Commercial Property Agents – Don’t Wing It With Your Presentations

In this commercial real estate market, the competition is fierce and the quality of enquiry coming back to you is selective.  That being said, you should never ‘wing’ your presentations and inspections of properties.

You can do far too much damage to your chances of winning the deal or the listing.  You can also send out the wrong message when it comes to your skills and relevance to the client or the prospect that you are presenting to.

What’s going on?

This property market is significantly competitive.  Many of the agents you are up against will choose to use discounts and other enticements to influence the listing or the decision of the client.

On that basis your presentations need to be carefully planned and relevant to the solution that the client requires.  That is why you cannot ‘wing it’ when it comes to your presentations.

Most clients today will initially be influenced by statements such as the following:

• Cheaper fees
• Low marketing costs
• Availability of immediate property inspections
• Open vs. exclusive listings

To help with the entire sales pitch and presentation process you can specifically discount all of these distractions providing you plan your presentation for the property and the client.  Best results will be obtained when you completely understand the focus of the client and the challenges that are troubling them.

Set up your Checklist Strategy

Here is a checklist that you can apply to a planned sales pitch and presentation process.  Into this model you can feed elements of the local property market and the particular property.

1. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES: Define or restate to the client the challenges that you know they are facing.  Clarity is important here so that they can see you fully understand their opinions and concerns.  Generally they will be focusing on the expected outcome of price or rental, and the time required to achieve a satisfactory outcome.  Part of that process will also involve the money required to market the property in the best way possible.  It should be said that vendor paid marketing is the norm and not the exception.  Always ask for a reasonable amount of vendor paid marketing.
2. COMPETITION: Be quite clear to the client when it comes to the competing properties in the local area and the achieved prices and rentals of similar properties over the last 12 months.  Market evidence is a powerful tool if you use it correctly.
3. GET THE FACTS: A detailed inspection of the property prior to your sales presentation will allow you to build on the features of the property that you know will help you convert enquiries to potential sales or leases.  Show the client that you really understand the factors of the property that will help convert a positive result.
4. SHOW THE STAGES: Prepare a timeline to the process of listing, marketing, inspecting, and negotiating.  The timeline should be a visual process incorporated into your proposal documentation.  You can use a Gantt graph for this process.  One simple graph is far more powerful than five or six pages of your proposal document.  Strategy is everything in this tough property market.  Show the client that you really understand the right strategy for the property and can implement it conveniently and efficiently.
5. PICTURES: Take plenty of digital photographs in and around the property prior to the final sales presentation.  Those digital photographs can be automatically scrolled on your laptop computer whilst you talk about the property and the solutions that will fit the client.  It is remarkable how much positive attention and client focus these photographs will provide to your presentation.

A good sales pitch or presentation to list a property takes about 1 hour.  Many clients will try to compare your presentation to other competing agents.  Providing you have comprehensively covered these five items above, the client will find it very hard to overlook the strategies that you are providing.

You can get more tips and ideas about clients services for commercial real estate brokerage in our eCourse ‘Snapshot’ right here.