BANG THE DRUM
Welcome to H
ow far do you go to understand the needs of your clients? Service standards, efficiency, friendliness, transparency... all of those of course, but how about speaking half a dozen foreign languages? When we unleashed journalist Rosalind Russell on the trail of agents who speak
in foreign tongues, we had no idea how many of you not only parlez Français or sprechen sie Deutsch or even parlare Italiano – it seems that the property world is bursting with global fluency to facilitate the smooth move that overseas buyers and tenants need. Who’d have thought that Foxtons staff could, collectively, speak 43 languages, or that
Douglas & Gordon linguists could chat in Zulu, Tamil and Swahili (to name but a few). Very impressive and very entertaining to read, but its all about winning business, of course. This enthusiasm is also apparent in our new series on property hotspots. At the risk of
Who’d have thought that D&G staff could chat in Zulu, Tamil and Swahili? That’s just for starters!’
repetition, who’d have thought we’d be reporting on Hull as the UK’s Next Property Hotspot? Avid PROPERTYdrum reader, Paul Fielder, of Lime Properties, called to tell us about his excitement at the news that Hull is set for great regeneration, even, hopefully, a real boom! Read all about it and then tell us why your
area is another hotspot waiting to happen! Still on the business front, our big feature
this month is on franchising. It has been quite a slow start for property franchises, with very gradual growth for most over the last few years, but with recession creating caution
on every corner, the franchise route is gaining rapidly in popularity. We spoke to some of the leaders in this field to find out how you get involved and what, once
you are a franchisee, you actually get from joining a group rather than going it alone. We’d like to hear from franchisees for next month’s issue, on your experiences and the pros and cons of the franchise business. Email me today:
sheila@propertydrum.com
Sheila Manchester
PROPERTYdrum MARCH 2011 3
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