Advertising your listings in newspapers and other publications can be both a great idea and a great opportunity for you as a commercial/industrial agent. Owners definitely like to know that you are spending money advertising their property after they have listed their property with you. However, unless the property you are advertising is very unique or in short supply in your marketplace, it is unlikely that you will find the buyer or lessee for this property through any ads that you are running for the property.

For most commercial/industrial listings advertising accomplishes two goals:

1. It shows the owners that you are actively marketing their property and that you are spending money in doing so.

2. It enables you to locate other buyers and lessees to show property to and successfully complete other transactions with.

If you are a listing only agent who never works with buyers and lessees, #2 above will not have much value to you. However, you may still be interested in passing on any leads you obtain from your advertising to other agents in your office. You may even find yourself receiving referral fees from these other agents if they are successful in closing transactions from the leads that you have provided them with.

If you would like to have many new prospects call you when you advertise your listings you must write your ads in a way that gets the greatest number of people to pick up the phone and call you as soon as they read the ads. This means that you don't want to design the ad in a way where it simply gives out information about the property. You want to design the ad in a way where it inspires the greatest amount of people to pick up the phone and call you NOW. This means that you must highlight the best features about the property (or the great benefits of "the deal" itself) in a way that gets people excited and curious enough to dial your number. Remember again the old expression, "Sell the sizzle and not the steak." This is of prime importance here. Your prospects are looking through the many other ads that surround yours in the publication you are advertising in and you want your ad to JUMP OUT out at them as the one that makes them pick up the phone and call you.

If you are a commercial/industrial agent who works with buyers and lessees and if you write great ads that "sizzle," you can close many more transactions every year with the prospects you've located through advertising.