Are Letting Agents Trustworthy?
” Mr/s Letting Agent … if a landlord likes you, they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they will do business with you.”
So it,s all about trust .. yes .. but how do you prove trust to a landlord if you don’t have the property?
How can you prove trust to someone you don’t know and unlikely to meet? You can’t look up landlords in Linkedin, the tinterweb or the Yellow Pages. Landlords don’t publish the fact they are a landlord (no one walks around with a badge that says “I’m a landlord” do they) .. so in a nutshell, you have to prove trust to a person (landlord) but you don’t know who they are, where they are and have never met.
It all starts with groundwork .. the better foundations, the better system you have in the place, the greater the chance for victory. Next up is empathy, which is all about building trust and rapport with the potential landlord. The focus in this step is on the landlord, not on you and is a continuous process. You should relate to the landlord through the entire process and by doing so you are continually establishing, building and maintaining trust, empathy and rapport. Next you need to ‘drill down’. By drilling down, you can identify the real needs, issues, opportunities and concerns of the potential landlord (eg what keeps them up at night and what excites them). By focusing on the needs, wants and desires of the landlord, you discover the real opportunities or problems.
How do you do that .. that’s the easy part .. I tell you exactly what to do in these two videos … we call the technique – landlord farming
Each one is only 3 minutes long – Part 1
Part 2 ..
Where is the catch on landlord farming Chris? There’s always a catch!
Yes, there is a catch
The catch is this, trust takes a long time to earn. This is isn’t a quick fix/quick win strategy for letting agents, this landlord farming is a long term strategy and hence why the corporate’s won’t touch this with a barge pole … it’s all about monthly KPI’s to them.
If you’re an agent, who can only see to the end of month to hit your targets, landlord farming isn’t for you. You are too short term’ist. If you are an impatient agent, landlord farming isn’t for you. But if you recognise that lettings is a long term game, that once you have a landlord, you tend to keep them for life, then what is six months in the whole scheme of things to do something different on your marketing, which if done properly, I guarantee works.
I ask, how long is your long term Mr(s) Letting Agent? A simple question with an answer that’s difficult to quantify. Mr(s) Letting Agent, are you willing to give up half a day a week plus one hour a day, plus spend (those on a modest budget £90 ish a month but you can spend more if you want to) in the coming six months in exchange for a trickle of landlords after six months, a steady flow after 12 to 18 months and floods of them in the years to come?
..or are you going to keep going with the short term?
Because I tell you this Mr(s) Letting Agent.. you can either continue on with your month to month short term’ism, hitting your monthly KPI’s in a ‘Groundhog Day / Tom Cruise Edge of Tomorrow’ hamster wheel existence, eighteen times over the next eighteen months and you know you will be no further on than today, hand to mouth, scrabbling around each month to hit your targets and you will be in the same position you are today. You know it, I know it
The long term is not the sum of all your short terms. Long term is a choice.
If you want more information on landlord farming, I write a blog with over 240 posts on finding and attracting landlords. I show you what you need to do to get more landlords for your lettings agency .. link here .. http://how-to-grow-your-lettings-agency.blogspot.co.uk/
If run your own agency, and play the long game, another option is that I can you do most (well the hard part) of this landlord farming for you – email me for details (email below). I can help you grow your lettings agency by at least 20% within 18 months if you learn from what I advise/show you to do .. but it’s hard work…. again though, I ask .. long term or lots of little short terms added together?
However, for all you employee’s .. I leave you with this thought .. if you work for a firm that is very short term ‘ist, but your goals are long term, there is something you can do. I fully appreciate you can’t jeopardise your current role, as it pays the rent and buys the food. What if I could show you, as a Neg, as a Lister, as a Property Manager or as a Branch Manager, be you lettings or sales, something you could do to break that cycle? Something that would be acceptable in plain sight of your boss, they would love you for it, but in reality you would be doing it for yourself, so you could either earn a lot more money in your current job in 12 / 18 months time or go elsewhere to another employer .. even set up your own agency ? Referring to the third paragraph, you would be creating the groundwork … you don’t even need to spend the £90 a month (see above) .. it doesn’t need to cost you a penny .. just your time.
If you would like to know, then we are having a webinar on Tuesday, 31st March 2015 at 7pm in the evening. There are only 25 places and they will go on a first come, first served basis. There will be no interaction and your participation won’t be published .. so if you want to know what you should do, to better yourself and play the long game, join the webinar .. send an email to Christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk to get yourself on the webinar. I am not recording the webinar, so if you don’t attend, you won’t know what you can do to better yourself….. what have you got to lose?
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