Inspiration

How to Regain That Profitable Instruction

RAT 90 (Rawlings Agency Tip)

It’s too easy to presume that because one of your competitors got the instruction instead of you that you have missed a revenue opportunity with that client. Not necessarily so! I could go so far as to suggest that you might even have enhanced it!

It works like this. The chances are (currently about 50%) that the other agent will fail to sell that property and subsequently lose it to another agent. There are two reasons why the first agent failed to sell the property. Firstly (and you know this) they probably overpriced it. But this is not the reason why they lost the instruction. They lost it because they allowed their lack of buyers, dwindling enthusiasm and embarrassment about the price to adversely affect their level of communication with the client. Days without a call turned into weeks or even months, suggesting to the client that the agent had given up. They may well have done! Damned price!

This failure to communicate frequently and with authority suggested to the client that they were not with the right agent, so they jump ship, possibly prompted by the end of a period of formal sole agency.

And to whom do they jump? To the agent they would now prefer to handle the sale. This can easily be you. The problem is that too many agents assume that as they failed to get the instruction first time round, the client doesn’t like them. Yet you were probably only a whisker away from getting it originally (although you too may not have been able to sell it if you were foolish enough to have taken it on at that stupid price).

This assumption means that despite the client having initially invited you to quote, you fail to maintain any relationship with them as soon as they decided to go with your competitor. Yet you know that their relationship with that agent is probably doomed.

So why not communicate with that seller almost as frequently as you should have done had you got the instruction? Ask them things such as “How is the marketing going?”, “Why hasn’t it been featured on xxx portal?”, “I notice the house wasn’t advertised last week”, “Have Mr and Mrs xxx viewed the house? No? Really? How odd, I’m sure they must be on that agent’s books as well as ours”. (Of course if you're feeling really bullish you might even approach vendors who did not originally invite you in!)

Sooner or later the day will come when the seller realises that they should have chosen you all along. And by the time they do, they will be increasingly keen to move. And because you have earned their trust they are more likely to listen to your advice as well. Of course, the house has gone a bit stale on the market now, so they are likely to re-list it with you at a much more realistic figure, so you get an early sale and a happy client, who by the way is by now also less hung up on the fee issue! Not that they ever were – see How to Protect Your Commission

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© Richard Rawlings 2012
Richard Rawlings is the founding director of Estate Agency Insight, which specialises in helping estate agencies harness opportunity through innovative method, marketing, publicity, and training. He can be contacted at or on 0845 838 1354.

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