How to Launch Your Successful Commercial Real Estate Career

In commercial real estate brokerage today, the property market will change throughout the year in many different ways. You can work with those factors of change to tap into new clients and new listings. It is a matter of understanding how the market is changing and how you can match those variations into your professional skills and knowledge base.  Property specialists do exactly that.

(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)

The best agents in any location are constantly shaping and changing their professional skills and prospecting activities. They are looking for new ways to show relevance and service to the right property owners and the active business leaders. They are tuning their activities on a weekly and monthly basis. There are things that they can track as key performance indicators as part of that process.

Watch what happens

When you understand the results that you are achieving as a broker or an agent, you can refine your prospecting activities and responses. You can lift your conversions as a consequence. In both sales and leasing activity there are things to watch and refine throughout the year. Here are the most common indicators to work with at a personal level:

• The time on market relating to exclusive listings in precincts and by property type
• The amount of marketing money converted from the clients that you are working with and servicing exclusively
• The levels of inquiry coming in from the various marketing channels you are using
• The number of inspections that you are holding on a weekly basis by listing and by property type
• The meetings created per week with new people seeking property assistance in your location
• Understand the best methods of sale or lease that apply to your location and property type

Always remember that the people that we work with from a client perspective tend to be business savvy and investment aware. They know their priorities and alternatives in achieving a successful result through any commercial property sale or lease scenario. They also know most of the variations available to work through a property challenge.

Your successful listing or negotiation pitch should be based on how you can bring relevance and professional skill to the client and their property challenge. You are the only difference when it comes to getting a result in a timely and direct way at the best price or rental.

Avoid this problem

Far too many agents try the discounting approach when it comes to a listing pitch or a marketing offering; they simply have no idea how to provide any other point of difference in their professional service to the clients and prospects that they serve. Relevance is the key to listing conversion. There is no other way to convert volumes of business successfully in our industry.

So the robust market conditions of today’s property market can be worked with in different ways. Here are some ideas to help with that:

• Look at how the factors of supply and demand are changing in your city and within the most popular property precincts. Certain market segments will be very active and very desirable from an investment and or occupancy perspective. They are the segments you should work with as an agent or a broker.
• First and foremost, work with quality listings and quality clients. A factor of quality will always bring better results from marketing, negotiating, inspecting, and listing. Understanding your professional skills and knowledge, determine what a good quality listing would be to you given the prevailing market conditions. Determine how you can tap into that listing base consistently and directly. Put yourself into the marketing messages that you are sending out to clients and prospects.
• Review the levels of business vibrancy and activity for the location. Some businesses will always have greater levels of property change and churn. Create a shortlist of business types that you can attract and work with from a leasing and sales perspective.
• The telephone is a good indicator of marketing activity and local inquiry. Track the number of calls that you are getting every day from the different exclusive listings in the brokerage, and monitor the time on market in each case. Soon you will see patterns relating to inquiry and property change.
• One opportunity or conversation will usually lead to other opportunities over time. Build every conversation, meeting, and property inspection into a long-term relationship with the right people in the right way. Ask for the referrals, the leads, and the other property opportunities from those people that you have successfully serviced.

So there are some good things that you can do here with your commercial real estate activities locally. Understand the property market conditions and the changes that happened throughout the year. Adjust your client contact methods and prospecting activities to suit robust market conditions and the levels of inquiry that you have today.