6 Highly Effective Tips for Creating More Commercial Real Estate Listings

Every commercial real estate agent or broker needs plenty of listings in an ongoing way if they are to grow their market share locally, and command a reasonable result from a commission perspective. They need to identify the right clients, the quality properties, and the future business opportunities.

(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)

In simple terms every agent or broker should be tuned to the issues within the property market locally so that new listings can be created in the right way at the right time. Every agent or broker should develop a specific process for finding and creating new listings.

Its Mainly Local

I put an emphasis here on the local property market, and that is specifically because most listings and most transactions will come from the local area in any town or city. You really do need to know the local people interested in commercial real estate, the property types, and the locations comprehensively. A comprehensive awareness of the local property market will help you find the listings and the opportunities.

As a special note here, it is worth mentioning that exclusivity is critical when it comes to the listing creation process. You simply have to convert to listings exclusively if you want to control your market and convert more transactions. If you are struggling with exclusive listing conversion now, then revisit your professional services, your listing pitch, and your client contact methods. Look the ways in which you can become more relevant to the local property market and the people within it.

6 Ways to Create More Listings Faster

Here are some specific ideas to help you create more listings from your location and within the commercial real estate marketplace:

1. Concentrate into a zone or zones – look at your location to identify the best zones and the best precincts where property churn and activity can be sustained for the long term. Look at where the businesses want to locate and the investors want to purchase property. Those particular precincts will be the areas where you should be focusing your attention and your prospecting processes.
2. Repeat the contact process – it takes time to tap into the quality clients and property owners locally. They need to trust you as the industry specialist that they need. It may take many weeks, months, or years for that person to move to the next level of property activity. At that time, they need to remember you and trust you as the person to take their property challenge to finality. On that basis you really do need to repeat the contact process with all of the people in your database in a regular and ongoing way. You need to be relevant and special when it comes to commercial real estate for your town or city. You need to be better than your competition in every way possible.
3. Specialize – take the time and the effort to specialize your real estate services within one or two property types within a limited or finite location. Make sure that there is enough business within that location for you to generate a reasonable income over the coming years ahead. There is no point in specializing within a property type that has limited interest and churn from the marketplace.
4. Recognise VIP’s – some clients will be unique and special. The same observation can be made with prospects and industry professionals. Segment your ordinary clients and prospects differently from the VIPs that are in your marketplace. Treat the VIPs differently as they can provide you with extra business and repeat business throughout the year. Define a VIP client for your location by type and by category. That will then help you when it comes to your prospecting activity.
5. Use multiple marketing processes – there are many different ways to market your services and on that basis you should be using the marketing processes that are effective and direct. Monitor the results you get from the local area marketing. Understand the differences and the opportunities to be obtained through marketing in social media, newspapers, direct mail, cold calling, industry portals, and websites. Mix and match your marketing activities to the channels that work for you, and most particularly those marketing channels that produce plenty of inbound inquiry. If the telephone is not ringing for you today with fresh new inquiry, then you have an issue both with your listings, your market share, and your marketing processes.
6. Make your messages memorable – as you connect with new people locally, do so in a way that helps them remember you as the industry specialist. When you again approach them to talk about property matters, that industry specialist relevance will help make the relationship more valuable overtime and strengthen the opportunities that may arise. A simple telephone call can be followed up with a letter or business card. A simple meeting can be followed up with a letter or some other form of relevant industry information. In making your messages memorable, you can build a level of trust and professionalism as the local commercial real estate broker. That is exactly the image you require in growing your professional profile.

As logical as these six processes may seem in creating new business for commercial real estate brokerage, many if not most agents do not develop the six strategies specifically and sufficiently. That then leaves plenty of new business on the table for the astute agent or broker to identify and nurture.

Our business is one of specialty, trust, and service; remember those facts as you strive to improve your market share and client relevance over time.

(N.B. these ideas are also sent out to regularly to our friends in Commercial Real Estate Online Snapshot to help amplify brokerage results…. Get your access here)