Commercial Real Estate Brokers – Design Your Prospect Record System for Better Deals
In commercial real estate brokerage you must create a ‘prospect record system’. In creating the system correctly you can easily track property needs and changes. That will help you greatly with listings and deals over time.
So what does a prospect record system look like? To answer the question it is important to know who you are to be dealing with regards property needs, and on what property types. Will you be working with any of all of these groups below?
- Franchise tenants
- Franchisors
- Business owners
- Tenants
- Landlords
- Developers
- Solicitors
- Accountants
- Other Agents
When you have made the choices, it is a matter of understanding what property types and locations could be involved in any contact process. You will be capturing information, and relevance will be important to the groups and people that you talk to. Try these questions:
- The types of property should be determined. That will vary across office, industrial, and retail. If you specialise in a property type you will know how to ask questions about property improvements in a deep and meaningful way.
- From the choice of property there will be required factors of location, improvements and size. A good database software program will have ‘fields’ to enter the data.
- Timing is always an issue for some property owners and business owners. When will they need to change location or purchase? Some businesses or property owners will have a lead time and or a need to sell something else in the changeover.
- How much money do they have to devote to a purchase or lease situation? Market rents and prices will impact the properties that you quote to prospects.
- Who are you talking to and how can you contact them in the future? Make sure that you are talking to a decision maker and that you understand how to contact them in a variety of ways.
- Have they been talking to other agents and have they inspected other properties? This information may impact the way in which you work with them today.
- Some buyers, sellers, and tenants can only operate on a property matter within a particular method of sale or lease. They may require ‘special conditions’ to help the transaction move ahead. Due diligence is one of the most common. Know the variations of property documentation that can help a person act on a sale or lease situation.
- Split your prospects up into categories such as ‘Hot Prospects’, ‘Prospects’, and ‘Suspects’. This labelling is quite important as it will help you hone in on the right people in an ongoing way. Generally speaking you should be talking to your ‘Hot Prospects’ at least weekly, ‘Prospects’ twice per month, and ‘Suspects’ monthly. Keep the ‘doors of contact’ open so you can tap into the property needs and changes of the prospect. There will be other more ‘ordinary’ contacts on your list or database and you should talk to them every 90 days to see if things are changing for them.
Every time you or your office gets a new listing or property enquiry, check your database for a clear match. Over time the database will be a solid source of deal opportunity. Fill it daily with new people and leads.
