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A Recipe for the Perfect Commercial Property Listing

In commercial real estate brokerage, your listing processes and strategies should be refined and improved in an ongoing way. Your competitors will always be looking for new ways to attract new business and convert more clients. They will be trying many different ideas to find the ways to pull in the listings and to neutralize your market share. It is not unusual to see competitors offering free advertising, discounted commissions, and other manipulative methods of attracting the client’s attention as part of their listing offering.

(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)

The Listing Preparation

When you prepare for a competitive property presentation with a client to convert a listing, be prepared for every variation of discount and marketing ploy that you can imagine coming from your competitors. Some agents and brokers are less experienced and therefore professional than others. They will use and need discounts to convert the listings, and some inexperienced clients will listen to the offerings of discounts, well before they consider other more important property issues and marketing ideas.

Your job in any listing presentation is to explain your strategies and your recommendations in a relevant and real way to achieve a timely result for the clients that you serve. Help your clients see that. Explain these things:

  • How can you achieve the best price or rental?
  • How can you get a result quickly and effectively?
  • Why are you the best agent for the job?

They are interesting questions that cannot be ignored if you want to win more business, listings and commissions in commercial real estate brokerage today. Adjust your listing presentations accordingly.

Better Listing Conversions?

The best listings are won and converted on the basis of professionalism, market coverage, specialization, target marketing, and relevance. Your listing presentations should be structured on that basis.

Forget about the threats of a discount, and have plenty of property specific strategies to interest and influence the client; our business is not about discounts, but about results. Explain your recommendations in solving their property problems by and through:

  1. Accurate documentation – when it comes to the listing process, your documentation as to be accurate and relevant for the property type and the situation. You need to explore your client’s real estate dilemma or property challenge. You need to understand the facts regards the property and its situation today. You need to identify any issues that may frustrate the sale or leasing process, and then deal with those frustrations prior to the commencement of marketing. Develop a checklist to take you through the listing process and the documentary strategies following from it. Accuracy is critical when it comes to listing documentation today.
  2. Client awareness – in any client meeting or listing situation, ask plenty of questions and take plenty of notes. It is remarkable how some clients will overlook to tell you the facts about the property or the critical issues that could impact marketing and future negotiation. Explain to the client your recommendations and your strategies. Probe the facts about the property as it exists today financially, physically, and demographically. Get to the bottom of the property ownership structure and the reasons for sale or lease. Ask plenty of questions and take the required notes. At a later time, it is quite likely that those notes will be critical when it comes to a negotiation or a property inspection.
  3. Marketing agreements – many agents or brokers convert their listings exclusively and as part of the process obtained and or paid marketing funds. The supporting document and process will be the marketing agreement and the marketing campaign. Make sure that you cover off on all of the marketing recommendations and strategies as part of your listing presentation. Make sure that your marketing recommendations are specific and real for the property situation and current market conditions. The agents that file to convert vendor paid marketing funds are usually those that are quite ordinary when it comes to market penetration and marketing skills.
  4. Exclusivity processes – you simply must control your listing stock. There is no other way to dominate market share and grow your business professionally as an agent or broker in commercial real estate. Refine your presentation and your listing pitch so that exclusivity is an essential part of you providing your services. If the client wants to take and use your services, exclusivity should be part of the listing exchange and the formal appointment documentation.
  5. Property problems – as mentioned earlier, explore the property, the client, the facts about the asset, and any property challenges or issues that you can see or identify. Review and research all property documentation when listing so that you are removing any hurdles that may exist prior to the marketing and the inspection process; that research should be comprehensively carried out prior to the inspection and marketing process. A simple property problem today can at a later stage in the transaction derail the listing results and your commission outcomes.
  6. Target marketing – identify the target market specifically and clearly for the client. Help them see that you really understand how to tap into the correct sellers, buyers, tenants, or investors as the case may be. Identify the target market, and then match your marketing campaign into that targeted segment. Ask for vendor paid marketing funds as part of your exclusive listing exchange.

The listing process is absolutely critical to your future in the commercial real estate industry. There are always plenty of competitors chasing the same listing and the same client. Your recommendations and services need to be superior in every way possible. Use these six steps of mentioned to refine your listing pitch and its relevance to the clients that you serve.

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