Why letting agents need marginal gains for their agency

The history books will tell you that the Roman Empire was the Romans’ most significant achievement. But the famous saying goes that, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” This is the same for your letting agency. For your business to yield results, you have to steadily build upon the foundation with small improvements or marginal gains.

Letting agents overlook the minor successes, but many businesses outside of the private rented sector are guilty of this as well. By building up multiple smaller changes, your agency will see more significant success in the long term. We’ve created this article to tell agents why they need to use marginal gains when running their agency.

What are marginal gains?

Dave Brailsford, who coached several British cycling teams such as Team Sky (now Team Ineos), coined the marginal gains theory. By implementing small changes over time, they will add up to a greater improvement long-term. Under his leadership, Dave applied the marginal gains theory when improving the British cycling team’s performance in several Olympic Games.

A few examples of Dave’s small improvements included making bike seats more comfortable right down to researching how to improve sleep by investing in better pillows and mattresses. These small changes led Great Britain to dominate cycling records across several Olympic games.

Why letting agents need to use marginal gains

So, what do marginal gains that first developed in sport have to do with your agency? Well, humans like to see the big picture first. We set goals for ourselves and want immediate satisfaction from early results. However, trying to implement large changes all at once adds to unnecessary stress and pressure. You won’t achieve everything you want for your business in a few steps.

A 1% marginal gain doesn’t sound like a massive improvement for letting agents. However, combined with several other small changes, it can propel your letting agency to new heights. Another way to look at it is through small mistakes. A 1% marginal decline may not affect you immediately, but enough errors in the long-term can seriously affect your business.

Marginal gains allow you to grow your market share and focus on areas of business that will significantly benefit from small changes. You need patience, but the results will inevitably show in the long term.

How to apply marginal gains to your business

Set goals and targets 

Like any business or marketing strategy, you need tangible goals and targets. One goal might be to increase net income. However, what’s also important is focusing on specific areas of your letting agency.

The short-term changes you make will yield success in the long term by breaking down specific areas of your letting agency that agents can improve.

Focus on improving one area of your agency

Focusing on improving one aspect of your agency is key to making that 1% change. If you know you want to improve organic traffic, for example, ask yourself key questions. Is your content SEO optimised? How can you improve your agency’s presence on social media? What could you do better to attract people to your website?

Like Dave Brailsford did for his team, researching is vital to achieving marginal gains for your business.

Measure metrics and data

Now, more than ever, data rules our world. We use it to inform business decisions, market to our audiences, and measure the results of changes we make. Whether you measure how efficient tenant screenings are or lead conversions, data will indicate what areas will benefit from marginal gains.

Letting agents have a wide range of software to help manage and measure their data. CRM software such as Hubspot and Salesforce helps connect inbound marketing, customer service, sales, and operations all in one place. That way, you don’t have to go shuffling through mismanaged spreadsheets to find the data you need.

Meet your first marginal gains goal with Resooma

By listing with us for free, we’ll match you with high-quality leads and maximise your property’s exposure. With our inclusive bills service, we’ll help you manage tenant rent and utility bills in one monthly report that you can track with an easy-to-use dashboard. Decrease property void periods and increase your marginal profits with us today.