How many 'Secret Agents' do you know that work in commercial real estate? Regrettably I know quite a few.
These are the agents and the salespeople that think their career and business should be a 'secret' in the market place.
They become the best kept 'secret' in the office.
These 'Secret Agents' simply come to work and wait for the telephone to ring.
Their prospecting processes are non-existent or at 'low contact' levels.
They think that intelligence or knowledge in the industry is all that you need.
Well commercial real estate is not like the FBI or the CIA; you should not be the local 'Secret Agent' if you want to survive and then thrive.
Generating business in commercial real estate is a fundamental factor in the industry and your only path to success.
The 'Secret Agents' in the industry make very little money and are an exercise in personal 'crash and burn'.
Perhaps they are happy for awhile or until they run out of money; sometimes they survive a bit longer and live off the salary of their partner.
Unfortunately it all eventually comes home to 'roost'.
The 'Secret Agents' of the industry are those that undertake 'low contact' prospecting generated from adverts in the paper and sending generic mail with no follow-up.
Do you know a few of these people? They will keep waiting for that 'big deal' that's just around the corner, hoping that the economy will get better next week.
They read every news headline and absorb every bit of negative 'rubbish' that the media put out.
In markets like this you cannot be a 'Secret Agent'.
You have to become the best self promoter of yourself in every respect possible.
Knowledge, negotiation skills, market awareness, an extensive database of contacts, attention to detail, and communication skills, are just a few of the key skills that you should be refining and strengthening right now every day.
You have to construct a filter to prevent the media from influencing or entering your thinking; at the end of day, the media thrives and grows on negative 'spin'.
So what really is self promotion? I like to call it your graduation with an 'MBA in Commercial Real Estate'.
By 'MBA' we mean 'Massive Brand Awareness'.
Your personal brand or 'MBA' has to be promoted every day by high contact personal prospecting directly to a lot of people.
High contact prospecting is personally putting your name before many targeted people each day and personally following them up in an ongoing contact cycle.
It is interesting to consider just how many people you should contact every day.
The best people earning the best commission would make 50 calls a day via the telephone to new prospects and existing prospects.
In commercial real estate this is relatively easy given that you largely deal with the business community.
The businesses and the business leaders in your area can be sourced from the telephone book in a regular and consistent way.
The more people you talk to, the better your business will be.
You will also generate a lot of appointments which eventually lead to more listings and commissions.
As your telephone dialogue becomes more professional, you will convert more calls to meetings with the relevant people that need your services.
Even in this market, the opportunities available to you will be in both selling commercial real estate and leasing commercial real estate.
Versatility and knowledge will help you in this regard.
As we move out of the economic downturn you will find that different property segments will move faster and quicker.
Note that industrial property is the first market segment to respond as businesses become stronger and gain confidence.
In the meantime you can concentrate on office and retail property that may also have some more momentum based on the supply and demand of space in your market.
Regular consistent high contact prospecting is one of the most neglected and avoided parts of the commercial real estate salespersons skills.
This is simply because the average salesperson attaches a lot of personal pain to the process; given that the average person wants to avoid pain, they will simply avoid the prospecting activities that they should be undertaking.
They will use every excuse possible to avoid the daily prospecting that should be undertaken.
So take an 'aspirin' and absorb some mental prospecting pain to become the best known real estate agent in your area.