Where do babies (ooops free vals) come from?

August 24, 2017

How many agents reading this know exactly WHY the last ten (twenty, thirty, forty, hundred etc etc) potential house sellers rang your agency for a free val?

Out of the 20, 30, 50, 100 agents in your town .. why you?

I am not talking about the box the Neg ticked … I mean a real deep down finding out why, a question that can only be really found out by the Valuer, face to face, drilling really deep,  when you are sat on the sofa giving your pitch?

What aspect of your marketing worked so well … so that you can keep repeating it?

Was it the campaign you started last week – or the marketing campaign you did last month – or six months ago, or the fact you sold their friends house 2 years ago or something else?

“Your name popped into our head”, isn’t a good enough reason …. And if it is .. you should be worried.

My intuition tells me most agents will accept as many free valuations as they can without knowing how and why the punter rang you.

Let me give you five questions to get you started on finding out more

  1. How did your last potential property seller that rang you for the free val find you?
  2. What were they looking for when they found you?
  3. Why did they choose you?
  4. What problem are they eager for you to help them with?
  5. What part of the assurances you gave at the free val do they supremely want to believe?

The next listing comes from understanding how they answered these questions

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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