Some of the most knowledge professionals in the real estate business are brokers. They are the gatekeepers to many deals, whether they are single-family or multifamily.
Commercial broker Stash Gelezinski, who is Certified Commercial Investment Member that has been involved in the syndication and disposition of thousands of apartment units worth more than $100MM, has mastered the “gatekeeper” process. In our recent conversation, he explains clever tactics he uses to generate leads, as well as two minor tweaks he made to his daily routine that resulted in maximizing his results!
Stash doesn’t focus on directly getting listings. Instead, he concentrates on adding value to build relationships. The purpose behind this approach is that when the time comes and an investor is interested in buying or selling, he is top of mind.
He has some creative methods for accomplishing this:
“If I see somebody’s name who is in one of the markets we are tracking and working in and I see that they’re mentioned in an article or something great just happened, I’ll snip that out and send that to them…I’ll say, “Hey that’s great. Let’s get together and talk about it.” When Stash says, “something great,” what he means is a piece of valuable information that has occurred in the market that would be of interest to a commercial investor. He has personally used this technique on me. A few years ago, Stash emailed me a link to a piece of news that happened from an employment standpoint. The goal is to provide something that adds value.
Another one of Stash’s approaches comes from an old saying in brokerage. “It’s STP. See the property. See the people. For me, the way I see it, [for] the markets I’m working in, I want to know about all the trades that are happening and have an encyclopedic knowledge so that whenever I’m calling somebody…I want to be a resource.” In other words, Stash strives to understand all the ins and outs of his market – the who, the what, and the where – so that he is the go-to real estate almanac for as many local investors as possible.
However, the glue that holds these two techniques (among others) together is Stash’s work ethic. “Honestly, I try and be the hardest working guy in the market. I don’t really know any other way to be.” This means, “A lot of meetings in person…and just pounding the phones…we try and burn up the phones to the best of our ability.” In between sending investors articles and news clippings and learning the ins and outs of his markets, Stash spends the rest of his time meeting investors in person or talking to them on the phone.
Stash wasn’t always the real estate juggernaut he is today. He always had the great work ethic, but at first, that wasn’t enough to generate results. So, Stash reached out to an experience consultant and after making two minor tweaks to his daily routine, he began to flourish.
The first tweak was simple goal setting. “Setting daily production goals of conversation – [number of] meeting goals – which would then translate into listings, which would then translate to contracts, which would then translate into closings.” In other words, he reverse engineered the process, broke it down into its independent pieces, and set goals that focused on the first step in the process. He flicked the first domino and the resulting chain reaction eventually lead to the end goal – closings!
The other tweak was finding a good database program. “I was fooling myself by thinking I could [track client information in] excel, even though I knew that you can’t. [As a broker], you’re going to be prospecting, which is what…I spend the majority of my time on You have to have a program that will support your efforts and function in a way that allows you to thrive. You [need to] keep good notes and I’m talking to hundreds of people a week sometimes. There’s no way I can keep all that straight in my mind, so we rely on a good CRM system.” The two CRM platforms that Stash utilizes are Realhound and Propertybase.
Stash’s best ever approach to getting listings is to focus on the question “how can I be at the top of investors minds?” so that when it’s time for them to either buy or sell, he is the first person they contact. He accomplishes this by:
Before becoming a Certified Commercial Investment Member, Stash had to make two minor tweaks to how he approached his days:
Advice in Action: Stash advises that if you don’t already, commit to having at least 5 meetings a week with potential real estate clients (whatever clients are applicable to your real estate niche) using one of the techniques described in the post. Comment below which technique you’ve chosen and how it is working out!
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action.