When it comes to building your business as a commercial real estate agent, you will frequently be pitching and presenting for property listings against other agents in your local area. Most property owners will seek presentations from four or five agencies as part of the preparation for listing their property. In most cases, you will only have a short opportunity to connect with the property owner and present your strategies of marketing, selling and or leasing.
This then says that the presentation and pitch process that you utilize with your listings is really important. Many agents tend to provide discounts as part of the enticement process for attracting the new listing. Whilst this may seem somewhat sensible to attract the business, the reality is that any short cuts and discounts will have an impact on your marketing program and your income. It should also be said that discounting commission is not a sensible idea in this property market when hard work it required to convert the average deal and get it across the line.
Here are some tips to help your sales pitch and presentation process in commercial real estate agency.
- Be prepared to show the client some real and valuable points of difference in your service. Most agents use only generic comments such as good staff, knowledge, market share, and duration in the market. When it comes to pitching and presenting, these generic comments have little value in converting the listing. Your points of difference need to be real and specific to the needs of the client. This then says that any presentational process should be well planned and optimized for the property and client in question.
- Visit the property before hand, and take approximately 50 photographs of the property and the surrounding area. These photographs can be used digitally on a laptop computer or iPad as part of the property presentation. It is surprising how powerful a simple running photo-slide show of random photographs can be in a property presentation. The client will always show interest in their property and that is what the photographs relate to. Forget about using anything else on the computer, the client will only relate to their property and that is why you use property photographs.
- The best property presentation is a conversation or connection with the client on a number of levels. It is best to bring together all of the senses as part of the property presentation. That will mean visual, sound, and touch. To achieve this, you have your laptop computer loaded with property images, you have your verbal presentation with points of difference, and you have a property proposal to provide to the client for review (keep it short and to the point).
- Engagement is really important when it comes to the sales pitch or presentation. Engagement means connection and conversation. The top agents of the industry know how to engage and converse in a meaningful way. Local property knowledge and market trends will help you do this. Tell the client what the inquiry is doing, and what people are looking for. Demand an exclusive listing; do not take an open listing on the clients terms.
- Every property listing will involve both a strategy, and a marketing campaign. Both of these should be specifically designed for the subject property and quite unique given the trends of the local property market. In this way you can help the client see how you will attract the correct levels of inquiry from the selected target market. When the client believes that you are the best solution for their property challenge, it will be easier to convert the listing on an exclusive basis.
Over time you can improve your presentational processes through practice and the development of specific marketing tools. On average, the top agents of the industry tend to win more listings per property presentation. They do it because they can connect to the client more professionally than the competitors. It is a simple process, however it does require practice.
Commercial Real Estate Online 