Confessions of a Recovering Landlord

So what's the best way to get new business? By new, I mean new clients with whom you haven't worked before. 

In my business as a Corporate Real Estate Advisor (tenant rep), my ideal clients are companies which already lease office space in the Plano/Dallas area. Most of my competitors make tons of cold calls - especially agents new to the business. I haven't spent much time cold calling because it just seems to annoy people and reduce my chances of actually getting the business. Now it's entirely possible that I haven't done it enough to really test it properly.

Occassionally, I get business from people that have found me on the internet. That's very gratifying, of course. I spend time blogging and have ensured that keywords are included on my website. So it's good to see that it works once in a while. But I certainly can't live on the business that generates.

My main source of business has been referrals. Business networking groups, chambers of commerce, and past clients are the main sources of this. A fair number of these referrals aren't exactly my ideal client though. While I really want companies already leasing office space, many of the referrals are companies occupying warehouse or retail space. Warehouse is fine, but retail isn't. The reason why is because landlords of retail buildings usually won't pay the tenant's broker whereas that isn't a problem in office and warehouse.  

In building a referral network, I constantly hammer home who my ideal client is, but I think people hear "company" and "lease" and they don't really stop to distinguish office, warehouse, or retail. And that's actually fine because I'd rather have them think of me first and refer me than to not do it for fear it's the wrong thing. I can always refer those I don't want on to someone else.

So what is your experience? If you cold call, what's your magic? What do you say specifically to get the appointment? If you get your business by referrals, give us your method.

Thanks and happy hunting.

Just a couple of months ago I told my wife that it would be great if a service were available which called a group of people and left them a voice message. If someone actually answered the phone, the call would hang up. This way you could leave a message to clients or prospects in bulk without having to actually call each one.

Well I just got an email this morning from Jim Gillespie who is a commercial real estate coach in which I found out that is now actually available. It called Voice Broadcasting. This could be a very powerful tool for building a real estate business. Voice broadcasting allows you to record a spoken-voice message and then leave it as a voicemail message for hundreds or even thousands of your clients and prospects, all without dialing one single phone call. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

Here is an example of how I could use it. I'm a Corporate Real Estate Advisor (Tenant Rep) so my prospects are companies which already lease office space in the Dallas area. In this situation, I could record a voice message similar to the following:

"Hi, this is Bob Gibbons and I'm a Tenant Rep specializing in Plano (or Frisco, Dallas, Addison, Richardson...). After 20 years representing landlords, I switched sides 7 years ago to exclusively represent tenants in office buildings. My goal is to use that experience to provide tenants leverage during lease negotiations and throughout the entire lease term. Please call me at 972-468-1946 to discuss how I can be of service to your firm. Again, that number is 972-468-1946. Thanks."

Then you upload the message to the voice broadcast system you sign up with along with the phone numbers you want called and everyone gets your message in your voice. You obviously can't personalize each message with "Hi Bob" or "Hi Susan", but this is far better than dialing the phone dozens or hundreds of times. The voice message could sound like any other voice message you might leave though, so it wouldn't necessarily sound like a politician trying to get you to vote or send money.

This is a great way to get a consistent message out to a lot of people. It could be used by your church, a non-profit or even a company wanting to deliver the same message to employees. And at 3-6 cents per call, it's very reasonably priced.

Be sure to comply with federal, state and local "Do Not Call" laws or the cost of this could suddenly sky rocket.

I have not used this system yet so I am interested in the results of anyone that has used it. I'm also interested in your feedback on this. What do you think of it? Would you use it? Thanks.