Did you spill my pint Mr/s Letting Agent?
I met a potential client last week in London. It was 5.30pm, and had already seen two clients in London that day. However, he was in London as he had come down to meet some old work colleagues for a lemonade shandy (or three) and it was the only time we could meet up. The plan was for his mates to have a beer on one table, whilst we chatted on the other, discussing what I could do for his letting agency. I could then go home and he could carry on with his friends.
Regular readers will know I strongly advocate newsletters as part of the ‘landlord farming’ strategy. I attach the example I showed him http://goo.gl/DIoD36 which is onKingston upon Thames. One of the articles was about Cambridge Road Estate vs North Kingston River Road’s ..(its on the back page of the PDF) . My potential clients friend who unbeknown to myself, came from Kingston, was given a copy of the newsletter.
He nearly spilt some of his very unreasonably priced pint of lager (£9 a pint) when he read the headline of this particular story. Why? Because the head line said,“Cambridge Road Estate property market has outperformed the North Kingston River Road’s property market by 105%”. Now to give you some background and if you don’t know Kingston, The Cambridge Road Estate is a 1960’s high rise local authority area with its fair share of issues. It’s own tenants organisation say about it “The Cambridge Road Estates are listed nationally as in the top 2% area ofdeprivation with an estimated refugee population of 38%” whilst the North River Road’s in Kingston are considered the cream of the cream when it comes to up market Victorian/Edwardian semi detached living. You couldn’t have two more polar opposite housing markets, and we are saying the Cambridge Road Estate’s property market has outperformed the North River Road’s ..
You can see why it would raise an eyebrow!
If you read the story, you will see it’s a classic high yield vs capital growth article, that I talk about regularly on the Facebook ‘LANDLORD FARMING GROUP’. You can’t do many of these a month, but they most certainly catch the attention and interest of the landlords .. hell it even makes some people spill their pint!
I love things that blow my mind …. the first time I heard Pink Floyd at Live8, the first time I saw films like ‘Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Green Mile’, the first sip Ardbeg Provenance (whisky), My Mrs’s Egg and bacon sarnie and Caitlin Moran’s articles from the Saturday Times. Let’s face it, people love to have their minds blown. I do and I know you do …… even though you are an estate agent or letting agent. We are all changed by that feeling of seeing or learning something perfectly new — that feeling we call awe … as in awesome!
If we are going to get more landlords to use our lettings agency, you need to tell a story, a story that inspires, that makes them go .. whoa! I promise you, landlords are going to be more compelled to share if they are moved by what you have said, because that is the secret to really spectacular online content.
At a time when the volume of material for people to read and watch is exponentially growing, being able to grab landlords’ attention online is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you can invoke interest and amazement in the content you create and share, you stand a better chance at making those landlords your landlords.
If you want to blow the mind of other landlords in your town, then you have t talk about things that will grab their attention and be interesting …. it’s that easy! If you want a chat on how I could write these articles for your town or even teach you how to write them yourself instead, then we need to talk!
PS Some of you will just want to go and write these yourself without any guidance from myself .. that’s fine… but just before you do, writing these stories without proper coaching and guidance could prove dangerous to your health. The stories are written in four parts (I teach this on my landlord farming course). If you are going to write these types of articles yourself, you must adhere to the four parts of the article. I know of one client who missed out the vital third element of the article, and was slated to hell with awful comments on Facebook by the residents of the upmarket area. Put the third element in, and you wont have an issue .. not one.
PPS If you want to know what the third, even all four elements are of the articles you need to write, drop me a line and we can have a chat or you could join me on my monthly webinar on Tuesday, 10th February 2015 at 4.15pm. They aren’t recorded, so if you aren’t there, you will miss it!
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