4 Prospecting Roadblocks in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage and How to Fix Them

When you work as a commercial real estate broker or agent you will come across plenty of ‘roadblocks’ in the prospecting and cold calling process.   That being said, those common issues are likely to hold back your personal performance both in commissions and listings.

Here are the most common ‘roadblocks’ in prospecting:

• It’s hard to find the right people to talk to – research is required and many agents don’t want to do the hard research.
• Some things take over the day – current deals and clients tend to take over the priorities of the working day.
• Talking to new people – call reluctance is a big issue for many agents and brokers in reaching out to new people.
• Establishing a pipeline of contact – you need a database where you track the conversations and actions that you apply to your prospects.

So how can you fix these things?  In one word you can say that ‘commitment’ will take you forward through the barriers and hurdles that these things present.

It stands to reason that if you talk to new people you will find new business.  The conversion of that new business will improve with a bit of research, practice and personal development.  Everything is thereby is in your control.

Let’s talk about commercial real estate a bit here before giving you some solutions to these issues.  Commercial real estate agency work is quite specialised and so it should be given that we are working with valuable assets and cash flow. 

The clients that we serve can sometimes be demanding and challenging.  Advanced communication and negotiation skills are thereby required.   On a weekly basis it pays to role play market circumstances and events within your sales team.  Practice with difficult market conditions can help you with conversions of sales and leases.

Looking back at the 4 issues mentioned as ‘hurdles’ earlier, here are some things that you can do:

1. Whilst it is hard to find the right people to talk to and research is required to do that, if you focus listing quality properties, those top prospects and clients will find you to talk about their property requirements.
2. The average working day for a broker or agent is always busy; on that basis control and discipline is required.  The best way to do that is to set your day down in a work planner the night before the working day.  From that point onwards you should stick to the plan.  Only the most important issues should change your routine.
3. Habits are required to find and reach out to new people.  Make it a habit to talk to new people regularly; you can do that at the same time each day.  Put the time in your diary and stick to it.
4. Everyone knows that databases are useful tools in commercial real estate.  That being said, accuracy is required in data collection and that data has to be reasonably up to date.  Don’t delegate your database processes to others.  Take ownership of your data and build it at every opportunity.

So the ways to resolve prospecting problems are quite simple.  They all come back to personal commitment and systems.  That is up to you.  Get those things started as soon as possible.