How to Build a Commercial Real Estate Sales Team

When it comes to commercial property sales and leasing, it is really important to have a great sales team behind you as the agency principal.  Finding the right people or getting the best performance from every person can be very difficult.

It needs to be said that out of every 10 salespeople there are on average only 2 that are really very good at what they do.  Everyone else is rated in some variation of ‘average’.  To be ‘very good’ I mean the following:

• The consistency to prospect for new business every day no matter what is on the agenda
• Knowing how to negotiate at all levels with all types of landlords, property owners, investors, business leaders, and tenants
• To pitch and present commercial property services in ways that really match the client or the market
• To have a comprehensive market awareness and how to build opportunity from that
• To understand how to close and document any type of sales or leasing agreement for all property types
• To list and sell or lease at better than the industry average and to have a shorter time on market factor in closing sales or leases
• To know how to target market commercial property to capture the best levels of enquiry locally
• To dominate the local property market by area and property type
• To close on exclusive listings and vendor paid advertising each and every time
• To be the agent of choice for the local property investors and business leaders
• To be excellent managers of their own time on a daily basis.

It’s a challenging list for many salespeople and agents.

There is a choice here and it comes down to each and every salesperson that you may employ.  Do they have the personal discipline to improve themselves and make their mark in the local property market?

My ‘cut’ on this is that as agent principals we have to be very careful in the employment of new people.  The poor selection of staff costs tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours.

I once had something to do with a large agency where the principal would only employ new members of staff for the sales team if they passed the test on a Psyche Sales Analysis.  The criteria on the analysis were centred on ‘sales’ and ‘negotiation’ skills.  In hindsight the business was very successful and remains so.  Any person that did not pass the ‘analysis’ would not be employed.  The right character and drive had to exist in the salesperson before they would be considered for employment.

Can you train existing salespeople to improve and grow their personal skills in commercial real estate?  Yes you can.

Should salespeople be open to learning and change to improve their market share and performance?  Yes they should.

How long should you tolerate average salespeople that fail to improve and grow their skills?  Not long.

If you want some more ideas on commercial real estate agency sales and leasing, you can get that at our parent website http://www.commercial-realestate-training.com/