How to Build a New Client Marketing Machine

In commercial real estate and as a broker or agent, your network of people and contacts will give you the foundations of ongoing business.  There is a marketing system to connect with a client list so you can get the most out of it. 

Are you ready for the challenge of client contact?  The rewards are many for those agents that can get the idea under control.

Connecting with lots of people takes effort and organization; it must be something you can do every day.  The random approach doesn’t work in commercial real estate. Get this call preparation infographic below to use in your prospecting activities.

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Being a Person of Influence

So, the idea to think about here is to build your network of contacts and then nurture it in different ways.  You could call it real estate networking, and many people do; however, they struggle with the system and skills applied to the process.

There is a discipline to connecting with clients and prospects.  That discipline centres on the agent and what they do in ongoing contact processes online, offline, in meetings, and telephone contact.  The organisation is part of progress with that.

Relevance should also be applied to all continuous communication with clients and prospects. That real estate relevance is all about what you say to the segments of people you reach out to. The discussions should be aligned to who people are and what they want.

Touching Clients Frequently

What is the logic here?  To be a top agent, you must be a ‘solution’ that people remember, trust and respect.  You can be the property solution they come to when leasing, sales, or property management matters happen. 

Of course, you never really know when a client or a prospect gets to that point or requirement; that is why you should be in client contact for the long term and do so in different ways.

Today we have plenty of tools to use in making the most of client contact. However, the agent contact mechanisms are also a discipline in a real estate agent’s day. So here are some ideas to help you establish your client contact program.

Research Your Territory

Where is your territory, and how do you work the zone or precincts?  Some of those areas are going to be better than others.

Most towns and cities are ‘complicated’, so break down the big area into smaller manageable areas for research and canvassing.  You have choices as to how you break down your property territory to be effective as an agent.

It would help if you broke up the larger territory into subzones.  You can then prioritize them in different ways.  Make the zones’ manageable’ in numbers and streets. 

The zones can be designated ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’.  It stands to reason that the ‘D’ zone is something that you should not spend too much time with. All of your prospecting time can and should be spent in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ zones.

Knowing the Right People

There are plenty of people in a real estate agents’ territory.  Given that, you can split them up into groups, so your prospecting efforts become more effective. 

Agent organisation is the key to property coverage and getting client results. You cannot know everyone in your location, nor should you try, as that will take too much time, and fragment your business efforts. 

Make the right canvassing choices about what your client base should be comprised of and where it is located.  You can have a ‘primary’ client group and a ‘secondary’ client group.  Many agents work with investors as part of the primary group and business owners as part of the second group.

Awareness of Change

In any property market or cycle, there will be changes driven by local or state-wide shifts in business and the economy.  Every property market is an excellent cycle to work into; it is just how you work the real estate segments. 

As the property market changes, you tap into that change and work with the different groups of real estate people given their investment requirements or business operations.

Repeating Contact

Repeat contact processes apply in real estate today.  This is perhaps the most critical part of networking with your clients and prospects. 

Making connections will always be necessary, but the frequency of that is so essential.  That is connecting with the same property people regularly.  The best contact cycle for that is 90 days or less. 

Find the people of future value to you in your real estate business, and then start the systems of ongoing contact.  Make the process a habit on your real estate day.  Expect that it will take significant discipline; however, the rewards are many for those agents that can get the idea underway.

VIP Groups of People

This VIP process is a simple idea but an effective one.  Some clients are better than others in and with the different categories of real estate business services that you can apply. 

So, a small group of people will fall into the ‘VIP’ group.  You don’t want too many people in the group, and typically less than 20 is a good number to work with. 

Understand why those people would be VIPs for you and then perform the connections more deeply than the other people that you already know locally.  Devote more time and process to the VIP group and give them more local property market information.

The Magic Bullet of Client Contact

Is there a ‘magic bullet’ to getting your real estate contact processes underway? The answer is of course quite simple; it’s you.

As you can see from the above points, everything you do in client and prospect contact comes down to you, your organization, and your research. So, get organized, make the contacts, and soon your real estate business will thrive.