When you work in commercial real estate for the first time, one of the most frustrating issues at the start of your career is in not having regular clients and customers to talk to or work with. Developing a customer mindset is quite hard when you don’t have any customers on your books.
Every salesperson in the industry should strive to achieve their own customer list. This takes considerable time and effort, although the process should commence as soon as possible when you join the real estate agent email list industry. Commercial real estate is a people based profession. When you know lots of people, you can identify and convert more opportunities.
So how do you start your customer list? The matter is quite simple, although you will need to systemize your day. Here are some rules to the process:
- Contacting prospects and potential customers is a daily process that should occur every working day. It is up to you as to how this time requirement fits in your diary. You will require approximately two or three hours for customer and prospect interaction every day.
- Define your target market geographically so you know where the listings and new business will come from. The best way to do this is through the use of a simple road map or street directory. As a general rule, your territory should be manageable to a level of approximately 2000 or 3000 properties. Given that you work in commercial real estate, the property types can be varied. You will need to decide and define the types of properties that you will be working with. That could be Office property, Industrial property, or Retail property. You will also need to decide whether you will be specialising in sales, leasing, or property management. It is not unusual to cover a number of these issues providing you have the experience.
- The process of making regular contact with your prospects and clients will require some types of information that are of interest are the people that you talk to. You could do this through an online Email newsletter. The newsletter can talk about recent local property activity, prices, rentals, and business activity. The newsletter helps you establish yourself as the local area expert.
- Within your target property area, there will be certain properties and property owners that are of high value to your future in the industry. Identifying these groups will be of benefit, however most real estate agents will be chasing the same people and properties. On that basis you need to be different and unique in a positive way so that the people you talk to take notice.
So these factors are the foundations of building your customer or prospect list. Providing you are consistent and diligent in the process, your list will come together quickly and grow with great benefit. Soon you will be seeing new business opportunities spinning from your customer list.
