Commercial Real Estate Brokers – Rally and Motivate the Sales Team for Better Results
In commercial real estate brokerage, it is important to rally the sales team and instil motivation in an ongoing and constant way. In any calendar year, there will be many pressures and variables impacting the brokerage and agency level. The individual agents within your team will need to maintain focus and motivation on the things that really matter.
It directly follows that every agent and broker should understand the things that really matter to help them in building market share and client momentum. When things get busy with listings and clients, it is very easy to lose focus and divert to things that waste too much time. It can also be said that the general activities of a real estate business including unnecessary meetings and administrative paperwork can divert the focus of top agents and brokers. It is wise to have a support team process that integrates into the sales and leasing team.
Motivate the Sales and Leasing Team
So it is time to set some rules when it comes to focusing the sales team and instilling motivation. Here are some ideas to help:
- Setting reachable goals – Whilst large targets and big goals, in commercial real estate it is very important to set goals that are reachable and realistic. Those goals can be split across a calendar or a financial year with due regard for seasonal sales and leasing activity. Split those goals into listing targets and commission targets. Also set some key performance indicators relating to marketing funds and growth of the client database.
- Starting the day early – Most top agents start their day early with a focus on prospecting activities. That then allows the client or contact model to develop and evolve over time. Most top agents would start the day around 7.00 AM and work through to approximately 6.00 PM each day. Whilst the hours may seem long, the rewards from listings and commissions can be very large. The rewards only come from deliberate ongoing client interaction, marketing efforts, and prospecting.
- Establishing client contact systems – From the previous point, it can be seen that every agent should have a direct and deliberate client contact system that works for them. Into the client contact model you can include cold calls, warm calls, direct mail, e-mail marketing, brochures, market updates, and property listing information. Establish the system that works for you given the property type and your location of specialisation.
- Setting personal marketing goals – It should be remembered that marketing dollars support requests for inspections, listing contact and prospect enquiry. Every exclusive listing should include sufficient marketing funds to support a direct and deliberate marketing campaign to the target audience of buyers or tenants. Vendor paid marketing should be the rule and not the exception. The level of marketing funds that you can convert from every listing will directly can relate to the level of enquiry and the commissions that you generate. Set your targets relating to marketing funds on a weekly and monthly basis.
- Adapting to market conditions – The property market will change throughout the year. Some of those changes will be seasonal investment and business patterns that you can adapt to and market through. Understand the best times of year to promote listings and market your professional services. During the quiet times with seasonal holidays, you can escalate your prospecting efforts so that you are ahead of the local real estate competition.
- Practicing scripts and dialogues – The changes in the property market will influence the way clients thinking and interact when it comes to listing activities. On that basis the entire team should be adaptable to the typical changes and pressures that clients are moving through. At each sales meeting you can role play the challenges and the interactions with clients that are typical for the market today.
- Understanding the pressures of listings and clients – At a personal level, listings and clients will impact your business activities each working day. It is very easy to get distracted away from the things that really matter to the real estate business. Prioritise the things that really matter and the clients that you should be connecting with. Devote at least half of your working day to those critical factors of business opportunity.
It is absolutely critical that every agent and broker within your real estate team maintains regular focus on the seven factors. The results that or any agent can achieve from listings and clients will always come from personal effort and systemizing their prospect model. Is your commercial real estate team up to the challenge? More importantly are you up to the challenge?