Tips to Developing Yourself as an Expert in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
In commercial real estate brokerage today we can sometimes act and react as a commission based salesperson ‘chasing the money’. That can send all of the wrong messages to the clients and prospects that we serve.
Our industry is not just ‘all about the money’; specialisation, service and expert opinion are far more important factors in personal image, and those factors will generate real client commitment. If you want to generate more listings and commissions, take a serious look at the professional image you are sending as a property person in the industry.
Real ‘property experts’ find it a lot easier to gain the trust of the client; that then helps situations in a major way when it comes to negotiations with buyers and tenants as the case may be. Clients choose agents based mainly on relevance and experience; the property marketing process is not an ‘experiment’ and 90% of agency appointments are based on the ‘comfort’ of the client in the chosen agent to fulfil the needs of the property challenge.
Some real estate agents will frequently wonder why they did not ‘win the listing’ from a sales pitch or presentation. It’s not all about price these days with clients; it is usually about relevance and recommendations. The ‘winning’ agent is usually the one that has comprehensively ‘mapped’ the client’s property challenge into a solid marketing strategy and solution.
To position yourself as this high quality ‘property expert’ in your town or city you can and should consider some of the following:
- Demand exclusive listing appointments from those clients that want to use you. Sell the concept on the basis of real personal involvement in any listing; tell the clients why the ‘open listing’ process is a waste of time and give evidence of that.
- Limit the number of exclusive listings that you take on at any single point in time to a maximum of 10 properties. That will then allow you to get deeply involved with each property and the needs of each client. From that involvement you will improve your ‘results’ and over time that leads to referrals and other new business.
- Develop a marketing approach that is a mixture of specific and personal marketing for all of those exclusive listings. Identify the strengths in each of the exclusive property listings and personally take those listings to your qualified prospects and database of contacts. Get deeply involved in your exclusive listings. When you do that you will see that the client will accept price and rent adjustments based on ‘evidence and results’ rather than ‘unsubstantiated guesses’.
- Target marketing will help you close more listings and create more inspections. Any quality listing should be put through that process. Use a ‘target marketing pro-forma’ as part of that process with your clients and listings.
The message here is that you can be very focused on your professional service and image as a quality top commercial real estate agent. It’s a deliberate choice and a marketing strategy at a personal level. Adjust your business plan accordingly and you will see better results.
