Five Traits of a Successful Broker

LOS ANGELES—Leaner communication styles is just one of the traits necessary to be a successful broker in today's competitive, fast-paced real estate environment, said speakers at RealShare Los Angeles last week. But there were more traits that came out of the “Brokerage Leadership Roundtable” panel.

1.      Asking the tough questions. Chris Cooper, principal and managing director for Avison Young, said, “You don't want to just be an order-taker for your clients. You need to ask the tough questions like why do they need to be in the suburbs or in this market? You need to understand what's behind their requests.”

2.      Concise communication style. Amber Strang, executive manager director for Transwestern, said brokers at her firm attend boot camps to learn leaner, less-wordy written communication—including how to write emails that are less than 80 words—which is more efficient and current. While Sagiv Rosano, founder/president of Rosano Partners, said there's “too much e-mail” and not enough face-to-face communication, and Greg Barsamiam, managing principal of Coldwell Banker Commercial Alliance, said, “You can't build trust through an email or text,” panelists at this session and others during the day pointed out that this is the way Millennials communicate, and they are the wave of the future.

3.      Multifaceted teams. Information is easy to get via the Internet, so brokerage teams need to be able to offer a wider variety of services to clients, said Strang. “Our role has become more consultative and strategic,” said Barsamian. “That's how we add value.”

4.      Relationship-oriented. At the end of the day, real estate is about relationships, said Barsamian. It's still down to the basics, so you have to remind people to do the basics.”

5.      Collaboration. “We provide a unique platform of collaboration,” said Cooper. This is the new way that office work is getting done, and it includes an important element: fun. “We're spending too much time with co-workers not to have fun,” said Rosano. Strang added, “We're in live/work/play environments, and 70% of people today meet their spouses at work. We had one client who turned their dead space into a wine bar. It fosters a fun element.”

In addition, Cooper said brokers need to understand landlords' motivation and be more sophisticated in their approach in order to be successful. He also said most service firms are not public because the people delivering the service are the owners of the business. Changing a firm's management style from top-down to broker-owned and –managed creates a different dynamic because the brokers are sharing in the success and failure of the company.