Overcoming Stress and Downturns in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

The commercial property industry is just like any other sales related career. You can be swamped and stressed by the pressures of performance and opportunity. Without a plan of attack and a consistent strategy towards new business development, it is very likely that you will struggle, and that can only lead to a downturn in results and commissions. Don’t let the potential stress of the property market impact your individual performance as a broker or an agent.  Stay on top of your momentum and business efforts.

The Facts of the Challenge

Every agent or broker will have challenges when it comes to personal individual performance. Every top agent has usually worked through a number of individual challenges when it comes to professional skills and prospecting.

If you want to rise to the top of your market in the location and within a particular property type, then you will need a plan to take you forward and that plan will require dedicated action at a personal level. If you take that approach, you will avoid the pressures of failure and stressful performance. Develop your plan so that your brokerage activities can thrive and grow over time.

Remove hurdles

So the fear of failure can be a massive hurdle to surmount when it starts to take hold on your business performance. Don’t let it take hold. The way to avoid the issue is to take charge of your professional skills and your daily activities from the very start of your career. Keep up the momentum at a personal level. Here are some ideas to help with that:

1. You can learn from other agents in the area and identify the things that work when it comes to sales and leasing brokerage. Check out the location and all the brokers working through the area to understand how they are approaching the issues of marketing, inspections, negotiation, prospecting, and client development. They are the five key factors in brokerage performance. They all require respect and personal development; practice can help you with those particular skills.
2. Develop a consistent plan of action. Daily activities as part of a marketing and prospecting plan will make you feel that you are moving ahead with some progress. Of course you should refine your actions where you can see that change and improvement is possible. Nurture and shape your progress professionally as a broker or an agent.
3. Identify the clients that you should service by type and by size. When you understand those two factors, you can shape your prospecting model into particular locations and buildings. You can drill down into business types, client types, and marketing strategies. Some clients are better than others, so develop a list of priorities and classifications that can help you with client identification and selection. Feed those factors into your database and prospecting model, so that you can see some quality and improvement over time.
4. Track your results and your strategies in both sales and leasing. When you look at the history of your transactions over time, you can identify the ratios of commissions per transaction and by client. Over time the commissions per transaction should escalate so that you are moving into a higher level of property activity.
5. Track the levels of enquiry that you are achieving. If you are comprehensively marketing yourself into a location and property type, you will be able to see how the levels of enquiry coming to you through online and off-line promotional strategies. Split the enquiry between sales and leasing listings. Identify what people are looking for and how they perceive the property market in today’s terms. From those factors you can adjust the processes of property listing negotiation and promotion. In simple terms you can match your listings to the trends in the market. Every listing should be specifically driven to a target market and a budget. That being said, the rule only applies to exclusive listings that you control. Open listings are a waste of time and should only be taken where you can see some potential for an immediate inspection with qualified party.
6. Develop a personal marketing plan supported by relevant material. When you have something to say about the local property market, it needs to be relevant and real for the location. Use that material in your prospecting activities. Identify a specific approach for the separate market segments of business owners, landlords, and tenants. You will need dedicated marketing material in each case to activate the interest and the respect that you need a personal level. Put yourself and your services at the center of all the marketing strategies and ideas that you develop. Build a brand at a personal level through listing the best properties in the best locations.

So the message here is that you can avoid performance problems in commercial real estate brokerage if you position yourself for constant improvement and skill development. You can remove the fear of failure from your career and industry activities. In saying that, it is a personal choice supported by individual action.

Assess the strengths and weaknesses that apply to your brokerage and your location. Look at your personal skills as they exist today to see how they match into the strengths and weaknesses of the market. Identify your strengths and resolve any weaknesses that you may have. The best agents in the industry are those that have improved their skills at each and every opportunity. The way to fast track that momentum is through practice at a personal level.

(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)