Essential Prospecting Systems for Commercial Real Estate Agents
If you work in commercial real estate agency today, you must have a well-established prospecting model. That is a model that can help you find new and fresh people to work for and with. Having a list of current clients to work with is part of the process, but you should freshen up the list with new contacts and people that you can help at some stage in the future.
So who do you want in your list? Try some or all of these:
- The owners of property through your region or sales territory
- Tenants that occupy quality properties locally
- Business owners that could be looking to relocate or occupy premises
- Franchise groups looking to grow their business base and franchise structure
- Solicitors that have property related clients
- Accountants with clients that act on property
- Large corporate groups that have major business interests in the local area
- Property developers that could add to the local property configuration and content
- Planners and decision makers that have an involvement with property matters
It could be said that there are many alternatives available when it comes to prospecting, however some things work better than others and you must select the things that work well for you.
Let it be said from the start that prospecting is a process and to a degree it can be hard for some agents and salespeople to establish a good system personally. Essentially you have to do things that you may not have done before. You must change your business habits so you can find new clients and people to work for. To grow your market share, your commissions, and your listing bank, this is a ‘big deal’ in many ways. You have some choices to make. You can rise to the top of your market if you have a good prospecting model and you implement it every day.
Many agents find lead generation, cold calling, and prospecting really difficult and that is largely because they do not have the personal focus to create new habits and refine them to a high level.
So what does a good prospecting model look like? Try all of these:
- Researching the right people to talk to every day on local property matters
- Getting to know the key decision makers in your local area that may want help with a sale or a lease
- Making about 40 cold calls to new people every day.
- Having a database system to record your findings and progress in the lead generation process.
- Creating a follow-up system to keep the contact flowing in a relevant way from the very start
- Improving your dialogue so you are seen as an expert in property and not just another agent.
Are you up to the challenge? Can you change your habits? If you can do these things proficiently every day, the listings and commissions will come your way. Over time you can rise up in the market as a good agent of skill.