Planning the Strategy of Client Contact and Prospecting New Business

In commercial real estate brokerage, and as an agent or broker, you need to get in front of plenty of people as part of an ongoing contact and prospecting model.

Connecting with the right people is part of the equation, so there are choices to be made with that. However, relevance is also something that needs to be thought about if you are to connect professionally and successfully for the long term.

Trust and Engagement

In connecting with people, you can build significant levels of trust so that you are remembered as the local broker or agent, particularly so when a property challenge arises. 

How do you compare with your competitors as a ‘preferred industry specialist’?  Personal marketing is part of building that trust, your local business image and brand. 

The agency that you work for only has a small role to play in growing your market share and listing activity.

Client and Contact Priorities

Here are some priorities and strategies to help you build your real estate business through ongoing personal contact:

• WHO: Identify the key people in the location owning the better properties in the prime locations; those people are business owners and property owners. Identify how you can contact them in meaningful and ongoing ways into the future. That research is quite important, so get your system running as soon as possible. Make the connections with the right people, and do it each day.  It will take time for them to trust you as an industry specialist, so you will need plenty of local information to talk about, and then establish your skills and knowledge base. You can display your information using statistics, charts, and images. The visual side of commercial real estate marketing will help you build your real estate business effectively and quickly. Develop some tools to help you do that.
• NOTICE: Watch the activities of your competing agents and particularly their listings. When they place a signboard on an active listing in a location, you can use that signboard as a reason to connect to other owners in the same immediate and surrounding precinct. It is reasonably likely that there will be another listing in the location to take to the market at the same time as the listings of competing agents.
• PROMOTE: Create a marketing plan for your location focusing on the property types that you prefer from a knowledge and location perspective. Local area knowledge will also give you much confidence when it comes to the contact process with clients and prospects. There will be plenty of opportunity in your location and within your defined territory of focus. You simply need to look with a keen eye for property activity across businesses and property ownership records. Self-promotion is an important part of commercial real estate brokerage, and your activities should be structured into a marketing plan. The marketing plan would involve buildings, streets, and certain property owners. It takes a reasonable amount of time to identify property ownership records and people; a logical approach to property ownership research in your town or city is important to get all the information that you need. There is no other way ‘easy’ way to connect with the right people in the right way.
• REACH OUT: Ongoing contact is something that should be built into your prospecting model and database of activities. One connection becomes many over time if you look at the various ways to remain in constant contact professionally and specifically with each person you have qualified as interested in commercial real estate. That is why location-specific marketing will always give you an advantage in growing your real estate business.

These are simple strategies to adopt, and yet somewhat difficult to maintain for the long term.

The real focus is required when it comes to commercial real estate prospecting and ongoing client contact.

Client Contact Formula

There is a formula here for you to consider and activate; it will be unique to you and your property speciality.

Set some contact goals for a day and a week.  At the end of each period, assess how successful you have been. 

As part of your business goals and activities, strive to get in front of more people every day as you grow your commercial property zone and territory penetration.