YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS IN COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
Commercial real estate is a career with limitless potential and endless opportunities to create long lasting wealth. Your first 90 days are the most critical for you to build your foundation that will allow you to find success.
FINDING YOUR BROKERAGE FIRM- There are many types of firms for you to consider, there are large national firms, local boutique firms, full service firms, landlord, investment firms. Before you pick a firm you need to be aware of what type of firm will best suite your needs, do you want to be part of a team like most national firms will require you too be or do you want a firm that allows you to be on your own but provides sufficient education, mentoring and all the tools you will need ie: costar, loopnet, CRM, cold call lists.
Once you have chosen the firm you need to know which asset class you would like to pursue, you need to do your due diligence and find which asset class brings you the most passion, if you cannot decide then start by talking to the other agents in the office. The trainer/mentor that is assigned to you will also be able to give some good guidance, once you have met the person that will be mentoring/training you want to set clear guidelines of what they expect from you but you also need to be very clear what you want from them as well, communicating a clear and concise plan is your best step to finding results in a shorter time frame.
SETTING UP FOR SUCCESS- Once your company gives you access to all the tools that you will have at your disposal, learn how to use them very efficiently and effectively. If there is a tool that you are struggling with be sure to ask questions or see if the company will allow you a one on one tutorial with a representative of the company. When you have access to your contact management system (CRM) be sure to take the time to fill it our properly and be as detailed as possible, the more information you have in the beginning the better off you will be. The CRM will be your life blood going forward, every contact you make, every email or phone number is something that just adds value to your system, know who is in your system with every detail, sphere of influence, potential clients, agents from other companies. When you are detailed it will make utilizing the system throughout your career much easier to utilize ie: say you want to send an email to all agents in your system, if you set it up right it will take you a few seconds to send an email to that group. Here’s a video I did on utilizing a CRM (Video). The CRM becomes a very valuable tool throughout your career.
BE THE SMARTEST IN YOUR MARKET- To become a top tier performer in CRE you must know your market and your asset class in that market inside and out, properties currently on the market, properties recently leased/sold, price per foot, time on market, concessions….. knowing your market will create opportunities for you when you are networking, marketing and cold calling.
PREPARING YOUR MARKETING-If you are going to a firm that will allow you to market yourself on social media you will want to set up each site very thoroughly, make sure everyone will know what you do and
how you do it and make it as easy as possible for them to contact you. Here’s an informative video I did on setting up your linkedin profile (Video) . A content creation calendar will help you stay on top of posting ideas and timing, you should start posting at least 2–3 times per week when starting, since you are new it’s always a good idea to mix content creation along with just documenting your day ie: take a photo while you are showing or previewing properties. A good place to get free photos for content creation is unsplash.com or pexels.com.
COLD CALLING IS YOUR FRIEND- Cold calling was something I found to be frustrating in the beginning, that is until I found the right script. Here’s some scripts we put together for you (Scripts). The Company/Mentor will give you guidance on the number of calls they want to you be hitting on a daily basis Here’s a couple videos for you on cold calling (Video) and (Video). I actually never focused on the total number of calls, I focused on the number of connections daily but your company/mentor will communicate how they want you to handle the call volume The important thing for you is to analyze your calls everyday and try new pitches until you find the one that works best for you.
DAILY STRUCTURE IS YOUR SUPERPOWER-I learned this one over time and I now realize how much faster my career would have taken off if I had any kind of structure in place. The daily routine that you create now will set you on your path to success. When setting your day up you need to create enough time for your cold calls, warm calls, following up on contracts/escrows, marketing, following up on emails, and be sure to create some time at the end of the day to analyze your productivity, not just on your calls but on your social networks as well, remember, what gets measured gets managed. . The structure will help you keep distractions to a minimum, every distraction takes valuable time away from your daily productivity. Here’s a sample schedule…adjust for your market and asset class.
8:30 AM Prep for call-and post on digital marketing, follow up on emails that came in.
9:00-Cold Calls
11:00-Warm Calls (Sphere of influence-old contacts)
Noon-Lunch
1 PM-Follow up Calls
1:30 PM Cold Calls
3:30 PM Warm Calls (Sphere of influence-old contacts)
4:45 PM Follow up on emails, return calls.
5:15 PM Check your daily analytics to monitor your productivity, create content for tomorrows post
PREP FOR TOMORROW
VETTING YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENTS- To a new real estate agent your time is your most valuable asset, you want to protect it as much as possible. D.A.M.M. your clients, find out if they have the Desire, Ability, Means, Motivation. I find that many new agents are afraid to ask a potential tenant or investor if
they have proof of funds or if they are ready to make the investment if you find them a property fairly quickly, these are two points you want to be clear of right out of the gate.
BECOME A BLOGGER- With the launch of Chatgpt there is no reason to not be creating a blog at least 1–2 times per month, it your company will not allow you to have your own website you can post on Medium or another great one is on linkedin, find where it says write an article and post away.
ASK FOR REVIEWS- When asking for reviews be sure to include your name, post on google, facebook page if you have one, yelp, company website. If you haven’t previously worked in the CRE industry you can still get reviews, simply ask them to create a post about the experience they had working with you. I recommend to send the link directly to your contact so they don’t have to search, make it as easy as possible for them to do this for you.
BLOCK PROGRAM (FOR RETAIL AGENTS) walking a 3 block distance (depending on size of your blocks) in your market that you have chosen- create a leave behind that brings value to your market, walk the 3 blocks and go into each retail location and introduce yourself to the person in charge (owner/manager) and give them your leave behind and try to get their email/contact info (add them to your CRM). The next 60 days you need to go back to the same few blocks (every two weeks) so they get to know you (you are building a relationship), you will gain their trust and with that they will keep you up to date on what is happening in their immediate area, after several weeks you will have information that is valuable to the owners of the building in the community that other agents will not know so you can bring great value when you call and begin to build that relationship (add them to your CRM). Expand your block program an additional three blocks every quarter.
CANVASSING PROGRAM (FOR OFFICE AGENTS). Similar to the block program, you should canvass the area you are working and try to go into every office. Ask questions on if the space is working for them, when their lease expires, etc.… put the information in your CRM. Give them a market update leave behind.
EMAIL PROGRAM
Create groups to email to. This will allow you to focus the content to specific groups so you can add value, as you don’t want to just send emails that someone has no interest in since they will likely unsubscribe. Be sure that the information going to each group is pertinent to what they are focused on. Ie: your sphere of influence may not have much interest on what is happening in your block program-customize the information to the group
BRING VALUE
Follow Up With Every Potential Client- it takes a lot of time and money to get a client so be sure you maintain the relationships. Contact them regularly (at least every 60–90 days)
Check your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) often-check your analytics on your marketing and see what marketing is working best for you and focus on that type of content creation.
We have many videos regarding commercial real estate on my YouTube channel YouTube or you can reach out directly joe@joekillinger.co
