Four-i Weekly

Blah, Blah, Blah.

Blah Blah Blah

Jaynie Smith, best-selling author of ‘Creating Competitive Advantage’ (19 reprints) who regularly appears on all the major US TV networks to discuss business issues, spoke with Property Academy Members from Florida last week.

Prior, she had done her research into how UK estate agents describe themselves and here’s the most common 10 things she found (NB not ranked):

  • Independent
  • Professional
  • Trusted
  • Our people/team
  • Marketing
  • Innovative
  • Personal service
  • Local knowledge
  • Community involvement
  • Long established/experienced

Jaynie’s response to them all was simple:

“Blah, Blah, Blah”.

She expanded, “these are the same responses I’ve heard over 20 years from every size of business, in every sector, in every country in the world. They have no impact on the customer at all – they’ve heard these things said 1,000 times or more and they just filter them out.”

Jaynie then went on to show what does cause customers to stop, take notice, engage and buy – and they are all Competitive Advantages.

Competitive Advantages must be:

  • Objective, not subjective
  • Not claimed by the competition
  • True and provable
  • Quantifiable, not arbitrary
  • Not a given or a cliche
  • Past tense or fact

“We have a passionate team” is not a competitive advantage. “Each year we invest £250,000 in training to keep our team ahead of everyone else” is.

“We are local experts” is not a competitive advantage. “In the first six months of 2020, we sold 52% of all properties that came onto the market, the other 12 agents added together sold less than half” is.

“We have the largest market share” is not a competitive advantage. “On average, we sell properties 46 days faster and achieve 98.4% of asking price compared with the industry average of 94.1%” is.

Property Academy members have exclusive access to Jaynie’s presentation (and many other webinars with world-class speakers and industry experts that have been recorded during the Covid19 period). New members get full access to this library – get in touch if you’d like to learn more.

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