How to Map Your Territory for Commercial Real Estate Prospecting

In commercial real estate sales and leasing, it pays to map your sales territory so you know how to optimise the advantages contained therein.  This becomes even more important when you have a large territory to cover.  Here are some tips from our Prospecting Newsletter for Commercial Real Estate Agents.

Here are some tips regards identifying and tracking the activity in your sales territory:

• Get large maps of the area covering the entire potential sales territory.  At the extremities of the area, define the road boundaries that will be at the very end of the territory.  You cannot sell and lease everything in the broader town or city, given that it is too hard to service; you will never create a dominant market share that way.  Top agents dominate, that’s the rule!
• Inside the defined sales territory, circle the pockets of properties that produce more interest from the market, action, and attention.  You will know where most of the buyers and tenants congregate when it comes to business location and property investment location.  The pockets of properties should be segmented into A grade, B grade, and C grade opportunity.
• Within the A grade property zone you will need to know the owners of all the quality properties.  This will require considerable research and effort over time.  You should also take the time to identify the tenants within each of the high quality properties.  The owners of the properties and the tenants within those properties should be contacted for potential new business.  Develop your prospecting model around this group.
• The B grade property zone is that which has some reasonable activity although it may be in some transition or pressure when it comes to property occupation.  The property zonings or development plans may be changing, the tenants may be leaving or relocating, or the roads and highways may be difficult for access to the area.  Within the zone, you can identify the key property owners and businesses of some substance or relevance.  That means you should understand the ideal customer type that is attractive for your business model.  Select the right people to contact and remain active with from and networking point of view.
• The C grade property zone will produce some new listing business but you recognise that it is not the desirable area for a number of local reasons and pressures.  It is likely that this precinct will have pressures on occupancy, high vacancy factors, and smaller businesses or property owners.  If any listing opportunity comes to you from this area, you should selectively decide whether the opportunity is realistic and achievable.  When in doubt, don’t take the listing.

When you split your territory into the three zones, you can understand where to focus your prospecting efforts and where your progress is being made.  Ideally you will be seeking to dominate your property type and property location over the next two or three years.  Top agents can do this when they dedicate real focus to the personal marketing plan they require.

Get signboards into your territory on all the quality properties that you list.  Prioritise your listings and prefer to take exclusive listings in most situations.  You want to be known as the agent that does the deals, not the agent that takes experiments in property marketing.

Need some help with prospecting in Commercial Real Estate?  Get our Newsletter right here.