The Key To Brokerage Success: Specialize, Specialize, Specialize

The key to finding success in brokerage is to specialize, and specialize earlier. That was the lesson passed on from a few of Real Estate Forum’s Women of Influence last week at CCIM’s Global Conference in San Diego. Five CCIM-pinned leaders in the brokerage industry spoke on the Campfire Sessions: Lessons from Women on Influence panel, and discussed how they found their specialization and how it contributed to their success.

The panel included Barbara Crane, 2019 president and senior instructor at of CCIM Institute; Camille Renshaw, CEO and co-founder of B+E; Cynthia Shelton, senior managing director of investments and capital markets at Landqwest; Renee Savage, president of Capital Growth Properties; and Sue Earnest, principal at Avison Young.

“Specialize, specialize, specialize,” Shelton, who focuses on the retail market, said on the panel. “If you know what you are doing, you can diversify out from there. Diversification in retail is so broad they get recognized for who they are.” The message resonated with the other panelists that agreed becoming an expert in a field was important to success.

Renshaw agreed that gaining market knowledge is important. She focuses on net lease and investment sales, and has had a storied career both at brokerage firms and now at her own company, B+E. She encouraged other brokers to go into investment sales, which tends to be a more male dominated sector.

Other panelists fell into their asset class by trying different things. Crane began her career doing a little bit of everything, from small retail deals to office and industrial. “Sort of by process of elimination, I landed to where I am,” she said. Earnest focuses on industrial, and also found the market early on in her career and stuck with it—and she is glad that she did. Industrial is now one of the hottest commercial markets, but it takes a lot of niche knowledge. She recommended, “Look at malls now. Amazon is buying malls now. They can take and turn them into a distribution facility.” Shelton piped in, agreeing that industrial has soared recently, but added, “retail isn’t going away.”

Savage, on the other, hand focuses on the property management side of the business, partnering with property owners to create and drive value. She loves the asset class because property managers really take the reigns once an investment deal is done, however, she said that it is a lesser known or discussed sector of the commercial market. When people do become property managers, she said, it is often by accident. But, they always love what they do. “Every day is different and you are never going to know everything.”