80% of Letting Agents are Lazy

You all say you want more landlords, more properties to manage and more rental properties on your books.. but 80% of the people reading this won’t be doing anything about it .. Why? Because you are lazy. Harsh words Christopher but it is something I truly believe. I am guilty of laziness in other aspects of my life, so I am certainly not perfect. However, my posts aren’t about weight loss or getting round to jobs around the house (just ask Mrs W – aka Senior Management – I am the king of putting jobs off around the house),my posts are about helping letting agents get more business, more landlords, more properties, so everyone can earn more, earn more commission, more profit .. so you can better yourself and provide for yourself and your family.

However, the answer to getting more landlords isn’t easy. I keep telling you what to do, but actually doing what I tell you to do is something completely different. You should stop looking for short cuts and do the work you need to do to succeed. I am not one of these motivational ‘humcum’ speakers, but a good old fashioned agent who discovered whilst working in some very senior roles in the lettings and estate agency business, the success of growing your lettings agency comes from doing the things that most letting agents don’t want to do and more importantly, when they need to be done.

...and here is the killer, I said earlier it was laziness. I said it to provoke a reaction. The word I really believe why 80% wont do this, is not laziness, but procrastination.

Wiki defines Procrastination is the practice of carrying out less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent ones, or doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones, and thus putting off impending tasks to a later time, sometimes to the "last minute" before a deadline.

When you procrastinate... just like putting two magnets together of the same pole, they repel, they push away from each other .. that my letting agent friends is what you are doing. Because landlords are inherently lazy at moving letting agents, you don’t need to do much work, because it will always be there .. so you think, ‘Doesnt matter, I have nice little office with 200 properties, nice staff, we loose a few but get a few each year .. no stress .. let’s not rock the boat ..lets keep treading water’.

I guarantee you Mr and Mrs Letting Agent this (and you don’t need to come on one my courses to learn how to write the articles about the local property market this nor if you haven’t got the time, you don’t need to ghost write the articles for you) .... if you write articles about your local property market, write like a journalist would write it, ensure it is written in a narrative manner, ensuring you stick to the four stages of your article (see my blog for this .. I have written about this many times in the blog) ... and you get those articles out there in your town (again in blog if you can be bothered to look I have mentioned in various articles over the last 16 months the five ways to get the articles in front of landlords) .... you will have loads of landlords coming to your letting agency. You won’t get them in month one, nor month four, but after months six to nine you will and by month twelve to eighteen .. well hold on tight!

I ghost write for over 48 letting agents in the UK (they would rather me write the articles than me teach them). To write those articles, all of which take a hell of a lot of time and require me to be creative, are nowhere near as exciting as designing specific bespoke adverts and marketing plans for my clients who employ me on special one off projects, such as designing Rightmove Featured Agents Adverts that get 2880% more clicks on them than normal Featured Agent adverts (745 clicks a month in one case and RM say the average is 25 a month), organising bespoke campaigns which have had in one instance got thirty landlords ringing my client in one day from a list of 310 but writing them (my cleint's aricles) is the core of my business and they are extremely important to my clients who use them to attract landlords. Even writing detailed blog posts, such as the one you are writing, many people ask why they are so long and give so much info away. It is important I carry on as will enable me to hit to my goals around my personal brand, my income, and my financial goals... in fact ..

That is the down side of this landlord farming process I champion to get landlords. I have taught   186 letting agents the techniques of writing the articles. You try writing a different article each and every week, for months on end, about your local property market... and for months you won’t get one piece of feedback or business. Its hard work. Writing these articles can boring, mindless, and mundane, but they are also necessary if you want more landlords, because growing your letting agency is critical to your success. You can avoid procrastinating by making these tasks routine. It’s easy to put off writing the articles I tell the agents I teach, so I recommend they write all four articles in one afternoon ...and as you only need one a week .. that’s it for the month. Tackle the most difficult or unpleasant task once a month and you are sorted. By doing this, you will be doing more work than most of the distracted, urgency addicted, reactive letting agents you know. You will be intentional and proactive instead. Problems don’t age well .. so get them sorted asap.

But it isn’t just down to good diary management, because if you have support as well, it’s so much easier, especially when those supporting you are in the same boat as you. That is why we have a self help group, a community of letting agents in the LANDLORD FARMING CLUB facebook group, where in excess of 95 letting agents swap ideas on a daily basis on attracting landlords, writing the articles, regular webinars and sharing little (and big) wins. These agents might be on their own... but they aren’t alone. By being part of something larger, we have a FB group where agents who ‘landlord farm’ are swapping ideas not just about farming, but everything to do with lettings. Everyone helps each other because that is what the technique is all about .. giving to receive (and I don’t say that in a religious way, because giving begins the receiving process, it’s a universal law. You don't give with the intention of receiving but the world has a way of making things equal .. you might it call karma, you might call it ‘what comes around goes around’ .. but it works .. always has done ..always will).

So when are you going to stop procrastinating and start getting yourself more landlords for your lettings agency? Yes the market is growing but the number of letting agents is growing faster. You can’t afford to tread water for ever Mr(s) Letting Agent. You might think you are safe, but are you? Are your landlords that loyal to you or do they just stop because its better the devil you know? The relationship landlords have with their letting agent is exactly the same relationship that people have with their bank - grudging toleration. What if these agents are approaching your landlords? Subtly and carefully... drip drip drip with newsletters like these https://goo.gl/DIoD36 or this https://goo.gl/CFILub or this https://goo.gl/JmuUb8 .... Can you afford to just let this happen to your agency?

Bottom line is this ... I guarantee if adopt these principle of writing articles about your local property market and get them in front of landlords, you will grab their attention, you will earn their interest and eventually, earn their trust ... and people do business with people they trust. You have four options after reading this ..

1. Do nothing .. yeah, why not, procrastinate ... you don’t need anymore landlords do you and those landlord wanted leaflets and cheap fee deals really drag in the landlords don’t they ...(not)
2. Start writing the articles yourself (like the ones in the newsletters). There is no need to pay me one penny to do it. I tell you exactly what you need to do in my blog on how to ‘attract landlords to your lettings agency by landlord farming’ landlordfarming.com . I warn you though, it’s very meaty. In excess of 236,000 words in 260 articles going back to December 2013.. and before you ask, do I have it in a concise version – yes I do, but only people who adopt Option 4 get that
3. I can ghost write the articles for you – for those busy agents who recognise the value in this type of marketing but don’t have the time or inclination, I can ghost write the articles and show you how to get them in front of landlords
4. I teach you how to write the articles - I run a course every couple of months on the system and how to write the articles. I have one place left on the end of May (15) course ... details here .. https://how-to-grow-your-lettings-agency.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/letting-agent-course-in-attracting.html

Kind regards

Christopher

PS .. before I go though, the articles you should write have to be about your ‘local property market,  eg capital growth of house prices in your town compared to other neighbouring towns, how rents have gone up for 2 beds but down for 3 beds, why yields are dropping, comparing one town against another, one housing estate against another, .... talking about changes in tenancy legislation, how to choose the right tenant, how to present a property, what you have sold or let this week, Google reviews of your company , s8 vs s21 legalisation ... isn’t landlord farming and if you just say The average rent is ￡x and houses prices have gone by y%, but not say why .. that isn’t landlord farming either. Landlord farming isn’t cut and pasting the top three articles about the property maret and chucking on your blog. You need to write the articles. The articles need to written in a journalist style, not, here are some numbers without commentary. Do it right .. and you will beating new landlords off with sticks in 12 to 18 moths time, but do it wrong, and you will be wasting your time my friends