Reflecting on the Change Opportunities in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

In the commercial real estate market, change happens all the time, and that change will bring with it opportunity with listings, clients and commissions.  So the message here is that you should look for change locally in your town or city and ‘tap into it’.

Where’s the Right Change?

So what sort of change can you find?  How can you use it?  You gather information from a number of sources.  Think about some of these for starters:

• Local businesses – Watch for changes in local businesses. Most particularly that could be in manufacturing, staff, or business direction; perhaps even a new contract being granted for a new project in a business segment.  A good way to tap into those things will be through the names and the stories that you find in the local newspaper.  Go to the business section of the paper and read it to get names and information about things that are happening in different business segments or corporations.
• Use Google – You can set up the Google search engine to send you news alerts about particular things and issues. You should at the basic end of the concept have Google alert you to stories about your suburbs and city.  Perhaps you can add other search criteria to the alerts such as commercial property, shopping centers, industrial property, and property investment.  Each time you go into the news segment of your browser you can then see if any new stories appear.
• Search CEO’s – Through the search engines search out the names of CEO’s and important people for the bigger businesses. When you have a name you have something to focus on in contact calling and direct mail or email.
• Local franchise groups – Go on to the internet and search the local franchise council (or equivalent) so you can get the franchise group names that may be active in business segments. From that point you can make direct calls to the franchise groups to see what they are doing and needing from a property perspective.
• Annual reports – Some of the local public companies and businesses will put out annual reports for their shareholders about their business results and future directions. Get the reports and review them for change and challenges; information like that is valuable.  Look at the property asset base for the larger businesses and understand what those annual reports are saying.  Those companies may own or lease properties locally.  What help do they need with property?

So the message here is that you can find change in your local property market.  You can then do something with that information and build fresh leads and client activity.

You can get more tips and ideas for commercial real estate brokerage right here in our ‘Snapshot’ eCourse.