Sugar Coated or Honest Feedback in Difficult Situations!

Sometimes we can be afraid to tell our landlords the whole honest truth during difficult situations like tough market, difficult tenants, damaged property, rent arrears, or other escalated circumstances. Often we think we are protecting them, sometimes we may be afraid of blame - what if they think it’s our fault, what if they don’t listen, and then there can be a fear over - what if we lose the management?

The problem is that when we sugar coat things, pretend everything is fine, or omit difficulties; we may actually be making our job harder in the long run.  The landlord may not then fully understand the gravity of the situation, as they have been protected and sheltered from the truth the whole way. This may make it difficult for them to take our advice or have trust in us.  We then get frustrated with them when they won’t listen.

The key when providing honest feedback is to not just dump the tough or negative news onto the owner – but to use the opportunity to show you have a plan in place.  Explain that you want to be transparent about the situation, for them not to be alarmed because, as the experts, here is our plan to overcome the obstacle or challenge.

If they are confident that we have it covered, and that you have just been honest to make them aware, the benefits will be two fold.  As mentioned, it shows not only that you have the situation under control, but that on the other hand it actually substantiates to them the value of having a property manager in place.

The best relationships (whether with our landlords or the people in our personal lives), are built on communication concepts such as honesty, trust and transparency.  If you can be honest and transparent in a tactful way you will generate respect and trust with your landlord, and you will be surprised how much better prepared they are to listen to your advice and guidance  They will even have a deeper understanding for what we do each day.

The word tactful is important here, as we may need to think about the way we phrase things.

The stronger your relationship the easier it will be to 

• Get the landlord to listen to us when we are providing advice on removing difficult tenants
• Adjusting the price in a difficult market
• Agreeing to maintenance and repairs
• Settling on difficult bond claims
• Dealing with complex tribunal or insurance claims 
• And many of the other difficult situations we face as property managers each day. 

What do you think? When it is a good time to tell the truth? And when it is it a good time to keep some things a little sugar coated or even hidden!  Be sure to comment and let me know your thoughts....

Hermione Gardiner

Rent Payments This Christmas!

Make sure tenants don’t over indulge and underpay rent this Christmas!

Christmas should be a fun time, and it is no fun suffering the stress and worry that comes with mounting arrears over the Christmas period.

For tenants there can be serious pressure to buy gifts and entertain friends and family over the holiday season. Given these pressures, it is an unfortunate reality that some households choose not to pay their rent so they can prioritise other spending. Research from Shelter UK shows that one in 12 tenants are prepared to forgo their rent payments over Christmas, there is a significant risk that your arrears figures could grow.

Everyone takes a different approach to arrears, some taking a harder no tolerance line, some taking proactive steps to help ensure their tenants get their rent paid to avoid eviction. Either way at the end of the day if we can avoid eviction it is better for all parties involved. Whilst the majority of your portfolio may be good rent payers, this is the time that some of them will slip, and this is also a time that a repeat offender is more than likely to re-offend.

Some options to combat arrears at this time to minimise our stress include:

• Running a marketing campaign in the build up to Christmas that aims to deter from tenants falling behind, to see some examples of Christmas arrears marketing campaigns click here.
• Offer a financial support and advice service through assistance with budgeting plans. Some company’s provide a flyer with budgeting advice, some will go so far as offering a financial planning helpline to call.
• Implement Rewards/Incentives to ensure all payments are on time:
• Running a competition for all who keep their rent up to date
• Offering movie tickets for all who are two weeks in advance over the period
• Providing special personal warnings to repeat offenders, almost to let them know that we’re going to be watching their arrears very closely over the period to make sure they stay on time.
• Some agencies even offer the tenants an option to pay extra throughout the year to help them get a bit ahead for these tighter times.
• Reminding tenants of importance of maintaining positive ledger, instead of threatening termination, let them know you want to help them maintain a positive rental ledger to assist with future rentals (and even mortgage repayments as these days some lenders are requesting this information)
• Utilise your blog, newsletters and social media to educate and share the message

Be sure to choose what works for your agency and your brand. Don’t forget to score some brownie points with the owners and let them know what you’re doing to ensure they don’t have missing payments over Christmas! What other ideas do you have for keeping your arrears low at Christmas time? Please share them below!

For our Real Plus members be sure to check out our Christmas Letter template on your portal and stay tuned for more Christmas tips in your daily property management hints.

Hermione Gardiner 

What is your point of difference?

Standing out from the crowd is essential for new business success in property management, especially when it comes down to a choice between you and a handful of other nearby competitors.

But what do you think happens when I speak to my clients and ask what they see their point of difference or unique selling point is? 

You guessed it!  Most of them, are the same points of difference! 

We recently conducted a survey where we asked agencies all around Australia and New Zealand what their unique selling points were, click here if you wish to peek at a
free copy of the results.


So how do you find your point of difference and then market it effectively? Two of the simplest ways to do this will be through A) researching your competitors, and b) the researching your customers.

Firstly consider, do you know exactly what service your competitors offer? Many clients we coach often find the handful of items they are selling as their points of difference (POD) are actually no different to the agency down the road. No point selling it as a POD if the guys down the road do it too. Perhaps you will need to mystery shop your competitors to find this information out.

When you do find a POD through this kind of analysis, think first, does this POD mean something to the client? Often we see points of different that sound great but have no real meaning from the client’s perspective. Secondly think, can it be it tangible? How can you demonstrate this? What tools do you have within your office to prove what it is that you are saying?

For example if you are saying “we get faster results”..... how exactly can you demonstrate? Do you know your average days on market? Do you know your average vacancy rate? What are your recent results compared to your competitors? How can you use this data to show your point of difference to the prospective client?

Second option is to ask someone what makes your agency stand out. Someone not related to you, so not your mother or sister or husband or best friend. Ask your customers. Ask them why they selected to use you. Ask them if they considered the competition and if so what made them chose yours instead. Ask them what they like about your service, and what they don’t, and ask them why they feel your product is the best choice for them.
Ask as many customers of your customers as you can, you will quickly find some great points (that actually mean something to the client) to draw from in future attempts to win business. If you aren’t asking this question upon a new client signing, try to, or consider conduct a new client survey through something like Survey Monkey for every new client.

Once you have established some real key POD’s then you will have some differentiating points that can overcome the price objections, because you will have tangible points that show value over the competitor. Because unless you can differentiate on value or service, it will always come down to price.

Hermione Gardiner

Where Do Your Lost Clients Go?

When an owner decides to leave, whether through selling, reoccupying, self managing or transferring the management to another agent, what happens to that client?  

• Is it good riddance for them to never be seen again? 
• Do we close the file and never think of them again? 
• Even worse do we bungle up the exit as we don’t care so much what happens to them now that they are considered lost?

Next time a client walks out the door, instead of saying goodbye, why can’t we say, see you again soon. Why can’t we simply move them into a category of what Real Plus likes to call an “inactive client” and push them back into the prospecting pool. We may be cutting off future new business opportunities if we don’t better manage this process.

Whist their current circumstances may be that they no longer need or desire our services, we need to remember that people’s circumstances change and there may come a time when they wish to rent, lease out, buy or sell a property in the future.  Wouldn't you, as the agent, like to at least be on their shopping list?  Wouldn't it be great is they referred people to us if they may know someone who needs one of our services, so we really do not want to be severing this relationship for good.

I have been able to retrieve several managements over the years that owners have decided to self manage, move to another agent and even move into. When the first home buyer grant rush happened I kept in contact with a lot of those purchasers who were owner occupiers and was able to recover many of them as managements down the track by simply keeping in contact and keeping them educated.

• Allocate & diarise follow-up calls - It's important to try and keep the relationship with the agency alive and burning.  No matter how long after the owner has taken back the property, you just never know when they may be thinking, or know of someone thinking of buying, selling or renting.  There is always the possibility they will become an active client again!

• Learn the exact reasons they are exiting.  Knowing the reasons helps you to continue to improve, upgrade your internal procedures and systems, and minimise risk for future avoidable loss.  Feedback can be a very powerful tool for improvement. The exiting client should always be contacted by management to discuss the real reasons they are leaving. Imagine a few weeks later the exiting landlord receiving an update that a whole new procedure had been put in place to overcome the issue they had.

• Never give up!  Of course there will be some disgruntled clients who are leaving (for whatever reason), but I also encourage you not to give up on repairing the relationship and leaving things on a good note, even if they chose not to stay with you at the end of the day.

• Can another property manager or contact point better service this client?Another idea may be to offer the disgruntled client a choice of new property manager or contact point. Sometimes a management can be saved for the agency if it was managed by another person in the office. Sometimes however, we may be better off without the client at all, in which case we will be divorcing that client – still remembering to keep face for the agency’s public image.

In order to ensure an exiting client is dealt with effectively and ensure the best possible chance for either them to return to us, or perhaps someone they know to be referred to us, we use an exiting landlord checklist which is commenced as soon as an owner gives notice.

For your free copy of this checklist please click here!