Apto Commercial Real Estate Blog

We take a lot of pride in helping our customers manage their client relationships, properties, listings, and deals. Apto is the #1 CRM & deal management platform in the industry, and our software is trusted by nearly 10,000 brokers.

We are proud to report that our customers see a 610% annual return on investment (ROI) from their purchase of Apto. They also estimate that using Apto helps them save nearly 6 hours a week—that’s an average of 295 hours per year. 

Take a look at some of the ways brokers across the country are using Apto to manage their business and get a competitive edge.

When you think about the communication methods you use in your professional life, face to face is still the most important for commercial real estate brokers, followed by the trusty phone call.

But then it’s email. Being efficient and communicating your message clearly and succinctly doesn’t just save you time and energy, it saves your clients time and energy.

To be an effective broker, you should be able to do a couple things when it comes to email: You should know how to manage your inbox so it doesn’t overflow with urgent messages, but also doesn’t suck all the time out of your day because you’re responding to everything immediately. You should be able to send a message that gets your point across and prompts action, but doesn’t take long to read. And you should know how and when to use mass email to amplify your message and brand.

Fortunately, there are tools and resources out there that can help with all of this. Even if you’re already good at email, you can always stand to be a bit better. Here’s how.

If you’re not actively prospecting for new business as a commercial real estate broker, then you’re falling behind.

Brokers who are only a few years into the business understand this inherently. Building a book of business takes a long time, so in the early years, it might feel like your job is ALL prospecting.

But the trick is to keep the momentum throughout your career. Even if you have plenty of repeat business and referrals, if you’re not also reaching out to new people, then your business is in decline.

We hear it over and over from the top brokers in all markets and specialties. It’s great to not have to rely completely on prospecting, but at the end of the day, you always have to think about your long-term pipeline. To keep your pipeline full and your business moving forward in some way, you have to keep meeting new people.

Here are some of our favorite resources to inspire and guide your prospecting efforts at every stage of your career as a commercial real estate broker.

Rod Santomassimo at The Massimo Group, the premier commercial real estate coaching and consulting organization, recently hosted The Great CRE CRM Debate, and we were honored to be one of the four companies who participated.

It's no surprise that hundreds of commercial real estate professionals joined to hear about commercial real estate CRMs. A CRM is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s become a must-have for brokers. In fact, this year's DNA of #CRE survey data revealed a pretty dramatic stat:

Less than half of brokers who make under $100K a year use a CRM, and 71% percent of brokers who make more than $100K use a CRM.

Even if you use a CRM, it may not be made for commercial real estate. And if it’s a CRM for commercial real estate, it could be doing more for you than just storing data.

This article was initially posted on GlobeSt.com.

It’s been a generation coming, and in the past five years we’ve seen the pace accelerate. Now, it’s crystal clear: for commercial real estate technology, including automation across a variety of applications, we’re past the tipping point. The era of adoption is upon us. The effects are acutely apparent, though the industry continues to grapple with vexing but surmountable challenges including a lack of consistent data standards.

Commercial real estate brokers get a bad rap sometimes.

They can be seen as pushy and aggressive, or borderline unethical. If you’re a potential prospect, you might get hounded by calls and visits from brokers. If you’re a broker, you could find yourself on a team so competitive you’ll have leads stolen right out from under you.

The commercial real estate industry at large also has a bit of reputation. It’s known as an old boy’s club, and one that’s pretty outdated in terms of technology. Many brokers still rely on Excel or even pen and paper, and they don’t trust technology for their business.

That’s what some people say, anyway. And at times, maybe they’re right. But you and I know that these perceptions don’t accurately reflect the full reality of CRE.

We break down four common myths about commercial real estate—and why they’re false.

Video marketing is only going to increase in popularity in the coming years. According to a report from HubSpot Research, more than 50% of consumers want to see videos from brands—more than any other type of content. And for commercial real estate, it just makes sense! What better way to show off a property than a video tour?

Whether you’re creating videos and tours in-house or outsourcing to third-party companies, savvy commercial real estate marketers need to be aware of the latest trends—and the best tools and companies available to create professional-looking videos. That’s why we put together a list of the top companies who provide video content and drone or 3D tours to the commercial real estate industry, as well as some tools you could use yourself to make high-quality videos.

Everyone manages someone.

Maybe your commercial real estate brokerage team includes you and one admin to support you. Maybe you manage one other broker, or 10. Or perhaps you’re an independent contractor and it’s really just you! Even then, you’re managing yourself and your work and output every day. As they say in commercial real estate, you eat what you kill, so you have to make sure you’re managing yourself as best you can.

Whatever size your team, instilling accountability can be difficult. Here are three tips to make it easier by structuring accountability into your processes.

Whether you call it an email “blast” or a “push” or a “send,” an email sent to hundreds or thousands of people at once can still be an effective commercial real estate marketing strategy.

It cannot and should not replace one-on-one connections and conversations, but there are still times when a mass email can come in handy. Maybe you send a monthly newsletter with market news and trends to your network of contacts, or perhaps you want to get the word out on a new listing (after you’ve already called your top contacts and likely buyers, of course).

Mass email may seem like an old-school strategy, but it’s still around for a reason. Here are a few tips to up your game and write emails that people actually want to read.

It’s Tuesday morning, and you have a call block for prospecting on your calendar.

You put Outlook on one screen and Excel on the other. You pull up a browser with your CRE data provider of choice, as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google—all on individual tabs. Then you scan your contacts to figure out a strategy, filtering in Excel to define your target group. Finally, you pick up your phone and call the first contact in your spreadsheet.

Sound familiar? No wonder you put off prospecting. It can take a lot of time each day to get fully prepared and make connections.