Comparing 1st years at a brokerage, only really heard M&M's culture. Can others share?
I've started at a brokerage and I can really only compare it to M&M's culture of constant calling. For me my first year has been cold calls every day, but my superior puts me on a lot of different deals as well. Is that the case with a majority of brokers starting out (and what company/city if you don't mind). I get to see different deals and work on them, where as it seems vs M&M (nothing against them) I'd generally be cold calling all day and not get to work on deals with a superior. It would be more finding every lead and getting little to no help.
Can people give insight, were they given help by a superior or is the norm no help, on your own, and boss just takes a cut when you close a deal?
I assume you are a tenant rep broker? If so, what asset class are you working on and are you in a major market?
Investment sales in NYC, any asset class
This post made me create an account - currently working at m&m in Southern California and doing what i can to get out. It's a call center. You'd be lauded as an office hero for making over 500 calls a week, 250 calls is frowned upon even though that is supposed to be company average. Where I'm at, it's all eat what you kill - I can't presume to know what other teams or offices are like but I do know some seniors that would throw a junior on a deal or two because they care enough about you making rent, eating dinner, etc.... I took the job because frankly I didn't know any better and I didn't have the CV to go somewhere better. M&M has it's place in the brokerage hierarchy, but if your goals are to do institutional, sophisticated deals, etc. then this is not your place. I don't necessarily consider this a real estate job. This is a sales job first and foremost, the product could be anything and it just so happens to be real estate.
Edit -- I wanted to add one more thought: I've been working with M&M brokers in different states - arizona, texas, utah - and they seem to do pretty well for themselves and have a different structure than socal offices. It is very market dependent, office/team dependent. This is just how things work out here though.
Thanks, I looked at them in NYC.... How long have you been working there? You could make the jump now depending. Only guy I knew was on the top team in Brooklyn doing multifamily and he made probably $80k+ his first year. But that's not the norm at M&M, they just have insane deal flow, need people ASAP, plus he had insane calling probably 500 calls/week.
Those guys do well for themselves and are well respected, it seems, by professionals outside of m&m. I'd assume, and similar to LA where I work, that there are so many buildings ,so many other brokers you have to make that many calls to get ahead. It is what it is, where I'm at, I feel like a cross between a telemarketer and residential real estate agent, not much sophistication with the people I interact with daily.
How do you, or anyone else making 250 to 500 calls a week, find the numbers to call? Does the firm supply them for you? If you are following up with someone every 2 weeks or once a month, that 1,000 to 2,000 leads in a single month. Where does that come from?
The numbers are a lie. It's just a made up figure to give the higher ups something to point to when young guys complain about their lack of deal flow.
I made my own but eventually got onto a seniors crm which had some verified numbers. You spend much of your time being a skip tracer too, searching for numbers on various sites. Dislcaimer - just how the team I work on is like.
Realistically if you are starting out in IS, especially in the 1-20 MM space, your business revolves around cold calling regardless of your firm.
This^
I’m in Brokerage in a Texas market and my start was straight into the fire. The traditional “here is a desk and a phone” start. It’s very difficult to survive the first 24 months or so but the sky has been the limit since. When you’re established and the deals start to come in from repeat clients, or you have relationships with developers, the calls go down to zero if you’d like them too. Then again, keep calling into your advanced years if you really want to get ahead.
If you do not like being on the phone a career in commercial real estate is not for you. This industry is not about quants sitting in a closet and pressing buttons. It’s about making relationships and communication. Unless you have family relationships with multiple property owners, you need to hit the phones to develop relationships and find deals yourself. If you look at many successful developers/brokers/owners, they all started their career hitting the phones or knocking on doors to get their own book of business. It is called hard work and tenacity.
As stated above this is all dependent upon deal size. I am at a major brokerage think CBRE/ JLL / Eastdil and our guys that operate in the 20 Million space are all cold calling. This is more of a here is a phone and a desk get to work position. There is no analyst training, you begin as a broker day one. Sometimes you join a team sometimes you don't.
For investment sales (Institutional) you are not doing any cold calls. You start off as an analyst and spend years in that role. Usually if you are on a big team as you rise from analyst to associate to VP they will feed you smaller deals that will allow you to begin to build your business, while hopefully allowing you to make more than what you did as an analyst an associate. The only calls you are doing as an analyst on institutional deals is asking for comps and rent rolls.
Over simplification- The farther away from institutional deals you are doing the more cold calls you will be making.
Also want to add that this isn't a knock on the guys that aren't doing institutional deals. The ones that I have met at my firm have great culture, really look out for each other, and can make great money a couple years in to the business.
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