6 Ways to Develop Trusted Relationships in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

Trust is a crucial issue in commercial real estate brokerage. The best clients and the biggest deals you achieve will usually come from the trust and personal relationships you have built with your clients and prospects over time.

That’s where your database takes the ‘top position’ as a business tool to be used at a personal level. Every conversation and meeting should be tracked and recorded in your database. It’s a personal thing that cannot be delegated.

Listing Opportunities

I have seen many agents lose listing opportunities simply because they have not developed strong, regular, and valuable links to their clients. In so many cases, an agent may have spoken to a client 4 months ago, yet the listing goes to another competitor. 

So why does this happen? Ongoing contact was lacking, and the client had no real reason to remember the first agent at the time of property pressure and action. That’s where so many listings ‘slip through the cracks’.

VIP Clients

Here are some ideas to help you build a strong professional profile with all your top clients. That can mean working on listings and leads. These strategies will help you build significant trust with all of your clients.

1. Have a quarterly ‘one on one’ property briefing for the top clients where you can tell them about the activities in the property market today locally.
2. Look out for property changes and opportunities that are a clear fit for the clients that you serve. Understand the portfolio needs of your VIP Clients.
3. Help the client deal with shared property problems such as increases in vacancy factors, market rental assessments, and development opportunities.
4. Take every deal and negotiation to the end result. A ‘done deal’ is not actually completed until all monies are paid and settlements are achieved. Many a time, you will find a property transaction will be delayed, diverted or dislodged because it was not ‘followed through’ consistently. If you are the agent in charge, you are the person to stay on the deal and its progress to the end (be it good or bad).
5. Develop a unique system of client contact that is superior to your competitors.  Many of your clients are likely to know a few real estate agents.  In a direct way those agents will be contacting your clients continually.  What can you do with client communication that will help you stand out as the top agent for the area?
6. Understand what business you are really in. You are not just a ‘real estate agent’, but you are certainly a ‘property problem solver’. That simple shift of mindset can bring significant benefits and conversions to your prospecting and business activities.

Simple strategies like these will help you stand out as a professional and relevant agent for your clients.