Match Your Prospects to Your Commercial Real Estate Services
If you lose a listing or a negotiation it is usually because the client has not personally identified with your professional property services. You have not convinced them that you are the right person for the job.
Given that most listing opportunities are competitive involving a few other agents on the same property, it is worth asking yourself this question, ‘How can your services and solutions stand out as real and relevant to your clients?’ That answer should feature solidly in your presentation and sales pitch processes. The answer is very personal given that the client will largely be picking a particular person to help them; the property brokerage brand is only a small part of the equation when it comes to a client making choices. The client chooses an agent first and a brokerage second. There has to be a clear match between both issues.
Here is an interesting question for you to put to your sales team:
‘Why should a client use you to solve their property problems?’
If any of your team give any answers like these below then they will have a real problem in any property presentations:
- ‘We know the property market’
- ‘We have the best knowledge of the location’
- ‘We will serve the client well’
- ‘We can market this property with no paid marketing from you the client’
- ‘We will not charge you the large commissions that others charge’
- ‘We have the best people’
- ‘We are the best agency’
- ‘We have been trading for 25 years locally’
- ‘We are a specialist in the industry’
This ‘generality’ is a common problem where you see inexperienced or poor quality agents try to win listings on the basis of lower commissions or no marketing fees and not much else. ‘Cheap’ doesn’t work in our industry, at least not in the longer term.
The agents that commonly use these phrases finish up with lots of open listings and no deal momentum. Those agents are afraid to package the listing at the right price or rent and invariably don’t use the best method of sale or lease.
Don’t tell the client what they want to hear; tell them what they need to hear. There is a real difference and your listing direction depends on how you work through it.
Most clients recognise that money and costs are secondary issues when it comes to choosing an agent, but you must show them why that is the case. The ‘hip pocket’ is only a small motivator at the time of property listing; it can however be a very big motivator to a client at the time of a contract or lease negotiations.
Here are some ideas to help your clients connect with market reality and identify with your personal skills in helping them solve a property problem:
- Give them some specific market facts about the local area and the property type. Focus on price or rent ranges, time on market, and the best methods of sale or lease.
- Use photographs to give examples of other property situations.
- Use graphs to show the trends of enquiry and sale or lease conversions.
- With any investment property, bring resultant prices and rents back to returns on investment and yields.
- Take the client for a drive in your car into your local area to see a few examples of property marketing and promotion.
- Differentiate between open listings and exclusive listings. Help them understand why you want an exclusive listing and how it can work for them.
- Use special marketing processes that really tap into the target audience of buyers or tenants. How will your marketing work more effectively for the client?
- Use graphs to show your clients how certain marketing approaches are working. This can be done quite easily with websites and email hits.
- Walk the client through their listing and show them how you will inspect with any qualified buyers or tenants as the case may be.
To be the best agent in the local area you have to prove it over and over again every time you talk to a client or prospect.