How to Go Above and Beyond Your Competitors in Commercial Property
Real estate and property brokerage today is competitive, and commercial property is no different. The levels of brokerage competition around in any town or city will push you to the limits, especially when you are pitching for a listing or a client. Sometimes there is a temptation to offer discounts or incentives to clients to take on or engage your services. Stop right there! Don’t succumb to the ‘discounting’ mindset.
(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)
What do you want?
You don’t really want a listing that has been converted on the back of offering lower commissions or taking zero marketing funds; you simply won’t service the listing as well as you should because your ‘head won’t be in the process’. If you can’t convert a listing exclusively without discounting, then you have weaknesses in your presentation skills and prospecting systems. Focus on what you are doing and not on ‘discounting’ to win the best new business in commercial property.
Make a deliberate choice to stand out as an industry expert; that’s the message to work on. Every working day, market yourself with that target in mind. The clients that we serve like to use the best agents with the comprehensive local market coverage and penetration. Client’s know the rules of marketing, and the focus of getting a result. They don’t want to waste time.
Drop the experimentation!
Selling, or leasing property today is not an experiment in property promotion; it requires real skill and deliberate effort to a marketing plan; that’s what a professional agent does. Those agents and brokers that do not take on the marketing challenge in a professional way are bound to struggle in more ways than one.
Here are some ways you can stand out as the industry professional for your location:
- Build your value professionally – Most clients and prospects will know if you have a reasonable market share as a broker or agent. They will have checked you out or have a reasonable awareness of your property activities before they called you in. Put professionalism into everything that you do with your listings and market coverage.
- Get plenty of signboards placed on quality local properties – The signboards that we use are as valuable today as they always have been from a local area marketing perspective. Concentrate your signboards in your designated territory on the target property segments. A new signboard on a local property is a reason to talk to many local people.
- Create a pipeline of contact – When you find new people to target locally as clients or prospects in your real estate business, put them into your database and feed them through a pipeline approach of contact, meetings, emails, letters, and market updates. It can take months and years to eventually convert a prospect to a meeting or a real estate discussion.
So you can do the simple things in commercial real estate to stand out beyond the activities of your competitors. It is very likely that your competitors are taking short cuts or implementing standard practices in commercial real estate brokerage. Do better proportionally than everyone else in your industry. Personally promote yourself for the location and to your target market. One on one marketing is really important in our industry.
(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)