Strategic Selling Vision in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
In commercial real estate today you can develop a strategic selling process within your sales territory and property type. That will then help you with generating new business leads and opportunities. The property market is always changing.
Many agents struggle with the strategy behind the job, the property type, and the location. They simply do the work required and absorb the pressures of the day; on that basis they overlook the opportunity of specialization. The message here is that as an agent you can and should specialize in the location and a property type. Don’t let the market, your clients, or work pressures divert your efforts.
When you have a strategy of selling you can evolve that process into a business plan of prospecting, client contact, and marketing. The business plan can then be reviewed and ‘tuned’ on a regular basis at a personal level.
So there are some important questions to consider here:
- What should be the property type to work on and will that segment provide the leads and the opportunities for you as an individual over the next year or so?
- Where are the local clients and property owners located? What are they looking for in property ownership and occupation, and how frequently do they do that? What motivates the business owner or a property owner to change location in your town or city?
- Is your property market growing or stalling? Look at the factors of growth that apply to the business community as they will have a direct flow through to property investment, occupancy, and local business sentiment.
- Changes in prices and rentals will shift the returns achieved in property investment. Understand the yields and the capitalization factors that apply to property locally. What are the factors of attraction to strengthen yields and boost prices in your market segment?
- Where can you find the high value property investors? What are they looking for when it comes to a quality investment across office, industrial, and retail property? How active are they expected to be into the future? How can you tap into that?
So these three questions lead to a simple analysis of strategic selling. When you understand the factors of the market today, you can establish the plan for the future and develop your skills and knowledge accordingly.
Here are some tips to help you build your sales strategy as an agent or a broker:
- Review the history of sales and leasing activity three or town or city over the last few years. You will soon see factors of growth and change that apply to particular pockets of properties and within property types.
- Check out the development plans that apply to the region and look for the new zoning applications and projects under construction. Some of those projects may fall within your territory or skill base. On average it takes 12 months to 24 months to put together a new property development and bring it through the construction phase. Most property developers welcome the opportunity to work with top agents that understand the local area and can produce the required buyers or tenants for the project. That is where your database will provide you with a distinct advantage.
- Look for any redundant properties that may be entering a new phase of property ownership, construction, or re-positioning. Sales, leasing, and property management activities will help you move these properties through the factors of change and towards opportunity. Redundant properties can be turned into new developments with alternative uses. A lot depends on the growth of the business community, availability of finance, and the buoyancy of the local property market. When you track and measure prices, rents, incentives, and rates of enquiry, you will soon see business opportunities in certain segments of property activity. Compile the statistics and track the results in graphs. The visual approach will help you with defining opportunity and pitching your ideas to qualify clients.
- Create a list of quality properties that apply and appear within your region of control. Research the owners behind those properties and their motivations; some owners may be in property occupation whilst others may be focused entirely on investment. As part of your prospecting model connect with those owners in a meaningful and regular way. Over time you will find new business evolving from the client relationship.
- Analyze the sales and leasing activity that has occurred in the area for the last 12 months. From that you will understand pricing and renting outcomes for quality properties; you will also understand the time on market as an average for the property type and the location. You can track and graph the results so that the figures and the facts are available when it comes to any sales pitch or property presentation to a new client.
- As a special segment within your prospecting model, connect with all the local business owners in the area. Identify those business owners that occupy as tenants and those that occupy as end users. They will have property challenges from time to time, and they can also offer you valuable market intelligence from the location.
Given all of the above factors, the strategic selling process then evolves through a carefully created marketing program of cold calling and personal contact. You will soon see your results improving across some segments of prospecting; you will also see some prospecting factors requiring improvement and adjustment. Our industry is largely based on establishing relationships and market knowledge. That is where the strategy to the process becomes valuable in achieving results.