How to Spend Your Commercial Real Estate Marketing Dollars More Effectively
By Jim Gillespie | June 24, 2009
Sometimes commercial brokers will ask me, “Would I be better off advertising me (or my company) in the newspaper, or should I send direct mail to my clients and prospects instead?” And this is a question that many commercial brokers and companies are continually asking themselves these days.
But when you advertise you or your company in the newspaper, how many of your clients and prospects do you think will be looking at that ad on that exact page in the newspaper on the exact day you’re advertising? Probably a very small number of them.
But if you instead mailed postcards, articles, a newsletter, or other information to your clients and prospects, and addressed the mail to the actual names of the individual decision makers, you’re almost guaranteed to at least get your marketing pieces into their offices, and hopefully into their own mailboxes, onto their desks, and in front of their eyes. With this in mind, the visibility of your marketing, your branding, and the impact of all of this on your clients and prospects will be much stronger when you mail to them instead of taking out an ad promoting you or your company in a newspaper or a magazine.
While the ad in the newspaper or magazine may look great to you, it won’t be seen by anywhere near the same number of your clients and prospects as anything you’ll be sending them in the mail.
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If you’d like to become more successful at getting commercial real estate property listings, click here to learn about my audio CD titled “How to Become the Listing King in Your Territory.”
Topics: Uncategorized, Marketing | No Comments »
How to Prepare for the Coming Commercial Real Estate Market
By Jim Gillespie | June 16, 2009
If you missed my live radio interview last week titled, “How to Prepare for the Coming Commercial Real Estate Market”, I now have a recording of the interview available for you to listen to.
Here’s what you’ll learn during my interview:
1) Where this real estate market is heading
2) How people must reposition their portfolios to minimize the downside of what will be coming our way
3) The properties investors will get burned holding onto in the months ahead
4) The massive, hidden, underlying problem that MUST be solved in order for real estate to recover (HINT–You’ve probably never even heard of this.)
Please click on the following link to listen to the interview:
http://www.realestatesalescoach.com/Economic_Interview.htm
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The Real Reason Why Commercial Real Estate Clients Will Want to Work With You
By Jim Gillespie | June 3, 2009
I have a confession to make…I’m a big fan of the old Hawaii Five-0 TV show. You know, the show where detective Steve McGarrett became famous for saying, “Book ‘em Danno, Murder One!”
About ten years ago I got ecstatic when individual videos of the show’s episodes were put on sale to the public on a monthly membership basis. You’d get two episodes on every video, and one video would be sent to you every month.
And before these videos became available I had never understood why people ever got excited over collecting things–things like beanie babies and little statues of lighthouses. But when this show became available on video, I then began to understand…
Every month the package would arrive and I’d open it, reading all about the two episodes that were on the video and the actors who were playing the roles. And then I’d be finished watching the two episodes sometime within the next several days. And then after that I’d spend the rest of the month looking forward to the next package that would be coming, and wondering what episodes might be awaiting me inside of it.
So about nine months or so into my membership, I realized that there was a big problem looming ahead—I was receiving one video a month with two episodes on it, the videos were bulky and took up a fair amount of storage space, and there were 278 episodes made of Hawaii Five-0 throughout its entire 12-year run.
But fortunately the problem resolved itself, and after receiving my 12th video the company told me they weren’t releasing anymore episodes of the program, and therefore they wouldn’t be sending me anymore videos. And there I was left longing for more episodes, trying to catch glimpses of them on cable TV, until they finally began releasing them sequentially season-by-season on DVD beginning in 2007. (And the good news is that now 24 episodes come in a package that’s smaller than just one of the videos I received years ago, and all 24 episodes cost about the same as just one of those videos did!)
The reason why I love Hawaii Five-0 so much is because of the writing, the scenery, and the actors. Jack Lord, playing the character of Steve McGarrett, is just so incredibly congruent as a character to me. He’s on a mission to do what’s right to protect the people of his State, and nothing is going to stand in his way. He has great men around him who he trusts and constantly delegates to, he’s completely loaded with integrity, and he treats everyone except the bad guys with respect. And to me, television today is crying out so incredibly loudly for another character just like him, and they’re definitely not very easy to find. And this why I really can’t watch the newer programs that are on television today.
The truth of the matter is, your clients and prospects want you to be Steve McGarrett. They want you to be on a mission to protect them at all times, to get them the best deal possible, and they want to feel that you earning a commission is secondary to accomplishing these objectives. So when you project total congruency and integrity around these objectives at all times, more people will want to work with you, and they’ll refer their friends and business associates to work with you also.
Putting your clients and prospects first at all times will always make you more money, because everyone wants to work with a salesperson who stands for this. And we all know from the salespeople we’ve interacted with during our lifetimes, that there are very few of them who’ve compelled us to feel that we absolutely must work with them again in the future.
So in getting back to Steve McGarrett, two years ago my family and I visited Hawaii, and we went to the place where there’s a statue of Jack Lord being honored by the people of that State, for all that he’s done for them. You see, not only was he a great man in the character that he portrayed, but he and his wife Marie left their entire estate of $40,000.000.00 to different Hawaiian charities when they passed on.
With this in mind, I think if you’re an actor playing a character who’s loaded with integrity, it probably helps if you’re already a person who owns this integrity yourself, too.
Click here to see a photo of me and my daughter Jamie visiting the statue of Jack Lord in Hawaii.
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If you’re looking to improve your prospecting and you want to know what the best words are to say to the receptionist, to the decision maker, and how to leave voicemail messages that compel people to want to call you back, click here.
Topics: Persuasion | No Comments »
Getting Repeat Business from Your Commercial Real Estate Clients
By Jim Gillespie | May 27, 2009
As commercial real estate brokers we’re in an interesting position with regard to getting ongoing, repeat business from our clients. Unlike attorneys and CPAs who constantly interact with their clients throughout the year, our business as commercial real estate brokers is transactional in nature. Which means that once we close a transaction with someone, it could be years before they need to close another transaction again. And our problem becomes, “How do I create the feeling of having a constant, ongoing relationship with my clients, so they know they’ll be working with me again on their next transaction?”
There are several different ways you can accomplish this. First, you can call them on the telephone several times throughout the year to check in with them and see how they’re doing. While this may sound simple, many commercial brokers don’t call their clients for several years after they’ve closed a transaction with them, thinking that it would be a waste of their time. And their reasoning is basically “Since I moved them into a building that will work for them for many years to come, there’s no need to call them again for sometime.” But the problem here is that your competitors will be calling your clients while you’re not doing it, and building a relationship with them in anticipation of representing them on their next transaction.
Socializing with your clients, taking them to lunch, events, and giving them gifts can be a great way for you to continue building your relationship and positioning yourself to work on their next transaction with them, but many commercial brokers really don’t want to do these things.
In addition, mailing to your commercial real estate clients two or more times a month can be a great way to keep them thinking of you throughout the year also, but it’s rare to find a commercial real estate broker who does this kind of mailing.
While I highly recommend doing all that I’ve mentioned here, there’s one additional action you can take that’s simple and easy to do, and it can help to create the feeling that you have an ongoing relationship with your clients throughout the year:
Send them a “thank you” note 2-4 times every year that says, “Thank you for working with me and having me be your commercial real estate broker. I really enjoy working with you, and I look forward to closing our next transaction together.”
Sending a note like this one 2-4 times a year is polite and thoughtful, and it helps to position you as the broker they’ll work with again on their next transaction. And at the same time, the note will have an even better impact when you’re constantly in communication with them throughout the year, too.
Ideally I recommend sending these notes along with implementing the other ideas that I’ve mentioned above, but simply sending these notes while contacting your clients by telephone throughout the year, will have a much bigger impact on them than not sending these notes.
People love doing business with others who they feel are gracious, and who thank them for the business they’ve already given them. So when you send your clients notes like these you’ll not only be communicating the sincere thanks that you’re feeling towards them, you’ll be positioning yourself to have them want to work with you again the next time.
Special Offer: Be one of the first ten people to purchase 8 of my audio CD interviews with top commercial agents at a 20% discount, and you’ll get a free bonus CD of my audio interview featuring commercial real estate brokerage legend Robert Ringer. The CD is titled, “Mastering the Art of Commercial Real Estate Brokerage”, and if you want to learn from the man who many consider to be the greatest commercial real estate broker ever, click here.
Topics: Uncategorized, Prospecting, Marketing, Persuasion | No Comments »
The Fed Bails Out Commercial Real Estate Investors in $1 Trillion Program
By Jim Gillespie | May 14, 2009
Bloomberg reports that the Federal Reserve has authorized longer-term loans for investors buying commercial mortgage-backed securities as part of a $1 Trillion emergency credit program. This action was taken to try and avert all the expected defaults on commercial property loans in the months ahead.
If you’re an investor in commercial properties this could be good news for you. But if you’re a commercial broker, it could be bad news.
The recession has been difficult for commercial brokers, as many owners have refused to sell their properties at today’s lower prices, and financing for buying commercial properties has been hard to find. One of the great saving graces that I’ve seen coming for commercial brokers over the next two years is the fact that so many commercial loans are coming due. And because of the drop in market values in many areas and the difficulty in refinancing these properties today, many owners would have been forced to sell their properties or risk losing them to foreclosure. And this would have created a great abundance of new transactions for commercial brokers to earn and get paid more commissions on.
But with this new funding being made available through the government, many owners will now be refinancing their properties and not selling them, as this government intervention has interfered with the free market and how people would normally be doing business. And while these commercial real estate investors are being taken care of, I don’t expect our government to be sending you any six-figure checks because you’re having a tougher time making money as a commercial broker these days.
The good news is that more financing will hopefully now become available through this action for people to buy commercial properties. But at the same time if owners can now refinance with loans they could never have normally gotten in today’s market, more owners will simply say, “Why should I sell now that the government has provided me with this great new financing on my property? This financing now allows me to hold onto a building I would have otherwise had to sell when the loan came due.”
And this, from the perspective of a commercial real estate broker, stinks. You get paid when transactions close, and any intervention that stops people from wanting, needing, and having to close transactions limits your income.
Click here to read the Bloomberg article.
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International Investors Want to Buy More USA Commercial Real Estate
By Jim Gillespie | April 23, 2009
In the midst of all of the bad news about our economy and our real estate market, there’s some bright news on the horizon:
Overseas investors want to buy more commercial real estate here in the USA.
The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE), which controls more than $1 Trillion in assets, found in a survey of its members that they expect a 70% increase in investment here in the United States in 2009.
This information comes from an interview that Peter Mosca recently did on his radio program, “Income Property Investment Talk”, where he interviewed Manfred Chemek, CCIM, who’s the CEO of Manhelm International, LLC, an international real estate investment and consulting firm with offices here in the United States and in Europe.
To read the excerpt from this interview, which discusses all the coming opportunities for you to work along with these foreign investors, click here.
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A Recommendation to Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Managers
By Jim Gillespie | April 7, 2009
Commercial brokerage managers often feel they don’t have the time they’d like to manage and take care of everything they need to within their own offices. And as a result their agents can oftentimes get off track from producing outstanding results for weeks to months at a time. And because many managers are also producing managers, meaning they’re doing their own brokerage transactions in addition to following-up on their daily management responsibilities, they oftentimes don’t find the time to check in with their agents individually on a regular basis…and this can greatly contribute to their agents being off track for long periods of time.
With this in mind here’s a simple recommendation for managers to implement to help keep their agents on track, which will also help the managers to discover more quickly when one of their agents is off track:
Have your agents submit a prospecting sheet every Friday telling you how many hours they prospected during the week. Or as an alternative, you could have them tell you how many calls they made, or how many conversations they had with their prospects, depending on how you as a manager prefer to measure their prospecting results.
By just doing this one simple process at the end of every week you’ll then accomplish the following:
1) You’ll find out how much time each of your agents is spending on prospecting.
2) You’ll recognize when any of your agents are at risk to having gaps in their production in the months ahead because they’re not doing their prospecting right now, which will alert you to step in and get them back on track.
3) Your agents will probably feel like they need to step it up and get more prospecting done when they know they have to fill out their results on a sheet of paper at the end of every week, knowing that you’re going to be looking at them. In addition, the process of them writing their results down and looking at them every week can really get some agents moving, as they begin to recognize that every single week their prospecting results are falling way short of what they should be getting done.
Now one of the keys here is you’ll need to meet with your agents one-on-one when you see they’re constantly not getting their prospecting done. Otherwise, if they never have to be accountable to you no matter how bad their prospecting results are, this process, along with no accountability for it, will make the process completely meaningless to them.
And as far as your top-producing agents are concerned, this will be a good process for them to do every week also. As long as they’re producing great results there will be no need for you to intervene with them, and at the same time when they see their own prospecting results falling off, they’re usually the kind of people who will take the bull by the horns and begin doing more prospecting.
So if you’re a manager, begin having your agents turn in a sheet of paper to you every Friday stating how many hours they’ve prospected for the week.
And if you’re an agent, make sure that your manager doesn’t get to read this posting…:)
Topics: Prospecting | No Comments »
What’s The Best Contact Management Software for Commercial Brokers?
By Jim Gillespie | March 25, 2009
One of the questions I get asked the most frequently is, “What contact management software do you recommend for commercial real estate brokers?” And the answer that I always give to people is “Realhound Live!®”.
Realhound Live!® is the best contact management software available today for commercial real estate brokers. The people behind the program are constantly improving it, adding more features to it, and making it an even better program to help you maximize your success as a commercial real estate broker. The program makes it easy for you to integrate all of your contacts, properties, and activities all in one place, and you can easily access all of your information when you’re out of the office, too.
And in today’s economic environment where owners want to know what you’ve been doing to market their properties and what kind of activity you’ve been generating for them, Realhound Live!® has reporting features built right into the software that enable you to generate these kinds of reports for your owners and clients very easily.
If you’re looking for a contact management program that makes prospecting easier for you and allows you to easily match all of your buyers and tenants with the available properties that will work for them, Realhound Live!® will do this for you.
But what’s probably most important for you to learn is what other commercial brokers have said about Realhound Live!® and what it’s done for them in their own brokerage businesses. So click here to read what other brokers have said in their own testimonials about the program.
And finally, if you’re interested in learning more about this software program, click here for more information on Realhound Live!® and click here to see it in action.
Topics: Uncategorized, Prospecting, Marketing | No Comments »
Is It Time to Record Your Own Commercial Broker Music Video?
By Jim Gillespie | March 10, 2009
“OK,” you may be saying to yourself…”Has Jim completely lost it now?” And that would be a very appropriate question to be asking yourself…under normal circumstances within our industry.
But when the best marketer I’ve ever known in commercial real estate brokerage releases a music video featuring all of his team singing and dancing together, I have to begin thinking that he may be onto something.
Bill Gladstone, CCIM, SIOR, is the best marketer I’ve ever known in commercial real estate brokerage. Both he and his team gross over $55 million a year in transaction volume in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania market, and much of that is due to their outstanding marketing program. They spend over $100,000.00 a year on marketing, which includes mailing to their clients and prospects 8-9 times every month. In addition, the team gives out bobblehead dolls that look just like Bill, and after receiving mine more than 15 months ago, it’s still right there on my desk directly in front of me! It’s simply not the kind of gift that you’ll throw away easily, and when you’re a broker constantly out there trying to market yourself, that can be very good for you.
Well I think this is clearly one of those situations where both a picture…and a video…can be worth a thousand words to you.
Click here to see Bill Gladstone’s bobblehead doll photo gallery.
And click here to see Bill and his team performing the music video which they’ve titled, “Commercial Agent Man”.
And finally, click here to see how Bill utilizes today’s technology to introduce people to his team and let his clients and prospects know how they’ll be interacting with them.
Topics: Uncategorized, Prospecting, Marketing, Persuasion | No Comments »
The National Online Real Estate CyberConvention is Happening Right Now!
By Jim Gillespie | February 23, 2009
I’m a featured presenter at the National Real Estate CyberConvention and Exposition which is happening online right now through this Saturday.
My presentation at the Convention is titled, “How to Make Big Money in a Difficult Commercial Market”, and you can watch my presentation anytime by entering the Convention and clicking on the “Speakers” tab followed by clicking on the the “Showcase” tab.
During my presentation I’ll show you what may be the most creative marketing idea ever implemented in commercial real estate brokerage, created and implemented by a CCIM and SIOR broker who closes more than $55 million a year in commercial real estate transactions.
You can register to attend the National Real Estate CyberConvention for FREE right now at:
http://recyber.cyberconventions.com/
The Convention features national real estate industry experts, keynote sessions, and many top notch exhibitors will be featuring their products and services also. I’m inviting you to attend my session while you’re at this unique event, and I’m also inviting you to visit my Exhibitor’s Booth. There’s no airfare, no hotel bills, no days away from the office–and it’s FREE!
Topics: Uncategorized, Prospecting, Marketing | No Comments »