« | Home | »

Powerfully Positioning Yourself in the Minds of Your Commercial Real Estate Clients and Prospects

By Jim Gillespie | August 17, 2010

One of the biggest mistakes that I see commercial brokers making occurs when they’re sending mail and E-mail to their clients and prospects. Brokers can mistakenly think that they should be focused on sending information on properties that are currently on the market, but if this is the main focus of what they’re sending in their mail and E-mail, they’re missing out on a big opportunity.

When the mail and E-mail you’re sending to your clients and prospects focuses mainly on what properties are currently available on the market, you’re not really doing much to stand out from your competitors. Some or many of your competitors will be sending out very similar information, so why should any of your clients and prospects think that this information makes you stand out as the one broker they should be working with? In an industry where you want to be differentiating yourself from your competitors, you may be looking very similar to them if this is the kind of information you’re sending out to your people.

While sending out information about what’s currently available on the market can definitely be appropriate at times, what your clients and prospects are really looking for is a broker who tells them the market trends, where the market is headed, and important information about what’s happening in commercial real estate that they’ll want to know about. In addition, they’ll want you to be a broker who they feel confident will protect their own best interests, and a broker who projects certainty in his or her own opinions.

And you can’t transmit this image to people when you’re just mailing and E-mailing them information on which properties are currently on the market, or which properties have just leased or sold. This is because when doing so you’re simply relaying information that’s easily available to your people…something any broker in your market can do…and many brokers in your market are probably already doing this right now, too.

So you need to be different in order to position yourself in the minds of the people you want to be doing business with, before they become ready to begin working on their next real estate transaction.

And it’s definitely not easy to fully differentiate yourself during your prospecting calls either, as oftentimes prospecting calls are just for a brief, limited amount of time. But you can do a solid job of differentiating yourself through what you’re sending your people by mail and E-mail. (And if you’re interested in sending the newsletter I’ve created for commercial brokers to send to their clients and prospects every month, click here for more information on the newsletter.)

So send articles, a newsletter, and/or postcards showing people that you know the important trends and events impacting your marketplace. When you do so people will begin to feel that you really know what’s going on, and that you have the knowledge, ability, charisma, and character for them to want you to guide them all the way through the closing of their next real estate transaction.

__________________

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

"My work with Jim is making me more effective at finding new business with the kind of companies I want to work with."

Larry Crumbley, SIOR, CCIM
Fickling & Company

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.


Topics: Marketing, Persuasion, Prospecting, Uncategorized | No Comments »