In the property industry, there are agents who specialize in home sale and/or rental, private or public housing, commercial sale and/or rental or a mix of all. There are agents who focus on the ultra-rich and others who go for the mass market. And some others are expert in a particular district or serve only investors. Perhaps they did not know it but what they're actually doing is niche marketing.
Of course, there's benefits and risks associated with this. When you focus on a niche area, you can become the expert in that particular field. But it's also difficult to turn away business if a prospect in a different target group comes knocking at your door looking for something different. Do you turn the prospect away? And many a little makes a mickle.
I remember speaking with a property agent and he said that you cannot focus on getting the big deals as they do not come by every day. And they take a long time to close a deal. You need to have the small deals to pay for the monthly bills.
When you provide a full range of services, it makes your transition from one market to another easier and less painful should demand decreases like what's happening now.
Every industry has its unique characteristics. For the property market, if you are serving the mass market buying and selling public housing, you have to continuously look for new prospects as buyers and sellers are restricted by government regulations. For example, a buyer is required to occupy the house for a certain number of years before he or she can sells it. So if a agent is thinking of getting repeat business, he has to wait. And the buyer may not want to sell the house when he or she can do so. It's somewhat like a business buying an expensive machine which may last for tens of years.
The same holds true for the rental market, though the tenure may be shorter like one or two years.
Maybe that explains why the after sale service SUCKS big time in this industry. No doubt there are the professional agents, but there are probably a lot more in it for the opportunity to make BIG money FAST. You can see the telltale sign. When property market is booming, you see many people becoming agent. And when there's a downturn, you see hordes of them leaving the industry.
Of course, staying flexible in business is a necessary skill.
A book I read about innovation pointed out that sometimes new product or service invention ended up serving a different market from the one the inventor originally invented it for. If you refuse to admit that and change your course, that is not unlike playing golf on a rainy day and insisting you won't get strike by the lightning. Persistency is definitely not very useful here.
While staying flexible is important, what if something more drastic happens?
It is difficult to imagine that everybody stops buying and selling houses tomorrow. What if it comes true? No more demand for cars, buses, air travel or even hotel?
Perhaps there's still people buying and selling but they do not need your product or service anymore.
A very good example is the pager. As technology advances, new products and services are invented and made the pager obsolete. Airplane has made railway and a host of services related to it obsolete. Self checkout counters at supermarkets are reducing the number of cashier required. It may be very soon we get a driverless car and make taxi driver obsolete.
If you would like to find out how to continue staying relevant to your market and continue bringing in money in bad economy, send an email to [email protected] for update.