Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Career Results in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

You can waste a lot of time in commercial real estate if you do not focus most of your efforts on the things that matter. Career results matter in a constant way for all brokers and agents.  Priorities at a personal level are foundational in getting results.  Those priorities should be directed to the things like listings, transactions, clients, and prospecting.  All the ‘administration stuff’ can be redirected to others or a less important part of the day. (NB – you can get plenty of career tips in commercial real estate brokerage right here in Snapshot – its free)

It is a fact; everyone wants a ‘slice of your time’ as a broker or agent, and that constant ‘push and pull’ on your business day can confuse your efforts and derail your brokerage activities.  While you can start each day with focus, a few client telephone calls and emails can shift you away from all the good intentions that you did have.  Don’t let others control your results, focus, and business.  Set some rules to your diary and your business day.

Don’t let others in your property market, influence your thinking, your business and your actions.  Maintain control over at least 3 to 4 hours of your day so you can do the things that effectively build your real estate business.

Go ‘Local’ First Every Time

Understand your location, the properties, and the clients for what they are.  Know the local area shifts and changes in both supply and demand for property.  Create your ‘cheat sheet’ of activities with these ideas below.  There are some actions that are proven to work and are known to improve broker activities and outcomes.  Here are some of the main ones that I have used that may help you with your commercial real estate career efforts:

1. Zone specific marketing – drill down into a zone of property activity in both sales and leasing. Log all the listings that exist with your competitors, then watch the time on market.  Look for how other properties are being marketed and determine the methods that seem more successful than others for the location.  When you know the properties locally, the prospecting processes that you adopt get a lot easier.  You can talk about the results you are seeing with other listings and how they are being promoted.
2. Property by property coverage – pick the priority streets in your location for the better buildings and then contact the owners of those buildings. That research and contact can take time as it is somewhat of a challenge to get to the ultimate ownership detail behind a property ownership structure.  Ask questions, research the titles, talk to business owners, and talk to tenants.  Somewhere in that information, you will find the leads and the people that you are looking for.
3. Knowing the property owners – get to understand what local property owners are thinking and doing on a property by property basis. Look for the next opportunities for your clients and be a ‘solution provider’.
4. Signboard coverage – get more signs into your location on exclusive listings. They are the listings that you control and are working with.  Local property investors and business owners like to connect with the agent that has a solid and active signboard presence in a precinct or property type.
5. Internet coverage – you can improve your internet coverage with not just listings, but also blog posts, articles, case studies, and editorials. Integrate everything you do online into your social media portals.  Use your internet marketing efforts in your property listing presentations with your clients.
6. Vendor paid marketing (VPA) – every exclusive listing should be supported by VPA. It is a logic to feed into your presentation strategies.  Use promotional samples of marketing to give a client a few good ideas of the enhancements of VPA in property promotions.  Convert more property marketing funds.  If the client is serious about listing their property, then marketing money should not be a complicated matter to sell.
7. Optimised presentation strategies – with every property presentation, use case studies and samples of other listings or marketing processes. Give the clients that you work with some alternatives in property marketing packages.  A few alternatives will make it easier for choices to be made.