4 Essential Tips for Removing Hurdles and Obstacles in Commercial Real Estate Agency This Year
In commercial real estate agency and brokerage today it is easy to feel that you are being swamped with irrelevant and unnecessary tasks. There are just so many things to do on an average working day. Some issues are more important than others. Here is a typical list:
- Finding new clients to serve in sales, leasing, or property management
- Checking out quality properties to target
- Marketing of current listings
- Converting more exclusive listings
- Putting signboards up
- Changing advertising copy
- Advising clients of recent inspections
- Inspecting properties
- Negotiating with qualified parties
- Documentation on closed deals
- Database updates
- Tracking sales performance
As we all now work in these last few weeks towards the new 2014 calendar year it is a good time to consider the issues and the opportunities for growing our businesses individually.
Whilst you may work within a brokerage, you do actually work for yourself and on that basis the opportunities and the income that you create are all self-generated. If you are struggling to align yourself to the market and the listings that are available, it is time to ‘fix things’.
Now is a good time to consider removing all the ‘blockages and the hurdles’ from your business activities. Here are some of the common problems that I hear a lot:
- ‘There are not enough listings for me to work on’
- ‘My clients are not looking around for properties at the moment’
- ‘The market is slow, with little enquiry coming in from buyers and tenants’
- ‘Other members of the team are getting all the listings’
- ‘The team leader is not sharing information fairly across the agents’
- ‘I can’t move my listings and get enquiries going’
- ‘Inspections are really slow’
- ‘The telephone is not ringing with enquiry’
- ‘There are too many agents in the market’
- ‘Clients won’t listen to reason on market prices and rents’
There are plenty of things going on here when you consider the variations of each market and the different brokerage locations. Any hurdles, problems, and challenges can be resolved now through better decisions and action. Understand the 2013 problems that you have for what they really are; they are opportunities for change. Don’t let problems continue; fix them. There is not one agent or broker that doesn’t have problems; some deal with them better than others.
I have said it many times before and it is worth repeating now; the month of December is a very good time to consider your strategies and opportunities for the coming 12 months. In the month of December you can plan and focus your efforts for improving commercial real estate market share and listing conversions. When the Christmas festivities have ended you can get back into the market with a new plan, better efforts, and a solid business strategy.
If you have been struggling for any reason during this last 12 months, solve those small or large problems now. As you ponder that statement, consider the following factors in your local area:
- How can you improve your marketing efforts to reach more people within your specific property type and sales territory?
- How can you improve your value to the prospects and clients that you serve?
- What can you do with your dialogue and knowledge that will allow you to convert more listings?
- What are the segments of the market that offer the most opportunity for you in the next 12 months?
How can you tap into all of these things in a positive way? It is a very important question. Don’t tolerate ‘the same old, same old’ next year. Step back from your market and look at the opportunities clearly with a view to improvement.
More often than not some small changes in focus and effort can quickly remove any hurdles and difficulties in commercial real estate brokerage; it takes a long time for some of us to see things for what they really are. Look to the next 12 months as something of ‘massive opportunity’. Make the decisions now that will help you move closer to better sales and leasing opportunities; reposition and re-educate yourself for greater and fresher results in the next 12 months. The choices that we make now are really important. Good luck!
