The first Estate Agent to make a stand against junk mail
The first Estate Agent to make a stand against junk mail
By Ivor Dickinson, Managing Director of Douglas & Gordon.
It would be naive in the extreme to say that Douglas & Gordon have a monopoly on new ideas to improve the business of estate agency. In any business, if you have a good idea it is not going to be long before it is copied by the competition. You therefore have to keep reinventing the wheel, and in doing so the real winner is the great British public, as estate agents continue to upstage each other and as a consequence improve their environments and further embrace modern technology.
The one area that really baffles me though is junk mail, and it is here that estate agents really show their “sheep” like colours. Every time an agent sends out a “clever” little flyer, it gets plonked on my desk by an employee with the demand “why aren’t we doing this?” All other agents think the same thing, and suddenly there is an estate agent’s flyer on your mat every day – all of them presuming that it must work because “so and so” does it. Despite the fact that the response rate is shocking - you might get 1 enquiry from 1000 flyers – we are sheep, so we don’t think or care.
Well I’ve had enough. Douglas & Gordon will never send out a flyer or touting letter again. My managers are incredibly nervous and think I have finally completely lost the plot, thinking they are going to miss out on huge tranches of potential business. But I am putting my faith in the people of London, who I hope will acknowledge an agent who is prepared to take a risk in order to stop this nonsense that is junk mail. When I open my letterbox at home, we get between 4 and 5 glossy brochures every single day. That’s the price I pay for living out in the sticks with a wife and 3 daughters – Plumpton High Street doesn’t really cut it when it’s the Kings Road that you really crave. But how does everyone know this? Why are we besieged by entire forests on a daily basis saying “poor you, but don’t worry you can shop with me on-line!” Go away – leave me and my family alone.
We will still be distributing Bridge magazine and we might occasionally send you a new memo pad, but you’ve seen your last D&G junk mail. Let’s really try and save the planet rather than just talking about it, and just as importantly let’s stop annoying you and trust that you are intelligent enough to come to us of your own volition when you need some help with your property.