How to Control Sales Deadlines in Commercial Real Estate

There are some simple deadlines to work towards in commercial real estate sales.  Those set times and tasks will help you in building your competitive edge and avoiding the ‘chaos’ of the working week.  

People will try to shift your focus away from listings, clients, and transactions; that is always a problem for those of us in the industry.

Strict and simple rules help at a personal level when it comes to broker and agent focus on the key elements of our business.  Self-control is a good thing for achieving brokerage results.

Deadlines Matter

So, what are those deadlines and why do you need them?  The fact of the matter is that the pressures and changes of a working day in real estate will shift priorities with listings and clients.

It is easy to get distracted and diverted into things that may seem important at the time, but not necessarily critical to the business outcomes that most brokers and agents require.  Stay ‘on track’ with your business focus; that is the rule.

Brokerage Stagnation!

One common problem for all will be the poorly timed and lengthy team or administrative meetings.  Some meetings just don’t need to happen in the middle of the day when you should be connecting with the people in the property market. 

Move your administrative meetings to other days and times where things are less pressured.  All team meetings should be short and precise; that can only occur when you work to an agenda and keep all attendees on task when it comes to the set items.

Think about your working week and the factors of the local property market as it exists today.  Certain actions and points of personal focus will help you in creating more business results; ultimately that deliberate approach to our business can be helping you with your targets with listings and clients.

Real Estate Deadlines

These are the deadlines that I like to use in an ‘average’ working week:

1. Getting outbound prospecting cold calls done by 1030 am every day is a priority. Regardless of just how many listings a person may have now, there must be a flow of new clients and listings happening at the top of the ‘pipeline’ of contact.  A constant focus on new business will always help in removing the ‘dips and troughs’ from the industry activity during the year.
2. Ensure that you are on time for all appointments and commitments. While it is sometimes impossible to get to certain meetings on time, a good percentage of meetings should be happening on time.  Understand the pressures of time and traffic in setting meeting times around the city and suburbs.  When we are not ‘on time’ with our meeting commitments, it leaves a bad image in the mind of the client or prospect.  Show respect to the people that you connect with, and ensure that all your meeting times are achievable and adhered to.
3. Have the marketing campaigns for listings ready early, particularly for the media cut off times. There is a difference here with exclusive listings; they are your priority and should be put at the top of the list when it comes to media placement and cut off times.  Know the lead times to inspect the property, take the photographs, write the advertisements, and lodge the online and newspaper marketing.
4. Keeping each meeting for a duration of no more than 1 hour. Most meetings can be successfully held and over in 30 minutes.  Your most important resource is time, and that should be a clear priority of control during the working day.  Control your time in the best ways so that all results, marketing, and listings issues can be controlled and moved ahead.
5. Giving the clients of all ‘exclusive’ listings the appropriate feedback on inspections and enquiries at least three times per week. Ensure that you are connecting with your clients regularly, so they know that all matters relating to marketing, inspecting, and negotiating are happening.  Feedback in our industry is so important and will help you with ‘client conditioning’ if and when a negotiation gets to that point.
6. Negotiation deadlines are a good thing and will put some pressure on the parties to a transaction to move ahead in a timely way. Set achievable time frames for negotiations, decisions, and documentation.   You should be the person in control when it comes to progressing any property listing and transaction.  Set the time frames for people to work to and respond by.

Discipline and deadlines are part of a successful real estate focus.  The working week should be optimised by every commercial broker or agent, and that is done through realistic deadlines, controls and documentation.