How to Pull Your Real Estate Prospecting Together Faster
Your prospecting activities in commercial real estate do matter to the progress you make towards greater numbers of controlled listings and improved commissions. It then directly follows that your prospecting activities should be at the centre of your business day and your diary of activities.
If you are struggling with your real estate business now, take a good look at your new business activities. Many agents get too ‘loaded up’ with mundane or administrative issues that should be handled by others.
Don’t let that happen! Sure, someone must do those ‘administrative’ things, but they should not take over the focus and activities of any agent that is seeking to grow their business.
Time is precious when it comes to commercial real estate. At least half of your working day should be focused on personal prospecting and new business creation. That is a rule that creates growth of market share faster than anything else.
The Prospecting Rules that Matter
So, how can you pull your prospecting activities together, so you can ‘boost’ your real estate business? Here are some facts that you can work with:
- Put ten high-quality buildings at the centre of your new business focus – This says that those buildings should be of the highest quality and ‘attractive’ to the tenants, businesses, or buyers of the property market. If you win an engagement on any of those ten buildings, you would expect that the enquiry would be high. In saying that this can be a focus for you, it can take months if not years to get one or more of those buildings to convert to your listing activities. Persistence is important with the property owners and or the businesses in those buildings. Why will they need your property help? Make sure that you understand that fact and use it to your advantage.
- Select twenty local businesses in your territory that you would like to work with, particularly in some ‘property related’ way – They will be the larger businesses that are of a ‘corporate nature’ that can use your services in the property sale, lease, relocation, and or expansion. Get to know who the business leaders are in each case and open the contact process.
- Target some established and active local property investors – These will be the people that have local higher quality buildings or properties in their portfolio. Before you go about contacting them, get to know their assets, their preferred property investment priorities, and their portfolio spread. That will then help you with contact and service solutions over time. The more information that you have about local property investors, the easier it is to create conversations and remain in contact for some time.
- Monitor existing listings and transactions – From this process, you can build a good awareness of rents, prices, and time on the market. Take photos and keep records of the current and known listings locally. Build a story around the listing stock. When you list another property, get the other listing facts from the location and share that information with your client, so they know what they are up against when it comes to marketing, enquiry, and pricing (or rent).
From these things, you can have a contact system. That contact system can feature in your prospecting model. Tune and shape that prospecting model as you see what’s working and happening with commercial property in the local area. That is how you will build your real estate business faster than others. Does this take personal discipline? Sure it does. Are you up to the challenge?
