A Game Changer For Landlords

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Many years ago I did a management training exercise with a human behavioral psychologist and an also an accomplished author. You may have heard of him or read some of his books. His name is Dr Ken Blanchard, author of ‘The One Minute Manager’, ‘Whale Done’, Gung Ho! and many other best sellers.

One of the exercises took the form form of a party game which was designed to explain change and human behavior in relation to it.

He asked everybody in the room (about 100 people) to pick a partner, turn their back on each other and to make 5 changes to their appearance. Most did this in silence, save for a few giggles. Individuals within the group were entirely reliant on their own creativity and oblivious to other creativity all around them.

Ken then asked us to spot the changes our partners had made. That was the easy bit and got quite a few laughs.

He then told the group to do the same again, but this time to make 10 additional changes this time, so 15 in total.

The vast majority of people in the group became very defeatist at first whilst others achieved the task with ease, but mostly still in silence. Ken hadn’t told people to look around them or to communicate at this point, so most didn’t. They were stuck in their own little bubble having a their very own private creativity block. They self-talk had turned negative and they didn’t like the game any more. Those who performed the task with ease had spotted what others were doing and were copying them.

When Ken explained this to the group it was then much easier for everybody to accomplish their task, so he asked them to make a further 10 changes to their appearance, making it 25 in total. At this point there were more moans and groans and a lot more laughs as people started swapping clothing, to the point we had a room full of very strange looking cross dressers and a few virtually naked exhibitionists. Most were all having fun at the end though, communicating well and sharing their creativity. It wasn’t easy for Ken to restore order back to the room and it took quite a while, but of course he knew that would be the case because he’s Ken Blanchard.

So why am I sharing this you might well ask.

The reason is to explain that there will always be early adopters, people who are more creative, some people who are better communicators than others and a lot of people feeling just like you do. When we open ourselves up to see the creativity and communicate it with others, dealing with life changes becomes a whole lot easier. Perhaps you can relate to that in some way as a landlord; whether it is changes to legislation, the new tax regime all private landlords are now coming to terms with or something else.

My own dilemma right now

It has been quite a few months since we launched the Property118 Landlords Events Calendar but it hasn’t performed in quite the way I have expected it to. In much the same way as in the ‘change game’ I’ve explained above, a few organisations have recognized what it is all about though.

NLA and RLA have been using the free advertising on the Property118 Events Calendar to promote their events for a while now. You might have noticed, they certainly have because their events are now full of Property118 readers!

What I couldn’t understand, until thinking about the ‘change game’ when I woke up today, is why the smaller landlords associations and property network event organisers don’t use it so much. Where else can they advertise to such a large and targeted audience for FREE? Perhaps they don’t want too many visitors to their events, but I very much doubt that is the case. I suspect it’s because they are so busy organizing and promoting their events that they are oblivious to what is going on beyond that, much like the people who didn’t spot and copy the changes going on around them in the ‘change game’.

It has now occurred to me that 10’s of thousands of landlords have already looked at our events calendar but probably never considered the benefits to the landlord community as a whole of sharing this innovation with the organisers with events they already attend.

Just think how many more landlords you could network with and share ideas and stories with if ALL landlord events were advertised for free on the most popular landlord focused website in the UK.

If you are believer in “what goes around comes around” then please share with others what Property118 is all about for you. Without people asking questions and sharing their experiences and thoughts on ‘best-practice’ Property118 would be a pointless website. Just imagine how much better it could be if every landlord in the UK was to visit and contribute to it!

How much more could we all learn from each other?

So, hopefully, now you know what to do. Talk to other landlords about Property118 and if you attend any landlord events please tell the organisers about the free publicity they can tap into to promote their future events to the largest landlord audience in the UK.

And if you are having an event or a party any time soon, try playing the change game. You will have lots of fun