Have you ever wondered why two brokers doing the same amount of prospecting can produce dramatically different results? At first glance it might be easy to dismiss this as one broker calling on an area with more leads, but there’s very likely more to the story…

The broker producing the greater amount of leads probably has better people skills.

Think about this…

You’re a prospect who’s constantly getting calls from commercial real estate brokers, wanting to know if you have any commercial real estate needs. You don’t want any undesirable brokers…the ones who don’t make you feel good, or the ones who don’t have good presentation skills…to continue hounding you about your upcoming real estate needs.

So you could:

1) Tell certain brokers that you don’t have any upcoming needs, even when an upcoming need is on your radar screen.

2) Tell them that your current lease still has longer to run than it really does.

3) Tell them that you’re already working with another broker.

All of this is geared towards not wanting to have a broker you don’t want to do business with put their death grip on you, and continually bother you about why you should be working with them.

This, in many ways, is human nature. Despite the fact that we have a Do Not Call law and a Do Not Call list here in the United States, telemarketers still call me at my home. The fact that they’re ignoring the law and my request to not be disturbed, has me not want to do business with them…no matter what they’re offering me.

Similarly, commercial real estate brokers, as well as all salespeople, make first impressions on their prospects. With this in mind, if your first impression isn’t a good one, people will want to get you out of their lives ASAP. Maybe you’re not being offensive towards them, but you may not be measuring up to the other brokers who they’ve been talking to.

I’ve had this experience myself when residential agents have knocked on the door of my home. It’s amazing how quickly I get a feeling around whether or not I’d want to do business with an agent, and when they fall into the "not" category, that’s pretty much the way it’s all going to go. There are just so many other agents out there, and the ones who make me feel good immediately are the ones who have me want to do business with them.

So you definitely want to have your prospects feeling good about you immediately!

What I recommend you do here is role play your prospecting along with someone else. If you’re normally calling your prospects on the telephone, then role play with someone else on the telephone. If you normally prospect by walking into people’s businesses, then role play with someone else in person, talking with them one-on-one.

You might also consider having two separate role playing exercises…one with the receptionist, and one with the decision maker. Because becoming outstanding at building rapport with both of these kinds of people is vitally important to your success.

I recommend recording any telephone conversations you’re having when you’re role playing, and videotaping any presentations you’re making when you’re role playing with someone in person. At the end of each "prospecting call" ask your partner how you did, and then ask them if they have any recommendations on how you can improve your presentations.

In addition, what’s also important here is that you role play with people who will do a good job of representing the kind of people you’ll be prospecting, and that they’re also the kind of people who will shoot it straight with you. The last thing you want in this situation is someone who wants to make you feel good instead of being someone who wants to tell you the truth.

When you’re really serious about improving your prospecting skills, find people to role play with, record your presentations to them, ask for their feedback, and then learn from listening to and/or watching the recordings. When you do this you’ll continually have more prospects wanting to work with you over your competition.

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Wednesday: Totally Eliminating Your Brokerage Competition

This Wednesday I’m doing a live teleconference interview with a broker who’s a member of both SIOR and CCIM, and he’s the best marketer I’ve ever known in commercial real estate brokerage. He mails to his clients and prospects multiple times every month, he creates and gives away promotional items, records marketing videos of himself and posts them online, and even records portions of his listing presentations in advance and entertains his property owners by having conversations with himself in the videos during his live listing presentations!

If you’re not already registered for this live teleconference and you want to get your hands on the audio CDs, written transcription, and MP3 recording of this teleconference all for just $19.95, click here for more information.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"After more than 20 years in the business, Jim has helped me to focus on doing the activities that make a huge difference in my income. I even generated 42 offers on one of my investment listings!"

Larry Cannizzaro
Beitler Commercial Realty Services/TCN Worldwide

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Most brokers learn the commercial brokerage business and then fall into utilizing the phrases that are the most comfortable for them. But what’s more important, utilizing the words that are comfortable for you? Or utilizing the words that are the most effective ones for persuading your clients? Because oftentimes commercial brokers say things they believe will help them to move the deal forward, when in reality this isn’t the case.

As an example, one of the worst words you can ever utilize in sales is the word "problem", yet so many commercial brokers utilize this word regularly. So why is utilizing the word "problem" a problem? Because it gets your clients and prospects focused on looking for problems that will get in the way of them moving forward.

As an example of this, don’t think of the word "carrot". But now you really have to think of a carrot just because I mentioned the word to you, before you then begin trying not to think of one.

Similarly, when you mention the word "problem" to your clients and prospects, they begin thinking of problems, and looking for them…even though your intention was to alleviate any problems and begin moving forward towards closing the transaction.

Here are some examples of how brokers can misuse the word "problem" when conversing along with their commercial real estate clients and prospects:

"What problems are you seeing with this transaction?"

"Once we take care of this for you, what other problems do you see in moving forward?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Notice how those statements make you feel, as compared with these statements:

"Are we ready now to begin moving forward?"

"Once we take care of this for you, will we then be in a position to begin moving forward?"

"Is what I’m proposing right now OK with you?"

Brokers can unconsciously frighten their people away from moving forward in transactions, because of the language they’re utilizing with them. In many situations your people ideally want to find a way to move forward, but they’re concerned. They want to know that they’ve done all of their due diligence, they want to feel confident that they know everything that’s important for them to know within the transaction, and they want to be certain that they won’t be surprised by anything. Keeping this in mind, you’ll need to monitor how you utilize words like the following ones to them, because just you mentioning these words gets your people to begin focusing on them:

problem, environmental contamination, bankrupt, difficult, concern, devious, shyster, bad, illegal, inappropriate, steal, manipulate, thief, weak, unknown, uncertain

In reading those words continuously like that, it doesn’t put you in the best state of mind for immediately moving forward on something you may already be uncertain about…does it? This is why you need to watch what you’re saying in every sales situation, and constantly begin utilizing words that will help your people to just naturally want to move forward.

Utilize words like exceptional, good, positive, solid, moving forward, outstanding, and exciting. And compare how you feel when reading these words continuously, as compared with how you felt when reading the other words that I’ve written above.

Your clients and prospects are engaging in what may be one of the most important financial decisions of their lifetime. They’re looking to you for guidance, honesty, expertise, and certainty. So when you choose the right words to inspire them to move forward along with you in the transaction, they’ll feel good about working with you, you’ll feel confident, and you’ll maximize the probability that they’ll end up closing the transaction.

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WEDNESDAY: Mastering How to Persuade Your Clients and Prospects

This Wednesday, October 12th, I’ll be interviewed by a Marcus & Millichap investment broker on the subject of "Mastering Your Power Persuasion Skills". You can get access to all of this information for just $19.95, including getting the audio CDs, written transcription, and written highlights all sent to you in the mail, as well as getting these all sent to you from my next upcoming interview in November also, if you’ve never been a member of my Million Dollar Commercial Real Estate Agent Inner Circle program before.

In addition, as an added bonus you’ll receive my 19-page Special Report titled "Convincing Owners to List at Your Recommended Price". So many brokers are having a tough time getting their owners to list their properties at prices that will move right now in today’s market. In this Special Report I’ll tell you all the exact words to say to overcome the 14 toughest objections brokers are telling me they’ve been facing with their property owners, around pricing their properties to sell.

If you want to learn how to persuade your clients and prospects, overcome their toughest objections, and get them to take immediate action, you’ll definitely want to be joining us for this interview.

And if you register but can’t attend the live teleconference, I’ll still send you the MP3 recording, as well as the audio CDs, written transcription, and written highlights from the teleconference, all in the mail to you!

If you’re not already registered for this live teleconference and you want to get your hands on all of this information, click here.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"Jim’s coaching and training has assisted our company in landing millions of dollars of new real estate business."

Pat Hall
TOLD Partners

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

When you’re going after a listing, you definitely want to make sure that you’re making a solid listing presentation. In addition, since the quality of your relationship with the decision maker is very important, and it plays a big role in you successfully landing the listing, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve built a solid relationship with your decision maker ahead of time.

But what about the exact timing of when you’re making your listing presentation when compared with the other brokers you’re competing against? Is there something that’s important for you to accomplish around this also?

The answer is "Yes", and the answer also depends on how entrepreneurial your decision maker is. If your decision maker calls all of the shots, doesn’t have to answer to anyone when making their real estate decisions, and they can sign a listing agreement with any broker they want to, you’ll want to be the final broker making a listing presentation to them whenever you can arrange for this situation.

As an owner gets closer to listing their property, there’s oftentimes a momentum that’s building inside of them, wanting to move forward and just get the property on the market so they can get it sold or leased. In addition, sometimes the brokers being interviewed for the listing don’t do a very good job of differentiating themselves, and they don’t present a compelling case as to why they should be hired over their competitors. In these situations, an owner can feel that hiring one broker won’t be any different than hiring any of the other ones, and this is where being the last broker to make your listing presentation can definitely have its impact.

Listing presentations that were made to the owner at an earlier time can begin fading from their memory, and the owner won’t be signing a listing agreement with anyone until all of the brokers have finished making their presentations. Keeping this in mind, it’s only the one broker making the final presentation who can possibly walk out of the presentation with a signed listing agreement in hand.

If you’ve done a good job during your listing presentation, and the owner thinks that you’re at least at the same level as all of the other brokers who have made their presentations, the momentum and desire to get started that’s building within the owner can have them just want to sign a listing with someone and get moving. With you being the broker in front of them right now, representing an opportunity to immediately accomplish this, this could now segue into becoming a much bigger opportunity for you. But if you’re one of the brokers who had made their presentation earlier, there would be no way that you could be capitalizing on this.

Now on the other hand with the more corporate real estate decision makers, you could be subjected to a lot more politics. The final decision may be made by a committee days or weeks after the final listing presentation has been made; the listing broker may have already been chosen through internal company politics before any of the brokers have ever made their listing presentations; or the decision maker may list the property with the brokerage company that their boss has already recommended to them. In the latter situation, if the property is still on the market one year later, the decision maker will feel much better in knowing that their boss was the one who recommended the brokerage company, whenever they’re having discussions about the property with each other.

When you’re the broker making the final listing presentation to an entrepreneurial property owner, this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll end up getting the listing. But it helps you maximize the probability that you’ll get the listing whenever you’ve already made your presentation, and you’re still in the running for it. 

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Mastering How to Persuade Your Clients and Prospects

During my upcoming teleconference on Wednesday, October 12th, we’ll get into great detail on how to persuade your clients and prospects and get them to take immediate action. Persuading your clients and prospects makes the difference between you being chosen for an exclusive listing or tenant rep assignment, or one of your competitors being chosen instead. In addition, persuasion makes the difference between your client just sitting on the fence, or getting them to take immediate action.

Persuasion isn’t about pushing your clients and prospects into doing what you want them to do. It’s about having them feel that they naturally want to do what you want them to do. And there’s a BIG difference between the two of these.

If you want to learn how to effectively persuade your clients and get them to take immediate action, and you want me to send you the audio CDs, written transcription, written highlights, and the MP3 recording from both this teleconference and my November one, all for just $19.95, click here.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"Within 7 weeks after beginning my work with Jim I landed new business worth over $500,000.00 in commissions to me!"

Mike Giuliano
Lee & Asociates

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Dan wrote the book to unquestionably brand himself as a top real estate authority within his own marketplace. As in any marketplace, there are brokers in his territory wanting to be perceived as a top authority, but Dan seized the opportunity and took a bold step to set himself apart from everyone else.

"I had three main objectives in writing the book", Dan says. "Number one, I wanted to endear my clients to me. I involved them in the development process of the book and exposed them to the wealth creation concepts in it that they weren’t getting directly from any other source. Many of my clients provided me with valuable feedback on the earlier drafts of my book, and my first objective has largely now been accomplished.

Second, I found that many times I was arguing with my clients when I’d see them getting off track from making the decisions that were the best ones for them. So in the book I compiled the ‘golden rules of investing’, and now when a client fights me on something that is clearly in their own best interest, I refer them to those golden rules, which then usually solves the problem. The book itself is an authoritative instrument on the subject, and a broker arguing with them is not!

Third, I wanted to generate more business with this creative marketing idea. Since I’ve just released the book, this aspect of my plan is currently a work in progress, because I really want to finish the audio version of the book before I begin marketing the book full out to my prospects. But the early feedback I’ve gotten from people on the book has been very positive!"

Then when I asked Dan to elaborate further on this last statement, he said, "When someone learns that I’ve written a book, a ‘real’ book, they’re both surprised and then they want me to tell them more about it. In addition, they treat me with more respect. My clients and prospects are very complimentary and admire what I’ve accomplished. However, once they actually read the book, they turn into raving fans and tell all their friends about it!"

For most brokers, writing a book alone would be a great accomplishment, but as I mentioned earlier, Dan also invented a card game that teaches people the principles of building wealth. The game is called "Net Worth, The FUN Money Game", and here’s what Dan has to say about it:

"The game teaches people the value of becoming debt free and collecting assets like investment real estate. Players shed their debt, collect assets, and use financial events to prevent other players from doing the same. As the game’s name implies, the player with the highest net worth at the end of the game wins.

While I was writing the book, I thought that it would be nice to be able to teach some of its wealth strategies in a tangible, fun way. But I had two big challenges to overcome while I was creating the game. First of all, it had to be fun to play. Secondly, it had to have a tie-in to my commercial real estate brokerage business. Eventually, both challenges were solved.

The game is another tangible reminder that I am not your average broker. When clients get their hands on both the game and the book their jaws tend to drop. In fact, most are so curious about the game that they interrupt our meeting and want to play it! Then after a few hands we return back to the real estate business that we need to talk about.

I’ve been giving each client and prospect I meet with a single card game for themselves, but inevitably they like the game so much that they ask me for more of them, and on the average, I end up giving away three card games per client. This is something I didn’t anticipate when I created the game, and the game has really become a huge conversation piece!

The game is really a blast to play. It’s probably best been described as ‘Uno meets Monopoly, with a dash of financial planning’".

So there you have it. One broker’s quest to stand out from and beat his competitors has him writing a book about becoming rich, and inventing a card game on the subject also. In times like these, the subject of becoming rich really gets people’s attention, too, because so many people’s financial statements aren’t what they used to be.

Click here if you’d like to download Dan’s book, or if you’d like to read more about his book and his card game.

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The latest edition of my Commercial Broker Newsletter is now ready for you to mail or E-mail to all of your clients and prospects. If youre not currently sending a monthly newsletter to all of your clients and prospects, youre missing out on a huge opportunity to brand yourself and keep you in peoples minds every month throughout the year! If youre interested in more information on how you can send this newsletter to your clients and prospects, click here.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"Just one marketing idea Jim gave me produced $14,500,000.00 in new listings for me. His coaching program really works!"

Mark Groves
BRC Advisors

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Whenever you’re negotiating, never give a concession unless you get a concession in return for it.

This is a very important concept for brokers to understand. When negotiating, one of the biggest mistakes brokers make is caving in to other people’s demands. This is oftentimes done when being asked to reduce one’s commission.

Here’s an example of this:

Property Owner:

"I know we’ve agreed to a 6% commission on this transaction, but the buyer’s now making additional demands on me. Will you accept a 4% commission now instead?"

Broker:

"Well, if it will help us to close this transaction, then yes."

That’s not a good response for the broker to have made, and a better response would have been, "John, I work hard for my commission, and what you’re asking me to do isn’t reasonable. The difference between 4% and 6% is 50% of the money you agreed to pay me, and that just won’t work for me. But here’s what we may be able to do. If you agree in writing that the next building you’re going to sell you’ll list with me, we can close this transaction for 5%. You’ll be paying commission to brokers on the sale of your next building anyway, so just list it with me. You’ll be saving on the commission in this one transaction right now, and you’ll be paying the same amount of commission you normally would be paying on your next transaction, too."

John may not agree with exactly what you’re asking for here, but it now starts the ball rolling in the direction of negotiating with him to give you more than the 4% he’s just offered you.

Successful business people, especially the ones who are entrepreneurs, like negotiating with people. In addition, they’ll respect you more as a business person when you engage in negotiating along with them, instead of just caving in to their demands. This is one reason why negotiations can fail in a transaction when one principal caves in to all of the demands of the other person. For people who love negotiating, the game that they love isn’t being played by the other principal when the principal just caves in to them, and this alone can cause someone to walk away from a transaction. If one principal keeps giving in to the demands of the other principal, the principal making the demands can lose respect for the other principal, and begin feeling that there must really be something wrong with the property…because the owner is willing to give away so much in the negotiations so easily.

So recognize that when you’re negotiating, both for yourself as a broker and for your clients, the way that you negotiate can greatly impact both you and the people you’re representing. Your effectiveness at negotiating is an important component in determining whether you and the people you represent get what the best potential outcome is for all of you…or not. So remember, "Whenever you’re negotiating, never give a concession unless you get a concession in return for it."

There’s a game being played and a kind of a dance that’s going on when you’re negotiating, and how you participate with your own negotiating style will have a big impact on both you and everyone else who’s involved in the negotiations.

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The latest edition of my Commercial Broker Newsletter is now ready for you to mail or E-mail to all of your clients and prospects. If you’re not currently sending a monthly newsletter to all of your clients and prospects, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to brand yourself and keep you in people’s minds every month throughout the year! If you’re interested in more information on how you can send this newsletter to your clients and prospects, click here.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"After just 4 weeks of working with Jim, my team has developed more new business than we have in the past 6 months."

Mica Berg
Colliers International

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

In this day and age, it’s so rare to find salespeople who convey a sense of caring towards the customer, and when a customer really feels this from the salesperson, it can really go a long way towards having the customer want to work with them. So as long as you’re in the running to get the listing, scheduling a meeting like this ahead of time with your owner can help to create this feeling within them, and set you apart as the one broker who really cares about making a difference.

When scheduling the meeting with them you could say something like, "It’s important that I understand in great detail everything about your property, and what’s important for you to accomplish in having me market it for you. So what I’d like to do is schedule a meeting with you ahead of my listing presentation to go over this, so that I deliver for you exactly what you’re looking for."

During this meeting it will be helpful if you can tour the property along with the owner at the exact same time, or tour the property along with them for at least a portion of the meeting. Have a list of questions prepared to ask the owner about the property, as well as questions about what’s important for the owner to accomplish in their upcoming transaction. You might also want to ask them a question similar to, "What are the important questions that you want me to answer during my listing presentation? As I want to make sure that I answer all of these these questions for you."

So many brokers deliver the exact same listing presentation to their owners over and over, while changing primarily just the address of the property and its features when making their presentation. With this in mind, you want to make sure that you’re addressing what the prospect wants from you, instead of assuming that it’s already contained within your presentation.

Some questions you could also ask the owner include:

1) How will you determine the broker you’ll be listing your property with?

2) How will the broker you’ll list your property with differentiate himself (or herself) from the competition?

3) Is there anything specific that you want me to make sure to include for you within my listing presentation package?

4) What’s important for you to make sure you accomplish in closing this upcoming real estate transaction?

The fact that you’re meeting with the owner ahead of time, because you feel it’s important to make sure you’re taking care of their needs, can really set you apart from your competitors. So many competitors would never do this, and it can feel great to the prospect when they’re treated with this kind of special attention. In addition, if you’re going to arrange a meeting like this one ahead of time, the closer you schedule the meeting to the actual date of your listing presentation, the better it’s going to be for you. This will have the experience remain fresh within the mind of the owner when you’re finally making your listing presentation, which will compound the effect.

Anytime you show your clients and prospects that you care about them, it will help you to beat your competitors for the business. It’s just so rare for any salesperson to communicate this kind of care to their clients and prospects, but when they do, their clients and prospects will begin lining up to do business with them.

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WEDNESDAY: Receive a 29-Page Presentation on Effectively
Utilizing Social Media in Commercial Real Estate! 

This Wednesday, May 18th, I’ll be interviewing the one broker who many believe is the best at utilizing online social media in our industry. At the most recent SIOR Conference, brokers were buzzing in talking about how much they’d like to emulate this broker in this arena.  

In addition to telling you how to build successful relationships, power network, and get referrals in your commercial brokerage business, when you’re registered for this teleconference my guest will be giving you a PDF file of his 29-slide presentation titled, "Social Networking for the Commercial Real Estate Professional." This presentation tells you the five important goals you’ll want to accomplish with online social media, the seven tools you’ll definitely want to be utilizing within this arena, and the one most important tool to be utilizing…(And it’s not Facebook or LinkedIn!)  

So if you’re not already registered for this live teleconference, click here for more information. And even if you register but can’t attend the live teleconference, I’ll still send you the audio CDs, written transcription, and highlights from my interview with this expert, all in the mail to you! 

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"My work with Jim has helped me to fine tune and systematize my marketing program, and produce more leads for my business with far greater ease."

Ian Bertolina
Bertolina Commercial Real Estate Services

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

And at the same time, there are some things you can say or do to get your prospects to move forward and take action when they’re sitting on the fence, or when they’re not 100% certain that they’re ready to move forward right now. This is why, when you want to move people forward in these situations, it can be helpful to utilize the "Yes Set" in your sales presentations. The Yes Set is a way to structure your language to maximize the probability that your prospect will say "yes" to the final money question you’ll be asking them. With the Yes Set, you build a series of sequential "yes" answers from your prospect so that when you ask them the final question to get them to move forward, they’re more likely to answer "yes" to that question because of the momentum you’ve already created within them.

As an example of this, let’s say you’ve done a good job of building rapport with your prospect and you’re making a listing presentation to them. At the end of your presentation, as you’re building momentum towards asking them to sign the listing agreement, you could say something similar to the following to them:

"Mr. Stevenson, what we’re trying to accomplish here together is finding the best way to market your property so that you get the maximum price for it…correct?" ("Yes.")

"And you’ve decided that you want to sell your property right now for the maximum price you can get for it…correct?" ("Yes.")

"I’ve just shown you my 15-point marketing program, the program I’ve utilized to successfully sell properties in our area for many years now, and I’ve told you how I’ll utilize this program to successfully sell your property right now also…yes?" ("Yes")

"And we both agree that putting your property on the market right now, and doing everything that will get you the best price imaginable for it, is what you want to do…correct?" ("Yes.")

"So in putting all of this together, we’re now saying that you’re ready for me to move forward and market your property for you right now, uncover every stone imaginable to find you the absolute best buyer for your property, and obtain a price for you that you’ll be absolutely thrilled with…yes?"

When you build momentum like this with your prospect giving you a number of "yes" answers before you ask them the final question, you increase the probability that they’ll answer "yes" to the final question also. But this assumes, of course, that they like you, that they liked your listing presentation, and that you’re someone they’d consider listing their property with.

How you structure and utilize language in commercial real estate brokerage is an extremely important component of your success. And if you’re interested in learning how great salespeople powerfully utilize language to close more business with their clients and prospects, read the book "Unlimited Selling Power: How to Master Hypnotic Selling Skills", by Donald Moine and Kenneth Lloyd.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, I have programs available where we’ll have coaching calls twice a month, three times a month, or every week. And you’ll get access to listen to my monthly teleconferences where I interview top commercial brokers, telling you their secrets about what has them produce such outstanding results in their brokerage businesses every year. And you’ll receive the audio CDs, written transcriptions, and highlights of all of these teleconferences sent to you in the mail, too. So if you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"Working with Jim has increased my productivity to a higher level. As the top agent of my firm for the last eight years I was at a point where I thought I had hit a ceiling. With Jim’s help I found that I am only just beginning and am now experiencing my most successful year ever! I can attribute a lot of my success to Jim and his ability to keep me focused on success combined with the tools that he has to get me there."

Scott Caswell
Delphi Business Properties

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients. 

In addition to the 80/20 rule, I believe more than 80% of the growth of your brokerage business will come from focusing on the following four areas:

1) Prospecting
2) Mailing
3) Improving Your Presentation Skills
4) Building Relationships

Prospecting

Prospecting is both the easiest and fastest way to build your real estate business. The main problem here is that most commercial agents, both new agents and veterans, keep making excuses about why they can’t get their prospecting done. If you just prospected 10-12 hours every week of the year you’d be immersed in so much solid activity, that you’d stop making those kind of excuses altogether. You’d just be making more money for yourself, plain and simple. The key, though, is continuing on with your prospecting when you get busy with solid new activity, because this is when most brokers stop doing their prospecting.

When you prospect every week year-round you make more money, you upgrade the quality of client you’re working with, and you upgrade the average commission you earn per transaction. This is because you’re constantly focused on finding new and better leads, and you let go of the more marginal leads you used to be working on.

Mailing

Mailing is definitely the most underutilized tool in commercial real estate brokerage. And when you mail to your clients and prospects two or more times every month, you brand yourself in their minds as the agent they’ll want to work with. The problem, though, is that most commercial brokers won’t spend any money on a regular mailing campaign.

A solid mailing program will make you a lot more money in new commissions when compared with what you’re spending on the mailing program. This definitely applies if you’re mailing to your clients and prospects two or more times every month, as your clients and prospects will constantly have you on their minds when you’re mailing to them with this kind of frequency.

One very successful broker who I’ve interviewed, who’s a member of both SIOR and CCIM, told me that his brokerage income quadrupled when he began his solid mailing campaign to his clients and prospects, and he now spends more than $100,000.00 a year on marketing. This is how much of a difference mailing can make to you in your brokerage business, if you’re willing to seize the opportunity.

In addition, solid, targeted E-mailing can be a great way to develop new business for yourself also, but you need to be utilizing the right system to make it all happen for you. With this in mind I recommend the people at http://www.mindmatrix.net, as they have this solid system already in place, and they have a number of additional products and services that you may find very useful as a commercial broker, too.

Improving Your Presentation Skills

Improving one’s presentation skills is one of the most overlooked areas in commercial real estate brokerage. If you normally close 40% of your prospects on working with you exclusively, and you improve this percentage to 50% through improving your presentation skills, you’ve just increased your income by 25%. (The 10% improvement divided by the original 40% closing ratio represents a 25% improvement…and 25% more money in your pocket.)

Find someone to deliver your "exclusive" presentation to and videotape it. Then after watching the video you’ll recognize that you’ve learned a great deal from it. Notice the areas you’d like to improve on, implement your improvements, and videotape yourself again in three months. When you continue doing this on a regular basis you’ll find your clients and prospects saying "Yes" to you more frequently, which translates into more money for you.

Building Relationships

So many commercial agents neglect the clients they’ve already closed transactions with. And this often continues for weeks, months, and even years after closing a transaction with them. In the mean time your competitors keep calling these people and positioning themselves to work with them the next time they have a real estate requirement.

If after 10-20 years in the business you’ve closed transactions with 200 different people (or companies), and on the average these people continue closing one transaction every five years, that’s 40 transactions you could be involved in closing every year just off of the repeat business from these people. But this only applies if you build relationships with them and position yourself as their "broker for life" throughout the years along the way.

Stay in contact with these people, ask them how you can help them even when you don’t think they’re looking to close a real estate transaction right now, take them to lunch constantly, and give them gifts 2-4 times a year. And in doing this it makes it very hard for your clients to ever think about working with anyone else.

All the success you’ve ever wanted to achieve as a commercial real estate broker is constantly available to you. And if you just focus on these four arenas and do what I’ve recommended, you’ll experience solid growth in your commercial brokerage business in the months and years ahead.  

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If you want to plan next year so you achieve solid success in your commercial brokerage business, join me for my upcoming teleconference titled, "Planning Your Commercial Real Estate Excellence for 2011." I’ll be interviewing a top commercial broker who’s closed more than $2.5 billion in commercial real estate transactions, and I’ll send the audio CDs, written transcription, and highlights of the teleconference all in the mail to you. Click here for more information on this teleconference, and to learn how you can obtain all of this information.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"After just weeks of working with Jim I’m getting much more done now with far greater ease, and he has my agents completely on fire and much more passionate about their business!"

Mike Spears, SIOR
The National Realty Group

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

The Holidays are a great time for you to reconnect with your clients–the people you’ve already closed transactions with over the years. And one of the reasons I’m writing this article at this exact time, is to give you plenty of time to buy Holiday gifts for your clients and get the gifts into their hands, especially if this is something you normally haven’t done.

Giving gifts to your clients is a great way to show them how you feel about them, and show your appreciation for the business they’ve already brought to you. But at the same time, a lot of commercial brokers don’t understand how much gift-giving can lead to constant, repeat business for them over the years. Which is why I’m including the following dollars and cents analysis in this article.

Let’s say that you have a client who closes one transaction every five years, and you earn approximately $10,000.00 in commission every time you close a transaction with them. And let’s say that you give them gifts twice a year, for a total of $100.00 that you spend every year on gifts for them.

So when you’re giving gifts twice a year to your past clients, this represents tremendous insurance towards having them work with you again on their next transaction. It’s simply too difficult for most people to receive two gifts a year from someone they’ve done business with, and then turn around and do business with their competitors instead. Yes, there are people like that out there, but they’re definitely in the minority.

So in getting back to our example, if you spend $100.00 a year on gifts for your client for five years, and then you earn and get paid a $10,000.00 commission when closing their next real estate transaction along with them, that’s a solid rate of return on your money. Anytime you can spend $500.00, having it lead to you getting paid $10,000.00…is a solid return on your money.

All of this assumes, of course, that you continue treating your clients appropriately along the way, and that you continue being the solid commercial real estate professional they’d still want to work with.

(And yes, I know. There’s still the problem of you parting with the $500.00 and buying the gifts!!!)

Now compare what I’ve described here with what many commercial brokers do instead, which is close a transaction with someone, drop out all communication with them for 1-2 years or more…figuring they won’t have any real estate needs during that time, and then they find out that they’re competing all over again with all the brokers in their territory to represent the client again on their next transaction. All because the broker never did what would have solidified their relationship with the client, and position them to close more transactions with the client again in the future.

So you have a choice this Holiday Season, and you can now choose to do things differently. If you recognize the value in giving gifts to your clients, then go out and make it happen during this Holiday Season. You’ll feel great, your clients will feel great when receiving the gifts from you, and you’ll be building the bond that will help ensure you’ll be representing your clients again on their next transaction.

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If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, click here to contact me.

"We own a commercial brokerage company, a real estate development company, and a property management company. With Jim’s help we’ve now substantially reduced our overhead, and have implemented a marketing approach that’s bringing us more quality transactions than we ever would have imagined."

Jeffrey Weitz & Matt Schweitzer
North Rim Partners

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.