Starting up in commercial
Hi there, I have a background in finance and got my real estate licence less than a year ago. I started in residential, and now I am trying to transition to commercial working alongside/for a guy that does primarily commercial work at the brokerage. It's a great opportunity, but he is swamped, and everything is quite unstructured, so I am wondering if it's going to work. For example, I want to cold call / go to the owners to set up appointments but can't get his availability for the meetings.

  
 Anyways, for those of you that have done it, without going to the commercial brokerage, how did you do it? 

What can I do on my own, without my senior agent's input? I keep thinking if I prove myself valuable to this guy, he will want to involve in his deals more.  Any advice appreciated.
[{"id": "f5t6deh", "text": "Why would he want to involve you in his deals?  He\u2019s there to help you on your deals, he doesn\u2019t need your help.  You need to be out doing business development, finding sellers.  He\u2019s not going to invest any time in you if you can\u2019t prove yourself to be valuable in that specific respect, because he doesn\u2019t need you for anything else.", "replies": [{"id": "f5t80fk", "text": "&gt;He\u2019s not going to invest any time in you if you can\u2019t prove yourself to be valuable\n\nThat's probably true. He does have more work than he can handle and he says he wants my help, but those are the things that are not on top of his list (or he would be doing them), so it's too slow for me.  On the other hand, I'm a bit reluctant to go out without his ok-ing it, because I do use his name when calling around. Maybe I should go out anyways?", "replies": [{"id": "f5vrvx3", "text": "You should talk to him.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5t6tzw", "text": "Just ask him what he need help with.  Ask if he can share his calendar with you so you can cold call and set up appointments", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5ta3kx", "text": "He\u2019s not going to hand over a list of leads to you so I\u2019d start compiling your own list of property owners and start calling. Try to get some meetings to learn more about their needs, challenges, etc. You don\u2019t need him there for that. Maybe share with him who you called and met with and what the outcome/lead might be. \n\nWhen I first started the only time a senior broker would look in my direction was if I brought them a lead on a silver platter and asked to partner up. That eventually turned into them including me on their deals to handle the grunt work once. Which evolved into working on things as equal partners once I had a few years under my belt.", "replies": [{"id": "f5tadoj", "text": "Thank you, I appreciate it.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}, {"id": "f62rl55", "text": "Hey so question, I started around 6 months ago and my senior  has put me on a lot of their deals and encourages me to find my own (I've found a few). They also answer my questions and has me sit in with they on some meetings/calls, copies me on emails they send out on some deals out.\n\nIt seems from what I've read this is not the norm and a very good situation to be in?\n\n&amp;#x200B;\n\nEdit: Also OP since you seem to be in a similar place, talk to your boss but also I wouldnt sit down with owners without ok'ing it first. I could see cold calling is fine, but wouldn't want to sit down with owner without running it by my boss. Even a quick email to ask and wait for a response is better than nothing", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5tbhlo", "text": "https://massimo-group.com/n2b/\n\nLook into this.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5tc0c7", "text": "He's swamped and wants your help. Does he want to train another agent or does he want to train an assistant. I've seen plenty of brokers promise to train juniors to be great agents, just to see them use someone hungry for 6-12 months as a gopher.\n\nIf you're putting something in, make sure its helping you reach your goals.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5tdgf5", "text": "Go make your own deals, sounds more like he is unorganized as oppose to having you contribute.  You have a finance background, and already want to set up meetings etc.  Just do it, learn on the fly, get it to the point where if you aren't being taken seriously by clients you can say, hey, i need you on this but you will find, if you present well and you know vaguely what you are doing, people will take you seriously as it is.  You've tried to set it up with him, he has vaguely said sure but isn't putting forth an effort.  Just start, he'll notice he's missed the opportunity.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5te45o", "text": "You can get commercial real estate brokerage training online. Some are better than others. This one will be one of the best:\n[Evergreen Training ](https://evergreentraining.thinkific.com/pages/coming_soon)", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5tsp25", "text": "Why are you cold calling when he is swamped? Make yourself useful by offering to manage his schedule and do his busy work. Sure, it is secretarial but this gets you in the door to talk to and work with his customers. Turn on your type A personality and keep offering to do extra legwork and pickup his overload. During your downtime proofread the contracts and look for typos, errors, and omissions.", "replies": [{"id": "f5u3iyr", "text": "yeah, that is what I'm trying to do.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5v5b5j", "text": "Take the time to learn your senior brokers market and clients, that will really help him out and get you guys to speak the same language. Chances are the stuff you are bringing to him is outside of his scope, or are people he does not see as valuable. I am sure as the deal progresses and the chance of success increases, he will involve himself more in those deals. \n\nDoes he have a CRM system, something he keeps all his clients phone numbers, birthdays and personal info in? See if you can get access to it and help him clean it up. Make a copy of that list for yourself for safe keeping, you never know when disaster will strike.  \n\nDoes he do primarily sales, leasing or development? Industrial, retail, office or multi family? How well respected is he in the market, and what is his market share? Who would he consider to be his competitors? \n\nYou should probably network with other brokers, especially younger brokers to get an idea of what the market is like and how they are treated by their senior brokers. Getting a sense of the players in the market and improving your personal network is never a bad thing. \n\nOnce you learn your senior brokers top clients, tap your network and see if you can start to connect the dots. You should start to see a quick change in your senior brokers attitute, he is likely to start taking you more seriously once you know the ins and outs of the business? \n\nHave you done a deal with your senior broker yet? Have you talked to the people who had your position before you? \n\nThe first deal is the hardest but you will learn some very valuable lessons once it happens.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f5wtqks", "text": "First off, if your thinking you're going to learn anything from your Senior, you are mistaken.  We (brokers) don't voluntarily make our own competition, much less give our clients an option of another agent to work with - so you can forget about him including you on deals.  \n\nYou need to find a mentor outside of the brokerage.  It's hard, but it's usually someone who wants to create a relationship with you - who will eventually become a client of yours.  You should also be reading every book you can get your hands on about commercial real estate - and investing in your education with CCIM, SIOR, BOMA or another professional designation.  You can't help anyone if you don't know anything (and make no mistake, we're not here to teach you).\n\nCold calling is what you are there to do, ie. build a list of potential shared clients before you build your own.  Your Senior will help you when there's money in it for him/her.  You should be cold calling noon to night.  If you don't realize that that is the business, then go be a fireman or a police officer.  You don't need to know anything to cold call other than call, introduce yourself, ask if they are considering selling, make the appointment or hangup.  In LA, a monkey could do this 75 calls/day M-F for a year and make $250,000.\n\nConsidering the above, if you're working for someone who is \"too busy\" even when you are bringing the deal, then you are matched with the wrong senior.  Find someone else to work with.", "replies": [{"id": "f63316b", "text": "Sorry, but what? My senior includes me on deals to learn. Obviously you have to network yourself and make cold calls, but I wouldn't think all seniors are like that. They can add you to deals to help with work on setup's and see more deals.", "replies": [{"id": "f66jj3a", "text": "By \"includes\" do you mean he gives you a piece of the commission?  Otherwise, it's free work buddy... most Juniors want to get paid for their time, so they go find their own deals (usually by cold calling) and bring their senior in on a 50/50 split (since the Junior found the deal).", "replies": [{"id": "f67mizs", "text": "Haven't closed yet. I don't think I'd get any commission or might give me a small percentage but more to learn and see more deals.", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f634kpj", "text": "I think generally he won't involve you in his deals, but start cold calling. What kid of buyers does he have (multifamily, retail, industrial)? Target properties for those. Start canvassing a certain area, walk around to learn it. I'd also suggest going on google maps and looking everywhere to learn different areas of your city. Use property shark to find property types, keep a log of owner/property info in excel. Let your boss know when someone's interested in selling, provide info on property and go from there. \n\nHonestly him being swamped is good, but he most likely wants you to create leads for yourself and him. Not you helping him, this is similar to my boss who has a lot of showings, canvassing, meetings and I help on some of it. Sometimes I ask if he needs anything, or he will ask me to help. But generally I'm calling for my own leads and email him if I have questions or grab him for a minute in person to discuss.\n\nOn your own at this stage I'd say calls (not meetings), canvassing an area, learning who the players are (lots of names get thrown around, you eventually hear a lot of the same and learn who they are), also go to networking events. Young RE professionals events, Bisnow, maybe reach out to alumni in your city who are a year or two into your position for coffee/drinks after work say you want to learn.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f6pybps", "text": "Get some meetings, arrange them in the same day, and ask him to come with you. If he shows no interest in even coming to the meetings you set, then he is a bad \"mentor\" and he probably doesn't view you guys as a team. One of the biggest advantages of being a young broker is that you are able to sell your team/boss to the prospect, not just what you know as a 20-something. If he shows no interest in your prospects/mettings, you are either 1. not finding solid prospects or 2. he sucks.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f7p8nen", "text": "This may be right up your alley. It\u2019s designed for agents who want to learn commercial real estate investments and finance but don\u2019t have access to training. www.Evergreentraining.Co", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]