Dils

In the high-vacancy office market that Atlanta and many other southeastern cities face, owning a great building at a great location is not enough to guarantee great occupancy. To keep a building full, the leasing team must be able to retain existing tenants and win the competition for relocating and expanding tenants.

With so many vacant spaces in good buildings available at competitive rates, tenants and their representatives gravitate to the buildings that stand out in their memories. In any search for space, some viable buildings are not toured by tenants simply because the leasing teams failed to create top-of-mind awareness among tenant reps, and other contenders will be eliminated before the request for proposal (RFP) stage because leasing teams failed to make a memorable impression on tenants.

In Atlanta, where brokers represent roughly nine out of 10 tenants, getting the attention of tenant reps is a vital first step to getting their clients into your building. One of the best ways for a leasing team to make a positive impression among tenant reps is to do something memorable.

This approach has proven successful for PM Realty Group in the Southeast on a number of occasions. For example, one broker event in December took place in a new golf specialty store, which PM Realty Group had rented for the evening. Tenant reps took turns on two golf simulators to compete in closest-to-the-pin, straightest-drive and longest-drive contests. The winners received golf store certificates and everyone received bags with marketing information on all of the company’s properties. Two goals were achieved with this event: strengthening relationships with the brokers and providing them with up-to-date information on PM Realty Group’s available space.

In another example, when CDs with details of each property’s vacancies were sent to tenant reps, more than 10 percent of the CDs included $100 gift certificates for brokers who took the time to open and view the CD. While these types of incentives are helpful, they are not always necessary, as proven in the case of a broker event where a Georgia senator on the U.S. Armed Services Intelligence Committee shared his insight on the war in Iraq. The event achieved its purpose of strengthening ties with the brokerage community.

Standing Out With Tenants

Strong relationships with tenant reps can help a leasing team to make the first cut, but in the tour phase of the process, leasing teams must impress the tenant more than the broker. Unlike the long-standing relationships that often exist between brokers, a successful leasing team has only a brief window of time to stand out from the crowd in a tenant’s mind. In addition, tenants are less likely to be impressed by lavish events, and merely want assurances that the building’s services staff can offer a value-added approach to building operations and negotiations.

Impressing tenants often starts with the leasing and property management staff working together. On a recent tour, a tenant with unique ventilation requirements asked where the air ducts ran. Because the property management staff keeps multiple sets of building schematics on hand, the leasing agent was able to give the prospect an answer while they were on their property tour, and the tenant was able to walk away with a set of drawings to examine in further detail. That tenant left with a highly favorable impression of the team’s professionalism.

Tenants that visit 10 buildings per tour with their brokers may have trouble remembering which space was in which building. They also tend to get thirsty or hungry now and then, which is why buildings leased by PM Realty Group in Atlanta offer bottled water with the building’s name and logo on the label or cookies with a label attached to the box. Such attention to detail can mean the difference between making and not making the short list for RFPs.

The need for creativity and responsiveness does not stop at the RFP stage. Even in a tenant’s market, lease decisions are not based on price alone, but also on the leasing team’s ability to listen to the tenant’s unique requirements and then provide the best solution. In the final stages, however, each leasing team has ample opportunity to stand out from the pack, because most of the pack has already been eliminated. In many ways, the greatest challenges for leasing teams in a difficult market environment are at the front end — achieving top-of-mind awareness among tenant reps and tenants.

— Steve Dils is senior vice president in the Atlanta office of PM Realty Group.

©2004 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.