Sales Pitch and Presentation Facts for Commercial Real Estate Agents
In commercial real estate agency today, your sales pitch or your presentation needs to be aligned to the client and the current market conditions. Every presentation will require a degree of research and property review. In this way you can be prepared with the right ideas and tools to win the listing.
Just about every listing that you pursue today will be the subject of a competitive listing process. It is not unusual to have three or four agents chasing the same listing and presenting their recommendations and strategies to the same client on the same day. This means that your presentation needs to be the best. It has to stand out as relevant and unique. You will only have a short amount of time to do that.
Most clients like to be assured that they are choosing the best commercial real estate agent with the best ideas. They don’t want their property to be an ‘experiment in marketing’ that has a higher chance of failure.
So the secret to a successful sales presentation or sales pitch in commercial real estate today is built around your ideas and that those are unique and relevant to both the client and the property. Here are some tips to help you:
- Inspect the property at the earliest opportunity so that you can understand its location, improvements, strengths, and weaknesses. You cannot proceed further until you understand the property in a comprehensive way.
- Look around the local area for any competing listings that remain unsold or vacant. They are likely to have some impact on your campaign and there is no point in repeating the errors of marketing that those properties are making currently. When it comes to considering your marketing campaign, choose to be relevant and different. What can make your property stand out as special and of better value? How can you attract the interest of buyers or tenants as the case may be?
- Interview the client so that you can know their priorities and challenges. Get to the bottom of their motivations today so that you can address them in your pitch or presentation. Be careful to understand the thresholds of timing and price outcome with the listing. The client may have some pressures here that will be ultimate ‘deal breakers’ when it comes to the listing.
- From the previous three points, determine the ideal target market that will produce the right amount of interest and potentially good quality inspections on the property at the earliest time. Your marketing campaign will then need to be centered on that target market. Show the client quite clearly how this target market is critical to the success of their campaign. Put yourself in the process.
- Provide the client with the best solution of sale or lease as the case may be. Make recommendations as to how the marketing should commence, the inspections should occur, and the negotiations will be controlled. Put yourself in the process.
- Most clients like to have some alternatives as part of choosing the agent to market their property. You can achieve this through the marketing recommendation process. Give the client three alternatives of marketing so that they have the ability to consider the facts and make a choice.
- As a general rule, discounts should not be offered to the client as part of the listing process. A fair commission and a fair marketing fee should apply for the work involved. Top agents don’t discount because they know that they will be putting the effort into the campaign and can sell their presentation accordingly. Remember that your clients don’t like to be an experiment when it comes to property marketing.
- Every listing should be approached on an exclusive listing basis. In that way you can control the marketing effort, the negotiations, and the interaction with the client. Be prepared to walk away from any ‘open listing’ scenario the client may require. It would just waste your time.
So you can add to this list based on the property and the location. Importantly, you need to develop a system of presentation that works for you and the local area.
