4 things estate / letting agents FEAR.

Do you ever say these things whilst working in your agency, be you a neg, valuer, property manager, branch manager, area manager, divisional director, independent or corporate .. even owner?

  1. They don’t pay me enough to deal with these types of landlords/ house sellers/ tenants
  2. It’s not worth the risk, colleagues/landlords/ other agents will talk if i c*ck up, it is not good enough, this might not work…
  3. It was their decision, their choice .. it’s not my fault.
  4. My boss will not let me.

… ok, if you have said any of those sentences, choose the sentence number and look at the list of words below, because that is what you really were thinking when you said it.

  1. Disrespect
  2. Fear
  3. Unaccountable
  4. Submissive

I would like you to think for a second. Being compliant, compliance has brought fear into the workplace and fear has brought us moderation, homogenised, average, grey, bland boringness from Dullsville. It’s grit your teeth to the ‘man’, its false, it’s dumbed down false respectability. (You give the impression you respect the client/boss/colleague but deep down you hate their guts) Harsh words .. but true.

The good news about fear is this .. it isn’t going to kill you. A good friend of mine has recently left his important job in one of the big firms in agency. He has no job to go to, but he says its like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He’ll find a job quickly .. he is a good lad. Hell, I did it 13 months ago,. You should of seen the wife’s afce when I rocked up two weeks before last Christmas and told I had handed in my notice. I didnt know what to do, but look at me now. What is meant to be is meant to be. Let me say again ‘Fear wont kill you’. Once you see it, feel it, you have a huge opportunity, the chance to make it better. “But what if I fail?” Let me tell you, you will fail. A better way of asking it could be, “after I fail, what then?”

Now I am not talking about all of you jacking in your jobs or telling the boss to F’off if he/she doesn’t give you a pay rise – there is the rent and mortgage to pay. No my blog reading friends, quite the opposite. I am no voodoo ’Grasshopper’ guru on life and business, in fact I am quite a simple bloke with simple needs (wife, work, my dog, whisky, decent Sav Blanc (none of your cheap sh*T either), Round Table mates and an obsession travelling First Class in trains) but apart from that, I am the UK’s No.2 Guru in helping letting agents get more landlords to use them and I want you to become the property guru of your own town or city.

You see, who gave me my title of ‘UK’s No.2 Guru in helping letting agents’….. I did. I didnt need to go to the Guru Certificate Dept of HM Government (and if you are wondering who the No.1 Guru is – well you need to go to my website to find out!)

To be your town’s PROPERTY GURU, you don’t need any permission from your boss, a signed piece of paper from the Area Manager, you don’t need to hand in your notice, it won’t cost you one penny of your own or your bosses’ money, but if you want I could send you a badge that says ‘Property Guru’ on it .. it lights up and plays the A team theme whilst a gruff US voice says in its in built speaker ‘In 2002, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by an ARLA court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men and ladies promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Essex underground. Today, still wanted by Countrywide, LSL and two big portals, they survive as letting agents of fortune. If you have a problem… if no one else can help… and if you can find them… maybe you can hire… The Property Guru Team’

What it does require is a shedload of patience, a lorry load of hardwork, buckets of time and a belly full effort from YOU. It will take months and months and months before you see one piece of business but in return I warn you, you will enjoy it and it will get you more business if you put the hours in. What after that? Pay rise? Promotion? Hell, even set up your agency?

So what is the first step to becoming your town’s Property Guru? Start a blog about your town’s property market.

How do you do that? Type into Google ‘How do I start a blog’

What do I put into the blog? Look at the 45+ articles Simon has written in Derbyhttp://www.lettingssimon.blogspot.co.uk/ or the 150+ articles Stephen in Milton Keynes http://mkpropertyblog.blogspot.co.uk/ or the 170+ articles that Steve in Chelmsford has written http://chelmsfordproperty.blogspot.co.uk/

How do I write those articles? Learn by coming on one my courses or ask me to write them for you or printing every single last one of the meaty articles, dissecting them into bit size pieces and working out how they have got their figures… and if that looks like too much hard work and effort ? … please refer to paragraph one above!

Christopher Watkin

I teach, guide, support, mentor, consult, counsel, partner many hundreds of UK Estate and Letting Agents in their quest to grow their estate and lettings agencies business. Old school techniques of touting, landlords wanted leaflets, ring us for a free valuation, we have sold this in your street leaflets don't work anymore. There are too many competitor agents .. meaning cheap fees are epidemic, overvaluing is almost a norm to get the stock and don’t even mention about the online/hybrid threat. So a few years ago, I set about looking around the UK and spotted that certain agents (not many mind you) in certain towns were still seen as the ‘go to person on property’, the person the newspaper editor rang up every week for a comment and I looked at what they did and they were doing some thing quite remarkable…. Only one thing but they were doing it so well .. and reaping the reward in terms of decent listings and decent fees, happy staff, decent sales pipeline and exchange income, managed lettings portfolios in the many hundreds .. but more importantly, they really enjoyed the job… they enjoyed getting up in the morning and people looked up to them Over 400 agents around the UK are on a mission to change the way our Estate and Lettings agency profession is perceived and looked upon, doing it town by town, city by city. I guide these 400 agents, teach them, mentor them and support them to be seen in a different light, to be seen as the ‘go to person for property’, actually be the ‘local property expert’ and prove it. Christopher Watkin 07950 147 572 christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk

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