Peter Knight

Why should I instruct you?

One of the first questions I ask a new estate agency client is “if I was a home owner, please tell me why I should instruct you rather than another estate agent?” The answers are very often the same and include things such as: “long established”, “high quality marketing”, “experts in our area” and “professional.” It really is quite amazing how often these nominalisations are trotted out and what’s more, when I ask for substantiation such as “show me your ‘high quality marketing’” I frequently find it’s no better than any other agent, indeed sometimes its worse. But what really lights my blue touch paper is when an agent describes himself, and his company, as “professional” (which the Oxford English dictionary describes as “doing a certain kind of work as a fulltime occupation”) – every estate agent is a professional, even the really poor ones – if you mean something else then say so but please don’t tell me you’re a professional as if this somehow separates you from the pack, it doesn’t.

I used to think that John McGrath’s answer: “your home is worth more with McGrath” was the best I’d heard but last month, when I spent a week with the senior directors and managers of Romans, (developing a new strategy to help make this brilliant business even more successful), Managing Director Peter Coles said “but that’s rubbish, an estate agent doesn’t define the price, the market does.” We debated this point and came to the conclusion that with the data available from Rightmove, Zoopla and TDPG not to mention the Land Registry and dozens of surveys and reports each month there really is no mystique to house prices any more. The days when an enquiry about the price a property sold for prompted the reply: “well, I’m not allowed to tell you exactly but I can say it was very close to the asking price” are in the distant memory, now every detail, from how long the property has been marketed to it’s original asking price and the history of price adjustments, are all available for everyone to see, agent and buyer alike. The key differential between one estate agency and another is therefore the experience the client will suffer/tolerate/enjoy as they sell and buy or let or rent. And of course as just about every agent will claim they can make it hassle free* (*as possible) the client is none the wiser until it’s too late in many cases.

Although the results aren’t all in yet, The Property Academy’s Home Moving Trends survey, now in its fourth year, is so far showing that 40% of people have lived in their homes for 10 years or more, indeed 10% for more than 25 years. The survey also confirms that people spend very little time looking for a property before putting their own on the market – 30% in fact did so before viewing a single one. What this adds up to is that many people suddenly decide to move, it’s not something they plan a long time in advance, often as a consequence of a life stage event (although in around 30% it’s a lifestyle driver), and despite their lack of experience make decisions around the appointment of their estate agent very quickly, almost instinctively. Indeed, when we asked people why they appointed one agent rather than another 63% said “the one I instinctively trusted the most.”

The key therefore, to winning instructions, is to be trustworthy, which Stephen Covey describes in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as “requiring the presence of both character and competence in equal measure.” However, simply telling people, “I’m a trustworthy estate agent,” is probably not going to work! Instead you have to communicate your trustworthiness in ways which are self-evident. This is easier with the competency aspect as you can prove your expertise through examples of properties sold, market share, etc but it’s harder to prove your character and this is made even more difficult when you consider that over half of the people we surveyed only met with one or two estate agents, which means that you’re being largely judged online and in the media. I think that estate agents need to concentrate much more on communicating their character and appealing to the emotional drivers of their clients rather than the current fashion for simply promoting facts and figures and appealing to the rational. After all, how many rational clients do you have on your books right now?

The sweet smell of success by Peter Knight

I read how the internet almost went into meltdown following 5.2 million views on You Tube for the latest commercial for Old Spice. “Old Spice” I thought, my granddad used to smell of that! I checked that I had read it correctly and yes, 5.2 million people tuned in to watch an advert for possibly the oldest of male fragrances.

At the time of writing, views of the commercial have risen to 15,874,611and possibly might have trebled again by the time you read this. In addition there are many variations, copies and spoofs of the ad some of which have been seen over 10 million times as well.

So over 15 million people have watched the commercial, for zero cost, other than the production, which is impressive by any standard. But are they the right 15 million and what impact has the commercial had on sales?

According to data experts Neilsen, in the last month sales of old spice have increased by a whopping 107%. So, this viral campaign has worked very well and it begs the question can this medium work for all businesses and estate agency in particular?

A viral campaign is one which, as the name suggests, acts like a virus being passed from one person to another. I’ve just asked Ann-Marie, Hayley, Hollie, Sharon and Sonya (the five women in closest proximity to my desk) and this very unscientific survey confirmed they were all aware and had seen the old spice commercial (although none had been persuaded to buy some for their husbands, boyfriends or brothers just yet) and each had received the ad from a friend who in turn had received it from a friend and so on. No doubt you might have received several virals, perhaps the German Coast Guard, “what are you sinking about” (Berlitz), Little Gordon (caterer.com) and Kylie Minogue riding a mechanical bull (Agent Provocateur). But whilst these stand out there are hundreds of thousands that don’t. Videos on You Tube receive over 2 billion views every day, 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute indeed more video can be found on You Tube in the next 60 days then appeared on all USA TV for the first 60 years – in other words everyone’s at it and very few get it right.

Successful virals are either funny, sexy, mind-blowing or best of all, all three combined. So the first thing you need to consider is can your company/product/service be presented in this manner? And I believe the answer for 90% of estate agencies is a resounding “yes.” However, if I asked you, “are you prepared for your business to be made fun of or to be portrayed in a way some will find offensive?” then I will gamble that most of you will say “no.” So here’s why so many virals, and for that matter estate agency communications generally, fail – they aren’t funny/clever/sexy enough to be passed on. Virals work when they are edgy, push boundaries, break taboos and potentially upset some people, perhaps more people than they please. Are you prepared to do this?

Business is a serious business but many of us would do well to stop for a moment and ask if it always has to be so and whether we can communicate in a way which entertains, amuses or even arouses our target audience rather than boring them as so many communications unfortunately do. The trouble is our tendency is to be conservative and eliminate risk so whilst you could potentially create something for negligible cost which might cause a 107% increase or more in sales, the majority of you will shy away and be scared off. Which is a shame, because if something that smells like my granddad can be an overnight hit just think what you can achieve.

I am not a number

Completely out of the blue, 02 sent me a text the other day offering me a 40% discount at a Hilton hotel. Barclays also sent me one saying that if I'm stranded abroad (I was in the UK at the time) I can call their 24 hour helpline. Some random number has just texted me to say "our records indicate you may be entitled to 3750 pounds for the accident you had" - what accident, I wondered? These are just a few examples of how many companies, mostly very large ones, get it completely wrong with their communications. By treating me as a number rather than a customer and blanket texting in the hope that a small percentage of recipients will respond they incur my wrath at wasting my time with their nasty intrusive behaviour. Hilton get a double black mark (which is a shame as I've praised their service in previous columns) as I now wonder why, as one of their gold card holders, I receive a smaller discount than any and every 02 customer? Barclays also score a home goal as I was led to understand their security would mean they will never text me and any communication to my mobile should be treated highly suspiciously.

By contrast I've just been reminded that I'm having my haircut on Saturday. The text from Headmasters always comes 48 hours before my appointment with a request that I confirm by texting "Yes" back, which I always do. In October I'll receive another text but this one will have something extra, a 10% discount included - how do I know this, well it's my birthday next month and every year Headmasters gives me a 10% discount for my anniversary cut and I have no doubt that they will do this for the fifth year running. This is in addition to the 25% discount I also receive for being a member of their club (membership is free) and I've just been entered into their free drawer to win a holiday in the Cayman Islands.

I'm flying to Nairobi on Monday to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for lung cancer research (if you're feeling generous you can support me at www.justgiving.com/team-hall ) and before I leave for Heathrow I'll receive 3 texts from Addison Lee. The first will confirm my booking, the second that my driver is on the way and finally, and always on time, a text to say my driver has arrived. This last text will state: "If necessary feel free to contact your driver on his mobile (number) and the vehicle is Ford Galaxy reg (number)."

Headmasters and Addison Lee understand how to use text messages very effectively. Headmasters only text me when it’s relevant and appropriate and their reminder service has substantially reduced the number of no-shows. Addison Lee understand the stresses their customers experience, particularly on airport runs, and seek to remove these with timely texts which reassure.

I find it surprising that many companies don't seem to take any note of customers preferences nor learn from previous experiences. Take a walk down any residential street in the UK and you'll see "NO Junk Mail" signs on letterboxes, check the permissions on any PC and you'll most likely find junk settings set to a high level and apparently over 15 million people have registered with the telephone preference service to avoid cold calls. How many times do we need to tell big companies to stop bothering us? How many clues do these giants of commerce need that their lack of consideration turns potential customers and fans into enemies? And talking of fans, if the rules of texting are ignored then see what’s going down on Facebook and Twitter. There are hundreds of examples of companies using these mediums for sales promotion and once again applying a blunt instrument approach to try and generate business rather than seeking to woo customers and build relationships.

Communication has always been about saying the right thing to the right people in the right way at the right time and this principle is being broken more frequently than ever it feels. Just because you can text gazillions of people at once doesn’t mean you should. Just because you it’s cheap to tweet and post on Facebook doesn’t excuse your doing so indiscriminately. Treat your customers like human beings, (note that’s what they are by the way) not numbers.