Having trouble partnering with industrial real estate professionals. What am I doing wrong?
My business provides storage solutions (Racking Systems, mezzanines) to companies that store their products in warehouses. I have tried to partner with an industrial real estate professional for a while and haven’t had much success. My thought is that these folks are working with companies that are moving into different spaces and need my services. Most of the time, a company will need these products moved to their new facility or will need to buy a new system as they are growing or changing their layout. A partnership could help their clients utilize a trusted partner of theirs that they will need and in turn will offer me the potential of more business. I have offered many things including referral fees but have not had success. I can’t necessarily say that I will recommend my clients to them as I don’t really have those types of opportunities. Is this just something that is not of interest to someone in that position?
[{"id": "ei52iuq", "text": "What\u2019s in it for them? Referral fee?\n\nIt would need to be a pretty big fee to catch their attention we ain\u2019t talking 50 or 100 dollars", "replies": [{"id": "ei5csec", "text": "Thanks for your reply. Yep referral fee. At least that\u2019s what would make sense to me. But some say they don\u2019t like doing referral fees. But my experience has been, if there\u2019s money involved, someone is more engaged and looking for opportunities. \n\nThese types of projects are generally larger so I was thinking about paying a percentage of our gross profit on the job. Could be anywhere from $500 to somewhere in the thousands", "replies": [{"id": "ei6har3", "text": "Not enough money in it for them to care. Fees for doing deals are way higher. ", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ei52qxm", "text": "\n1) yes your services are needed and you could become part of the agent preferred list, should his client need or ask for this. Many of our clients already have providers they trust and are going to tender.\n\n2) we really need to provide options. We can\u2019t just tell our client use him. If you mess up it falls back on us. The worse you mess up the worse we look. Lawsuits...\n\n3) we get bugged all the time by 50 of you. So it\u2019s not like we don\u2019t have options.\n\n4) I don\u2019t know what your BD skills are like. I would treat all of them as clients. Get a list of all the industrial agents. Take your time, and slowly work hard at getting to know them. So that you are top of mind when this needs comes up. What do they want to hear?", "replies": [{"id": "ei5d2r7", "text": "Thanks for your reply. Really appreciate it. All good points. Number 4 is how I have started approaching it. Treat them like clients, reach out, stay in touch, try to add value along the way. \n\nAlso, that\u2019s my biggest question is what do these professionals want? Obviously they want someone to take care of their client and provide a solution. But everyone is going to say they do that. That\u2019s why I figured referral fees or a percentage of each job may be a larger incentive. ", "replies": [{"id": "ei6gz32", "text": "They want sales/ leads/ leases signed. \n\nYou can provide value by referring customers who are growing to them. When they grow, they\u2019ll likely need more space. \n", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ei64vps", "text": "Vouching for you is a big risk if anything goes wrong.  Also most industrial folks don't really understand the pros and cons between different systems so even trying to talk about them could undermine their own knowledge because tenants will understand this stuff really well.  \n\nIndustrial is also very tenant driven, the conversation is always going to involve brokers and owners telling tenants they can help them do anything they want.  No sense in trying to make it look like you are outsmarting the user, it could offend them.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]