Inspiration

Red Rag to a Bull

The “gobby” Saira Khan saga continues

You might have read my article “Scare your Clients” in the June edition of Estate Agency News. The article focused on the importance of making your prospective clients aware of the dangers of not instructing you, as opposed to overtly pushing your benefits onto them in a hollow “use us, because we’re the best” type of fashion.

One person who read the article was Saira Khan. I had made reference to Saira in the article as being the “overbearingly pushy loudmouthed” lady featured in BBC2’s “The Apprentice”. I suggested that her style of business appeared to be limited to aggressive and unrefined sales patter that would insult the intelligence of many would-be property sellers.

I’m not suggesting that Saira was reading Estate Agency News because she is considering a career in Estate Agency (God forbid!). I imagine her PR people track every mention of her name in support of her budding media career, and they drew her attention to it. However, my article prompted Saira to send me a long, sarcastic, and highly defensive email, to prove her own point by bragging about how good she is – how she is writing a book, she has a lucrative media career, writes a newspaper column, owns five properties, is available for corporate speaking, etc..

Rather than helping me to see what I regard as Saira’s somewhat blinkered perspective from her point of view, her email actually served to support my view that people (or is it just me?) are turned off by the arrogance of “look at me, I’m simply the best” – it just doesn’t wash! And she even believes her own spiel, and I quote “middle class English pull techniques will get you very limited results in today’s competitive world”. Odd then, that in estate agency, those agents who have rapidly secured significant market share over those pushy agents who rely on nothing other than brawn, tend to be those who use great marketing initiatives, have a good grasp of buyer/seller psychology, and a focus on innovative customer service delivery and communication. Things that demonstrate real distinction in their business.

Distinction in today’s world is the guts of competitiveness. When you have a dozen or more agents vying for one seller’s instruction the one who stands out from the crowd is the one who tends to get the business – not the one who shouts the loudest!

Marketing (or pull) has to come before sales (or push), because marketing is the platform from which sales happen more easily. For example, I wouldn’t expect a girl to go out with me simply because I told her I was a stud! Why would she? There would be no trust, no appeal, no reason, and high risk involved in forming such a relationship with someone whose motives were overtly self-satisfying! There would be alarm bells ringing instantly.

So it is with agents. If you are not attractive in the first place, then you don’t even get the chance to pitch. And pushing is not attractive. Why would someone entrust their sale to an agent whose need for the instruction clearly takes precedence over their clients’ need for good advice? This is what good salesmanship is all about. The good salesperson does not need to resort to “pushing” a client into a sale, not least because that could also be unethical and unprofessional, although of course tenacity is still very important. A pushy style simply does not instil the trust necessary to gain the confidence of the vendor.

The bad press agents have received in the past (fortunately improving) mean we need to work even harder to dispel the myths and imagery of the cowboy agent. If it is elements of trust and confidence that have let us down in the past then we need to make sure we do what we can to overcome these prejudices. And the first thing is to demonstrate empathy, patience, consideration, courtesy and integrity. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting agents become soft and fluffy! Because these attributes should be supported by a passion for excellence and results, straight-talking good advice, and demonstrable levels of personal accountability and commitment.

As I write this, I feel even more strongly that we have moved on in leaps and bounds from the pushiness of the 1980s, and that the public deserves better as they have moved on as well (often faster and further than agents).

Sadly, I fear Saira’s vicious attack (she threatens to quote my article in her next BBC appearance “as an example of bad advice to sales people”) could be based on her misguided view of estate agents. She demonstrated very little understanding of our business in her email (another example of “know your audience if you wish to avoid making a fool of yourself”) and is clearly prejudiced. She actually said “The biggest problem Estate Agents have is they have no people skills…I would never use (an estate agent) - I'd go straight to the net!” Odd really – why go to the net, if you want people skills?!

Saira’s email was marked “High Importance”. I was tempted to reply “High Self-Importance”, but resisted the urge. Instead I sent her what I thought was a balanced and reasoned reply. I suggested that the “push-pull” discussion would make a good business radio debate if she was up for it, but sadly I have to date not received a reply from her.

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© Richard Rawlings 2010
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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