What You Should Know About Commercial Real Estate Prospecting
The prospecting process in commercial real estate is a critical part of personal business growth. Every broker or agent should have a solid and reliable prospecting system to take them forward each day with new leads and client opportunities.
Whilst this sounds logical, it is a fact that many if not most brokers and agents are not organised to do this well. When they have some momentum in the market, they tend to do other things that are not productive to a better market share. Over time that leads to significant ‘dips and troughs’ in listings and commissions.
There are some things for you to be aware of when it comes to prospecting for quality listings and clients today. Consider this list:
- Quality listings will always create better inbound enquiry, and inspections. For this very reason most top agents only focus their business activities on the best clients and quality listings.
- It’s a daily requirement. Every day it is necessary to spend about 3 hours interacting with new people in the market. That can be through cold calling, meetings, and presentations. The point is you should ensure that you are seeing and talking to as many people as possible in the nominated 3 hours.
- It takes time to prospect and cold call. That window of time in your diary should be a fixed time commitment that you adhere to every working day. New business will be yours when you take the right action and stick to it. Small attempts repeated will complete any undertaking and on that basis your 3 hours per day spent in talking to new people will take you forward with more opportunities.
- Direct contact and networking requires organisation. Each night it pays to research the people you will be talking to the next day. In this way you can get the best results from the call and prospecting process.
- Leads are always available in any market. It is just a matter of seeing them or the situations that create them. Ask questions and talk to a lot of people. You will find the leads and the referrals that you require. Use your business card every day to open the door on future new business. Most people retain business cards.
- Ongoing contact should occur at least once every 90 days. In that way you are creating relevance and ‘top of mind’ branding with the people that you are talking to. Over time that relevance can turn into market share and listings.
- One client can lead to others do always ask for referral business. A good client or prospect will know others that you can serve.
When you take these simple rules you can get more from your prospecting efforts. Develop your prospecting plan and stick to it. Refine it when and if necessary but take steps forward every day with new people.
