Setting up your own
business, be it an estate agency, be it a lettings agency or my case, a company
that helps letting and estate agents get more landlords and vendors to use
their agency (ie a freelance business generation), is hard work. When you were an employee, you had to listen
to a ogre (your boss) tell you things that you thought were wrong, incorrect
etc etc ... let me tell you, being your own boss is just the same, you still
have to listen to that ogre’s voice, it’s just that the ogre is the voice in
your head!
I have been self
employed now for just over a year and half and at the start it was hard work,
really hard work. Now the business is starting to do well, the issues of
wondering if there will be enough business walking through the proverbial door
has been replaced with another problem/issue. A problem/issue which I believe
many letting agents and in some respect, estate agents suffer from .... self
discipline or as I like to call it, self-control. Whatever you call it, if you
were to ask my lovely wife (aka Senior Management), she would agree at times in
my personal and business life, is sadly misjudged.
Let me tell you my thoughts about this and what I am doing to improve it.
I see self-control as the ability to keep the commitments
you make to yourself.
Those commitments about ones thoughts, ones actions and
behaviour .. in essence, the way you live your life. Its isn’t about denial, as much as it is
about making restrain one's own impulses, but the choices you make going
forward. You can’t change what has happened, but you can change things going
forward. Self-control is starts in one’s own decisions about what actions you
take in the next minute, next hour, next day,, whether you want to or not, to
get a future result.
Everyone wants to improve themselves, be it that promotion,
a wage rise, being your own boss, having a better house, better holiday.
Different people want different things. Just about anything you would like to
improve about yourself starts with self-control . Self control will enable you to
make the action(s) you need on an hour by hour, day by day basis and from that
long term persistence, you will reach your goal.
What stops you from taking those actions?
It’s that that little voice in your head .. it’s your Diablo, your little devil, your mischievous imp, your personal ogre!
You see, I believe the thing that stops most people
from developing to their full potential is the little ogre inside them. This
ogre is our own inbuilt and well developed ability to justify and vindicate our
own behaviour. I know with my ogre, it’s very persuasive when I am out with the
lads and the choice of, “Shall we have an extra pint for the road”. It has a
PhD in Mañana, the saying the Spanish
have of putting things off until tomorrow. I often hear myself say things to myself
like, ‘got loads of time to do that, I’ll do it tomorrow!’ .. then you know
what happens tomorrow .. another big dose of Mañana!
When your ogre, your devil, your little voice says, ‘Let’s
do it tomorrow, the punters will still be there to call’, what if you kept on
that line of thought, you might end up never calling them.
Letting agents especially seem to fall into this trap
because landlords don’t tend to swap agents regularly. You don’t gain much but
you don’t lose much. It’s easy to sit on a portfolio of 200 managed properties,
losing 10 a year because some landlords are selling up whilst you gain 10 a
year from the odd recommendation and your existing landlords add the odd one or
two properties to their existing portfolio. Sound familiar? Yes, because most
letting agents are like that, and why wouldn’t you be? It’s an easy life,
turning over between £200k to £300k a year (depending where you are in the UK),
with costs of around £130k to £220k a year (again depending where you are in
the UK) .. and you get to see a nice little profit of £60k/£70k/£80k a year ..
nothing to sniff at. Why break into a sweat and try and get more landlords to
use your agency .. no one is leaving you?
.. but that’s the
point. You can start tomorrow, but what if you said that yesterday, last week,
last month, last year, two years ago .. need I go on? The ill effects of Mañana are coming in the form of missed opportunities
and poorer results than you would have had otherwise generated had you been regimented
and self disciplined .. you know it is unavoidable.
Now, if you are happy with your lot, treading water, not
growing, that’s fine. But before you switch off, let me ask you a few
questions..
Firstly ....Why did you start your own lettings or estate
agency? What did you hope to get out of setting up your own agency? How did you
feel when you originally set it up? Was it exciting? What hopes did you have? What
were your original intentions (eg nicer house, work less, decent pennies etc) What
fears did you have? .. In fact, can I
suggest you spend a couple of minutes writing the answers down.
Secondly, Do you ever wonder, now you are one year, two
years, three years, five years, ten years into this project of being your own
agent, of being your own boss, do you ever wonder if this is as good as it’s
ever going to get?
I must ask you, what’s getting in your way? What’s slowing
you down .. in fact, and this is quite
harsh, what is stopping you getting yourself to your original intentions when
you set up? (eg nicer house, work less,
decent pennies etc).
Is it lack of time? Does it feel more like you are in
Kindergarten than managing your staff? Is your life sucked away with property
inspections and deposit disputes, when it should be trazzin’ around the
countryside in your 65 plate Jag-waaaaaar?
Have you lost your mojo? Is it sill as exciting? Or have you joined all the other agents treading water to retirement?
To succeed in
lettings and estate agency, you must be able to get yourself to take action. You
(and only you) can do this .... not the
wife or husband, not your staff, not your mum, you. That little voice, that
little devil, the ogre will be siren like, falsely lulling you into the rocky
shores of phony comfort that the essential actions you need to take today can
be put off until sometime in the future.
Those
important actions are almost always the actions that aren’t burning or critical
but have the highest impact over time. For agents, these activities include
things like prospecting for new clients.
As you might
know, I advocate a system of prospecting
for new clients by attracting landlords and vendors to your agency but writing
articles about your local property market. By becoming the local property
guru, landlords and vendors are attracted to your agency. Interestingly, I had lunch today with
someone, and I told him that if he adopted the principles of the system (a system we call ‘vendor and landlord
farming’ because just like a farmer, we are cultivating and growing landlords
and vendors to use our agency), he would have a successful profitable agency
within 18 months from a cold start
.
I told him,
even with my help in ghost writing the articles, he would have to work like a
dog for six months with no return, not one piece of business, but then slowly
he would start to reap the benefits of what he sown. “But Chris, I want it quicker than that, is
there an easy option, is there an option where I throw money at it and it will
come quicker”, to which I replied, “No”
I tell the
agents WHO CHOOSE to grow their agency, that the most vital thing, is that they
need persistence; and they need a tanker loads of patience in the first 6 to 12
months. They need to control their thoughts, being optimistic, never ever
giving up. Thankfully, we have a self help group, where there are 130+ letting
agents who come together in the ‘landlord farming club facebook group’. The
group is letting and estate agents who adopt the landlord and vendor farming
techniques. We all share ideas, help each other, support each other ... it’s
like being in a big club of letting agents where everyone helps each other. In
the Summer we had a get together and in November, we will have the even bigger ‘Landlord
Farming Summit’. The summit is a full day conference of speakers and learning,
sharing ideas to get lots and lots of landlords and vendors for their agencies.
Having self
control means keeping away from negative thoughts and actions. One of my weaknesses
is social media.. I can waste hours on that, seeing who has liked my posts etc
etc. Another one is constantly checking my emails every 10 minutes .. does
anyone love me to email me? Let me check
..... 10 minutes I return typing this as one of clients asked me a question.
Again, self control should have made me wait until later .. but I thought I
would get back to them straight away .. not finish this blog post!
- Do you want new landlords and vendors in the future?
- Do you want a better life for you, your team, your family?
I can help
you grow your lettings and estate agency, if you want that to happen. Start
creating the kind of value for landlords and homeowners in your town that they
will be confident in recommending to others.
Start reading
books to improve yourself, watch videos ...and if you do want to improve, if
there is only one video I suggest you watch, watch this 18 minute video by
Simon Sinek and if you have seen it before and not watched for a while, watch
it again) ... this is the most inspirational video on self improvement out
there .. here it is https://youtu.be/u4ZoJKF_VuA?t=26s
Look at all the best bosses you have ever had, all the great business leaders, and they all have one thing in common... exceptional self control.
My self
control isn’t good, but I have improved my self control over the last nine months
with the help of a mentor. I have a business coach but also I have asked for
advice and opinion from people in the industry .... and all of them have kindly
given their advice and opinion to help me. I am happy for you pick the phone up
for a chat, if you want .... in fact most people like to be asked for their
help .. try it you may be surprised!
Whether you
have a mentor, a coach or even friends or not whatever the case maybe, self
control sorts the men out from the boys, it allows the top agents to
take the actions that others agents put off or never take. You don’t need to be
a big agent, you don’t need to have a high street office, you don’t need a mega
budget ... but you do need oceans and oceans of self control, because it will be those agents, who have exceptional
self control and desire to perform like a superstar agent that win, AND
they will eventually beat those with greater skill but no discipline or self
control.
Kind regards
Christopher
PS If you
want a chat about anything mentioned in this article, be it self control, be it
landlord and vendor farming, be it courses in writing articles about your local
property market or ghost writers that can write them on your behalf, drop me a
line to christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk