Ways to Present and Pitch to Sellers of Commercial Property
When it comes to pitching and presenting your commercial real estate services to the Sellers of commercial property, you will be pitching against other competing agents with an array of strategies and recommendations. For this very reason, your presentation and proposal needs to stand out as relevant to the property owner given the current market conditions.
If you have built the relationship with the client over the months and years, the presentation process is quite standard and straightforward. You will have a reasonable chance of converting the listing to new business.
If however you have been introduced to the seller of the property for the first time, you will have little opportunity to build the relationship, and on that basis your proposal or presentation needs to stand out for serious consideration.
Here are some tips to help you with that proposal or presentation strategy:
- Inspect the property first before you form an opinion as to the proposal alternatives and recommendations.
- Through discussion with the client, identify the concerns and challenges as they relate to the market today. Some of those challenges can be fed into your proposal document with specific solutions. In that way your proposal will be more attractive to the client than something that is generically prepared.
- Review the improvements, services, and amenities within the property that apply to its ongoing use. From that process you will identify the ideal target market that your campaign should be centered on.
- Give the client a clear understanding of what the target market is currently doing and looking for when it comes to property purchase and or leasing. Gather market information regards other listings and competing properties. Take plenty of photographs when it comes to these other situations and circumstances. Show the client those photographs as you tell the necessary stories.
- Every property and market circumstance will have an ideal method of sale or method of marketing. Your recommendations should be quite clear with the necessary supporting reasons for your decisions.
- Some clients will want an indicative price range or rental range based on the prevailing market conditions. If the property is quite unique, this can be a problem. If that is the case, it is better to consider an alternative method of sale that will allow the market to dictate the price and any offers to be made. It is one thing to value property on the basis of land cost plus the replacement cost of improvements; it is another to determine the price the market will give you for the property based on the location and condition of the improvements.
- As part of your proposal or presentational strategy, develop a series of charts and graphs that can show the client how you will move their situation forward in a positive way. A Gantt chart is very useful for the process. You can have standard Gantt charts that apply to sales, leasing, and property management circumstances.
- Give the client at least three marketing alternatives that apply to the listing as you see it today. Whilst you can give the client your recommendation or choice, allow them to review the three alternatives and select the price and strategies that suit their requirements.
- Show the client how you will be communicating with them as part of the marketing process. The communication should be specific and comprehensive to allow the client to fully understand what’s going on. Communication strategies will change as the listing proceeds through the preparation, marketing, and inspection process. The same can be said when it comes to the negotiating phase of the contract or lease as the case may be.
So the real message here is that you can provide some specific information to the client as part of the proposal or sales pitch that you undertake. Be quite specific to the property and the strategies that you bring to the listing. The agent that wins the listing is usually the best agent that has connected with the client in a comprehensive way.