Get Leverage and Traction with Better Commercial Real Estate Listings
Every property listing in commercial real estate agency will give you some fresh business leverage. You can use all of your listings to build relationships and new leads with prospects and new clients.
Don’t just list a property and hope that someone will call you off the signboard or the internet advertisement; get involved with the listing and take it to the market. It gives you something to talk about with new clients and prospects. Use your listing to talk to more people; capture the information that you gather and build the relationships with the right people. In this way your database will grow.
If you follow this logic, it is easy to see that your exclusive listings are the ones to market in this way. When you have controlled listing stock you have the leverage to build better market share. Open listings are harder to use in this way given that you have no control on the property or the client. Any buyer or tenant can use other agents to get to inspect the listing.
It is interesting to note that many agents and brokers struggle with few if any listings and lots of buyer and tenant enquiries. They then chase around the market to find the right property and the right listing. They then have to deal with other agents who have the listings. If this sounds like you, then you have a prospecting problem. Take a serious look at how you are prospecting and improve it; get involved in more prospecting so you are reaching the right people with the right properties.
Make it your focus to build quality listing stock that you control; in an ideal world you should be working with up to 15 exclusive listings at any one time (beyond that number you will be stretched too far on resources and time). Get away from ‘generic’ marketing and be very ‘specific’ in what you do and how you promote your properties. Take exclusive listings first and foremost; be prepared to pitch your services on that basis.
So how do you leverage your listings? Here are some ideas to help:
- When you list a property put a good quality signboard on the frontage to the building or land. At the same time as getting a signboard placed, personally canvass the local area and streets around the listing to tell the property owners and local businesses about the new listing.
- As a general rule list quality properties above ordinary stock. You will always get better enquiry from quality listings.
- Any inbound telephone enquiries from your listings will be opportunities for prospect qualification and ongoing contact. Find out what the prospects are looking for and comprehensively cover the market and the listings to see what inspections can occur.
- Choose methods of sale that generate timely action from buyers and inbound calls for more detail. A timed method of sale such as a ‘tender’, ‘expressions of interest’, or an ‘auction’ will achieve that.
So the message here is that you can get traction and leverage from all your listings if you focus on ‘exclusive’ listing strategies. Build your commercial real estate agency business around that strategy.
