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Brokerage triumphs from team building experience

When Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Inc. introduced in 1996 the concept of forming broker teams, not all of its Bay Area employees were thrilled.

In fact, a large number of CB brokers left the company.

But four years later, CB has regrouped and captured some of the most recognized deals in the Bay Area, such as brokering the sale of The Gateway, Providian's lease of 1333 Broadway and Martin Group's purchase of The Landmark at One Market.

The company credits its team approach, which has become increasingly popular among its brokers, for its success.

Nick Slonek, a first vice president in CB's San Francisco office, says the team approach did require an adjustment.

"I was a lone ranger," says Slonek, now a leader of a 30-member team. "In the sales business, everyone is a type A personality. Everyone is a lone ranger."

But Slonek decided to give teaming a chance.

He was already working successfully with partner Mike Leggett.

They decided to invite Jay Sholl and Bart O'Connor, whom they recruited from competing firms, to join their team. Together, the four partners have expertise in landlord representation, tenant representation, investments sales and finance.

"All the parts together are worth more than the individual," Leggett says. "You have different resources and experience to pull from. We get together each week to strategize."

Darin Bosch, a first vice president at CB who leads a nine-member team with veterans Bill Walsh and Phil Tippett, says each team member can focus on his speciality.

Tippett is an expert at reading leases; Walsh has a broad regional perspective, and the outgoing Bosch focuses on drawing in new clients.

Despite revenue sharing, all the brokers interviewed say their income has gone up since they became a team.

"Since we teamed up, we've had the best years ever," Bosch says. "It's allowed us to get more business."

The team concept

Monica Finnegan, senior managing director at CB in San Francisco, says the company formed teams largely in response to client demands.

"I think teaming is the concept that all industries are approaching," she says. "We are mirroring our clients' structure. It makes it easier to service their needs. We are not saying we can only fix one flat tire. We can look at the whole car."

CB does not require brokers to join teams, but Finnegan says all but six or seven of the company's 41 San Francisco brokers are on a team. Some are small and focused on a particular type of real estate specialization; others, like Slonek's, are larger and broader.

"Most teams increased their revenue by multiples," Finnegan says. "Of course, the market helped. But (teams) can execute faster and handle more business, and bring in bigger projects."

Teams are different from partnerships, which are common among brokerage firms, Finnegan says. Partnerships usually consist of a more experienced and less experienced broker.

"The senior and junior guy is more of a mentoring arrangement," Finnegan says. "The teams have shared ideas, a strategic vision and shared compensation."

Sholl says his previous employer formed teams on a "reactionary basis" but not as part of its corporate strategy. Brokers might be teamed up to work on one asset but still have their own assignments.

"CB is the first to change to what the client needs," Sholl says.

To implement the teaming concept, CB hired Greg Stebbins of Marina del Rey-based Stebbins Consulting Group. Stebbins works nationally with sales companies to implement teaming. Commercial real estate companies with teams are rare, he says.

"Most people in commercial real estate are solo individual contributors," Stebbins says. "Typically you have too many chiefs and no Indians. You have high-paid brokers doing management tasks. You need an office manager."

Forming a team takes more than just throwing together "office buddies," Stebbins says.

Stebbins administers tests to CB brokers to determine their attributes and skills. The tests help CB decide who would work well together as a team.

Some of CB's better teams have several different personality types, Finnegan says.

"A great team might be someone who is analytical paired with someone with people skills," she says.

In forming teams, corporations should look at attributes, knowledge and skills.

"When you put people together as a team, what is critical is the chemistry," Stebbins says. "It doesn't matter how good a strategic plan is, if it doesn't have chemistry, it will fall apart."

Autonomy is part of the deal

CB's teams also have much autonomy.

Finnegan says the teams are allowed to do their own recruiting, set their own goals and determine how to compensate team members. Young brokers are trained within teams and might either stay in the team or eventually form a new one.

Although teams usually equal more success for the company they work for, they are somewhat of a gamble.

"It's a risk on the company's part," Stebbins says. "The team might say, `we have this figured out and maybe we can run our own company.' Typically people who do that forget a large company has a good referral network."

Slonek says his team doesn't want to go out on its own. Working for a full-service broker like CB allows him to refer clients in-house for things like mortgages, rather than sending them elsewhere -- with the risk that their brokerage business will also go out the door. His team can also take advantage of CB's market research.

The biggest advantage to the team concept is helping a clients in every aspect of their business and therefore retaining them, Sholl says. In the long run, that amounts to greater revenue than one person hogging a client.

"If you are just into (brokerage) for the transactions, it will be short career," Sholl says.

Bosch says other brokerages have started to copy CB's teaming idea: "The business is getting more and more sophisticated so that no one individual can know every aspect of the business."

Copyright 2000 American City Business Journals Inc. Click for permission to reprint (PRC# 1.1662.303015)

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