A New Perspective on Winning More Commercial Property Managements
It is a fact that the property managements in your commercial brokerage can bring real value to the business overall. You can serve the clients in several different ways, control the listing stock, and optimize your commissions from any transactions created.
A property management client is generally with you in the business sense for the long term. If they own a portfolio of properties, then the business potential increases significantly.
Certainly, you do need good people in the property management team to make this work, and they should know what they are doing both in skill and by property type.
Simple Strategies for Growth
You can win more property management appointments quite easily with a few simple strategies across the team and with your existing transaction activities. Think about these for starters:
- Use leasing momentum – when you have completed a leasing transaction, it is the time to see if you can manage the property. Most investors have little time to self-manage, and would welcome a ‘professional’ to take over their management requirements at a sensible fee. The greater the number of tenants that they have in the property, the greater the need for outside management involvement. Many investors struggle with the complexity of property management on the larger buildings.
- Connect through sales – some completed sale transactions will be to investors. Understand their investment targets and then pitch your property management services around their targets and the facts of the property and the tenant mix. Show the client how you can do more in the asset for them over time. Concentrate on improving the asset.
- Review your database – delve into your client list and prospect database. Many people in your existing list will already own an investment property somewhere. Cross check property ownership records to find those ownership links and then prospect into the lists.
- Look for vacant properties – as part of helping a landlord resolve a vacancy problem, introduce special property management services such as tenant retention, incubation leasing, and tenant relocations. You can market your services into the pain of a property vacancy. Show your prospect how you can resolve a vacancy, and then ask for the management as part of that process.
- Offer ‘fee free’ introductory periods – in exchange for a new property management appointment you can offer an introductory management period of say 3 months. During that time, you can show the client how you and the team would improve their asset over time.
- Recover management fees – in some leasing situations, you can recover management fees. Look at the lease situations and lease documents to show the client how that can be done in the outgoings recovery processes.
- Specialize in a property type – certain properties require special skills of control from the management perspective. A good case in point would be the management of a retail property and particularly that of a shopping center. If you have skilled people in your team, show prospective clients, how your people can add value to the property management and leasing process with their building. Always talk from a specific level of approach.
So, there are some special things you can do here with commercial and retail property management. Develop some new business approaches that you can merge into your business model for portfolio growth.
