How to Constantly Get Your Commercial Real Estate Prospecting Done

By Jim Gillespie | March 5, 2014

"I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts."

Orson Welles

This quote by the great Orson Welles speaks volumes about how difficult it can be for us to break our old habits, and one of these habits for commercial brokers is oftentimes not getting their prospecting done.

Do you find that you’re a broker who’s not getting as much prospecting done as you feel you should be? If so I’d be willing to bet that you haven’t set aside the exact same days and times every single week in your calendar for getting your prospecting done. Once you’ve done this and you know, for example, that every single Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., you’re going to be on the phone and getting your prospecting done, you’ll get your prospecting done much more effectively.

There are a lot of brokers out there who don’t have a predetermined schedule for getting their prospecting done, and they end up prospecting when they have the time. This then oftentimes causes these brokers to get their prospecting done intermittently, and both their production and the amount of gross commissions they’ll be earning will then suffer.

Do you think if you got more prospecting done in your brokerage business, that you’d make more money? If so, schedule your prospecting time in advance for the exact same hours and days every single week, schedule all of your other appointments around these times, and hold your prospecting time sacred. When you do this consistently you’ll be getting more prospecting done, you’ll find more high-quality leads and close more transactions, and you’ll make more money.

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During my upcoming teleconference on "Power Prospecting", I’ll be interviewing a broker who’s been named as the CoStar "Power Broker of the Year" in his territory every single year for the past ten years. To learn more about this teleconference and the special bonuses I’ll be giving away, click here.

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Click here to learn about my Commercial Real Estate Newsletter that you can mail or E-mail to your clients and prospects every month.

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We can transform your commercial brokerage business and get you making more money by doing one-on-one coaching work together. If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to take your commercial brokerage business to the next level, click here and contact me.

"My work with Jim has definitely taken my commercial brokerage business to the next level. The marketing system I’ve implemented keeps my phone constantly ringing with more transactions!"

Mike Borski
CoStar Power Broker
Yardley, Pennsylvania

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Topics: Prospecting, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How to Constantly Generate More Commercial Real Estate Prospects

By Jim Gillespie | February 19, 2014

So many commercial real estate brokers want to generate more leads for themselves. Keeping this in mind, the easiest way I know of to generate a constant stream of solid new leads is by doing the following two activities:

1) Prospect 10-12 hours every week

2) Send mailers to your clients and prospects twice every month

If you just do these two activities you’ll be swimming in a constant stream of solid new leads within your brokerage business.

Commercial brokers usually rely on prospecting to develop more new leads for themselves, but then they oftentimes don’t get their prospecting done. This then leads to their lead generation system going into limbo, and it almost guarantees generating a hole in their commission pipeline somewhere down the road.

The most prolific marketers in commercial real estate brokerage mail to their clients and prospects every single month. This then brands them in the minds of the people they want to do business with, and it gets your prospects calling you, instead of you needing to call them. So right around the time they recognize that they need to talk to a commercial real estate broker, another one of your mailers comes right across their desk with your phone number on it, and they pick up the phone and call YOU.

In addition, when you’re not getting your prospecting done, your mailers are still going out to your people, branding you in their minds and bringing in more new business for you.

As an example of this, during my January teleconference I interviewed a top-producing broker who’s a member of both SIOR and CCIM. He mails constantly to all of his clients and prospects, he closes $45 million a year in transaction volume, and he now says that he doesn’t have the time to prospect anymore because his phone is constantly ringing with great new business activity…all coming in from his mailers.

Wouldn’t you like to be in this exact same situation?

When you both prospect AND mail to your people twice every month on a regular basis, your commercial real estate brokerage business will explode.

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Click here to learn about my Commercial Real Estate Newsletter that you can mail or E-mail to your clients and prospects every month.

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"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 & Associates

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Topics: Marketing, Prospecting, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How One Idea Made $425,000.00 for a Commercial Real Estate Broker

By Jim Gillespie | January 21, 2014

When you decide to move forward and begin working with a commercial real estate coach, make sure it’s someone who has good intuition. Good intuition can lead to lots of money for you, and it differentiates the great coaches from all of the other "just average" ones. Keeping this in mind, one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from commercial brokers who’ve come to me for coaching, after they’ve worked with another coach is, "I could tell that my coach was just reading from a list of questions."

You don’t ever want to be working with someone like that, as I’ve never, ever prepared a pre-set list of questions to ask my coaching clients, and I never will. The great results I’ve produced with my coaching clients comes from more than 35 years of experience within our industry, and from having a solid sense of intuition.

With this in mind, here’s how good intuition led to one broker getting paid $425,000.00 on just one transaction…

Neil Dailey, who works for McGraw Commercial Properties in Tulsa, Oklahoma, came to me with a lead he had uncovered for a $30 million transaction. He was excited, but he also knew that he would be up against some pretty stiff competition from all of the other brokers in his territory, in trying to represent this company exclusively. Neil is a very successful commercial real estate broker, but he knew that he didn’t have a resume showing a lot of transactions in this size range to present to this company. So Neil then asked me to help him in rewriting his resume, so that he could present the transactions he had closed with more "sizzle".

Then while we were working together on the resume, this flash of intuition then came to me. "Neil", I said, "Do you know of a broker in your market who’s closed a good number of these kinds of transactions, who you could partner-up with and go after this opportunity with together?" Neil thought for a moment and then realized that he knew just the perfect person for this, a broker who was both a good guy that he’d already closed transactions with, and someone he also knew that he could trust.

Neil then approached the broker, generically described the opportunity to him, and the broker then confirmed with Neil that he wasn’t working on any leads that matched this one. So Neil and the broker then teamed up, pursued the opportunity together, and just this past December Neil then received a commission check for $425,000.00, representing his company’s end of the transaction.

This all came together from good intuition, and from Neil being open-minded and willing to try something that he’d never done before.

These opportunities for closing big transactions are always right in front of you. You just need to recognize them, or be working along with someone who can show them to you.

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"In my years of working with Jim, I’ve found his coaching to be outstanding towards helping me to maximize my income as a broker. Just one "out-of-the-box" idea he gave me landed me a $425,000.00 commission!"

Neil Dailey
McGraw Commercial Properties
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Have You Prepared Your Commercial Real Estate Business Plan for 2014?

By Jim Gillespie | January 7, 2014

This is the week when people begin really making the transition back into the real world. This is the first full work week after the Holiday Season, and the brand new year is now fully upon us.

So have you set your goals and a game plan that will have you accomplish those goals for the year? If not, you’re risking getting into the new year totally flying by the seat of your pants, and you’re risking feeling busy but being unproductive during the year.

With this in mind, here are some simple guidelines for designing a basic business plan for the year, and if you’ve already designed a business plan, these guidelines will help to serve as a check on the business plan that you’ve already designed.

1) Set your income goal for the year.

2) Design your business plan, describing specifically what you believe you need to do to accomplish your income goal for the year.

For example, how much prospecting do you need to be doing every single week? How often should you be mailing to all of the clients and prospects that you want to be working with during the year? How many face-to-face appointments and/or presentations should you be scheduling every week? How many lunches should you be taking with your clients and prospects every month? How many gifts should you be sending to your clients during the year, to solidify your relationship with them and help to ensure that you’ll be representing them again on their next transaction?

Also include any additional activities that you believe you need to be doing throughout the year, in order to achieve your income goal.

3) Set an alarm to alert you once every month within your contact management program, to tell you it’s time to now check in and make sure that you’ve been working your business plan.

When brokers design a business plan and then they don’t hit their income goal for the year, it’s usually not because the business plan wouldn’t have worked. It’s usually because the broker got off track from working their business plan during the year.

When you check in with yourself once a month, this helps to ensure that you’re working your business plan, and it helps to ensure that you’ll end up hitting your income goal for the year.

So if you haven’t yet designed a business plan for the new year, you can design one by utilizing the guidelines I’ve mentioned.

Keeping this in mind, it’s much easier to arrive at your desired destination, when you’re always following the directions that you know will get you there.

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"My work with Jim has helped my team, my company, and my development business to perform at substantially higher levels."

D. Alex Rhoten
Coldwell Banker Commercial

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Topics: Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How Will 3D Printing Change Commercial Real Estate?

By Jim Gillespie | November 20, 2013

If you haven’t followed the subject of 3D printing yet, it’s probably about time that you began taking a look at it. Imagine "printing" 3D objects that you can utilize every day in your life…objects that you would normally either buy in a store or order for yourself online.

This subject is one that is much, much easier to grasp once you see a demonstration of it, which I’m going to provide for you right now. Click here and take a look at this video, and you’ll see many of the potential uses for 3D printing within our lives.

Once you’ve watched the video, ask yourself the following question: "How could this potentially impact the use of, the location of, the size of, and the demand for manufacturing, distribution, and retail space?"

In addition to this, take a look at this wonderful, heartwarming video. Leon McCarthy was born without fingers on his left hand. His father downloaded the plans to "3D print" a prosthetic hand for Leon, and you’ll see the joy that this hand has now brought into Leon’s life. After purchasing the 3D printer for $2,000.00, the material to print the prosthetic hand cost only about $10.00, as compared with paying tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a prosthetic hand through the normal channels.

Click here to see the video.

So how will all of this impact commercial real estate when 3D printing becomes mainstream?

That chapter is certainly one that’s still left to be written.

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"Jim has me much more focused on doing the activities that generate new listings for me, in addition to doing the activities that have me sell those listings."

Chris Sands
KW Commercial

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Here’s a Great Book I Recommend On Commercial Real Estate Brokerage!

By Jim Gillespie | November 6, 2013

If you’re a veteran in commercial real estate brokerage, you know what it’s like to work within our industry. There is great opportunity to make some serious money, but you’re going to encounter some people who will be totally ruthless along the way.

Sam Foster of Jones Lang LaSalle has written a book that our industry has been buzzing about for years now. The book is titled, "Alpha Male", and when you read it you’ll understand that Sam knows exactly what it’s like to be one of us. The highs, the lows, the ruthless personalities we’ve all experienced…and the one broker who will stop at nothing to get everything they want.

In the past Sam has had lots of people coming up to him, insisting that they know the real brokers who the characters in his book are based upon, but whenever these brokers approach Sam and begin naming names, he’ll usually just smile a wry smile and say something like, "No…it’s just fiction."

Do yourself a favor and read this book. When you do so you’ll recognize that there’s someone out there who really understands exactly what you’re going through every single day in your brokerage business.

Sam is one of the top brokers within our industry, and he deeply understands this.

But here’s one warning…the book has times when there is steamy, sexual content within it. So if you’re someone who may be offended by this…I’m letting you know in advance.

Click here and take a look at what the reviewers have had to say about Sam’s book. There aren’t many books on Amazon that carry a genuine 5-star rating, and this book is one of them.

Every single broker I’ve ever known who has read this book has greatly enjoyed it!

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"Jim has helped me to implement a marketing plan that’s really getting my phone to ring with solid listing opportunities."

David Almeida
Northeast Private Client Group

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Make Sure You’re Not Being “Set Up” By Your Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Clients and Prospects

By Jim Gillespie | October 22, 2013

Years ago I was pursuing a listing on a building and I was teaming up with two other brokers in my office in going after it. We drove about 30 minutes away from our office to make our presentation, and in the time just before and after our presentation we saw the two teams of brokers who were competing against us.

While we were driving back to the office from our presentation, I realized that I already knew who the perfect buyer was for this property. So once I returned to the office I called the prospect, we then met at the building, and after touring the building he then told me that he wanted to buy it.

So later on in the day, about 2-3 hours after we had made our listing presentation, I called the owner and then had the following conversation with him:

"Hi Jeff. This is Jim Gillespie. When we were driving back to our office after our listing presentation I realized that I already have the perfect buyer for your property. So I’ve now shown him the building and he’s ready to now move forward and buy it."

"Jim that’s fine, but we’ve already promised the listing to another brokerage company."

"But Jeff, you haven’t signed the listing yet, have you?"

"No, Jim, but we’ve already promised them the listing. So any offer you submit to us will need to go through them."

I immediately recognized what was happening. The owners had already decided on the brokerage company that they would be listing their property with before any of the three brokerage companies had made their listing presentations. Me and my team had just been set up, and we were being utilized as one more brokerage team to help the owners do their due diligence…so they’d have three listing presentation packages in their hands that would now serve as a record to anyone showing that they’d interviewed three different brokerage companies.

You don’t ever want to be caught in a position like this one as a commercial real estate broker. We ended up making the deal and successfully selling the building to my buyer, but we ended up splitting the commission with the brokerage company that the owners had been promising the listing to all along.

In order to avoid being stuck in these kinds of situations in the future, ask your owners the following kinds of questions whenever you’re pursuing a listing with them:

1) Are we the only company that you plan on speaking with about listing your property?

2) If you like what you see and hear from us during our listing presentation, will you be moving forward and listing your property with us?

3) As of right now, are we the one brokerage company that you believe will be listing your property, and then moving forward and selling it for you?

Whenever you ask these kinds of questions, look for any incongruence whenever the person is responding back to you. If they hesitate, stumble, or seem uncomfortable whenever they’re answering these questions for you, this could be an indication that you’ve got some very stiff, yet veiled competition when moving forward and trying to land the listing.

So once you get any kind of a hint of this, you’ll want to ask the owner more detailed questions to determine whether or not they have a solid relationship with another brokerage company already in place, and whether or not you’ll even want to move forward in trying to land this listing.

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"Jim Gillespie has both the knowledge and the expertise to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level. If you’re considering working with a coach, I recommend that you hire him."

Robert Ringer
Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Legend
Author of the N.Y. Times #1 Best-Selling Book Ever Written
On Commercial Real Estate Brokerage,
"Winning Through Intimidation"

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

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Here’s a Solid Example of a Good Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Company Web Site

By Jim Gillespie | October 9, 2013

Sometimes I’m asked by people to show them an example of a good commercial real estate brokerage company Web site. Normally whenever I’m asked this question, it’s by people who are either principals or brokers within a small-to-midsize commercial real estate brokerage company, and in keeping this in mind, there’s one commercial real estate brokerage company’s Web site that I want to show to you.

That company is Investment Realty Company of San Antonio, Texas, and here is the link to their Web site.

Click on the links that you’ll see on their Web site, and take a look at what they’ve written on those Web pages about their company, the San Antonio area, and the brokers who work for their company. Everything is presented in a very professional manner, including the entire look, feel, text, graphics, and the colors that are utilized within the site.

In addition, take a look at their Blog, and make sure that you take a look at some examples of the Raub Report, which is published by Stephen A. Raub, the President of the company. The Raub Report is linked to directly from the Blog itself, and you can click here to read the August edition of it.

Both of these publications, The Raub Blog and the Raub Report, do a tremendous job of keeping commercial real estate principals informed about the trends that are going on within the San Antonio market. This is how you can become a consultant or an advisor within your prospects’ minds, making them already interested in working with you long before they ever have their next real estate requirement.

So many brokers are just doing their prospecting without building up any kind of image within the minds of the people they want to do business with…between their prospecting calls to them. When you’ve fallen into this category, you’ve given your prospects no compelling reason to work with you over all of your competitors once the prospect recognizes that they now have a commercial real estate requirement. So you’re left with "selling yourself" to the prospect at the last minute, instead of the prospect already believing that you’re already their leading candidate.

In addition, Stephen Raub mails out the Raub Report to his clients and prospects on a monthly basis, and I’m on his mailing list. It’s this ongoing mailing that’s had me continually thinking about his firm, knowing that if I have a lead for a commercial real estate transaction in San Antonio, that he’s the guy I’m calling, and it’s also what had me take an even closer look at his Web site and write this article.

So if you’re looking for some ideas on how to design your own commercial real estate brokerage company Web site, this Web site is one that you can definitely learn from!

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"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.

Topics: Marketing, Persuasion | No Comments »

What to Say When An Owner Wants You to Reduce Your Commercial Real Estate Commission

By Jim Gillespie | September 25, 2013

See if you’ve ever experienced this one…You’re getting closer to successfully negotiating a sale transaction, the buyer and the seller are getting closer together on the price, but then they begin to reach an impasse…and they’re still thousands of dollars apart on the price. Then your seller turns to you and asks you to reduce your commission so that everyone can now move forward and close the deal.

There are, unfortunately, a lot of brokers out there who will just cave-in in these situations, feeling a sense of panic in wanting to do whatever it takes to just close the transaction, and get paid a commission.

Don’t be one of those brokers!

Here’s something you can say to your owners in these situations:

"I’m willing to reduce my commission in the exact same percentage that you’ll be doing when accepting the buyer’s price. The buyer is offering you just 5% less than your asking price, which is the best price that any buyer has been willing to pay in this market. When you accept this price you’re receiving just 5% less than the asking price, and as a result, my commission has already been reduced by a full five per cent, too. Therefore, we’re both reducing the amount of money we’ll be receiving by 5%…which is fair and reasonable to both of us."

If your owner then persists in still trying to get you to reduce your commission, here is a reframe that you can then utilize:

"When you agreed to have me begin marketing your property for you, we agreed that a 5% commission would be fair and reasonable. Now we’ve procured a buyer who is offering you the highest price that we’ve seen, and you’re offering to reduce your asking price by 5%. But you want me to reduce my commission by a full 40%. Please explain to me why this is fair and reasonable."

What you want to accomplish with this reframe is getting the owner to recognize that they’re just being greedy in what they’re asking you to do. Many people in this situation, even though they may definitely be greedy, won’t want it to become so obvious to you. Then again, there will be owners who don’t care if it’s obvious to you that they’re being greedy…they just want your money.

If they still insist on you reducing your commission further, continue to focus on the vast difference between the 5% reduction they’ll be receiving from their asking price, and the 40% reduction that they want you to take in your commission. In doing so, because of the huge disparity between these two percentages, you’ll maximize the probability that you’ll be successfully closing the transaction, and walking away with a greater amount of commission in your pocket.

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"With Jim’s coaching I landed $1.7 million in new business in my first eight weeks!"

Mark Whitman
Dorin Realty

Click here to see more testimonials from my coaching clients.

Topics: Persuasion | No Comments »

Own the Greatest-Selling Book Ever Written on Commercial Real Estate Brokerage!

By Jim Gillespie | August 28, 2013

For many of us who have been in the commercial real estate brokerage industry for more than 30 years, we cut our eyeteeth on Robert Ringer’s legendary book, Winning Through Intimidation. This isn’t just the greatest-selling book ever written about commercial real estate brokerage, it’s ranked on the New York Times Bestseller List as one of the 15 greatest-selling motivational books of all time.

But now, through a special arrangement with my friend and the author of the book, Robert Ringer, you can get Winning Through Intimidation for free. All Robert wants in exchange for this is that you to sign up for his free E-newsletter, where he publishes his mind-expanding updates on important subjects like excellence, motivation, and what he observes that’s going on in the world.

Robert knows what it takes to be outstanding in commercial real estate brokerage. He became so successful in our business that he purchased his own private jet, and began flying his clients and prospects around in it.

When you read this book, so much of it will resonate deeply inside of you. You’ll learn that every single client you’ll ever do business with will make a move to grab your commission, if they can see the opportunity to do so. You’ll also learn how every one of your clients will fall into one of three different categories within this arena, and you’ll learn how to identify which specific category your individual clients will fall into.

Most importantly, you’ll learn how to always protect your commission, so you won’t get burned again.

Don’t let the title of this book fool you. This isn’t about Winning Through Intimidation by knocking people down and running them over. It’s about creating an image and a style of doing business that draws more people towards you, having them really want to do business with you.

It’s also about protecting yourself so you never get burned by your clients and prospects again.

Robert Ringer has influenced millions of people, and he’s appeared on television shows like The Tonight Show, Today, Good Morning America, ABC Nightline, Fox News, and The Charlie Rose Show. If you want to take your commercial real estate brokerage business to the next level, you owe it to yourself to read Robert’s book. All you have to do is sign up for Robert’s free E-newsletter, which you can unsubscribe from at any time, and then you’ll be able to download your own copy of his book.

To move forward and download your own copy of Robert Ringer’s book, Winning Through Intimidation, click here.

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"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.

Topics: Marketing, Persuasion | No Comments »

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How to Constantly Get Your Commercial Real Estate Prospecting Done

How to Constantly Generate More Commercial Real Estate Prospects

How One Idea Made $425,000.00 for a Commercial Real Estate Broker

Have You Prepared Your Commercial Real Estate Business Plan for 2014?

How Will 3D Printing Change Commercial Real Estate?

Here’s a Great Book I Recommend On Commercial Real Estate Brokerage!

Make Sure You’re Not Being “Set Up” By Your Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Clients and Prospects

Here’s a Solid Example of a Good Commercial Real Estate Brokerage Company Web Site

What to Say When An Owner Wants You to Reduce Your Commercial Real Estate Commission

Own the Greatest-Selling Book Ever Written on Commercial Real Estate Brokerage!