Rightmove : The top 5 things we learned at Lettings Live 2015 that you can use right now in your business

But it wasn't all champagne and accolades, the morning seminar sessions provided inspiration from an amazing line up of speakers.

MBE and six time World Champion, Paula Radcliffe was the keynote speaker at Lettings Live. Paula revealed the secret behind how she has been able to come back from failure multiple times under intense media scrutiny.

Paula's tip: When faced with setbacks Paula revealed that she liked to get back to enjoying running and reconnecting with why she started on that journey in the first place. The New York City Marathon was the race that helped Paula make that reconnection multiple times during her career.

Nicky Stevenson, Director at Property Academy shared best practice and insights from award winning agents and from Property Academy's research. Nicky's focus was on cultivating and retaining top people to create the strongest business.

Nicky's tip: Use free online DISC personality testing to understand what motivates your team and to evaluate people in the recruitment process.

Jeff Grout, business speaker, shared stories from some of the inspirational businesses who understand that their people make the difference.

Jeff's Tip: Jeff shared how the Royal Air Force's aerobatic display team, the Red Arrows, do a debriefing. The team leader starts off by saying "My first mistake today was….". Each member of the team then goes through the mistakes they made, creating an atmosphere where mistakes become learning opportunities and a path to improvement.

Jane Gardner co-founded award winning agency Sewell & Gardner which she recently sold. Through her personal journey, Jane shared how she built such a phenomenal brand.

Jane's Tip: One way to position yourself as a local expert with landlords is to arrange tours of investment properties for sale. Jane's "Magical Mystery Tours" helped to build relationships with developers that despite having no previous relationship with Sewell and Gardner, just couldn't turn down a bus of 15 buy-to-let investors. The tours established Sewell and Gardner as local experts, helped generate sales and encouraged landlords to buy new properties to add to their portfolio which Sewell and Gardner could then let. Win, win.

Sam Mitchell, our own Head of Lettings shared findings from Rightmove's Landlord Survey 2015 that provided insights into what landlords are looking for in a lettings agent. Sam highlighted the windows of opportunity for agents looking to win new instructions.

Sam's tip: Many agents tell us what they need is more landlords - Sam pointed out that many landlord opportunities will be amongst the customers and leads you already have. 40% of landlords last instructed an agent when they had just bought a property, so a quick way for lettings agents to win instructions is to get sales negotiators to ask if they plan to let their property and pass the lead through to the lettings department. For lettings only agents, the opportunity could lie in arranging a referral scheme with a sales only agency. Not only that but 7% of tenants are also landlords - are you asking tenants if they have a property for let themselves?