You believe are the best letting (estate) agent in your town
or company, hell, you believe you are the best in the UK .. you are, as Tina
Turner would put it, ‘Simply The Best’! That is what you believe, isn’t?
However, have you ever wondered why you aren’t getting the
business you deserve? The reason being is this, it doesn’t matter what you
believe, it’s what the landlord believes that is important (and when I say landlord in this article I
also mean potential house seller vendors for the estate agents reading this –
because this is just as relevant in estate agency as it is with lettings).
Whatever you believe, whatever proof you have to back up
that belief, that belief and proof is simply not enough to get you the
business.
If you want more landlords for your agency, you need to get
the attention, the trust and the action you seek from landlords. Yet, here is
the issue, the people you most want to reach (landlords) are likely to be the
very people that are the most difficult to reach.
You can’t turn a landlords attention on and off like a tap.
It’s not yours to control, it is not yours to take whenever you need it. Then there is the issue of trust - trust comes from within the landlord, their
gut reaction, what they feel about you .. you can’t insist a landlord trusts
you.
However, you can earn attention and if you do it right, you
can earn trust. .. even without ever meeting someone .. and people do business
with people they trust.
Don’t forget the story of the letting agent from Kent who
had 30 landlords ring him up one day to tell him their postcode was wrong,
because Mail Merge had put the wrong postcode on the envelope of 310
newsletters he sent the day before. 310 landlords he had never spoken to, never
done business with, just 310 landlord addresses he had picked up over the years
from Land Reg’ing and Tenant Referencing .
In fact here is the story of theat agent on this short video ..
So why did 30
landlords bother to pick up the phone, because I’ll tell you now, I certainly
don’t ring up Virgin Money Credit cards to tell them, “Hi Virgin Money, you
know those fortnightly letters you have been sending me for the last three
years, trying to sell me a credit card,
I don’t want a credit card, but keep sending them anyway, because I know
you will, but before I go, can you change the postcode, it’s incorrect ... I
would hate to miss out getting my fortnightly letter” .
Let me share with you why they did that.
Most agents Land Reg (for those of you who don’t know, you
can go to Land Registry, type in an address and for £3, you can get the Land
Registry Certificate (LRC). The LRC will 20% to 25% of the time tell you the
home address of the landlord (the other 75% to 80% of the time it says the
landlord lives at the property – a waste but something you have to accept –
however, I do know of people who can find the home addresses of those landlords
(the 75%/80% of landlords whose LRC say they live at the rental property – drop
me a note to christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk and i will pass on their
details)
.. but aside from that .. have you ever wondered even though
you have the landlords home address, the hit rate is still low? Let me share
with you why writing to LRC’s doesn’t work, but did work for a friend in Kent?
All you need are three pound coins, a sales letter and a 1st
class stamp ... you have everything you need to get your proposal in front of a
landlord. You could send as many letters as you liked, to as many landlords as
you liked as long as you had envelopes, stamps and kept pumping in three pound
coins to the LRC making machine . All you needed to do was mail them.
If you targeted landlords of properties that had been on the
market three or four weeks, that should be easy to get a landlord to swap as
they would be getting very nervous, it would be like taking candy from a baby,
this is low hanging fruit .... but
still, why are the hit rates so appalling ...why do agents find it hard to
convert those sort of landlords?
It’s because the agents in the letters were trying to grab
the attention, interest and trust of these landlords, by talking in the letter
abut themselves, their services, their company, their fees ... but nobody in
life likes anyone who just talks about themselves. Instead our friend in Kent
was sending out a monthly newsletter like these ..
In Royal Tunbridge Wells
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0d59TaH3c33Tjd4MTllTGRhT1U/view?usp=sharing
Or Kingston upon Thames https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0d59TaH3c33MWVEMjdZQllzZ1k/view
These agents are earning attention, interest and trust by delivering
anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get
them. (Landlords in Kingston love to read stuff about the Kingston property
market because that is where they own their rental property – just change the
word Kingston in that last sentence to
your town ... it makes sense doesn’t it?
Whatever you believe, whatever proof you have .. that means nothing to a landlord. You have to EARN the privilege to make landlords listen to what you have to say, you have to EARN the privilege to make landlords listen to what you believe and you even have to EARN the privilege to make them interested in what proof you have.....
in a nutshell my friends you have the right to
say whatever you like, you have the right to send as many sales letters, pump
out banner advertising on the tinterweb to as many people as you like ... but you don’t have the right for them to want
to hear what you have to say, you don’t have the right to be listened to .. like all things in life .. you have to
earn it!
The first thing you must earn in attention .. because if you
can get landlords to pay attention to what you have to say, you are half way
there. .. and that is the key thing .. getting landlords to pay attention.
PAY is a key word here, because agents
who adopt the principles of being the
local property guru understand that when
a landlord decides to pay attention,
they are in fact paying you with something quite valuable.... their
TIME. .. and unless you are Doctor Who, you can’t get that time back ...
Landlords (in fact all busy people) only have limited time to focus on things
after they have sorted work and home life.... but everyone who is a landlord
and homeowner is interested in their local property market. Talk about the
local property market with interesting articles on your local property market
and you will earn the attention of landlords
.... don’t waste peoples time, because if that attention is a significant
asset, something to be prized, not wasted.
If you then continue to write good stuff about your local property market, you will then start to earn the landlords trust ... and if you stop writing it, they will miss it. The landlords will look forward to receiving this info, they are in fact then giving permission to listen to what you have to say.
Remember our agent friend from Kent with those 30 landlords
that rang him. The reason they rang was that had received earlier editions of
the newsletter, but on this third edition, because the Postcode was wrong, they
were ringing the agent to correct their postcode , because .. and this is
important .... THEY WERE WORRIED THEY WOULDNT RECEIVE THE NEXT NEWSLETETER IF
THE POSTCODE CONTINUED TO BE WRONG That's permission.
You know we said you had to earn the right .. first you earn
attention, then your earn trust .. and from trust comes permission, because permission
is bit like trying to woe someone in the dating game of finding a partner. Just
like on a first date you would not expect someone to ask you to marry them, you
don't start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right,
over time, bit by bit.
So, that is what our letting agent friend from Kent had to
do .. he earned the right to be heard, the right to be listened to. The reason
your LRC letters aren’t working is – you haven’t earned the right to be heard –
nobody likes to be sold to, nobody wants to hear you spouting on about your
services and how wonderful your agency is.
You as an agent are not entitled to attention and trust of the landlords who use other agents.
I am sorry to disappoint you , but there
isn’t a ARLA panel in London, looking at every agent in your town, allocating
landlords on the basis of some sort of clearly defined scale of
worthiness.
.. but if you are prepared to put the time in, the hardwork
in, and yes, I can help you do it if you need the help, then you can earn the
attention, interest and trust of landlords in your town, because if you can
patiently lead and contribute and demonstrate that the attention you are asking
be spent on you is worthwhile. .. then my friends, I guarantee you, if
you do all these things, you will grow your lettings agency. I guarantee you
will grow your lettings agency by 20% to 30% within 18 months and by the same
amount every 12 months thereafter as this has been proved.
Kind regards
Christopher
PS . Of those 30 landlords who rang our friend, most were
more than happy to give their telephone number, most asked for the agent to
keep in contact with them and some even said they had decided to give this
agent a call as soon as their tenant handed in their notice and they needed a new
tenant
PPS If you need help on the writing of the articles, I
currently ghost write for over 50 letting agents up and down the country (in
fact I ghost all the examples above) – and as part of that, I help you by
mentoring you in all the techniques to deliver that creative content. You can also
gain access to one the UK’s most exclusive clubs for letting agents ...
membership of the LANDLORD FARMING CLUB facebook group, a closed group on
facebook where fellow letting agents share with each other ideas on attracting
landlords. Letting agents give
their ideas and time freely to swap ideas, help each other .. it’s like being
in a club with 140+ competitor agents .. but all of them are happy to swap
ideas with no one trying to compete just help and advise their fellow agents.