Side door selling is becoming more and more successful for those innovative professionals that are willing to determine what the opportunity in a particular situation might be.  For instance, recently I was in the office of a potential client and the more I listened to how they conducted their business the more I knew that if I stuck to my traditional thinking and my traditional menu of services that there would not be an opportunity for me to assist this particular prospect.

Once I started to think differently and let my thoughts go “sideways”, I was confident that if I could determine, through the asking of strategic questions, how I could add value to not only the corporate real estate executive but also the shareholder.   By asking how leases were being abstracted, did they have an in-house facilities management department, who was tracking critical dates, how are they currently handling market analytics and would they possibly consider a series of sale leasebacks either nationally or regionally.  These types of questions were different enough that it made the corporate real estate executive look at me and my organization differently.  It made my stock rise in their eyes and took me out of the traditional “broker” box that most of my competition is mired in.  What makes you different?  Do you know?  You should be able to recite your differentiators.

If you are willing to learn everything there is to know about your organizations capabilities and identify that you are a part of something much greater than yourself and your local group then you will begin to speak with confidence when describing the vast array of services that you can provide by embracing those alliances and service partners with a proven success tract.  This is will also give your prospective customers and clients more confidence in your abilities, keeping you at the top of their minds whenever they think of commercial real estate.

Take the chance and reinvent yourself and take the opportunity to prosper when things go a little sideways

When we were young it was our parents whom we looked to for motivation and encouragement.  Often times we were rewarded with kind words, extra privileges or even an allowance.  But who or what motivated our parents?  Why did some parents stay home and others go off to work?  Why did some choose to work with their hands and others who chose other venues?  When did our parents stop being our source of motivation or are they still that source today?

For me as I got older it was coaches in the various sports I was blessed to have played in.  The coaches that dangled motivation out in front of you every practice in the form of a carrott, “If you work hard, keep your nose to the grind stone you will succeed and have a better life”.  There was also motivation in the form of recognition from your school and your teachers; All Star games, honor societies, the theatre and perhaps student government.

By this time in your life you have a firm grasp if you are a self motivated person or someone who needs to be motivated.   It shows if you choose to go off to higher education or if your choice is the work force.  In the commercial real estate industry I’ve found those with the most success learned long ago that they must be self motivators.  If they have that special something deep inside that never allows you to give up, keep your glass half full and treat others with respect then success is within their grasp.

My friend Vance Caesar taught me to have more “get to’s” than got to’s and it really changed the way I greet each new day.  We all have a choice to make when our feet hit the floor whether our motivation will come from within and it will be a positive start to the day or if we have to wait for our spouse, children, boss or some other outside choice to get us going it might not be as positive because that motivation may not come on that day.

The sooner we understand that what happens to us is life, how we react defines our character and gives us the opportunity to motivate ourselves and others.  What is your choice?

This isn’t always the case.  People come and people go.  Company’s come and company’s go but business friendships can go on forever even though you may be carrying different cards.  It’s always hard to hear that a colleague is leaving to pursue other endeavors.  The conscious mind appreciates the opportunity they have been given and you see all the positives it will afford that person, but the unconscious mind wonders and sometimes wanders to that place where if you’re not very careful your relationship, that friendship could be altered.

This was evident in my dealing with the corporate world in the 1990’s.  If he or she was on our team that was great, but if they left and went to work for the competition then they had crossed over to the dark side and were amongst the Evil Empire.  It’s the same person doing the same job for someone else.

We are very lucky in our organization because we truly have become a professional family.  From the very top of the enterprise, since 1978 it was a given that if you believed in the mission and shared the vision that it would become clear what your path to success would look like.  Sure every family has that strange Uncle that no one wants to talk about, but he’s still our Uncle and you’d better be careful what you may think of him.

We talk about being different from the competition.  What are your differentiators?  You can search your soul and rack your brain but what I’ve observed is that no matter what differentiator you might come up with, I’ve found that the most important differences, if you’re going to succeed, are that you know each other, you like each other and you look for reasons to work together.  Coming to every opportunity as a servant is always a rewarding position and one that is never a disappointment.

When a valued colleague leaves your organization or industry or and entire company decides to follow a different path, while it gives you pause, you have to realize it’s nothing personal, it’s just business…..Really!

Webster’s defines a Champion as a person who has defeated all opponents in a competition or series of competitions, so as to hold first place. You can also Champion a cause or support someone else’s efforts.

They define a Hero as a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for their brave deeds and noble qualities. A person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal. Can someone be both?  Absolutely!

Now I realize we all have heroes in our life; parents, spouses, friends, etc. but how many times have you had the chance to be a Champion and passed it up.  Too many times in our professional or personal lives for that matter, either we are given the opportunity to take a chance and reach beyond the reachable or we are called upon to support or lift up a colleague and in both cases we just plain look the other way.  Why?  Too much trouble?  Jealousy?  Fear?

Being given the opportunity to be a Champion whether it’s for yourself or for others should be embraced.  The world as we know it is constantly changing and we as active members of the human race need to change with it or we will most assuredly die.  What are you afraid of? Whether it’s your inner competitive heart that drives you every day to reach new goals or whether it’s your compassionate heart that every day takes time out to support and encourage someone else.  Marriage, friendships, you career;  Do something that takes you outside of your comfort zone and look for opportunities to champion someone else’s efforts.

Who knows you might even become that someone’s hero too.

The business world is a little different when we go from student to professional without all the steps in between and sometimes we make the correct decisions and sometimes we do not.  And it is when we do not that the process of reinvention takes place.  In today’s economy a professional in commercial real estate has to remain flexible and versatile if he or she is going to survive.  In smaller markets you have to be all things to all people, but you can also specialize in an area that you are passionate about.  Too many times we find ourselves in a rut.  What’s the famous saying; “if you find yourself in a rut, stop digging?”  Its true why continue to the same things over and over hoping for a different outcome.

I truly believe that we can accomplish anything if we allow ourselves to dream and not get caught up in the road blocks perceived or real.  If we all were to enter each encounter or situation as a servant there would be less disappointment and more accomplishments.  It is becoming more and more irritating in today’s business world, with a challenging economy, listening to professionals complaining about how bad is, but aren’t willing to do anything about it like reinventing themselves.

Give it a try and not complain about how bad your business has become or how unfair this or that might be and reinvent yourself.  Turn your attention to looking for opportunities to explore that would make you better in some area of your business life.  You might like the reinvention better than the original model.

As a professional you have to manufacture the space necessary.  Almost 25 years ago as a new agent in the commercial real estate industry, I met a developer named Steve Nardi in Chicago who was a part of our network (New America Network) back then.  About 100 of us were standing in the vacant, newly constructed 8^th floor of his brand new building along the I-88 corridor in suburban Chicago.  The building had 11 floors and not one square foot was occupied at the time.

Nardi stood there and described the kinds of tenants he would attract and when they would arrive and what he would have to do to finish the Class A Office project.  Nardi asked us all what business we thought we were in.  That was easy commercial real estate I said.  No, he said that we were all in the manufacturing business….manufacturing opportunities for our customers and clients.  That notion has always been in my mind whenever I’ve been faced with a particularly challenging assignment or situation.

Many of the solutions have come because I have been blessed to be associated with NAI Global, the world’s largest commercial network.  NAI is supported by more than 5,000 full time commercial professionals in 55 countries working together with our corporate staff and our strategic alliance partners to give our membership an unmatched competitive edge.  This will be my 25^th year as a commercial real estate service provider and at this year’s convention I will assume the duties as Chair of NAI Global’s Leadership Board.  This year we will try to see the invisible and achieve the impossible….together.

Once when we were playing each other in an All Star Baseball game in Oak Park, IL, he was playing for the South All Stars and I was playing for the North. Squeaky had broken his arm sometime before the game was to be played. When you’re 9 or 10 there isn’t anything bigger than representing your team in the All Star game. The Manager of the South Squad started Squeaky in right field and planned for him to only play the top half of the inning in the field. We all thought this was crazy to see a fielder with a cast on his throwing arm. But I remember after the third out, I watched from behind home plate, as Squeaky ran off the field with tears in his eyes.  He so wanted to play in that game.  It seems as if it was yesterday but the memory was distant until I heard about his passing. Where do the years go? Time seems to fly by.

Why is it that when we’re 9 or 10 we don’t realize or cannot comprehend the attributes one might possess as we get older. While reading his obituary I was amazed at all that Squeaky had accomplished since our meeting that day on the ball field in Oak Park. He graduated from college; received his Master’s Degree of Counseling and Student Affairs; and was married for over 25 years.  His passing came all too soon. Where do the years go? Time seems to fly by.

Squeaky became a youth hockey coach in Minnesota, Alabama, New York, and Illinois; was a member of the National Youth Hockey Association and ACUHO; and belonged to several other professional university associations.

Over the years, he helped many students with housing, books, and financial aid and has even sent students on mission trips, paying for them anonymously out of his own pocket. He was also a volunteer Sunday school teacher.

I was afraid that I would remember 2010 as a year of disappointments, unfulfilled goals and objectives that now seemed off course. There wasn’t any reason to be afraid, because none of that seems very important when you realize you now have an old friend in heaven and I am the one with a tear in my eye. Happy New Year everyone.

I’ve been very lucky to be included in a decision by a man who wants to name a building for his recently deceased wife at our Church.  Now this is certainly a natural desire and a somewhat easy thing to do  as details come to fruition and the dedication is embraced by the recipient, in this case the Church.  What I found so very interesting was how this man came to this decision.  It is a love story that spans more than seven (7) decades.  I sat in amazement as this man talked about how he met the eventual love of his life as a young man in the military in Paris.

The story starts years before when two young girls met at a college in Canada at the end of WWI.  They were best friends.  Fast forward twenty five years or so as the young man heads to war in Europe his mother tells him look up her college girlfriend if he has time while in Paris.  When he went to the home of the college girlfriend there she was and the young man fell head over heels in love.  The only complication was he was married and had left a young wife in the states.  He was so in love but his marriage so new that he was going to go home and tell his new bride that he couldn’t stay married because of his discovery in Europe.  The young woman from Paris told him to return home and make his life with his young bride that she wouldn’t hear of anything to the contrary, certainly a wise woman.

The young man returned to the states and built a life with his young bride.  A life of hard work through difficult times but they persevered and eventually tasted a life of great success.  Many years passed and the man would correspond platonically from time to time with the woman in Paris never forgetting his marital vows.   Forty years later the Paris woman who’d built her own life and a family, found herself divorced and the man, he too was unattached.  For the next almost thirty years they lived a life that defined love, respect, and romance.  The day, earlier this year, when she died in her eighties, a part of that man, now ninety died too.  He had been devoted to her but never more so as her health deteriorated in the last few years.

On December 1, 2010 a building that will house many ministries involving music, mission, youth activities, hospitality and worship will be named for his wife, that young woman from Paris.   What does this have to do with real estate or the economy?  Nothing, absolutely nothing……..Happy Holidays!

My wife has a favorite saying that she shared with me some twenty years ago and I’m not sure I fully understood it until recently.  She said “Every situation is like a tennis match; how you serve the ball may not have the same effect as the person on the other side of the net.  And the return may not be what you were expecting either. “A very smart person.

As business professionals are we trying to build a relationship first or do our actions lean toward getting to the finish line no matter the cost?  What is your message and how is it being received?  Too many times we do not stop and consider the demands being put on the time of our customers and clients.  What we may being trying to accomplish with them may only be a small part of their overall responsibility.  What are the demands on their time away from their profession?  How many times do we take this into consideration?  Too many times it’s about our needs and what we have to have happen and not what is best for the others involved.

We need to teach ourselves to number our days in order gain wisdom.  Do you evaluate the outcomes of your relationships whether they are good or bad? My maternal grandmother would always say “there’s good and bad in all” when I was young.  Like my wife’s advice I didn’t realized the value the first time I heard her say that.  Often times it’s beneficial to look within yourself in order to improve and continuously improve the process you are offering to others.

What is “Your” message and how is it being received?  What side of the net are you on?

Years ago a professional commercial real estate provider was applauded for the amount of ego he or she possessed and portrayed in their business practice. Caliper used to test for the level of ego an individual may have and what that meant to their development and success as a commercial real estate sales person. Today I’m not so sure that this is still an admired attribute.  Now don’t get me wrong we all need some sense of ego but what about the “let go”.  What about providing real honest to goodness service without concern for monetary rewards?

One of my mentors whom I’ve admired for almost 25 years, NAI Global’s David Blanchard, made it a point long ago to teach me that “compensation is the natural by-product of a service well rendered”.  Of course when I was new to the business, I kind of looked at that statement with some reservations.  In today’s economy, today’s business climate, today’s competition; based on my experience working with corporations and practitioners around the world, I look at it quite differently.

Ego is in conflict more times than not with “let go”, but isn’t letting go that service well rendered mentioned above?  I’d like to think that it is.  My compensation in whatever currency is a natural by-product of whatever service I might render and to what level of satisfaction that service is received.  Many experts, certainly more educated than me, have analyzed the effect of EGO but in the 21^st Century.  I would challenge you to find too many of those same experts encouraging an overzealous ego today, but rather applauding the individual that knows the difference and the value of letting go and realizing the wondrous abundance that comes to them in the form of reward, repeat business, strengthened relationships and sense of satisfaction.

Remember if you let your ego overtake your let go, what you are left with may not be your ultimate definition of success.