Chapter 1297 Service Providers and Middlemen

Meng Chang didn't underestimate Tian Mo because of what he said; on the contrary, he valued him even more.

Regardless of what Tian Mo was like before, anyone personally discovered by President Pei must have something extraordinary about them!

Moreover, whether Tian Mo's understanding of the real estate agent profession was profound enough and whether he could provide Meng Chang with the answers he sought would only be known after a conversation.

Meng Chang decided to get straight to the point: "So, what are your thoughts on the real estate agent profession?"

"For example, there's a widespread prejudice against this profession. Do you think it's a problem with the people, the companies, or the entire industry?"

Tian Mo took a sip of coffee and considered for a moment before saying, "Actually, if you had asked me this question when I was still working as an agent, I definitely wouldn't have been able to answer it."

"Because back then, I didn't understand anything. Even if I saw something, I couldn't analyze it."

"But after being a sales department head at Tengda for a while, and with President Pei's constant guidance, I suddenly had some insights."

"Looking back at my experience as an agent, I suddenly have some new perspectives."

Meng Chang's eyes lit up.

What was this?

This was understanding one thing and understanding everything!

The original Tian Mo could only be considered a very clumsy real estate agent.

He only closed two deals in a month. To say it wasn't because of a lack of ability but because he was too conscientious was impossible!

But now, Tian Mo was thriving and highly praised in Tengda's sales department, which clearly meant he had received President Pei's true teachings and had become enlightened.

The nature of work in sales departments is similar.

Now that Tian Mo was enlightened, looking back at his previous experiences, he would naturally gain new insights.

Especially when comparing his experience working at Tengda with his experience working at the real estate agency, the differences would naturally become apparent.

Meng Chang was suddenly very much looking forward to what Tian Mo was about to say.

Tian Mo deliberated for a moment before saying, "The sales method President Pei taught me is actually the most ideal method."

"Tengda has the best products, and as a salesperson, all I have to do is honestly introduce the products to customers and treat them with sincerity. Naturally, I'll leave a good impression on them and build a kind of trust in the process."

"Trust in the salesperson, coupled with the excellence of the product itself, naturally ensures good sales."

"Treating people with sincerity and serving them wholeheartedly are the sales principles that President Pei taught me."

"But when I applied this sales method to my previous work as an agent, I found that it simply didn't work, it was even incompatible."

"Now that I think about it, some real estate agents are annoying not only because of the varying quality of the employees, but also because of the profit-driven nature of the brokerage firms and the unique characteristics of the entire industry."

Meng Chang happily nodded, recording in his notebook as he said, "We have plenty of time, no rush, take your time."

Tian Mo continued, "Most people's bad impressions of various sales and agents come from their interactions with specific individuals."

"The recruitment requirements for similar professions are relatively low, especially the employees of some shady agencies, whose qualities vary even more widely, so it's easy to leave a bad impression."

"But at its root, I think the problem is from top to bottom, from the industry to the company, and finally reflected in a specific person."

"Lower recruitment requirements don't necessarily mean that the people hired are of lower quality. My education level is also very low, and I couldn't survive in an ordinary agency, but I'm doing well at Tengda."

"It's clear that many times it's not a problem of the people, but a problem of the industry and the company. The environment creates a false inducement for people, and individuals find it difficult to change the entire environment. Over time, it becomes the current state, a muddy mess where no one can remain unaffected."

Meng Chang nodded, "Then what do you think is the root cause of everyone's prejudice against this industry?"

Tian Mo thought for a moment, "It's its operating model."

"I didn't realize this at first, but after comparing it with Tengda, I understood that Tengda's sales and the agents of some small agencies, on the surface, seem to be the same kind of work, but in reality, they have nothing in common."

"Tengda's sales are service-oriented, they're the icing on the cake. Our job is, on the premise that the product is excellent, to objectively introduce the product's advantages and disadvantages to customers, and whether or not the customer wants to buy it depends entirely on the customer's own wishes."

"But the agents and sales of other companies are not like this."

"Their job is inducement-oriented, it's offering a fan in the snow. Not providing charcoal in the snow, but offering a fan in the snow."

"They work hard to induce and distort the needs of customers, and when customers are in urgent need of something, they use rhetoric and other methods to make customers believe that the thing in front of them is exactly what they need, thereby facilitating the transaction."

"Customers need charcoal in the snow, but the salespeople work hard to sell fans to customers."

"Like many real estate agents who post fake photos online, or post information about properties that don't actually exist. When customers see it and think the house is good, they call to ask, and the agent will say, 'The property is still available, come and I'll take you to see it.'"

"Once the customer arrives, the agent takes them to another house, saying that the house they saw earlier has just been booked, but there's a similar one available. Since the customer has already come, they can only follow along to see it."

"The so-called 'similar' is actually worlds apart."

"Many agents use this method to facilitate transactions, trying to sell those poorly decorated and poorly located houses to customers."

"This is a very common method, it's even becoming mainstream. Customers simply can't be sure whether the photos they see on the website are photos of real properties, and in all likelihood, they're not."

"By concealing and deceiving, the customers are scammed once and naturally learn their lesson. They don't want to be scammed a second time, and bad impressions naturally form."

Meng Chang nodded, "Yeah, I've heard of this, it's really annoying."

"Then should this be attributed to the employees, or to the company, or to the industry?"

Tian Mo said, "I think it should still be attributed to the industry and the company."

"In President Pei's view, agents and sales should be service-oriented industries."

"Many real estate agencies should primarily focus on serving tenants, meeting their needs, providing them with quality housing and good security services, and charging commissions accordingly."

"But many companies now, like Zhujia Group, their nature of work is no longer as a service provider, but as a middleman."

"By setting up stores, they monopolize the surrounding housing resources. When landlords post information, the agents keep calling to grab the properties. Ordinary tenants can't contact the landlords and can only be forced to find agencies and rent houses from them."

"Then, the agencies use their dominant position to coax or deceive tenants into signing contracts, transforming from service providers into masters of the tenants."

"They even pressure landlords to lower prices and raise prices for tenants, maximizing profits."

"On the surface, they're providing services, but the services they provide are completely disproportionate to their actual value. In essence, they use industry monopolies and artificially created information gaps to isolate the real demand side, which is the landlords and tenants, thereby turning themselves into middlemen who profit from both ends."

"And once this change in nature occurs, from a service-oriented nature to a middleman nature, then these companies, in order to make more money, will naturally spawn all kinds of outrageous operations."

"Like I said before, they use fake properties to trick customers into coming, divide houses into compartments and rent them to many people, decorate them with inferior materials and rent them out at high prices, and even threaten and extort customers who try to bypass the agency. Various methods emerge one after another. Although the methods vary depending on the company, with large companies being relatively concerned about their reputation and small companies having no bottom line, in the final analysis, it's all because their nature is no longer a service industry, but has become a middleman who monopolizes channels by any means."

"And the ultimate goal of these outrageous operations is only one: to make more money by any means, even thinking up and carrying out the desperate plan of tricking tenants into signing loan agreements and then using the loans to monopolize housing resources, completely disregarding the consequences."

"Why do many people say that these companies are bloodsuckers? It's because the services they provide are completely unworthy of the profits they actually seize."

"Since the industry and the companies are like this, the employees can naturally only pursue profits and commissions by any means, and that's how it's become what it is now."

"The real instigator should be that 'business genius' who first transformed the nature of the agency business from 'service' to 'middleman'."

"Many people are doing things that, on the surface, are creating new business models, but in reality, they're adding rat droppings to the pot, stirring up the entire industry into a smoky mess and making black-hearted money."

"And what President Pei has been doing is exactly the opposite. He has been working hard to use a new business model to replace the current mainstream,畸形的(jixingde – deformed), and distorted business model, returning these industries to their original state."

Meng Chang nodded repeatedly as he recorded quickly.

After listening to Tian Mo's words, he felt that he had really found the right person.

Penetrating and insightful!

Indeed, many people's bad impressions of agents may come from a specific agent of poor quality.

But the source of this phenomenon is actually that the entire large company, and even the entire industry, has problems from the root.

When a company's nature changes fundamentally, every employee, whether voluntarily or not, whether forced or actively doing these things for commissions, the result will be no different.

There will even be a phenomenon of bad money driving out good, the company wants tools who earn profits by any means, even landlords and tenants are trying to squeeze, not to mention their own employees.

And in this situation, many people can't do this kind of work, and after continuous turnover, the people who stay are naturally assimilated.