Developing a Sales Plan in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

In commercial real estate brokerage at a personal level, it is essential that you develop a territory sales plan.  The plan can help you when it comes to market coverage, and developing a competitive edge.

It is a fact that if you spread yourself too far within the industry across a broad area, it is very difficult to achieve market coverage. 

If you work in a large town or city as part of your sales territory, it is a wise practice to split the area up into segments of activity and prospecting focus.

Factors for Your Sales Planning

So the sales plan itself needs to take into account the number of key factors.  Here are some ideas to help you get started:

1. From the earliest stages of the planning process understand what your client profile should be and where those clients will come from.  Will you be working with Property Investors from the local area or from those that will be from other locations?  Will you be working with business leaders from a property ownership or tenancy perspective?  Will you be working with property developers on current projects or new projects?  They all have different priorities and points of focus when it comes to selecting the ideal property and resolving ownership and occupancy challenges.  That is why specialisation is an important part of commercial real estate brokerage.
2. Split your territory into market segments that are geographically defined.  To make things simple, split the zones up into approximately 250 properties in each group.  That then makes it a lot easier when it comes to client contact and prospecting activity.  You can logically work through the streets and the business locations to identify opportunities in sales and leasing activity.
3. Define the hot spots that may be desirable for any new investment or business location.  Those hot spots should be a priority within your prospecting model.
4. Review the sales and leasing activity that has applied to the area over the last few years.  Look for the growth segments and the planned new developments.  Look for the trends in pricing and rentals as they apply to current listings and the recent properties that have been sold or leased.
5. Understand the seasonal trends that apply to sales and leasing activity.  The property investors and business owners will typically come and go from the market based on the business calendar and investment activity.  That is why the demographic profile of the area and your clients should be understood in so many different ways.
6. Assess the competing agents and brokers within your territory.  Some of those will be better than others.  Identify any weaknesses in their property speciality and service.  What can you do that will be of high value to the clients that you can serve?  As part of the analysis, don’t be generic.  Generic agents don’t make a lot of commission and certainly don’t command dominant market share.  Take the specialised approach to your sales territory and property type.

So these things will help you get started when it comes to growing your real estate business and your client base.  Work your sales territory logically and capture the contact information into a reasonable database software program.  Take personal ownership of the process and understand the high value that the database brings to your ongoing business activities.  Prospect for new people every day as part of your professional real estate timetable.

Here is a chart to help your sales planning processes in brokerage: