What You Can Do With Brokerage Information Resources

Information is valuable in so many ways to any broker or agent.  Gather your ideal resources and use them.  In commercial real estate brokerage, use the resources that are all around you to engage with your property market in deeper and more direct ways.

So, where do you start with this idea?  Create a resource bundle that you can rely on for leads and market intelligence.  In any town or city, there are plenty of things to use as resources.  Make it a part of your business day to review your resources and market intelligence list.  Connect with people; that’s the rule.

Look for Your Local Leads Information Here

During the year things will change, and opportunities will evolve.  That list of resources should show you what is changing and where to concentrate your efforts.  Here is a list of tools or resources that could help you stay on track in brokerage; be that in sales or leasing.

• Newspapers – Watch the headlines and the articles in the local newspapers, with focus on business changes, company related editorials or stories, and the business pages. Look into the articles for the business leaders’ names; those names are valuable for your database and ongoing contact systems.
• Business telephone book – The local business telephone book can be cross-referenced with business types, locations, and groups that are resource-related.   Segment the telephone book as part of that review so you can logically cover all the businesses, the buildings, and the streets of your allocated territory.
• Online membership and social media sites – Perhaps overly stated by too many people, the social media websites exist and are relied on for marketing.  Certainly, sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are of some value if you are methodical and regular in your approach. They can give you names and information if you interpret what you are seeing and reading.  Too many agents do think that there is some ‘magic bullet’ that you can use with social media in commercial real estate; that would be wrong.  Its all about how you interpret and convert that social media information to leads and meetings that matters.  You must get in front of people.  That is the core focus of top brokers in commercial real estate; perhaps some social media sites can give you that starting leverage or name to focus into.
• Industry groups – Know your town or city for the active industry segments and resource-based businesses. What businesses locally integrate closely into the activities of your local economy?   There are some local businesses or industry groups that can be on your VIP list.
• Referrals – Work the people that you already know for the referral opportunities that exist. Every successful transaction is a reason to ask for a referral.  Conversations at the right time will lead to information, names, and people.
• Previous sales and or leasing customers – Within your real estate business, there will be people that you have connected with and served in different ways. Go back to your served customers and ask about leads and opportunities.  Where are the pressures and the opportunities with investments for your clients and customers?
• Property management clients – These people are a bit special for a few reasons. They can give you a good variety of real estate business over time.   Serve them and protect them.  Stay in regular contact for the times that your property management clients need more properties or tenants.
• Internet – Watch the online listings with all agents and the FSBO listings. Some listings will not move or create enough interest.  There are reasons for that, and you can seize on the opportunity of a ‘dead listing’.  Repackage the marketing of a dead listing or property for more enquiry in a better way.
• Signboards – Doing a signboard count regularly in your location and your precincts or territory, will help you see what is happening with time on market and property enquiry. Observe the differences in listings when it comes to office, industrial, and retail.  The signboard count should apply to all property types in the segments.

All of these things are ‘resources’ for you in some different ways.  They will tell you what is happening in your location with property activity.  Use these ‘resource channels’ as indicators and lead generators in your real estate business.