As soon as a company achieves substantial
market power, it's sometimes irresistible for it to not listen any longer.
Being a big player in a
market, able to exhort others with arm twisting and market power feel more effectual
and effective than pleasing and listening.
Companies like British
Telecom and their broadband provder firm OpenReach are like with near
monopolies, suffer from this take it or leave it attitude, and some of the
Banks suffer from this because they know people won’t leave them, have lost their
listening skills and instead respond by expressing their power. Shouting from megaphones that they are simply the biggest and
best in town..and if you don’t like it .. tough titties – take it or leave it
This deliberate ignorance
and lack of engagement can last years, but it never lasts forever. Someone who
listens better eventually shows up and changes the game.
… and so as Banks have
become lazy .. some might say Letting agents have become the same.
A lot of Letting agents,
especially the chains with their call centre management depts, take their 10% management
fee as a right. They don’t offer the landlord a service that is remarkable. But
don’t think you independents are getting away scot-free .. many of you are
lazy. Seeing your landlords as cash cows … and you don’t go the extra mile
because you know the landlords wont swap agents
.. but what if you are a
letting agent that does listen, a letting agent that instead of shouting from
megaphone, turns that megaphone around meaning the megaphone turns into amplifier
.. so you can listen to landlords.
All landlords want is
someone to care .. and I mean look you in the eye and believe you when you say,
“I will look after your rental property as if it were my own”
And if you listen, and
engage and please these landlords, be they with your agency or competitor
agents, these landlords in turn will want to hear what you have to say… and if
you regularity share your ideas with consistency, with persistence .. they will
listen .. because the best way to beat the big boys in lettings is not to make a
lettings agency other landlords will want… no its to first listen to them, then
engage with them, then build a relationship and trust comes from those
relationships and if you believe we are in a people business (and not a
property business) .. people do business with people they like and trust