How to future-proof your estate agency
When you look into your crystal ball, what do you see for your agency in, say, 2050?
Does your office look like the control room of the Starship Enterprise? Are your staff all wearing metallic lycra one-pieces? (Heaven help us.) Or does it look a bit like it does now, but with fewer properties for sale…? And that’s if you’re still in business then.
It was Tony Robbins, lifestyle coach to millions, who said: “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”. He was wrong. You see, if you do what you’ve always done, your business will shrink, slowly but very surely, every year. Until there is nothing left.
Estate agents have actually been early adopters of new technology, in the main. In the last two decades, we’ve embraced the internet, property portals, mobile phones, CRM software and digital marketing. But it’s not enough. In order to see where the industry is heading, let’s look at three companies in other industries, to see the trends they are embracing:
Starbucks– buy a coffee from Starbucks, and you’ll enjoy free wifi while you’re there. You can work, or just surf the net, and nurse a coffee for hours, and no one will challenge you. Their mission statement is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time”. In this, their ‘higher purpose’, the business of selling coffee almost becomes a by-product and not the point of their existence at all.
Apple – with their space age, vast stores in locations the critics said would never work, Apple are really leading the way in retail innovation. In an age where I can buy a Macbook with just a few clicks on the Apple site, why would they consider it necessary to create hugely expensive stores stuffed with their products and wonderful staff? Because it works, that’s why. We still want to touch and see for ourselves before making what is for most, a significant investment. I recently popped into their Covent Garden store and a very helpful assistant found the accessory I was looking for with a smile. Then he brought out a mobile payment machine for my card, and processed my transaction there and then, so that I didn’t have to go to a till. Why don’t Next, Marks and Spencer and the other High Street dinosaurs do this yet?
Hilton– Hilton Hotels has a great initiative via Twitter called Hilton Suggests, which helps travellers all around the world to help them find everything from the best burger joint to the perfect park for scenic views and walking paths, wherever they may be located at the time of their tweet. Kind of like a Siri that actually works. Simply put, someone might ask about the best iconic places for walking and dining in London and @HiltonSuggests will reply with the places that they’ve experienced to be the best. The team (who are all volunteers local to that city) never tries to sell or even to mention the hotel chain – they just give useful, timely help for anyone they see ask a question that their team can answer. I heard about HiltonSuggests when they helped a dog owner find a nearby vet, and made the sick dog and his owner very happy. The dog owner tweeted about HiltonSuggests, and the story was soon picked up by the media. What fantastic, positive press for Hilton Hotels!
So what can you learn from these three examples that you can implement into your estate agency? Can you be useful (perhaps even indispensable) with no expectation of a sale? Can you give without taking? Can you pick up on the Starbucks model and offer free coffee, wifi and use of your toilet for anyone who actually pops into your (expensive) town centre office?
Can you take a leaf out of Apple’s book and have iPads and laptops for anyone’s use?
Or can you embrace the ‘usefulness’ of HiltonSuggests and offer free workshops on homestaging or even home maintenance? Or a free property clinic for vendors who can’t sell their homes, including your vendors?
The choice is yours. Stay where you are and eventually become irrelevant, or else start now on becoming absolutely indispensible to your community, and in doing so, ensure your longevity way past 2050.
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