Every commercial real estate agent will have some ‘housework’ and mundane activities to track and keep under control.  When this is correctly undertaken, they will understand where the property market is heading and how they can tap into the opportunity.

The ‘housework’ process involves tracking and measuring activity across a number of benchmarks and indicators.  In any given period of 12 months, there will be plenty of changes when it comes to property enquiries, the listings, methods of sale or lease, marketing, and business sentiment.  Here are some ideas to help you with that ‘housework’ monitoring and adjustment process:

1. As a general rule, you should be tracking the numbers of inbound enquiries coming to you each day through the office, and via the telephone.  Understand what those people and prospects are looking for in both property type, and location.  Shifts in the economy, the availability of finance, and local business sentiment will have an impact on property changes and availability.
2. Understand the listings that you have on your books at the moment.  Track the time on market as it applies to each of your exclusive listings.  All of those controlled listings should be tracked for activity, inspections, and negotiations.  Those listings should also be taken through a price adjustment process where necessary, supported by a marketing shift.  A listed property today can become quite ‘stale’ relatively quickly.  Keep the exclusive listing fresh through shifts in marketing, advertising description, pricing strategy, and promotional activity.
3. When it comes to promoting a listing and attracting enquiry, understand the things that are more effective than others when it comes to the various marketing alternatives available.  Make each advertising process special and unique.  Understand the target audience and apply a strategy to reach into them.  Get away from generic marketing.  Obtain vendor paid marketing funds as part of every exclusive listing.
4. Track the numbers of signs in your local area with each agency.  Add to that process the time on market for each of those listings.
5. Track the number of properties listed on the websites of your competitors.  Observe how they advertise property and determine whether that process is effective or poorly handled.
6. When you look at any listing in the marketplace today, understand the differences and the success rates that apply to each method of sale and each method of lease.  Some of those methods will be more successful than others.
7. Stay in touch with your existing database and client base.  Over time, there will be opportunities for referral business and repeat business.  Remaining in contact for the long term will help you tap into the source of opportunity.
8. Make plenty of prospecting calls every day to new people.  An ongoing prospecting process will help you fill your ‘pipeline’ in any market and at any time.  The consistent contact process will help you build market share providing you seek for and obtaining exclusive listings rather than open listings.

Be prepared to do the hard work and the ‘mundane work’ as part of your agency activities and business.  Lot of this can be done at the end of the day out of your core prospecting time and client activity.  The commercial property industry is very lucrative for those that put in the necessary work and the required focus.

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