How to Work Ahead of Deadlines in Sales – Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
In commercial real estate sales, there are plenty of deadlines to work to as a property is prepared for listing, marketing, and negotiation.
When you have a good number of active listings, the deadlines can then become frequent and frustrating. In saying that, you cannot be successful as an agent or broker, without working to priorities and deadlines; control is critical. Factors of control should be part of your business model and working ethic.
Deadlines are part of the commercial real estate business and should be the main fact that is driving a brokerage bias towards listing exclusivity. You can only handle a limited number of listings at any one time, so make sure those listings are exclusive.
Time and Tasks
To protect and direct your business activities, focus your time and your efforts on the exclusive listings that you control and the clients that you serve. Don’t waste your time or thinking processes on open listings.
Pressure creates priorities, and that is the way things should be in the industry. Drive your real estate business forward with the right listing stock and sales focus. Consider these facts when it comes to deadlines and daily activity:
- Exclusive listings give you the fullest control of the entire inspection, negotiation, and sales process; pitch your services accordingly.
- You can work up to about 15 exclusive listings at any one time personally with a reasonable level of control.
- Your conversion ratios on exclusive listings should be at least 75% (assuming you have conditioned the client to the real market conditions).
- Understand the working week and the pressures that apply to deadlines in marketing, advertising, and transaction negotiation.
- Each day you can focus on your administrative tasks at the end of the day outside of ‘core times’, depending on priorities.
- You always have choices in what you do and how you do it, so manage your diary with a bias towards control of clients, listings, and transactions.
The simple rule to follow here is to treat your exclusive listings and clients with far greater urgency and then to push any open listing activities to the bottom of the work list for the day.
Open listings don’t count when it comes to deadlines. Exclusive listings and current clients should feature in all your deadlines each day and throughout the week.
Top Agents Focus
Top salespeople tend to be highly organized and focused when it comes to the listing processes, marketing efforts, property transactions, and negotiations. Priorities and deadlines become important in planning the day and focusing the workload.
Here are some other proven and time-tested ideas to help you work well ahead of your critical appointments and deadlines in commercial real estate sales and brokerage:
- APPOINTMENTS: Listing appointments are critical to progress in gaining market share. Ensure that all your listing appointments are timed for the best part of the day or the week where you can fulfil the obligations of client engagement and listing.
- NEW BUSINESS: The listing process is the first level of client engagement and should be planned and actioned appropriately. Stay personally involved and active in the listing appointments and or the listing process. Engage with the client; that is the rule.
- PROMOTIONS: Plan your marketing campaigns so that they are staged across a period and focused on the target market. A full marketing campaign can be set so that all media activities are booked well in advance. It is simply then a matter of tracking the enquiries that are coming in and the inspections that are occurring.
- MARKETING: Advertising layouts can be created and placed by others; involve administrative people in your team with marketing bookings and placement processes. If something simple can be delegated to others, then do it.
- DISPLAY; Inspections of properties can occur at the best times and on the days of the week of your choice. Given that you will or should be attracting plenty of enquiries with good quality listings, set ‘core’ inspection times and only set appointments in those timing ‘windows’.
- TRANSACT: Negotiations and the closure of any transaction or deal should take your priority. If a transaction is active, stay with the momentum and the facts of the transaction. Know the targets of your client in the process of negotiation, and keep the matter moving forward.
From these facts, you can see the necessity to stay organised and on task. As a broker or agent, your ability to stay on task with core business issues will drive your business forward. Yes, pressures will occur, but you always have choices in what you do.
Stay focused on your real estate business and what you do with it. The deadlines can be controlled at a personal level. When you believe you are in control, you get a lot more work done and attracting new business is a good degree easier.