Category: CRE Brokerage

Are you looking for a change? Do you want to be your own boss? Have you been thinking about opening your own real estate brokerage or property management business? You may want to do a little investigating to learn about franchising opportunities that are available today in the commercial real estate industry.

Franchising can offer a real estate entrepreneur the freedom to go out on their own and create a whole new strategic, business model. Franchising can provide stability — partnering with a franchisor vs going out on your own. Franchising can offer support — leveraging a national, recognizable brand in the market. Franchising can offer opportunity – if you are looking for new ways to achieve growth in your business.

Here are the Top 10 Reasons why a CRE broker or property manager may want to consider a franchise opportunity with Sperry Van Ness International Corporation:

Business Ownership: Franchising with SVN is one of the best ways to broaden your reach, enhance your productivity, and be in control of your own success.

Deal Flow: Our national platform connects you with 1,200 advisors and staff in more than 200 markets with over $8 billion in deal flow.

Tools: SVN’s proprietary system of leading-edge CRE tech tools¹ and online resources give you a competitive edge in your market.

Culture: Our unique culture is built on our Core Covenants, emphasizing collaboration, accountability, responsibility, and transparency to create a positive work environment for our team.

Speed: An award-winning marketing system² and tools provide accelerated speed to market for your listings for shortened sales cycles and expedited closings.

National Brand Recognition: Combine the 8th Most Recognized Name in Commercial Real Estate³ with your outstanding local reputation. Gain major brand alignment to compete for listings at a national level.

Training, Mentoring & Recruiting: Valuable and unique resources, including our expert CRE webinars, our effective onboarding program, and the SVN System for Growth^TM, along with recruiting assistance and peer coaching groups, all make up the SVN Difference.

Cloud-Based Platform: Connects you to your business from any device, from any location, letting you leave your desk behind.

Trust: SVNIC is committed to sharing our fees and compensation with the entire brokerage community.

Minimal Transition Time: Get your firm up and running in no time. This includes our SVN System for Growth™ and onboarding tools as well, as one-on-one assistance from our Transition Specialist.

To learn more about Franchising Opportunities at Sperry Van Ness International Corporation please contact Karen Hurd, Vice President of National Franchise Sales and Development at Sperry Van Ness International Corporation at karen.hurd@svn.com or 781.812.4272

1 SVNIC was awarded with the 2003 Realcomm Digie Award for “Innovative Technology.”
2 SVNIC was awarded with the 2011 Realcomm Digie Award for “Best Use of Automation.”
3 SVNIC was named the 8th Most Recognized Brand in Commercial Real Estate, according to the Lipsey 2014 Commercial Real Estate Brand Survey.

Our business doesn’t always seem like an easy one. After all, we deal with extremely valuable assets or with complicated legal arrangement that can last for years. Those of us who are in property management are responsible for countless parts of a building’s operations and for managing scores of relationships.

You’d probably think that the most important question in the commercial real estate industry is like the Accounting oral test question in Back to School – one question – with 27 parts. In actuality, the two best questions in a savvy commercial real estate broker’s arsenal contain just five words – and that covers both of them.

Why

For a single, simple word, why is amazingly powerful. When you’re a new to the business advisor, you can use it to keep a prospect talking while you’re figuring out what to say next. The most senior brokers in the industry, on the other hand, use it to gain deeper insights. Just about any response from a client can be met with “why,” and, in just about every case, “why” will get you closer to the information you need to help a client take the appropriate actions to achieve his or her investment goals. Here are some examples:

• I bought this asset to hold it long-term…. Why?
• I manage this asset myself… Why?
• It might be time to 1031 to a new property… Why?
• I usually like short-term leases… Why?

As long as the answer to the question isn’t completely obvious, why is one of the most powerful questions that you can ask. It can also be a good follow up and, with the addition of a few words here and there, can even be used a few of times in a row

I manage this asset myself.

Why?

Because property managers are too expensive and don’t do a very good job.

Why do you say that?

I’ve worked with three different ones and that’s been my experience.

What if You Don’t ….

“What if you don’t…”  is extremely powerful because it strips away artifice and leaves true motivation behind. How many times have you had a client tell you that he was going to sell a building and then turn out not to do a transaction? To avoid this problem, consider asking “What if you don’t sell your building?” Sometimes, the client will tell you that she is fine holding onto it. In other cases, she’ll tell you that she has no other option or that the other options are too unattractive to stop her from selling.

Some commercial real estate brokers are scared to ask a client about not taking action. However, just as it’s almost impossible to talk a client into doing something that she doesn’t really want to do; it’s equally hard to talk her out of doing something that fits her strategy. In either case, what you really want to do is to find out the truth of what the client actually will do so that you can begin making plans to help her.

What questions have helped you land more business? Have we missed any? Let us know below in the “comments” section.

Truly exemplary commercial real estate brokers can be sales or leasing brokers specializing in everything from parcels of raw land to CBD office buildings. While their businesses might be different, they all share common business practices. They also avoid making these five fundamental mistakes.

Letting the Hopper Empty

When you get busy with commercial real estate deals, it can be easy to let the work you have to do on them distract you from the crucial business development activity that will keep you busy for the future. Exemplary brokers are very aware of this and always make time to build their pipelines. Whether they are cold calling, keeping up relationships or tending to a lead generating team or system, leading brokers always have new opportunities filling their sales hoppers so that they can continue earning and growing.

Ceding Their Knowledge Advantage

While brokerage is a relationship business, exemplary brokers know that the relationships turn into transactions based on information. Knowledge solidifies ties to clients, makes pricing more accurate and enables brokers to find the right spaces for their tenants (or to set the right rents for their landlords).

The best commercial real estate brokers have a knowledge advantage because they are truly experts in their markets. Along with this advantage, though, comes with the realization that they can’t know everything. This means that when they get an opportunity outside of their comfort zone, they don’t make the mistake of working it by themselves. Instead, they bring in another expert to give them and their client the knowledge they need to successfully consummate the deal.

Avoiding Tough Conversations

The best commercial real estate brokers don’t shy away from tough conversations and situations. They aren’t afraid to ask tough questions of clients as a part of assessing that client’s desire to do a transaction and as a part of figuring out what the client really needs. At the same time, they also don’t hide behind emails or assistants when a problem comes up. Instead, exemplary brokers get on the phone or get in their cars and work the situation out with their clients.

Going it Alone

Successful brokers know what their time is worth. With this knowledge, they build teams that allow lower-cost people to do their lower-value work, freeing them up to do more of what they do best. This approach may cost these leaders a little bit of money, but it gives them the time to make a whole lot more of it.

Failing to Engage

Finally, leaders in our industry are who they are because they are leaders. What this means is that they don’t make the mistake of just doing their jobs and servicing their clients and prospects. Instead, they are fully engaged with the commercial real estate industry, with their companies and with their communities. Having these ties isn’t only the right thing to do. It’s also the smart thing to do, since it puts them in position for referrals and increases their credibility and visibility, making it easier to develop new business.

The following are a few words about important ratios from our new Vice President of Organizational Development, Solomon Poretsky.

If you’re looking to grow your commercial real estate brokerage practice, the old adage that it’s better to work smart than work hard holds true. Before simply making more calls, take some time to look at your business and see where you’re strong and where you can improve. Focusing your efforts on improvement lets you win more deals without doing any more work. Here are three of the key ratios to analyze as you plan your strategy:

Contacts to Meetings
To calculate the contact to meeting ratio, add up all of the unique people you talk to on a prospecting call, and divide it by the number of meetings you book. If you talk to 30 people and book 5 meetings, your ratio is 6. Booking 2 meetings out of 40 conversations, on the other hand, works out to a 20 to one ratio. While the ratio can vary, most mid-range agents that are focused on booking meetings with qualified prospects fall between 5 and 7 contacts to book a meeting.

A lower ratio might indicate that you are extremely skilled on the phone. A higher ratio could indicate that your approaches are less effective. It could also show that you’re over-qualifying on the phone. Remember that it’s always better to meet a prospective client than not to meet her.

Proposals to Listings
Whether you’re looking to sell apartment buildings or become a landlord rep for office building owners, presenting the proposal is where the rubber meets the road in commercial real estate. Doing too few proposals means that you’re missing out on opportunities to move a relationship forward with a prospect that could turn into a client down the line. On the other hand, if you’re doing double-digits worth of proposals to get an engagement, something could be wrong. Generally, a mid-range agent will need between three and five proposals to get hired by a client.

Closed Listing Ratio
For some agents in some markets and property types, it’s possible to close 100 percent of listings. However, an occasional expiration is a fact of life, especially if you’re out there fighting to get maximum value for your commercial real estate clients. Taking listings that expire might get your name out there and might give you ammunition to contact more prospects, but they can do more harm than good. Not only do you end up spinning your wheels on deals that don’t sell, but you also build a brand for yourself as an agent that can’t do what he says. Keeping your closed listing ratio between 75 and 85 percent is a good guideline, and higher is better.

Calculating – and tracking – your ratios will let you see how you progress in your commercial real estate business. If you have a method for improving your effectiveness – or a ratio that you find useful – let us know below in the comments section.

Authored by Solomon Poretsky, Vice President of Organizational Development for Sperry Van Ness International Corporation.

*All Sperry Van Ness offices are independently owned and operated.