How to Source and Service the Best Commercial Real Estate Clients
Clients are everything in commercial real estate brokerage. You need plenty of them and a degree of quality should be prevalent in your client list. Understand the best people that you should be connecting with locally and then design a system to reach out to them.
When you know the right people, and when they trust you as the local property expert that you claim to be, most of the hurdles that you strike in pitching and presenting for a new listing will diminish.
The core message here is that you must create a good degree of trust in your client list. Over time the people that you know should respect your services and skills.
How can you do that?
Split your client list up into the segments of property and the locations that you service. Above all else determine just who your VIP clients are and set about servicing them at a higher level than everyone else.
Here are some proven ideas to help you connect with the best people in your location that may have an interest or need in commercial property:
- Business owners of quality companies – when you delve into your location and the facts around business activity you will find companies that stand out above others. Those companies could be in particular business or industry segments that are successful for your location. Choose the top 4 or 5 companies in your zone, and make direct contact to see what they are doing and thinking in property activity over the next few years. Be sensitive to finding and connecting with the decision maker in each case.
- Property investors owning the major assets in your town or city – when you deeply review a list of local property owners you will find a number of investors that own more than one property in the region. Some of those investors will be highly involved in local property ownership. Just about every other agent will know those very same property owners; however you have to add your connection to reach out to those people.
- The business telephone book – you can get a lot of market momentum from the business telephone book. In simply making a lot of direct cold calls into the local businesses, you can ask about what they are doing about property occupancy, expansion, and contraction.
- The internet – research the local businesses and their websites online. You can learn a lot about a company from a simple search online. With the right search criteria you will very likely find the names of the directors, managers, and decision makers in those select businesses.
- Local newspaper editorials and articles – when you read the local newspaper, look into the article details and capture the names of key people. You can add those people into your database as a future point of reference that you can work on and with.
- Social media interaction – certain social media channels are more successful and interactive than others when it comes to commercial real estate brokerage. Focus on the channels that you can do something with. Build your presence online with some good commercial real estate information and some social interaction at a professional level.
Your skills and services in commercial real estate are valuable in so many different ways. You can write about and talk about the locality and its property activity. The clients and prospects that you serve will appreciate quality information and a professional way of displaying that information. Are you ready to tap into the best people in your property market?
You can get more commercial real estate brokerage prospecting tips in our eCourse ‘Snapshot’ right here.