I’ve heard that with the rise of technology, cold calling is on it’s way out. But for many commercial real estate agents, cold calling can make a huge impact on your business. Cold calling puts you in the driver seat and lets you be proactive about finding your next client. Plus, commercial real estate software can help you stay organized and on top of your calls. To get the most of out your efforts, use these cold calling tips:
Target The Right People
To be more efficient with your cold calling efforts, you need to make sure you’re targeting the right people. Do your homework to narrow down a specific property type, certain area of town, or other details that relate to your area of expertise. You should be able to come up with a list of property owners, or tenants, who all fall into a specific category that you want to target.
Use A Script
Once you have your target prospect list ready to go, it’s helpful to write up a quick script for the call. Of course, you will have to modify as necessary, but the script will help you feel comfortable when you first get started. You may want to have one script for voicemails and another script for the opening of a call when the prospect answers the phone. You will also want to have different scripts for different target prospects. A conversation with a property owner would flow differently than a conversation with a tenant; plan your scripts accordingly. You want to sound confident, friendly, and be clear about how you can help them.
Be Engaging
People are busy, so be respectful of their time. When you start the conversation, make sure you are engaging and show that you’re genuinely interested in solving their problem. Ask questions that will get the prospect talking (do not ask “yes” or “no” questions, but rather keep them open ended). The main objective in cold calling is to set up a meeting with the prospective client, so be sure to have an engaging way to ask for a meeting. If the prospect is not interested in meeting at this point, ask their permission to follow up with them and add them to your email marketing list. Sometimes the timing isn’t right, but you want to make sure you stay on the top of their mind.
Always Leave A Voicemail
If you want the prospect to call you back, you need to leave a short voicemail. Keep it short – ideally under 20 seconds – and be clear and concise about who you are, how you can help them, and how they can get in touch with you. It may take several attempts to finally reach the person, so don’t give up hope after the first call. Be persistent, schedule follow ups, and call at least a few times.
Be Mindful of The Time
The best time to make calls is still up for debate, but people generally agree that between 10am to 3pm is ideal. You don’t want to call people so early that they’re rushing to get to work, but you don’t want to interrupt them in the evening either. Be conscious of the time, but also try varying the time that you call prospects that you’ve left a voicemail for in the past. You may try doing your calls around 10am one day, and then follow up a couple days later in the afternoon to increase your chances of speaking with the person.
Stay Organized
Keep track of your cold calling efforts with a commercial real estate CRM, like ClientLook®. You want to include new contacts in your database, as well as notes regarding your call. Even if the prospect didn’t answer the phone, you can still include a note that says “left a voicemail” and schedule a task for you to follow up again in a day or two. For the prospects that you do have a conversation with, be sure to include notes about what you talked about so you can easily reference the details again in the future.
With these tips, you should be on your way to increasing your response rate, and setting up more appointments. If you’re not a ClientLook® subscriber, schedule a demo today to see how our commercial real estate CRM can help you with your prospecting efforts.
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