Leasing 101: How to Canvass without driving yourself mad!

Saglo Realty, LLC - 3rd Party Retail Leasing in Florida and Georgia

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For the next few articles I will be copying and pasting some old posts from my leadscommunity website that are still relevant today. I am finally not going to renew the hosting since LinkedIn and Facebook Groups do a much better job.

From July 30, 2009 by Hue Chen (then with Woolbright Development)

How to canvass without driving yourself mad.

Canvassing is an important marketing strategy in sales. Most business owners will respect that you took time to visit their stores and if they are not busy, will tell you a little bit about their business and the market. The collateral benefit that you gain from canvassing is that you end up learning the market very well. There is no better way to learn which stores are where than walking the streets. Things to remember before you get started

• Canvassing is a long-term campaign and not a 1-trick solution. In the same way you do not get a beach-body by working out once or twice, you also will not sign a lease out of your first few canvassing sessions.
• Canvassing makes you smarter ... in real estate, different businesses as well as the local market. This intelligence can be leveraged to close deals.

Now on to the Step by Step Strategy

• Step 1: Create a 6 month canvassing plan on excel with the assumption that you will canvass for 8-hour sessions twice per week. See picture below. Each day should have you visiting the greater of 10 shopping centers or 50 retailers. By the end of 6 months, you would have visited 2,600 retailers.

• Step 2: Climbing the mountain is focusing on one step at a time. Visiting 2,600 retailers may seem daunting, but once you have climbed that mountain should yield you 200 site visits with 75 turning to LOIs and 25 leases (greater experience and local intelligence will yield a better ratio). 25 leases could mean $200,000 in commissions which means each of the 2,600 stores you walked into could be worth $80+ (even if they say "no" because you gotta get through 100 no's to get a yes!).
• Step 3: Pay attention to your surroundings. I found that by essentially living in shopping centers for 11 years of my career (either officing out of them or canvassing them) I had gained through osmosis an instinct on which shopping centers were good which ones were bad, which retailers were good which ones were bad. This 6th sense will become your most valuable asset once you hone it.
• Step 4: Making the Pitch – I found that getting straight to the point is the most effective way to approach 99% of business owners. I don’t introduce myself, give my name or company. I say “I have a question for you. Are you interested in expanding your business? I own several shopping centers around the city.” Don't tell them about your shopping center unless they ask, remember it's about them not you. Their goal is increase net profits of their business and your goal should also be to increase net profits of their business.
• Step 5: Learn how they make money (tip: they should be doing most of the talking and you are to only guide the conversation through questions). Find out what it is they sell and who do they sell it to. What are their margins and how many customers do they need to hit their goals? Learn what they need to have to produce a successful location and cross reference it with what you can provide. This is a business of needs fulfillment, if you cannot fulfill their needs then move on to someone who is a better fit.
• Step 6: Check off the card: After you walk out of the door there are 3 possible outcomes: 1. They are interested and you need to follow up to schedule an appointment, 2. The owner wasn’t there, 3. They are not interested. For shorthand, I write either “1”, “2”, or “3” on the back of each business card and sort them later. The 3’s you can throw out, the 2’s follow up, and 1’s try to get site visits (should be 10%+ of your visits).
• Step 7: Don't take it personal. Remember, if you get a negative reaction it is usually because that business owner is not doing very well and is taking out their frustration on you.
• Step 8: Rinse and Repeat: Visit each business 2x per year (ie: repeat your 6-month campaign) and you’ll be amazed at how much they will warm up to you.
• Step 9: Law of Lease Term. The typical lease is 5 years so 20% of the people you speak with have a renewal coming up in the next 12 months and at the very least they should be interested in what market rents are at that time.
• Step 10: Stick and Move. Don’t spend more than 15 minutes talking to any 1 prospect, some people are just bored and want to talk. If they are truly interested, set up a site visit and they will come out to your site and talk there. They can’t make a decision until they see it anyways.
• Step 11: Database. Make sure to enter all your contacts into a database and take careful notes on expiration dates, birthdays, or any other pertinent comments that they may have made. Set a reminder to call them 9-12 months before their lease is up.

This is just my advice on canvassing, feel free to respond with your tips.

PS - find yourself a good shoe repair person, you will be going through a lot of soles!