Debt of Gratitude

I had the unique pleasure to celebrate a double milestone a few weeks ago.  May 20 was both my 60th  birthday and also the 25th anniversary of our firm.

I honestly never thought about distant milestones when I elected to make my 35th birthday the day that I would go into business for myself.  Thinking about a 25th anniversary was just about the furthest thing from my mind. And it did not even occur to me until just a few months ago that these two anniversaries would align in such an elegant and surprising way.

What I do remember about May of 2000 was this:  I had been married for less than a year, my wife was expecting our first child, we had just bought our first home together, and my dear father had suddenly passed away two months prior.  My life was filled with dramatic changes that were quickly redefining my life, my priorities and the course I would chart both personally and professionally.  Against the upheaval of these unfolding complexities, I quickly understood that if I didn’t start a business right NOW, life would only become more complicated and it might never happen.

My family was not filled with corporate ladder climbers, and only a handful of the many cousins in my generation had college degrees.  My grandparents were immigrants and my parents both learned English as a second language.  But what our families’ provenance lacked in higher education and corporate achievements it more than made up for in entrepreneurship and work ethic.  My maternal grandfather owned and operated restaurants.  So did his children, my aunts and uncles.  One of my uncles owned a small pharmacy.  Another invested in real estate.  My female cousins married contractors and young men who were successfully in business for themselves.  My brother who is almost twelve years older than me also went into business, in real estate.

At family gatherings in my youth, the adult conversations that I was exposed to were filled with questions like,“How’s your business?”, “Do you like your CPA?”, “I’m investing in a shopping center with some friends – are you interested?”, “Have you purchased short-term commercial paper with excess cash?”  I didn’t always know what they were talking about, but I had an innate sense of respect for the fact that our family was made of up savvy business people who were more than comfortable to bet on themselves.  I admired this special character of our family, and a vision began to form in my mind about owning my own business one day.

In college, my high achieving friends had a near uniform desire to go to work in Corporate America; in tech, in banking, in medicine and in law, or to jump directly into graduate school.  But the immigrant blood in my veins and chorus of voices in my head from years of dinner table conversations never let me make peace with the prospect of embarking on a long career working for some big firm.  Commercial real estate, and brokerage in particular, fit my personality and my aspirations well.  There was no limit on my earning potential. The harder and smarter I worked, the better I did.  After a brief 12-month training period, my earnings were 100% commission based.  I’ve basically never worked for a salary in my life.

As the years unfolded, my production followed a consistently upward trajectory, with occasional plateaus.  Meanwhile I watched many of my peers move from job to job, sometimes enduring layoffs or corporate downsizing, and living with salary & bonus compensation that was based on how the firm, or the overall economy was performing, but not necessarily rewarding their individual performance.

In my brokerage space, I tried to work with all of the best real estate firms and/or users that were making a big impact in my market.  These included national, regional and local companies or individuals.  And while we have had plenty of success working with Fortune 500 firms, I learned over the years to gravitate to the very high quality, but sub-institutional players in my market.  The advantages were numerous.  These firms were entrepreneurial; I could work with the decision makers; There was no distant corporate boss who may or may not approve of what we worked on locally.  I liked the way that well capitalized local and regional firms led by hands-on principals with long resumes valued my work and paid me well. I also learned that one of the most consistent and unbecoming characteristics of institutional clients was their need to grind fees.  That made the decision easy to align with people in the industry who I could identify with – people who built their own firms, bet on themselves, paid us well when we created value, and looked for win/win partnerships.  It always shocked me at how willing my peers were to engage in the race to the bottom on fees, just for the perceived prestige of working with a big-name client.  I’ll take the smaller name and the bigger payday every time.

In time, I surrounded myself with a great team and a great clientele of like-minded friends.  I formed a doctrine in my business life – let’s make the pie bigger for everyone.  The fee-grinding firms that wanted great outcomes for themselves but only so-so outcomes for us, quickly moved down my list.  And we increasingly centered our business around true partners that relished the opportunity to win with us.

I’ll confess that my recent milestones were a bit of a cause for reflection.  And when considering the journey, I’m filled with gratitude.  A debt of gratitude to my family and extended family that showed me how to be my own man in the business world.  A debt of gratitude to clients that have become great friends and who have partnered with us to make the pie bigger for everyone.  And a debt of gratitude to my team, the ones who make me and our firm look good every day, who teach me, motivate me, and give me great pride as we win more than our share in the marketplace.

It all leaves me looking forward not so much to the next milestone, but to the challenges and satisfaction of the journey that will take me there.