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

59.9% of Grantham Voters voted to leave the EU – What now for the 14544 Grantham Landlords and Homeowners? It’s 5.50am as I start to type this article and David Dimbleby has just announced the UK will be leaving the EU as the final votes are counted. As most of the polls suggested a Remain Vote, it came as a surprise to most people, including the City. The Pound has dropped 6% this morning after the City Whiz kids got their predictions wrong and MP’s from the Remain camp are using words like “challenging times ahead”. .. and now the vote has been made .. what next for the 11,169 Grantham homeowners especially the 6,224 of those Grantham homeowners with a mortgage? The Chancellor in the campaign suggested property prices would drop by 18%. Using Treasury estimates, their method of calculating this was tenuous at best, but focused around the abrupt and hasty increase in UK interest rates, which in turn would raise the cost of mortgages, and therefore lower demand for pro...

A few days ago, I published an article about the  ‘3 steps to get more stock for your estate agency’  and the number of viewers for my article was much higher than normal for one of my posts. You see, British people in the 21 st  Century are captivated to the idea that success has a formula. Do A then B, then C, then D and you get the megaprize.. the jackpot .. the secret weapon .. and you have to admit ..its rather attractive .. almost addictive? If you Google ‘catchy headlines for blogs and social media’, they will always tell you to put numbers in your titles .. The 3 steps to get this .. the 4 way to get that, 5 for this and 6 for this … All of us (me included) are lured by the notion of ‘the 5 stages to this or that to what you want’. If the post has got a number .. especially if it gives us something we want … we are certain to click on it. .. BTW … I also appreciate the irony of the title of this post And so we lured into self help books and courses, g...

Many estate and letting agents believe the biggest challenge they have is creating more brand awareness. If you could only get on the radar of potential homeowners and landlords, then many of your problems would disappear… wouldn’t they? And yet very well known companies/brands like Austin Reed, JJB, HMV, Comet, Nokia Blockbusters, Woolies and BHS that had built awareness for decades struggled to remain viable and went bust or were gobbled up by their competitors. These companies’ biggest problem wasn’t getting on the punter’s radar,  it was keeping the punter on  their  radar. Companies/brands like Virgin, Apple, Aldi, Lidl, John Lewis, Dyson and M&S have thrived and become important to us in recent times. They have kept us, the punter, in their mind .. not the other way round. These companies/brands remain  relevant  because they see us as people, not because they made us more aware of their company or brand. Leaflets through the door or newspaper...

This is a copy of an email I sent to an agent in Norwich last week You should substitute the word Norwich for your  town, city or suburb... then it will make complete sense  The three steps to getting  more stock Step 1 People like to deal with the best person for the job in all aspects of life .. the person who knows what they are doing ... so the homeowners and landlords of Norwich will ask out the best Norwich estate /letting agent for the free val on their Norwich property .. the agent who knows the Norwich property market like the back of their hand ..  the property guru of Norwich    100% of Norwich  homeowners live in  Norwich ( obvious but often the most simple things are ) and 40% to 60% of Norwich Buy to let landlords live in Norwich   Step 2 Norwich Homeowners and Norwich BTL landlords are interested .. one might say obsessed about the value of their property in Norwich  ...

You all might laugh at the Purplebricks and Yopa’s of this world and post comments online about them being rubbish, saying stuff like their service is cr*p, they get paid on the listing – not the sale, they aren’t local, they don’t offer a great service, they haven’t got people on the ground, they run it from their kitchen table etc etc … and yes, I would agree with you on all those points .. but most of you agents aren’t doing anything to counter the threat of them ….. apart from posting comments from behind the desks of your expensive High Street premises. Remember, the online / hybrid market has no more than 4% to 5% of the market .. this is not a time to panic .. yet! Interestingly, I have had many phone calls from High Street agents asking my opinion if they should offer two services …… a High Street offering and an Online Agent offering at the same time?\ The answer is yes … but only if you can answer yes to either of these scenarios.. You are a regional player and yo...

https://youtu.be/SGvTy2JbI-A A 3 minute video on how to succeed in the 21st century as an estate and letting agent. More videos on being a successful letting and estate agent can be found on my Youtube channel  https://goo.gl/d3A9tq

(part 2 can be found here -  http://how-to-grow-your-lettings-agency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/beating-purplebricks-and-yopa-at-their_9.html ) Dating vendors and landlords Every estate agent must offer the prospective house seller (or landlord in the case of letting agents) a reason, almost, a motivation (some might say incentive) for putting their hand up and volunteering to give their email address. So if we look back at dating, on the these dating sites, you need a decent picture of your self with lots of GOSH (whatever that is), because you have to offer something that makes it thought-provoking and interesting enough to go out on a first date. A first date, after all, represents a large investment in time, pound notes and self-esteem. So there better be reason enough to volunteer. After the first date, if you don’t give a motive to continue dating, your new potential house seller or landlord (and your new potential date) will decline you a second chance. If you d...