Prime Prospecting Time in Commercial Real Estate Agency

In commercial real estate, you should devote 2 or 3 hours per day to what I call ‘prime prospecting time’.  It is the time that you devote to building your agency business and market share and listings.

Most real estate agents hate prospecting.  Unfortunately for them it is a part of the business and is essential if you want to win more listings.

Most if not all of your listings will come from personal contact; do not wait for the listings to come in the door of your agency, as it is a rare event.  The last agents that waited for that to happen are now somewhere else and in a different career.

It takes about 6 months to establish your market; it takes about the same amount of time to destroy your market and career chances.  Everyone runs out of momentum in our industry unless they get the systems established that they need to go forward.  It is a personal process.

Take control of your career and drive some real enquiry your way; establish a period of ‘prime prospecting time’ in your diary every day without fail.

Here are some rules to prospecting in commercial real estate agency:

1. Understand where your market is geographically.  Work within those boundaries. Do not spread your prospecting activities too far as you can make yourself less effective in that process.  Businesses and property investors like to deal with the best agents in the local area.  That is where and you will find your listing opportunities.
2. Prospecting should occur at the same time every day.  This is because you must establish a habit in the process.  It takes about 3 or 4 weeks to set new habits in place.  You will need to struggle with your efforts until that point has been reached.
3. Do not expect results immediately.  Our industry is built on trust and relationships.  Most of your prospecting should be on the basis of relationship establishment and building.  Over time that will then lead to new business in one form of another.
4. Relevance is important when you connect with a new client or prospect.  What can you provide to the person that you are talking to that will help extend the relationship to a meeting?
5. Constant contact is the rule and not the exception in commercial real estate.  Every 90 days you should be talking to the same people.  It takes about 3 or 4 approaches with some prospects before you will get a meeting.

The commercial agents that develop a mindset behind the prospecting process will succeed faster than most.  Start your practice and develop your system of contact.  You will soon find those leads and clients that you have been looking for.