How to be an Expert of Choice in Commercial Property
To get plenty of traction with both listings and clients as a commercial real estate broker, you really do need to be expert of choice for your location. By location I mean your town or city and particularly the precinct where most of your new and existing business would be coming from. You will know the location. It will be an area where local businesses and investors show the greatest interest when it comes to property ownership and occupation.
(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)
Look at your location and assess the history that applies to property development, sales activity, and leasing occupation. Look at the variations that apply to supply and demand currently and into the future. There may be changes to the property precinct, local transport, and the zoning where the supply and demand factors will change. Can you gain further traction and opportunity through those changes?
Get the local facts
When you research your area comprehensively and continually, you will find the factors of change to work on and work with. That is what brokerage is all about. Focus your attention towards finding the new business and then controlling the listing exclusively. That is how the top agents command market share and property involvement. Open listings are a waste of time, and certainly give you know advantage from a brokerage perspective.
Look at your location and understand where the business should be generated and then determine the building types and the services that will match into that requirement. Consider the following questions:
- Are you an expert in commercial real estate leasing?
- Can you work on investment sales and the strategies behind such?
- Can you influence a client to use the brokerage property management services?
- Can you talk strategically about the asset and how it can be improved over time?
- Can you match your professional skills to the requirements of the client and the property?
There are some very specific questions here that relate to the market today and the challenges that our clients experience. Your answers and your ideas will help the client move ahead. I go back to the point that you really do need to be the expert that people relate to and will remember at the right time in their property challenge.
Build value personally
Build your value as the property specialist utilizing skills and ideas around the following issues:
- Marketing strategies both online and off-line should be unique and special. When you convert your listings exclusively, the marketing process should be similarly special and directly targeted. Put yourself into the promotional equation with all of your exclusive listings so that the local property investors and business leaders will seek you out as the person to place their enquiry and/or questions.
- Target marketing in both leasing and sales should always occur. Take every campaign and turn it into something special where you can target the property message into groups of investors or tenants as the case may be. Learn how to create better messages in your advertising copy and editorials. Write articles for the location and also merge that material into your social media activity.
- Your existing listings will be a source of discussion conversation. From those existing listings you can create leverage and opportunity with other investors and business leaders. Use your existing listings as the key reasons for prospecting and meeting generation.
So there is one key message here to be respected and remembered. If you are to achieve any significant levels of traction as a commercial real estate specialist for your location, the clients and the prospects that you serve must remember you as the expert of choice. That then becomes the central component to your marketing messages.
