Commercial Realtors – Get Referral Leads from Old Clients

In commercial real estate we need leads and lots of them.  Every avenue of opportunity should be taken to see what listing or transaction is possible.  In this market we should leave no stone ‘unturned’.  A sale can lead to a lease (or vice versa), and either can lead to a property management appointment.  Good service and quality follow-up with our clients always positions us for the future.

One of those very valuable sources of opportunity is ‘old clients’ from closed and completed transactions.  If we served those clients well from the very start, it is likely that two things will happen:

• We will get some referral business
• We will get some repeat business from the same client

We can do a lot with established relationships with clients and old clients.  It is just a matter of deliberate focus.  So the question is how do we keep the relationships active and fruitful?

Here are some ideas to help you build a ‘pipeline’ of relationships with clients and keep the ‘doors open’ for the long term.

1. Industry briefings are always useful.  So much is going on in the market that clients find up to date information on trends and strategies very useful.  Guest speakers can be sourced to speak at quarterly events or evening property briefings.  Those speakers could include a property solicitor, accountant, developer, financier, and taxation specialist.  When you add people from your team to the group of speakers you have a very powerful selection of experts to talk about the local property market today.
2. Newsletters should be sent monthly to all clients and contacts.  That will also include new people that are being contacted as part of the teams prospecting activities.  The newsletters can be sent by email or post.  The choice is yours and should be based on what works for you.  Quality is the key to maintain readership.
3. Property listings should be sent weekly by email to those people that have agreed to get the information.  It is best to send no more than 8 listings in each email sent.  In that way you have a greater chance of the content being read.  If you work with different property types, you could send the property emails in groups based on the interests of the reader (retail, industrial, or office property).
4. Constant contact every 90 days with clients and previous contacts.  It has been proven that the constant contact approach every 90 days converts to meetings quite well if you keep the contact up.
5. Cross sell your services from sales, to leasing and property management at every opportunity.  One transaction will lead to another if you keep the doors open and the discussions on track.

If you have not kept in contact with your old clients, then now is a good time to start.  In difficult property markets every lead should be encouraged and built on.