Well it seems the the 2007 BRW Rich list are now all going to hell (wherever that is) . Maybe ABC Learning’s Eddie Groves saw this coming and decided to dwindle his shares the good old fashioned way.
But what are the 7 deadly sins when publishing your vendors listings? Please note, I can update this at my discretion at any time in the future.
1. No photos or logo drop in
If you seriously think you are providing a service to your vendors if you do not provide at least 6 photos with your listing then you are seriously deluded. Even worse, if you publish a listing with a coming soon image you may find that by the time you get the real photos ready your vendors listing may be on page 20 of search results and on some sites like REA not viewable at all. So don’;t be to eager to list and do not publish a listing until it is ready!
2. Tacky headlines
“Will sell fast hurry”, ‘be quick”, “owner must sell” If you are a serial abuser of these types of terms then no amount of confessions will get you out of the path of the super heated gates of insignificance. It look is even worse when the listing is more than 30 days old. Show some taste for your vendors and take some time to think or even try one of these free software packages on the net.
3. Short useless descriptions
“Great buy, nice quiet location, call today” Put some effort in, please! You make the rest of your industry look bad. Try to set a formula for all listings and make it into a ‘law’ within your agency. Start with an overview, then talk about accommodation, then other rooms, parking, and maybe some local area information. Getting consistency with our listings structure is not a hard thing to do after the initial set up.
4. Extra Information
If you set a formula as mentioned above for all of your listings then make it a law that there must be a minimum amount of property information before it can be published. Information such as land size, building size, extra features should be a standard. If you don’t, you will only frustrate potential buyers, renters and vendors!
5. Publish Street Addresses
The number one reason agents give me for not publishing street addresses is that other agents will then try to pinch them. Please, how confident are you in the services you provide? The vendor chose you for a reason, so show some confidence in the skills of your team to finish the job off!
This is the Internet age, potential buyers and renters demand information at their fingertips, they don’t want to ring you or email you asking for basic information and even if they do, it will be wasting their time and therefore not a great start to the relationship.
6. Publish pricing
Again, unless the property is for Auction, you should always publish pricing, at the minimum at least give an indication of pricing. Simply hiding the price and providing no textual information in relation to price and thinking that people will call you and you can then wield your magic, is old style thinking, or in my opinion – not thinking at all! Your first contact with a potential buyer will certainly be frustrating for them, so why would you want to start negotiation on that setting.
7. Answer every single email
Yes, I know, some people are annoying and they may waste your time. Why not get some software like OneNote and create a range of emails in response to regular enquiries. If you have not addressed the above issues then you deserve to be annoyed. If so, you notice a trend in the enquiries you may not be providing enough information on your listings.
The worst offenders are property management companies (some dedicated property management companies) and in the past few weeks I have sent off 30 emails asking for more information on some rental properties for some friends. In response I have had 3 phone call and 4 email responses, that’s 7 out of 30, embarrassing.
So today I called and asked why I did not get a response. Here are some of the replies.
Oh, we already had a tenant, it should not be still online
We didn’t have any photos, so I would not have been able to help you anyway
and this doozy…
mate, we rent everything and there are people that don’t ask questions and just rent the property
These are extreme examples, but 7 out of 30 is embarrassing, I will commend one company and that was Ray White Unlimited, who actually responded to both emails within 1 hour and in detail. The other responses came from private advertisers and a Raine and Horne office.
The silent business killer
One thing that agents must realise is that every experience a consumer has, whether buying, renting or selling gives them an impression of your company. The silent business killers are looking at your listings right now, they are viewing your website, your branding, your responses. You may be great at one on one and you may dress sharply, have a great sense of humour, a polite manner, but they see none of this.
Some Links
Copycat Software
Really Sold
OneNote
Google Docs
If you have more sins of listings, then let us know, it seems we can just add them any time!