Finding the Right Clients in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

In this property market it pays to work with the clients that are open and honest with you.  Secure those clients on an exclusive listing.  You will find all types of clients in the market today.  Those clients that give you an ‘open listing’ are quite likely to be more difficult to deal with; so understand the differences and pressures of the listing types.

So what is wrong with an ‘open listing’ approach?  Most of the time you will see that it is influenced by other agents and brokers talking to the client; frequently a client in that type of agency relationship is ‘closed’ to the realities of the market today.  They want their price and fail to accept the facts of the recent market evidence.

So what does a ‘good client’ look like?  Try some of these:

1. Open and honest
2. Ready to act
3. Understanding the current market conditions
4. Are motivated to make a decision
5. Will keep you fully advised of their intentions and changes
6. They give you some leverage in negotiating and closing on a deal

It is a fact that clients of this nature are more likely to be secured on an ‘exclusive’ listing for a reasonable period of time.  Providing you get that listing, you can really drive the marketing process at a personal level.  Exclusivity helps you believe in the listing and marketing process.  You can then easily see the results at the end of the marketing ‘tunnel.’

It is worth noting that prospects and clients will come to you in a couple of ways.  Some will feed to you through the office or brokerage leads.  Others will respond to your prospecting activities.  Lastly and most importantly many more good clients will convert to you by ongoing contact and relationship building.  They are the ones that will likely be the ones to give quality to your market share and new business.  For this reason your database and prospecting model is really important.

When you serve a top client well, it will ‘open the door’ on referral and repeat business.  Look at those clients that you have helped over the years.  Have you placed them into a ‘VIP’ process of contact in your database?  Have you differentiated them from the general contacts and people that you have in your pipeline?

So the message here is quite clear.  Focus on creating great client relationships that encourage ‘exclusive’ listings.  Over time that will give you traction in building your market share with quality listings.

You can get more tips for commercial real estate brokers in our Newsletter right here.