Commercial Real Estate Broker Prospecting – A Business Survey is a Sure Thing
If you want to attract more clients and listings in commercial real estate, a survey of local businesses will provide valuable property information and leads. If you are struggling to find more clients and listing opportunities, this strategy will be useful.
So why is this so? The local business owners will tell you so much about what they are doing and what is happening in their area. The secret to making the process work as an agent or broker is to approach things professionally and ask the right questions.
Remember this useful fact:
‘Most business owners understand the need to know what’s happening locally with property; be that in sales, ownership, and or rental. A good local agent can help them do that.’
Simple Real Estate Approaches and Questions
Incorporate some simple approaches to local businesses into your prospecting model and use a direct questioning process through cold calling. That should be done in the following way:
- Street by street – When you methodically work through the local business owners in a street, you will hear of stories and challenges with property change, expansion, or contraction. That is where you can help.
- Business type – Some business types are very active and thriving because of factors of location, local resources, and the economy. That could be because of a local resource or activity such as mining, forestry, or shipping. Look for the segments of your business community that are really active in a zone. Drill down into their property needs through direct telephone calls and meetings.
- Location or precinct — From time to time, a property precinct will change, perhaps due to a road, transport, or zoning change. Watch the local planning decisions and updates for changes impacting and activating property owners.
So let’s say that you get through to plenty of business owners. What will you ask or want to know? How receptive will they be in telling you their property situation? There are no standards to fall back on here; everything is related to personal effort and skill.
The quality of your questions and the levels of your professionalism in making contact will lift your results; there is no other way to summarize things.
Local Business Owner Questions
You can get plenty of new business in sales and leasing activity by asking questions of local business owners. They can tell you:
- When they will be looking for property again (be it in purchasing or leasing)
- The history of property activity in the street
- Activities with neighbouring properties
- Who the owner of their property might be
- When their lease expires
Are you up to the challenge of talking to business owners locally? Spend at least 90 minutes per day in the process of direct call contact. Track the conversations and the names of the people that you contact. Keep the contact systems rolling ahead so the leads and meetings start to happen in a timely way; momentum is the key to getting results in commercial real estate brokerage.
