How did you transition from an analyst/support role to a sourcing/production role?
For people that work on the transaction side of things (brokers, acquisitions, loan originators); how did you go from being a support person to actually bringing in new business/transactions?
I'm an associate on an acquisitions team, which is basically makes me a "super analyst". Our team is well-staffed and all of our target geographies are covered... I do not see any opportunities to advance in the near future. The issue I am running into is that most companies hiring originators/VP level guys want people that have direct experience sourcing deals. I am ready to make the jump! Any advice would be appreciated.
I had a mentor give me the advice to "start doing the responsibilities for the title you want". As long as you do it in such a way that it doesn't look like you're trying to step on somebodys toes or slacking on your other responsibilities, I would be incredibly surprised if you taking the initiative to source was looked at negatively.
This guy's got it right. I made the transition about 2 years ago and this strategy is what got me there. As an analyst early on, I would ask a lot of questions and try to make sure that I understood everything fully at the deepest levels. Later on the questions changed to "why not this? or would this work?" After some time, the answers changed from "it wouldn't work because of x,y and z" to "maybe" to "that's a good idea. I'll try that." Before long, my superiors would start to ask ME for advice and answers to questions. Once that started occurring on a regular basis, my boss sat me down and asked me if I was ready to take the next step. At the time, I wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to stay in my current role or wanted to lateral into something else so I interviewed around and solidified my decision to stay and take the promotion. This approach also allowed me to leverage other offers which worked out like a dream.
A piece of advice I would recommend would be to network and hang out with others in the industry especially the younger guys. As an acquisitions guy, it might be be helpful to befriend some D/E or I/S brokers and some fellow acquisitions guys. While hanging out and bouncing ideas off one another, there may be a potential deal there. If it ever materializes, it would benefit everyone involved in getting promoted and working their way into the next role.
So, bringing in deals/business/acquisitions/etc. will vary in easy to hard scale based on how 'in demand' you are. If you are on buy-side (REIM/REPE/development), you should be on the call lists of the sell-side shops trying to pitch you deals. Clearly, being good at this role is not a function of waiting for OMs to get emailed to you, but making connections is not the issue, sorting good from bad and finding cool 'off market' deals is the challenge.
If you are more sales/origination (sell-side firms, lenders, LPs in some instances), then you need to be reaching out to the 'client' or 'prospect'. That is pure sales in all reality. So, networking, cold calling, etc. is the game.
Clearly, both work best from established relationships. That is what makes these people valuable and very highly paid. So how do you get relationships when young/junior? A few tactics:
Your friends/alumni network. Those you know on another basis in the industry are easy for building direct relationships that ultimately lead to deals. Stay in touch with people, and build this personal network from all sources.
Your peer network. So if you are an analyst/associate, you can and should reach out to fellow ranked analyst/associates at the firms you want to source business from. Yes, the VP/MDs get the all the love, make peer to peer connections and help each other. When one side of the coin gets promoted, guess who they will have first good memories of.
Industry organizational leadership roles. You should be a member of industry orgs, if you are to bring in business this is mandatory and part of day to day. Junior people can and should join and go also. Don't just join and attend, take volunteer leadership roles. Committee members/chairs, officers roles, and BoD spots are golden ways to get yourself known. This is a powerful way to make more senior level connections.
All the above are things you should do generally, they don't have to be to openly solicit business/deals. Just focus on the relationship, when you get the chance to jump in, you have the contacts. I promise by just sharing info with people about what you and your firm does, you will get stuff to source directly to you.
Go to your boss with 'I am serving with so and so on my NAIOP committee, they sent me this deal, what do you think?' You may get deal cred and I don't see any risk of 'stepping out of bounds' if you are smart about everything. Go read Never Eat Alone, perfect guide for this plan.