Work Out Loud

In a land far away but not so long ago, my wife encouraged me to “work out loud.” A foreign concept at first, but brilliant in its simplicity.
 
You see, in 2009, Carla was introduced to social media marketing while earning an advanced degree in apparel manufacturing from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, better known as FIDM. Her advice was prescient. Take what I do in commercial real estate brokerage every day, the work, and digitize it, the out loud.
 
The Location Advice blog was born shortly thereafter, and 17 years later, it’s still published every week. Here, I provide advice to owners and occupants of industrial real estate throughout Southern California.
 
What started as an experiment became a habit. That habit became a body of work. And somewhere along the way, working out loud became one of the most important business development lessons of my career.
 
So, what exactly does it mean to work out loud?
 
Simply put, don’t invent content. Document your work.
 
Commercial real estate brokers spend their days solving problems. We tour buildings, negotiate leases, advise owners, analyze alternatives, track market activity, uncover opportunities and occasionally talk clients off the proverbial ledge.
 
Each encounter contains a story.
 
Years ago, the challenge was finding a way to tell those stories. Today, the challenge is choosing among the countless ways to do so.
 
A blog was my starting point. Then came LinkedIn, YouTube and other social platforms. In August 2013, I recorded my first TUESDAY Traffic Tips video. The premise was ridiculously simple. I was already driving to work, so why not use those few minutes to discuss something I had encountered in my brokerage practice?
 
Once again, the work became the content.
 
Now artificial intelligence has added another dimension.
 
I can take notes from a client meeting and organize the important themes. I can research a topic I encountered during the day. I can analyze a complicated issue from several angles. I can turn an idea into an outline, challenge my assumptions and identify questions I haven’t considered.
 
But there is an important distinction.
 
AI can help me create content. It cannot give me 42 years of experiences from which to draw.
 
That distinction matters.
 
Spend five minutes scrolling through LinkedIn and you’ll encounter plenty of content that sounds polished but says very little. Artificial intelligence has made producing words incredibly easy. Producing something worth reading remains difficult.
 
Which brings me back to Carla’s advice.
 
Work first. Out loud second.
 
If you own a manufacturing company, perhaps you just wrestled with whether to renew your lease or buy a building. There’s a story there.
 
If you operate a logistics company, maybe rising rents forced you to reconsider your distribution network. There’s a story there.
 
If you own an industrial building and your tenant suddenly announced plans to leave, you learned something about leasing, timing and risk. There’s a story there too.
 
The most compelling content generally comes from experience, not imagination.
 
Certainly, confidentiality matters. I don’t identify clients or disclose information that should remain private. But the lessons surrounding a transaction can often be shared without revealing the parties involved.
 
What happened? What did we learn? What might another owner or occupant do differently?
 
Answer those three questions and you probably have something useful to say.
 
There is another benefit to working out loud that I didn’t appreciate in 2009.
 
You create a digital record of your expertise.
 
One blog becomes 10. Ten become 100. A weekly column becomes hundreds. A short video recorded every Tuesday becomes years of conversations about your craft.
 
Individually, none seems particularly significant. Collectively, they tell the market what you know, how you think and whom you help.
 
And now, with artificial intelligence able to search, organize and repurpose that body of work, those years of accumulated knowledge become even more valuable.
 
The technology will continue to change. Blogs gave way to social media. Video became ubiquitous. Podcasts exploded. Artificial intelligence arrived. Something else will surely follow.
 
But I suspect Carla’s advice will survive all of them.
 
Do good work.
 
Pay attention to what the work teaches you.
 
Then work out loud.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104. His website is allencbuchanan.blogspot.com.