Hanging By a Thread

In May, a few members of our corporate-services management team attended the Oncor conference in Las Vegas. We had the unprecedented opportunity to address a large gathering of top-tier real estate firms that are part of the affiliation. We were privileged to be the warm-up act for impressive keynote presentations from Jeff Schwartz, CEO of Prologis, and real estate legend Sam Zell.

Our overall presentation was on corporate services, but I made the simple observation that the biggest threat to the commercial tenant-rep professional isn’t the broker down the street, nor is it brokers who are part of the industry’s big three houses. I said the biggest threat to the average broker is that they don’t sell a platform. They are hanging by a thread, one that is in immediate danger of being cut.

Most commercial real estate brokers will tell you that they built their business by building personal relationships–relationships many believe are bulletproof. In an ideal world this is true; in solid relationships, clients would probably never use someone else. But things in this industry are becoming unequal rather quickly. Let me explain.