How You Can List and Sell More Commercial Properties Locally
To sell more commercial properties locally in a timely way, you should focus on your listing processes so that all of the hurdles and challenges of the listing are addressed at the front end of the marketing equation. Undertake a program of client conditioning and target marketing.
As the industry professional, you are the best person to shape the clients thinking and decisions. The best time to do that is at the front end of the listing and marketing equation. Don’t let the client take shortcuts or make poor decisions in the marketing of their property. Show them the evidence and provide the industry case studies of other properties sold or leased in the location. It is hard for the client to refute or dispute evidence from the local property market.
Client Coverage
The client expects some guidance and some recommendations from you. Help the client see the things that are really important to marketing momentum, inspection interest, and negotiation encouragement. If the property has any issues of weakness or redundancy, resolve them before the marketing campaign starts. That will help you achieve some real sales momentum with your listing stock.
Here are some ideas that can help you as the local property broker sell more commercial real estate simply and easily. The strategies are simple and yet essential to the property marketing process:
- Property facts – research the property completely and thoroughly before you take it to market. Have all of the facts relating to the property documented and detailed ready for the inspections and the inbound inquiry. Where necessary, check the facts with client and/or any other necessary third parties. Accurate facts help you avoid the hurdles of potential property misrepresentation or listing confusion.
- Client conditioning – make sure that the client fully understands the current market conditions and the competing listings. Show them the necessary evidence relating to prices and all rents, time on market, and the best methods of sale or lease as the case may be. Some good choices need to be made, and the client conditioning process will help you achieve that.
- Target market – define the target market for the client so that they can see who you are to attract for inspections and negotiations. Show the client exactly how you will feed that target market into your marketing campaign and its timing.
- Have a story to tell – make the property interesting and locally relevant. Develop a story around the listing itself, and the release of the property to the local market. A property with a history becomes more attractive and interesting to the target market. Stories will always help the momentum of any marketing campaign.
- Marketing methods – choose the best marketing methods to suit the property and the prevailing market conditions. Look at the other listings and the competing properties for the location. Certain marketing methods will be better than others. Using vendor paid marketing funds, promote the property comprehensively with the best marketing methods possible.
- Inspection strategies – show the client how you will move qualified parties through the property as part of an inspection process. The features of the property should be cleverly merged into the inspection strategy. A complex property will need a specific inspection strategy, and that must be established before any advertising and marketing material is released publicly. Understand exactly how you will show the property with its strengths and opportunities to the interested inspecting parties.
- Promotional momentum – every exclusive listing should be structured into a timed marketing campaign. The first few weeks of that campaign are perhaps the most important. Keep up the promotional momentum and refresh the advertising regularly to send a new message and attract people in the target markets to make inquiries. Vendor paid marketing will be required to enhance the advertising campaign. Pitch and promote your services including a strategy of vendor paid marketing.
- Talk to the locals – when you have a listing to promote, talk to the locals and most particularly the investors and business owners. Get into the local area to talk about your new listing and its release to the market. Encourage inspections from all of the locals.
- Track and measure results – with any listing and with every property marketing campaign involving exclusivity, track and measure the results that you are achieving from the inbound inquiry. Know what is happening and make sure that you are improving your inquiry results. Time on market is an important indicator to monitor with your exclusive listings. Inquiry levels will also be important. The best methods of sale or lease, and your marketing processes will have something to do with the inbound inquiries that you are attracting. Make the adjustments to your marketing and promotional strategies as the campaign continues.
Looking at all of these facts, you can see that the best way to get a commercial property to create better levels of inquiry and sell faster is actually through your personal involvement.
When you have exclusively listed a property, you can get personally involved in making the property move towards a successful result; shape and drive the property promotion. Everything else in our industry is a ‘luck’ process and you can’t grow market share or commissions on the back of ‘luck’.
(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)