Excel–The Best and Worst for Managing Your Prospecting
Advantages and disadvantages of using Excel to manage your CRE prospecting.
The Broker’s Flywheel: Four Systems Every CRE Broker Needs for Success
Every successful commercial real estate broker is, at their core, an entrepreneur. You are the CEO of your own business, and you understand that hard work is only half the battle. The other half is systemization—building repeatable, measurable processes that eliminate anxiety and drive deal flow.
In occupier representation, success isn't just about salesmanship; it’s about timing, consistency, and having the right systems in place. While you can hustle your way to a few deals, you can’t build a successful broker business without structure.
Based on years of working with brokers and data from users across the country, we've identified four critical systems that can create long-term success for the occupier rep.
1. The Goldilocks Data System: Right-Size Your Target List
Many brokers—especially those managing their business in spreadsheets—make the mistake of having a database of prospects and clients that is either too large to be accurate and managed or too small to create enough deal flow to sustain success. They end up with data landfills rather than actionable lists they can grow their business from.
- The Trap of Bloat: We often see new users of Enaia come in with 3,000 or 4,000 contacts, many of which are companies that went out of business or invalid contacts. This massive volume creates paralyzing anxiety; you can’t possibly build a relationship or manage follow-ups with that many names, and the quality of the list is poor. They have a catch-all list from years of work, and it has little value.
- The Sweet Spot: Our experience and data has found that a sweet spot for a manageable, high-engagement list is between 400 and 800 companies. This is the data set you can realistically know, track, and pursue with the consistency required to win.
Your Action: Consistently assess your contacts. If you’re brand new, do the hard work upfront to build this focused list. If you're seasoned, prune the dead weight and organize your list so you know exactly who you're calling and why. Set reminders for regular communications around LXDs and check-ins, keeping your list active and you at the front of prospects and client’s minds.
2. Marketing as a Sales Activity: Build Your Individual Brand
For years, many brokers felt marketing was only something for their brokerage to do for them. Today, great brokers understand there is a clear delineation between sales and marketing—and both are crucial to their growth.
Brokers have long known that platforms like LinkedIn are some of the best tools for prospect research and outbound business development. But effective brokers understand those platforms can also be used to create content that demonstrates expertise and drives inbound opportunities.
- Find Your Narrative: You must think through your individual market narrative, and your unique approach to it. It’s no longer enough to say, "I work for [insert major brokerage], therefore you know I’ll be great." Clients want to know what they’re getting with the broker, not just the brokerage.
- Find Your Timing: We hear all the time from brokers who are surprised to find that former clients they had close relationships with recently closed a deal with another broker. Their assumption was that if that client ever had a need, they’d reach out. The reality is that as the need came up, another broker happened to reach out at the right time. Consistently showing up in client's feeds and inboxes with relevant content increases your chances that you’re on their mind when the next opportunity arises.
- Creative Content: We have a user who closed an 80,000 SF deal by consistently sending out a "Large Block Summary" email to a targeted list of potential clients that were sizable enough to occupy bigger spaces. It was work on their part, but when one of those prospects was in the market to pursue a large space in their city, guess who they thought of as the go-to broker for large blocks? This was not a direct BD activity, but rather a marketing practice—a repeatable system—that led directly to a life-changing deal.
Your Action: Specialize your focus and create content that aligns with that expertise. Be generous with your information to convey authority, but be selective about the platforms you use to ensure you're in front of the right decision-makers. Stay consistent in your content cadence, keep your name on their mind!
3. The Timing Business: Turn Your Brain Off, But Don’t Forget
Occupier services is fundamentally a timing business. Leases are always expiring, creating a soft recurring deal flow. Unlike investment sales, the deals are coming regardless of market conditions—it's just a matter of who will win the business.
The single biggest threat to this recurring business is forgetting to follow up. Every long-time broker has a story about losing a deal because they assumed they'd get the renewal in ten years, only to have the client expand and relocate five years early.
- The Solution: You need a system that frees your brain from tracking every single lease expiration date, termination clause, and renewal option. We see brokers try to manage reminders and dates for thousands of contacts through calendar reminders and notes in Excel spreadsheets and it rarely ever works. Following up at the right time is too important to not put a real tool or system in place. A purpose-built tool won’t just store these dates; it will automatically create and deliver reminders far in advance (12, 18, 24 months, or more for larger deals).
Your Action: Leverage technology to build a consistent routine. If you can't rely on your system to manage timing, you'll be constantly reactive, instead of proactively shaping your deal pipeline.
4. Consistency is King: Repeatable Activities and Goals
If you were to ask any successful broker how they manage massive inventory and multiple deals, their answer is the same: systemization and consistency. They have a method built out to manage everything they do.
The struggle for most brokers is managing outbound prospecting when their deal flow is at an all-time high. The reactive nature of the business (tours, proposals, client calls) inevitably crushes the proactive work (cold calls, business development).
- Measure What Matters: If you’re not measuring your prospecting activity, you’re by default making the decision that it doesn't matter—and the anxiety comes from knowing it does matter but having no way to manage it or track it.
- The Power of Goals: Successful teams build systems where every member can set and track individual goals for outbound activity (e.g., 200 sales activities a week). This ensures that while you're reacting to today's fire and working with today’s clients, you're still building tomorrow's pipeline.
Your Action: Don't just have a process; make it repeatable and measurable. Great technology isn't a replacement for effort—it's an enabler of consistency.
Maximizing a Broker’s Number One Resource: Relationships
Ultimately, the broker and their ability to build relationships is the key resource in CRE, but the technology and systems around that broker can define how successful they will be.
Great systems and technology enable the human connection, maximizing the time and effectiveness you have for every touchpoint. By building systems around data, marketing, timing, and consistency, you ensure that the high-value, relationship-driven work is where you can spend the majority of your time.
We built Enaia with the belief that brokers are the key stakeholder and driver of all commercial real estate. If you're ready to stop using generic systems that don’t understand the broker workflow and start integrating a tool that truly accelerates your success, it's time to choose a platform built for the broker, first.
