“Baby Brokers:” Lessons Learned, Lessons Earned
I’m coming up on my fourth year of being a licensed broker. I’m younger than most of my clients, and certainly younger than most of my colleagues. Like almost every professional I’ve ever met, I started my brokerage career with end-stage imposter syndrome. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn under the mentorship of my boss, who is far more patient and kind than I probably deserve. But I’ve found that success in this career is paved with blood.
Okay, maybe not blood. It’s paved with White-Out. Do people still use White-Out?
What I’m getting at is that failure is the best teacher, and mistakes – no matter how severe or embarrassing – are usually bigger stepping stones than successes. The CRE industry is getting younger, and I can understand its allure for my generation: flexible hours, the promise of a fat commission at the end of a deal, the relatively low barrier to entry for licensure. But I urge other “baby brokers” to take it from me: it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Most of the time it’s a frustrating, exhausting, oftentimes confusing job where everyone does things just a little differently than you do. It’s nights, holidays, weekends, fielding random texts and calls from LoopNet reps and prospective clients at the most inopportune times. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t cried at my desk more than once.
But it can also be deeply rewarding and creatively stimulating, as long as you force yourself to see the forest for the trees. So let’s walk through that forest together while I share my biggest pieces of advice for young brokers just beginning their careers in commercial real estate. Sometimes it’s easy to brush off our older coworkers’ feedback and write it off as outdated or impractical, so I hope you’ll at least take this advice knowing I’ve been in your shoes – and in many ways, I’m still wearing them. Do you want those back, by the way?
For the sake of this blog, know that when I refer to Baby Brokers, I’m not necessarily referring to age. I’m using “Baby Broker” as an umbrella term for anyone who is recently licensed, regardless of their professional background. Many of the following lessons apply to seasoned executives and businesspeople who pursued real estate as a way to make some extra cash or to pivot away from a more traditional office job. It’s not meant to be a patronizing term – it’s just a punchier name than “people who are newly licensed and have begun representing clients on the tenant or landlord side.” With that in mind, try not to write off my advice as the blind leading the blind, or rather, a baby leading babies. If anything, I’m a 4-year old teaching curse words to my toddler siblings.
Convoluted metaphors aside, let’s begin.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons is that you should never assume you’re the smartest person in the room. Don’t over-explain or lecture your clients and their brokers. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming your advice will be the deciding factor for them. It’s easy to relay the same spiel over and over again when you’re showing the same spaces every other day, but in doing so you’re inadvertently missing an opportunity often overlooked in this business: the opportunity for genuine human connection. Most showings will not result in a lease being signed. It’s a numbers game, but that doesn’t mean we should treat prospective clients like numbers. Everyone you meet has a lifetime of experiences informing their behaviors and decisions, and people will remember you if you take the time to learn about them without gauging their likelihood of cutting you a check.
Too often, I encounter younger brokers who seem bored or uninterested in engaging with a prospective tenant seeking a smaller space or a shorter term. Sometimes those brokers hang back and answer texts while my tenant client is left to walk the unfamiliar space alone. Other times, young brokers walk into a showing completely unprepared, asking questions with answers readily available in the email thread we exchanged the previous day. Some reps don’t even realize that I’m a broker and just assume I’m the client, because they didn’t bother doing their homework before meeting with me. Which, by the way, is mind-boggling to me. If you’ve ever met with me, just know I spent half an hour furiously searching for your headshot and LinkedIn page so I don’t stand in the lobby looking like a kid who can’t find her mom in the crowd at DisneyWorld.
Take it from me, Baby Brokers: Clients notice everything. They pick up on your body language, on your inflections, on your level of effort. They can gauge the kind of relationship you have with the entity you’re representing, without even knowing the name of that entity. Sometimes their perception of you is the deciding factor, and more than once I’ve had a client tell me they’re not interested because the other rep seemed aloof or even downright rude. It’s not always about regurgitating the information on your Costar listing. The clients can look that up themselves, if they want — what they can’t discern with a simple Google search is how engaged and present you are when you meet them.
Another major lesson is learning how to admit you don’t know something. When my boss first set me loose on my own showings, my most commonly-used phrase was “I’m not sure about that, but I’ll check and get back to you.” Usually the prompting question was something I’d already been briefed on but immediately forgot as soon as the client arrived. I thought at first that I was proving my own insecurities right: that I had no business handling my own clients; that I was a fraud and somehow faked my way into licensure; that I was better off trailing nervously behind my boss and letting him do all the talking.
But the more showings I got under my belt, the more frequently I heard the words “I don’t know, but let me check and get back to you” from other brokers and reps. I realized that even the most seasoned pros don’t have all the answers. Sometimes the client doesn’t have answers either, and both parties walk away with homework to do. That’s why it’s so important to establish rapport with everyone you meet. It’s better to be honest and admit you don’t know something than to impulsively give information that turns out to be false, and then you’ve got an angry client and a potential ethical violation. If a client and their rep sees that you care enough to engage in conversation with them, even if you can barely answer any of their questions, they’re more likely to follow up with you later on.
And on that, don’t write off a prospect just because they’re not interested in moving forward. This business is full of revolving doors, and most of your business will likely come from your Roladex of contacts upon whom you made an impression. Whenever I’m walking somewhere with my boss, it’s inevitable that someone will stop and say hello to him. I often tease him about being Mr. Popular, because it seems that at least 20% of this city has either worked with or heard about him. Remember, we’re a small firm. Like, really small. Our names aren’t plastered around every corner of every major metropolitan area of the country, yet my boss gets recognized almost every time walks out the door. That’s because he cares enough to foster and nurture his relationships with clients, colleagues, and competition alike. Kindness doesn’t necessarily pay the bills, but it certainly pays dividends.
This next lesson may seem obvious, but I’m seeing this happen more and more frequently with Baby Brokers: take the initiative to be prepared for showings. There’s no diplomatic way to say this, but it sucks to stand in the cold with a client waiting for you to show up. Even if you’re perfectly punctual and arriving at the agreed upon time, and absent any previous commitments or valid excuses, it’s not a good look if you’re rolling up to a space at the last possible second, just to fumble with the keys for 5 minutes and then wander through the darkness trying to find the light switch. I was taught to get to a space at least 5 minutes early, though I usually aim for 15, just in case. In case of what, you may ask? Well, sometimes people use vacant spaces for, uh… personal reasons, and it’s never pleasant to walk in on that. Sometimes you have a ring of twenty keys and it seems like none of them work the first, second, or third time you try them. And then there was that one time my skirt ripped all the way up to my hip and I had to frantically improvise so that the office showing didn’t turn into an undergarment showing. That’s another lesson – always have a change of clothes in your office or your car. Trust me.
This next lesson was a particularly difficult one for me to learn: sometimes you gotta swallow your pride and trade traditional professionalism for raw honesty. I’m the kind of person who likes to talk… a lot. I usually default to humor and playful self-deprecation, and I try to keep conversations lighthearted but productive. Recently I had an incident before a showing that completely threw me off my game and frankly left me shaken. And more than once I’ve had to walk into a showing after being subjected to vile catcalls and unwanted physical contact. Whereas I usually would have suppressed my emotional reaction to that and just powered through until I could break down in the privacy of my office, I’ve learned that if necessary, it’s okay to admit I need a moment to gather myself. It’s easier with clients with whom I already have an established, positive relationship, and I’ve found that other brokers are usually very understanding about these things, but just know that it’s okay to be human and have human moments. If anything, showing your true self only enhances mutual trust with the client. That’s not to say it’s necessarily a good idea to spill your guts about your personal struggles or the idiot who cut you off on the Kennedy that morning, but if you’re disoriented and distracted during the showing, it’s better to say something rather than letting your client or another representative think you’re just completely checked out and disinterested.
And lastly, remember that this isn’t Wolf of Wall Street. Even during your best financial year, it’s not possible to effortlessly rake in cash and work remotely from the Maldives. The most influential people in this business have seen more failure than success, and they know how to play the long game. Sometimes this job is boring as all hell, and deals in progress go suddenly stagnant. But the second you start prioritizing six-figure deals over otherwise motivated, enthusiastic clients seeking 1-year term, 1,000-square-foot spaces in derelict office towers, you lose the opportunity to experience the magic of this job: it’s built-in networking. Human connection begets interaction, which begets relationships, which begets mutual investment. Perception is everything. That doesn’t mean you need to be perceived as perfect.
We’re all faking it. We’re all imposters. We’re all babies. We’re all learning together. And the time may come when I look back on this episode and think, “God I’m such an idiot.”
But for now, just take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. And if I missed something, let me know!
Go forth and sign some deals, my fellow Baby Brokers. Ideally deals with me.