Developing the Right Career Experience in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

In commercial real estate brokerage, you can be ‘generically similar’ to all other brokers and agents or stand out as a ‘specialist’ locally.  

When you are that ‘specialist’ you add far more value to your clients and prospects, particularly in resolving issues with properties both in sales and leasing.

The ‘specialist’ approach is by far the more effective and successful in any location.  That then says that you should consider the properties and the precincts in your town or city that you could specialize in, then you should make your choice.

Specialist Selections

On what criteria, should you make that ‘specialist’ choice?  Try some of these for starters:

• The property types that are getting the abundant inquiry locally
• The zones of the city that are showing the real growth and change
• The business sectors and buildings where you can see tenant attraction
• The places and precincts in the city where investors like to focus their attention and investment choices

So, you can do some valuable things with these four factors of awareness.  You can choose your market segments and then drill down with your prospecting model and client information services.  Be ‘relevant and real’ as a broker or agent in your location within certain categories of activity.

Top Agent Profiles

The clients that we serve like to work with the ‘top agents’ for a location; those that do know the market, the trends, and the people.   The more ‘relevant’ that you are to your clients and prospects, the easier it is to win new business.

It is not a difficult equation to understand, but it is more difficult to achieve, as deliberate effort, personal marketing, and local area research is necessary.  Are you up to the ‘local’ challenge?

Position Yourself in Real Estate

You can do some things here to position yourself more successfully.  Try some of these strategies for developing the right local area experience, coverage, and knowledge:

1. Undertake a resume of all major businesses – when you understand what the local businesses are thinking of and planning to do when it comes to occupancy; you can be there with solutions at the right time.
2. Investigate all local prime buildings and properties – some buildings are better than others, so categorize the buildings that you review locally, and then get to know the owners and the tenants in occupation.
3. Connect with the local business leaders and owners every three months – frequency of contact is important in our industry. Talk to people and track your conversations and meetings in a database.
4. Map out the streets with property ownership and occupancy details – understand what is happening in the locations and the streets of your city or territory. Ask questions of the ‘locals’ as they will likely know more about property change and churn nearby than you do.
5. Grow your database with comprehensive assessments of timing and property needs – your client list will be fundamental to momentum in your real estate business over the years. Spend time every day talking to people in your list, and adding more people both qualified and categorized.
6. With every property you take to the market, use ‘exclusivity’ as leverage – take the time to convert the better listings in this way so you can build your inquiry momentum on quality listed stock; ultimately, that will mean transaction opportunity.  You can’t do that with ‘open’ listings.

Through these simple strategies, you can become the commercial real estate broker or agent that local people want and need to convert to opportunity.