Learn from Lost Listings and Presentations in Commercial Real Estate

Like it or not in commercial real estate brokerage, you will not win all the properties that you pitch for or present on.  Over time your conversions for new business should improve but you will still not convert everything to a listing or a finalised transaction.

There are reasons why listings and deals go to other agencies or brokerages.  Here are some of the common reasons:

• There is an established relationship between an agent and the client
• The incentives or discounts offered by the agent influenced the clients decision
• The branding and the market share of the other competitors may have been stronger for the property type
• The other agent or broker may have had the ideal purchaser or tenant as the case may be

So you cannot win everything that you chase or pitch on.  You can however position yourself for better results and increased conversions over time.  To do this you can learn from those proposals, pictures, and listings that were unsuccessful.

It is debatable whether you should offer a discount in your fees and commissions when it comes to attracting the client of a listing.  A top service and commitment of the brokerage to the property listing cannot be achieved through a discount.  Any quality property requires dedicated focus and direct marketing.  As a general rule, that will be an exclusive listing with a substantial vendor paid marketing campaign.  Any client that wants to take shortcuts and achieve discounts will not be correctly motivated when it comes to negotiating a deal.

So you can improve your sales pitch or presentation based on the things that you learn from the marketplace.  Here are some tips to help you:

1. Centre your presentation or sales pitch on the clients property challenge.  The quality of your recommendations will help you convert the listing or deal.  Be quite specific to the challenge and the stages that you see will be critical to achieving a positive outcome for the client with the property.
2. Use evidence from the market to influence the clients thinking.  Established results in sales and leasing activity will be good leverage when it comes to helping the client with the decisions that they need to make.
3. Track the time on market, the marketing strategies, and the enquiry trends currently as they relate to the property type and the region.  Put together some graphs that show the client how things work today when it comes to successfully selling or leasing a property.  The visual approach really does work.
4. Create or gather some stories from the market today from your experiences with other challenging listings and clients.  Those stories will help your new clients relate to the pressures of the market and the recommendations that you are making.
5. If necessary, you can use testimonials and put the prospect in contact with previously served clients.  In that way they can satisfy any current concerns relating to your professional service.

There is a lot to learn in the commercial real estate industry today.  Every transaction, presentation, and client relationship will give you valuable feedback to help you improve your business activity and commissions.