The 7 Things to Know About Goals in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
In commercial real estate brokerage the goals that you set help you understand just how things are improving and changing. With a good set of goals or targets you can take specific steps to improve as an individual working in the industry.
A common problem for most agents or brokers getting started in the industry is that they take too long to get an understanding of just where they are and what they have to do with market share to grow their business. In essence they require a system to get things started. The faster they can do that the better for all concerned.
So What is Your Goal System?
Here are some ideas that you can feed into a ‘goals and targets system’ as a broker or agent.
- Define your target market – When you define your market you can track results very effectively. The ‘defining’ process is a number of different parameters all aligned to the person and the results that they are achieving. So ‘defining’ involves setting geographical boundaries to your area of focus. Most of your listings should be coming from that location. Within the zone of choice, choose the property type that is suited to your skills and knowledge. There is no point trying to sell, lease, or manage something that you do not really understand.
- Track your exclusive listings – The listing types and property types that you focus on are really important. Don’t waste time on ‘open listings’. Pitch and present your services for exclusivity in every case. If the client doesn’t want to list exclusively then walk away from the listing. You must control your listing stock and exclusivity is the only way to do that. If the client wants your total commitment to their property problem then you can only provide that focus with an exclusive listing. Understand the real value that you bring to the client and sell it as a special service.
- Monitor your enquiry – Each day track the types of enquiry coming to you and ask questions so that you know how that enquiry was generated. Did the person come to you from the internet, a signboard, a direct mail piece, the newspaper, or a previous cold call approach? Sources and volume of enquiry will change during the year so always understand your numbers on listings and inbound enquiries.
- Lift your database numbers – Your database should be growing. Your regular prospecting should push up your database numbers of qualified leads and prospects. If your database is not growing by 20 people per week, then you are not doing enough direct prospecting.
- Create more meetings – When you make outbound calls to targeted people in your town or territory, the meeting numbers that you create per day should go up. Ideally you should be creating 2 meetings per day with new people or those that you have spoken with previously. Over time that focus you create on new meetings will help greatly with client contact and listing conversion.
- Calculate commissions per transaction – There is a lot of work in moving a property listing forward to finality. It just so happens that the smaller transactions are just as challenging and time consuming as the bigger transactions. If you focus your prospecting efforts on larger properties and better clients, the amount of work that you create for yourself will lessen whilst your commissions will escalate. Don’t waste too much precious prospecting time on properties that are of low quality or small in commission outcome.
- Time on market checking – When you track your ‘time on market’ factors you will see how the seasons of selling or leasing change. Get active in prospecting and listing at the times of year that lead up to peak business activity. If you list the majority of your properties ‘exclusively’ then the time on market factor will be entirely within your control.
All of your goals in commercial real estate brokerage can evolve around these factors. Understand where you are now with your brokerage business and then set realistic goals and targets to grow your real estate business in realistic ways.
