Cold Calling Success Tips for Commercial Property Agents

When you work as a commercial or retail property agent, the process of cold calling should feature in your diary on a daily basis.  If and when that does occur, you will see that the property market will open up with new leads and opportunities.  Here are some tips from our recent Newsletter to Agents and Salespeople in Commercial Real Estate.

To be good at prospecting and cold calling it pays for you to develop a system that you can stick to.  After a short period of time that system becomes second nature in your diary and new business evolves.  It is up to you as to how you approach the system for yourself, but here are a few ideas that I have seen work for many others in commercial real estate agency.

A word of advice

Before I go further, I should say that many agents hate the cold calling process and that is because they cannot take the rejection factors and the disciplines that come with the process.  To beat this problem it is necessary that you create a mindset of making calls to see if the person has a property need or an interest.  If they have no need or requirement to talk to you, then simply move on.  There are a lot of people out there that you can talk to.  There is no need to push the envelope if someone is not receptive to your approach.

Tips for making prospecting calls:

1. Choose a time of day that works for you to make the calls.  Make sure that you can stick to the time and that nothing (including clients and the boss of the office) will detract you from the process.
2. In commercial real estate it is generally best to make the calls first thing in the morning or last thing at night.  You will need about 2 hours for the process.
3. You do not really need scripts that are rigid and sound ‘canned’.  It is better that you choose words that suit you and the people that you call.  Rarely will someone else’s script suit you and your business style.
4. If you can get the words and scripts of others, take the time to review them and turn them into your words.
5. Get a simple database system that you can use to record the information from your calls.  Given that you will be speaking to many people, some of them you will decide are future prospects and on that basis should be contacted frequently.
6. Put yourself into the prospecting process.  Clients ‘buy’ you and your knowledge; they do not generally select an agency on brand or market dominance alone.  At the end of the pitch and presentation process they select you because they think that you are the ‘real deal’ and will help them solve their problem.  That is why agents with a poor attitude that cannot connect with clients do not succeed.
7. Research material will always help you build your market share.  Everything from the daily newspaper, to magazines, internet websites, referrals, and walking the streets will help you identify prospects to call.

So if you believe that you have what it takes to do all of this, then proceed with a passion of taking action.  After about 3 or 4 weeks of prospecting every day, you will have some results and you will know that you are on to the right track.  Persistence pays in all things, and you have the key to persistence.

Need some help on making cold calls?  Get our regular tips here.