[This article was written for Apto, a commercial real estate tech company.]
Is it customer service? Deep market knowledge? Transactional expertise?
According to a National Real Estate Investor (NREI) survey, it comes down to one question: Can you close the deal?
No surprise there. That quality was ranked “extremely important” by more clients than any of five other factors in the survey.
“Execution in this industry is key,” said a 12-year commercial real estate broker in Colorado in a recent best practices study.
But what else?
Clients’ other top two priorities, according to the NREI fall survey, were access to markets and quality deals. Combined, these two factors could be boiled down to “access to opportunities”—which is in fact what showed up near the top of a “What do Clients Want” list compiled by leading industry coach and consultant, Rod Santomassimo, in an article last spring.
“Savvy clients … expect that you will track the market, identify the hottest deal and bring it to them,” he wrote in a post for The Broker List blog.
The other three broker qualities that clients were asked to rate in the NREI survey were a broker’s track record, relationships and familiarity with the client, and access to services.
A broker’s track record came in as the most important of the three in clients’ eyes. A client’s familiarity or relationship with a client was next—somewhat surprisingly coming in fifth of the six qualities ranked. Access to services was rated last.
The survey shows that clients are pretty unsentimental when it comes to what they want in a commercial real estate broker: they need someone who can supply the goods.
How to deliver what they want
To deliver those opportunities and eventually close those deals, even new brokers know they have to start with a strong grasp of their markets.
“Understanding market niches is very important in this industry, whether good or bad,” said a one-year commercial real estate broker interviewed for the best practices study.
Market knowledge comes when brokers acquire and trade in the real currency of commercial real estate: useful information.
“People like to talk about what is happening around them in the market,” said another broker interviewed for the study. “It’s conversations like these that allow me to strategically learn bits of information to create value with clients to help create a solution for the problem they are trying to solve.”
Just take the call
Luckily, clients’ wants aren’t always so challenging to meet. Believe it or not, just answering your phone can put you ahead of your competition, according to Santomassimo. He said in his post that clients often complain they can’t even get their brokers to take their calls.
“You’d be surprised how many of your competitors fail to show their clients this simple courtesy, and how much opportunity it creates for you to find new, loyal customers,” he wrote.
Now you know!