CRE Success Principle: If a task or client relationship depends on you, document the standard, define ownership and create a way for someone else to deliver it consistently.

The client who always wants the principal

A client who insists on de...

CRE Success Principle: The behaviour you tolerate will always be more noticeable than the culture you have written down.

Walk into almost any commercial real estate agency and you’ll probably find a values document somewhere.

The problem is, ...

CRE Success Principle: If you want to properly lead and develop your people, give them dedicated one-on-one time where they have your full and undivided attention.

Talking to Your Team Isn’t Enough

I hear this objection all the time from comm...

CRE Success Principle: Find the stage in your pipeline where you’re losing deals before asking your team to double down on prospecting.

When revenue is below expectations, the instinct for many commercial real estate principals is to focus on ...

CRE Success Principle: If you can’t tell me where your last five deals came from, you can’t deliberately do more of what’s working.

If I asked you where your last five deals came from, could you tell me?

Most commercial real estate principals...

CRE Success Principle: When you can identify where the problem in your agency exists, you can stop treating symptoms and start working on what is holding the business back.

After hundreds of conversations with commercial real estate principals...

CRE Success Principle: A leader who is energised, clear-headed and trusted by their team can run a better business than one who is physically present but feeling depleted.

For 11 years, I lived and worked in Seoul, including time spent leading...

CRE Success Principle: Freedom doesn’t arrive after you build the business. You have to design it in at every stage of growth, otherwise the business will never stop depending on you.

I didn't set out to build a business so I could spend 13 we...

CRE Success Principle: The part of your agency that creates lasting enterprise value deserves deliberate attention, not whatever time is left after the deals are done.

Two businesses under one roof

Most commercial real estate agencies are rea...

CRE Success Principle: Knowing why your team isn't prospecting is just the starting point. Sustainable improvement comes from a weekly accountability rhythm that runs whether or not you have time for it.

Most commercial real estate principals ...

CRE Success Principle: If you treat recruitment like an emergency, you'll keep making emergency hires. Build relationships with potential candidates before you start hiring, just as you build relationships with prospects before there's a listing.

CRE Success Principle: If your team always escalates difficult negotiations to you, they're not developing capability, they're developing dependency.

Commercial real estate principals often tell themselves that spending more time on the tools ...