In commercial real estate brokerage, you should have a plan and a strategy that applies to selling your services and your ideas. That plan should be personally implemented on a daily basis. In that way you will be attracting more people to your ideas and your professional skills.

(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)

Your Coverage

If you are missing out on listings and property inquiry, it is quite likely due to the lack of personal promotion and direct prospecting. You simply cannot avoid the process; you can’t delegate it to anyone else. If you want to achieve reasonable momentum in commercial real estate brokerage today, you really do need to have that personal marketing strategy under control.

Think about the property market today in your location. How competitive is the market, and are you attracting the best quality listings to your brokerage? Attraction and conversion are two big factors in our industry. You simply have to attract the best listings, the best clients, and the best prospects. When you have the listing stock, you can create the appropriate conversion for the market conditions and the client circumstances. Professionalism and promotion will help you achieve those ultimate goals.

Momentum in Brokerage

Momentum is a big issue in our industry. Every day things have to happen that will create churn and activity around you. The telephone should ring with enquiries, and the listings on your books should be attracting those enquiries. One factor to remember here is that quality listings will always create better levels of enquiry. Look at your listings, and understand the factors of attraction in each case. Market your listings into the factors of attraction and the target market.

Here are some ideas to help you sell your professional brokerage services to the right clients and prospects in commercial real estate today:

1. Property case studies – any successful recent sale or lease transaction will be worth sharing into the local area, the business owners, and the property investors. Recognizing that you cannot and should not breach transaction client confidentiality, create some case studies that spread the basic message of the recent successful deal, be that in sales or leasing activity. Circulate those case studies both online and off-line. Use those case studies in your meetings and discussions with prospects and clients. Market evidence is something that is hard to refute or dispute. Your successful transactions are worth talking about.
2. Recent location based sales or leases – within your location there will be plenty of property types and precincts to focus within. A recent transaction can be spoken about and shared into the specific precincts of focus and activity. Talk to the neighboring property owners and business proprietors. Soon you will find some other leads or transaction opportunities in the same location from the recent successful deal. Talk about your successes into the location. Spread the word, and share the successes with others, at the same time encouraging them to talk about their property needs and challenges.
3. Listings on portals – review all of the listings that you have placed online. The listings should be refreshed with different words and advertising copy every few weeks. Also use professional photographs wherever possible. Don’t let your listings become stale. Look at the positioning of each of the listings online in comparison to other properties competing in the same area.
4. Blog strategies – whilst your brokerage will have a local website to promote properties for sale or lease, you can also have a specialized commercial real estate blog to talk about local area property activity and recent listings. The blog is essentially a place where you can personally share your information professionally about the local area from a property perspective. The information that you publicize on the blog should be useful and local area relative. Think about the keywords and the important stories that should be circulated online. You can do that through your blogging process. Shape your stories for search engine exposure.
5. Direct calls – use the business telephone book to talk to plenty of local business owners and tenants. Allocate a certain number of outbound calls each day to new people within the location. You cannot and should not delegate this process given that you know the property market better than others. Ideally you want to talk to local people and those that have a property interest or challenge. Over time your database can grow through that simple daily process. The people that know you personally are the ones that are most likely to help you grow your commission and listing churn. If you are missing out on listing opportunity now, it is quite likely due to the fact that you do not know enough local people and property identities.
6. Direct mail – the direct mail process is somewhat expensive although reasonably successful providing you follow up each letter that you send out. The follow-up process should be a direct telephone call to the person concerned. Do not send out letters without having a follow-up process in place for each letter sent. The letters that you send should introduce the call that you are going to make in follow-up. Over time that direct mail marketing approach will allow you to connect professionally and directly with new people.
7. Door to door – when you look into your local area and understand the property precincts, the best streets, and the best buildings, you can strategize a door-to-door canvassing process where you can talk to all the business owners and property owners. Create conversations and connections through the door-to-door canvassing process. In simple terms, you are seeking to understand if the occupant of the property requires help or assistance from a leasing, purchasing, or sales perspective. It is also valuable to know whether they are tenant or an owner occupier. Simple questions and conversations will help you achieve that knowledge and momentum. Track your process and your momentum within your database and within charts and maps. Local area coverage is really important. Do not leave one building or one business owner out of your connection process. Methodically cover off on all the local property ownership and occupancy issues.

All of these concepts of marketing and canvassing work very well. In saying that, they require specific focus and a systematized approach. Take your commercial real estate brokerage activities to the next level through a combination of these ideas and strategies.