Commercial Real Estate Agents – Remove Team Confusion to Improve Your Business
Commercial real estate can be confusing and therefore difficult for some agents. Far too many agents let the ‘confusion’ take over; soon they are wasting time and missing out on the opportunities of the market. If you want to get anywhere as an agent or broker with listings and clients, then it is time to simplify and organise what you do to a basic plan.
Simplicity wins every time in commercial real estate brokerage. The degree that you ‘feel you are in control’ is the degree that ‘you will create successful practices’. Over time you can then attract new business and better leads. Habits repeated every day will help you get somewhere; random actions do not.
The message here is, to take control of your efforts and focus what you are doing every day; focus on the ‘new business’ part of the equation. Remove the problems and the mundane tasks from your day, or if you can’t do that then move them to later in the day where they will not disrupt events and business generation.
Here are some of the day to day problems that are just so common in our industry:
- Unnecessary meetings on issues that really don’t matter
- Generic paperwork that just has to be done yet will bring you little business
- Inbound calls that keep coming at you and disrupting your important activities
- Team members wanting your help on things that they should be doing themselves
And so the list goes on. I bet you have heard and seen a few of these issues that really annoy you?
My ‘pet hate’ from the above list would be ‘unnecessary meetings’; meetings take up so much time and the content of most meetings can be handled through an exchange of emails or a telephone call! Many real estate offices having meetings 2 or 3 times per week on a regular basis for things that are not important, and yet in doing so they tie up the entire team for a good part of the morning or day.
The fact of the matter is that meetings remove the sales team from the market; when that happens, commissions and listings suffer. Let the sales team ‘earn money’; that’s the rule. Help the sales team get out into the market and achieve something!
So let’s go back to the main point here; that is in removing the ‘confusion’ from the working day and getting ‘traction’ in the local real estate market.
Here are my personal rules to help you:
- If anyone wants to have a meeting, ask them why firstly, and then do not agree with having the meeting in the ‘core business generation’ part of the day. Move any meetings to very early or late in the day. Top agents control their diary; that is an important skill to learn.
- Set simple goals for the day and the week that centre on business generation. Make it a priority to get out of the office for at least 3 hours per day. During that time you can be in your territory meeting people and asking questions about property activity locally.
- Understand the important things that will help you grow your market share. Do those things every day regardless of other issues that need attention.
- Write things down as they happen during the day; you can then go back to attending to those things later. Don’t let a current issue or event take you away from your plan for the day (unless it is deal related).
- Build some habits into the things that you do each day. Regular actions and correct activities will help you move ahead with market share, listings, and clients.
The message through all of this is that you should and must control what you do as an agent or broker in real estate. It is a personal thing and only you can do it. Set the rules and work to your plan so you get better results in your real estate market.
