CREi Summit

Last week, I spent a glorious three days in Savannah, Georgia. You see, “working out loud,” a phrase we discussed last week, rewarded me with the title Commercial Real Estate Influencer, or CREi for short.
 
You might wonder why the “i” is lowercase. As CREi founder Ken Ashley of Cushman & Wakefield explained, it’s intentional. The “I” is secondary to the greater goals of servant leadership and using that leadership to create great content for our industry.
 
So, what exactly is a commercial real estate influencer, and why does it matter to you as an owner or occupant of commercial real estate? Or, for that matter, as one who serves as a CRE professional?
 
Stick with me here as i elaborate.
 
See what i did there?
 
When most of us hear the word “influencer,” we probably envision someone with millions of followers, a carefully curated Instagram account and a company willing to pay handsomely for a mention.
 
But commercial real estate influence is quite different.
 
In our world, influence is less about how many people follow you and more about whether what you share is useful to those who do.
 
Think about the amount of information a commercial real estate professional encounters during the course of a normal week.
 
We tour buildings, negotiate leases, review purchase agreements, discuss financing, analyze market trends, talk with business owners, meet with investors and hear firsthand why companies expand, contract, relocate, buy, sell or simply stay put.
 
We see what works. We also see what doesn’t.
 
And therein lies the opportunity.
 
For most of my career, that experience resided largely between my ears. I might share it with a client, discuss it with a colleague or use it to solve the next assignment. Then, in 2009, my wife Carla suggested I do something different.
 
Work out loud.
 
Take what I was already doing every day and digitize it.
 
So, I started writing. Then came video. Social media followed. Eventually, a weekly newspaper column, speaking engagements, training sessions and a book became part of the mix.
 
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was creating a library of experience.
 
Consider an owner of a manufacturing building contemplating a sale. Should he sell the building vacant or lease it first? What happens to value if interest rates move? Should he consider a sale leaseback? How does the timing of a company sale affect the real estate?
 
Or consider an occupant whose lease expires in 18 months. When should the search for alternatives begin? What happens if suitable buildings are scarce? Is renewing the best answer? Would purchasing make more sense?
 
These are questions commercial real estate practitioners encounter every day.
 
By sharing the answers publicly, however, one conversation can help hundreds or thousands of people who may be wrestling with the same issue.
 
That, to me, is influence.
 
It also explains why this matters to those who serve our industry.
 
Commercial real estate has traditionally been an apprenticeship business. We learned by sitting next to someone who had been doing it longer than we had. We listened to phone calls, rode along on tours, watched negotiations unfold and occasionally learned painful lessons when things went sideways.
 
Much of that still happens, and it should.
 
But today we possess an extraordinary ability to scale that experience.
 
A young practitioner in Savannah can learn from a veteran broker in Southern California. An industrial owner in Orange County can benefit from something a broker in Chicago encountered last week. A tenant facing a lease expiration can understand the process long before sitting across the table from a landlord.
 
The barriers to sharing knowledge have largely disappeared.
 
Which brings me back to that lowercase “i.”
 
The point isn’t the influencer.
 
The point is the influence.
 
If something I learned during 42 years in commercial real estate can help an owner avoid a mistake, an occupant ask a better question or a young professional navigate a difficult assignment, then sharing it has value.
 
And perhaps that is the best definition of working out loud.
 
Do the work. Learn from it. Share what you learned.
 
Then get up tomorrow and do it again.
 
Turns out Carla was onto something.

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.