Commercial Real Estate Brokers – Use Educational Selling to Win More Listings Today
In commercial real estate brokerage it is easy for a client to get confused with the options and the alternatives offered by all brokers and agents pitching for the same listing. The way to help you beat this is to adopt an ‘educational’ selling approach.
So what do I mean here? You can help the client see the best way forward with their property by ‘educating’ them. Local market knowledge and specialised skills will help most clients move forward in choice of agent in listing a property.
When it comes to selling or leasing, every property owner wants to make the right choices. They don’t want to struggle with any of the following:
- Extended time on market
- Poor marketing
- Unprofessional agents
- Lack of clarity on solving their property problem
- Wasted marketing funds
- Low prices or rents
It stands to reason that if you can ‘educate’ your prospects or clients on how to avoid these things, you have a very good chance of winning the listing. Most, if not all ‘top agents’ will work their presentation or pitch for the listing from this base of client need or requirement.
Every property presentation or sales pitch is a bit like a ‘show and tell’. In saying that, and before you can do your presentation to the client, a questioning process and comprehensive property review will help you understand all of the facts that can have an impact on the clients decisions.
When a client chooses an agent, they don’t want to make mistakes. Here are some tips to help you with the ‘educational’ approach to solving your client requirements:
- Meet the client at the property to walk through it together. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the property and how the market can respond.
- Question the client about what they perceive as the ‘best result’ to them given the property requirement today.
- Review all competing properties in the area that could have an impact on the listing in question. Look for the differences in properties as part of that assessment.
- Refer to the rates of enquiry currently when it comes to the property type in your town or city. Show how you track the enquiry numbers and what people are looking for. The more specific you can be in the process, the easier it is for the client to accept your ideas.
- A history of sales and rental activities locally will help your client see what actual results have been achieved with closed deals. Sometimes clients get influenced by asking rents and prices from property advertising without much reference to the property differences, locations, and time on market.
- Talk about ‘marketing strategy’ after you have clearly defined the target market for the property. Get the client to agree on your choice of target market before you talk about promotional strategies.
You can see now why the ‘educational’ selling process is so important to helping you close on your listings and deals. Give your prospects the real information and results from the market that will help them make informed choices.
