From time-to-time I have commercial agents I've never even spoken with before call me or e-mail me asking me the following question:

"Can you send me copies of all the exclusive presentation packages you've got in your possession from the top-producing commercial agents you've worked with over the years?"

And of course they want me to make all the copies myself and then send them these packages for free.

But in reality I don't have any of these presentation packages in my possession. And even if I did I'd never give them out without the approval of the brokers who put them together.

And I'm mentioning this to you for a reason, and that reason is that there's a lot more that goes into determining whether or not you'll be chosen for an exclusive assignment by someone outside of the presentation package you hand them. In fact, depending on your relationship with the prospect, your presentation package may have very little to do with whether or not you get chosen to represent them.

But there's a mentality within some brokers in our industry that has them believing the reason they're not successful at getting exclusives is because they don't have the unbelievably impressive package to put on the conference room table in front of people. And that somehow if they had this package, people would magically just start saying "Yes" to them more frequently.

Because the package would say and do everything that somehow the agent cannot say and do themselves? In a way it's as if the package represents the Holy Grail, and if the agent could only get their hands on one to copy from someone, then somehow all of their fortunes would immediately begin changing in their commercial real estate business.

And the joke of the matter is that in reality, most of the agents who think this way would simply look at this package if they ever received it, admire it, and then never get around to adapting it to utilize in their own business. It would just be too much work with all the other things they've got on their plate to keep them busy all the time. Because if it really was that important to them they would have developed a package like it quite some time ago. And two years from now they'll still probably be thinking that they'll get around to it sometime soon.

What I've just described to you is one of the classic differences between mediocre agents, and top producing ones.

There's so much more that goes into getting an exclusive agreement than having a great presentation package. In fact, in an interview I did with Grubb & Ellis' Stan Mullin, who is this year's SIOR President, Stan mentioned that in his opinion, 65 percent of the time when he's presenting for an exclusive, the principals have already decided who they're going to hire for the job before he makes his presentation. And in situations like these having the most unbelievable presentation package to hand to people when you walk in the door really isn't going to make much difference.

So what does make the difference? Your people skills, your relationship skills, and the relationship your company has with important decision makers in the companies you want to work with. The latter item is more important with corporate-style decision makers you want to do business with and less important with entrepreneurial-style decision makers who own their own companies and make their own decisions.

As an example of this, I was talking with one of my coaching clients recently and asked him what he does in his presentations for exclusive listings with people. He responded with, "I don't have a presentation I utilize, and I haven't made a listing presentation in five years. All of my business has come to me in the last five years from the people I know and the people they introduce me to ... and no formal presentation on my part has ever been necessary."

This shows you how important relationships and knowing the right people are as compared to just having an amazing presentation package to hand to people.

Now let me make it clear that I'm all in favor of you presenting amazing presentation packages to people. When you're in the running for an exclusive and it's tough for the principals to differentiate between you and one or more other brokerage companies, your package may definitely help you out.

It can also help you out by presenting a congruent image of yourself and your team, one that is in complete alignment with the impeccable presentation you hopefully delivered when interacting with the principals themselves. But if you had to choose between mailing a great presentation package to the principals and never talking to or meeting with them, or meeting with them and handing them no presentation package at all, which route do you think would give you a better chance of landing the exclusive? In my opinion, your people and relationship skills are more important than any package you hand to them.

So recognize that there's much more that goes into getting a signed exclusive than handing people a great presentation package. When you're dealing with corporate decision makers whose companies own or lease many different locations nationwide, they may already know who they're going to give the assignment to before you meet with them. And for entrepreneurial decision makers, they're more likely to go with their gut feeling on who they feel is the best broker to represent them right now.

So yes, you want to hand your people a great presentation package. But more importantly, you want to make sure you have the people skills, solid relationships, and presentation skills to land you the business.

Published: July 3, 2006

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Jim Gillespie, Ph.D., is America's Premier Real Estate Coach℠. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and is a past president of three different real estate companies. His FREE real estate E-newsletter with tips and creative ideas to help agents make more money is now read by over 35,000 agents nationwide. You can subscribe to his FREE E-newsletter by visiting RealEstateSalesCoach.com or contact him at Jim@RealEstateSalesCoach.com.