Why do the hard sell when it should be all about the resell....
One of my favourite agency 'guru's' said "If we never got paid from a client on the first transaction - if we only received payment on the second transaction - how different would our business look?"
That was Mark McLeod one of Australia's finest at Ray White their largest group. Its a simple statement but its loaded with context.
Josh Phegan has been coming over here for over a decade on his mission to bring best practice to these shores in terms of prospecting and those businesses that have embraced his methodologies have truly gone from good to great, but is remembering to get in contact with past vendor or applicant really anywhere near best practice ? Josh's latest line to get people thinking like Mark does above is to 'Stop referring to past clients as past clients, they're clients end of.' Personally I'd have a 'Josh Swear Box' in every office and would fine anyone who transgressed, saving up that money to visit Josh when he's back over again to see what else you're missing.
Its true though and can't we aspire to doing more than just the odd letter or phone call if you're lucky around the anniversary of having bought or sold a property. I don't think I've ever seen the gap as great between the best and the worst in the industry. Clearly there has to be some sort of quid pro quo for them talking to you years in advance of them moving again.
That might just be the nosy neighbour angle, with potential vendors just wanting to be kept up to date with the very best information locally. Hyper-local is a phrase often used and the likes of Sprift, Homesearch and Dataloft deliver in spades on this, and clearly as most agencies don't have the resources to invest in 'Research & Trends' departments this is an absolute godsend for being able to stand out from the crowd rather than just regurgitating the same RightMove stats that everyone else is doing, where its not so much Purple Cow as Bland Bull. That's nothing against Right Move btw just that generic is not where anyone wants their marketing to be.
Secondly rather than just offering to go round and give them an annual market appraisal to let them know the price in the current market why not turn it into a loyalty based model, if they commit to your annual property check and end up listing with you then you'll commit to XYZ off your normal fee. The best businesses in agency that truly nurture their clients via customer portals at the moment have the perfect tool for managing this, at the moment thought they're used for quite bland albeit important information, with things like sales progression activity or the ongoing marketing efforts of a property. I've seen little innovative in terms of actual nurturing or prospecting using these portals but please get in touch if I'm talking nonsense as usual and let me know what you're doing?
