I have been associated with this great industry of commercial real estate for over 30 years, even more if you count my summer jobs (paving an outdoor, office parking deck in Miami in August – fun!) or internships during my college and grad school years.
My first internship was centered on knocking on doors in office buildings and asking tenants if they would mind completing a space survey for my school studies. Heck, I was so naive that when my employer/broker asked me to do this, it sounded so altruistic. Of course, he simply took my “survey” results and started calling on those tenants that had a pending lease expiration.
In my first “official” job in commercial real estate, I was a runner for a fledging boutique firm in Tampa, FL, which ultimately became a national powerhouse and was sold to a national. During my first month on the job, we were asked by a major insurance company to help with their space needs. Based on my finance background from grad school and my lease knowledge (thanks to my dad making me read leases when I was still in middle school – more fun!), I knew enough to be dangerous. My broker allowed me to tag along for what would be a wild ride representing large corporate tenants.
I didn’t know it back then, but there was a reason that several national insurance firms, such as Aetna, Travelers, and Prudential, aligned themselves with my boutique broker rather than a large national firm. My broker understood the four main elements to each opportunity.
You see, in every opportunity and every deal, you need to contend with the following:
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1) Stakeholders
2) Shareholders
3) Issues, and
4) Impacts
Seems simple enough; however, would you be able to decipher these for each opportunity you are pursuing? Wouldn’t it be great if you could create a “playbook” that would allow you to go out and pursue higher quality tenant representation opportunities?
We held a free webinar “Securing Office Tenant Representation Opportunities” on March 16th. If you didn’t have a chance to join us live, please click here to watch the replay.
