In This Market, Educating Clients Is Crucial

Christopher Beck is a managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Los Angeles office.

LOS ANGELES—The industrial rate keeps moving down, and even with some major developments in the market, it seems demand continues to outpace supply. For owner-users, this can mean delays in finding adequate industrial space and major competition for product, but these buyers can still compete and win product. Christopher Beck, managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who recently scored one of his owner-user clients a port-proximate and brand new industrial facility, says that it is all about preparation and education to win deals for owner-users.

“It is really about educating the client on the market and educating the client on what steps are going to be needed to move forward,” Beck tells GlobeSt.com. “That doesn’t mean telling them about the market; it means providing them with the market facts so that they understand that when an opportunity comes up, it might not come up again. Planning, forecasting and being patient for the right opportunity need to be conveyed to the client, and if you look at the market statistics, they don’t lie.” Beck says that this means providing data and analytics, and approaching the search part of their business—because for the client, it is.