You all say you want more landlords, more properties to
manage and more rental properties on your books.. but 80% of the people reading
this won’t be doing anything about it ..
Why? Because you are lazy. Harsh words
Christopher but it is something I truly believe. I am guilty of laziness in
other aspects of my life, so I am certainly not perfect. However, my posts
aren’t about weight loss or getting round to jobs around the house (just ask Mrs W – aka Senior Management – I am
the king of putting jobs off around the house),my posts are about helping
letting agents get more business, more landlords, more properties, so everyone
can earn more, earn more commission, more profit .. so you can better yourself
and provide for yourself and your family.
However, the answer to getting more landlords isn’t easy. I
keep telling you what to do, but actually doing what I tell you to do is
something completely different. You should stop looking for short cuts and do
the work you need to do to succeed. I am not one of these motivational ‘humcum’
speakers, but a good old fashioned agent who discovered whilst working in some
very senior roles in the lettings and estate agency business, the success of
growing your lettings agency comes from doing the things that most letting
agents don’t want to do and more importantly, when they need to be done.
...and here is the killer, I said earlier it was laziness. I
said it to provoke a reaction. The word I really believe why 80% wont do this,
is not laziness, but procrastination.
Wiki defines Procrastination
is the practice of carrying out less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent
ones, or doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones, and
thus putting off impending tasks to a later time, sometimes to the "last
minute" before a deadline.
When you procrastinate... just like putting two magnets
together of the same pole, they repel, they push away from each other .. that
my letting agent friends is what you are doing. Because landlords are
inherently lazy at moving letting agents,
you don’t need to do much work, because it will always be there .. so
you think, ‘Doesnt matter, I have nice little office with 200 properties, nice
staff, we loose a few but get a few each year .. no stress .. let’s not rock
the boat ..lets keep treading water’.
I guarantee you Mr and Mrs Letting Agent this (and you don’t need to come on one my
courses to learn how to write the articles about the local property market this nor if you haven’t got the time, you
don’t need to ghost write the articles for you) .... if you write articles
about your local property market, write like a journalist would write it,
ensure it is written in a narrative manner, ensuring you stick to the four
stages of your article (see my blog for this .. I have written about this many
times in the blog) ... and you get those articles out there in your town (again in blog if you can be bothered to look
I have mentioned in various articles over the last 16 months the five ways to
get the articles in front of landlords) .... you will have loads of
landlords coming to your letting agency. You won’t get them in month one, nor month four, but
after months six to nine you will and by month twelve to eighteen .. well hold
on tight!
I ghost write for over 48 letting agents in the UK (they
would rather me write the articles than me teach them). To write those
articles, all of which take a hell of a lot of time and require me to be
creative, are nowhere near as exciting as designing specific bespoke adverts
and marketing plans for my clients who employ me on special one off projects,
such as designing Rightmove Featured Agents Adverts that get 2880% more clicks
on them than normal Featured Agent adverts (745 clicks a month in one case and
RM say the average is 25 a month), organising bespoke campaigns which have had
in one instance got thirty landlords
ringing my client in one day from a list of 310 but writing to them is the core
of business and they are extremely important to my clients who use them to
attract landlords. Even writing detailed blog posts, such as the one you are
writing, many people ask why they are so long and give so much info away. It is
important I carry on as will enable me to hit to my goals around my personal
brand, my income, and my financial goals. Because the outcomes are
important, I do the tasks.
That is the down side of this landlord farming process I champion
to get landlords. I have taught 186
letting agents the techniques of writing the articles. You try writing a
different article each and every week, for months on end, about your local
property market... and for months you won’t get one piece of feedback or
business. Its hard work. Writing these articles can boring, mindless, and
mundane, but they are also necessary if you want more landlords, because
growing your letting agency is critical to your success. You can avoid
procrastinating by making these tasks routine. It’s easy to put off writing the
articles I tell the agents I teach, so I recommend they write all four articles
in one afternoon ...and as you only need
one a week .. that’s it for the month. Tackle the most difficult or unpleasant
task once a month and you are sorted. By doing this, you will be doing more
work than most of the distracted, urgency addicted, reactive letting agents you
know. You will be intentional and proactive instead. Problems don’t age well ..
so get them sorted asap.
But it isn’t just down to good diary management, because if
you have support as well, it’s so much easier, especially when those supporting
you are in the same boat as you. That is why we have a self help group, a
community of letting agents in the LANDLORD FARMING CLUB facebook group, where
in excess of 95 letting agents swap ideas on a daily basis on attracting
landlords, writing the articles, regular webinars and sharing little (and big) wins.
These agents might be on their own... but they aren’t alone. By being part of
something larger, we have a FB group where agents who ‘landlord farm’ are
swapping ideas not just about farming, but everything to do with lettings.
Everyone helps each other because that is what the technique is all about .. giving
to receive (and I don’t say that in a religious way, because giving begins the receiving process,
it’s a universal law. You don't give with the intention of receiving but the world
has a way of making things equal .. you might it call karma, you might call it
‘what comes around goes around’ .. but it works .. always has done ..always
will).
So when are you going to stop procrastinating and start
getting yourself more landlords for your lettings agency? Yes the market is
growing but the number of letting agents is growing faster. You can’t afford to
tread water for ever Mr(s) Letting Agent. You might think you are safe, but are
you? Are your landlords that loyal to you or do they just stop because its
better the devil you know? The relationship landlords have with their letting
agent is exactly the same relationship that people have with their bank -
grudging toleration. What if these agents are approaching your landlords? Subtly and carefully... drip drip drip with newsletters
like these https://goo.gl/DIoD36 or this https://goo.gl/CFILub or this https://goo.gl/JmuUb8
....
Can you afford to just let this happen to your agency?
Bottom line is this ...
I guarantee if adopt these principle of writing articles about your
local property market and get them in front of landlords, you will grab their attention,
you will earn their interest and eventually, earn their trust ... and people do
business with people they trust. You
have four options after reading this .
- Do nothing .. yeah, why not, procrastinate ... you don’t need anymore landlords do you and those landlord wanted leaflets and cheap fee deals really drag in the landlords don’t they ...(not)
- Start writing the articles yourself (like the ones in the newsletters). There is no need to pay me one penny to do it. I tell you exactly what you need to do in my blog on how to ‘attract landlords to your lettings agency by landlord farming’ www.landlordfarming.com . I warn you though, it’s very meaty. In excess of 236,000 words in 260 articles going back to December 2013.. and before you ask, do I have it in a concise version – yes I do, but only people who adopt Option 4 get that
- I can ghost write the articles for you – for those busy agents who recognise the value in this type of marketing but don’t have the time or inclination, I can ghost write the articles and show you how to get them in front of landlords
- I teach you how to write the articles - I run a course every couple of months on the system and how to write the articles. I have one place left on the end of May (15) course ... details here .. http://how-to-grow-your-lettings-agency.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/letting-agent-course-in-attracting.html
Kind regards
Christopher
PS .. before I go though, the articles you should write have
to be about your ‘local property market, eg capital growth of house prices in your
town compared to other neighbouring towns, how rents have gone up for 2 beds
but down for 3 beds, why yields are dropping, comparing one town against
another, one housing estate against another, .... talking about changes in tenancy
legislation, how to choose the right tenant, how to present a property, what you
have sold or let this week, Google reviews of your company , s8 vs s21 legalisation
... isn’t landlord farming and if you
just say The average rent is £x and houses prices have gone by y%, but not say
why .. that isn’t landlord farming
either. Landlord farming isn’t cut and
pasting the top three articles about the property maret and chucking on your
blog. You need to write the articles. The articles need to written in a journalist
style, not, here are some numbers without commentary. Do it right .. and you
will beating new landlords off with sticks in 12 to 18 moths time, but do it
wrong, and you will be wasting your time my friends