Tag: personal marketing

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Commercial Real Estate Brokers – Ways of Achieving Success Through Effective Personal Marketing

The marketing process in commercial real estate brokerage should never be ‘generic’ with perhaps one exception and that is in the promotion of ‘open’ listings.  ‘Open’ listings generally waste everyone’s time, and will usually only sell or lease through some factor of ‘luck’.  You can’t base your commercial real estate brokerage business on ‘luck’.

How Are Listings for You?

Some agents and brokers will claim that they must list ‘openly’ because ‘that is the way the market is for them’ and the only way they can get new listings.  Whilst I accept that fact initially for those agents that are very new to the industry, I will say that the best agents avoid ‘open listings’.  They grow their profile and market share consistently over time so that the new clients and prospects locally will come to them to list properties for sale and lease.  That is when it is really easy to demand ‘exclusivity’.

If the client really wants the best agent then they must accept the terms of engagement that the agent is offering.  They are then your terms!  Are you ready to package your professionalism and sell it?

Are You the Expert?

If you have a comprehensive and specialised personal brand as a local property ‘expert’, then it stands to reason that people will want to list their property with you rather than some other ‘random’ agent or groups of agents.  Take a serious look at your personal marketing processes.

Taking this point further, your market share and listing conversions of an exclusive nature will largely depend on your ability to establish your brand as the ‘go to agent’ for your location and property speciality.  You can and should invest more time in building your real estate image and speciality.

Here are some rules to help you do that:

  1. Your Listings – Understanding the point that I made earlier about ‘exclusivity’, make the marketing process very special and deep with all of those high quality listings that you are bringing in. It is difficult for other property owners and investors to ignore the activities of any agent with the best properties and the best marketing ideas.
  2. Other Agent Listings – If you are stuck for current listing stock, use other agent’s listings in a location to talk to local property owners and tenants nearby to any listing. Some simple questions and conversations will help you find the next listing in the same street or perhaps a business owner looking to relocate.
  3. High end marketing campaigns – Get some traction with your marketing by seeking and converting vendor paid funds. If your advertising efforts on any quality property are of a higher professional level than that of your competitors, you should be attracting the new business leads and enquiries very easily.
  4. The personal approach – You are the marketer of your business. You sell your services well then people will choose the agent that they trust and believe has the better business and market coverage.  Is that you?

Simple marketing rules like these help you consolidate market share and listings as an agent or broker in commercial real estate.  Follow the rules and grow your real estate business.

You can get more commercial real estate brokerage marketing tips in our ‘Snapshot’ eCourse right here.

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The Cold Hard Facts of Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Today

Many people think that the life of a commercial real estate broker is easy.  Perhaps some people even join the industry assuming that is the case.  The reality of the industry is far and away from those assumptions.  The top agents in the market work really hard and do so to a definite plan or system.

When you put in the effort individually, you will get results.  The efforts applied should be specific to the property type and the location; in other words you do need to do the right things each and every day and systemise the process.  That is exactly what the top agents do.

Here are some cold hard facts regards the industry:

  1. Commissions – looked at in isolation, the commissions that we earn can be quite large.  For most property transactions and listings however real strategy and effort is required to attract a successful outcome in any sale or lease.  As large as the commissions may seem, they don’t come easily.  If you want significant income, you need to work hard.
  2. Hours of work – the hours of work are variable and sometimes quite long.  It is not unusual to be negotiating a contract or a lease later into the evening, across the weekend, or early one morning.  The business is out there to be done providing you are flexible enough to do the work of any time of day.
  3. Property knowledge – property knowledge will have a big impact on your inspections and negotiations.  It will also help you significantly when it comes to the listing process.  On that basis you will really need to know a lot about the local area, the property type, and the current levels of enquiry.
  4. Personal marketing – whilst you may work for a well-known brokerage or agency, you must market yourself each and every day to the right people in the right way.  On that basis every agent or broker should have a specific prospecting and networking program underway.
  5. Prospecting – it should be said quite clearly that prospecting is not easy.  It is required business skill that takes practice and improvement.  Simply lifting the telephone or door knocking on the business will not be very successful without the necessary practice factors.  Build some prospecting practice into your business day prior to getting into the office.
  6. Negotiation – negotiation skills are something you learn over time.  Every landlord, seller, buyer, and tenant will have different factors of leverage and requirements when it comes to property negotiation.  As the agent or the broker to the deal, your advantage will be in seeing those factors of leverage and the requirements that can be satisfied.  That is how a good negotiator works.
  7. Inspection – the inspection of a property will happen for a number of reasons and preparation is required.  Every listing will have strengths and weaknesses impacting the inspection process.  Your job is to use them or work through them to achieve the best result.  That is where property knowledge and local market information will be of high value.
  8. Documentation – some property lease and sales situations are very complex.  Expert information and assistance will be required when it comes to complex transactions.  Make sure that every contract or lease that you create is correctly designed for the property and the client’s situation.
  9. Database – your database will be the most important business tool that you have available.  Spend time every day connecting with people within the database and adding new people to the process.  Over time the database will give you plenty of leads, and referral opportunities.  From the database you can create a specialised list of VIP clients and prospects.

Looking at all of these things, you can see how important the commitment and the skills of the agent will be to their progress in the industry.  They say that nothing really comes easy; certainly that is the case in commercial real estate brokerage.  Be prepared to put in the hours and improve your skills over time.  That is how you can be a very successful agent in the industry.

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Create Your Own Cool Marketing Brand in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

Personal branding in commercial real estate is quite important.  At a personal level you can be a ‘cool brand’, and that by definition is someone that is good to know and an expert in their field of real estate and in the location.  On that basis clients and prospects will seek you out at the ‘go to person’ for solving property problems. You could say that you then have real ‘market attraction’.

This image will help you with listings and growth of market share.  Are you up to the challenge?  Let’s look at this a bit more.

So how do you create this very special image as a top agent and expert in your field?  Prospecting will help you a lot, but in saying that you can add some rules and processes to the prospecting process.  There is no point in being ordinary in our industry as you will just fade into the already large group of other brokers and agents; every listing pitch will then be a competitive event.  Consider these alternatives:

  1. Ideas person – many properties and clients will be unique and challenging.  For that reason you can be an ‘ideas’ person to help solve the complex property situation facing the client.  Every exclusive listing should be handled with a high degree of creativity in marketing and promotion.
  2. Great negotiator – some properties are challenging as to the complexity of the sales contract or property lease.  Make sure you have enough knowledge to build the negotiation momentum for your client.  Any hurdles to the marketing of the property should have been resolved early in the property listing process.  Preparation is the key to resolving negotiation issues.
  3. Solution provider – some of your competitors will be quite ‘generic’ when it comes to marketing a property and establishing a campaign.  Your solutions must be better than all the other agents; that’s how you can convert exclusive listings much more effectively.
  4. Stand out in a crowded market – to help you stand out in your area and sales territory get plenty of sign boards into your zone.  As a priority make sure your signs are more effective in placement and detail.  That will mean some vendor paid funds to take the listing to the market.
  5. Commitment to task – many clients will talk of ‘agents that have failed them’.  The fact of the matter is that the generic support for clients with their property today will be of little benefit in converting a sale or lease.  If a property is special then you should provide special ideas and momentum to the promotion process.  You can only do that when the client has given you an exclusive listing.  Can you convert more exclusive listings?  If not, why not?   Set yourself a challenge to list only exclusive listings of a quality nature.

When you review these points, apply them to your own personal marketing profile.  How do you match the image?  Can you do better?