Remember your team as well as your customers

It's Christmas week and my short message today is to remember your team as well as your customers. It's all to easy to just focus in the task in hand, especially if you're busy with those last sales before Christmas. But remember that as busy as you are in your professional and personal life, your team will be just as busy. Leaving a few minutes early to catch the kids school nativity play or an extra fee minutes on a lunch hour to get groceries for Christmas dinner should be something that's given appreciation for.

Also think about the environment you work in. A non-uniform day or a themed dress day, maybe for charity will lift the spirits and do some good. Laying on snacks, particularly festive snacks, will also keep the team's spirit high going into those last few days before Christmas.

I've written before in this blog that team spirit makes a big difference to your customers, and eventually your bottom line. People do business with people, not special offers or price promotions. Ensuring that your people are fully motivated and feeling valued will ensure that your customers want to do business with them.

I was watching a version of A Christmas Carol yesterday and a line jumped out at me that I'd never noticed before. Ebenezer Scrooge said  to the ghost of Christmas yet to come "I'll try to keep Christmas all year round." I thought that this sentiment rang true for this particular blog. All of the above, keeping the team motivated, etc is something that you should try to keep all year round. It's important to have a well motivated team at all points if the year.

Is it condescending to speak to all of your team about the cold?

It's cold and by all accounts it will be getting colder. It's the time of year when dark skies and cold weather make commuting more time-consuming and more dangerous. I think it's a good idea to speak to each member of your team about leaving a little earlier, driving a little safer, discussing where they park and ensuring they wrap up warm.

Some may see this as condescending but I think it's caring and shows some interest and compassion. Making sure that all your team are safe and well is a good start to every day.

The way you carry this out is entirely up to you - be it a team thing, a one-to-one or an internal email, I think the short amount of time taken to do this will make a difference to all.

Just a short note today, inspires by the weather!

What do you say about other agents to your (potential) clients?

Speaking to a few agents this week has got me thinking. It took me back to when I was an estate agent in a town where I knew a lot of people. Word would often come back from clients and friends relating to what other estate agents had said during market appraisals about us and other agents in the town. Rather than focussing on the positives about their own service, certain estate agents would use the market appraisal as an opportunity to be really negative about other agents-

"They're not on Rightmove."

"They don't do floor plans."

"They don't sell houses."

"They rip you off."

"Their fees are high."

"We'll beat their fee."

"We'll match their fee."

What is your stance on this?

Personally I think that in an ideal world the focus would solely be on what someone COULD do and not on what they don't do, but I'm not naive enough to think that everyone is like that.

I think that you should focus on what you do best, on what differentiates you from the competition - so "we're the only agent in town that offers floor plans as standard" is the positive way of saying "they don't do floor plans."

I think that positivity will win out and eventually you will get a reputation of being a fair, honest and open estate agent, where your rivals that have nothing good to say about themselves will lose out in the long run as customers become more aware of how they operate.

Think of all the positive things that you can say about your own team, marketing, track record, sales, Rex and make these the basis of your market appraisal , not knocking your competition verbally but hitting them where it hurts the most - in the pocket.