The 4 P's of Home Selling | Navigating Market Challenges

Pipeline Management:

• Jack shares insights on the fluctuations in their business pipeline.
• Emphasis on building a financial buffer during peak months to prepare for lean periods.
• Discussion on the importance of continuous prospecting even during prosperous times.

Cash Flow and Financial Planning:

• Importance of managing cash flow and avoiding unnecessary expenditures.
• Reference to the phrase "prospect while you prosper" to maintain business stability.
• Mention of an upcoming episode focused on cash flow management.

Valuation Opportunities and Lead Generation:

• James shares the primary sources of valuation opportunities: referrals, social media, and direct mail.
• Plans to increase direct mail campaigns to attract specific types of properties and clients.

The Four P's of Home Selling:

• Introduction to the concept of the four P's: Personnel, Promotion, Presentation, and Price.
• Detailed discussion on each P and its importance in the selling process.

Personnel:

• Accountability and feedback from homeowners about their agent.
• Importance of frequent communication and strategy discussions with clients.

Promotion:

• Effective marketing strategies beyond property portals, including social media and direct mail.
• The significance of continuous review and adjustment of promotional tactics.

Presentation:

• The crucial role of home presentation in attracting buyers.
• Tips on preparing homes for viewings, including cleanliness, scent, and overall ambiance.
• Personal anecdotes illustrating the impact of good presentation on sales outcomes.

Price:

• The strategy behind pricing homes to attract maximum interest and offers.
• Examples of successful price adjustments leading to higher sales prices.
• Importance of having a well-defined pricing strategy to build trust with clients.

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of the Elite Agent Masterclass with myself, James Humphrey-Stone and co-founder of The Avenue, Jack Durkin. How are you, Jack? Very good. Very good. Yourself? Yeah, good. Good. We were talking offline just before and I said, we need to talk about some of this stuff when we go live. We're talking offline about what's going on in our local businesses at the minute. So yeah, just share some of what you shared with me before we went on. Yeah, so I suppose we're talking about pipelines. And as I said to you earlier, James, we've had a couple of really good months since the start of the year. So January, February were quite big months on exchanges for our local business. Yes, quite big numbers, 40K, 50K months. However... I said to you, I can see that the pipeline has now started to run a little bit thin. And it swings and roundabouts, isn't it, with being self-employed? Because the next couple of months now, we're probably not going to see many, if any, in some months, completions, maybe this month, sorry, next month, and maybe one the month after, I'm guessing, or have projected. So a couple of tough months coming up, I think. But I suppose we've put ourselves in a in a fairly good position the last couple of months, having some good months with exchanges. So yeah, it's been a good start to the year. And now we're looking at trying to make sure we can put enough sales back into that pipeline. So the big focus for our local business at the moment is making sure we can get some good numbers in sales agreed to fill that pipeline back up. So then three to four months time, we'll start to see that slowly start to turn again. I was going to say, you've done it suppose there is a right and a wrong way isn't there there's the right way around because your cash flow you know you feel like you have a couple of lean months and you sort of skirted past the fact that you've actually had a couple of months where you've had sort of 30 40 50k worth of completions come through so I think the the messaging amongst all of that is is what you've done is you've built yourself a buffer so you're going to go through the next couple of months and financially yes when you're self-employed running your own business you're going to have those peaks and those troughs but thankfully your peaks have been big enough that if you do hit a couple of troughs you're you're financially perfectly secure and and not stressing yeah yeah I'm not I'm not too yeah not too concerned going into the next the next couple of months um because I haven't spent the money on a nice fancy car a new house or anything like that so the money's sitting there um ready ready for the next couple of months where we are going to need it so yeah I think you say that tongue in cheek, you say that tongue in cheek, but a lot of people do, don't they? They have big mumps and then it's like all of a sudden, there's all these new watches, shoes, cars, houses, and it's like, okay, oh no, I now have no money and I can't get through those next couple of mumps. And so I think it's a serious message. And I think one of the big things we talked about before we hit record was, I think it's a Simon Gates coin phrase, whether he can own this space on this phrase or not, but you've got to prospect while you prosper. and you did continue to do so and so you went for a period of time where you were you were instructing very well your fees were very good the listings that you were selling you were leveraging against to attract more listings and it just so happens that the way your your month or first half of the year will play out is you're going to have a month or two where there's a bit of a gap, but you've had a lot load into that front end. It's that age old thing, isn't it? Today's episode is very much about the four P's of educating homeowners and supporting them in the sale of their home. I feel like there's almost a breakaway topic and that is around cash flow. And I know there's an episode we're recording in the next week or two around cash flow, isn't there? But making sure, because it's easy, isn't it? I think for some people where they could sit back and go, I've had a couple of good weeks. And I think sometimes people measure it in as little as weeks. A couple of good weeks, new listings, a couple of sales, my pipeline's looking healthy. I'll just take a bit of a break. And they get caught in that trap where that will then hurt them in 90 to 100 days time. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think, you know, back end last year was a bit of a slow, well, very slow market. We only picked up a couple of sales in the final few months of the year, November, December, even January was a little bit slow in terms of sales agreed. So we're now starting to see that because we haven't got the sales from those months in the pipeline where they would now be expecting to complete being three or four months later down the line. So, yeah, we've kind of achieved quite for that within the business. We noticed that. And I always like to have a three, four month buffer in the business. We're not spending all of our money on a marketing budget. We've got to lease some in the business. We've got Laura involved in the business as well, who's our full-time client, client executive. So I need to make sure we've got the money in the business, the cash flow in the business for that, plus the cash flow in the business to continue prospecting. Like you said, it's really important because I find a lot of agents will work really, really hard, get a load of instructions, get a load of sales, do really, really well. Things are going great for them. And then they take their foot off the gas with their lead generation. And all of a sudden, then once that pipeline's dried up, they're then having to get back to work again and start paddling to try and generate some more opportunities and it's a bit of a roller coaster then it's up and down whereas if you can consistently continue to prospect while you're doing really well as well and just do things that you can do consistently every single week every single month um then you shouldn't have those those periods although as I said the market can can change at times Yeah, but it's about creating the rhythm, isn't it? So you can create rhythms to counterbalance the market and what's going on in the market. And I guess the four P's then influence, it feeds into that dynamic, that conversation that we're going to have today on that topic. Yeah, it's been an interesting first quarter. I was going to say, how's your month gone so far? Because I know you've got some healthy looking properties in the pipeline. Yeah, the first course, I guess I came into the year. So my pain point was probably more beginning of Q4, end of Q3. So I've come into the year with a slightly leaner SSTC pipeline. So Q1 was very focused in my local business around generating new opportunities, new listings and filling that pipeline back up. And so, yeah, January wasn't a bad completion month. February was quite lean, but it wiped its face. March, we're probably going to run it ever so slightly run at a loss in March based on exchanges that were due to land but have now been pushed into April. So, you know, we've got to get through March, April, May and June because of the work we've done in the previous 90 days from December, January and February. We're going to start to see April, May and June look good. I think in a more current situation. Interesting week last week, we tied up a deal at the beginning of last week on a property. The sellers of that particular property we've tied up were desperate to secure a neighbor of theirs, but they were on quite a tight timeline. So when we put this deal together, we're like, amazing news. You know, the buyer viewed it three times. They've got to be committed to have viewed it that many times. And then four days later, so they viewed it. We just tied it up the week before last. Then on the Monday, we get a call from the buyer to say, actually, really sorry, we've changed our minds. You've got to be kidding me. So it's all hands to the pump. Did a viewing on Friday night. Lovely couple that viewed it. They have offered. We've negotiated the deal. We've ended up securing 10 grand more for the property than the first buyer was prepared to pay. So the seller's over the moon. We're securing a listing off the back of that. So we've reverse engineered that, but that's a lovely property that should get a lot of interest quite quickly. So it's been a bit of a rollercoaster week in terms of that one property. But on the main, you know, some good listings coming through. It's very consistent now in terms of opportunities. We're going to probably three or four appraisals a week, which in the self-employed model, as you know, is plenty because when the average fees are sort of five, six K at a time, we're listing at least two or three of those that we're seeing each time the pipeline is very healthy um and we've got a good level of viewing so on the main it's been a good quarter but with a few bumps in the road nice good and I suppose that's the consistency that you've seen yeah the consistency across socials and hayley and ella um are doing really well in the local business as well at the moment aren't they Yeah, we've hit a bit of a rhythm. We did our quarter two planning. I guess this is another episode we could talk about. We did our quarter two planning in the local business, not last week, the week before. So we reviewed where we're up to. We've put several steps in place that we just want to develop on. But a lot of that is around the prospecting, the lead generation and our output in terms of social media. But we are finding that we are relentlessly consistent now on socials, and that is now paying us back. We're getting loads of engagement. We're getting appointments, both viewings and valuation opportunities coming off of our social media content. So I'd say in terms of the front end lead generation, we've got quite a good rhythm now. And I think that's sometimes where a lot of agents will let themselves down is that front end lead gen rhythm. Where would you say most of your valuation opportunities are coming from at the minute? Think back through. If I was going to put it in a top three priority order, referral slash recommendation is very high. Social media is quite close behind. Direct mail are probably the top three. Oh, we've got some new direct mail campaigns that are going to be launching pretty soon as well. We'll have to share with the viewers how those perform. I was going to say, I think the reason why direct mail probably sits in third place is because we haven't spent a lot, I'll be honest, first quarter, we haven't done lots of direct mail campaigns. And I suppose one thing, one of the reasons why when we did our Q2 planning last week, or the week before rather, One of the things that I really want to up going into Q2 is our direct mail output. And the main reason for that is because we want to attract a very specific type of property and client. Direct mail, in my mind, is the easiest way to put our brand in front of the exact people we want to talk to. So although we've generated some really great listings from social media and recommendation, they're not always absolutely aligned with the vision we're trying to create in our local business. Because our referrals, it's obviously going to be friends of friends, work colleagues, and equally social media. You can talk to your audience through your messaging, but you can't pick out which clients you want to come to you, right? Whereas with Direct Mail, I can write to the houses I want to list. Yeah. You're going after the ones that you want to be associated with, aren't you? So we find the same with Direct Mail. You can pick your cancer tax bands or your certain value or certain streets, certain areas. We've started looking at two estates in certain goldfields that are the more affluent estates and just really dialing down and focusing on those. So, yeah, we've got a couple of campaigns we're looking to launch in the next few weeks. So I'll have to let you know how those go. Yeah, and literally as we're talking now, I've got Hayley. She spends a lot of time on the phone. So Hayley is currently stamping envelopes in readiness while she's on those calls for the campaign to go out at the beginning of April. Or in fact, we've got one campaign due to go out at the end of this week and then we're starting another one beginning of April. So yeah, lots of output there. But anyway. i think one of the topics that we sort of briefly discussed is around getting stock into a position where it can progress and the aim of today's pod was to discuss the four p's what they are for those that aren't familiar um and also how we implement them into our businesses. Again, part of that rhythm consistency on getting stock to a place where it needs to be sold and equally how we can use the four P's if we're engaging people that have been on the market, and we can talk them through the four P's with planning the launch of their second hand listing. Yeah, in fairness as well, the 4P that I actually used quite recently, whereby I actually use it on a valuation appointment, which I don't tend to do. It's usually when I'm doing the reviews. And when I did this valuation, it's already on the market. So it's a good way to review their marketing, review their personnel, review their price and review the presentation of the property. So it works really well for a property that was already listed all in the market because it kind of gives me the structure for the valuation appointment. quite funny as well it's not um it's not hugely valuable but it does show that we are all human and I actually forgot one of the one of the four p's which I knew I knew that you had and I was wondering whether you were going to share that or not literally I was going through it and I just had a complete um yeah just one of those moments where I just had a complete mind blank And I can't remember. And I said to the customer, I can't quite remember what it was. And we had a right laugh and a joke about it. And he still messages me now and he still reminds me every time I speak to him what the fourth P was. So it's actually built quite a nice, healthy relationship with him. I was about to say that the great thing about that is that you showed enough humility to just say out loud, look, I'm sorry, I've had a bit of a mind blank. I've completely forgotten what the fourth P is. And interestingly, the fourth P is probably one of the most critical ones. They've all got equal value. But the fourth one is probably the one that you would spend the majority of the time talking and discussing. So should we dive in, discuss the four P's? Yeah, let's go for it. And we'll tell our audience which one you forgot when we get there. Let's do it. A lot of people would refer to it as the three P's. But we discussed it, didn't we, a while, ages ago. And it was primarily focused around properties that we're potentially getting involved with as secondhand agents. It's coming to us after being on with someone else. And I do truly believe the fourth P we've added on is really, really important. And it's the first one. And that is personnel. i.e. the estate agent. So when we're reviewing the four Ps, we reflect on our own performance and our own input before we start to question or challenge what the homeowner needs to consider. So what does that look like in your eyes, Jack? I think it's giving the homeowner the ability to give you feedback on if there's anything that they feel we could have done differently. I feel as well, it really helps when you can offer them that, are you happy with everything we're doing? Is there anything that you feel we could be doing differently or I could be doing differently? And if they give you the answer that, look, we're pleased with everything you're doing, then it kind of makes the conversation around the other three Ps a lot easier. Yeah, so I suppose it's given them the ability to give you feedback and I suppose even critique some of the stuff that we're doing. Because I always say to a lot of our clients, we're always open to feedback. We're very innovative. We want to look for new ways of doing things and new suggestions and new ideas. So if they do have anything that they bring to us, then we will go away and look at whether it's something we could do or we could change. What are your thoughts on that, on the personnel? I think you've covered it off in terms of us taking accountability as the agent representing the client. So if we're sat having a review meeting with the client and we're talking about our input. I also think that if we're sitting with a client whereby they're on the market with another agent and they're looking at making a switch, when we're reviewing the four Ps, the personnel piece, then connects to how frequently are you in communication with your agent? Or rather, more importantly, how frequently are they in communication with you? What feedback are they offering? What insights are they giving you? What strategies are they discussing with you in order to gain you more activity on your property or at least get your property in front of more eyeballs? And so that's where the personnel thing for me really is important when we're sat discussing it with a client, because I will sit with a client if we're doing a review meeting after we do them between four or six weeks where we will revisit and sit with the client and go through things. And the personnel piece for me is very much, OK, so this is what we're working on at the moment. This is what's happened so far. And this is my proposed plan moving forward. So then I'm taking accountability then for what needs to happen to move them forward. But equally, like you say, the request of that feedback is very good because this feedback I've had where question clients said, well, I'm not entirely sure on this. Okay, cool. Let's look at that. And we can then delve into more detail and help them understand why they may be misunderstood it or why actually it needs to be tweaked. So I think that's the P that we've added in is the personnel one. So taking accountability, but also reflecting on that relationship with the agent. Yeah, and I used it in an appointment on Friday as well with a client that, again, had been on the market with another agent. So it was when I asked them around the personnel piece, and it kind of gives you feedback. And if they're not happy with their agent, they're going to say, they're going to open up and tell you all the reasons why. But then you can start to understand what's important to them as well. So if you don't initially understand what's important to them, it's a great question to ask. to really understand what was missing from their last relationship they had with their previous estate agent. So this conversation I had on Friday was very heavily focused around they were only being contacted when there was viewings. It could be four weeks, five weeks. I think they had five viewings in the space of three months. So there was very, very little contact with their agent. And that's one thing I've really understood. And when we started to deliver, I could really start to get them to understand how much we're going to be in contact with them, how much we're going to do. So it's a real good way to understand what's been missing and what they're expecting as well from the relationship. There's so many valuable components as well, isn't there? Because I was just thinking then, you know, if you think about the four Ps and you split them down the middle, the psychological impact of delivering the personnel piece first. If you're the agent, you're not taking it on secondhand. You're not sitting on an appraisal meeting. You're the agent that's got the house on the market and you're having a review meeting and you're taking accountability and responsibility first. The psychological impact on the client then is they're going to be almost disarmed. They probably expect that after four to six weeks that you're sitting there with them for a reason. And that may well be around the pricing of the property, because that's very typical estate agency, isn't it? But I think because you're taking accountability first, we have to review our own performance first. We have to review what we're doing. We have to be able to sit here and substantiate our position as your agent and what our plan of attack is. That immediately is quite disarming. Psychologically, the value there is very, very strong. because you're taking ownership first, which then leads into the second P, which is then promotion. So we've covered off personnel, what we're doing, what our plan is, what strategies we're deploying. Next up is promotion. How is the property being promoted? What's your interpretation on that front? Or how would you deliver that in conversation? Yeah, so, and like you said, it's a great way to feed in. And the way that we've done this as well is that we're always looking at price last, aren't we? Of course. With, yeah, promotion, for me, it comes down to marketing, how we're getting attraction to the property, where it's being advertised, where it's being marketed. And it's a real good way to critique the photos, critique the video. Could we do things differently? What feedback have we had as well from previous people? Is there anything we could change? So changing the front photo sometimes, trying to show off certain aspects in the property that maybe haven't been showcased or have been suggested that they need to look to better improve them. And yeah, where's it being advertised? We started pushing a couple of our properties across the social channels more recently, because we've noticed that we started to get a lot of traction on some of our social media platforms for our first time buyer market. And that's generated us quite a few conversations recently. So we've started to build some campaigns there. So yeah, marketing, promotion, where's it being listed? Where's it being advertised? I think is kind of the promotion piece. Yeah, I totally agree. I think talking them through the plan outside of the portals is quite important. The plan inside the portals may consist of continual review. So one thing we do when we're communicating with our clients on a weekly basis is we will look at the Rightmove data as to how many people have seen the property and obviously look at the graph and see how it's performing if it's on an upward trajectory then no change is necessary in my opinion if it's flatline or or in a negative then we'll start to look at making slight tweaks so for example it's an education opportunity explaining to the homeowner around 70 percent of the house buying public now are searching for property on mobile device So that means that your first photo is quite almost the most important piece to capture their attention. So we then, if we're seeing this graph performing in a negative, we'll change the order of the photographs weekly and then track whether we've seen an uplift. So again, it's that granular, I'm going granular here and it's not my default mode to go so granular, but to ensure the customer really understands how much detail and data we're analyzing before we make any major decisions. And again, taking ownership. If you slice those four Ps in half, personnel and promotion is all about us. There's nothing the homeowner can really do to influence either of those. So it's all on us. And again, portraying to the homeowner how much accountability you're taking for the result, which is a million times different to after three, four weeks, they've not heard a single thing from the estate agent other than to book a viewing. then on week four sorry no offers you need to reduce your price now I'm being quite facetious there in that that's the delivery but there's a bit of fluff in amongst all of that but that's the reality in most generic estate agency businesses right yeah I think really important that we try and do things differently before before we look at changing the price um And interestingly, you mentioned as well, not just focusing on the portals, which we actually launched a property on Friday just on our website and also plug for Lifecycle. Lifecycle is a brilliant platform. We started to try and list a lot of our properties a few days before on our social media platforms and through Lifecycle so we can create a bit of a buzz before we actually launch them on the open market. So we launched this one on Friday. We had three inquiries come through. uh we've actually just gone live with it today so we did better like a three-day lag but it kind of shows then as well that if we've had three inquiries come through unlike a pre-launch then it shows we we're pretty confident the price is right the price is accurate So the pre-launch has gone well with that. And we've got a few viewings booked in this weekend. So it's not just heavily focusing or solely focusing on the portals. It's what else can we do? How else can we create a buzz? What other platforms, what other ways can we generate opportunities? talked about direct mail a little bit earlier as well and we we run a lot of direct mail campaigns for our new listings inviting people to come in and see the property and looking at the right demographic for the type of audience that would be suitable for that property and then writing to those people where are they going to be what house are they going to live in and let's see if we can go out there and find them so it's trying to do as much as we can to showcase these properties as much as possible So I think as well, with especially unique properties, higher value properties, people that may buy these properties might necessarily not be looking every day and right within Zoopla. It might be a property that just catches their eye, catches their attention and thinks, wow, that's an amazing property. I would only move for that particular property. But now that I've seen it, it's made me want to move. And that's where I think the social media and the direct mail campaigns and using your network as well Yeah, it can help get those properties sold or get more eyes on those properties. Massively so. And I think reviewing the four P's is also an opportunity for the agent to reflect, isn't it? Quite often when I'm going through the four P's with every list, it's kind of like, could we do something slightly differently here? Or it refocuses the mind rather than it being a case of that listing has been on four weeks. I've got to speak to Mr and Mrs Jones and basically tell them that it needs to come down by 5% in order to get any activity. It's refocusing the mind around what else can we be doing? What else is an option? Like you say, with the direct mail campaigns, we have what we call the ultimate new to market listing process. And so when we launch a property, it consists of direct mail campaigns that will go to a two to three mile radius of houses that are on the market that are more expensive. So the campaign very much tailored towards if they're considering downsizing equally for those that are slightly smaller, for those that might be upsizing. It's for those that are in the immediate mile radius community that might not yet be on the market, but looking to make a move. So you're just covering so many bases beyond just the portals and you're then creating a passive audience. But equally, as importantly, from the brand perspective, from your personal brand perspective, you're then telling your community how proactive you are. And that bodes well. It's a bit of a tangent about promotion, but it could attract you a potential opportunity buyer. But equally, it's telling your local community, this estate agent is on point. I'm getting correspondence from them about a house they've put on the market. They're going to treat me like that when they put my house on the market. Subconscious message equally makes you more valuable. Yeah. And I think as well, it just shows the sellers that, everything that you're doing. And if you've tried to promote it as far and wide as possible, for example, we took a property on about five weeks back that had been on with another agent. The market was awful, dreadful. They're a very busy agent, high volume agent. And the sellers had found that they tried to call in or got people to call in a few times and they were just missing calls. So I wasn't sure whether the price was was the wrong price to go on the market at because it's a very very unique property there isn't anything similar in the area so when when they asked me look do you think we're on at the right price I had to say look I think we need to test it first with our marketing by getting it promoted as far and wide as we possibly can and We now know the price might need adjusting, but we've had over 25,000 views on our social media posts that we put out there. We've sent letters out to local areas. We've had it as a premium listing on Rightmove and Zoopla. And we've got as many people to see this property as we possibly can and got some feedback back. And we've now understood that we might need to look at price, look at other things. beforehand we might not have known because I don't feel as though the market and everything else really did it justice so when I spoke to the seller and had that conversation it was quite an easy conversation because he just said look I know you've done everything you can and clearly you've you know promoted it as far and wide as you possibly can and we haven't had the right people through the door so maybe we do need to know look at the price it's much easier conversation It's a relationship then though, isn't it? It's a relationship where people can trust because you are pulling out all the stops. There's never a point where I'm speaking to a client where there isn't something that we're working on to get them that first result. The first result isn't selling it. The first result is getting people through the door. So there's always going to be some form of conversation around that. It's interesting you were saying there about a high volume agent, a quick story from Ella, my client exec is currently on holiday. I was fortunate enough, like, quite miss it. Now I did it. I was fortunate enough to get out there and I did some viewings Friday evening, Saturday, got an offer from the one on Friday evening and got a couple of offers from Saturday. So Ella, if you're listening into this when you get back, we might need to review the process a little bit. But it was a very interesting conversation. Saturday morning, went to a bungalow to show this lovely couple around, Mr and Mrs Yardley, and get towards the end of the visit. And they were like, we love it. What have we got to do? Well, first things first, we need to make an offer. Okay, great. So we need to speak to our agent to let them know that we've sold. What do you mean? Obviously, you're looking to buy this. You've already sold yours. And Mr. Yardley said, yeah, but... We've sold our property. I was like, oh, what have you done it privately? Is it a friend? Or no, no, no, no. Someone knocked on our door. Basically, the reason they knocked on the door is they tried ringing the agent a dozen times. They could never get through. So he took it upon himself to come and knock on my door. And the wife then chipped in and basically said, yeah, it was really surprising that we were getting no viewings. We were looking at houses that are around us in the local area that we're in. And everyone else seems to be selling around us, but we weren't. I said, ah, cute. I makes no sense. And I said, who are you on the market with? And I'm not going to name and shame. But what I can say is I don't call them online agents. I think this is a different conversation altogether because I think we're all online in some capacity. But I think the difference is you're either traditional high street bricks and mortar, you're call center based or you're bespoke. And it was one of the call center based estate agents. And the thing is, the thing that got me the most is Mr. and Mrs. Yardley, they weren't actually that pissed off about the fact that they had limited opportunity coming through their door because basically no one was answering the phone at the call centre to book the appointment. I just found it mind-blowing that they were quite accepting of the fact that this person had to knock on their door in order to buy their house. So he said to me, I'll just have to ring and let my agent know that I've sold my house just before you call them to do your chain check. And I was like, respectfully, Mr. Yardley, is there going to be any point in me calling them to do a chain check when they don't even know they've sold it? Yeah. Well, he's got the buyer's details and if he's having to provide them to the agent. So I just said to him, look, can I have your buyer's details? I'll speak to him directly and get the information that I need. Um, and will obviously be intangible then to helping you through the process. That's just one person that took it upon themselves to go and knock the door. There could be other people that have missed that opportunity as well. This is the point. Have Mr. and Mrs. Yardley potentially sold for less than they could have done because of the fact that nobody could actually book a viewing? and you know bearing around the type of property they've got is probably going to attract a slightly older demographic of clientele I'm making some assumptions there but are they going to want to do everything online are they going to want to I personally I'm 37 I wouldn't classify myself as over the hill and old but I want if I'm moving house I want to speak to someone I want to pick up the phone there's going to be questions that I might want to ask before I go and visit I want to have more interaction So it just blew my mind. But anyway, that's present. I think we've got personnel. We've covered promotion. Now we're moving on to the side of the four P's that becomes more the owner's responsibility with our support and guidance. And the first of those is? Presentation. Hey, it wasn't that one. It wasn't that one that you forgot when you met that guy. I remember that one. It's the last one you might have to help me with. So what's our view on presentation? I think presentation is one where a lot of agents shy away from this because it is the difficult conversation to have. Discussing the seller's presentation of the property, if it's not great or you've got to give them feedback on things that need improving, It is a more difficult conversation where I think, but those difficult conversations, they need to be had. If you wanna get the seller the best price, if you wanna get the seller the results, then you have to have those difficult conversations. So yeah, how do they dress the property? How does the property look? How does it smell? How does it feel when people are walking in? What's the first impressions when people are turning up and pulling up on the drive or pulling up outside? What are those first impressions? Yeah, the presentation is really, really important. love I love the way you've described that then as well because it's about all the senses right it's all the senses what are they seeing when they first arrive if from the front that it's weedy and there's bins everywhere and it's scruffy then that's not a very good first impression and I guess it sows that subliminal thought of okay if they can't look after the front of the house what's the rest of the house going to be like then it's the smell when you walk through the door if there's strong cooking smells or there's animal smells you know I have no issue bringing that up because I think I'm doing you a disservice if I don't. And I think people are more mindful of it now. But I also think that because of the way we market outwardly, We're promoting that messaging, aren't we? When someone instructs us, they then receive an email from us giving them advice on how to prepare for the marketing shoot and then how to prepare for when we conduct viewings. Like the other day, I did a piece on my business story. I showed up to a viewing and the vendors are just so on it. They've just listened to everything. We've taken it over from another agent and they've just listened to all the advice that we've given. They've got a big house. They're downsizing. So generally speaking, it's not very warm in there because they want to keep the heating low because they're downsizing because they want to save a bit of money. But it turned up 20 degrees in there. It was toasty. But it's because she'd listened because people don't want to walk into a stone cold house because it leaves a lasting impression. So she'd put the heating on. The candles were burning away because they've got two dogs and she's mindful that, you know, the smell of the dogs, they don't want that. And it was just so on point. Because you are then appealing to people's senses, aren't you? Yeah. And the first part is getting people through the door. But then once they're through the door to get the offers and get those sales agreed, yeah, you've got to make sure the presentation looks great. And I always try and explain it to our clients. When we're doing the marketing shoots and when you're getting the property ready for appointments, try and think a little bit like a show home. What do the show homes do to try and get their properties ready? Lights are on. Everything looks prestige. The beds are made nicely. Get some nice scents on so it smells nice. We discussed before, didn't we, about getting some music on in the background as well. Just create a real nice atmosphere when they get there and make sure those first impressions are good ones. Here's a little one. This goes back to what we do on the viewing process. So this isn't anything to do with the sellers, but we've added it into our process, and the clients absolutely love it, sellers and buyers. So when we're sending out a text the day before a viewing now, what Ella will do is on the text, you know, really looking forward to seeing you at XYZ address tomorrow, just to confirm the full addresses. We'll see you there at time. Oh, and what would you prefer, tea or coffee on arrival? Right? No. And people are turning up and she's then prepared their drinks for them. So then it's much more of an experience. Honestly, the feedback we've been getting is insane. They absolutely love it. Love that. Love that. So just a little bit of an extra one in there just for the viewing process. And again, this is part of the Q2 planning review that we did week before last. What little tweaks can we make? Because the foundational level of what we're delivering is good. It's better than most, but it's now like, okay, what's going to level it up again? And I think as well with that, even if they don't love the house and if the house isn't right for them, they're going to definitely want to buy a house through you. They're going to want to buy a property that you guys are selling. And they're also going to want to come and view more properties with you because of that experience. Yeah, I love that. It's the experience piece that's the key. But we also took a tip out of your playbook. And we've also ordered one of those. We give shoe covers to every buyer that visits, but we've now ordered to make it even more convenient. One of those cool little boxes off of Amazon where they just put their foot in, shoe cover goes on. And again, clients absolutely love it. It's just these little touches where we fought things through. And I'm looking at it from two perspectives. When we tell the seller, this is what we're going to do on your appointment. A, it shows attentiveness. It shows that we care about your house as much as we care about our own because we want to make sure it remains clean and tidy. But the levels from the buyer's point of view, like you're saying there, the experience, the feeling they're getting after that appointment about us as a brand and us as a business, you can tell everyone. Yeah. And even if they don't use the shoe cover box, because some don't, some will just take their shoes off and it's fine. But we've got a nice mat that we've put out at the front of the property, a branded mat. It's got the Avenue on it. The contact details on. So we put that at the front of the property. We put the shoe cover box just inside the doorway. The business cards on the side. It just as soon as they walk in, it just it just looks looks nice and looks presentable. And the house is always, yeah, always nice and presentable as well because the sellers are getting it ready. And it actually shows in terms of the offers you'll get. I think I might have shared this story with you previously, but we had a property on the market about 12 months ago. And it was a lovely house. Photographs look great. We were getting a lot of viewings, but we were just struggling to get any offers through. And yeah, it was... Loads and loads of interest, loads of inquiries, viewing after viewing after viewing, but still no serious offers. And it was a couple that were splitting. So neither one of them were spending much time at the property. Neither one of them really wanted to spend much time getting the property ready or it was just getting a bit tired because neither one wanted to spend the money on the property. which is understandable. But I just said to them, look, we need to get some more interest. And yeah, it needed to be tidier. It needed to be cleaner. We needed to get some sense out. So I just said to them, look, why don't we get a cleaner come in on a Friday just before we do the viewings on a Saturday. We'll get the house blitz. We'll get it absolutely immaculate. We'll get some candles out and scents out. We then did the open day on the Saturday. We had six viewings and two made an offer that same weekend. it had to come down to the presentation. Absolutely. So it's an integral P to review, but you've got to be brave with the client. And I think it's all about the steps you take. It's all about the pre-work, the prep work, isn't it? As I said earlier, if we're sending out our advice on how to to prepare for marketing shoots before we go, then they're already thinking about it. If we then just re-enhance that with some soft touches around, you know, we'd love to have candles burning on the visit if that's okay, that's better than saying your house stinks of dog. for example. And so it's all about that pre-work that goes in that will make or break how the customer interacts. But I think it also comes back as far as if people are looking online at social media, at Rightmove, Zoopla, wherever, and they see our properties and how they're presented, the bar's already been set. I cannot tell you the amount of times Hayley booked an appraisal last week and the woman said, you know, Hayley was on the phone for a good 25 minutes booking the appraisal. And at the end of the conversation, the woman did say, look, you know, we're really proud of our house. But if our house doesn't meet your standard, please tell us. Please tell us because we want to make sure that it can get the most money possible. And we won't be shy of your feedback. We're very house proud. But at the same time, we won't be shy of your feedback. And if it isn't to your standard, we understand. Yeah, I'm pretty confident as well. The marking that we do really does showcase the properties to their truest and fullest potential. So they've got to show that when it comes to the viewing stage as well, which I think is important. Absolutely. Which then leads us to the final P, which is the one you forgot. Yeah, you're going to have to remind me, Matt, which is this one. The P that's probably been referred to the most out of this conversation, and that is the price. Yeah, we'd already discussed that. We'd agreed the price was right. It was just that everything else was wrong. So yeah, that's when I come down to three hours. I can't quite remember it, but we'd actually already spoken about the price at the very start. And then halfway through the presentation, I'd moved on and we started talking about strategy and it popped into my head and I was like, I'm going to have to come back to it. I've just remembered. It's just so raw and real with a client. I've remembered. Forget everything else. I've remembered. They thought it was absolutely hilarious. So I'm glad they did. But yeah, price. So like we said, I think the way that we do this and we bring price up as the final thing is that we've ticked everything else off. If If the personnel is right and they're happy with what we're doing, if the presentation is right, the promotion is right, we've done everything that we can there, then there's only one final thing that we have to look at, and that comes down to price. I just feel it's such an easier conversation to have when you've gone through all the other things, rather than just saying, we need to review the price. If you go for everything else first and then look at the price, it just shows you've done everything right. Absolutely. And the price can be quite a pivotal piece, can't it? I've got a great example of the one that I've got an offer on. We're going to be tying up today that came from one of the weekend's offers or Friday evening's offer, sorry. That was on the market. The house that we've now agreed the offer on was on the market at 325. We had a couple of viewings, no offers, no real bites. Went through the four Ps with the owner, reduced it down to 315. So it's a significant enough drop, but it's not a huge difference. You'd like to think if anyone was in the market looking at 325, they would be at 315. Well, contrary to what a person's limiting beliefs may be, that wasn't the case. Reduced it to 315, nine viewings later, free offers were had the first people got their offer accepted, but then backed out, as I said, a couple of days later, and I've been, we're just about to tie up an offer at 322. So we dropped it to 315. And we sold it for seven grand more. Also, the first buyer that then withdrew was in at 312 and a half. So we sold it for almost 10 grand more to this buyer. But out of nowhere, these buyers have just materialized by making that tweak. Yeah, I think we're in a market now where price is so pivotal. If properties aren't at the right pricing and they're marketed well and everything else is right, then they are selling. Whereas 18 months ago, properties were probably a little bit inflated. You could go on at a slightly higher price and you still would get some interest. You're probably still going to sell most of them as long as they weren't too inflated. But I think the price is so, it's a very price sensitive market at the moment. So I think it's vital to get the pricing right. And you are right, mate. Make a few tweaks to the, and it's a marketing price that we advertise at, isn't it? It's not... you know, it's a price that's going to entice people in and get people through the door. Where the offers come is how well we can negotiate those offers. And it shows making that small tweak has ended up getting you a much better price than probably what you would have achieved or what you did achieve at a slightly higher price. Definitely. There was more to it than changing the price. The fact that we booked viewings one after another on Friday evening. So I did two viewings, one as one was leaving, one was arriving. So it created that environment where the buyers that have now made the offer felt that they had competition. So it's all about these little touches that can then make the final difference. The price was, I guess, the trigger for the course of events that then followed. But it's then how all of that is then managed and pulled together. I had an appraisal Saturday afternoon and had a conversation with the owner. And I got to a point where I'm quite, I'm not blunt, I'm professional, but I'm quite direct with what I'm trying to say. And I just said to the wife, the wife was there and she said to me, where do you think we should position the price then? Because I'd given her the range within which I'd expected it to fall. And I said, you've got to go offers in excess of this figure. Can we not go on 10 grand more to allow a little bit of wiggle room? It's your choice. But my advice is that we want footfall through the door. Footfall through the door means that I'm going to extract more offers. More offers means I'm going to get you a higher price. So if you go in at the higher price, please understand that there's going to be fewer people through the door. therefore less offers and therefore we're going to be at the mercy of what people are potentially offering. I totally get it. We're going at your price. And so I think sometimes agents can be a bit too quick to back down on their opinion of what needs to be done. And I think that's then detrimental because if I had to back down with that client, there's every possibility you should have looked at it and gone, you can't have been that confident in what you were advising me if all of a sudden you've just said, oh, forget my plan. Let's go with yours. Yeah. And then you touched earlier as well with the pricing is one thing, but there's a strategy that goes behind it. I know how you deliver your appointments and how you deliver the strategy behind the pricing. It's really, really important. I think most agents will just go out and price just to put a put a price on it a figure on it but there's no strategy behind it or they'll price to try and win with the instruction and then they're trying to backpedal whereas I know with your appointments you go in there you discuss a price and you deliver the strategy that goes behind that price to give the customer the confidence that that price is is going to be attainable or the price is the right price to achieve what the results that they're looking for so I think the strategy that goes behind the price is just as important Yeah, there's no way that I'd have walked out of that appointment with the instruction, with the 2% fee, with the price at what I want it at if it didn't come with the strategy first. And I think that's absolutely right. The fact that I've got the strategy, I've got the plan. This is how we're going to deliver it to market. This is what we're going to do at each stage. This is how we're accountable to you. My contract length is very short because I want to work with you based on trust and obligation. All of that process is there first. built the trust built the authority and so you are yeah you are right the strategy has has to supersede anything else which is probably a probably an episode for another day probably is yeah we're building quite a few episodes on our long list at the moment aren't we yeah and actually just for those that are listening and or watching that there is a plan but equally there are things in the plan i.e a plan for recording there are things in the plan that if you hear us talk about a topic Fire us a message, me or Jack, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, email, we're everywhere. If there are any topics we've discussed that you would like us to unpack in any more detail, drop us a line because we want to give the audience listening to the Elite Agent Masterclass what they want in terms of levelling up, attracting the best quality properties, securing the best possible fees that you're worthy of. um and delivering the very best marketing so if there are any topics that you'd like us to dissect in more detail just drop us a line and we will bump them up the order of recording um I've enjoyed the 4p debate but dissecting it um so yeah remember those now as well for the benefit of those listening run them off jack what are they in order so personnel promotion, presentation, and the one that I've forgotten, price. There you go. And that is the order that they should be delivered in for maximum impact. So that brings us to the end of another episode of the Lead Agent Masterclass. If you would like to connect with me or Jack, you've got any questions you'd like to propose, if you're on Apple or Spotify, then our contact details will be in the show notes. Any other platform, then you can contact us via the DM on that platform. Until next time, Jack, it's been a pleasure. Have a great week. Angie, mate.