February 10, 2009 12:28 PM
Welcome to our Blog. We never imagined we'd be writing about commercial real estate in this format. We have a lot to say and you have a lot to say about this crazy business of buying, selling, leasing, managing, exchanging, developing and investing in commercial real estate. We thought there ought to be a place where people could come and talk about our chosen field as it relates to the local scene in Chicagoland and the Upper Fox Valley as well as the national arena. Like Charles Dickens said at the beginning of a Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times and the worst of times". We see people downsizing and closing their doors. We also see some businesses growing and expanding and taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves when the economy is bad. We feel fortunate thet we can be of help to both ends of the spectrum which is why our 2008 incomes were better than 2007. More opportunities for us to help more people.
We have named 2009 "The Year for Networking". We've read some books on the subject and have come to the conclusion that we are as Barbara Streisand's song goes "People who need People." (By the way, I like her singing but not her politics.) Things just seem to go better when we focus on helping other people solve their real estate problems versus where we can find our next commission check. Networking with other commercial and even residential brokers who do some commercial seems to make sense. Increasing the access to and velocity of market information is an objective of ours. Five years ago we formed a group of local commercial brokers who meet monthly and share market knowledge. This forum will become increasingly valuable to the participants, many of whom are not used to cooperating (sharing fees with other brokers because they never had to before). Working on straight commission for my 31 year (full time) career has meant some unbelievably lean years butted up to the poverty level and some unbelievably lucrative years. But networking doesn't only mean playing nice with our fellow competitive brokers. It has a lot to do with expanding our client base to include more clients who need our services, finding ways to get introduced to these people who we would be hard pressed to meet on our own. When they say it's not what you know, but who you know, that starts to get at what we're talking about. We're fascinated by the recent growth of social networking sites on the internet and we're trying to figure out how we can position ourselves to take maximum advantage of some of those sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Ecademy, Realera.net, etc. I don't know about you but this stuff does not come naturally to us who are in the last quarter of our careers. Let's kick off this blog by talking about books or articles you've read or social/business networking and what you have learned and how it can be applied to increase your income.
posted in General at Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:02:23 -0600
We have named 2009 "The Year for Networking". We've read some books on the subject and have come to the conclusion that we are as Barbara Streisand's song goes "People who need People." (By the way, I like her singing but not her politics.) Things just seem to go better when we focus on helping other people solve their real estate problems versus where we can find our next commission check. Networking with other commercial and even residential brokers who do some commercial seems to make sense. Increasing the access to and velocity of market information is an objective of ours. Five years ago we formed a group of local commercial brokers who meet monthly and share market knowledge. This forum will become increasingly valuable to the participants, many of whom are not used to cooperating (sharing fees with other brokers because they never had to before). Working on straight commission for my 31 year (full time) career has meant some unbelievably lean years butted up to the poverty level and some unbelievably lucrative years. But networking doesn't only mean playing nice with our fellow competitive brokers. It has a lot to do with expanding our client base to include more clients who need our services, finding ways to get introduced to these people who we would be hard pressed to meet on our own. When they say it's not what you know, but who you know, that starts to get at what we're talking about. We're fascinated by the recent growth of social networking sites on the internet and we're trying to figure out how we can position ourselves to take maximum advantage of some of those sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Ecademy, Realera.net, etc. I don't know about you but this stuff does not come naturally to us who are in the last quarter of our careers. Let's kick off this blog by talking about books or articles you've read or social/business networking and what you have learned and how it can be applied to increase your income.
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