In the realm of commercial real estate the terms 'sales' and 'marketing' tend to be synonymous. However, the goals of sales and marketing are very different: Marketing is used to drive demand of large numbers of prospects while Sales has the job of converting those opportunities.
In this blog post, we will define sales and marketing and explain why commercial real estate agents are primarily sales professionals, not marketing professionals.
Sales: Closing Deals and Generating Revenue
Sales is the process of persuading clients or customers to make a purchase or take a desired action. In commercial real estate, this translates to closing deals on properties or facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers. Here's why commercial real estate agents are fundamentally sales professionals:
Relationship Building: Sales professionals excel at building and maintaining strong relationships with clients, investors, and stakeholders. These connections are essential for facilitating transactions and closing deals.
Negotiation Skills: Negotiation is a central element of sales. Commercial real estate transactions often involve intricate negotiations, where agents negotiate favorable terms and conditions for their clients.
Property Knowledge: Sales agents must possess in-depth knowledge of properties in their market. This includes understanding property values, market trends, and potential investment opportunities, which are pivotal in closing deals.
Transaction Management: Efficiently managing the transaction process is a key responsibility of sales professionals. This includes coordinating inspections, due diligence, and paperwork to ensure a smooth closing.
Closing Deals: Ultimately, the primary goal of sales professionals in commercial real estate is to close deals and generate revenue for their clients and themselves.
Marketing: Creating Awareness and Attracting Leads
Marketing encompasses strategies and activities aimed at creating awareness, generating interest, and attracting potential clients or customers in the well-defined Target Audience segment (which should always be identified).
Marketing is perhaps the most overlooked activity in commercial real estate — most properties are sold via the MLS or other online brokerage websites which are passive tools. Good marketing attracts prospects and leads, but is not the core role of commercial real estate agents. Here's why:
Marketing Strategy: Generating prospects for a property in a methodical manner is a C-Suite-level skill — just think of the benefits of being able to generate interest and leads for your property. Marketers understand how to drive demand in a proactive way.
Branding: While branding is a part of marketing, commercial real estate agents are primarily focused on building relationships and closing deals. Every commercial real estate property may not be a "brand," but the process of communicating a property's uniqueness within the market is a brand-oriented activity — every property needs a story that relates to its Target Audience.
Content Creation: Marketing efforts like content creation, such as blog posts and social media updates, may be a part of an agent's strategy, but these activities are primarily aimed at supporting sales efforts by showcasing expertise and property listings. A strong Content strategy will drive demand for a property while simultaneously making its way to the right prospects (deployment).
Online Presence: While an online presence is important, its primary purpose for commercial real estate agents is to provide a platform for showcasing properties and expertise to potential clients, not for generating leads in the traditional marketing sense. Astute Marketers know how to generate demand — similar to turning on a faucet when water is needed.
The Synergy Between Sales and Marketing:
In a perfect world, Marketing creates qualified demand in the form of prospects. This not only increases the number of prospects for a property, but those prospects are higher quality prospects because the messaging and message delivery targeted the right audience — the right message, to the right audience, at the right time.
With this improvement in lead quality, Sales can be even more effective, providing better service to a more pre-qualified audience. Want to learn more about Sales and Marketing in CRE? Click the video below.
Have a property you need to sell or located a tenant for? Get in touch with us here.
To your success,
Jason Huett
Collaborative Commercial, LLC.
CEO | CMO