How To Get More People To Use Your Lettings and Estate Agency Blog

Never knowingly undersold   .. the John Lewis’s tagline – but what does that exactly mean? They aren’t cheap but you have to admit – they do sell some good stuff. But Have you ever heard of anyone taking them up on the offer of them never knowingly under sold? You see John Lewis aren’t the cheapest .. by a long way. Everyone knows that .. yet their tag line is the tagline…  Never knowingly undersold  .. what does that exactly mean? The website says .. “We set highly competitive prices for all our products, with a dedicated team regularly checking them against other high street competitors. If we find a national high street competitor offering a better nationwide price for the same individual product, sold with the same service conditions, we’ll lower our price to match in all our shops and on our website, including when a competitor is having a sale.” So John Lewis says, if you can find cheaper  with the same service  .. we will match it....

… an ongoing story of how 210 unconnected letting and estate agents help each other to be better estate and letting agents .. helping, guiding, supporting each other … here we go .. Video – seems to be the hot topic of the moment (isn’t everything nowadays) so you see it it all the time in estate and lettings agency .. 99% of the time, the video talks about the agent, how wonderful they are, how brilliant their services, how awesome their company is. The thing is .. nobody cares you, your firm or your services ( apart from you, your boss and your Mum – but she would be proud of anything you did ). Would you care if the local solicitors practice went on line and published graphs on how many conveyancing completions they had done this month? How they were part of a large chain of solicitors? Or their solicitor practice opened late or early? Or their solicitors had won their equivalent of the ESTA’s this month? Or the solicitor had smashed their targets this quarter? .. be honest ...

.... having  connections  to homeowners & landlords and the  knowledge  of what those homeowners & landlords  want .  Its as simple as that..  But this is where we fail as as industry .... do homeowners who might want to sell in 6 or 18 months want to know about how many houses you have sold this week? how you have smashed your targets this month or you have the best click thru rate on Rightmove?  They don't give damn! I don't care, your mother in law doesn't care, homeowners (and landlords) simply don't care .. (.. and why should they - you don't care about them) Agents ... Stop talking about yourselves, your firm or your services .. nobody likes anyone who talks about themselves . Nobody cares (except your Mum and boss) about any of that rubbish.. Nobody wants to know about your click thru rates (except your Mum - but she'd be proud of anything you do), nor the fact you have sold 5 houses in 30 s...

.. if you are an estate or letting agent and you want more people to use your agency, over and above all the others in your town is really hard work. I have walked in your shoes fellow agent and its hard, so 4 years ago, I set out to see if there was another way to attract landlords + vendors to an agency. I noticed that agents were in an industry that the British were obsessed about - the UK property market. But all us agents seem to do is talk about is ourselves. Instead, I have found if you talk about the local property market, .. people will listen to you, then they will seek you out, they will anticipate what you say, they will be attracted to what you say be they are interested in you you say..... and end doing business with you .

If you really want to know why someone didn't choose you and your agency, you're going to have to put a lot more effort into it understanding the homeowner or landlords who rejected you. Blaming cheap fees might not be the reason .. Maybe they liked the other valuer more? Maybe they came across better? Maybe they are better than you? .. But if you don't ask .. How will you know? Even better .. If you want a 'honest' answer .. Get a colleague to ring them?

If you had an advertising budget of £1m a month for your estate agency .. would you be spending it on TV adverts? Purplebricks (my favourite hybrid/online agent) own figures state they are spending a little over that amount on media advertising, so that will include PPC as well, but you must admit, most of that will be going on TV. Watch the estate and lettings agents forums and more importantly, listening to agents and some are really worried about Hybrid and Online Agents.. spend their millions each month on TV ads or overpriced par per click ads. Even ‘Your Move’ are getting in on the act with their TV advert with the ‘last of the Summer Wine meets Estate Agent TV ad. So should we, as an industry, be concerned about Hybrids and Online Agents spending £1m a month on TV advertising? Should the likes of Countrywide and other big brands be spending money TV advertising? Should you be spending money on TV adverts? It obviously works for PB’s as they appear to growing really well. ...

Estate and Lettings Agents ..the world has changed, but the problem isn’t with the hybrids, online agents, it isn’t with Rightmove or OTM … its with ourselves ... we think by having Rightmove and dumping our listings on Facebook and chucking out automated Tweets every hour, on the hour, via Hootsuite will get us more business .. that we are so 21st Century... that isn't social media .. social media entertains us, educates us ... I believe, we are 'mentally' an industry still in the 1980's, trying to compete in the 2010's ... there is such an opportunity for anyone who recognises this. I know what I would do - and if you fancied a natter - give me a tinkle