Conversation Starters

What does it take to get you to stop and listen—really listen—to a coworker, a friend or even a family member? What about a stranger? Being a good listener takes effort, and our minds are often preoccupied with the to-do lists and distractions of today’s world.

For us to turn our attention to something, it has to be interesting, relevant and timely. For property owners and tenants, this could be a number of things based on their current position. The job of a broker is to craft messages that are macro enough to address the market but micro enough to strike a chord with your prospects. 

Anatomy of a conversation starter

Conversation starters have to work for your client, not you. Make sure your messages meet these criteria:

• Be interesting—fast. You only have a few seconds to capture your prospect’s attention.
• Be contextually relevant. Deliver macro trends and/or phenomena with local implications, or scalable region trends or developments
• Add value. Whatever you share should be news to your client. It can be either completely new or an interesting take on information they already know.
• Invoke action. Use information in a way that forces a decision on your prospect. Make it so the need to take action is necessary.

The good news is that there’s a very manageable number of conversation starters that will interest your clients and prospects regardless of their property needs or location. Just keep this formula in mind.

Event | Universal Impact | Opportunity | Benefit/Action

Here's an example of how you can use that formula to get the attention of a prospect—and hopefully schedule a meeting.

			EVENT Initech is relocating its corporate headquarters two miles from your property.
			IMPACT This is expected to bring 1,500 new residents to your area.
			OPPORTUNITY With housing supply tightening, this will have a positive effect on rents and occupancy for your property.
			ACTION Would next Tuesday be a good time to meet and discuss how you can maximize this event?

Categories for common conversations

Top-performing brokers have a list of potential conversation starters on hand for their prospecting efforts. They can generally be broken down into these categories:

• Economy
• Debt Cycles
• Lending Practices
• Interest Rates
• Jobs
• Legislation / Policy
• Economic development
• Zoning changes
• Tax changes
• Market Disruption
• New development
• New competitor
• Competitor activity
• Infrastructure changes that may impact traffic count, accessibility, etc.
• Market Events
• Comparable sales
• Comparable rents
• Big employer moving in/out
• Mass closings/layoffs
• Market Trends
• Pricing
• Rents
• Vacancies
• Velocity
• Volume
• Demographic shifts
• Workplace Trends
• Workplace efficiency examples
• Workplace efficiency studies
• Notable TIs