How to be an indispensable partner in commercial real estate

Do you want to be unstoppable in commercial real estate?

Do you want to operate at a higher level than competitors in your market?

It’s bound to happen if you’re obsessed with the results you can achieve on every project and transaction you work on.

In commercial real estate, it is important to create measurably superior outcomes in ways that actually matter to your clients.

When you focus on your clients and the results that you can achieve for them, the success that you want for yourself will inevitably follow.

When you’re producing results, it’s also important to explain the benefits in a way that matters to clients.

Because when clients understand the value that you bring to the process, they will see you as an indispensable partner.

It will also reduce any hesitance they may have to pay premium fees for your services.

So stay focused on the client and not on yourself; it will lead to more success because clients will appreciate your service-oriented mindset and be drawn to it.

This will enable you to work with the best clients because you're the one who's seen as delivering the most value.

Episode transcript:

If you are already obsessed with the quality of your relationships with clients but you've got room for just one more obsession in your work life, then don't go anywhere, because this next 10 minutes is especially just for you.

Hello, and welcome to episode 56 of the show. My name is Darren Krakowiak.

I'm here to equip commercial real estate professionals with proven client attraction and retention systems, so they can save time, earn more, and be top performers in their market.

If this is your first time with us, welcome. And if you're a regular consumer of this content, well, thank you so much for returning.

This episode is brought to you by Re-Leased, a cloud based commercial property management platform, which centralizes portfolio data, automates workflows, and provides real time reporting for landlords and property managers.

Before we start talking about obsession, once again, because that's what we talked about last week, I do have a special gift to share with you.

And it is The 5 Ps of Commercial Real Estate Success. This is a short eBook that I wrote just before I officially launched CRE Success as a platform in April 2020.

And it's all about what I believe are the common attributes of top performers, the top 1% of earners in commercial real estate and what they're obsessed with in terms of the attributes that they display and turn up with every single day.

Because I wrote this book before I launched this platform, I think that knowledge that I'm sharing is quite fresh from my 20 years in commercial real estate.

And it's probably different to how I would have wrote it if I was going to sit down and write this now because I've been looking at things from this perspective in terms of building a commercial real estate platform to serve the industry.

But that means it's also unfiltered. So, you're going to get this uncensored view of what I believe is important as I saw it when I launched this business.

So, if you want to get your hands on that I haven't edited it since I first wrote it, it's there.

And it sort of is a bit of a memento, if you like of the way that I saw things at the time, which I think you're still relevant.

You can grab this free eBook by going to cresuccess.co/ebook and grab The 5 Ps of Commercial Real Estate Success.

One of them is professionalism, which I think is a little bit related to what we're going to talk about today.

So, last week we were talking about obsessing over your fee forecast sheet and how that's not a great idea because you're better off obsessing over the quality of the relationships that you have with people who are on your fee forecast sheet.

And assuming that you have a little bit more room for some more obsession in your life, I want to take that one step further today, and talk about the importance of obsessing with the results that you get for people once they become clients.

If you can do that, I promise you, you'll be operating at a higher level than your competitors, and you'll be unstoppable in commercial real estate.

Just as being obsessed with your fee forecast sheet is all about being obsessed with essentially commission and earnings.

Being obsessed with relationships and then obsessing over the results you can get for your clients is not making things about yourself, it's making things about your clients.

And when you focus on others and the results that you can get for them, then the success that you want for yourself will inevitably follow.

So really, the instruction from today's episode is to be laser focused on delivering results.

And in commercial real estate, there's an expression that companies I've worked for have used which is measurably superior client outcomes or results.

So, these are things which we can measure. They're not subjective. They're quantifiably superior.

And I'm going to talk to you about some ways that you can identify those and also communicate them with clients.

Because while it's one thing to get better results, if clients don't actually realize that you've achieved those results for them and how they benefit, then, yes, they will receive the benefit but if they don't know about it, then you might be perhaps underselling the importance of your role in the process.

Now, I want to also mention here that the little things do matter as well, apart from those big quantifiable results.

So, I'm not saying that you should not be obsessed with quality, I think that you should, however, be obsessed with the things that matter.

Always doing your best work, bringing 100% effort.

I can remember the first interview that I did on this podcast, season one, episode one was with Lawanna Kenny, and she talked about always doing work to the best of her ability.

And I think that's a really good attitude to have. But I want to clarify that doing work to the best of your ability doesn't mean that you're seeking perfection.

If you try and make everything perfect, then that will stop you from getting the results that really matter for your clients.

So yes, take care, always aim to deliver work to a professional, high standard. And always put your best work forward.

But make sure that you don't lose focus on what matters and the results that are really going to move the needle for your clients, and to help them see you as an indispensable partner.

So, assuming we're doing work to a very high standard, we want to also make sure that we're delivering results and that we're calculating and clearly communicating the value that we're adding.

And that means that we're explaining to clients the benefits, and why it matters.

Now, these benefits could be in terms of saving time, it could be about peace of mind.

Or it could be obviously the ones which are most quantifiable, which is about some cost saving or some additional revenue.

And I come from a tenant representation background, so I usually think in those terms, and I can recall, doing projects where I would say to a client quite excitedly, that we've reduced the annual escalation from 3.5 to 3%. Isn't that great?

And some clients, particularly those that aren't as savvy in commercial real estate would just sort of shrug their shoulders and go, "Well, big deal, how come the starting rentals the same?"

What I should have done and what I started doing once I understood this was giving them the 'so what?"

So, telling them that we've reduced the annual escalation from 3.5 to 5% over the initial lease period, that's a saving of X dollars over five years.

And if you decide to renew in this building, that's a further saving of X dollars over the renewal or the option period.

And that really puts into quantifiable terms, makes it measurable, the superior results that you've delivered for your clients, and it shows them the value that you're adding to the process.

So, make sure that you're providing evidence of your value, it could be if you're running a campaign, or listing that this digital campaign, which we asked for your marketing spend on has actually produced this number of clicks and this number of new leads that contributed to the competitive tension throughout the process.

And we've got X number of bids, for example, this number of inquiry, then typically, we would get this number of inquiry. And that was the benefit of you taking part in this marking activity.

So, it's all about helping clients understand why we're doing things and the value that you're bringing to the process, so they see you as that indispensable partner.

I can remember that I would at times present invoices to clients in the past, particularly when I was less experienced.

I would get upset responses and they would come back and they would say, "Well, why is this so much?"

And I would say, "Well, that's what the contract says."

What I should have done was conditioned the client to believe that by the time they got the invoice that they had received so much value throughout the process, that the invoice actually appeared cheap, relative to the value that had been added.

So, we want to make sure that they feel like they're ripping us off in terms of how little they've paid for or the value that we've created throughout the process as opposed to them feeling like they were tricked, or that the services that we're providing are in some way, expensive.

And of course, we do that by delivering and communicating value.

And when we do that, it means that not only will our invoices be accepted and paid without any reluctance, but also, we'll be able to maintain our premium pricing in the future because the value that's been delivered in that previous transaction or in that previous project has been so far and above the invoice that we move away from being a commodity that competes on price, and we're seeing rubber as a quality source of service which is a trusted partner.

So, the next time you deliver an amazing result, make sure you quantify it for your clients.

And if it's a really amazing results, one thing I'd encourage you to do if you have a good relationship with the client, and if it's appropriate, and if you think they're going to be open to this is to put it into a case study.

And to actually say to your client, "This is an amazing result. We're so happy with this."

And we want to demonstrate the ability for us to be able to produce this result for our other valued clients.

How would you feel about being part of a case study and getting their consent to have the transactional project featured in a case study and getting a quote from them?

Well, that's going to mean that you can leverage the great results that you've received for that client, and you're going to be equipping yourself with more tools that are going to assist you to provide service to more clients, and demonstrate the measurably superior results that you can achieve for them.

So, obsessing about the results that you can achieve for your clients, instead of the results that you can get for yourself is really a key to success.

And I just want to leave you with this idea. Can you imagine how differently that you would be showing up every day if you were obsessed with the great results that you can get for your clients, as opposed to being obsessed or focused on what's in it for you?

It's a completely different mindset. And when you're service oriented, it's going to really set you apart from the competition in our industry.

And the kicker is, is that when you are focused on the client and not focused on yourself, that is invariably when more success for you comes because clients can really perceive your service-oriented mindset and their attracted to and you'll magnetize more clients that want to work with you.

And you'll be able to work with the best clients, the cream of the crop, because you're the one who's delivering that value.

All right, I hope that helps you in some way. And that you will do something that shows that you're obsessed with the results you can get for clients and that you communicate clearly the value that you're delivering for them.

If that is helpful to you, then one thing that you can do to help me is to just write and review this podcast.

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Thank you for sticking around to the end. I will speak to you soon.