How to Effectively Manage Your Commercial Real Estate Client Communications

In commercial real estate brokerage, you should have a significant database of qualified prospects and clients that you are working with comprehensively throughout the year. Regular contact into the database at a personal level will help you build the right relationships with the right people. 

Work your database list selectively with a bias towards quality clients and quality properties.  In targeting people and properties in this way, your listing conversions are likely to be more attractive and market friendly.

In listing good quality properties locally, you are also quite likely to create better levels of enquiry and a greater number of inspections. The ratios all work together in brokerage when you focus on the quality side of clients and properties.

Client and Property Facts

Here are a couple of facts to remember:

• Poor quality properties are hard to move at any time, so don’t make your real estate business any more difficult than it needs to be
• Good quality properties will create more genuine enquiry in any market and in any economy
• There is generally more work in taking a poor quality property to the market that there is in a quality property
• Size matters in your listing focus, that is for the bigger and better buildings
• Work with sales and leasing listings so you have some diversity in your commission cash flow
• Understand the levels of property enquiry now in the local area and build your listing momentum accordingly

So what can you do here? Ultimately you want the clients and the prospects in your database list to remember you at the right time, and then communicate their property needs when certain challenges and situations arise. Are you providing the property solutions that people need today when it comes to property occupancy and or investment?  Comprehensive personal promotion in commercial real estate is a good thing.

Local Area Focus First

There will be other agents and brokers all chasing the same business in your location, so the things that you do in local area marketing and property promotion, should be unique and relevant to the current market conditions. Relevancy always converts better levels of new business.  Stand out as a top property marketer; that’s the focus and a good rule to work to.

Consider the following questions and ideas:

• Have you refined and improved your client contact processes over time? Ultimately, you should strive to improve your client contact systems and strategies so that you are professionally memorable with the right people in the right way. Learn how to market yourself in a comprehensive and direct way.
• Is your property market highly competitive? When you have a number of agents chasing properties locally, try to shift your marketing strategies and client contact processes to the next level. Work hard to maintain a good level of contact with the best people in your property market.
• Are your clients and prospects likely to talk to a number of agents in the local area before they talk to you? If you are not spending enough time building relationships with the people in your contact list, they are likely to talk to many other agents when property pressures and challenges arise. Look at your contact processes now so that you can refine and improve the strategies in the best ways possible.

There are some things that you can definitely do to improve your personal profile professionally with your commercial real estate clients. Here is a short list to help you get started:

• Make plenty of calls into your client list on a regular basis. Tell those people how the property market is changing and how they can participate productively and positively into that change.
• When promoting any of your exclusive listings, take the time to talk to people directly about those listings. A good listing is a reason to create a conversation.  From a conversation you can get plenty of ideas and comments to work with from a business perspective.
• Every marketing campaign for an exclusive listing should be comprehensive and targeted. Sell your marketing ideas using vendor paid marketing strategies and targeted campaigns.
• Look at your online profile and adopt some specific strategies such as article writing, social media, editorials, websites, and blogs to spread the word about your ideas and property observations. There is no point in being ‘ordinary’ online with your profile and professional activities.

These ideas are relatively simple to implement, and should be structured into a comprehensive commercial real estate profile at agent and broker level. Take the time to improve your profile professionally in the local area and or the territory you have been assigned.