1. Find out what you want.
 

Successful retailers want:

 

Prominent highly visible locations at a fair rent.

 

Lowest practical occupancy costs.

 

Ask, is this Centre the best option to showcase my products?

 

Realistic set up costs.

 

Are my adjacent retailers selling correlated products to my merchandise?

 

2. Why you want it.
 

Maximise sales.

 

Maximise profitability.

 

Easy to service and maintain.

 

 

3. Find, what it's going to take to get there.
 

Main criteria:

 

Understanding relevant Centre data and metrics, ie Sales m2 Rent m2 Occupancy costs and industry ratios;

 

Knowledge of comparative rents;

 

Talk to the right people;

 

Negotiating proficiency.

 

 

4. Stick to objectives until you arrive:
 

Be persistent;

 

Keep focused;

 

Sometimes timing needs to be flexible.

 

5. Get professional help.
 

Unfortunately, when it comes to leasing, the variety of obstacles you are likely to encounter are diverse. Being able to make sense of the process from start to finish only comes with experience. Leasing has become a highly specialised field - where, if you don't know what you are doing, you can fall prey to overzealous leasing executives and find yourself on a one way trip to bankruptcy.

 

You may be excellent at business and a good negotiator in your area of expertise, BUT don’t confuse this with getting a realistic and competitive leasing deal. Otherwise you may not survive!