Brokerage
Seeking Out Small Businesses
Use these simple strategies to find start-up clients.
By Carolyn Bilsky |
Even though commercial real estate professionals offer
important services to small businesses, they don’t always come looking for them,
says Jeffrey Hulett, CCIM, a tenant representative at DHC Associates in
Cleveland. “These companies are small and tend to fly under the radar, so you
need to be creative to find out about them and how to reach out to them,” he
says.
Sometimes
this can be as simple as reading the local paper. “One of the most successful
approaches for me is to read local newspapers and publications that cover these
start-up firms,” Hulett says. “I recently represented a national casual dining
company looking for [a place to locate] their corporate headquarters. I learned
about them from an article [in the local newspaper promoting] their recent
receipt of funds for an aggressive expansion plan. Local publications carry a
lot of helpful information about small and start-up companies. Many times this
resource is underutilized by the brokerage community.”
CCIMs also
can make sure that the companies have access to information about them. Steve
Marcusse, CCIM, industrial adviser with Grubb & Ellis/Paramount in Grand
Rapids, Mich., finds a good way to attract new clients is to make sure that the
community knows his company’s name. “Have your signs up in as many places as
possible. The best advertising is to show that you are active in the market.
For example, if we can make a sale near a highway, we make sure the sign is big
enough for people going by to see.”
The most
important task a commercial real estate professional has when working with a
small-business owner is determining their space needs and guiding them toward
the best decision. “[Small business owners] know their business and what sort
of machinery they need, but we help translate that into the type of real estate
they need, boiling it all down into a focused site search, request for
proposal, and lease or purchase contract,” says Jeremy G. Woods, CCIM, SIOR,
senior director of industrial services at Summit Realty Group in Indianapolis.
In this way the commercial real estate pro/small-business
owner relationship is mutually beneficial: the small business gets a
well-suited property and the commercial real estate pro gets a positive word-of-mouth
testimonial that hopefully leads to new business.