Here are 10 vendor reporting tips that will boost results in your business.

With just a few weeks until Christmas, there’s a good chance that you are focused on wrapping up deals and clearing the decks before you take a well-deserved break.

That’s why I wanted to share a few points about vendor engagement—particularly, how to get those pending sales and leases over the line before the year ends.

In my latest podcast episode, I’m presenting 10 key principles that will elevate your vendor reporting.

This will ensure your clients have the confidence and clarity needed to make decisions swiftly.

And it will lead to faster deal closings and fewer stale listings carried over into 2025.

Here are a few highlights:

1. Regular Updates: Set a rhythm that works—like weekly or fortnightly—and stick to it. Consistency reassures vendors and keeps them engaged.
2. Clear, Concise Information: Avoid jargon, focus on relevant metrics and make sure your reports are easy to understand.
3. Leverage Technology: Dynamic reporting from CRM systems can save time and provides clients with the most up-to-date data.
4. Provide Recommendations: Don’t just report activity. Offer actionable advice, whether it's adjusting the marketing strategy or suggested pricing changes.

And a reminder—reports are not a substitute for a conversation.

After sending the report, follow up with a call to ensure your vendor understands everything and has what they need to make the right decision.

If you’d like to dive deeper into all 10 tips, check out episode 197 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Because with an enhanced approach, you’ll be able to close more deals before the year is out and start 2025 with a clean slate.

Episode transcript:

Well, we're definitely in the final stretch now, only a few weeks left in the year or a few productive weeks, given the distraction of the silly season and then of course, the lull of January.

So, in today's episode, I want to give you some ideas on how you can better engage with your vendors to get some of those pending deals that are still on your books over the line before we break for Christmas and the New Year.

Hello and welcome to episode 197 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak.

Really appreciate you joining us for another episode. We've got a really good one for you today.

And by the way, if you've missed our last episode, we had Grant Beaumont, who is the Managing Director of Beaumont Property, which includes Norwest Commercial Industrial and also Coutts, a network of five commercial real estate agency offices in Sydney.

And if you liked his story and if that perhaps is motivation for you to get in contact with us about how we can help you to grow your commercial real estate business, I'd like to invite you to visit our Instagram page, which is @cresuccess.

So, head to our profile and send me a DM and all you've got to put in the DM is the word ‘GROW’.

If you put, ‘GROW’ in the DM, that will tell me that you want to have a discussion about your business and we can take that next step.

So, if you'd like to do that, I'll put in the show notes those instructions as well so you can get in contact and we can have a chat about what's going on in your business and maybe identify two or three ways that we can unlock more growth in it faster.

In today's episode, we're talking about vendor reports.

And I was talking to a client recently about this topic because he has just on boarded a new assistant.

And we were talking about how to keep this person busy and ways that we can get them working proactively so, he doesn't have to feed this person work every single day.

And one of the things I asked is, “Well, what are you doing about vendor reporting?”

And he kind of looked at me, “Well, not much.”

And I said, “Well, there's an opportunity for you to get this person doing some things which add value to your clients and also make your life easier.”

And given his response that he wasn't doing too much with vendor reporting, I started speaking to a few of my other clients and most of them are doing something, but there is a lot of variation.

So, what I thought I would do today is give you 10 principles around vendor reporting that you can adopt to get you closer towards best practice in your business.

And I think this is timely around this time of year because we want to make sure that our vendors have all the information they need to make an informed decision about.

Hopefully signing on the dotted line and getting those contracts executed.

So those properties move to unconditional and you can get some of those listings off your books and not be carrying so many style listings into 2025.

So, without further ado, let's get into our top 10 if you like principles of vendor reporting.

And the first one is that we provide regular updates.

So, I recommend that you establish whatever is an appropriate cadence, the appropriate rhythm for you to be providing vendor reports.

It might be weekly or maybe it's fortnightly. It really does depend on the client's preferences and also the particulars of the market in which you're operating.

But once we've got that consistent rhythm, I think we can one, keep the vendor informed and engage throughout the selling or leasing process.

But two, it also sets the expectation with them on when they're going to be hearing from us again.

So, they're not wondering when am I going to get updated?

They know. Ok, Darren has committed to update me every single week on a Thursday.

So, that's when I can expect to hear more from them.

I would recommend at the moment given what's going on in the market that we are speaking to our vendors on active campaigns more than once a week.

But in terms of sending them a formal report, I think once a week or once a fortnight, if that's appropriate in your market is a good commitment to make.

Second principle, I want to give you is to provide clear and concise information.

So, reports have got to be straightforward and easy to understand.

We've got to try and avoid, I believe, industry jargon that we know and understand that perhaps not all of our clients know and understand.

Also make sure you include key metrics that are relevant for them to know about.

Like the number of enquiries, the number of inspections, how many contracts have been requested, how many offers have been received and any feedback that we've received from potential buyers or tenants?

This really helps the vendor gauge the market's response to the campaign.

Number three is to use technology.

So, another one of my clients was telling me that they've got a very manual process for creating and then submitting their vendor reports.

You can leverage technology to create more dynamic and interactive reports.

Many CRM systems and reporting tools offer real time data that can be shared via dashboards or interactive links that can automatically produce reports.

This not only saves time, but it also makes sure that the information that your vendors are receiving is up to date.

Number four is to provide context.

So, we want to regularly update the comparative market analysis that is included in these reports so that vendors know how their property is positioned in the market.

So, there can be changes in the market that are going on.

We need to make sure they're reflected in the report to adjust expectations and strategies accordingly.

Make sure we're putting any new relevant transactional evidence.

We want to talk about how the marketing campaign is performing in relative terms to other similar properties that might be on the market or that we've recently been marketing.

And we also want to make sure that any relevant market data is included in these reports.

Number five is to include recommendations or actionable insights.

So don't just report on the activity, get into the ‘so what‘.

This could include recommendations for adjusting the marketing strategy.

It might be around changes to the pricing or any improvements that you would like the vendor to commit to or give you permission to make.

Actionable advice, demonstrates your expertise. And it's also a proactive thing to do.

Number six is to tell them how it is.

Alright, we've got to be willing to deliver the bad news and I know that this is kind of inferred in some of the other principles that we've already gone through.

But I wanted to make this one in and of itself because we must be honest and transparent about what is and is not working.

If certain aspects of the property aren't appealing to buyers or tenants, then you need to explain this to the vendor and suggest feasible solutions to overcome those issues.

Number seven is around visuals and media.

So, people won't read the report if it's just a stack of data or just a long stack of text.

So, make sure we're including photos, maybe videos or at least some marketing materials that have been used during the campaign because visuals make any report that you read more engaging, it's proof of effort that you've put in and it also demonstrates the marketing quality.

So even if perhaps the number of enquiries or inspections isn't too flash, at least they can see that the quality of the marketing collaterals that have been produced for the campaign are up to or hopefully exceeding their expectations.

Number eight is that these reports are not a replacement for a verbal update.

So, I really recommend that after you send the report, you make sure that you follow up with a phone call or even set a meeting to discuss the contents of the report in detail.

This gives the vendor an opportunity to ask questions to express any thoughts or concerns or feedback that they've got.

And it creates a more collaborative relationship so that you could all agree on the way forward.

And by the way, if you've got a client that you know is not going to open up a report, then don't provide them with the report.

Provide yourself with the report and then use that as a reference for your phone calls and also bring it into meetings. That is the reference point.

The point is not to just report for reporting's sake.

The point is to give information that helps move the campaign forward and informs your vendor about what they need to know so that they can make the right decisions when you ask them to do something that you need them to decide on.

Number nine is that one size does not fit all.

And earlier, I mentioned that it might be a weekly update. It might be a fortnightly update.

And a couple of my clients mentioned that our clients just don't want to hear from us that often.

Well, not every client is the same and not every property or campaign is the same.

And that means that not every vendor report should be the same.

So, the way that I'd recommend that you get around this is to maybe have a few different templates for different types of campaigns and types of properties.

We're going to tailor the report to the needs and interests of each vendor in the market that we're in.

Some appreciate more financial data. Others might focus more on the marketing efforts and feedback from the marketplace.

So have a few different options that are ready to go so you can provide the most relevant report style for that particular scenario.

And number 10 is to show the return from vendor paid advertising.

We want to include data about the number of views and clicks that a property has achieved from listing portals that they have paid to advertise in.

When they know that they're getting bang for their buck, then they're more likely to hopefully commit more.

Well, maybe not. Hopefully it can be more because we want obviously the initial advertising to do its job.

But if it requires more spend, then we want to be able to show them that this is what we got from this.

This is what we think we can get if we invest a little bit more and they've got a proof point around what it is that they've been getting previously and what it is that an additional investment might bring to the campaign.

So that is my top 10 list of the principles of vendor reports.

Couple of other items I'd mention is I really recommend that at the start of a campaign that you have an expectation setting meeting where we get people an understanding of what it is that we can be expecting.

And on auction campaigns, we've got to make sure that we're having a meeting.

I recommend within 24 hours of the auction with the vendor to give them all the information so they can give you the right instructions on the day of the auction.

If you're a commercial real estate principal, you can remind your team about these principles of vendor reporting.

And if you're a commercial real estate agent, well, you can start adopting some of these yourself.

I hope you found that useful. That is our episode for today. Thank you so much for listening and I will speak to you soon.