Why Read This Book?. 4

 

Chapter One: Unleash The Dog! 6

Cold Calling. 10

Direct Mail 12

Contact & Property Information Management, aka- Your Database. 14

 

Chapter Two: What One Person Can Achieve Another Can Too! 16

Use the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) for Maximum Results. 16

The True Value of Your Time. 18

Four Fundamentals to a Successful Commercial Real Estate Business. 21

Leverage a workforce to maximize your productivity and income. 23

Technology Is the Foundation of Your Success. 25

Agent Business Plan. 26

Use Ants to beat your Competition. 27

Will you be the Market Cycle’s next victim?. 27

 

Chapter Three: Creating Your Database Goldmine. 30

Sources of Property Data. 31

Create Your Database. 32

Create your Farm.. 32

Easily Find Phone Numbers Using BullsEye and Smart-Links. 33

Property Photographs. 34

Properties “For Sale”. 36

Track down tenants & valuable lease data. 37

Data Imports. 38

The Easy Import Wizard. 38

Data Doctor fixes and cleans your data. 45

 

Chapter Four: The Contact Section. 48

Buttons, buttons and more buttons! 53

Searching For Contacts- Three Great Ways to Get the Job. 56

Smart-Links. 59

Helpful Hints. 59

The Today Section. 60

Property Section. 64

Buttons, buttons and more buttons! 67

Other Important Tabs in the Property Section. 68

Available Spaces/Lease Comparables List feature. 69

Searching For Properties- Four Great Ways to Get the Job Done. 72

Mapping That Will Blow Your Mind. 76

The FIRST STEP in mapping is to Geocode your properties. 77

Radius Searches. 78

Draw on a Map to Search for Properties using MapPoint 2006. 79

Internet Mapping. 81

 

Chapter Five: Cold Calling & Market Surveys Made Easy. 88

Cold Calling—the Big Picture. 89

Rid Yourself of Phone Anxiety. 91

Cold CallingTechnique-101. 91

Tongue-tied?  Use smallTALK! and ZoomInfo™ to Build Rapport 96

Creating a Market Rent Survey. 97

How To Cold Call Using RealHound®.. 100

Track Follow-up Phone Calls with Contact Groups. 105

Using the Related Properties section to make painless cold calls. 107

The Compare button (Analyze properties on-the-fly) 109

Cold Calling Statistics and Printing a Call Report 111

 

Chapter Six: Lick & Stick Your Way to New Clients. 115

Direct Mail vs. Cold Calling: Which Is Better?. 115

The Secrets to a Successful Direct Mail Campaign. 116

Marketing Reports Are Easily Created Using Marketing Campaigns. 124

The Listing Marketing Report- A Staple in Your Arsenal 125

Track a Newsletter or Non-listing Related Advertisement 134

 

Chapter Seven: Your Personal Money Machine. 137

DealFinder 139

Tenant Wizard. 142

Matching Buyers to Listed Properties. 144

Matching Tenant Needs to Available Space. 144

Present and Record Properties Shown to Clients. 145

Print an Available Space or Property Offering Report 148

 

Chapter Eight: Financial Analysis, Stacking Charts and Lease Comparison Tools. 152

Underwriting and Financial Analysis. 152

Lease vs. Buy Analysis. 157

Stacking Charts. 159

Available Space Comparison. 160

 

Chapter Nine: Are You Stuck In A Rut?. 164

Real Estate Coaching Maximizes Your Income. 164

 

Chapter Ten: Increased Market Share and Agent Retention. 167

 

 

Epilogue. 171

 


 

This book is designed to help you make MORE money with less effort in commercial real estate.  Using advanced technology, support staff and prospecting techniques, you will gain a force multiplier effect in your business that will propel you to the next level.  In other words, it will be easier to make $600,000 in fees than it was to make the first $400,000.  This book will help you transform your real estate business into a money making machine.

 

Every success and failure that you have experienced thus far in your real estate career (and life in general) can be directly attributed to the daily choices that you have made along the way.  For ultimately it is you who decides to do this thing or that.  It is the compilation of countless choices that have brought you to your current point in your career today.  Now, you have another choice to make.  Do you invest your valuable time in to reading a book about commercial real estate?  Do not discount the knowledge that is contained within this book just because you only paid twenty-five dollars for it.  On the contrary, reading this book is going to cost you the most prized possession that you have—your time.  There is only so much time in the day and by judiciously managing this scarce resource you can positively impact both your finances and your happiness.  This is just one lesson that is covered in these chapters.

 

This book was written to help anyone endeavoring in commercial real estate brokerage make more money in any market condition and should be considered a best practices guide to commercial real estate.   Whatever your specialty is in commercial real estate, you will benefit from the information contained within.  You will learn new techniques (and reacquaint yourself with some old techniques) that you can use immediately to grow your business.  In fact, I would even challenge you to set a goal of doubling your personal income over the next 12 months.

 

If you are an office manager or a seasoned commercial sales veteran who has decided to pass along your trade to the next generation, please make this book required reading for your junior agents.  There are wonderful prospecting tools and explanations on how to become a productive agent inside.  This book marries new software technology to proven business development techniques which will help both new and seasoned agents alike grow their business in an increasingly competitive and challenging environment.

 

It is an unfortunate truth that as you become more successful in this business some naysayers will be critical and attribute your success to pure luck.  They will ignore your long hours of hard work, personal sacrifices and the disciplined approach that you took to become a success in commercial real estate.  Pay your critics little attention, because they are the ones that will stagnate in the business.

 

I am very passionate about helping commercial real estate professionals make money.  In fact, I am determined to change the entire commercial real estate industry for the better.  I believe that technology should make the commercial real estate practitioner’s life easier and must never replace or marginalize their value proposition to the clients that they serve.  It is the pursuit of this vision that drives me and frequently finds me working into the early hours of the morning.  This book and the companion software that I have helped create would mean absolutely nothing to me if I did not truly believe that they were making a difference in thousands of careers right now. 

 

Please share your success stories with me.  I am very curious to see how you utilize this material in your real estate business and how you have grown your income.

 

Thank you,

 

Dan Dulin, CEO

ddulin@realhound.com

REALHOUND.com ®

1001 Avenida Pico, C514

San Clemente, CA  92673


 

 

It was my original intention that this book was to be written in two parts.  The first part would explain how to use advanced software technology in commercial real estate brokerage to save you time and increase your income while the second part would discuss techniques and business strategies for commercial real estate agents and companies to become more successful in their businesses.   However, as the book progressed it became obvious to me that the two parts were not separate, since continued success in commercial real estate is due in part to discovering, mastering and applying new technological advancements to a practitioner’s real estate business.  In the end the two parts of the book were integrated into one and it is my belief that the result is a fluid and concise description of how to use existing technology to grow your business in any market.

 

A brief overview of the technology

 

RealHound® Live!, the companion software that is discussed in this book, was developed in collaboration with some of the best commercial real estate brokers in the country.  Prior to the creation of this program, there truly were no good existing software solutions available for commercial real estate professionals.  You are gaining the benefit of a business tool that was created at a combined cost of over eleven million dollars (and growing) in labor, research, equipment and capital-- all poured into a product that is the absolute best commercial real estate contact management software in existence today.  This book will guide you through the same processes and will teach you the same system that these top brokers use to consistently make six, seven and eight figure incomes in commercial real estate using this software.

 

The strength of the companion software is its simplicity.  The program was designed with the novice computer user in mind but is powerful enough to meet the needs of the most experienced commercial practitioner.  It simplifies and automates complicated commercial real estate processes which increases productivity.  You can run the program as a single user, in a team of networked multi-users, remotely (with or without the internet) or have a true virtual office.  Your company can actually rebrand the program with their logo and a different name.  It allows you to manage your contacts, properties, escrows, listings, leases, sales, loans, buyer & tenant needs, prospecting, marketing, and most importantly your time—all from a single application.  You no longer have to toggle between various databases and different applications in order to run your business.

 

RealHound® is the most powerful commercial real estate software that you can buy.  Whether you work alone, have a partner, are a broker with an office full of agents or have a single assistant, RealHound® is ideal for sharing data (locally or over the Internet), storing electronic files (documents), managing transactions, communicating with other members of your team and granting client access.  If you have a team approach to commercial real estate our software will make you more money by increasing your team’s capabilities and productivity.

 

The program greatly simplifies the prospecting process because you can easily execute cold calls, target your contacts with direct mail, and identify potential properties for buyers and spaces for tenants all from within your database.  Find missing phone numbers (unlisted and listed) and addresses right from a contact’s record by simply clicking on BullsEye or a Smart-Link.  If cold calling is a part of your business plan (and I’m certain that it is), IntelliCall will increase both your chances of reaching property owners on the phone and getting new business from them when you do.  The Auto Compare feature gives you instant access to Rental, Sale and For Sale comparables customized for any property in your database.  This powerful feature lets you analyze a prospect’s properties on-the-fly, making it a powerful tool to use while you are on the telephone.  The program also tracks your marketing efforts, projects and timelines from start to finish.

 

Our revolutionary DealFinder & Tenant Wizard features will automatically match buyers with sellers and tenants with available space. You can even search for and import listings directly from the Internet, match them against your buyer & tenant needs and share property information with the real estate community- all from within the program!  RealHound® is the only commercial real estate software that can actually help make you money.

Your world is what you believe it to be

Something that the top performers in commercial real estate all have in common is that they all view themselves first as business owners, and second as sales, leasing, tenant rep or marketing experts.  Likewise, it is up to you to develop a positive business mentality.  They know what their business goals are and they take consistent daily action to attain those goals.  If something does not work they will take a different approach, but they never give up trying.  Another commonality of the best performers is that they all have made a commitment to continuously improve themselves.  They read books, take classes, attend seminars related to their field of expertise and have a business coach.  They have written goals, experiment with technology and new ways of doing business.  They are not afraid to invest in their business and get the best equipment, software and people to support them.  They understand the concept of leverage and have hired staff to support their business.  They also know that success in this business depends on daily Prospecting and Controlling the Inventory (through exclusive representation of sellers, buyers, landlords and tenants).

 

Finally, if you are a Broker with independent agents working for you, don’t miss Chapter Ten for a revolutionary new way to approach agent retention and increase your market share.

 

If you are currently struggling with another software program that was half heartedly adapted to support commercial real estate sales, leasing and tenant representation you are wasting your most precious asset - your time.  RealHound® was purposefully designed for one industry – commercial real estate.  You can use it straight out of the box without any customization.

 

Everyone at my company believes that they are in a partnership with our users and want to help you succeed in your business by supplying you with the very best commercial real estate software available.  We truly care about your success in commercial real estate—it’s our passion!

 

Are you ready to grow your business and make more money?  Great, now let’s get started!

 

Download your free trial of the companion software at www.RealHound.com


Chapter One

Your Success In Commercial Real Estate Depends On Just One Thing…

-Continuous Prospecting-

 

Some people will tell you that it is easy to sell commercial real estate because there are particularly low barriers to entering the commercial arena as an agent.  They might say something like, “even Bozo the Clown can sell commercial real estate” or “selling commercial real estate isn’t exactly rocket science”.  And, if we are honest, who among us has not from time to time thought that one of our competitors exhibited some clown like attributes?  But what makes Bozo a success while Joe Schmoe washes out of the business?  The answer is that daily prospecting practically guarantees your success in commercial real estate.  Consistent prospecting is the difference between the agents/brokers who truly succeed in the business and those that only limp along or worse yet fail entirely.

 

There are two highly effective ways of prospecting in commercial real estate, cold calling and direct mail.  There is a system to each method that you must master and practice regularly to ensure steady annual growth of your income.  Cold calling and direct mail can work independently from one another, but when used in conjunction with each other they create a powerful lead generating machine that practically guarantees your success.  Most commercial real estate agents favor one method over the other and the most popular method is also the least effective in a competitive market; direct mail.  You must use both methods to have the greatest impact in your market.

 

You cannot effectively prospect if you do not know what your target market is or who your real prospects are.  As simple as this principle sounds, I am surprised to find that many agents still overlook this basic rule.  The most successful commercial real estate agents know what their target market is and have compiled their own integrated CRM (Contact Relationship Management) /property database.  This data is meticulously maintained because it is essential to the continued success of the agent’s business.

 

Cold Calling

Cold calling is the most effective method of generating new business and it is also the undertaking most dreaded by commercial agents.  But let’s put this highly productive activity into perspective-- you will simply make a lot more money by calling owners and tenants in your market than by not calling them.  Think of it in terms of probability, there is an excellent chance that there are property owners in your market that want to buy or sell real estate right now regardless of whether the market is good or bad.  Somebody wants to lease space and there are property owners who are thinking about changing their leasing agent.  Consistent telephone calls to property owners and tenants in your market will help you anticipate their needs and keep you ahead of your competition (Cold Calling techniques and other helpful calling tools are covered in detail in a later chapter).

 

You should contact every property owner (or major tenant) who is in your target market at least once per quarter (every 3 months).

 

TIP: To determine how many calls you need to make on a daily basis to reach your goal, divide the number of owners and tenants in your target market by work weeks in the quarter (typically 12 weeks) and finally divide the resulting number by the number of workdays in the week.  You now know how many calls you need to make per work day to reach every owner (or tenant) in your target market quarterly. 

 

If you realize that there is NO possible way to reach everyone on your list in a three month reoccurring cycle, then you have too many prospects on your call list.  Cut your list down to a more manageable level.  A good rule of thumb is that one person can effectively contact 700 to 900 prospects by telephone per quarter.  Remember, your goal is to talk to a live body who can make real estate decisions and not just mindlessly dial the telephone.

 

Dedicate at least two consecutive hours each work day to cold calling.  Schedule your cold call time during the week, alternating the days that calls are made in the morning and afternoons.  Don’t let anything distract you from making your daily calls.  Remember that calls come first and EVERYTHING else comes after that. 

 

To avoid unnecessary distraction, alert your staff that you are not to be disturbed while making your calls.  The first couple of calls tend to be a little awkward, but you will get into a rhythm that will make each subsequent call easier.  If you allow yourself to become distracted, you run the risk of never finding your rhythm or finishing your daily call quota.

 

Each call must be tracked and a brief synopsis of the conversation saved in the prospect’s contact record for future reference.  Both buyer and tenant needs should be recorded for future reference.  Every conversation that you have with a single prospect builds on the previous conversations and it becomes easier to talk to that contact over time.  RealHound simplifies the entire cold calling process which reduces your anxiety and allows you to make more effective calls.  Like most things, the more calls you make the better you will become.

 

 

 

In a healthy real estate business, prospecting is a continuous process that is done in parallel with every other daily activity in that business and, when done correctly, can be characterized by smooth steady growth of a practitioner’s income.  By contrast, sporadic prospecting results in income peaks and troughs which are also known as porpoising (yes, like a dolphin).  This hair-raising experience can be avoided with consistent daily prospecting and will greatly reduce your anxiety and increase your faith that you will always make money in Commercial Real Estate.

               

 

Direct Mail

Would you believe it if I told you that there is a magic recipe for sending out mailers?  Well, it’s true and I’m going to share it with you now.  Mailers are expensive in comparison to cold calls but if done correctly they will more than pay for themselves.  If you approach mailers incorrectly you will be wasting your money on print costs, postage and, more importantly, your valuable time.

 

When done correctly you can expect a 350% (or more) return on your investment.  In other words, for every dollar you spend on mailers you should get 3.5 dollars in return.  However, if you are just starting your direct mail campaign, your results will not be immediate.  It takes approximately six months for your prospects to recognize your name and want to call you.

 

A successful mailing campaign has these five critical elements: regular contact intervals, accessibility of the message, simplicity of design, a call to action and a take-away (which is a compelling reason for the recipient to call you).  Unless you are sending out a newsletter or a targeted letter, you should always mail postcards only to the prospects in your target market.  Postcards are the least expensive mailer that you can possibly send and they are also the most effective.  They are more likely to be read because the recipient does not need to open an envelope to receive the message.  A simple glance at your well designed postcard gets your message across quickly.

.

Maintaining regular contact intervals with your prospects is the first key component to a successful direct mail marketing campaign.  If you are just beginning your mailing campaign, it is important that you brand yourself and your services in the minds of your prospects.  In order to do this, your initial mailings to your target market must be once a week for four weeks.  After the first four weeks, you will send a mailer out every two weeks for the rest of your career.  Like anything worthwhile, a successful marketing campaign takes time and mailers can take anywhere from 3 to 6 months to become truly effective.  If you fail to send mailers out for more than 6 weeks you run the risk of having your prospects forget who you are which will force you to start your mailing campaign over again from scratch.  A record of each mailer sent and the results it received get entered into each recipient’s contact record (RealHound® does this with just a push of a button).

 

Each marketing piece should have a consistent message that can be as simple as “Your commercial real estate sales expert”, “Your office & industrial property sales specialist”, “Exclusively representing the interests of tenants”, “Your full service commercial real estate expert” or “Your commercial real estate sales & leasing expert”.  A successful message will clearly state what you service you have to offer.

 

Another component to a successful mailing campaign is to have a compelling reason for your prospects to call you.  Offering something for “free” or a take-away is the most persuasive reason for the recipient to contact you.  Some of the best freebies that you can offer are: property valuations, market rent surveys, lease analysis, market trend reports and sales surveys.  When your phone rings in response to a mailer it is your responsibility to flush out a prospect’s need and assess their motivation.

 

TIP:  If a property owner calls you to take you up on your offer for a free valuation of their property; they are thinking about selling it.  Make sure that you personally meet them as soon as possible.  This will further your branding initiatives and allow you to begin to develop a more personal relationship with your prospect.

 

The overall appearance of your marketing materials is very important.  If you do not have sufficient experience designing marketing materials, then leave the design work to the professionals.  There are many companies that can design and even mail your marketing materials for you.  Their services are generally affordable and will save you a tremendous amount of time.  More marketing information will be discussed in detail in a later chapter.

 

And what about email?  Well, it is cheaper than direct mail but most unsolicited messages wind-up in the recipient’s junk folder.

Contact & Property Information Management, aka- Your Database

Your contact and property database is truly the foundation of your success.  Think about it.  Without knowing who owns the real estate or leases space in your target market, how can you effectively prospect?

 

Successful agents all have databases that contain property data, corresponding ownership, lease data and tenant information.  Internet sharing capabilities, ease of use and functionality are extremely important aspects of an effective database.  Their data is unique and not dependant on third party data providers.  Every change of ownership and major lease is verified against multiple sources including the Buyer and Seller (calling them to talk about the transaction is a great way to pick up new business).  Leases are verified with the leasing broker, landlord and the tenant.  Successful agents know who they have talked to, met with and who is receiving their marketing materials. 

 

Unsuccessful agents do not have a database at all, try to use Outlook for the task or have a hodge-podge collection of dysfunctional data that was imported and never verified.  Their contact records contain so many informational gaps that they would have better luck prospecting blind folded from a metropolitan phone book.

 

Without an accurate contact and property database, effective prospecting is not possible.  If you cannot effectively prospect, you cannot maximize your business opportunities.  If you are not maximizing your business opportunities- your real estate business will stagnate.  This is evident in the business models of many “Old-timers” in the business because they only work with a handful of clients.  As their clients transition out of the business and are not adequately replaced- their incomes start to stagnate.

 

Caution: There are no shortcuts to creating and maintaining a property and contact database.  Some people only want to import data in to their database without ever questioning and verifying the quality of the data.  If you decide to take this approach toward maintaining your database, it can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in lost fees.  Effective methods of maintaining your database are discussed in a later chapter.

 

The top performers in commercial real estate invest in technology that works FOR them and not against them.  RealHound® is the ONLY Commercial Real Estate software that is specifically designed to help you prospect.  It is the only software that leverages your time by making the daily processes in commercial real estate simpler.  It manages your contacts, properties, cold calls, listings, escrows, projects, buyers and tenants.  It is designed specifically to meet the needs of a growing real estate business, to keep you organized and it is extremely EASY to use.  It is the only software that can actually help make you money.

 

Power Moves

 

1)   Daily prospecting is the key to making a lot of money in commercial real estate.  Devote two hours of everyday to prospecting on the telephone.  Do nothing else during this scheduled time and make sure that you do not entertain any interruptions.  Record your call results for each contact reached in their respective contact record.  Your goal with each phone call is to talk to the real estate decision maker and meet that person.  People do business with people they know.

 

2)   Send mailers out on a regular basis to every owner or tenant who is in your target market.  Your mailers must have a consistent message and should compel the recipient to call you.  Don’t forget to offer some service for “free” or a take-away.  Most people find it difficult to resist free offers.  Record every mailer sent in each recipients contact record.  The secret to a successful direct mail campaign is to send out your mailer at regular intervals.  This will further reinforce your branding efforts.

 

      Email blasts tend to get ignored and left unopened in the recipient’s spam box.

 

3)   Your database is the foundation of your success.  Successful agents all have databases that contain property data, corresponding ownership, tenant information and lease information.  Without this critical information, effective prospecting is not possible.  If you are currently struggling with another software program that was half heartedly adapted to support commercial real estate sales, you are wasting your most precious asset - your time.  RealHound® will be a different experience for you because it was specifically design for commercial real estate by the TOP practitioners in the industry.


 

 

In any given group from any industry, the highest paid and most highly recognized people are those that consistently outperform their peers.  To these victors go the lion’s share of the reward. This phenomenon is known as the Law of the Vital Few or the Pareto Principle.  But what really makes these Vital Few so successful while the rest of the group can barely achieve mediocrity?  The thing that truly separates these people from the crowd is an unwavering dedication to achieve the maximum results for the amount of time and effort invested into their endeavors.  This is recognized in our society as a commitment to excellence.

 

There is no magic or innate talent to being one of The Vital Few; it is not an exclusive club and the essentials can be learned by anyone who really wants to be excessively rewarded for their efforts.  You are probably wondering about fairness to one’s fellow man but I am pleased to tell you that this system is perfectly fair.  Everyone has a choice to have, to do or to be anything that they want.  The real question is whether or not they will decide to take the action necessary to achieve their desired outcomes.  This speaks volumes about an individual’s motivation and has nothing to do with the question of fairness.

 

So what is the common characteristic shared by the most successful commercial real estate agents?  They execute the fundamentals of the business very well by getting the maximum results out of the time and effort spent at a task.  They prospect, control inventory and leverage their time--- and so must you!

 

Use the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) for Maximum Results

 

The Pareto Principal (which is also known as The 80/20 Rule or the Law of the Vital Few) was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed at the turn of the 19th century that 80% of Italy’s property wealth was held by just 20% of the country’s population.   But the man responsible for further refining this idea in respect to the arena of commerce was the great business thinker, Dr. Joseph Juran, who named this principle after Pareto.  Dr. Juran suggested that most outcomes of any given situation are the result of only a few causes.

 

The Pareto Principle states that 20% of actions accounts for 80% of the outcomes in any phenomena.  The value of this principle to you and your commercial real estate business is this- your focus should be on the 20% of the actions that really matter.  This does not mean that the other 80% can be ignored entirely.  It simply means that you must choose to put most of your attention on the top 20% of all activities that will yield you the most results in your business.

 

Most commercial sales agents misallocate their time to the 80% lowest yielding activities in their business, instead of focusing more closely on the productive 20%.  Conversely, the most successful commercial sales agents, The Vital Few, focus on the top 20% and delegate the other 80% of lower yielding activities to others on their team.

 

Some argue that the 80/20 rule should really be the 90/10 rule (10% of causes result in 90% of outcomes) or the 80/10/10 rule, in which case, 10% of causes yield 80% of outcomes and the remaining 10% of causes yield no measureable outcomes whatsoever.  The percentages are purely conceptual and may be different as long as the total equals 100%. 

 

Think about the validity of the 80/20 rule to the following applications:

 

        • 20% of the commercial sales people in your office generate 80% of the company’s revenues--  which means that 80% of sales people generate just 20% of the company’s revenues,
        • 20% of workers do 80% of the work-- which means that 80% of your workforce does just  20% of the work,
        • 20% of all Brokerage companies control 80% of the market-- which means that 80% of all Brokerage companies control just 20% of the market.
        • 20% of Buyers & Tenants you talk to will do a deal and 80% will not-- which means that 80% of all potential buyers and Tenants will be a waste of your time.
        • 80% of a goal is achieved in the last 20% of the remaining time before the goal deadline.

 

This concept also applies to negative results:

 

        • 20% of your clients will create 80% of your problems,
        • 20% of inaction can ruin 80% of what has been accomplished,
        • 20% of your workforce take 80% of the cumulative sick days at your office,
        • 20% of your workers account for 80% of the tardiness in your office.

 

Try to avoid the misallocation of your resources to the unproductive 80% in your business.  Some examples of this type of resource misallocation are:

 

        • 80% of a company’s sales revenues are produced by just 20% of a company’s sales force, but 80% of a company’s resources go into making just 20% of its revenue or supporting the other 80% of the sales force.
        • 80% of your marketing resources are spent creating just 20% of your sales leads.

 

Warning:  Do not assume that you can rid yourself of the unproductive 80%.  The 80% gets redistributed as the size of the population changes.  Instead, use this information as a tool to spot inefficiency and to better manage resources within your business.

 

The Pareto Principal teaches us to allocate scarce resources (capital, labor and time) in the pursuit of the most effective use of those resources.  Streamline your actions to obtain the maximum results for the amount of resources invested into your endeavors and watch your business grow!

 

The True Value of Your Time

Have you ever stopped to consider the value of your time in a scenario where you accomplish everything by yourself with no outside assistance?  This would mean that closing a real estate deal would have the same time value as buying a roll of stamps.  In other words, the highest and most productive use of your time has the exact same value as the least productive use of your time. 

 

Using the Pareto Principal where 20% of your efforts create 80% of your income, the True Value of your time is the value of your time when you are at your most productive.  You must increase the TOTAL value of your time by using leverage and delegating certain activities to hired staff that do not require your special talents so that you can focus on the top 20% of the money making activities in your business.

 

Example:  Let’s suppose that you make $350,000 per year, work 50 weeks per year and 40 hours each week adding up to a total of 2,000 hours worked per year.  Your unleveraged time is worth $175/hour ($350,000 income/2,000 work hours).  However, just 20% of your time was spent on activities that generated 80% of your income.  Using the 80/20 rule, you are only at your peak productivity for 400 hours/year and have misallocated 1,600 hour to activities that only produced 20% of your income.  Therefore, the true value of your time is when you are at your peak productivity or in this example $700/hour ($350,000 x 80% of your income= $280,000/400 hours=$700/hour).  Your non-productive time is worth only $44/hour ($350,000 x 20% of your income=$70,000/1,600=$44/hour).

 

What this means is that you should hire someone to manage and complete the tasks that are a misallocation of your talents (the least productive of use of your time).  You can hire them in a fulltime position, pay them up to $44/hour and still expect to come out ahead on the arrangement as long as you discipline yourself to focus on your top 20% and let your employee complete those tasks that are a misallocation of your time.

 

Reminder:  There are many different people in this world that you can hire at many different pay rates.  Make sure that your new hire(s) is fairly compensated so you can minimize employee turnover.  You goal is to hire competent people and keep them for many years.  Don’t just hire people to fill an immediate need without thought to the future.  Carefully screen your prospective employees for the skill sets necessary and willingness to perform the job.

 

Caution:  The cost of a bad hire could set you back months in achieving your financial goals.  Do not take the hiring process lightly.  Do not hire people just because they need a job.  If you decide to hire family members or friends, think about the consequences on your relationship if things to go badly.  Take it from the Author—hamburgers and hotdogs might not be the only thing getting roasted at the family BBQ after you fire a family member who was not pulling their weight in the business.

 

Your goal after delegating your low yielding tasks to your staff is to focus exclusively on the highest yielding activities in your business (prospecting, deal making, etc).  Imagine what your income would be if instead of spending 400 hours a year on your most productive tasks, you spent 1,000 hours a year maximizing those opportunities.  To use the numbers from our previous example, your income would increase from $350,000 to $656,250 per year after paying out $87,500 in salaries.  Yes, you are going to make a lot more money.

 

It is only fair to mention that you will never completely achieve your goal of exclusively focusing on the top 20% of productive tasks.  As your business grows, so will the demands on your time.  You will always be evaluating what the most productive activities are and delegating the rest to hired staff.  Some agents have hired professional drivers to chauffeur them to and from the office so they can maximize their productive time.  Others have hired off-shore virtual assistants to do database entry and upkeep.  What tasks could you delegate right now to become more productive in your own business?

Your time is very valuable.  Do not squander it on unproductive meetings, unqualified buyers & Tenants, web browsing, unmotivated sellers, substandard software or just hanging around the water cooler.

 

 

Four Fundamentals to a Successful Commercial Real Estate Business

 

In order to master the three fundamentals of a successful commercial real estate business, you must understand these concepts and make them part of your core business focus.

 

1)    Prospecting:  Prospecting is the life blood of a successful commercial real estate career.  You MUST prospect on a daily basis by telephone and send direct mail to your farm weekly.  It doesn’t matter what else is happening in your business—prospect first and handle problems later.

 

Your prospecting goal is to getting a face-to-face meeting with every qualified person that to speak to on the telephone.  Build and foster long term personal (but within the bounds of professional) relationships with your clients because people like doing business with people that they know.

 

2)    Controlling Inventory:  Commercial real estate is a business of control.  You either have control or you have nothing.  Your goal is to be your clients’ exclusive representation as a listing agent, buyer’s representative or tenant representative.  This is called controlling the inventory and the concept extends beyond properties to include people that you represent (both buyers and tenants). 

 

The purpose of getting control is not to generate offers on listings or drive all over town with your clients but to close transactions—always work toward this end goal.  Make sure that your clients’ are motivated, qualified and their expectations are properly managed.   Agents that Control the Inventory get paid when their exclusively represented clients (sellers, buyers & Tenants) close deals.

 

3)    Leverage:  Hire employees to help leverage your time and increase productivity (don’t be afraid to explore the possibility of hiring off-shore labor to maintain your database if you are on a budget).  The Pareto Principle states that 20% of actions account for 80% of the outcomes in any phenomena.  This does not mean that the other 80% can be ignored entirely.  Successful agents focus primarily on the 20% of actions that maximize results, such as prospecting and deal making.   Assign hired staff deal with the other 80% of actions that yield minimal results.  Using leverage effectively allows you to grow your business.  As an agent’s business grows so should their level of staffing.  Remember, each hire should be based on true need and not ego.

 

4)    Control Your Focus: What you focus on you get.  Ask yourself this question at least 3 times a day:  I am working on my top 20% or have I gotten myself sidetracked?  If you are caught up in a diversion, shift your focus back to your top 20%.  If you are like most people, you will catch yourself drifting a few times a day.

 

Leverage a workforce to maximize your productivity and income

 

How did the Pharaohs build their pyramids?  Nobody is sure how it was done exactly, but we can safely assume that the Pharaohs who ruled Egypt did not carve or carry any of the stone blocks used in the construction of the pyramids up the ramps!  This is a fantastic metaphor for the use of a workforce to achieve leverage in your real estate business. You can accomplish much more by instructing and directing a workforce of others than you can do on your own.

 

There are typically five stages of leveraged growth in commercial real estate.  While it is not necessary for every agent to grow their business to stage five (or beyond), most commercial agents are comfortable at stage two or three. However, without the proper amount of leverage in your business it is practically impossible to maintain a high income and balance in your personal life.

 

When you add staff their job responsibilities should include everything that can be delegated that is not part of your top 20% of productive activities (remember that your key activities are prospecting and deal making). This allows you to leverage your time. Pay everyone on your staff a competitive salary with bonuses to keep them motivated to help you achieve your goals.  Your first hire should always be an assistant and do remember that you get what you pay for.  Junior agents should be paid a small salary and be commissioned to start.  As their skill set develops their position should evolve to be 100% commissioned.

 

You will have to make a commitment to train your workforce.  Train and retain the first two members of your team and then they will train all future new hires.  Have your staff document their job duties and the steps to accomplish those tasks so those skills can be passed to the next generation.

 

The key concept behind leverage is not to work harder or work less, but to work smarter and focus on your top 20% (but working less is always a nice perk too!)

 

Stage One:  Sole Practitioner with No Leverage

Gross Fees:  $50,000 - $300,000

Prospecting comes before anything else.  Database maintenance should always be done after you have prospected for the day.

 

 

 

 

Stage Two:  One Staff Member

Gross Fees:  $300,000-$700,000

Database: Assistant maintains and checks new availabilities against the Buyer and Tenant Needs

 

Stage Three:  Two Staff Members

Gross Fees:  $700,000-$1,700,000

Database: Team maintains

Note: One variation of this model would to have a junior agent handling Buyer & Tenant Representation.

 

Stage Four:  Three Staff Members

Gross Fees:  $1,700,000-$3,000,000

 

Database: Team maintains

 

Stage Five:  Five Staff Members

Gross Fees:  $3,000,000-PLUS

Database: Team maintains

 

Technology Is the Foundation of Your Success

The foundation of all the business models illustrated above is the agent’s database. Consider your database to be your very own gold mine that, if maintained properly, will yield you a tremendous personal fortune.  Successful agents all have databases that contain property data, corresponding ownership, tenant data, available space, For Sale and lease information. Their data is unique and not solely dependent on third party data providers. Every change of ownership is verified against multiple sources including the Buyer, Seller and brokers.  Newly lease space is verified with the tenant, landlord (what a great way to pickup new business) and brokers. Depending on their target market, they track ownership, properties for sale, Buyers, transfers of ownership (Sales), rents, tenants, leases, new construction and properties taken out-of-service. They know who they have talked to, met with and who is receiving marketing materials. Without this critical information, effective prospecting is not possible. If you cannot effectively prospect, you cannot maximize new business opportunities.  If you are not maximizing new business opportunities your income will decrease.

 

A successful database is scalable to an agent’s business, meaning that as the agent’s business grows, so their technology must grow with them. Networking capabilities, ease of use and functionality are extremely important functions of an agent’s database. The top performers in commercial real estate invest in technology that works for them and not against them. 

 

RealHound® is the ONLY Commercial Real Estate software that is specifically designed for commercial real estate.  RealHound® greatly enhances your ability to Prospect, which in turn leads to new business opportunities (listings, buyer & tenant rep).  It is also the only software that gives you the advantage of leverage by making the daily processes in commercial real estate simpler which saves you time and makes your team more productive.  It automatically matches buyers with sellers and tenants with available space.  You can search the Internet for listings and import newly discovered property data into your database with a click of a button!  It manages your contacts, properties, listings, escrows timelines, property photos, documents, projects, buyers and tenants.  It can be scaled in order to meet the needs of a growing business, keeps you organized, can communicate data over the Internet and it is extremely EASY to use.

Agent Business Plan

The agent business plan is a critical component to maximizing your revenues for the year. It is nothing more than a document containing goals and milestones for your personal real estate business. Without clearly defining your business goals you run the risk of getting distracted and falling short of your desired outcomes.

 

The key elements of a successful agent business plan are:

 

Simplicity:  One or two pages max

Revenue Goals:  How much do you want to make and how many deals do you need to do it?

Why Statement: Why MUST you accomplish this plan?

Target Market/focus: Define your target market and personal focus (top 20%)

Transaction Velocity:  Does the deal velocity in your market support your revenue goals?  Judging from prior years, is it possible to make your revenue goal?

Staff, Equipment & technology:  Do you have the proper resources to pull it off?

Prospecting:  How much daily telephone time will you commit to reach your revenue goal?  How many new prospects will you meet with per week?  How many and how often will you send out mailers?

Budget:  What is your budget?

 

Review the top goals in your business plan daily and your entire business plan monthly.  Make adjustments to your approach until you achieve your desired results.

Use Ants to beat your Competition

It seems that I am always asked how RealHound® can best be used to really beat the competition and gain market share. My reply is always the same—use Ants. Now you’re probably thinking that I couldn’t possibly be referring to the little insect, but I am. You will not literally dump a box of ants on to your competition’s doorstep to drive them out, but you will use your study of the insect to accomplish the same thing.

 

Ants are amazing creatures. There are species of ants in South America that can clear an entire forest when they are hunting. By sheer numbers they can take down larger more powerful prey. When they have a collective goal, they are fearless. All creatures big and small flee from them. 

 

So too will your competition flee from you. Your market is your forest and your potential clients are your prey. Cover your market exactly as described in this book and you will drive your competitors from your business forest.

 

Will you be the Market Cycle’s next victim?

A couple of years ago when the real estate market was edging its peak, my local newspaper ran an article predicting the market would continue to climb.  I remember the article quoting a major commercial brokerage firm proclaiming that the traditional real estate market cycle was dead and that there was not going to be a “bust“ to this market’s “boom”.  Time has obviously proven that statement wrong.   The real estate market cycle is here to stay; it is as unavoidable as the law of gravity.  If what goes up must come down, the question is how can you avoid becoming the next victim of a market downturn?

 

Even during a market downturn, the fundamental truth about commercial real estate is that the demand will never completely dissipate.  Sure, the players and economics may change, but the real estate itself must always be owned, managed and leased by someone – which in turn creates demand for your expert services.  In a downturn, your client could be a doctor one day or a bank that foreclosed on a property the next.  Always market your services to the people who can say “yes” to your fee.

 

All market cycles have identifiable characteristics that are easy to spot if you know what to look for.  For example, in an up market excess demand for commercial real estate services can be satisfied by amateurs but in a market downturn that demand shifts quickly to a dependence on the expert real estate advisor.  The expert always gets busier and makes the most money in a down market.  And the amateurs… well, let’s just say that they get an education paid for by the market cycle scholarship fund!

 

We are now on the verge of the largest transfer of wealth in modern history where the prepared commercial real estate practitioner stands to directly benefit.  Let me emphasize that preparedness is the key.  Do you have the skill sets needed to be an expert advisor to your clients in their time of need?  Have you incorporated the latest real estate technologies into your business?  If not, you must make an immediate change to your business plan while you still have time. 

 

An expert advisor understands the mechanics behind commercial real estate and the forces at work in the marketplace.  If you do not know the difference between a CAP rate and an interest rate (yes, it is a trick question), I recommend that you attend several classes offered by:

 

CCIM Institute

Toll Free: 800-621-7027

 

Society of Industrial and Office REALTORS ®

www.ccim.com

 

Phone: 202.449.8200

 

 

www.sior.com

 

Both organizations have a spectacular reputation in the industry and offer professional designations that will distinguish you from your competition.  When it comes to technology, you must use an integrated CRM (Contact Relationship Management) and property database software system in your daily business.  I am sure you know the one that I would recommend!


Power Moves

 

1)    The most successful commercial real estate agents all execute the fundamentals of the business very well by getting the maximum results out of the efforts spent on a task.  They prospect, control inventory, leverage their time and focus to achieve peak productivity.

 

2)    The foundation of your business is your database.  Consider your database to be your very own gold mine that, if maintained properly, will yield you a tremendous personal fortune. 

 

3)    Leverage is the key to growing your business each and every year.  You are now familiar with the Pareto Principal, the principle that states that a mere 20% of your actions accounts for 80% of your results.  Commercial sales people consistently misallocate their time to the 80% lowest yielding activities in their business.  The most successful sales people focus on just their top 20% and delegate the other 80% of their low yielding activities to hired staff.

 

4)    Using the Pareto Principal, 20% of your efforts create 80% of your income; you can estimate the True Value of your time as the value of your time when you are at your most productive.  You must increase the TOTAL value of your time by using leverage and delegating those activities that do not require your special talents to hired staff so you can focus on the top 20% of money making activities.

 

5)    Without the proper amount of leverage in your business it is practically impossible to maintain a high income and still achieve balance in your personal life.  The key concept behind leverage is not to work harder, but to work smarter and focus on your top 20% high yield activities.

 

6)    Always prepare an annual business plan to keep you focus on your business outcomes for the year and review it regularly.

 

7)    Use Ants to beat your competition!

 

8)    Don’t be a victim of a down market cycle!  Be Prepared.

 

 

 

 


 

 

As a real estate professional, the data that you have accumulated about the real estate market is your stock and trade.  If you do not track information about the marketplace, your value proposition to your clients is greatly diminished.  A key component to accomplishing this ginvolves collecting, verifying and warehousing all property related market data that impacts your business and having it at your fingertips when you need it.  If you sell apartments and industrial buildings then collect data about those property types in your trade area.  If you lease retail space, collect information on retail properties, owners, leases and tenants.  Tenant reps will focus on companies and their lease data.  Property information is a commodity these days.  Most of the information you need to build your database can be found using online public databases, purchased from a third party, uncoverd with a quick property visit or a phone call.

 

There are only two ways to warehouse all of your data- the easy way and the hard way.  The easy way is to use the companion software, RealHound®.  The hard way is to use anything else.  When you choose to use RealHound® your data is stored in the most advanced database that you can buy for commercial real estate.  It organizes your market data so you can retrieve it quickly and logically.   It has a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) component that helps you develop and maintain client relationships by tying their contact records directly to the real estate that they are related to.  It will also match buyer & tenant needs to available properties/space in your database or on the Internet.  This powerful tool will save you a tremendous amount of time and can make you a ton of money.

 

The key to any database is to keep the information current.  Even if you have already created a database that has information that is relevant to your specialty in commercial real estate (such as ownership, tenants, phone numbers, property data, property photos, sales comparables, properties “For Sale”, rental data, and lease data) and have also created a farm area/target market, you should still review this chapter to learn new ideas that will increase the effectiveness of your database upkeep.

 

As a successful real estate practitioner, you will need to track information related to your specialty which could include: owners, tenants, leases, properties for sale, buyers, transfers of ownership (sales), rents, new construction and properties taken out-of-service.  Most of your (or your team’s) database efforts will be spent keeping this information current and recording the conversations that you have with your prospects in their respective contact records.  Consider your database to be your very own goldmine that, if maintained properly, will yield you a tremendous personal fortune.

 

Your goal for creating a database is to have at least 700 properties with corresponding ownership, owner phone numbers, owner addresses and property photographs.  Leasing specialists and tenant representatives will add lease and tenant contacts to their database.  In addition to the 700 properties mentioned above tenant representatives should have at least 500 tenants with phone numbers and addresses in their database.  You will use 3rd party data services, public records, interviews with other brokers and your own personal research to complete and maintain your database.

 

Sources of Property Data

Title companies are a good source of basic property and ownership data.  Contact your local title representative for more details.  Public records are another excellent source of free data. (RealHound.com ® is currently exploring the possibility of having this sort of data mining ability automatically integrated into the program, so stay tuned for further details!)

 

There are a number of subscription services in every metropolitan area that will sell you property data.  Use your favorite internet search engine to locate relevant data providers in your area.

 

Caution: It is occupational suicide to exclusively use a single third party data source as your database because that makes you no better than the guy down the street who is doing the exact same thing.  There are a few agents in every market that try to prospect from a single third party database without having built their own personal database.  Traditionally, these agents do poorly in the business and don’t last through a full market cycle.  

 

RealHound® has a very powerful import mechanism, but most subscription data contains errors and/or have license restrictions that limit your ability to use their data.  Therefore, we do not recommend that you import data directly into RealHound® from those sources but rather manually enter and maintain your own data. 

 

Rental data can be obtained from vendors such as Realfacts® in select markets, but you should augmented the information obtained from them with a personal phone call to their respective property owners and/or their property managers because an owner rental survey is a great reason to call prospects in your market.

 

Create Your Database

Input your information into a new database.  Data can be imported or input manually into RealHound.  Anything that can put into an Excel spreadsheet can be imported into the program by mapping the data fields or by using the Easy Import Wizard.  If you choose to key in your data by hand, we recommend that you start inputting your data on the Property Overview screen.

 

Create your Farm

With RealHound® you have the possibility of storing an unlimited number of properties and contacts in your database.  A farm is a subset of properties or contacts in your database that you are continually prospecting for business.  Your farm could be determined by such factors as geographic area, property size, tenant type or property type.

 

If you are operating as an individual agent with over 1,200 properties or contacts in your farm, you will not be as effective in personally contacting all of the prospects in your target market and you will have to slim down the size of your targeted group. 

 

Conversely if you have a large multi-agent team, your team will be able to effectively handle a larger volume of prospects based upon the number of members on the team.  As a general rule you should have at least 700 properties in your farm with a minimum of 500 individual owners or tenants per agent on your team.  Your goal is to contact every prospect in your farm area at least once a quarter to secure a face-to-face meeting.  Owners with properties (or Tenants) that are outside of your farm but are in your property database can be targeted with direct mail. 

 

Identify a target market to become your farm.  Your target market, your farm, will become a group of properties or tenants that you will continuously prospect for business and become an expert on.  Some criteria that you can use to select your target market are: property size, geographic location, property type, tenant type, city or county.   When you have selected your farm save it as a Property Group and give it a name that is easily recognizable to you, or simply call it “my farm”.  If you are working as a tenant rep you will also need to save your tenant contacts as a Contact Group.

 

 

Easily Find Phone Numbers Using Realhound.com’s® BullsEye and Smart-Links

In the past researching owner and tenant contact data was laborious, time consuming work.  In many cases the information that you were able to glean about a property owner was only partially complete or no longer current.  Finding accurate contact information for each prospect in your database is critical to your success, but that doesn’t mean that it should take you all day to find.  That’s why we created BullsEye and Smart-Links and integrated them into the program. 

 

BullsEye searches ten different pay-per-use databases across the Internet to find information missing from your contacts, and it is fast!  It is an affordable pay-per-use service that is available to all of our users.  We have secured prepaid bulk pricing with the largest information providers in the country and pass their services along to you at a nominal cost.  The benefit to you is that you can now find a prospect’s published and, in many cases, unpublished telephone number for as low as 75 cents right from a contact’s record.  That’s less than a call to directory assistance!

 

To use BullsEye, go to a contact record that needs to be researched.  Simply select the BullsEye icon on the menu bar for the missing data.  Click the accept data button to save the information in your contact’s record (if the search results are blank, there is no charge).  It’s that simple.

 

Reminder: Some people do not want to be contacted by phone, fax or email and it may be unlawful for you to do so.  It is your responsibility to determine the legality of your actions, so please use RealHound® in accordance with all Federal, State and local laws. 

 

Smart-Links are preset connections from your RealHound® database to some of the more useful websites on the Internet.  When you use a Smart-link, information about a contact or property is automatically sent to the corresponding website and information is retrieved without manually entering data on the website.

 

RealHound®’s most popular Smart-Links are to ZoomInfo® and 411.com.  The 411.com Smart-Link is represented by a red “4” icon next to the contact name on the Companies & Contacts tab.  To use this Smart-Link, select a contact record and press the red “4” icon.  411.com will automatically lookup a contact’s phone number from the internet free of charge.  ZoomInfo® can be found under the Smart-link menu.  A ZoomInfo® Internet report pulls available information on the selected contact that includes company information, related articles that the contact is quoted in, address, education and phone numbers.  Narrow down your results by selecting a state or other qualifier on the ZoomInfo® webpage.

 

Smart-Links can also be completely customized to send information from your RealHound® database to your favorite websites with a click of a button.  One use for a customized Smart-Link would be to send property information from your database to your county assessor’s website.  You can create your own Smart-Links under the File Menu> Administration> Settings…> Custom Add-Ins tab.

 

Picture 412Property Photographs

Once you have input your property data into RealHound® you will need to photograph each property in your farm.  Not only does having property photos in your database give you a tremendous advantage when you are on the telephone with property owners or tenant, it also gives you the ability to quickly generate reports with photographs and distribute those reports on a moment’s notice instead of driving all over town to take pictures.

 

TIP: Even if you are a seasoned pro in commercial real estate there is still tremendous value in “driving the real estate” in your farm area.  Buildings and neighborhoods change over time.  If a building has fallen into disrepair the owner might be in trouble and may need to sell.  Tenants might want to relocate from a tired shopping center.  You should be on top of the situation to seize such an opportunity.  Try to drive to each building in your farm at least once every three years.

 

The best way to accomplish photographing your entire property database is with a digital camera, laptop computer, Microsoft Streets and Trips (the newest version sold with a GPS receiver) and a driving buddy.  Start by exporting your property addresses from RealHound® into an Excel spreadsheet and import that spreadsheet into Microsoft Streets and Trips on your laptop.  Map the properties and select optimized route.  Plug in the GPS and drive to each property.  The passenger navigates and the driver safely keeps their eyes on the road.

           

Reminder: Using your car’s navigational system to guide you to a large number of properties is probably not the best use of your time (Yes, someone did ask the question).  It takes a considerably longer amount of time to key each property into your car’s navigational system than it does to use your laptop to map out all the properties at once.

 

Take at least four digital photos of each property using the medium quality setting on your camera. This should give sufficient resolution and detail without maxing out your camera’s memory media. The first shot of every building should be of the property address or monument sign. This will give you a reference point to discern one property from another when you download your photos to your computer. Other things that you should consider photographing include: the view from the front sidewalk, HVAC system, parking lot, amenities, property directory, tenant signage, and different building angles. 

 

Make sure that at least one photo is good enough to be used on a marketing brochure or on a postcard. This will save you time in the future when you are trying to complete a report; you will not need to run across town to take a picture. Don’t forget to take notes about each property that you photograph. When you get back to the office, download your photos to your computer. Next, locate your photos on your computer and put each property’s photos into individual folders. Name each folder with the corresponding property’s street address (EXAMPLE: 123 N Camelback Rd).  Import your pictures and record your notes into RealHound®. The Photo import button is located under the picture frame on the Property Overview tab on the Property section. The program will automatically organize and optimize your photos.

Properties “For Sale”

The two main classifications of properties that are “For Sale” are FSBO (for sale by owner) and Exclusively listed. Internet listing services, your competitors’ websites and your local newspaper are great sources for finding properties that are “For Sale”. Check these resources often for changes that affect your market. Input the offering data on the Property Overview screen in the offering section and change the “For Sale:” dropdown box to Yes. Type “FSBO” in the status field if the property is For Sale by Owner or type “Listed”, if the property is Listed (this field is customizable to fit the way you work). Double click or go to the “Offering” tab if you need to enter more information about the offering. Do this for every property that is For Sale in your farm. Update this information on a weekly basis.

 

Reminder: You may also import newly listed properties from the Internet from within the program.

 

For sale BoxAs you talk to property owners in your target market, it will not be uncommon for you to run across owners who tell you that they will sell only if the price is right. These owners are price motivated and are difficult to convert to listings. If they will not list their property with you, you should still consider their property for sale.  Change the “For Sale” dropdown box to Yes and type “FSBO” into the status field. Enter in the Listing Price, CAP and as much relevant data as you can in the offering section on the property overview screen as you can. FSBO’s are notorious for selling their properties at below market prices.  Tracking this type of data will let you quickly find owners who will consider an offer if you are working as a Buyer’s Representative or when using the Buyer needs portion of RealHound®.

           

Warning: Working with property owners that are price motivated and refuse to exclusively list their properties can be hazardous to your wallet!  If you bring a property owner a offer, make sure that you have a signed commission agreement from your both your buyer and the property owner. Many times the buyer will make sure that the seller pays the commission for fear of being left on the hook for your fee. Even with a commission agreement you still might have to fight for your fee.

 

Track down tenants & valuable lease data

If leasing or tenant representation are part of your business plan, you must collect and store tenant information and lease data in your database.  Some people will take a shortcut and exclusively rely on third party data providers for this valuable information.  (If you are one of these people, please step into my common sense corner for a moment.  If you were the leasing broker in a transaction and you were asked to provide the lease details to a company that was going to make the information available to everybody on the planet, how accurate would your reporting be?  The same holds true for the landlords.  Do you think they want every broker in town chasing their tenants at renewal time?)

 

Tenants can be easily located at any building address through the internet.  Google Maps™ will list the majority of the tenants at a given location by property address. 

 

To lookup tenants automatically within RealHound®, select your property and from the Smart-Links menu select Tenants from Google Maps.

 

One of the best ways to drum up tenant representation opportunities and get valuable lease data is to go and physically “knock on doors”.  Pick an office building or a shopping center and go to each suite.  Ask to talk with the business owner and always have something to offer such as a competitive lease analysis, lease audit or market survey.  Make sure that you talk to them about their business goals and expansion plans.

 

Reviewing a tenant’s lease can help both you and the tenant.  Is the tenant being charged correctly for common area maintenance (CAM charges)?  Is the square footage in the space accurately reflected on the lease?  You would be amazed at what you can find in some leases when you start digging around.  One word of caution— if your investigation uncovers certain items which impact a landlord’s pocketbook you will get crossed off of that particular landlord’s holiday gift list.  You should also consider charging a fee for any amount that you happen to save the tenant.  If you are not fortunate enough to obtain a copy of a tenant’s lease, at least ask them about their rate, lease expiration date, renewal options and purchase option dates.  Record these critical details in your database for future reference.

 

Reminder:  Do not plan on meeting and greeting tenants while you are photographing your properties for your database.  If you did this, you would never finish this essential activity of getting your database photos!

 

 

 

Data Imports

You can import REA 8, 9.x, Act 6, Act 2005-2007 and any type of data that you can view using Excel.  From the File menu, select the Import/Export… option and Import….  Select the import option that best accomplishes your goal.

 

The Easy Import Wizard

Data can be easily imported into the program without complicated field mapping using the Easy Import Wizard.  The Easy Import Wizard works by copying data from one Excel spreadsheet and pasting that data into the correct columns in another Excel spreadsheet that is created by the Easy Import Wizard.  After all of the data has been pasted into the newly created spreadsheet, the Easy Import Wizard will automatically bring the data into the program.

                       

Warning:  Always backup your original database before you attempt to import any new data into it.  There is always a chance that you will corrupt your original database with any new data import, in which case, you will be thankful that you took the time to backup.  From the File menu, select Backup Agent…

 

 

 

 

 

Using the Import Wizard

 

1)    From the File menu, select the Import/Export… option and Import… option.

2)    From the Import Agreement window.

a)    Click the Backup Now button to make a backup of your current database.  If you happen to adulterate your current database with your newly imported data, you will be very thankful that you took the time to backup.

b)    Read the Notice and, if you agree to the terms contained therein, select the “Agree to only import data that I am properly licensed to import or that I own” radio button.

c)    Confirm your agreement to the terms in the Notice by typing Yes in the box provided.

d)    Click on the Next button to continue.

3)    Click the Easy Import Wizard button to start the Import Wizard.

4)    From the Import Wizard Screen select the type of data that you wish to import.  If you want to import property data, select the Properties and Contacts radio button.  If your spreadsheet contains strictly contact data, select the Contacts Only radio button.

5)    Enter a name for the spreadsheet that you will paste your data into.

6)    Click the Create Excel File button to create the new spreadsheet.

If you selected a file name that already exists you will get a message similar to this screenshot.  Select Yes ONLY if you are sure you want to ERASE the original file and replace it with a new file with the same name.

                                   

7)    Open the spreadsheet that contains the data you wish to import into the program.  The new Excel file you just created in Step 6 and the data file you wish to pull data from will now both be open.

 

If you are importing Property data, start pasting your data in the cell marked “Enter Data Here”.  It is extremely important that you have the correct Property Type listed for each property being imported.  Only those properties that have valid RealHound® Property Types will import correctly.  Use Excel’s Find and Replace functions to change invalid types.  Valid types include: Apartment, Office, Industrial, Retail, Land, Storage, Hotel, Casino, Condo, Mobile Home and Single-Family.

 

           

If you are only importing Contact data, don’t forget to clear the contents from Cell A2 and start pasting your data in the columns for contact data.

 

In the following example we will import Property and Owner Contact information.  Select the first column of data (be mindful not to copy the field header), hold down the Ctrl key and press the C key. This will copy the selected data to your clipboard.  In our example we will select the Company field.

In the spreadsheet created by the Easy Import Wizard, find the equivalent field name (in this case, it is Owner Company) and select the cell immediately below the name.  With the receiving cell selected, press and hold the Ctrl key while pressing the V key.  This will paste the contents of the clipboard in that column starting at the selected cell.

 

Alternatively, you could right click on the receiving cell then select Paste.

 

8)    Continue to copy the data from the original data file and pasting it into the appropriate columns in the new data file created by the Easy Import Wizard.  If your data source has "123 N Anywhere St", you would simply paste it into the Property Address Full field.  If your data source has two "123" and "N Anywhere St" address fields, you would paste the data into the Property Address Street Number and Property Address Street fields.

 

9)    After all of the property and contact data has been pasted into the new spreadsheet, Save the changes and Close Excel completely.

 

10)  Return to the open Import Wizard window.  Click the Import Excel File button to start the import process.

 

11)  From the Import Status window, select the options that best meet your import goals.  Once you have selected your import options click the Start button.

From this point forward don’t touch your computer, allow it to finish and it will automatically return to the RealHound® database screen.  A data import is one of the most computer resource intensive processes that you can ever do and it can take a long time depending on the number of records.  If Windows Task Manager states that the program is “Not Responding” this is perfectly normal.  Just let it run.

 

12)  After the import completes, click the Tune-Up Database button from the main login screen or your newly imported data will not show correctly in your database.

 

 

 

 

Data Doctor fixes and cleans your data

A truly unique feature of the program is the data management suite called Data Doctor.  Data Doctor allows you to globally change the data in your database and perform duplicate checking on your data.  There are over 75 data management and cleansing features in this section of the program.

 

Warning:  Always, Always, ALWAYS backup your original database before you attempt to use any feature in Data Doctor.  There is significant chance that you will corrupt your entire database using Data Doctor, in which case, you will be thankful that you took the time to backup.

 

Data Doctor is not for everyone and was specifically designed for your database administrator and IT professionals.

 

Using Data Doctor

 

1)    From the File menu, select Administration and then Data Doctor…

2)    Find and run the data management feature that you wish to use.

 

Partial Data Doctor feature list

Transfer and update field values

Phone description update

Set default records

Duplicate checking with merge and delete functions

Setup users

Data Clean up & optimization

Switch data between fields

Data Purging

Execute SQL Statements

Advance field splitting

Direct edit of Contact table

Global Replace

Clean & Update Contact data

Direct edit of Property table

File Sucker (photos & File)

Clean & Update property data

Direct edit of unit mix table

Reset GUIDs

Standardize documents folders

Direct edit of sales table

Direct edit of activity table

 


 

Power Moves

 

1)    As a real estate practitioner, the data that you have on the real estate market is your stock and trade.  Without local market knowledge, your value proposition to your clients is greatly diminished.   You must distinguish yourself from your competition.  To accomplish this you must collect and verify all property related market data that impacts your business.  You or your team should do your own data input, research and data verification.  Maintain professional relationships with your peers so they are willing to share information about their transactions with you.  Prospecting from an accurate well maintained property and contact database will make you a lot of money.

 

2)    It is occupational suicide to exclusively use a third party data source as your database because you have no control over the information.  There are a few agents in every market that try to prospect from these online databases without having built their own personal database.  Traditionally, these agents do poorly in the business and don’t last through a full market cycle.

 

3)    Identify a target market to become your farm.  You should have at least 700 properties in your farm with a minimum of 500 corresponding owners per agent on your team.  Tenant representatives should have at least 500 tenants.  Your goal is to contact every prospect in your farm at least once per quarter.  Owners and tenants that are outside of your farm but are still in your database can be targeted with direct mail.

 

4)    Save your farm properties as a property Group and give it a name such as “my farm”.  Tenant representatives can save their prospects as a contact Group.  Alternatively, if you have linked all of your tenants to the properties that they have leased under the “Leases” tab, you should save the properties in a property Group. 

 

Saving your farm as a Group will save you time when you are prospecting and need to query your prospects at a moment’s notice.


Chapter Four

What goes where and why should you care?

-The Contact, Today and Property Screens-

RealHound® is divided into three main sections: Property, Today and Contact sections.  The Contact section is where you will spend most of your time in the program.  Each of these main sections is broken down further into other related components.

 

Reminder: First time users of RealHound® may find the multiple Sections with numerous tabs and a seeming sea of endless fields slightly intimidating.  However, you have the ability to hide tabs and fields so you can customize the look of the program.  As your confidence grows, you can turn on or off areas of the program that you may or may not want to use.  To take advantage of this feature go to: File>User Interface… to turn on or off program Tabs or File>Administration>Settings…>Field Visibility to hide fields in the database.

The Contact Section

The first tab in the Contact section is the Companies & Contacts tab.  The Contact Screen displays a contact’s primary information, history of property ownership, related contacts, group membership, leases and history of activities relating to the contact.  Everything that is mission critical to successful communication with your clients is displayed on this one tab.  You can also send emails, generate letters and schedule activities with your contacts without leaving this screen.  The Companies & Contacts tab’s screen is broken down into the following components:

 

Contact information: The top half of the screen contains information about your Contact.  Always try to enter in as much relevant data as possible.  You never know when you will need to reach your client at some obscure location that they gave you the telephone number to months ago.

 

TIP: If you are just getting started with RealHound® and you think you might be missing some of your contact records, click the ALL button on top of the screen on the menu bar.

Contact Screen


You should enter in each contact record’s contact Type field.  The field should explain the major role that the contact plays in your market (some examples are: Owner, Tenant, Owner/user, Investor, Lender, Manager, Developer, Appraiser, etc).

 

Lookup boxLookup box:  Located on the top right-hand side of the screen, the Lookup box is a quick way to find contacts in your database.  Our lookup box is patterned after the lookup box commonly found on your favorite internet search engines. Type in all or part of a contact’s name or company name and press the Enter key.  The program will pull up every matching record.  You can also locate a contact by typing in a portion of their phone number, address, or fax number.  The Lookup box is intelligent, meaning that it will automatically search for variants of the name you type in the lookup field.  For example, if you type in “Richard” it will pull up all Richards and Ricks.  “Bill” will yield William and Billy, etc.

 

Below the Lookup box is the “What:” drop down list.  Use this feature to Narrow Down your search results within the currently selected records, exclusively search the Contact or Company fields, etc.  When you have completed your search, return the “What:” drop down to the ALL.  This will refresh your search criteria to all records for your next search.

 

TIP:  To quickly jump your cursor to the Lookup box from anywhere in the program and set the lookup to ALL, press the Ctrl + J keys.  To set the lookup to just last name press the Ctrl + L keys.

 

Contact Groups: This is a useful feature that allows you to group contacts together by some relevant relationship.  For example: you could create a group named “Retail Brokers” and designate every active broker in your database as a member of this group. 

 

Some other useful contact groupings include:

      • Contacts for whom you have completed a proposal
      • Contacts without a phone number
      • Contacts that need to be called on a regular basis
      • Contacts with whom you have met
      • Contacts for whom you have prepared a proposal and need to follow-up with them on a regular basis

 

TIP:  There are two types of groups that you can use in RealHound®, Property Groups and Contact Groups.  You should NOT group your Farm by owners using a Contact Group because property ownership perpetually changes.  Instead, you should use a Property Group, because, while the ownership will change, the property is not going anywhere and will always be in your farm.  Property Groups are most effective for grouping properties with a similar location and/or physical characteristics.  Another convenient use for groups is to save a particular list of contacts or properties that you will need to work with at some future point in time such as rent comparables or tenant types.

 

 Related Contacts radio button: This feature allows you to link related contacts to one another for quick reference and easy access.  To go to a related contact’s record, just double click on the grey box next to the contact’s name. 

Entering related contacts is easy.  Next to the asterisk, Click on the Contact Search button, enter the new related contact in the search box and click the Select button.  Once you have selected the related contact, the contact’s name and company will appear in the list.  Next, in the box below the related contact’s name and company, select the relationship to the main contact or type in the relationship.  If the particular relationship is not on the list, RealHound® will automatically create a link between the two contacts and prompt you for the return relationship.  For example:  If the contact record that you are working with has an assistant, you will enter in the assistant’s name and define their relationship as “Employee” or “Assistant”.  RealHound® will ask you to define the return relationship and you will enter in “Employer” or “Boss”.  To query the related contacts, click the Goto button next to the Related Contacts radio button and RealHound® will look up those records for you.  Click the Goto button if you want to send all of the related contacts a letter or email.

 

Company radio button:  This feature allows you to automatically view all of the contact records that are related to your current contact record by company name.  Contacts that share the EXACT company name will automatically link to your current contact record just by selecting the Company radio button.  To query the related contacts in the same company, click the Goto button next to the Company radio button and RealHound® will look up those records for you.  You would click the Goto button if you wanted to send all of the related contacts in the same company a letter or email.

 

History Radio ButtonsHistory/Task/Other Radio Buttons: Select “History” or “Other” and the information displayed in the box below these settings changes.  With “Other” selected the program displays more contact fields and other customizable fields.  When “History” is selected, every note, logged call, email, letter, scanned or attached document is displayed in date order.  To filter activities go to the “Show Type:” drop down box and select the type of activity that you only want the program to display.

 

Tip: To customize fields in your database select the File Menu>Administration>Settings…> Custom Fields tab

Related Properties: Displays all properties, leases, sales and linked properties that are related to the selected contact. This feature is discussed in detail in another section of this book.

Buttons, buttons and more buttons!

 

At the bottom of the Companies and Contacts screen, there are a series of buttons that function as follows:

 

New Contact: Creates a new contact record.  Note that you CANNOT create a new contact record from the Edit menu.

 

Copy Contact: Creates a new contact record and populates the record with the same company name, address and phone numbers as the currently selected contact.

 

Drop Contact: Drops the current contact from the list of contacts displayed and advances you to the next contact record.

 

Task: Allows you to schedule a Call, Meeting or To Do task with the current contact at some future point in time.  Scheduled activities will appear on your calendar.

 

Note: Creates a new note into the contact history record.

 

Call: Creates note about a call you made to or received from the selected contact in the contact history record.

 

Cold Call: This button is covered in detail in another section.

 

Attach: Allows you to attach different types of files to the contact record such as a marketing package, MS Word document or PDF file.  These files are stored in the contact’s document folder.

 

Documents:  An innovative way to store and view any electronic file associated with the current contact record. Files can be cut, copied, dragged or pasted into the folder that pops up when you click the Documents button. You will never lose an electronic file again!!