb is
different to the next town or suburb .. but fundamentally, you are in the same
position as all the other agents in other towns. All of you are all the same
boat and you can all answer YES to all three questions
- You are an agent
- There are landlords/vendors needing properties let or sold.
- There are too many competitor agents in town
I am sorry Mr(s) Agent, but no one is going to write a book
about your specific situation in your specific town, but you are surrounded by
examples and lessons and case studies that clearly aren't exactly about your lettings
or estate agency that you can learn from, if you are prepared to learn. There
has never been a book written precisely about the exact situation you are
facing right now nor will there be fact or fiction!
If you want more stock for the resi sales dept or more
landlords to use your agency to manage their property, there isn’t a ‘Dummies Guide to Getting more Stock for
Lettings/Estate Agents ’ with loads of checklists, there isn’t a Haynes Manual
with loads of checklists. Getting more business is both an art and a science. Like
all forms of art, it requires us to learn to see, because by seeing what is
working and to adopt it, adapt it and improve it.
As a boss, it's way easier to just give your staff a manual or
one day course, thus helping them avoid thinking for themselves. Instead of
going on a course with checklists, why don’t you listen to other agents and
learn from them?
You owe it to yourself, your team and your family to grow
your agency. By listening to other agents stories and ideas, there is an opportunity
to find the similarities and get ever better.
If other agents make the mistakes and if they are prepared to talk about
their ideas and what they have learnt, you Mr(s) Agent are letting others go
first - not with what you have got, but
with something you can learn from. But will they (other agents) talk, share
their ideas and findings, hell yes, because this can become an invitation to
care - and that's what we all want - for people to care about our ideas.
So where can these ideas come from, with agents that are
prepared to share their ideas?
Firstly, Rightmove have set up a resource centre called
Rightmove Hub http://hub.rightmove.co.uk/ There are weekly webinars on the best
practices of other agents, how to get more free valuations, more listings, how
to use RM to get more business, more viewers, more price reductions .. all page
one stuff that is very helpful to every agent. But if you can’t be bothered to
go on the webinars – well more fool you Mr(s) Agent. There is plenty of other
great stuff on there and in the future, I will be recording some videos on how
you can turn RM and RM-Plus from Ford into a Ferrari .. there is so much that
system can do to get you more business (ie more stock for sales and lettings)
(like a list of every rental property that is void and ready for plundering, or
produce a list of every property out of sole agency agreement for the res ales
team, how to have a featured agent advert with click thru rates 1880% (yes
1880% higher than the RM average),how the full address is hidden in a code on
most listings, oh, the possibilities are endless!).
Secondly, for those agents who adopt the principles of being
the ‘local property expert’, by either them writing (or me ghost writing) local
property market articles about the local property market, (a technique we call
‘landlord farming’. We have set up a Facebook group called ‘LANDLORD FARMING
CLUB’ - A group of 95 (and rising)
letting agents owners from around the UK, some big ones (some agents having
stock levels of 600+ under management through to people who are about to
launch). We all share ideas on improving and growing our lettings
business. There must over 10 posts a day
some days with a shed load of replies and comments (my emails fill up a treat).
We also have monthly webinars and are currently planning a day’s
workshop/seminar for everyone (or as we call ourselves, ‘farmers’, to meet up
and share best practices). The best bit is it is like being part of a club and
because no-one is in competition with each other (we have strict rules on that)
.. everyone gives their advice freely.
Third .. join a franchise and give over 7% to 12% of your turnover .. dont knock it! They do work for some people and you do get loads of advice from fellow franchisees (if you ask)
Third .. join a franchise and give over 7% to 12% of your turnover .. dont knock it! They do work for some people and you do get loads of advice from fellow franchisees (if you ask)
It's sometimes too easy to provide the manual and a set of
steps to help someone learn something new. And it can work. But it can also
represents a missed opportunity. By framing ideas at a higher level and
using other agents ideas, we can discuss the ‘why’ first and show other agents
a new way to think about the new ideas of getting more landlords, more stock to
sell; why an idea makes sense, why it matters. Like I stated earlier- that's what we all want - for people to care
about our ideas.
kind regards
Christopher
PS As always, if you have liked this blog post, there are over 260 similar blog posts on this blog. Either click on the header at the top or click on this link LINK TO THE WHOLE BLOG , and you will see a shed load of articles on how to get more landlords for your letitngs agency and more free valuations for your resi sales dept.
PPS For thos e of you visit the blog for the first time, if you wonder why I write stuff like this, I help letting agents get more landlords to use their lettings agency. Some of my clients are estate agents as well and they tell me they get more free valuations for the sales dept as a by-product of doing it .. so letitngs improves and sales does .. winwin!
