The 2022 property market has been significantly livelier than I expected, but via the barometer of multiple conversations with estate agents across many parts of the country in recent weeks, I fear that the sales market will prove potentially challenging again as the year rolls on.

The training and consultancy work I undertake for estate agency firms includes the analysis of business performance. I regularly review estate agency’s residential sales operations during which time a number of significant gaps and weaknesses can be quickly revealed. There are some which are very commonplace in the industry. None of these may apply to your own business, but if any of them possibly do, spotting and addressing them sooner rather than later is strongly advised.

For example, all new customers/applicants being registered straight onto a CRM and added to an ever-expanding database. The number of applicants often runs to thousands in total. The standard of qualification of these freshly registering house hunters is frequently substandard. Order taking rather than selling is the norm.

The computer system often runs the show. It issues daily prompts to the staff about which customers/clients should be contacted and when, leading to massive to-do lists, which are rarely completed. This leads to staff becoming demoralised because they are rushing around and achieving little. Their focus is simply on trying to complete to-do lists as opposed to achieving productive business objectives. The tail wags the dog.

Far too much of agents’ communication with potential buyers involves pinging endless emails at them in the hope that this “spray and pray” approach bears fruit.

I have been the victim of this approach from an agent who has thus far sent me hundreds of new instruction/price reduction emails over the last few years without one single, solitary phone call. I wonder if they will ever notice that I have responded to none of them, let alone viewed anything? You might think they would be intrigued enough to enquire as to whether I am still looking, changed my criteria or maybe got a different email address?

Of course, in the frenetic market we have experienced, an agent can get away with this blanket approach as it kind of works (though not as well as a diligent, well trained and focused strategy obviously), but what if those things become less frenetic?

Proactive telephone contact with hot buyers and local property-to-sell applicants to secure extra viewings and maximise other business opportunities through accomplished and refined selling skills is virtually non-existent within some businesses.

All these approaches if conditions move from a “let it happen” to a “make it happen” market will prove highly misguided. In reality, they aren’t great in any circumstances, but they have allowed survival and profit for a number of quite average businesses in the past few years.

Thankfully, we have changed these key business practices for a number of estate agencies through solutions which include training being undertaken to reprogramme the way staff work, which typically has a swift positive affect on the firm’s staff morale and sales figures.

To achieve this, we agree and implement a qualification and categorisation process, to include agreeing effective agendas, superior questioning and listening skills, closing techniques etc resulting in far superior levels of information being gleaned from applicants, particularly in terms of their detailed motivation, ability and needs. We also create a culture where the training is reinforced regularly by the management team – what we fondly call the “gentle pressure applied relentlessly” factor.

Ascertaining customers’ true timeframes, financial capabilities and reasons for moving proves invaluable in assessing the quality of the prospects and the sales opportunities they represent, or indeed fail to. This enables the negotiators to undertake the essential task of accurately categorising their applicants, based on their findings.

To keep it simple, applicants are allocated a status of between one and four (or something similar), depending upon their answers, to ensure all receive an appropriate level of follow-up and ongoing service.

Brutal though it may sound, applicant culling rules are enforced. In some companies, these are long overdue, particularly given that there are a vast number of applicants who have been on the database for over six (and in many cases, twelve) months without attending a single viewing.

The staff are reminded of the basic estate agency principle that customers can only ever go down one of two routes – they either make you money or cost you money, with often a high proportion doing the latter.

Astute agents recognise that their most valuable asset is their time. The most effective agents trade their time with customers and clients who are going to earn them income – less successful agents invest their time in the wrong people and/or the wrong situations for no return. The “busy fools” syndrome.

These fundamental principles serve to ensure that my client firms’ staff are now identifying and exploring opportunities better than ever before and positioning themselves to succeed in the potentially tougher market ahead. It might be worth you taking heed of them. As Jack Welch said “Change before you have to”.

Julian O’Dell is head of Marvellous Training Solutions.