Brokers - what is your service line, and how much free work are you doing?
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[{"id": "gmv0uy8", "text": "Minimal. Top brokers are about efficiency. If you're still young and less experienced you may have to work harder to sell yourself. I'm in office leasing for the West coast. We typically we spend a couple phone calls maximum before setting up a pitch meeting. The pitch itself has an underlying foundation from our personal template that gets customization depending on the size and uniqueness of the client. The bigger the client, the more work goes into the value add pitch. But beyond some phone calls and a pitch, we spend minimal time. Thankfully we have staff that seeks the data and works on the presentation for us which further increases efficiency at my level, the relationship level.", "replies": [{"id": "gmv6f5d", "text": "This is good. There are projects that are $100/hr, $1,000/hr, and $10,000/hr.", "replies": [{"id": "gmv7yzi", "text": "One of our biggest deals in 2019 was probably close to $100k per hour. The dream.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gmv0x54", "text": "For resi, I won't work on it at all unless I know I'm getting paid.  I had a guy take the deal I showed him to his buddy and put an offer on it without me.  \n\nOn the commercial side, I pride myself on being able to get my client the best deal overall.\n\nI had a guy looking at a single tenant net national autobody shop that was on the market to satisfy his 1031 exchange.  He was about to open escrow with a buyer agent that was a long time friend.  \n\nI found him the same tenant in a better location with less competition on twice as much land.  He canceled with his buddy and went with me and we're opening escrow this week.\n\nIt's tough to get an exclusive on the commercial buy side, but folks are typically more business inclined and objective.  Also helps that ethics are followed more strictly since you're bound to run into the same commercial guys again and people talk.. alot..", "replies": [{"id": "gmvewn4", "text": "You sound great to work with.  It's funny, I've tried to let a few brokers find properties for us to buy (i would have been willing to give them exclusivity if they wanted) and nobody ran with it.  We're not huge buyers but we'd certainly be worth anybody's time.  We've bought two commercial properties in the last 2.5 years.\n\nWe're in escrow now on one which I found myself.  My wife is an agent mainly for when we used to buy residential stuff.  She did the paperwork and we have a good attorney helping us finish due diligence items.  My wife is gonna get a big commission check.  I would have been perfectly happy to let that go to any of the brokers I tried to work with but they weren't interested in us lol.\n\nOne of them I was just talking with 3-4 months ago asking him to help me find this exact type of property we're about to get.  Part of me wants to call him and tell him I got one myself but thanks a lot for the \"help\" haha.  I won't though.  Good luck to you!", "replies": [{"id": "gmwt27w", "text": "Can I ask what area you typically look to buy in or around?", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "gn0nly8", "text": "Jesus, this sub is full of some vindictive people.  I read through your other commons and you're doing it right.  If you're transparent about your sources and what you can pull in terms of debt, you're a golden client that would get to see everything before it goes to market.\n\nPeople don't understand that between the time a listing agreement gets signed and all the marketing materials are done, the deal has been shopped at least 10 times and probably more.\n\nThe best clients are the ones that don't even bother looking on the market sometimes because their brokers show them everything before they get the crazy market fervor mark up.\n\nSome people on here might say, \"Well it's their duty to take it to market and get the best price.\"\n\nTo that my only response is that the best sellers know what they want for the property and sell the deal.  The worst ones are the ones with pie in the sky fantasies in their heads that waste two or three months in escrow with a deadbeat buyer that can't perform.\n\nGood luck man!", "replies": [{"id": "gn2hga2", "text": "Thanks for your comment.  I\u2019m glad I participated in this conversation because it opened my eyes a bit to the mindset I may be dealing with from brokers.  I\u2019m sure eventually I\u2019ll get connected with a compatible broker willing to work with me.  I guess I haven\u2019t met the right broker yet.\n\nYou know when you go to buy something (a car, a Big Mac, business equipment, whatever) and the people selling that item act like you\u2019re interrupting their day because you came with your money to buy what they sell?  It happens rarely but it does happen.  Some businesses operate with an attitude that they\u2019re doing you a favor because they exist.\n\nThere\u2019s a supplier within half a mile of my business who sells lots of stuff my business uses regularly.  They are such absolute jerks in there.  For years, every time we went in to pick up orders, they\u2019d give us shit that we weren\u2019t there more often and accused us of buying from other suppliers.  Which we were, because it\u2019s bad business to only have one supplier of something you need, and because other suppliers have higher volume and gave us better pricing.\n\nI was perfectly fine paying a bit more to support the business very close to us.  Being so close saves us time and money.  But I don\u2019t need people telling me I\u2019m an asshole every time I come in to spend my money buying what they sell.  So eventually we just stopped going there at all.  Who has time for silliness like that?  There are plenty of places to buy anything.  Why choose one who treats you like shit.\n\nI don\u2019t want my fanny smooched or any special treatment, I just want reasonable business relationships where I do my part and they do theirs.  From the bank to my employees to our suppliers, property managers, etc.  I\u2019m happy to pay everybody their fair share to do their part.\n\nSo I thought it would be a lot easier than this to connect with a commercial broker.  But I understand, established brokers have clients already.  They don\u2019t need more clients unless they\u2019ll be easy clients.  We are easy clients but the broker has no way of knowing that.  Maybe the listing broker on the building we\u2019re buying now will be interested in keeping an eye out for us in the future.\n\nAnyway I appreciate your comment and the others in this thread as it has definitely improved my understanding.  Thanks and best of luck to you too!", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gmwbh5x", "text": "Commercial/MF zero", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gmwy52w", "text": "I\u2019d say it depends In the deal size. The larger the deal, the more you put up with. However as a general rule, If a prospect is shopping, I ask to meet with them in person asap. If they refuse to meet and just say \u201csend me a survey of properties\u201d move on quickly. If they are not willing to meet with you, they are not worth your time. \n\nThen, when you meet in person, you qualify them and understand their need, timing, budget, buying capability, etc. From here you make a judgement call on whether you want to work with them or not. \n\nFrom here I think you have two choices. One, you pitch an exclusive by basically explaining how you get paid, the work you will do for them, and why it is more beneficial to work with you then other brokers. As long as you explain it in a way so they understand it is truly in their best interest to work with you exclusively, you can get a nice requirement with a very high chance of getting paid. \n\nIf you aren\u2019t good a pitching an exclusive, or are young and hustling and not willing to walk away from a potential paycheck, you simply give them excellent service and beat the other brokers. Stay on top of the requirement, send them properties, be very persistent, and simply win their business.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]