Strategic Planning – The Best Kept Secret in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
The process of strategic planning is critical for any commercial real estate agent on a personal basis. It helps define where they will be focusing their efforts in listing and market activities. Things are always changing so you have some market indicators to watch in prices, rents, time on market, and property supply.
So, as an agent you also have a couple of choices here. You can be a ‘generic’ agent that sells, leases, and manages commercial real estate in your town or city; or you can be property type specific for the same location. The ‘specialised’ agent wins more listings than the ‘generic’ agent every time.
If you want to specialise it directly follows that you should focus your efforts on the type of property that you understand and enjoy. There should also be plenty of listings and market share up for grabs as part of your prospecting model; check that out first.
Let’s look at how you can get this planning process underway:
- Convenience – the property type and the location should be easily accessible. It is very hard to work a market and property location that is distant from your office location. Market evidence and listings should be locally based so you can be part of your market and not distant to it. When your market is all around you it is easy to see shifts and changes in rents, prices, and the demand and supply within that property type.
- Variety – look at the property type and your location. What variety exists within that to allow you to diversify services and income or commission? Can you get involved in selling, leasing, and managing properties within your chosen type? Check that you have the resources and people within your office to do that.
- Market share currently – given that you work for a particular agency or brokerage, the brand will be of great assistance when it comes to contacting new people. If you work for a brokerage that has a strong name, people are more inclined to talk to you when you are cold calling. The reverse is true when you work in an obscure and unknown new agency.
- Reputation – what reputation does your brokerage have now locally? Will that be a strength or weakness in your ongoing marketing? Logic says that any strength should be built on; they could be in sales, leasing, or property management. Many a successful brokerage has been built around property management portfolios and services.
- Value offered – the services you provide as a brokerage or as an individual agent should be ‘value for money’. Value comes in many different ways; that could for example be in dominant market share, real experience, a database of quality, marketing systems that are superior or proven listing performance for the property type.
These simple considerations will help you with the foundations of your strategic plan in commercial real estate brokerage. Work from the foundations that are solid and proven; from that point onwards it is easier to build your dominant market share. Clients and prospects will seek out your professional services.
