5 Rules to Successful Cold Calling in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

There are many ways to grow market share in commercial real estate brokerage today. As an agent or broker, you should select a few different methods of marketing and prospecting to run in parallel the same time.

Consistency, professionalism, and persistence will help your prospecting model improve over time; it is a personal process that cannot be delegated. It is also necessary to track and measure the results that you get in all types of prospecting and client contact.

At different times of the year, you will find the certain methods of networking and prospecting are more successful than others when it comes to connecting with new clients and finding listing opportunities. The process you adopt should be quite specific. Focus on your location and your property type as you connect with new people specifically and directly.

5 Essential Cold Calling Rules for Agents

Here are five specific rules to help you connect with the right people and lift your conversions as part of your cold call prospecting model:

1. Improve your voice and your dialogue – The process of making lots of cold calls requires communication confidence and relevance at a personal level. Take the time to practice your telephone dialogue at the start of every day before you reach the office. A short 15 minutes of practice at home each morning will help you improve your telephone call conversions to meetings in a significant way.
2. Track your results and ratios – Understand how you are improving over time in making your calls. You can track and measure your results every day through a simple chart or tick box process. Small improvements will grow over time as you watch your numbers relating to outbound calls, successful contacts, meetings, and listing conversions.
3. Research the right people to talk to – Every evening you can spend a small amount of time in researching a fresh list of people to contact the next day. Focus on the segments of the property market and the locations that you understand. Reach out to the right people owning the best properties locally. Understand what they need when it comes to tenancy mix, investment outcomes, property choices, and returns on investment.
4. Understand the property type and the people – When talking to new people across the telephone you will be questioned and probed by some. In commercial real estate, many of the people that we work with and serve have a high degree of property understanding and business knowledge; that will be a professional challenge for you. Pitching and presenting your services should be taken to a whole new level. You will be tested in many different ways when it comes to your business and negotiation skills in the property industry.
5. Establish regular ongoing contact – It can take some months if not years to establish sufficient levels of trust and respect with some clients. The commercial property industry is highly competitive, and some clients work with several agents at the same time. In an aggressive and busy property market, you will have to rise to the occasion when it comes to providing professional skills and maintaining regular client contact. How can you improve your professional standing in the local area? How can you help the client understand that you have something valuable to provide when it comes to property sales, leasing, or property management? How can you avoid the generic approach to commercial real estate? In the end result, the clients that we serve simply require a positive result in a timely way. That will usually mean a good price or rent outcome together with a shorter time on the market. What do you need to do to achieve these results for your clients? Practice your property presentation and listing strategy with a focus on positive client outcomes.

From these five simple factors, it is easy to see how you can improve your conversions as part of a cold calling process and prospecting model.