Tips for Speed Up Your CRE Sales Cycle
In Commercial Real Estate (CRE), nothing is more important than closing deals as fast as possible. For landlords, the prospect of long vacancy periods is daunting. For agents and brokers, everything hinges on the deal to close.
Sales cycles of CRE deals involve a lot of market research, hunting for leads, and constant monitoring of every stage of the deal until it closes. With so many moving parts and due diligence, speeding up that process is always a coveted goal. So how do you close CRE deals faster? Here are some ways to help speed up the cycle.
Read more:
- The Do’s and Don’ts of Commercial Real Estate
- How Technology is Disrupting the Real Estate Industry
- Employees’ New Needs Are Changing The Traditional Office
Automate Your Process
While the CRE deal cycle involves many stages, some of these steps are repetitive. These tasks might be critical to operations but can take time and resources that could be better spent on other aspects of the deal. Finding ways to automate different parts of your operations can help speed up the sales cycle and also expand it to tackle many more leads.
An efficient way to start automating your process is by using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms. CRMs can help you manage many routine tasks in your pipeline such as nurturing leads, checking up on the status of your open deals, and documenting different stages in the process. CRM platforms can also help you streamline invoices, contracts, and other aspects of the deal, saving a lot of time on the back-and-forth with clients and leads.
Identify the Decision Maker
This rule is essential in every business deal, but especially in commercial real estate deals. With landlords, tenants, and buyers alike, identifying who is the decision maker is crucial for speeding up the close. The best case scenario would be if the decision maker is an active part of the deal engagement, and you can understand their needs and interests and pitch directly to them.
Often, the people you first engage with are not actually the decision makers but are simply there to report the information back. If this is the case, it is advised to do your research on the decision maker even in his or her absence, so that you can adjust and customize your sales pitch accordingly.
Nurture Leads That Aren’t Ready
Sometimes, the need to close deals as fast as possible can lead to a short-sided, short-term strategy of prioritizing the immediate, confident leads over everything else. In real estate industry, your network is everything. Nurturing leads that aren’t ready, but could potentially materialize in the future, can save you a lot of time in the long run.
However, it is important to know how to identify leads that are not ready and leads that are. A good strategy to go about this can be creating two separate lists of cold leads and warm leads and tailoring a different marketing pipeline for each of them. This way, you can always adjust your strategy to your business’s needs – nurturing the cold leads whenever you can but still prioritizing the warm ones.
Make Every Meeting Count
Cultivating a network is indeed an inherent part of the real estate industry. Therefore, a big part of the job of a commercial real estate broker is to “schmooze” with industry professionals, schedule background meetings, and stay involved with the local real estate community. On the flip side of that, you could easily fall into the trap of having too many meetings that don’t lead to anything and spending excessive time and energy on leads that will never materialize, slowing down your sales process.
To avoid that, a good strategy involves making sure you are intentional and goal-oriented about every professional interaction, from a client meeting to an industry happy hour.
To take it a step further, it is a good idea to document every meeting, call, or professional conversation and write down the goals of this professional relationship. In the sales cycle itself, it is helpful to break down every open question and missing peice that keeps the process from moving forward to make sure you are utilizing your and your client’s time efficiently and effectively.
Innovate Your Business
Technology is changing the way we do business in every industry and sector. Utilizing technology to your benefit will not only give you a competitive edge but can also directly speed up your sales cycle.
Technological innovation starts with the basics – streamlining your marketing process with automated tools, using advanced commercial real estate software and utilizing it for cultivating an effective network, and using online marketplaces for real estate as your arena of work, rather than competing with them.
However, technology can do a lot more for your business. Innovative Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology can completely transform the way you do showings.
Investing in high-quality video equipment can make your marketing stand out over your competitors. Working with new Fintech platforms can make financial due diligence and processes faster and more accessible.
Speeding up your CRE sales cycle does not just come down to your leads pipeline and your customer engagement. It is about refining your pitch and helping your clients see the full potential of every commercial property so that they can make faster, more informed decisions. With qbiq’s planning technology, you can transform your marketing process, helping your clients envision every space at the earliest stages of the deal.
With advanced AI-driven planning and optimization technology, qbiq can help you generate optimized, customized test fits for every space, along with 3D virtual tours, in just a few minutes. With these strong technological tools in hand, you can bring every property to life, helping your clients to imagine how it will work for them.
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