Rent to Rent Success - 5 Simple Steps to Get Your First Deal

How do you get started in rent to rent with no experience
The steps to get started in rent to rent and get your first deal

Today's post was inspired by a comment in our Rent 2 Rent Success Secrets facebook group from Catherine…

"Hi Stephanie
I watched your video on marketing letters.
Very impressive, and I can see why landlords use your services.

I think a lot of us newbies are disadvantaged by not having a track record or a letting agency of our own.

How did you get your first deal?"

It’s a great question, thanks Catherine

It's easy once you've got momentum, you've got started, you've got people who have used your services and really found them great and you really have got your whole thing down to a fine art.

At the beginning, when you don't have any experience in rent to rent, how do you get started?

That's what I'm going to explain in this post.
The 5 easy steps to get your first deal.

1 Know your stuff

First thing that's crucial is to find out about HMO licensing in your area.

You need to know whether it is Article 4?
You need to know what's allowable, what room sizes, all the nitty-gritty.

It’s simple to find out on the relevant Council's HMO licensing webpage. That will have the basics of what you need to know.
You do need to be able to answer those basic questions that people will be asking you.
It does vary from area to area, so find out.

Work with someone experienced

I see so many people having problems.
Spending unnecessary money, buying bad deals and wasting time because they think it’s better to try and figure things out on their own!

If you don’t want to invest in training right now, at the very least talk to someone experienced when you are having problems. What is a big problem for you is an every day easy fix for someone experienced.

You can get our free Guide and Online Training here.
And if you’d like to take things to the next level and apply to work with us in our Rent 2 Rent Kickstarter Mentorship Programme.

2 Buff up your brand

Essentially, this is about putting in writing everything that backs up what you tell people when you meet them either in person or over the telephone.

Don't let this put you off from starting.
You don't need any of these things, but they're nice-to-haves.

They make you feel more confident too when you're going out to letting agents and landlords.

Ideally you want to have a webpage, a business card and a brochure.

By brochure, I don't mean a professionally designed and printed brochure.
What I mean is you write down exactly what service you offer, because when you speak to anyone on the phone, they're going to ask you to follow up with an email.
And yours is ready to go!

This process of writing down what you offer also gives you extra clarity in your mind.
It makes it easier for you to believe in your service and sell it.

Let me walk through those one by one.

Your website
We find that letting agents do tend to look at your website after you’ve met.
Landlords are pretty mixed, some do, some don’t.

Many of the landlords we've written to, who have called us, say that they haven't visited the website.
However, we do get lots of calls from the website, from people who are outside of our area who want to invest in Newport, who have Googled HMO management in Newport, and have found us.

Having a website is good on several different levels.
I would recommend you get one.

It’s so quick and inexpensive to do now that it’s a no-brainer, especially if you’re working with letting agents.

Your goal with the text on your website is to briefly explain what you do, and how you solve the problem that your landlords/agents have.

Your ability to understand a customer’s problem and solve it simply is what makes you magnetic.

It goes back to the magnetic marketing I talked about in the rent to rent letters video, it's the same principle.

It can just be a very simple website.
It's very inexpensive and quick to organise a website these days.
What I encourage you to do is just get something online.
It doesn't have to be perfect, just get something online that communicates the message of your business and the problem that you're trying to solve.

I encourage you to create a very simple webPAGE.
It’s just there so that google knows who you are if anyone asks.

Our HMO Heaven website is much more elaborate now than it was when we started.
Even so, you’ll still see the homepage clearly states in a few words what we do.

“Award-winning HMO Management
Let us do the work so you don't have to”

Simplicity is key.
Don’t take a long time over this.
Get it done!
The real business is after your webpage is up.

So I don’t want you taking months on this.
Publish a webPAGE and move on!

Your business card
Now people might disagree with me here and say in this digital age, why bother with a business card?
What I’ve found is both letting agents and HMO landlords (and I know I’m generalising here!) are pretty old school.

A physical business card does a number of things.
For you, it gives you clarity on your business, your brand and your service.
The process of creating it makes it feel ‘real’ for you and all of this will give you more of the self-belief which will help you get your first deal

For the landlords and agents you meet, a physical card make you more credible and it’s a reminder.

So it’s entirely up to you.
It’s your business, I still recommend it.
Just print a few.

Recommendations

Design
Fiverr

Printing
Moo.com

Our business card is pretty simple.
Some people do recommend that you have your photo on your card, which is a great idea. Do use a professional photo though and not a snapshot or selfie!

Remember the business card is just giving someone the top level of who you are, what you do and how to contact you.

Sizzle not steak.
Don’t try to cram your life story on there.

We don't want to give too much information and overwhelm people at the beginning.
Once they've stepped through the door and they've shown interest in the sizzle, we can tell them more about the steak.

The ‘brochure’
To start with all I’m suggesting is a few paragraphs of text on your computer which is ready to copy, paste, personalise and email to followup any initial meetings.

Definitely wait until after you have your first property before you have a brochure professionally printed.

The reason I say this is that you will change and develop this as you begin speaking with people and see what works best.

When we first started we didn’t have any template text.
I was writing and thinking about what to write each time.

Think about it once.
Write it once.
Then save it in the cloud and re-use, just personalising it each time.

Our landlord brochure is now is a very simple 2 page document with some photos attached explaining what we do.

3 Love Letting Agents
The Magic of Tenant Find Only

Let me give you a few tips for working with letting agents.

We did this in the beginning to good effect, and we got a good relationship with one particular agent, in particular, that gave us three properties.

They're different because it was on ‘introduction only’ also known as ‘tenant find only’.
What this means is that landlord asked the agent to find a tenant only. Afterwards the landlords would manage the tenant direct without the agent.

That’s great for us because it means we get to be direct with the landlord.

That might be a way in for you as well.
I'll tell you what happened…

I was still working full-time in Bristol.
I was going to view properties at weekends.
On the Saturday in question in June 2016, I came over and I had a viewing for three HMOs with one agent.

Then, I was in town and I thought, right.
I'll just have a walk around because most of the letting agents are in the same street.
I walked past a big high street letting agent, a chain letting agent.
And I thought, ‘oh they're not really going to go for it’.
Then I thought, you know what?
Go on.
Go for it.
Be strong.

I went in and I asked if they had any HMOs.
Lovely Letting Agent: Is it subletting?
Me: Yes, all above board and with contracts in place.
Lovely Letting Agent: No. We don't do that.

Because they're part of a franchise.
They would need to get head office to yes and all of that malarkey.

Me: Well because we're unknown to you, what you could do is use us for ‘introduction only’ landlords. Then, when you see the service that we offer, you might be prepared to work with us on a ‘fully managed’ basis.

She actually then started shuggling me towards the big screens where all the properties were.
She took me over to the screen and she showed me a couple of the properties.
They were just a few doors away from each other on the same street.
It turned out they're both owned by the same landlord.
Those were our first two properties in Newport.

From going in the door when she said, ‘We don't do that’ and just having a little chat, we got those properties.
That might work for you as well.

Say to the agent that perhaps if they're not familiar with you, and they're not familiar with your work, maybe they would consider working with you for the landlords who are looking for introduction only.

3 More Tips for working with Letting Agents
These work for letting agents and all sorts of other situations as well.

i Believe
You have to believe in you and believe in your service and believe that you're offering something valuable to them. If that doesn't come over from you, people won't believe in you and they won't take you on.

ii Be you
That means no BS.
We told the agent that although we are experienced landlords, our business is new and we're also new in this area.
Believe that they will see your integrity.
Trust is built in the first few seconds.
They will see your integrity and commitment, so you don't need to BS.
Think about how you can put your best foot forward and still be honest.

Can you get some experience with friends or acquaintances who have HMOs?
Be resourceful!

iii Be persistent
Keep showing up, keep building up that relationship.
Keep calling or visiting and asking, ‘Have you got anything this week?’
Building up that relationship with the agent, popping in to see what's going on and just keep really building that relationship up so when they do have something, that they're going to call you first.

When you do get those first few deals, call all of the agents, invite them in.
Show them what you've done, what you've achieved for other agents. Make sure that they know.

If they can't make it, send them an email with the photos, testimonials from other agents and say, ‘If you get any properties of x type, please let me know, I’d love to work with you’.

Make sure they know exactly the type of properties that you're looking for in detail, so that as soon as that type of property comes in, they're going to think of you and your business.

Being persistent is important.
Yet, particularly in Britain, we're so loathe to do it because we don't want to be seen as a pest or a pain.

This is business, and they're expecting for you to keep showing up.
You're still in business.
You're still looking for property
So they're expecting that you should keep coming in.

If you keep going in and you keep asking and you keep building that relationship, you will get properties.

Also, you'll be in the top 5%.
Most people give up after a few no’s.
You need to see no’s as one step closer to yes, and keep going when 95% of people have given up.

Get yourself in the top 5% and keep going until you win.

4 Landlord Letters

This is the Holy Grail of HMO marketing.

To build up your HMO management business, you have been gifted with having the HMO Landlord Lists.

Use them to send letters to landlords, but make your letters good.

Our landlords tell us they receive a lot of letters. And with most of them, the quality is very poor.

Make your letters stand out from the crowd.
Make your letters magnetic.
Make your letters solve the problems.

You know, I've done a video all about magnetic marketing rent to rent letters.

And you might be interested in buying our 5P Magnetic Marketing Letter Formula and letter templates.

5 Be a networking ninja

That means tell everyone about your new business.

Now, I don't just mean go to property networking events, although do go to property networking events.
You learn so much, and you get so inspired by hearing other people's stories about what they have achieved in property. That makes it all so much more real, and it brings the dream closer.
Do go to property networking events, but also go to business networking events.

At business networking events, you can practice your pitch where you're really specific about what service you provide and the specific type of people that you can help, which helps people to refer those people to you.

When you're at property networking, when you're at the general business networking, when you're walking your dog, when you're out with friends, when you're taking your children to school…

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, tell people what you do

People love to ask you what you do.
It's the standard question, isn't it?

Make sure you've got a good answer for people, so that they can refer people.
They can help people out who need you.

Here's an example of what you could say.

If you deal exclusively with HMOs, here's something that you might say to someone,

"I help house share landlords by offering guaranteed rent, freedom from tenant management and total peace of mind."

Simplicity is key.
People should understand exactly what you do, who you can help and how you help them.
They know what a house share is.
They might know landlords who are house share landlords.

Every landlord loves to tell stories.
These are people who are telling their friends about the times when the tenants are calling them at midnight or when the tenants have argued about who has eaten the cheese or asked them to change a lightbulb.

HMO landlords have always got a story, so their friends will know what problems they're having.
They'll remember that.
And they’ll remember you.

Obviously you have to say something that feels good for you, that feels right for you, that is representative of your business and what you're offering.

If you're at a business event, a general business event, and you're looking for investors or you have opportunities for investors, then you might say something like…

"We offer opportunities for investors. We manage house shares, which deliver much higher returns than single lets. Our rates of return, on average, are 20%."

It's just very simple, and it would get the interest of anyone who is thinking about investment, anyone who has got a lot of money sitting in the bank.

When you say 20% and they're thinking about 1% in the bank, that is intriguing.
It's of interest.

That just gives you a couple of examples of the types of things you can say to everyone you meet to mean that your phone is ringing with referrals, from within your network and your network's network.

It's a great way of operating.

Katherine, I hope that's answered your question.

If you’d like me to answer your question, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

Speak soon
Stephanie & Nicky
xx

Believe Bigger ⭐ Be Bolder ⭐ Be a Gamechanger

#rent2rentsuccess #yesyoucan 

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If you want to get started in Rent 2 Rent and take your first step to financial freedom but you're not sure where to start, you're in the right place!

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