Results for over 120,000 CRE Broker Prospecting Calls

I run my business by the numbers. Heck – we are a coaching company, so we know numbers matter. Want to know how your year is going? Look at your numbers. Want to determine where you can improve? Look at your numbers. What to identify what is the strongest variable in producing income? Look at your numbers. By the way, to find out what the strongest variable is in producing income – read the next paragraph.

At the Massimo Group, we track scores of individual metrics with our hundreds of clients, as these metrics are individualized for each of our client/members. However, most (if not all) of our coaching clients track their prospecting call efforts – and we know for a fact, the prospect call is the number one revenue producing activity you can do for your business.

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But how many prospecting calls does it take to get someone on the phone, and how many conversations lead to a meeting? We analyzed over 120,000 commercial real estate prospect calls, take a look at the chart below to get a benchmark for your efforts.

As I noted, we love numbers and feel they are the best perspective for understanding the health of one’s business. To get these statistics, we took a sample of our coaching client activities in 2016 to determine conversion rates for the most basic of prospecting efforts – the phone call and the prospect meeting.

The chart below represents a sample of our coaching clients and their activities for 2016. It is important to note, this sample consists of commercial real estate brokers from all levels of experience – as well as all organization sizes and specialties. Also, this sample of clients may have been coached by us for 1 month or 5 years – depending on where they are in the program.

 PROSPECTING ACTIVITY                2016-Q1               2016-Q2                2016-Q3                2016-Q4

Dials Attempted                               36,483                   28,440                    32,251                    25,376

Dials Completed                              13,825                    10,552                   10,573                     9,103

Dial Completion Ratio                       38%                        37%                        33%                        36%

Meetings Held                                   2,035                     1,985                      1,911                      1,918

Meetings Conversion Rate               15%                       19%                        18%                         21%

So, what does this tell you? For an industry average – again we’re looking at all levels of experience and brokerage association – your peers connect with their prospects around 36% of the time.

Once connecting with a prospect, they have roughly an 18% chance of securing a meeting. Take this a step further, and your peers are securing meetings almost 6% of the time they pick up the phone – or more relatively, about 1 out of every 20 calls.

A couple of warnings:

1. The better way to do this is to break this down by level of experience, and tenure with our programs. We have done this internally so we know the conversion rates for new to business, mid-career, and seasoned veterans. However, we cannot share this information.

2. These stats are based on commercial real estate professionals who have invested in themselves and are exposed to alternative approaches that we find are working in the market. The conversion ratios seen here are likely higher than you are experiencing.

Thus, these numbers, as reflected above – may or may not be applicable to you. However, this should give you an industry-wide benchmark for prospecting activity. You now know the number 1 revenue generation tool you have access to – the phone! You also now have a benchmark to strive for, or better – a benchmark to beat. Good luck making your calls!

I’d like to ask you how you stack up to these benchmarks. However, based on our experience working with CRE professionals – you probably don’t know your numbers. You have to start there. If you don’t know them, then you really don’t know if what you are doing is working.

More than that, you have no idea if you are at a competitive disadvantage to your competition. That is a very bad place to be in your business.

If you are interested in only speaking with qualified prospects, and no longer wasting your time chasing those who will never make a decision or those that do not value your time, click below for our free download!