Many agents today struggle to provide a relevant and interesting sales presentation. Generic presentations seem to be the order of the day, and in most cases the client will be meeting with four or five agents before they make a decision. You simply cannot do a generic sales presentation. Your pitch or presentation has to be interesting, relevant, and useful. It must relate to the current property market and the subject property.
Here are some tips to help you focus your sales or listing presentation:
The first stage of the presentation should always be to connect with the client and restate their need or interest when it comes to the particular property matter. The client needs to see that you are on the same wavelength and fully understand their current situation.
Next, you should summarise the attributes of the property as you see them. Explain the factors of the property that are critical to the potential promotional campaign and marketing process. Some of those features will be fed into the advertising and media material to attract the target audience.
Given the previous point, explain to the client the target audience of prospects as you see it and then relate to the current levels of enquiry from that group of prospects. The client needs to understand exactly what enquiry is out there and how it is coming to you at the moment. Have due regard for the time on market factors for the property type and the prevailing market conditions. Tell the client exactly how you will be attracting those prospects to the property.
Given all of the three points, you can now move into a summary of current and prevailing market conditions. Tell the client where the competing properties are currently located, and how they are being marketed. Give the client a summary of the time on market factors as they apply to those other properties still on the market.
Give the client some clear solutions relating to marketing. Vendor paid marketing should be the norm and not the exception when it comes to listing. Give the client three alternatives when it comes to vendor paid marketing and marketing costs. Invariably they will usually choose the middle solution.
The firm and resolute when it comes to the type of listing and the method of marketing. Exclusive listings are required to help you attract the necessary enquiry over the marketing period. All of your listing sales pitch should be geared to the dedicated focus and action generated from an exclusive listing.
In most listing situations, you can give the client a summation of price or rental as it applies to the listing process. Current market evidence and existing other properties will support your logic and recommendations.
As you move through all of the five stages, you can ask questions of the client to see how they relate to the information you are providing. Always make your presentation or pitch a two way conversation. Keep the client with you through the presentation logic and property recommendations.
Lastly it should be said that the typical property presentation should not go for an excessive period of time. In most cases the presentation should be completed within 20 minutes. If the client shows further interest or raises a extra questions, then the time can be extended to 30 minutes.
Keep to the point, and provide the right information for the client to make key decisions. Top salespeople do less than 40 per cent of the talking when it comes to a sales pitch or presentation. They get the client involved at all stages of the process. At the end of the presentation ask for a commitment. Most agents are afraid to ask for the listing.
When it comes to your career in commercial real estate today, consistency is a key component to help you to progress in the industry. Without consistency, chaos is usually the result. Poor performance then follows as well as lower income or commissions.
Given that most salespeople work on some form of commission reward system, results will always be high on the agenda when it comes to personal performance. Every day contributes towards the future.
Here are some of the biggest hurdles that we find with salespeople in the industry:
Lack of focus on prospecting
The listings that are poorly served
A database that is not up to date
Client connection and communication systems that are random at best
Generic marketing systems that produce little momentum towards enquiry
These issues should not occur. If we are to achieve more momentum in the industry, then results are really important to us and the agency we work for. This then says that we should be very consistent in what we do every day.
Systems can take us forward in generating new business, serving the clients that we act for, and dominating the local commercial real estate market. Systems are a personal thing.
Here are some ideas to help you with consistency and building the correct momentum in commercial real estate today.
Start the day early with a planning process to connect to the right people that can help you move your business or listings forward. This will usually mean a prospecting process. In commercial real estate today, it is really easy to make prospecting calls the first thing every morning. Systemised action is the only thing that makes any difference in our industry. Everything else is pure luck. Luck is not a good thing when you work on commission; directed control will get you a lot further and faster.
After you have completed your daily prospecting process, connect with all your clients to update them on recent marketing activities and property enquiry. Clients with exclusive listings should receive a priority in all communications and follow-up.
Develop your skills so that you can convert more listings to your exclusive control. Open listings in our industry are really a waste of time, over which you have no control. Exclusive listings allow you to focus your marketing efforts, and control the enquiry that comes towards you. In this way you have a much better chance of converting the business. If you are finding it difficult to convert exclusive listings, then you probably need some skill upgrade, and the only way you can do that is through practice. Find some good books on pitching and presenting, and learn the best ways to go about it relative to your area and property type.
Are you the best commercial real estate agent locally? Hopefully you have answered yes. Develop some real reasons and points of difference for your uniqueness in the local property market. Why should people use you? How can you provide the best service over quality listings? Develop some real answers that can help you drive your market share and listing conversions. Generic answers are a waste of time. Far too many agents use generic and bland statements relating to experience, time in the industry, and agency profile. Develop your answers that are far more significant than these generic statements.
It is not hard to see how you can improve your commercial real estate career and listing conversions. It all comes down to your personal systems and focus. Start taking some real action.
When you run a commercial real estate business, it is always hard to find the right people to help you build your business. Most new salespeople will claim to have the necessary drive and commitment to do what is required, but in the majority of cases, they will not have the factors that produce great success in the industry in all markets.
When the property market is at the top of the cycle, just about any salesperson can make commissions simply by going to the office and sitting at their desk. It is the more ordinary markets where listings are hard to move and enquiry is difficult to generate where the top agents stand out as being the best in the local area.
Here are some strategies to help you with choosing the right salespeople, and running your commercial real estate business.
Always be on the lookout for good people. That can include other agents in other real estate offices. The right people should be able to show sales results and discipline when it comes to the commercial property market.
The industry is largely based around relationships and networking. This then says that every top agent will usually have a significant group of clients and contacts to work with. Good agents will always have a database of several hundred clients or prospects that they work with. The accuracy and the up to date nature of that database will be important.
Divide the sales territory into precincts and property types. Some salespeople will be working a defined geographical area, whilst others will be working a specific property type in which they specialise. Such is the case when it comes to retail property given the specific and the unique nature of the property and the people involved.
When employing future salespeople, it pays to undertake a psychological assessment of their sales skills. Top salespeople are quite unique when it comes to business style and performance. They also require special types of management and leadership. That being said, a salesperson is employed to generate commissions and listings. Have each potential new salesperson for your business or agency checked out thoroughly at a skill and mindset level, before you employ them. Make sure they have the necessary character traits that a salesperson requires in this industry.
When it comes to employing new sales people in the industry, two factors stand out as critical to ongoing performance. The first factor is market share, and the second factor is conversions. For this very reason, it is essential that you monitor the market share of each salesperson relative to their location or property speciality. When you can see that the market share is consolidating and growing for a team member, the next factor to watch and observe will be the conversions of listings to completed transactions. It is one thing to list a property, and it is another to convert the transaction. Some salespeople list very well, but cannot sell or lease at a satisfactory level.
We need more top agents, or people that can reach that level of the industry. Can any salesperson reach the top of their industry in their location? The answer is absolutely and yes. The right people will learn and adapt their skills to improve and grow in the industry.
In retail leasing, you really do need to know your territory and tenants. The retail business segment is under some pressure at the moment in many respects. The internet has changed the way shoppers buy goods, and the spending patterns of people have changed due to the global economy.
When times are tougher in retail shopping and trading, it is the ‘convenience’ type tenants that still do quite well. Convenience tenants are usually food and consumable related (baker, fruit and veg, butcher, chicken, and fast food).
To help your shopping centre trade and thrive in tougher retail times, you need to closely look at your tenant mix and the clustering of tenants. Everything has to be done to encourage more trade for tenants and between tenants. Tenants should be selected on the basis of relevance to your local shopper and their needs.
As a retail leasing expert you can get close to the retailers and the business community. This will help you find the right tenants and the successful traders.
Here are some ideas to help you build a matrix of retail leads and opportunities in retail shop leasing.
Franchise groups are a proven business model. Some of them will suit your property and shopping centre. Talk to the franchise groups to understand what it is that they need in a property to consider occupation and leasing. Find out what their business model is and the standard lease terms and conditions that they require. Some franchise groups may also not be located in your area and may be looking to enter the region. Make some telephone calls and ask the questions of the right people.
Business owners in the local area know so much about the local businesses and the community. Approach the business owners and the wholesalers or manufacturers of retail goods and services. Through that contact they may give you some leads for talking to successful retailers.
Existing properties in your local region will contain successful tenants and businesses. Check out those properties and talk directly to the tenants. Some of those tenants will be quite successful even in a slower retail cycle.
Shopping Centres and Shopping Centre Managers will offer lots of retail leasing leads and needs. Shopping Centre Managers will have leasing needs in their properties from time to time. Their tenant mix will change and the property may expand or undergo redevelopment. Either way, retail leasing activities will follow in some form or another. Most shopping centres have a business plan and a tenant retention plan, in addition to standard lease strategies and lease marketing efforts. Get to know your shopping centre managers for the leasing needs that will arise.
Landlord owners of retail properties and retail shopping centres need experts in leasing to help them. This is where specialisation in retail leasing is so important. You can fill that requirement with some specialised industry knowledge and leads.
When you work in commercial real estate agency, it is important that you have a prospecting model to support your momentum and market share. This is a personal process, and has little to do with the agency that you work for. The agency may provide you with some profile, but they would not normally produce the required levels of listing business that you require to be successful or gain the mantle as a top agent.
Here are some tips to help your commercial real estate activities in growing market share and listing activity.
Determine the geographic area in which you can locate listings. The geographic area should be split into two zones. The primary zone is where you will get the majority of your listings, and the secondary zone is where you will get other listings. All of your prospecting effort should be focused into the primary zone. Anything that comes to you from the secondary zone is pure luck and a bonus.
When you focus your marketing efforts into a specific zone, the area should have sufficient property types and property numbers to allow you to convert regular business over time. As part of the process, look at the history of the area to ascertain the commissions and listings that have been transacted over the last few years.
Within the primary prospecting zone, look at the business community and its current business sentiment. What are the factors of change? What are the things that are changing through their business community? What can you do to attract property enquiry in your direction?
Research the number of competing agents in your primary prospecting zone. Who are the agents that are more successful than others, and why is that so? Is there sufficient room for you to be competing with these other agents? What will be the points of difference to differentiate you from these other established agencies?
In commercial real estate today, the general property market may be somewhat slower and tougher, however the opportunities still exist for those agents that can systemise their approach and drive some real momentum.
When you look at your average business day, there really are only two or three things that are quite important. Those things should feature in your diary on a regular daily basis.
In almost all situations, prospecting will be number one on your list. When that occurs each and every day, you will drive better market share and you will create more listings. Over time that will help you become the top agent in the local area. Action is more important than words in our industry, so set the rules to your business, and take consistent action.
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