Commercial Agents- Mind sharing your early success stories?

Question

I recently began a career as a commercial real estate agent. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and while I'm stoked to be in the career of my dreams, I'm definitely aware of the uphill climb I'm faced with as a young novice.

For you veteran commercial agents/brokers/investors, would you please share your experiences of how you managed to succeed early on in your career?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Joey Budka · Answer

The firm I'm with is Marcus and Millichap. We solely focus on commercial, and no residential. My niche is in multifamily sales. I'm partnered with a top producer, seven figure, maverick mentor. I don't have previous commercial experience, but have dealt with residential investment properties (2-4 units) in the past in my private lending business.

I figure, I'll probably work the smaller deals, like duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes. Then, like you said, once I establish a following, I'll move up into bigger deals and eventually get my brokers license and go off on my own.

I'm wondering, how did you initially establish your clientele base? Cold calling? Networking events? Mailers? What worked well for you early on in your career?

Joel Owens · Answer

Hi Joey,

When I was first licensed I did residential a long time ago. I had owned businesses before I got into real estate. A friend approached me to help him with a property he inherited from his mom passing where a developer wanted to buy from him for commercial development.

The developer after me catching everything in the contract to tie up the property with the seller asked me to work with him on the other parcels as he would rather be working with me than against me assembling the properties.

Off I went after that for about  3 years in land development and then went into existing investment properties.

I did things kamikaze style and figured them out on my own through the school of hard knocks.

In your situation if you are focusing on apartments I would do the following. Look at the current brokerage you are at. Are they a residential brokerage or a brokerage that also has a commercial department but takes listings all over the different asset classes??

If that is the case I would leave that office immediately. I would look for a commercial brokerage who had a strict focus only on large apartment buildings. You will probably give away 50% but have an experienced member or members on your team. You will be doing the grunt work for them learning the trade. Eventually after putting the time in you could get a senior position with a better split or go out on your own now that you have contacts and your own following.

If you do not have experience it will be hard to pickup clients when you are talking high dollar amount investments as they want experience. When you are part of a team with an experienced pro that is a different experience for them versus  dealing with you alone.

I hope it helps.

Aaron Ryan · Answer

Great advice Karen, I would add you are a real estate salesperson so u have to sell. Welcome to telemarketing :) 
Aaron

Karen Margrave · Answer

Joey Budka  Just call and ask for the property owner, tell them you're Joey Budka with M & M (everyone knows the name) and your office has cllients looking for properties similar to theirs, and you'd like to know if they're interested in selling. (even though you may not have clients right at that moment for that specific property, your office does get those leads all the time, so it's not dishonest)

If you talk to someone in the office, try to get an email address, and start a database, then you can send out a marketing email once a month with info specific to that market (apartments or ?)

Go on Craigslist and respond to ads for apartments that aren't listed with an agent for lease, etc., and introduce yourself, and say if they ever consider selling, to contact you, etc.

If they get pissed off.. shake it off, say you're sorry for bothering them and move on to the next one. Don't take NO personal. Most people are nice.

Does your office have access to Parcelquest? You can research owners, and information on properties. There's another one I've been looking at for owners of buildings, it's called Prospect Now. Also, make use of Google Earth, it can save you time. You can go to a neighborhood, do a street view, look around and if you see a property that looks like it may need a little attention, etc., zoom in, get the address, look up property info, and call the owners.

Sorry for going so long! Good luck.

Joey Budka · Answer

Thanks for the advice guys!

Joel Owens Yes, my mentor is definitely showing me the ropes. While I'm sure mailers work terrifically, I personally don't have any inventory to advertise, so that kind of limits me to cold calling and networking. I guess that's just the type of "hustle" I have to put in initially, then send out mailers once I secure some listings.

Karen M. Yes, M and M has a thorough training program that's quite intensive, relative to competing firms' training programs. My target market is southern Alameda County (East San Francisco Bay Area). Right now I'm cold calling my mentors target area to generate some quick listings, but I'll be focusing on my area in the next few months. Do you have any advice about cold calls in this business? How would you like to be approached over the phone by a commercial agent?

Karen Margrave · Answer

Joey Budka You're at Marcus Millichap, I'm sure there's no better office to learn in than theirs. Their name alone pulls buyers and sellers, which helps make up the gap of your lesser experience.

Do they have a training program for new agents?

The biggest thing for any agent, is to learn their market inside and out. Know the inventory, for your office and others. If you're working apartments, learn everything you can about them, etc.

If you're asked a question by a buyer or seller and don't have an answer, be honest and say you don't know, but you will find out. Everybody started someplace, most people are understanding and respect you for your honesty.

Good luck.

Joel Owens · Answer

Mailers.

Buyers want inventory or first crack at the best off market deals. In return you have to only work with serious buyers to prove your worth and connections to a seller to land the listing.

All of my buyers provide proof of funds and go through a process of understanding what a realistic offer is. If they are all over the place o elusive or non-committal I do not spend 10 seconds with them.

If you are shadowing a top producer they should be giving you tools and processes they use to generate business and close deals related to your niche.

Joel Owens · Answer

I based my comments off the fact that you want to be involved in apartments and that you are just starting out.

Commercial Agents- Mind sharing your early success stories?

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