Choosing the Right Clients in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

In commercial real estate prospecting some people will want to do business with you and others will avoid any real connection.  You will get the feeling that some people really do not care for a connection or information.  Look for the ‘signs’, and understand what is going on (or not going on).

You can spend far too much time in chasing people that are ‘not interested’.  Whilst it is great to have a good degree of professional persistence in prospecting, the fact of the matter is that you must protect your time.  If someone is not receptive to your genuine approaches and communication you should remove them from your contact process and simple move on to talking to others.

In any town or city, there are plenty of people to talk to.  Momentum is really important when it comes to growing your market share and your contact database.  In most towns or cities you will have several thousand business owners and property investors to talk to.  Finding them remains the challenge; however diligence will get you there over time.

Here are some guidelines to help you with a system for prospect and client communication:

1. Set some daily prospecting goals that you can relate to and believe in.  That will usually involve a mixture of outbound calls, personal meetings, and property inspections.  From that contact process you will find the people that really want to talk to you and build a relationship.
2. If you are at the beginning of your career and prospecting activity, start with some achievable numbers so that you can grow your momentum easily and effectively.  Ultimately you should be prospecting for 3 hours every day.  In that time you should be making 40 to 50 outbound calls.  That can be a daunting target for many people.  If you are at the early stages of your professional career and prospecting is a developing habit, then make 15 outbound calls every day until that becomes an achievable habit and target.  From that point onwards, you can grow the numbers at five extra calls per day to reach the level of 50 calls.  When you reach the level of 40 to 50 outbound calls, your prospecting time will be saturated with activity and meeting opportunities.  At that level you can sustain reasonable activity and attract new business.  From 40 or so calls you should be able to connect with 15 people.  From that connection you should get 2 meetings per day.  That is how you build your prospect list.
3. Practice your dialogue so that you can improve your connections and conversations progressively.  In approaching a new person for the first time, the conversations should be based on trust and information.  There is no point in pitching your professional services or pushing for a listing opportunity over the telephone; that can occur when you meet with the person and truly understand their needs in property today.  Help the person trust you by providing valuable market intelligence and genuine property solutions.

So the key message here is for you to establish a contact and prospecting cycle based on trust; understand the necessity for filtering out the people that will not do business with you over the long term.  Read the signs in any conversation, and avoid time wasting people.  When you look at your sales territory and property speciality, there are likely to be many more people for you to research and connect with.

You can get more tips like these in our Newsletter right here.