The Commercial Real Estate Alpha Site

Real Estate Agents v. Real Estate Consultants – (Is it Superman v. Clark Kent) or (A Chocolate Labrador v. A Yellow Labrador)

I have recently been kicking around ideas as how to differentiate and set myself apart from others that I am so alike already… Professional and knowledgable Commercial Real Estate Agents who provide sound judgement, consistent passion and earnest service.

I have some initials after my name, but most are peripheral and add to the clutter of random initials. Does a potential client really care if the letters RSAG (“Really Super Awesome Guy”) are next to your name or do too many listed certifications mean “White Noise”.

In commercial there are only 2 or 3 designations that have much bearing on others and mostly the others are other agents/brokers in the industry. But I digress for now, this is another topic for a different day.

Where do the differences lie? Are you unique unto yourself?

The underlying point is that it is not a large leap from an Agent to a Consultant, but there are some factors that a consultant must abide by to differentiate from an Agent.

Starting with a nonpartisan and open-minded approach to the client. This doesn’t mean that the consultant doesn’t care; but an unbiased approach is vital for true objectivity to decide if the consultant can assist (or wants to assist) the consumer in solving his real estate needs. By objectively summarizing the project, then the consultant can truly advise themselves and the client as to the prospect of achieving goals. The agent is driven to achieve the listing or sale here and usually a little biased by nature of the job.

A Real Estate Consultant surmizes the whole and not just the part of the whole. The Consultant must look deeper then simply the property and its charateristics but ultimately at the entire portfolio, debt, liabilities, etc, etc.. Whereas the agent may analyze the property both physically and financially, the whole of the parts is usually not obtained or needed for the job to be completed.

Finally, in preparing a plan of objectives and the path to attain those, the Consultant must layout primary and secondary options to accomplish the goals addressed. Whereas the agent usually is faced with the question of, “How do I sell this property?”