Easy Ways to Boost Your Commercial Real Estate Commissions with Refined Prospecting
Time is valuable in commercial real estate brokerage. Ideally, you should be looking to get the best results possible from your time and actions in your working week. To achieve that, everything should be looked at from the perspective of the potential result. (NB – you can get plenty of tips about commissions in commercial real estate in our free Snapshot program right here)
Don’t waste your time (or too much of it) on small deals and small properties; be ‘choosy’ in what you work on and why. Politely decline the jobs and the properties that are of little ‘match’ to your business model of listings and commissions.
Commissions are Personal
So, commissions are to be improved over time at a personal level. To achieve that outcome, at the top of the daily task list for all brokers and agents should be prospecting. It directly follows that the prospecting process should be refined and honed into groups of clients, buildings, and targets. That’s how you can boost your commissions. Try some of these concepts to achieve that focus:
- Precinct specific – Review your local area and the territory that you control from a listing and business perspective. Some precincts will offer high levels of ‘churn and change’. They are the precincts that should be researched and probed for opportunity. Check out the owners, the buildings, and the zonings.
- Transaction type – What types of new business can you focus into? Are you a leasing, sales, or property management ‘expert’? The questions are important. Specialize in a transaction type, and then get all the local information that you can about prices, rents, returns, and enquiry. You can use those facts in your presentations and listing approaches.
- Building specific – Some buildings are significant sources of change. Tenants and investors may come and go through the asset and its ownership or occupancy over time. On that basis, create a property information package that the parties involved in the property cannot ignore. Be specific and be relevant with the buildings that you work on.
- Marketing packages – When you have a property to promote, support the process with vendor paid marketing. A high quality promotional package will attract more enquiry, but more importantly, show the market that you are the ‘go to person’ for the location and property type.
- Portfolio owners – Determine just who the local portfolio owners are, and then approach them regularly in a relevant way. One day they are likely to give you a call to talk about a property change or challenge.
- High value investors – Some investors own the bigger properties locally. When I refer to ‘bigger’ I am talking about shopping centers, office towers, and industrial parks. Research your local area so you can ‘map out’ the ownership profiles of all major buildings. Put those buildings at the top of your prospecting list.
- Property transaction size – Small property sales and leasing deals are commonly just as much work as those that are larger and or in the major properties. So, you can look at improving your commissions by working on the larger properties and the larger transactions. Make better choices with your listings.
Simple rules like these help you attract and convert larger commissions. As the local property agent or broker, your choices in your career are critical to the outcomes you achieve.
