Telemarketing Principals of Commercial Real Estate Today

The ‘pitch and process’ model doesn’t always work in the process of commercial real estate telemarketing. The model is used by agents who deliver timed sales pitch and inquiries over the phone. Truly, not everyone likes to respond to such agents. For this reason, modification of the rules of cold calling is important to foster effectiveness. Rather than irritate prospective clients over the phone, agents should learn to ‘connect’ with the clients.

Prospecting calls are significant for every commercial sale’s people and agent. There is no specific place for initiating prospecting calls. Commercial sales’ people are important because they create a good rapport with target customers. Also, they have the best answers to clients’ inquiries and queries.

The basic targets of telemarketing and cold calling in commercial property sales and leasing are:

1. Determining if the target client nurses an interest in property management, commercial property sales, or leasing.
2. Creating a face-to-face meeting with interested prospects.

These targets clearly indicate that an agent should not meet people who lack interest. Thus, the foundation of prospecting calls should be a connection or conversation instead of a presentation or sales’ pitch. The end result of the call should be an appointment based on the client’s need. As a time management principle, an agent should only meet ‘interested’ or ‘active’ clients.

Therefore, commercial real estate telemarketing should center on conversations and questions. From conversations, an agent can classify prospects depending on certain criteria. Hence, arranging a meeting with the client is easy.

Some rules of thumb for prospecting scripts include:

1. Since a client wants to be involved in a conversation, the agent should ask realistic and sensible questions which are property related. Until the commercial property agent is able to establish a rapport with the client, the client may withhold some information. Therefore, a pushy sales’ person will not achieve this feat. Simply put, professional sales’ people can create good connections with clients.
2. The application of a simple survey questioning process in prospect calls or cold calls is important. The call should not be selfish. The establishment of a good rapport starts with the right questions. Since the reason for the call is to identify potential property needs, a meeting is set up until the client understands a genuine interest.
3. A good agent must introduce their profile and business. However, the agent must allow the prospect to be in charge for most parts of the conversation. A simple script is good for starters but the conversation should have a natural flow towards the end of the conversation. The target should be about 20 seconds in total. More so, the characteristic of a good conversation is being able to extract good information and produce results.
4. Even when the prospect is willing to continue the discussion, an agent should show gratitude for the time spent. There are several other clients that will give the agent the needed attention.

The calling and prospecting process is an important skill. By adopting the discipline in the process, progress is possible within two to three weeks of prospecting.