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Marketing and Positioning Yourself for Commercial Real Estate Success

By Jim Gillespie | June 26, 2007

One of the greatest mistakes I find commercial real estate brokers making is forgetting they’re constantly being compared with the competition. With this in mind, what do you do that differentiates yourself from your competitors? When going after listings or exclusive assignments, why should decision makers choose you instead of all the other brokers they could be choosing instead? If you don’t let people know you’re different, and tell them what you’re going to do that makes you the best broker they could be working with, you’re making it harder on yourself to land more exclusive assignments.

Once I was listing a home for sale and my choices were narrowed down to two residential agents. One agent was named Scott and he had the inside track with me, as I had been talking with him longer than the other agent I was interviewing, an agent named Ellen. But in the end Scott made some very costly mistakes that had me give the listing to Ellen…

As it was getting close to the time I’d be making my final decision, I told both of them I wanted to meet with them one more time, and I wanted them to each tell me what they’d be doing differently than their competition to market the home for me. Ellen agreed to the one final meeting and asked that she be the last meeting I’d have before awarding the listing (the mark of a true real estate professional), and Scott took himself out of the running for the listing by saying the following on the telephone to me:

“There’s really no need for us to meet again as I’ve told you everything I can tell you about marketing the home. And all of us agents pretty much do the same things in marketing homes so there’s really nothing I’ll do differently for you than any of the other agents.”

And in a split second, Scott took himself out of the running and I listed the home with Ellen.

Who wants to give their listing to an agent who turns down a request for one final meeting with them, and then tells them they’re just the same as all the other agents in the territory?

You want to always make sure you’re differentiating yourself from your competitors in the minds of the people you want to do business with, and not just giving people the impression that you’re the same as everyone else is.

So ask yourself:

1) How is my company different than the companies that we compete with?

2) How am I different as an agent in the service I can provide to the people I want to do business with?

3) How can I communicate to the people I want to do business with that I’m the best agent they can work with on their next commercial real estate transaction, so they hire me instead of the competition?

So when you present yourself as being no different than the competition you cost yourself a lot of money. But when you differentiate yourself in ways that excite the people you want to work with and compel them to hire you over your competitors, you’ll make far more money and you’ll get chosen for the exclusive assignments you want more easily.

In my next teleseminar I’ll interview someone who’s come up with one of the best ways I’ve ever seen for commercial agents to differentiate themselves from the competition and standout as the best choice people will want to hire over everyone else. For more information on how you can listen to this information for free click here.


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