Commercial Mentoring · Team Utah Commercial
The Marketing
Machine
How we market commercial real estate — the seven channels that fire on every listing we take, and what each one actually produces.
Wednesday, August 12 · 2:30–3:30 PM · RE/MAX Associates, 6955 S. Union Park Center #140
What we'll cover today
Taking a listing to market, start to finish
01The Package
What an offering memorandum has to contain, what gets it deleted, and the order to build it in
02The Story of the Space
Copy a broker reads to the end — positioning by property type, and the phrases that quietly kill interest
03Making It Look Expensive
Photography, aerials and floor plans — what to pay for and what to do yourself
04Getting It In Front of People
The platforms, the blasts, signage and social — who to hit, in what order, how often to go back
05Working the Response
The first 48 hours, follow-up cadence, and reporting back to an owner who wants answers
LAST 10 MINAI Does the Grunt Work
Two live demos. No theory.
Before we start
Marketing Is the Job
A commercial listing does not sell itself. In 2025 an estimated 176,445 commercial transactions closed, totaling $560.2 billion — and every one of them had somebody doing this work.
3,281
Acres On Our Book
Across 39 listings, right now
140,587
Square Feet
Retail, office and industrial buildings
37
Offering Memorandums
Of those 39. That is the discipline.
“No one markets commercial property the way we do!”— Robert Farnsworth, Team Utah Commercial
Section 1 · The Package
Build It In This Order
Most bad offering memorandums are not badly written. They were written first.
FIRSTCollect
Rent roll, every lease, tax notice, survey, site and floor plans, utility and zoning confirmation. You cannot write around a document you do not have.
SECONDReconcile
NOI, cap rate, expenses, lease expirations. Make the numbers agree with each other before anyone else gets a chance to check.
THIRDShoot
Photos and aerials booked before you write a word. What the camera finds changes what the copy can honestly claim.
LASTWrite
The executive summary is a promise the other twelve pages have to keep. Write it when you know they can.
What has to be in it
- Executive summary and investment highlights
- Property summary — SF, lot size, year built, zoning, parking
- Financials — NOI, cap rate, taxes, rent roll
- Suite breakdown and lease expiration dates
- Photography, aerials, site and floor plans
- Location maps, business map, demographics
Section 1 · The Package
What Gets It Deleted
A broker gives your package about eight seconds. These are the things that end it early.
No number on page one
“Call for details” is the reason they did not call. Price, or rent and CAM — on the first page or you are out.
Numbers that disagree
An NOI that does not match the rent roll ends your credibility for the whole file, not just that line.
Phone photos in bad light
Cars in the shot, cones, your reflection in the glass. It reads as “nobody cared,” and they price it that way.
Forty pages before a fact
Company history and stock skyline photos before the property summary. Lead with the building.
Missing the screening facts
No zoning, no parking count, no year built, no clear height. Each one is a reason to stop reading.
A file that will not open
Half of these get opened on a phone in a truck. If it is too big to load, it does not exist.
Put your name and number on every page. They will not scroll back to find you.
Section 2 · The Story of the Space
Every Type Screens On A Different Number
Lead with the one your buyer checks first. Everything else can wait until paragraph two.
RETAILTraffic and visibility
Counts, the corner, co-tenancy, parking, signage rights. They are buying customers walking past.
1145 S Washington Blvd, Ogden — hard corner, CP-2, 6.22% cap
OFFICEParking ratio and condition
Stalls per thousand, build-out condition, who else is in the building, what the common areas look like.
Southgate Office Park, Draper — 2,650 SF at $26/SF
INDUSTRIALClear height and power
Clear height, dock versus grade doors, power service, truck court depth, fenced yard.
62 N Country Way, Washington — I-2, fenced yard, 27 stalls
LANDZoning and utilities
What it is zoned, how far the utilities are, topography, and exactly how entitled it already is.
Belladonna Dr, Eagle Mountain — 12 industrial lots, 0.86–4.21 ac
INCOMERents against market
In-place rents versus market, who pays utilities, deferred maintenance, and how long the leases run.
512 E Larchwood Dr, Midvale — 2,456 SF at $700,000
ALL OF THEMThe date it is available
Nobody can act on a space without knowing when they can have it. It is the most skipped fact in CRE copy.
Section 2 · The Story of the Space
The Phrases That Quietly Kill It
Cut these
- “Motivated seller” — reads as desperate, invites a lowball
- “Priced to sell” — says nothing, and it usually is not
- “Endless possibilities” — filler with no information in it
- “Great investment opportunity” — so does every other listing
- “Call for details” — the details are why they would call
- “Won't last long” — it will, and they know it
Use these instead
- The rent, the CAM, and what the CAM actually covers
- The cap rate and the income it is calculated on
- The clear height, the stall count, the frontage in feet
- Who the neighbors are, by name
- The date the space is available
- The one thing about this building nobody else can offer
If a sentence would be true of any building in the valley, delete it.
Section 2 · The Story of the Space
Same Building. One Of These Gets Deleted.
WHAT MOST LISTINGS SAY
“Great investment opportunity! This retail property offers endless possibilities in
a prime location. Motivated seller, priced to sell. Won't last long — call for details!”
24 words. Not one fact a buyer can act on.
WHAT OURS SAYS
3,980 SF retail corner on Washington Blvd, one of Ogden's busiest commercial
corridors. Three suites — 1,526 SF available at $26/SF NNN, the other two leased,
one through May 2029. Zoned CP-2. 11 dedicated stalls plus the shared lot next door.
$1,690,000, a 6.22% cap on $105,136 of scheduled net income. Built 1999, stucco and block.
55 words. Seventeen facts. A buyer can price it without calling you.
Every number on the right came out of the offering memorandum we had already built.
Nothing was invented — it was just used.
Section 3 · Making It Look Expensive
Pay For Three Things. Do The Rest Yourself.
Both shots are 1145 S Washington Blvd — the corner and the aerial. And yes, there are cars in
the lot on purpose: on retail, a full parking lot is the product.
Pay a professional
- Exterior photos, shot in good light, from the corner
- A drone aerial with the parcel outlined and streets labeled
- A site plan and floor plan redrawn clean — not a scan of a scan
Do it yourself
- A phone walkthrough, shot vertical, for social
- Detail shots — signage, loading, power panel, parking
- The flyer, from one template you reuse every time
Never
- A stock skyline from a city that is not this market
- Shooting into the sun, in the rain, or on the one grey day that week
- A scanned PDF as the only floor plan you have
Section 4 · Getting It In Front of People
Three Tiers, Not One Website
Posting to one platform and waiting is the most common mistake in commercial real estate.
TIER 1 · PAIDCoStar & LoopNet, CREXi
Where the brokers actually look. Direct accounts, and where the email tools live.
CoStar, LoopNet, CityFeet, Showcase.com, CREXi
TIER 2 · SYNDICATEDOne entry, many sites
Enter it once in RealNex and it lands across the Yardi CommercialEdge network without touching it again.
Brevitas, RI Marketplace, CommercialCafe, CommercialSearch, PropertyShark
TIER 3 · LOCALMLS and your own market
The MLS feeds a long tail of downstream sites, and local buyers genuinely search KSL.
UtahRealEstate.com, RE/MAX Commercial, KSL, Gold Nation
Write the copy once, in a document you keep. You are going to paste it seventeen times.
Section 4 · Getting It In Front of People
What That Looks Like In Practice
National CRE platforms
MLS & local
Section 4 · Getting It In Front of People
Listings Are Passive. These Are Not.
A platform waits for somebody to search. Everything on this slide goes and finds them.
EMAILBlasts you can measure
CoStar CDX to filtered agents and principals, CREXi's marketplace list, and your own contacts. One listing did 3,859 emails, 1,160 opens and 180 clicks in April.
MAILJust Listed, Just Sold
A radius around the property, plus investor and 1031 lists. Just Sold is the one that wins you the next listing.
SIGNAGEThe cheapest lead source you have
Professional sign, high-visibility placement, and a QR code that goes to the property's own page. The neighbor is often the buyer.
SOCIALShort video, every listing
A walkthrough and a drone pass. LinkedIn for the deal announcement, Instagram and Facebook for reach, YouTube for the buyers who want the long version.
THE SITEIts own address on the internet
Every listing gets a dedicated URL and page — full gallery, video, the OM one click away, and analytics you can quote to the owner.
AFTER CLOSINGHand the site to the owner
Free. We keep updating it in exchange for referrals. That is a marketing channel that keeps paying after the commission clears.
Section 4 · Getting It In Front of People
The Order, And How Often To Go Back
Doing all of it in week one and nothing after is why listings go quiet.
DAY 0Everything live at once
Sign up, listing live on the tier-one platforms, property site published. A staggered launch wastes the only day the listing is new.
DAY 1Your own list first
People who already know you, before any blast. They are the most likely buyer and they should not hear it from LoopNet.
DAY 2–3The blast
CDX to filtered agents and principals, then CREXi. Filter hard — a smaller, right list beats a big one.
WEEK 1Mail and the first video
Just Listed postcards to the radius, then the walkthrough video out to social.
EVERY 2 WEEKSNew angle, not a repost
A different photo, a price note, a use case. The algorithm and the inbox both punish the same post twice.
EVERY 30 DAYSGo back to the openers
Everyone who opened but never called. This is the single most skipped step in commercial marketing.
Never let thirty days pass with no new touch on a live listing.
Section 5 · Working the Response
The First 48 Hours, And What Comes After
The first 48 hours
- Answer the phone. Most CRE calls go to voicemail and die there.
- Qualify in three questions: what are you looking for, buying for yourself or a client, what is your timeline
- Send the package while you are still on the call, not afterwards
- Log every caller — name, company, what they asked about
- Financing or a tour means a real lead. Everything else is a mailing list.
Reporting to the owner
- Every two weeks, whether or not there is news
- Views by platform, emails sent and opened, calls, tours
- Feedback in the buyer's own words, not your summary of it
- If it is slow, arrive with a recommendation — not just numbers
- Follow up on a tour at day two, weekly for a month, then monthly
An owner who gets a report does not call you asking what is happening.
Putting it all together
Your First Week On A New Listing
If you do nothing else from this hour, do this in order.
- Collect and reconcile — leases, rent roll, taxes, survey, plans. Make the numbers agree.
- Book the photographer and the drone before you write anything.
- Build the package in order — summary written last, price on page one, your number on every page.
- Write the copy once, lead with the number your buyer type screens on, and cut anything true of every building.
- Go live everywhere the same day — all three tiers, plus the property's own page.
- Your own list on day one, the blast on day two, mail and video in week one.
- Answer the phone, qualify in three questions, log every caller.
- Report to the owner every two weeks, and go back to the openers every thirty days.
Last 10 minutes
AI Does the Grunt Work
None of the seven channels change. What changes is how long each one takes to feed.
The OM
Hours of assembling financials, comps and demographics into a package.
The copy
The same listing rewritten for LoopNet, LinkedIn, an email blast and the sign.
The lease
Forty pages you have to read before you can answer one question about it.
This is the part of marketing nobody misses when it's gone.
Live · no slides, real tools
Two Things, Live
Demo one
Paste a lease → get the terms
Drop in a lease. Get rent, escalations, term, options, CAM and the two clauses that aren't standard — in a table you can hand to a client.
Demo two
Drop the OM → every channel
Drag in the offering memorandum we already built. It reads the document and writes LoopNet copy, a LinkedIn post, an email blast with a subject line, and photo captions — in one pass, with nothing typed.
Every one of these feeds a channel we just spent fifty minutes on. The channel is the point — AI just gets you to it faster.
Take it with you
Sixteen Tools, Free, On Our Site
Start here
Run your next listing through one of them
Not your whole business — one listing. The Investment Analyzer, the Lease Calculator, the Due Diligence Checklist and the Zoning Guide are all on our site right now. No login, no charge.
- Investment Analyzer — cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR
- Commercial Lease Calculator — NNN vs MG vs full service
- Closing Cost Calculator — Utah buyer and seller
- Due Diligence Checklist — with cost estimates
- Zoning & Land Use Guide — permitted uses by city
- Utah Market Heatmap — county by county
- 1031 Exchange Center — rules, calculator, timeline
- CRE Glossary — 55+ terms, searchable
teamutahcommercial.com
/cre-tools
Local expertise. Global reach. Outstanding results.
Take One Listing
And Run It This Way
Not your whole business — the next one. Stuck on any part of it, call any of us.
Robert Farnsworth
Associate Broker
801.898.8810
Robert@Teamutahcre.com
Stockton Farnsworth
Associate Broker
801.664.3370
Stockton@Teamutahcre.com
Randy Cummins
Commercial Realtor
801.641.8004
Randy@Teamutahcre.com
RE/MAX Associates | 6955 S. Union Park Center #140, SLC UT 84047
Next class & all four topics: teamutahcommercial.com/commercial-mentoring
