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ROD: This is Rod Santomassimo with The Massimo Minute and this week our special guest is Brad Ahrens of Commercial Properties, Inc., a CORFAC affiliate and leader of the Ahrens Industrial Team in Phoenix, Arizona. Brad’s one of those “Young Guns”, not a seasoned veteran but still doing a phenomenal job in the marketplace today. Not only is Brad consistently finding opportunities but he is closing them as well. So Brad, welcome to The Massimo Minute.

BRAD: Thank you, Rod. Thanks for having me today.

ROD: Well, we’re really excited about sharing some insight with you. I know our listeners are as well. Let me get right to it. You have been a commercial real estate broker for eight years, correct?

BRAD: Correct.

ROD: I need to disclose that Brad is a client of ours at The Massimo Group, as such I know you’re having a phenomenal year. Tell us, is this your best year ever? Is this going to be as good as it gets in this challenging market? When you look back at this year, 2010, with all the challenges, what are you going to think? Are you on the upswing? Are you on the plateau? Where are you in your career?

BRAD: Rod, that’s an excellent question. Yes, this is my best year ever and more importantly I am definitely on the upswing. I believe that probably in the next year or two I will be a million dollar producer.

ROD: And you think things can get even better?

BRAD: I do. I do.

ROD: Okay. And when you say things get better, you said that mystical threshold of a million dollars. Are you saying you have created a position of being a consistent million dollar producer?

BRAD: I do. I believe the best brokers can succeed in a down market. And as the vast majority of us business began to slack off in 2008, 2009. A big key component for myself was in the end of 2009 I really began to evaluate my business, how it was performing, where I wanted to go. And although times are challenging you need to foresee or find opportunities for you and your clients. And little props for you, biggest thing I did was I turned to the 30-day Broker Challenge which was a huge awakening. The program helped me identify areas of my business that needed serious help. From there we’ve began a relationship together. The key was getting back to basics, making sure that things are being marketed, things are being announced, consistent prospecting is huge, time management, outsourcing are all key components to my success this year. And, this is just the first year of my revamp, or RAMP Up as you would say. Considering the deals we are doing now, if this continues as expected, then there’s no reason I shouldn’t be a consistent million dollar producer in two to three years.

ROD: Thank you for the kind words. We are so happy and quite frankly proud of your new found success. But Brad you mentioned somewhere in there time management. I know you, you’re a stickler for time management, you allocate times to prospect, and you allocate certain times to do other things in your day. You manage your day. And more importantly, you do it consistently—and this is the key—you consistently prospect and you are consistently building a presence in the market. I know your newly implemented market update mailing has been a phenomenal success for you. But some might say, ‘you know what, I can do similar things,’ but I also know the Phoenix market is extremely competitive and you somehow differentiated yourself. So tell me, what do you think you’re doing to differentiate yourself in the marketplace?

BRAD: Well, great question. I believe the key is a lot of brokers who have been in the business for a number of years, they’ve gone through a couple of down cycles, have become a little complacent. And most importantly I consistently reinvest in myself, and my business. I look at my personal brokerage business as an actual company. I think there are many brokers who basically work from paycheck to paycheck, or deal to deal. They may have a plan but they don’t really view their activities as a business. It is really important that, like any business, you have a marketing department, a research and development. You have to have a client retention program and client prospecting program – an active sales department. All of those things that make up most companies today need to be included in you brokerage business.

ROD: The focus is business. Brad, these are all things we have worked on over the past several months. I can attest you are investing in yourself and growing. But Brad you’re being a little shy since I know what else you do. Beyond investing in yourself, and certainly coaching is absolutely an investment in yourself there no doubt about it, but I also know you invest in your business in other ways. You have become the master of delegation and outsourcing. Give us just one example. I know you do a lot of these things, what specifically do you delegate?

BRAD: Probably the biggest thing that I delegate is, like anyone in this business you’ve got a million people you could talk to on a daily basis. It’s really one of the key things I did in 2010 was taking a look at who are the guys that I want to be working with here in the next couple of years and who are the clients that I’ve had in the past that, yeah they were clients, I made a little bit of money here and there but in a few cases, it was not the best return on my investment of time. There are contacts that need to be touched on a monthly, quarterly or an annually basis. But is that someone that my time needs to be devoted to daily, weekly or monthly? I’ve kind of stepped back and said, okay, well I can take a portion of these contacts and allocate them out to, whether it be a virtual assistant or a personal assistant. And then refocus on spending the majority of my time with the top tier clients, the big hitters, the multi asset owners, just the clientele that I want to work with.

ROD: Well perfect, absolutely perfect. Here’s my take away. You are not an individual broker who just runs around looking for deals. You are Brad Ahrens, CEO of the Ahrens Industrial Team within Commercial Properties, Inc., in Phoenix, Arizona. Brad, thank you so much for your time and your insight. And congratulations on having a great year in such a challenging market. I know you’ll be successful. I know you are going to be a consistent million dollar performer. Brad, thank you very much.

BRAD: Rod, thank you for having me. I look forward to our continued success and coaching with the Massimo Group.

ROD: Until next time, this is Rod Santomassimo with The Massimo Minute. We’ll talk to you soon. Take care.

ROD: This is Rod Santomassimo of The Massimo Group and this week we have the pleasure of having Jeff Kelley, Senior Vice President and Principal, of Colliers International Atlanta joining us for a brief moment and discussing the office market, both nationally as well as focusing on Atlanta. Jeff, before we get started I want to give you a brief introduction. I know that you’ve done over—believe this number folks—450 transactions, 450 lease transactions during his tenure with Colliers, close to 5 million square feet of leases that have been negotiated by this gentleman. Jeff heads up, the office group in the Atlanta office. Now Jeff, I know you’ve been with Colliers for about ten years and probably in the commercial real estate business well longer than that. Jeff, thank you for joining us.

JEFF: Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

ROD: Jeff, it’s our pleasure. Let’s get right to it in the short time we have. You’ve been in the Atlanta market now for 10 years. What are you seeing in regards to the transactions you’re doing, the tenants you are representing, what do you see going on in the Atlanta market today?

JEFF: Well, Atlanta was highlighted in the Wall Street Journal as a place of exuberance and development. And what we’ve had here in Atlanta is a little bit different than probably many other markets in that there are certain submarkets, mainly the high profile in-town markets, where there were four trophy towers built by four different developers that pretty much delivered at the worst time that you can possibly have happen in the marketplace. So in Atlanta, what we’ve seen a lot of is large law firms, large professional services firms often with several years left on their lease, being out in the marketplace trying to take advantage of some of these opportunities. And the opportunities are, a lot of these landlords have basically written down their investment, they’ve taken the write-off, they’ve recapitalized. The new financial partner basically has a zero dollar interest in the property so anything they get at this point is upside. So there’s a lot of action being driven by those kinds of opportunities that I don’t think is really happening in Main Street America outside of Atlanta. The other thing is that there’s a struggle with companies who are, although their revenues are up, they’re feeling good about the economy, feeling good about the marketplace, but there is a lot of uncertainty in the market. Plus, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the political arena. We don’t know what is going to happen with the economy, consumer confidence, a lot of these things that are driving deals. So our clients are really struggling with how they lock into these never seen before deals in Atlanta on a long-term basis while we still have that flexibility to react and be nimble in the future if market conditions change. We are now seeing a lot of flexibility in leases.

ROD: Interesting. Now, Atlanta’s always been a target for corporations to set up a headquarters, to come from other markets. Are you still seeing an influx in activity from outside markets to Atlanta?

JEFF: There’s a tremendous amount of activity. And, depending on who you ask at the Georgia Economic Development those numbers will be different, but I can tell you it’s a lot. We’re actually engaged on a couple of assignments—one in excess of a couple hundred thousand feet, one a little bit smaller than that. The drivers for Atlanta are going to be the airport, the inexpensive office space, the access to skilled labor and these kinds of things. Our incentives, we’ve got some statutory incentives that probably aren’t the best in the country but folks are looking at the Southeast. It’s a great climate, great quality of life. And we’re getting a lot of interest from companies outside of the state looking to relocate here.

The challenges we have, obviously, which are probably more well-known to people in Atlanta is, one, we’ve got a major traffic problem. The infrastructure was not done probably as efficiently as it should have. We’ve got a major urban sprawl problem. There have been some discussions of doing an outer belt loop to alleviate that but that involves numerous counties, numerous jurisdictions and for right now it’s kind of stalled.

The second issue we have is we’ve got a major water supply here in Atlanta. There’s been a battle with neighboring states for some time about sharing some of the water resources and that’s not really been ironed out completely. That’s all the way up to the Governor’s level. They’re involved. There’s been some movement and some compromise with the Core of Engineers on Lake Lanier, which is our primary water source but we’re actively looking as a city for alternative water sources. And that is going to really hinder our ability to grow.

The third thing is that education in the state of Georgia is not the best in the country. We’ve got great talent. We’ve got several universities here in the city, Georgia Tech, Emory, Georgia State. Some of the brightest minds are graduating from these schools. But, if you look at the public school system, it’s pretty low on the radar or its pretty low on the list as compared with some of the other states in the country. And so for those reasons we certainly have our challenges and those are kind of always the big objections that get highlighted when people are looking at Atlanta.

ROD: Well, Jeff, the take-away I get from that and for the thousands of brokers across the country that will certainly listen to this interview, is that not only are you an expert and a leader in your market as far as real estate. You know your market cold. You know the challenges of the market. You understand issues such as the water supply, the education, the infrastructure and the like. That is so key and that’s a differentiator of why Jeff works on the big deals. Jeff, because you work on the big deals and you are no doubt a leader in the office market in Atlanta, can you give us some indication—don’t release client names of course—but what kind of deals are you working on right now? I’m sure your pipeline is full but give us some indication of what you’re working on.

JEFF: Well, Rod, pipeline’s never full enough and I think that’s the problem is we’re working on probably too much. There’s everything from local law firm business to Fortune 500 companies, companies that are looking to downsize still, who may not have had the opportunity to do it because 12-18 months ago they were a little too far out, maybe still too far out to restructure right now. But we’ve got those kinds of deals. But we’re looking at Fortune 500 all the way down to the local law firms and really everything in between. The interesting thing is there are certain segments and certain clients we’re working with that are thriving right now. In their industry, they’re dominating. Revenues are way up. And then we’ve got other companies who are just really bracing for a long bump along the bottom, just let’s try to take advantage of some of these concessions and sit still. But I would say it’s all over the board as far as what types of companies are actually doing transactions.

ROD: I know you are focused on office and I know also you’re representing the higher end deals as far as size and stature, but let me ask you this, you’ve been—I don’t want to use a fortunate, but you’re good. You’re very good. What do you base your success on there, especially in a very competitive market like Atlanta? What would you say is a key thing you do, either activity trait, behavior, whatever it might be, habit, that separates you from the rest?

JEFF: Well, I think understanding the marketplace is a big differentiator right now. And I don’t mean just knowing what markets have vacancy. I think you’ve really got to dig into the ownership structures of different buildings. Fortunately, we’ve got a fairly active capital markets group who does nothing but everyday go out and look in the marketplace for opportunities. They’re exploring ownerships. Where might there be an opportunity to sell at some point? And we’re really sharing a lot of that information and so that creates opportunities. It creates strategies for clients. And that’s helping us get in front of the deals. And I will say we’re doing deals of all sizes right now. We’re doing big and small, 5,000 to hopefully maybe 100,000 or more. But everybody’s kind of looking around to take advantage of savings right now. But really understanding the opportunities within the submarkets is where I think we’re going to differentiate ourselves. And what I mean by that is you may have a landlord has, for example, in Midtown, one of our tower buildings here. There’s a landlord that’s got a stipulation in their construction loan document that if they don’t have a certain amount of square footage leased then they’ve got to dump in a bunch more money in equity. So with that kind of knowledge in place, you can go make deal that may be just absolutely crazy and way outside of the market but for this particular situation it’s a way to create a lot of value for your client.

The other thing is, you’ve got to stay real close to your clients these days. They’re getting phone calls from everybody in the marketplace and we’ve taken a pretty proactive stance of trying to be in front of them, explaining opportunities in the market. If there’s really no opportunity for them, at least reaching out to them, explaining to them that there’s not really much of an opportunity. You’re below market, if you don’t need to grow or shrink kind of thing. So those are some of the things we’re doing in leverages relationships that we have, looking for referrals, looking for people to kind of spread the word on their experience with our firm and use that to leverage new business as well.

ROD: Wow, what a great take-away there, Jeff. Thank you so much for sharing your insight and your expertise with us today. Again, this has been Jeff Kelley, Senior Vice President and Principal of Colliers International Atlanta. And until next time this is Rod Santomassimo with The Massimo Group. I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.

JEFF: Thank you, Rod. I really appreciate it. I enjoyed talking with you.

ROD: Thank you, Jeff.

MASSIMO GROUP: Good afternoon this is Rod Santomassimo of the Massimo Group and welcome to this version of the Massimo Minute. This month we have a very, very special guest, Mr. Warren Greshes, who I am fond to say is a friend of mine. Someone that a client had introduced me to and told me, “Rod if you are in the North Carolina area, you have to reach out to Mr. Warren Greshes because he is an international phenomenon”. Of course I was curious to see who this gentleman is, so I reached out and gave him a call and several lunches later I am now proud to call him a friend. Warren is a professional speaker. If you haven’t read it, you should, he is the author of the best selling Best Damn Sales Book Ever, Sixteen Rock Solid Rules for Achieving Sales Success. Certainly Warrens a keynote speaker and speaks on issues such as customer service, sales and leadership. So Warren, welcome to the Massimo Minute and thank you very much for your time.

WARREN GRESHES: Oh, no problem. Glad to be with you Rod.

MASSIMO GROUP: It is certainly a privilege of us and our audience. The few minutes we have, Warren, it really hit home in today’s market place specifically with commercial real estate brokers. It is an extremely challenging market. This is probably true for any sales in particular. But tell me if you can, what are you seeing out there in the market place and certainly I am finding more and more people, I don’t want to say that it is a crutch while using and leveraging other tools such as social media, and certainly other platforms to try to get their message out. I surely think the social media has a place. Let me ask you, where’s this fits into the total prospecting package from the sales perspective?

WARREN GRESHES: I think, like you said, I agree with you. Social media has a place and has a definite place in today’s sales effort and today’s prospecting efforts. It is a great way to reach a lot of people in a very short period of time. It’s a great way to set yourself up as an expert. It’s a great way to find prospects. It’s a great way to focus in on specific niches in the market place.

But what I just said is not selling. See what I just said is marketing. There is a big difference between marketing and selling. I’m not an expert in social media, and I don’t use it as well as I could. I realize it is a real hot topic these days and I really see the benefit in using it; but I’m really scared that a lot of sales people are using social media as a crutch to not sell, to not have to talk to anybody one-on-one, to not have to pick up the phone, to not to have to get in front of somebody. There is a lot of pit falls in social media. Just as there are many pit falls in e-mail, which was another crutch. Sales people love e-mail, sales people love social media; because, they are lead to believe that if you use this you never actually have to go through the hard part of selling which is the picking up of the phone, or getting in front of people. In other words you never actually hear anybody say no via Linkedin Facebook, Twitter, or on e-mail.

MASSIMO GROUP: Very, very true. That is one of the reasons that most sales people utilize those platforms. But I agree too, it is certainly marketing vs. advertising something we use here in the Massimo Group. We say it is presence vs. prospecting. You know selling vs. not selling, creating that market presence. And certainly production goes nowhere just with the marketing side. You need to prospect, you absolutely need to prospect.

WARREN GRESHES Rod, you and I had this discussion and we talked about this. We talked about presence and prospecting. I really like that term you coined, presence and prospecting, I think that’s great. But remember I posed the question to you. If you had to go without one, what would be better off going without presence or prospecting?

MASSIMO GROUP: Well if you had to go without one, if I had to choose I would go without presence. Because you can’t go without prospecting.

WARREN GRESHES: Right. You cannot go without prospecting. I know people who have gotten clients on Linkedin and I know they have gotten clients through social media. But I got to tell you something, nothing takes . . . You know my father-in-law was a salesman and he is 84 years old. He doesn’t work full-time anymore, but he is still out there one day a week, maybe two days a week. And you know what; he is having a terrific year. And I don’t know how the heck he is doing it because he doesn’t have a computer, he doesn’t have a PDA, he doesn’t have a Twitter account, he doesn’t even know how to use a computer, he’s not on Linkedin, and he is not on Facebook. You know what he does? He gets in his car and he goes to see prospective clients, he goes to see clients, he on the phone with them all the time. And somehow this guy manages to do business without a Facebook account. How the heck is he doing that?

MASSIMO GROUP: How the heck is he doing it? At that age kudos to him. Hey Warren a few minutes left so I want you to give away all your 16 golden rules
I think people need to certainly take a look at what you have to say. But I want to ask you a question. If you can

WARREN GRESHES: Sure.

MASSIMO GROUP: Please give me three key ideas as far as if I want to prospect more effectively. What are some ideas you would have?

WARREN GRESHES: Okay. Well first of all know who you want to call before you call. Very simple. If you are going to be making prospecting calls via telephone or in person, your list should be set up the night before. I find a lot of sales people is what they do is that start looking. They make a call then they look up who they are going to call next, and they make a call, and then they look up who they are going to call next, and they make a call. They do this over and over again. And basically all they do is waste time.

You should also focus on who you want to deal with. I have a customer profile put together and know exacting who you want to call, what kind of companies, what kind of people, who are you looking for. I mean, you know in our business, we are looking for VPs of sales. We are looking for sales executives. Why? Because most of my audiences I speak in front of are sales people. I speak at a lot of annual sales meetings, big incentive conferences, and who’s going to make the decision on that. It usually a sales executive so who’s going to make the decision on what it is you are selling on your commercial real estate business, who is going to make the decision to buy it from you. And you want to first of all figure out where those decision makers are. That’s where things like Linkedin can come in. They can help you find those decision makers. Once you find those decision makers then you got to call them and then you got to set the appointments.

Do your calls every single day. I would rather see you do a little bit a lot rather than a lot a little bit. In other words, if you are going to make 50 prospecting calls a week, I rather see you make 10 prospecting calls a day five days a week then 50 calls once a week. Because if you do 50 calls once a week, you are not developing a habit. All that is going to happen is you are going to really dread one day. It is working out. If you work out a little bit every single day you are going to get in shape. If you work out a lot once a week you are just going to say, oh god who the heck wants to do this. The night before you are going to be dreading the next day and eventually you are going to say oh the hell with it. And the only time, as well we all know, the only time you only fail is when you give up. So do a little bit a lot not a lot a little bit. You know when I first started in sales, we didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have laptops, we didn’t have all this technology.

I know I am sounding old here: but the fact in the matter is when I was on the road, when I was going on appointments I would stop at pay phones to make calls. I always had a list with me, a hand-written list of at least ten people I could call while I was in my car. Now with cell phones and PDAs, I mean I got a blackberry here, boy I could do it while I am driving. I know you are not suppose to. I am not encouraging that, but you can do it while you are driving. There is no excuse not to make the calls. I mean the biggest part of prospecting is you have to do it every day. You know there is an old saying, you are throwing up against the wall something is going to stick. I’m a big believer in that. The single biggest reason that sales people do not do business is because they do not talk to enough people. I’m not telling you don’t do e-mail, I’m not telling you don’t do Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook but they are in addition to. They are not in lieu of.

MASSIMO GROUP: Very strong, very applicable and so, so accurate. Warren Greshes, thank you so much for your time. But one last question before I let you go. I’m sure there are many people out there saying wow how this guy got me motivated. How can we get more? So Warren, is there a website? Is there something we can look for in regards you, your books, and your keynote speeches? Where can we direct them to?

WARREN GRESHES Well, my website is www.greshes.com obviously. And my e-mail address is warren@greshes.com. And so you can either e-mail me, go to my website, contact me through my website. You can find my book on there. There is a link to my Amazon page right from my website. All the information you need about my services and me.

MASSIMO GROUP: So there you go, a man who practices what he preaches. He does utilize social media but he also prospects proactively and aggressively. So Warren Greshes thank you very, very much. And till next time this is Rod Santomassimo with the Massimo Minute. Talk with you soon.

In an earlier blog post I outlined the three key variables of top commercial real estate brokerage success. They were skill, will and thrill. You need the skill set to service your client, the willingness to do the work and ultimately possess the thrill of being a commercial real estate broker. Seems simple enough, except there is one distinct problem for many brokers who are struggling in today’s market.

Hopefully you have been told, since how knows when, that “you can be anything you want to be”. And the fact is anyone can be anything they want to be. Let’s face it; commercial real estate brokerage is not rocket science, but it can be tremendously challenging. There are brokers who have far greater skill than others in specific areas in the practice. And yes, they likely are top producers. Experience is by far one of the greatest skills to progress a listing to closing. Experience affords a broker the skill to get a deal closed.

But experience alone is not the only factor to success. There are first year brokers who have made over $1,000,000. Relationships are also an integral factor in success. Traditional approaches, coupled with today’s technology create a plethora of relationship building opportunities. Anyone can build relationships. Anyone can gain experience and yes, anyone can earn $1,000,000 or more a year.

Unfortunately the ability to do something has little correlation to accomplishment. Success requires will. Will you put in the work? Will you become a market expert? Will you invest in yourself, in your personal brokerage business? Will you?

For those that say “I can’t”.. then the obvious answer is “you won’t”. I can’t always equals you won’t.

For those of you who say “I can”, I say yes you can! But will you?

ROD SANTOMASSIMO: This is Rod Santomassimo of the Massimo Group. Welcome to our next session of the Massimo Monthly. This is where we talk to some of the best and brightest industry leaders in regards to what they are doing in today’s marketplace to be successful.

Today we have the extreme privilege of having Mark Myers of Marcus and Millichap’s Chicago office joining us. Mark, welcome.

MARK MYERS: Thank you, Rod, I appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to be here.

ROD: Mark, maybe some of the people out there don’t know you, believe it or not. Certainly, I know of you because of your level of consistency throughout your career, especially, at Marcus. I don’t want to embarrass you, but I want to list a couple of your accomplishments… you’ve had a Sales Recognition Award for seemingly forever. A National Achievement Award of Sales, again, 10 or 15 years…Chairman’s Club…Chairman’s Circle of Excellence…top 10 investment professionals… all have been Marcus and Millichap. Mark, certainly, you’ve had some great consistency throughout your tenure. Can I have a little indication of how long you’ve been doing this commercial brokerage practice, Then, how long have you been with Marcus?

MARK: I’ve been with Marcus and Millichap 17 years, approximately. I started with them after being an asset manager for a small real estate syndicator. I had my rough spots like a lot of other folks in the industry. I would just encourage people just to keep at it. I graduated from Wheaton College, a small private school in Illinois after growing up in Arizona. I met my wife there and her family is from the Chicago area. So, I stayed here. I, literally, could not find a job in 1983. A friend of mine whose sister was an accountant hired me as a bookkeeper. I started off in a small real estate vacation shop. Then, I went to a real large shop. That was just before the tax changes, TRA86, when they changed the depreciation laws. Two of the three companies I worked for went bankrupt, because of the tax laws themselves. I worked for a small real estate investor for 6 ½ years. I went to Kellogg Business School during that time and met a broker who had sold a couple of properties to us and really liked what he did for a living. Frankly, I saw the kind of money he made. It really wasn’t that big of money at the time. Compared to what I was making, it was. I decided that’s what I wanted to do with the rest of my career. I interviewed with a few brokerage companies. I picked Marcus and Millichap. I felt that they were a good fit for me. They were a very entrepreneurial company. I wanted to be an entrepreneur…in essence a company within a company…I liked that very much about Marcus and Millichap. They’ve allowed me to spread my wings and grow a team here and it’s been very profitable, very successful. I thank God for it and it has been great.

ROD: That’s fantastic and certainly you have the same hurdles, challenges, success over the last 17+ years. You’ve seen a lot of cycles to say the least. We use to say “Stay alive until 95”, then, we had 2001. Recently we thought it was going to be “heaven in 2011”. Tell me about this, you used the magic word where you said, team. A lot of brokers today are working in teams. What’s the depth? Tell us about the team you’ve built, give us a quick review of what their responsibilities are.

MARK: I know this call goes out to a broad audience. I want to encourage people if you’re just starting off in the business and you’re with a medium to large size company, you can’t afford to have your own marketing person and your own business development people, like I have. What you can do is utilize the resources of the firm. Typically, you’ll have a regional manager, a managing director, that will support you or they wouldn’t have hired you. If they don’t support you, find another firm, obviously. Ask that person to go on appointments with you, train you, teach you what a cap rate is, what a gross rent multiplier is, get you involved in the right real estate courses and use the resources of your company. When you sell to clients, make sure you’re selling your company, not your own track record because you don’t have one yet. If you’re a veteran in the industry, I would encourage you to offload everything that is not making you money to an administrative or a support person or a person that can help you lift…you know, you’re not Atlas, you’re not trying to lift the world yourself…you want a team of people around you. What people have encouraged us to do over the years is to form teams and actually, there’s an exercise that you can do where you take what you want to make or what you do make on an annual basis divided by the hours you actually work. Figure out what your hourly rate is and ask yourself this question, “Whatever I’m doing in a certain task, would I hire somebody for that amount of money to do that task”? If your calculation works out to $200 an hour, would I pay someone $200 an hour to make copies for me? Obviously not. Would I pay them $200 an hour to answer the phone? Obviously, not. So, hire somebody at whatever market rate it costs for those functionalities and then, you do the things that have to do with meeting clients, creating proposals, presenting proposals, negotiating transactions because that’s where the dollars are made that translate into $200 an hour. Otherwise, you’re underpaying yourself for tasks that you shouldn’t be doing.

ROD: Perfect, Mark. I’m a great believer in that delegating and outsourcing. I’d love to hear this is working with you. Mark. Let me ask you, how many folks are on your team? It is just yourself and it’s a flexible team or do you have a structured team in itself?

MARK: We have three people on a team here in my office. But, then, we are part of a looser team, if you will, where we do some deals together and some deals apart from one another that consists of about 20 other people in various offices around the country.
Then, as a part of a national platform we have, if you will, a team of 1,300 other real estate agents around the country in 76 offices that are part of the national Marcus and Millichap firm that are all licensed real estate agents, many of them brokers themselves. They also help us find buyers for our properties. We do the same for them. There is a good networking system. Marcus and Millichap has a corporate policy as part of their culture that you have to share information. You cannot pocket listings. You have to put them in the Marcus and Millichap system and that’s one of the big advantages of our firm for the other agents in the firm…especially, the newer people that can work on anybody’s listing and it’s also an advantage to the sellers. We always represent sellers. We are a seller’s representation firm and the seller wants the property exposed to as many potential qualified buyers as possible. That sharing of information helps. So, in effect there’s a small team here that’s part of a larger looser team where we do some deals with them, they do some deals with us. They do deals with others. They do deals themselves. We’re part of a very large team at Marcus and Millichap…the support people, too.

ROD: What type of product do you focus on? Did you focus on a product there in Chicago or more regionally?

MARK: Yes. We sell senior’s housing properties in our group. Anything ranging from senior’s apartments all the way to sub-acute or even long-term acute care hospitals to what they refer to as LTAC. Again, when I was an asset manager before I was a broker, I had a general partner who encouraged me to specialize, specialize, and specialize. He had been a broker himself. He learned that whether you’re selling senior family homes…in which case you want to concentrate on a specific market area…a specific product type…a specific way of marketing yourself or commercial product…whether you’re in self-storage or industrial office, retail market family, you want to be a specialist. You should become such a specialist that in the first 10 minutes of meeting a client, they should be able to say to themselves, “This person knows more about my business, than I do. They know what its worth. They know how to market it, how to position it in the market. They understand my weak spots”. You really want to not just put yourself out there in words, as they say, but in deeds and have actually done it, have actually learned it. So that they have the confidence that when they give you their…you have to understand some people, at least that we work with, are giving you their life savings in their hand. It is a very serious matter. It’s not as serious as, obviously, being on an operating table with a surgeon. But, in a financial sense, it’s about the same. Someone is giving you a 5, 10 million dollar asset to sell…sometimes a 20 hundred million asset to sell or group of assets. That represents 90% of their net worth in most cases. They’re handing that to you to maximize the value of that and that’s why it’s a very important function that we serve in the economy. We are creating liquidity and we are getting people the most amount of dollars that we can. There’s a process to do that and it takes a team effort and it takes a lot of different skill-sets. The sellers have to feel confident that we possess those skill-sets and can execute them.

ROD: Fantastic, Mark. Let me ask you one final question. You touched upon being a specialist. You touched upon valuing your time and delegating and outsourcing where ever possible. You talked about utilizing your company resources and, yes, we talked about you being a consistent performer for almost 20 years now. But, here’s the question I have for you and the final question. The market has obviously changed the last several years for a lot of folks out there. Most of the brokerage community has not been through a cycle like this. You and I have, but others haven’t. Have you adapted, have you changed at all, what have you done in regard to today’s marketplace?

MARK: Initially, we did not change. I’ll admit, we didn’t change as much as we should have because I don’t believe any of us who were even senior in the industry realized how deep this dip was going to be and how many troubles we were going to have particularly, in the area of obtaining financing. I would say 6 of 10 deals we do today or 60% of the deals we do today are done all cash, believe it or not. Even 14 or 15 million dollar deals, people are stroking a check for that. They are not going out to get financing. There just is not a great deal of financing in the marketplace. Are there lenders? Of course, there are. There are specialty lenders, and senior’s housing, I’m sure there are some for self-storage and multi-family and office and so forth. There are lenders out there. Also, in the multi-family sector, in the senior’s housing sector, there is the government entity financing group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and HUD. But, nonetheless, we didn’t adapt to that initially. What have we done since we figured out that we need to adapt even further. We’re testing motivation a great deal more. No longer should you take an engagement or a seller who seems to be motivated or they might list the property at 10 million dollars but you think they might take 8 million. You really need to know on the front end. Will they conform to the market? If you bring them four solid offers after talking to a hundred qualified buyers, and all those offers are in the 8 to 9 million range, are they going to sell the property? Can they sell the property? Make sure you understand what the debt-loan was on the property. Was the debt pre-payable? You need to understand if the property is deliverable, if the seller will conform to the market and then you need to think ahead of time what buyer is going to purchase this asset and are they going to be able to obtain financing because it pencils out, it underwrites, there’s that coverage. Or if it doesn’t pencil out, are there buyers out there that will for whatever reason want to pay cash for this property or put down a fairly hefty down payment? If you cannot answer those questions on the front end, you’re just going to end up taking a lot of engagements like we did and expired some listings because we just didn’t do a good enough job checking motivation on the front. We are doing a much better job of that now. Sellers are also conforming to the market much better. I think sellers were waiting to see if the market was going to fall further. I think buyers were waiting to see if people say don’t try to catch a falling knife like in the stock market, same in real estate. Buyers were trying to figure out how far is the market going to go? I think they finally gave up and said, “You know what, there are bargains out there, let’s go out and buy something”. So, test motivation, visit your clients, block and tackle, execute, but at the end of the day, test motivation. Don’t drive 300 miles to go see somebody until you know for sure they are a seller and they have something that’s sellable.

ROD: Wow. All those reasons are why you are one of giants in commercial real estate brokerage. Mark Myers, we thank you so much for your valuable time. We appreciate you not outsourcing this interview. Mark, any final words for our audience?

MARK: Again, I would just say keep putting yourself under the tutelage of people like Rod and his company and others who will train you how to block, how to tackle and just go out there and execute it. Use your own personality and your own skill-set and your own business history and take all of those talents together, which are God-given. Just keep at it. It’s a long process. It takes a lot of effort. If you want to be a professional athlete and can make a million dollars a year, how much effort does that take? Well, that same amount of effort it’s going to take to make a million dollars a year in any field including brokerage.

ROD: Mr. Myers, we thank you so much for your valuable time. Until next time, this is Rod Santomassimo of the Massimo Group with this version of our Massimo Monthly.

Next time, we’ll try to get someone…I don’t know if we can…who is as gigantic as Mark Myers, himself. Until then, we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you.

MARK: Thank you very much.

Lately I have heard more and more from brokers and real estate advisors who are creating income by “Sponsoring” or “Syndicating” Group Investments. A leading authority on group sponsorships is Gene Trowbridge of Trowbridge and Taylor. I had the pleasure of interviewing Gene earlier this week to learn more about how a commercial real estate broker can leverage their market knowledge and relationships to create opportunities in today’s challenging market.

These type of opportunities are not for everyone. However most of Gene’s clients are creating group investments which total less than $2 million. Thus, this may be more of an opportunity than you first thought.

The following is a transcript from my interview with Gene Trowbridge of Trowbridge and Taylor

ROD SANTOMASSIMO: Good Afternoon, this is, Rod Santomassimo of the Massimo Group. Welcome to our next installment of the Massimo Monthly. Each month we interview an industry leader that will impact you as a commercial real estate broker. This morning we have the privilege of having Gene Trowbridge of Trowbridge and Taylor on the line with us. Gene is without a doubt the foremost expert on commercial real estate syndications and specifically group sponsorships.

Gene, welcome to Massimo Monthly, Please, introduce yourself and welcome to the group.

GENE TROWBRIDGE: Well, thank you, Rod, it’s a pleasure to have you interview me and I’m looking forward to it.

ROD: Well, fantastic, let’s get right into it. Our listeners are owners, brokers, associates, advisors, all in one way or another practicing in the commercial real estate arena. This arena, let’s face it; it’s a different one for most of them. Most of the folks have yet to see a cycle such as this during their tenure. I, unfortunately, have seen several. I’m sure you have as well. But, this I see as also one of opportunity. I know because of your expertise, you’re really taking advantage of the markets. Tell us, what opportunities are you seeing today for individuals like a commercial real estate broker in regards to your expertise?

GENE: Thanks, Rod. You mentioned the different cycles that we have. I was a real estate syndicator myself from 1972 – 1994. I have been involved in cycles like this. What a cycle like this always presents to a syndicator is an opportunity to be a buyer of properties that you couldn’t buy in more of an up cycle. That’s what I think is attracting commercial real estate brokers today…brokers and owners to the syndication business…is that there are good properties that are going to be coming for sale that normally wouldn’t be coming for sale. This is going to be our opportunity to take our investors and take our money and buy some of those properties. I think another thing that’s happen…that always happens in a downturn like this…is financing becomes an issue. The availability of financing is the issue today. Not so much the cost of financing, but, the availability of it. Rod, as I always say if the world is made up of investors who expect to buy something with 20% down, in our marketplace today the banks want 40, 50, 60% down, sometimes we have to buy property all cash…we simply have to pool our investors to come up with the increased equity necessary to buy some of these good properties that are out there.

ROD: Makes perfect sense. Gene, the word in itself, syndication, can be pretty intimidating. Syndication sounds so complex and so comprehensive. But, you think about it who is better than the commercial broker who is an expert in a particular marketplace to understand the trends of the market to identify the opportunities? How do we get beyond the bridge, beyond that challenge? Maybe the stigma of most syndication that sounds like trouble?

GENE: Rod, when was the last time you took an airplane ride?

ROD: I am seemingly always on a plane. I took one just last week.

GENE: Ok. Every time you get on an airplane ride, Rod, you’ve entered the syndication world because you have pooled your resources with a bunch of other passengers and you have hired good equipment and you have hired professional management. The purpose is to get you from one place to another while you’re on your trip. You can’t do it yourself. That’s all we’re trying to do in commercial real estate syndication. We’re trying to use the commercial real estate person as the pilot and the pieces of real estate that you can’t own yourself as the vehicle. Let’s just get a bunch of people together and let’s just go out and buy something. It’s as simple as that, Rod. Let’s just go out and buy something. It’s a security and, yes, there are IRS issues but, that’s a topic for a different day. All we’re going to do is find a good property and find a bunch of investors who don’t want to own it themselves, can’t own it themselves, need a professional commercial real estate person to do all the work. Let’s go buy something.

ROD: Ok. When I heard it, I heard opportunity. It screamed to me opportunity. Other people though may have heard, a couple of times there, let’s go do the work. It’s work. That’s a lot of work. But work generally comes with a reward. Are there potential fees you can earn or just income you can generate through being a group sponsor? Give us a quick overview of the potential, not the amount, but the potential for fees if you were to actually create the sponsorship on your own as a real estate broker.

GENE: Sure, Rod. I think we could identify up to seven to ten different ways that you can make money being a real estate syndicator. Let’s just keep it to the major ones. First of all, there is an opportunity to get real estate brokerage commissions throughout the syndication process through acquisitions, through leasing to financing to sale to property management. All the things that I call deal-making activities that you like to do anyhow as a commercial real estate person. Those are all available to you in the syndication process where you actually step-up and control the property. That’s pretty attractive from a deal-making perspective. Then, you can make money on acquisition fees. You can make money on asset management. Shares of the cash flow can come to you as you share the profits with your investors. Two major areas…number one, there is all sorts of real estate work that you can do that you can get paid for. Then, there’s all the effort that you have to put in managing the investors. There are fees. There are shares of profits that you can attract, you can keep for your own for the work you do in managing the investors. Rod, action in the syndication business is much more about managing the group of investors than it is about real estate. We can do real estate. The question is can we manage ten investors for the next five years in a deal. That’s a lot of work. You should get paid for that.

ROD: That’s fantastic, the points, Gene. Thank you very much. I have to always be transparent with our listeners. I have a series of coaching clients who have initiated their own personal group sponsorships based on either reading your book or going to one of your programs. I have heard nothing but fantastic things about these opportunities available to the brokers’ community by going to your website. Gene, you want to share that website for everyone else so they can make sure they can learn more about your programs?

GENE: Sure, Rod. My website is www.groupsponsor.com. At that website you’ll learn more about me. You’ll learn about the book. You’ll learn about the workshops we offer. Then, you’ll learn about the availability of using me as the attorney to write the documents that you need to do all this business painlessly and legal.

ROD: Gene, I’ve got to tell you that there are some great opportunities out there. Thank you for making us aware of these alternative sources.

The Massimo Group has is proud to announce a new format for our Massimo Minute Newsletter subscribers.  We call this “Massimo Market Movers”.  Each month we hope to bring you an interview with commercial real estate brokers around the country who are making a difference by implementing specific strategies in their business. 

For our inaugural session, I had the privilege of interviewing Eric Odum, owner of Net Lease Commercial Advisory, in Tampa, FL.  Eric is owns a boutique brokerage firm in a major secondary market, yet has found success competing against more established national firms.  More impressively Eric is securing several new leads each and every day, based on his applied marketing strategies.

I should disclose that Eric is a former client of ours.  He is now positioned to generate more business by leveraging not only what we worked on, but also by implementing a few strategies of his own.  A full transcript of this interview follows.

RS:       Good Afternoon, this is Rod Santomassimo of the Massimo Group. Welcome to the Massimo Minute. And this month, we have a special guest with us to discuss the Tampa, Florida marketplace, and that guest is Mr. Eric Odum of Net Lease Commercial Advisory. Eric, Welcome!

EO:      Hey Rod, how are you?

RS:       I’m doing pretty good thank you very much. In this format, Eric, just for our audience, we take a quick 5 minutes to get the download of both what’s going on in the marketplace. What are commercial brokers, specifically, doing today to not only survive, but thrive in that marketplace. I know you’re into particular things, but first off tell me about Tampa, FL. Tell me what’s going on in the Tampa, FL marketplace in your particular focus niche.

EO: Well, you know, obviously, it’s been pretty bleak here in the last couple years. We were one of the hardest hit markets in the country due primarily to the downturn in the residential construction market. Of course, I think Tampa really began to realize how closely tied it was to the construction market since (commercial) vacancies shot up through the roof. Now, I do primarily net lease. My roots are in Section 1031 exchanges.  Of course, what happened is, there are no more Section 1031 exchanges because there are no more capital gains. We are in a deflationary environment right now (in real estate), so the Section 1031 business dried up for me. It was a matter of, “Do you adapt or do you just go away and find something else to do?” Well, I decided to find something inside of the real estate business to try to diversify and survive, because I do think this is a market about the survival, so I’ve…

RS: Ok, if I might, that’s a great point. We find especially with our clients across the country, a lot of them doing more recall focused diversification because, lets face it, if your just focused on investment sales in many markets across the U.S., yeah, velocity issues, liquidity issues, and the like, you’re going to have a really hard time surviving, so I appreciate your stance as far as diversifying your offering.  Let me ask you…you say you’re diversifying your offerings. What are you doing right now that’s working? I’m sure a lot of this is a “best practices” call. What are you doing right now that’s working?

EO: Well, you know, it’s all about exposure. It’s all about getting your name and your face out there, in the local market.  I didn’t have the advantage of working the local market because my properties, my investments, were all over the state, really all over the country, so what I’ve done, what I’ve been pretty good at in my past life as a marketing person, I spent a lot of time in marketing, in getting placements on websites, and SEO work. So, my internet is generating about 7 to 8 leads a week, and a significant portion of my business is coming off of internet. I haven’t stopped investing. I’ve seen so many brokers that stopped investing in their business. I haven’t stopped investing. I continue to mail postcards out, I continue to beat the streets, I continue to go out and do advertising. I’m just spending smarter now than I was probably 3 or 4 years ago, and the internet, of course, is one of those marketing systems that works even when you’re sleeping. You get leads at 9 and 10 o’clock at night and you wake in the morning and low and behold you might have a customer. So that’s what I’ve been doing that’s working, and we’ve been dealing primarily in the office and the retail market.

RS:       Ok, so I heard a lot of great things here. First of all I heard you continue to invest in yourself and yes the all star performers like you, Eric, are always investing in themselves, investing in their Real Estate business. I also heard you say that you haven’t stopped prospecting. I think that people talk about presence, having market presence, but prospecting and presence certainly are compliments. They work with one another. So you create the system of both prospecting by creating a presence which I know is paramount. So I know someone’s going to ask, how the heck is he generating, specifically Eric, we have about a minute and a half left, so I want to leave you some Kudos here, some little things we can share, what specifically are you doing to generate 7 solid leads a week to your business, especially when you are sleeping?  What, talk exactly, is it Twitter, is it internet, is it Facebook, let us know, what are you doing?

EO:      Well, first and foremost, I think we are of the mindset that everybody knows what we do, our friends and family know, but they really don’t, so…This is where Twitter and Facebook would come in, but make sure – you don’t want to overwhelm them all the time with discussions of business – but you do want to drop a hint every 3 or 4 posts that yeah, I am in the business and if anybody is looking, send them my way.  So, I have gotten some referrals from my friends and family, and those are the most solid ones. The other way is your website, and your web presence. Build a website and make it specialized to whatever your niche is. You’d be surprised. If you work office space in, let’s say, the Westshore submarket, start a blog that talks about everything that’s happening in the Westshore sub market, and you will be surprised at how much traffic that will actually lead to.  And if you’re functioning in the Westshore sub market in Tampa, you really don’t care about what’s happening in Orlando, or don’t really care necessarily about what’s happening in Lakeland or Plant City.  Then don’t write about those things.  Only write about what’s happening, become and expert in your niche, and it will generate leads, your rankings will increase, it’s all about being consistent and persistent in posting and writing. As it happens, Google really likes current content. As long as you have current content specific to your niche, you’ll get higher rankings.

RS:       Ok, Eric. Let me ask you one last question, because I know a lot of people listening in here, they may think, I have not heard of Net Lease Commercial Advisory. So first, quickly give me your website sot hey can take a look at what you’re doing.

EO:      Sure, it’s www.floridatriplenet.com.

RS:       Ok great, and the last thing I gotta ask you, because fair to say, you’re a boutique firm, and you’re in a major market, a secondary market, but still in a major market like Tampa Bay, Pinellas County, Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk.  How are you competing against big boys? CBRE is there. Cushman is there. Everyone’s there I’m aware of in Tampa Bay. So, how are you competing as a boutique firm?

EO:      It’s tough Rod. I’m not going to lie. Obviously the larger firms, the Grubb’s and the CBRE’s, they have access to National tenants.  I’m not ever going to get access to, but frankly in my niche, which is triple net properties,  I don’t kneed to have that big flag outside my front door. I’m capable of doing Net Lease on my own. Where it becomes a challenge is in the rental market, the tenant representation market locally. But what makes a great equalizer is my marketing efforts. I believe that I set up superior systems in order to cast the net out there and I have not had any issues in dealing with those local tenants in the local markets. Where I miss on is probably in the national tenant that might be relocating, but actually there’s not been a lot of that going on in Tampa right now. I’ve strung together several good months, I feel like I’ve finally found the light switch (on the tenant rep market).

RS:       Eric, we really appreciate your time. It’s Eric Odum with Net Lease Commercial Advisory, and again that website was www.floridatriplenet.com.  Eric, I appreciate your time. Until next time, this is Rod Santomassimo with the Massimo Minute.  Talk to you soon.

The first quarter of 2010 has now come and gone and many brokers are finding small changes from the prior calendar year.  Others are finding velocity, at least in terms of inquiries, if not transactions, have risen dramatically.  The difference is not a matter of market or sector of focus, but on performance.  The greatest increase in client inquiries and interest  are being generated by brokers who also have the highest failure rate.  These are the commercial brokers who will be the leading income producers both this year and next.  To them failure is an option, why – well you will need to read on.

I was recently reviewing “The Best Damn Sales Book Ever” by Warren Greshes, a national best seller.  Warren makes the point that the salesperson who gets to the most “no’s” in business is usually the top salesman in an organization.   Seems counterproductive on the surface, but it’s ironically accurate.  Top performers don’t mind getting “no’s”.  Yes, rejection is a failure in terms of not getting a listing, leasing assignment or tenant rep assignment, but it is also substantial proof that you are at least getting in front of enough decision makers to build a business.

For example, at the Massimo Group we make between 300 and 1,000 calls a month to potential clients.  Heck, I personally make between 300 and 400 myself each and every month.  Why?  Because I know that if we contact less, our business will suffer and if we contact more, our business will grow.  To me, getting a “no” is the second best possible answer, after “yes” of course.  The “maybes” and “call me in x months” are the worse replies of all.  This is not a decision, it’s just a way to keep a fish on the hook while it frantically twists to get back in the water.  Who wants that?  Not me.

So for all those who feel “failure is NOT an option”, and suggest, perhaps you are not making enough effort in your sales – it’s ok to fail, in fact it’s one of the best barometers of success!

In our last newsletter we offered the five P’s to commercial real estate success.  Planning, Prospecting Performing, Persistence and Presence – which all leads to Production.  We received several suggested additions, such as Patience and Practice, but more so we received strong opinions on the value of prospecting versus presence.  Which is more important, having a strong prospecting plan or a solid market presence?

It seems the “old school” traditionalist feel that prospecting is the ultimate tenet to CRE success.  Cold calling, letter campaigns and email campaigns are the core direct prospecting tools used by most.  Prospecting, for our purposes, are the activities associated with directly communicating with a targeted audience that can benefit from your services.  While others felt that presence ultimately defines one’s level of success and market position.  Let’s face it, with the deluge of promotional and marketing outlets that exist both today (both physical and digital), those who establish and maintain a market presence have the advantage of being “top of mind” with prospective clients.

The fact is prospecting and presence are complementary.  They are synergistic.  When prospecting, would you rather have your audiences say “who are you” or “oh yes, I heard of you”?  A strong market presence makes your prospecting efforts easier and more effective.  Likewise having a market presence is great, but you must have a targeted and proactive prospecting plan behind it.  Certainly a strong presence will generate more direct leads and inquires, but most brokers can’t rely strictly on potential clients calling them because of their presence.  That’s simply unrealistic for the majority.

Last month I called on a prospect to inquire if they were open to me visiting with their brokerage team while I was in the area – for a fee of course.  The prospect, a regional manager of a national brokerage firm agreed to both my visit and my price.  This was the first time I had called on the prospect, so I was curious as to why he agreed to have me come in.  It turns out, the company’s chairman had earlier read and subsequently distributed a white paper I had authored and placed on several commercial real estate portals.  Both the chairman and the regional manager were impressed with what I wrote.  This had helped establish a presence.  However the regional manager did not call me – our meeting was set because I called him.  For me, Prospecting is #1, Presence is 1A.  Then again, I am old school, with an appreciation for the new marketing methods.

When I was young my mom forced me to eat peas.  Even today my wife “strongly encourages” me to eat them.  I don’t like peas.  Yes they are nutritious, full of vitamins and essential stuff, but for me far from delicious.  Some peas are simply harder to swallow than others.

When it comes to commercial real estate brokerage, it is also essential that you take your peas, or in our case your “P’s”.  When you look at top performers, you quickly recognize that they implement a daily regimen of P’s.  Here are the top five P’s that every commercial real estate broker should follow if they want to grow up to be big and strong, or more applicably, become a top producer in their respecting market.

1.       Planning – need I say more?  You can’t simply “wing it to win it”.

2.       Prospecting – you cannot “tweet” your way to long term success.

3.       Presence – #2 and #3 complement one another.  They are, not opposites.  There is no greater force for securing new business and for clients to find you than the synergistic meshing of prospecting with presence.

4.       Performance – it’s great to plan (#1), but you won’t produce without performing the tactics and strategies outlined in your plan.

5.       Persistence – There is a fine line between persistence and  a pain in the butt, but very few brokers come close to ever crossing it.  Push the envelope, without becoming the pain.

Practice the 5 aforementioned P’s and you will find you will more easily acquire the most important P of all… production.