Better Paying Clients Mean More Commissions
When you look into the success of many commercial real estate brokers at the top end of the market you can see that they doing a number of specific things quite well. They are focusing their efforts. It should be said that the ‘top agents’ in the industry are in the top 10% of individuals. They stand apart as the ‘experts’ that clients and prospects want to do business with.
In most cases you will find that these ‘top agents’ are concentrating most of their efforts into a variety of these things:
- They are connecting constantly with higher value clients with better properties
- They understand just what the tenants and the buyers of the market are looking for and on that basis they find the right listing stock
- They are building a dominant market share within a certain property type and location
Recently I was helping a broker with some staff issues and marketing strategies within the team; to do that I was working within the particular real estate office on a regular basis for a number of days. That gave me the opportunity to note what was happening within the team each day. I could observe the actions of individuals in how they did their work. This is what I noticed.
Most of the agents in the team were wasting a lot of time in some very common ways each day:
- Some were not organised in what they were doing to attract new business
- When the telephone would ring the agent would change plans for the day and shift priorities
- Most agents were doing little if any prospecting whilst in the office
- Some agents were spending time ‘surfing the internet’ and logging in to social media 3 or 4 times per day when they had a free moment
- Distractions were common where one agent would suggest that a coffee break was needed so two or three agents would depart the office for an hour or so
Some may say that I am being too critical, and that it could have just been a ‘big day’ with lots of frustrations for team members. I beg to differ. These problems are far too common in the industry and have a major impact on the amount of new listings and commissions generated at a personal level. The most important asset and resource that you have in the industry is ‘time’. How you use your time will impact the way in which you build your personal real estate business. Yes, there are a lot of other things to do and be ‘good’ at, however they all evolve around time.
Use your time wisely and in saying that, use your time to a plan and a focus. Concentrate your time on finding the right clients with the higher quality listings. When you take a top quality property to the market, you find better deals and lots of buyers and tenants.