Commercial Real Estate Brokerage – A New Perspective in Agent Opportunity
In commercial real estate brokerage today there will always be plenty of opportunity for the best agents within any property market, town or city.
The variations in the property market throughout the year may shift the opportunity between sellers, buyers, tenants, and property development. That being said, the business opportunities and the listings are always there for the agent that works with focus and dedication.
Create Systems
A systemised plan of approach to the local property market will help most agents and brokers find the new business they are looking for. It is one thing to find the new business; it is another to convert it. The skills of any agent or broker need it be improved over time so that they can be competitively successful in converting the listing opportunities at rates above the average.
Individuals Make a Team
So the focus here is on improving the skills and the actions of any and each agent or broker in a real estate team. In any large team, there are many characters and individuals to manage and encourage; they all have unique motivations and perceptions associated with personal performance. A successful real estate team can be a complex business model to manage from a staffing perspective.
Agent Management Tips
Here are some ideas to help with that staff management and improvement process in any brokerage sales team:
- Strengths and weaknesses – Assess the differences between individuals in the team. Strengths should be encouraged so that leverage can be developed in any listing and client interaction. The weaknesses of individuals should be resolved or remove through training and personal development.
- Top Agent skills – Some agents can learn from others. Understand how your top agents within the team can share information, skills, and activities to improve the other team members. You can also apply the logic of cadet training within the team where a junior agent in training can be attached to a top agent for a period of time. The cadet becomes an extra resource for the top agent to use; over time that will allow the top agent to build further market momentum whilst training and developing the cadet. Ultimately the cadet becomes a valuable member of the total team.
- Understand and develop the core skills – When you look at the role of a typical salesperson within the team, there are certain core skills that produce most of the new business. Typically the core skills of real importance are prospecting, presenting, marketing, inspecting, and negotiating. Across all those five factors you will have and need to add the normal legal and documentary requirements of the average transaction and listing. Some transactions will be particularly unique and different to match the property type. Assess each member of the team with regard to the five core skills mentioned, together with the documentary and legal attributes of the industry. Monitor prospecting activities, listings, and deal conversions. A model of training and development can help individual members within the team improve across any core skill weaknesses you have identified.
- Test and measure – Throughout the year monitor the results of every person within your brokerage team. Understand where the successes are largely generated, and how any weaknesses in performance are changing for the business and for the individuals. It is not unusual for the performance of an individual agent to change two or three times during the year. If you are tracking key performance indicators on a weekly and monthly basis across prospecting activities, listings, marketing, and enquiries, you will soon know the differences between the agents within the team.
So the message here is that you can improve agent opportunity and brokerage results through a focus on individuals. You can use the three points of assessment mentioned to build brokerage performance and agent results. Spend time on developing your team so that real results can be achieved over time.
You can get more tips about commercial real estate brokerage in our eCourse ‘Snapshot’ right here.