Sales Force Factors to Focus on in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
The skills of a sales team in commercial real estate brokerage today are slightly different than the concepts of just ‘selling’. The skills are unique and special, as are the people to provide those skills.
So who are these ‘top-grade’ people? Why are they so special? Why are they needed? They specialise in several services and solutions across the investment and business property industry.
They must know how to provide the ‘best’ solutions given the facts relevant to the property, the client, and the local area. That is where specialisation is essential.
The commercial property market in most locations will shift and change throughout the year. The leasing and sales cycles will wax and wane with the supply and demand for property locally. That is where real property specialists can provide expert real estate services in many ways.
Property Knowledge and Relevancy
You could say that we never really stop learning in the commercial property industry. There are always new things to study, action, and refine. A person with a disposition towards self-improvement will generally succeed in the industry.
Taking these things into account, here are some ideas to help you start to construct an effective sales force in commercial real estate brokerage:
1. Agent Style and Character
Many ‘character tests’ available in business today will help you recognise your business preferences and work style as a real estate agent.
Those preferences will help you comprehend and determine if you are a ‘creator of business’ or a ‘processor of business’. There are fundamental differences in each real estate work method and direction.
Some would say that you need both skills in the industry to be consistent and to grow your market share. They should be reasonably strong at an individual level.
2. Agent Skills and Experience
Our clients and business people are usually smart, astute, and driven. On that basis, they want to choose and work with the best local property agents that are the ‘top’ in their field.
Marketing and selling or leasing commercial property is not an experiment. Don’t be ‘ordinary’ in your work processes and marketing efforts. Average agents and brokers struggle with listing conversions and local area marketing.
An agent or broker’s property skills and experiences should match or exceed the expectations of the clients and prospects they seek to attract. Everyone in your team should work towards self-improvement and skill development to convert new business appropriately and skillfully.
3. Systems and Documentation
Top agents know how to move something forward in commercial sales, leasing, or property management.
They know how to see the following action stages to resolve a real estate or property challenge, and they can activate the required marketing and documentation accordingly.
A good brokerage and its sales force will have the systems and documentation to achieve that professionally.
4. Administration Support
The real estate sales force members require administrative support, such as listing processes, marketing preparation and lodgement, and inquiry tracking.
The administrative team is always a cost to the business, so real systems and tracking mechanisms are required to make the support concept work.
5. Database Software Systems
A comprehensive database system and contact model are required when you have a lot of prospecting and marketing going on in a brokerage and within the sales team. That is to keep people on track with the leads, the clients, and the listings.
Each day, top agents and salespeople talk to others regularly across the telephone and in meetings. That is where the support of a database software system becomes so important.
What is the critical focus then? You can know many people in the business sense, but in commercial real estate, you should know many more in an ongoing way, as well as their property needs or opportunities.
Regular property client contact and relevancy can occur if your database draws you back to the right people with upcoming property needs.
It is a fact that people will drop out of your client or database list, so having a list that is up to date and shaped to market circumstances is so critical to agent progress.
Sales Person Action Priority
Putting all of these things into balance, plenty of property skills and factors of local property knowledge must be refined and improved by each agent over time.
That is what an effective real estate sales team or business does. You are part of that equation.
Commercial real estate is a great industry requiring the best people to find and act on the opportunities that are always out there. Are you up to the challenge?