Commercial Realtors – How to Get More Exclusive Listings and Why You Should

In commercial real estate, there is a lot of difference between the servicing requirements behind exclusive listings versus open listings.  Any open listing situation is virtually an experiment on the part of the client and they will have minimal commitment to you as the salesperson or agent helping them.  The client will generally be listening to many agents and trusting none.

So it is the exclusive listings that will bring us better quality stock and trusting clients.  That being said, it is important that we give our clients reasons to choose the exclusive listing method of sale or lease.  As part of the sales presentation or pitch process, you should have some solid reasons to recommend an exclusive listing process with your agency. Why are you better than other agents?

Many agents will choose or recommend the exclusive listing method to the client, and then make some fairly generic statements regards the reasons to choose an exclusive listing process with their agency.  Just about every experienced property investor has heard a variation of the following:

• We know the local area very well.
• We have sold or leased a lot of property recently.
• We have been in the area a long time.
• We are the best agent in the local area to sell or lease this property.
• We have the property knowledge to do the job for you.
• We have good people in our agency that will move the property for you.
• We have relationships with the other agencies across the country and they will also market your property.
• We will market the property at our cost.
• We will fully target your requirements of price range and timing.
• We will lower the commission because you are a good client.
• I will keep you fully informed.
• We are the best agency to sell this property for you.

None of this will make an impact on an experienced property owner or business proprietor.  The listing decision will be made on your relevance to help them and the confidence that you give them.

It is quite disturbing when you look at this list to understand how generically similar a lot of agents and salespeople are when they do their sales pitch.  Top agents will go a lot further than the generic sales pitch approach.  Top agents will drill down into the matters that really count regards the property and its position in the local area.  They will also come up with very specific strategies to market, inspect, and negotiate the single listing.  Clients really do know when they are dealing with top agents.

So here are some tips to help you service your exclusive listing clients.

1. Tell them how you will be marketing the property and show them some solid examples of that process.  Give them some choices in the marketing approach whilst still making your recommendations.
2. Take the client to the property and walk them through the inspection process as you see it, explaining how you will build on the features of the property and the improvements.
3. In each week of the exclusive listing marketing campaign, you will need to be connecting with the client with updates regards inspections and enquiry.  The client should be spoken to at least every two days throughout the entire listing agency period.  If nothing has occurred from any part of the planned marketing activity, it is still important that the client knows that.  Lack of information will turn them against you and make any future negotiations difficult.
4. When an inspection has occurred with the property, direct feedback should be given to the client.  This third party feedback will be valuable in helping you condition the client to the prevailing market conditions.

Clients are always important to a commercial real estate agent.  In times of a slower property market, is imperative that we provide high levels of interaction and service at all times.  In this way you will achieve better results with all of your listings, and the chance for referral business at a later time.

You can get more ideas for commercial real estate agents and realtors at our website right here.