In commercial real estate brokerage, you will hopefully have many prospects and a number of good clients. Over time those numbers do need to grow and compound opportunities in referrals, leads, and listings. All of these things will occur when you know your clients very well and similarly so their property needs and or situation.
Here are some tips for turning a prospect contact into a future client for your commercial real estate brokerage:
- In many respects you do need to know the client better than they know themselves. Whilst they may have a particular property challenge or need, they probably do not know enough about the local market opportunities to identify exactly what they require to allow them to improve their property performance or outcome. Look for opportunities within prices, rentals, refurbishments, relocations, marketing systems, and income and property expenditure. You can also work within tenancy mix changes and tenant retention plans to improve the tenant profile of the building.
- Understand the factors of compatibility between yourself, the client, and your brokerage. Are you providing the specialized services that match the future needs of your clients and prospects? There is no point specializing in something that is under supported or under resourced within your brokerage. As a case in point, retail shopping center sales and leasing require specialist retail knowledge and unique skills. In that case the brokerage would need to have or acquire the right people and resources to do the job well.
- Establish a regular dialogue with your clients where you can provide up to date specialized market information for their property type. That can be through a newsletter, industry briefing, and local area updates relating to sales and leasing activity, new development updates, and changes within property zonings or building codes.
- Many clients will take time to open up with complete and full information relating to their property portfolio and asset performance. Trust and loyalty established over time will encourage them to share that information.
- Give more to the market than you get back. It is a simple statement that suggests that you should give freely of your knowledge and resources to help the client relationship grow. Establish a group of VIP clients within your database where this can be done. Most top agents will have a database of between three hundred and six hundred well qualified prospects. Within that group, your VIP prospects should number between 50 and 100. They will be the people that can offer higher value and repeat business over time. Connect with that group in a different way and in a deeper level.
Client relationships are at the center of everything when it comes to commercial real estate brokerage and agency. You may choose to be a specialist in sales, leasing, and or property management. Without the client connection and marketing process, you will struggle with market share. Use some of these points mentioned to build solid foundations of client loyalty and trust.
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