A rent roll is your agency’s only big asset. You don’t need a broker like me to tell you about the significant value each and every new management adds to your balance sheet! One new landlord can add $6,000 to $8,000 (or even more) to your retirement fund.
So every agency is out there hunting high and low for them. Right?!
Right now there are some Brisbane principals who’d be very shocked with a recent mystery shop of their PM teams. Only 2 of the 10 (yep – 20%!) responded promptly to an online landlord enquiry. So what’s “prompt”?
“In most businesses the stats show 76% of potential customers expect a call back or some form of response within 30 minutes”, says Connections Lead Consulting’s Sue Honeycombe. “In this case I had only 2 meet that timeline and, while another 4 replied that same day, they were many hours later. Long after a landlord had the info they needed from competitors and would have already chosen their new agency.”
So what about the other four PM departments? Sue says two came back to her in the following 2 and 3 days, but two NEVER replied.
“These agencies are both owned by really active principals. One is all over social media building his business and the other is a high profile, busy networker. I know they both value new clients and are working hard to grow their rent rolls, so they’d be horrified no one replied. But their teams are simply not on the same page.”
Too often as agency owners we can be guilty of assuming everyone understands our need for new clients.
“It starts with clarity of who takes the enquiry. There has to be one person and the right person who takes ownership of that. Do they actually want that task? I do lead audits in all sorts of businesses where they’re giving this really key responsibility to a team member who tells me they’re already too busy. Or honestly ranks a new enquiry below all sorts of other tasks.”
Sue says a dedicated BDM isn’t essential. “I work with businesses of all sizes across lots of industries, and very few have a full time person receiving and managing leads. It’s all about mapping a clear process to capture and nurture each and every customer. In other words, making sure the bucket you’re tipping your leads into doesn’t have holes in it.”
At $6,000 or more per management, some agencies have very expensive leaky buckets!
Chat with Sue Honeycombe from Connections Lead Consulting on 0402 449161 or sue@clconsulting.com.au.
(Yes Sue is my wife – and I’m very pleased I converted that lead!)
If you’d like a confidential chat about growing or selling your rent roll, I’d love to help. I’m on 0423 332 022 or rob@honeycombe.com.au