How to Expand Your Commercial Real Estate Listing Opportunities Faster

There are many opportunities to be seized in commercial real estate brokerage this year. In any town or city across the globe there will be plenty of clients to serve and listings to attract. In saying that, some real strategies are required at a personal level.

 

(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)

 

If you are struggling to convert more new business currently, then now is a good time to look at your personal marketing program and promotional activities. How do you stand out as the agent for the location and the property type? That simple question needs a real and not generic answer.

 

Specific strategies?

 

As a broker or an agent locally, you need to know how to expand your listing opportunities and convert more new business over time. Without specific strategies covering these issues, your competition will be taking the best listings and converting more commissions.

 

There is no point in being ordinary or generic from a brokerage perspective in commercial real estate today; there are simply too many other competing agents around taking the business. Put personal marketing at the center of your business activities.

 

So what is important here?

 

You have to be better than the rest of the agents that are out there in your town, your city, or your business territory. Understand your position as an agent or a broker and understand the local competition.

 

So what can you do here? Improve your local skills and knowledge relative to the property types that are offering the best opportunities for the location. The value of the skills that you bring to your clients should never be underrated or underestimated. Take your skills and your knowledge to the next level so that you can comprehensively directly resolve property challenges for your clients in a timely and valuable way. The clients that you serve really just want results. How can you be part of that?

 

Control your costs

 

Whilst there are plenty of opportunities in commercial real estate brokerage today, there are also costs to complicate the process whilst income generation strategies and commissions need to be converted. A simple budget will keep you on track with that to help at a personal level efficiently and quickly. Don’t take too long to establish your new business generation plans and processes based around a budget and action plan.

 

As you move through the daily grind of prospecting and meetings, control your costs as the commissions start to flow and improve. The direct costs will always be there, but they can and should be managed from the very start. The costs are usually a mixture of those related to your motor vehicle, marketing, telephone, and entertainment. You can easily control the costs through a direct budgeting process and monthly management program. Eventually your income generation can well overtake your costs and get you into some real career results.

 

Plan your progress

 

So how do you do this? First and foremost, you need listings of reasonable quality. When you attract good listings, the time on market is usually shortened and negotiations are easier. Assess your current listing stock from a quality perspective. Any low quality listings or difficult clients should be removed from the equation. Assess your listings with an index biased towards ‘factors of attraction’.

 

Here are some other specific strategies to help you expand your listing opportunities as the agent of choice for your location:

 

• Assess your area for property change and opportunity. Some properties and locations will be more attractive and desirable than others. Choose the business precincts in your town or city that offer the best opportunities and then focus within particular buildings looking at the tenancy mix, the businesses, and the property owners. You will soon have plenty of people to contact in a regular ongoing way. When you make the calls, you will find the new business leads and opportunities.
• Revisit your client list and database to identify people that may be under some level of property pressure or change. Consider the variables of leasing, sales, and property management. There are many ways that you can serve client or prospect today to improve their property position.
• Every successful transaction is a referral opportunity waiting to be explored. Ask the referral questions at the right time with your clients and prospects. It is always easier to convert more business through a referral situation.
• Establish a personal marketing plan that you can implement every day into your targeted segments of investors and business owners. Personal marketing should always be quite specific and direct. Understand exactly how you can connect with the best people in the property market, and then personally make that contact each and every day. You cannot delegate the marketing process to others; it’s your job!
• Whilst you may be very busy with listings and negotiations, you cannot drop or overlook the need to connect with new people on a daily basis.

 

It takes about six months to drive reasonable levels of property opportunity towards you and your brokerage. It also takes about six months to lose market share to your competitors.

 

Be prepared to connect with the best people in your property market in a regular ongoing way. Be selective and strategic when it comes to that contact process. When you establish your system accordingly, you can expand your listing opportunities frequently, directly, and specifically. The quality of the new business that you create will always boost your further opportunities into the future.