The Top 7 Performance Tips for Commercial Real Estate Brokers and Agents
The potential rewards for successful commercial real estate agents are high providing those agents are skilful individuals in every way possible.
Understanding how to handle the complexities of the property market and clients today will help. Every property and client will have special factors to consider.
Focus on creating the best levels of inquiry and inspections as a precursor to any lease or contract negotiations. Taking any property to the market on an exclusive basis is the first part of the process. It is essential that agents control listings for the duration of the marketing effort and exclusivity will do that.
If a client will not give you an exclusive listing then you should really question whether you want to list the property. It is better to work with 10 to 15 exclusive listings than 50 open listings.
Your conversion rates will be much higher with exclusive listings providing you work the listings with correct levels of personal marketing and promotion. Get involved with your listings and take them to the right buyers or tenants as the case may be.
A Common Brokerage Problem
So here is a basic problem for most agents that is just so common. They simply do not have enough people to call and talk to when a good listing comes along. They may only have 10 qualified people in their database to talk to about a good listing.
The issue arises because many agents do not comprehensively drive database growth every day. They also struggle with making regular ongoing contact with the right people. You must know a lot of people and your database must be comprehensive and up to date.
To survive in our industry and to make a reasonable income in a consistent way, systems are required at a personal level. It is a bit like a game of golf. Every day you have to practice and improve your skills.
Critical Factors of Real Estate Agent Performance Today
Here then is a list of essential factors of control and action that will help an agent move ahead.
- Prospecting – Even the most experienced agents need to prospect for new business. Some clients will drop off the list due to a change in circumstances. Find new people to put into your database by making plenty of cold calls.
- Database – The database software that you use does not need to be complex, but it does need to be user-friendly and accurate. Every day new people must be spoken to and the results of conversations entered into your CRM program. That is your job and it cannot be delegated.
- Clients – Get to know your clients and their property needs. Understand what they are looking for in portfolio growth and then help them find it. Connect with all of your clients regularly.
- Marketing – Vendor paid marketing funds are an essential part of the real estate business. To convert more marketing funds, every listing pitch should be carefully considered and structured. How can you improve the marketing profile of your top listings? How can you create more inquiry for the listed property? Use all the online and offline marketing tools that we have at our disposal to promote all your exclusive listings.
- Negotiation Skills – Many of the clients and prospects that we work with are experienced business people. In many respects, they will test you and your ideas. They will not agree to everything that you say regards their property.
- Presentations – The time that you have with your client or prospect as part of a listing pitch or presentation will likely be quite limited. They may also have a few other agents and brokers lining up to also present on the same property. How can you improve your listing pitch so it resonates quickly with the client and their needs? Most agents pitch for a listing on the basis of marketing only; anyone can put forward a marketing campaign and ask for money. The real results come when you put yourself in the marketing equation and tell the client exactly what you will be doing to promote their property. Can you door knock the surrounding 200 businesses? Can you call 200 people in your database? For any exclusive listing, I would expect that to be done by an agent.
- Exclusive Listings – When you control the listing stock you can create better results from all of your marketing, inspections, and negotiations. It is a rule that you cannot avoid if you want to build a better real estate business personally.
Focus on these seven specific categories of activity. You will soon find more leads and opportunities in your commercial real estate business.