5 Exciting Steps to Help You Grow Your Commercial Real Estate Career Faster

Momentum is really important when you start your career in commercial real estate brokerage. Professional skills and local area knowledge will also help you with that required momentum. You will need a base plan to achieve the results that you are seeking over time as an agent or a broker. One thing to remember here is that success in the industry is largely built on personal relationships and professional skills of individuals.

(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)

Consider these questions:

• Are you prepared to connect with a lot of new people in your location?
• Can you provide a real point of difference as you make that connection and communication?
• How will you stand out professionally and skilfully as the agent of choice for your property types and location?

So let’s get things started. You will need to compare yourself to your competitors and undertake an assessment of current market conditions. When you fully appreciate the factors in and around your property market, the choices that you have in establishing your career as a top agent or broker start to take shape. Research the factors of your market, and look at the environmental and business indicators that could have an impact on future property ownership and occupancy.

Here are some ideas to help you grow your commercial real estate career as quickly as possible. The best agents work to a plan and a process at an individual level. Develop some strategies around these ideas:

1. SEGMENTS: Choose the best business segments to prospect within and concentrate on – some business segments will be more productive than others when it comes to future listing opportunity or property change. When you look into the history of the area and assess the upcoming property developments, you will see the business segments that are predominant and active in the precinct, the suburb, or the city. Choose the precinct or the territory that you can work effectively and totally. Don’t spread yourself too far across a large location and too many properties.
2. LOCATION: Connect with the larger businesses for the location – there will always be plenty of change and churn in the local business community. There are always plenty of small deals to work with in both sales and leasing helping those local business owners. The small deals will limit your commission opportunities and returns, so lift your expectations and focus when it comes to business size and business type. Focus on the large businesses in your territory as part of your prospecting model so that you can understand what they are doing and thinking when it comes to property occupancy and growth. Ask plenty of questions as you prospect through the business telephone book. A simple cold calling approach will help you create new meetings with business owners for the location.
3. KEY INVESTORS: Identify the active property investors of a higher quality and level – some of the local property investors will be more active than others. Some will have limited cash flow, whilst others will have an abundance of available finance, and or an ability to acquire new properties as and when they come on the market. When you get to know some high quality property investors locally, you can find the right properties to introduce them to over time. That is where the opportunity of an off market transaction can occur.
4. BEST MARKETING: Create some unique and specialized marketing processes – when you take a property to the market, use the full available resources of promotion and marketing at your disposal. Every exclusive listing should be uniquely promoted and directed at specific target markets. A high quality marketing campaign will position you as a property expert. If you only work with open listings, that position is hard to achieve. When you have a high quality property to list and market, apply some real thought to your promotional campaign and use the best promotional tools available.
5. QUALITY PITCH: Refine your presentation in deep and relevant ways – most property presentations are competitive. The client will invite a number of agents or brokers to help them with their property challenge and targets. Only the best agents with the right strategy will win the appointment. Most presentations are short and deliberate, so your property solutions need to be carefully considered and communicated. You do however have the time to refine your presentation beforehand and make it uniquely special to the client and their property. Make sure that the few minutes that you spend with the client as part of a listing presentation are fully optimized in advance for the best levels of engagement and conversation.

So there are some things that you can do here to grow your commercial real estate career efficiently and consistently. The steps that you take as an individual as part of your prospecting model and client contact processes will help you drive better results over time. Get involved with your market and understand the people and the properties intimately.