An Important Ingredient for Your Prospecting Funnel in Commercial Property

Momentum is the most important ingredient in your prospecting funnel.  Every day something has to happen to put more leads and properties into the funnel.  Constant contact will help you find the activities to tap into.  Look into your contact list and segment the people.  Differentiate your VIP’s from everyone else and connect with them uniquely.

The momentum that you devote to your clients and prospects over time will make or break your commercial real estate business. Most of the commissions and listings that you create will be from personal effort and local area coverage. There is simply no other way to drive a better commercial real estate career.  Certainly property knowledge and skills has something to do with your business outcomes, but your prospecting activities should sit above everything else.

Before I go to much further here, I will ask you to reflect on your prospecting funnel and its current status.

• Do you have one?
• Are you filling it with people?
• Are you tracking the growth of the list?
• Are you improving the quality of the list?
• Is is segmented?

Simple questions, yet they are so important.  If you are struggling with market share or momentum, then it is likely that the database you are using or creating has issues.  Examine your actions and focus.

Some databases and prospecting funnels are so out of date and full of redundant information that they do very little for the brokers that own and use them.  Here is the core message to know here and develop over time; your prospecting funnel and database list must be up to date and you are the best person to do that. By definition that client and database list activity means:

• Talking to every person in the database at least once every 90 days. In only that way will you create a memorable business profile and the levels of trust that you require with the clients and the contacts locally.
• All the names and addresses should be checked and corrected where necessary as you make your cold calls or client contacts. People will come and go from the list over time. You will always need new people to be added to the list, as others leave the industry or change focus in their investments.
• The people in the list should be segmented so you can get to the required short list of people when listings or opportunities are identified. Consider the segmentation strategies for the location and the levels of business that you require. When you have a property opportunity, you really do need to tap into the right segments in your client list.

Here are some ideas to help you establish a professional prospecting funnel as a broker or an agent working in commercial property. Develop these ideas specifically for your location, your knowledge, and your preferred property types. Here is the list:

1. Understand your precinct comprehensively in every way possible. That will involve local area research and an awareness of recent sales, leasing’s, and new property developments. Look for the indicators and the factors of change, comparing those issues to the history of the area. Keep the statistics and track the changes. The statistics that you keep and use over time will help you with your property presentations and client conversion. Local area information will always be valuable when it comes to client conditioning.
2. Get to know the people in the area specifically and professionally. In most towns and cities there are always plenty of other agents and brokers competing for the same listings. The best way to win the attention of the client and ultimately the listing is through relevance and professionalism. Your skills and strategies should be relevant to the listing in every way possible. Your property solutions should be the best for the challenges that the client faces. Be clear and precise when it comes to offering the client your recommendations and marketing solutions.
3. Research the local business activities on a Street by Street basis. Also look into the streets and identify the better buildings so that you can connect with the businesses at an individual level. Some buildings will be pressured with renovation factors and property performance issues. Some landlords will not be prepared to spend the required funds to keep the property in the of best presentation and performance. Look for the buildings where tenants are suffering from difficult landlords and low levels of property maintenance. They are likely to be the next tenants seeking to move into another location and property at lease end.
4. Look for the changes to property development and new property projects. You can connect with the people involved with planning approvals and new property developments. Visit their office regularly to see where the new property developments are being considered. At the earliest stages of planning lodgement or approval consideration, connect with the property owners or the developers in each case. A new property project can bring exceptional levels of listing and commission opportunity over time. One new property project can allow frequent and varied leasing and or sale appointments. The developers undertaking the project simply want the best result in the shortest possible time. Understand how you can provide that solution, and then market your skills accordingly to those people.
5. Understand supply and demand for the local area and the property precincts. Split your zone or your territory of interest up into a number of precincts so that you can watch how things are changing with supply and demand. The best areas will always produce the better levels of inquiry, as will the better listings in each case. Good properties create good enquiry. If you are struggling with property inquiry now, then it would be a good opportunity to review the quality of your listings and how those listings are positioned in comparison to other competing properties in the precincts.

So there is a key message to be respected and remembered here as you drive your commercial real estate business onward and upward. Momentum at a personal level is the most important ingredient for your prospecting activities and listing generation.

If you are lacking the new business that you require in commercial real estate brokerage at the moment, and have a serious look at your prospecting model, the pipeline of leads and clients within it, and the conversions you are achieving from the bottom of the pipeline.

Talk to more people in a personal and relevant way. Keep the prospecting pipeline churning and evolving with new and fresh people that have an interest in commercial real estate investment.