As we travel through the current CoronaVirus crisis the dust is ‘starting to settle’, panic is less and we are able to see further ‘down the road’.
At the same time just like a silver lining, new opportunities have emerged around ‘the panic’ for those that are proactive and dedicated to being focussed on property management, and competing on service and value instead of with ‘cheaper fees’.
This GROWTH opportunity is all about your reactive competitors and their stressed owners/clients.
There are many ‘reactive agents’ that have not communicated well with their clients (or not at all), and a lock-down situation has ‘caught them out’ as they were not able to adapt to virtual inspection technology to lease or inspect property under lockdown conditions.
If they have been mainly ‘sales’ focussed with little attention or care for their property management division, now is your time to take advantage of this situation if your real estate business is really focussed on property management.
Because of this, growth strategies have emerged (the first FOUR) as reactive agents have left their property owners stressed and unsure.
Property Owners are looking for leadership and confidence RIGHT NOW and are willing to transfer their business to another agent, largely because of this.
If you can provide them peace of mind right now, now is your time to SHINE!
Here’s HOW.
1- Broadcast yourself with Educational Videos
If you can create a series of educational videos that answer all the BIG stress-points that owners have like ‘what happens if the tenant can’t pay the rent’ or ‘how do you lease my property in lockdown conditions’ and ‘pain point’ questions like this.
What’s the most common question your owners are calling you about? Do a series of educational videos advising on how you have dealt with these issues.
Send them as youtube links to your owners and even SMS the youtube links to your owners.
You can also broadcast these on your Facebook and LinkedIn pages, as well as with paid Facebook Ads to your owners/email list, engagement audiences (Facebook Page comments/likes/shares) as well as to a ‘look-alike’ audience, likely being the owners that are managed by your competitors.
2- Call your Previous Prospective Owners
Go through your prospects’ contact list owners who approached you in the past, but didn’t sign-up with you (for whatever reason).
If they went with a ‘cheaper agent’ then chances are now they are feeling nervous and unsettled as that agent is not proactive and hasn’t given them confidence right now.
At least ensure these owners are seeing your educational videos and let them decide the move agents without any direct interference from you.
We are continuously hearing about agencies getting business simply because they were broadcasting how proactive they were with their virtual walk-through inspections, the use of 360 cameras, doing virtual routine inspections, etc.
We SHOW YOU HOW you can DOMINATE in your MARKETPLACE right now!
3- Calling Referral Partners/Strategic Alliances.
Your business relationships with accountants, mortgage brokers, and financial planners have never been more important than now.
Make sure you’ve contacted them and they are well aware of all the measures you’ve got in place and are seeing your educational videos as this will impress them with confidence that you’re got things well under control.
Once they can see that, they’ll refer their anxious and stressed property owners to you, because clearly you have the answers and peace of mind they need.
4- Are you doing Virtual Property Inspections?
If you’re proactive in property management then no doubt you are using technology like 360 cameras and walk-through video tours for leasing property and are doing ZOOM/virtual routine inspections instead of simply cancelling them altogether, because of the crisis and lockdown conditions.
When you’ve implemented this, and broadcasting it loud with your educational videos- new business will be coming your way )plus you’ll give peace of mind to your current owners).
5- AirBnB Owners need you right now
As of writing this article, Airbnb has just been made illegal in NSW, and irrelevant everywhere else due to lockdown conditions.
Right now these owners are looking to return these properties to traditional property management until they can (likely) return to short-term accommodation in the future after lockdown conditions are eased and borders opened up again.
Using the Airbnb app and the messaging service, carefully start a conversation enquiring on their property and gently turn the conversation to how you can assist them right now.
Just be aware that Airbnb algorithms will be ‘patrolling’ your messages, so if your initial conversation is too direct about what you do, you may find yourself shut out. Otherwise, this is a good way to reach AirBnB owners in your area.
If you’re focussed on property management right now- you’ll be able to ‘clean-up’ with new owners right now!
All the best!
