In The Thick of It

In this bonus episode of In the Thick of It, a longtime friend of Scott’s, Adam Curran, gives his advice on how business owners should go about leasing or buying their first property.

Adam Curran, Managing Principal at Holt Lunsford Commercial, shares the importance of working with an experienced broker and the qualifying questions you should be asking them. Plus, he gives his perspective on trends in the real estate market today.

Creators & Guests

Host

Scott Hollrah

Founder & CEO of Venn Technology

Guest

Adam Curran

Managing Principal, Holt Lunsford

What is In The Thick of It?

Join Scott Hollrah, founder of Venn Technology, as he takes you "In the Thick of It" with the real stories of founders who are actively navigating the challenges and triumphs of running their businesses. This podcast goes beyond the typical entrepreneurial success stories and delves into the messy, gritty, and sometimes chaotic world of building and growing a company. Get inspired, learn from the experiences of others, and gain insights into what it truly means to be in the thick of the entrepreneurial journey.

The biggest question I ask is,

what's your ten year business plan?

Are you kind of towards the

growth end of your business progress?

Are you still in infancy stage?

Like it wouldn't have made sense for you

to buy a 1500 square foot office building

when you've got big growth plans.

We've seen it too, where a client will buy a

building and they think they're going to be there forever

and they land a huge account and all of a

sudden they're like, well, man, I need more space.

Welcome to In the Thick of It Toolbox,

the special series where inspiration meets implementation.

Here we don't just share success stories, we

equip you with proven tools and strategies from

seasoned founders, turning entrepreneurial dreams into actionable plans.

Prepare to be enabled and empowered on your journey.

You're not just listening to a podcast gaining access

to an essential toolbox for your business success.

Let's dive in.

Today we have a special episode

featuring advice for business owners exploring

their next commercial real estate opportunity.

I'm joined by Adam Curran, managing

principal at Holt Lunsford Commercial.

With over 20 years experience in commercial

real estate, Adam explains the different questions

you should ask yourself when planning to

lease or buy a commercial property, all

while considering your business's ten year plan.

Whether you've leased a commercial property or

not, this talk provides great perspective into

the complex world of real estate.

Plus, Adam discusses his personal journey

and offers advice to anyone pursuing

a career in commercial real estate.

Today, I am beyond excited to have an extra

special guest on our In The Thick of It

Toolbox, my best friend since, what, 1997? Yeah.

Adam Curran is joining us to talk about the world

of commercial real estate and how real estate is such

an important part of your business and as an owner,

as a founder, kind of what you need to be

thinking about when leasing or buying.

So, Adam, thank you so much for coming over today.

Yeah, very excited to be here and glad

to see this whole thing come to fruition.

You've been talking about this for a long

time and excited to see you in action.

Yeah, well, let's do this.

I know the backstory, but our listeners may not.

How did you get into this world and in the first place?

Yeah, so I grew up in Austin with

Scott here and all through high school, really

middle school and high school, I thought I

wanted to go into the vocational ministry.

And so growing up in Austin, I didn't

have an option for kind of a religion

or theology degree to study anywhere in Austin.

So applied to three schools.

Baylor was one of them.

Baylor was my top choice and told my dad,

hey, if I can get in by the skin

of my teeth, that's where I want to go.

And he said, if you get in, we'll

figure out how to pay for it.

And so I got in, spent my freshman and

sophomore year as a religion major and was kind

of on the path towards vocational ministry.

And then at the end of my sophomore year, I

did an internship with our pastor at the church I

grew up in, which was a different pastor than I

grew up with, but the same church.

And he was discipling me that summer.

And we spent every morning together and just kind

of talking through theology and talking through life.

I was single at the time, so probably 20 years old.

Just all things that are associated with

discipling a young 20 year old man.

But he asked me about halfway through the summer, he said,

hey, how do you know you're called to the ministry?

And, man, as you know, I did

not have a good answer at all.

In fact, I was like, I don't know.

And so that kind of sent me into

what I now call a vocational identity crisis.

And, and I'm like, well, if I'm not going

to do ministry and I don't really know if

I should do that, maybe ill change my major.

So I changed my major that that year, spent

that next year as an aviation science major.

And at the end of my junior year in college,

I did an internship selling books door to door.

So I was cold calling, knocking on doors in

the dead of the summer and just trying to

sell books to families that were looking to buy

a study guide and very, very hard sales training.

Probably the hardest cold calling you can do is

knocking on doors, especially in neighborhoods and the middle

of the summer with no kind of experience or

no, you know, intel as to whether or not

that family has kids or anything.

You're just literally cold calling.

So fast forward to the end of my junior year.

I was way behind in my coursework for

that aviation degree, and so I switched it

back to religion just to graduate on time.

And then at the end of my fifth year in college,

I started really thinking about, what do I want to do?

And I was in a fraternity and seemed

like everybody's dad of all my fraternity brothers

were, everybody was in real estate.

So there was no shortage of people to pick up

the phone and call and try to set meetings with.

The president of our fraternity he had was

working in what's called office tenant representation work,

and I had no idea what that was.

And he was like, yeah, we essentially

help office tenants find space to lease,

and we helped them negotiate their lease.

And then he kind of outlined candidly

the, how the commissions were paid.

And I was like, man, that

sounds, that sounds pretty appealing.

And so I interviewed probably 20 or 30 different spots.

I was dating my now wife.

She was, of course, hired in the second interview

that she ever had because she's that great.

But she got a job in Dallas.

I was looking at Austin in Dallas.

Had another fraternity brother introduced me to a

guy who does industrial tenant rep and is

still in the business and tenant representation work.

And my buddy said, hey, if this guy gives

you a shot, you got to take it.

And interviewed with him.

It was a very casual deal, but he gave me an

offer, and that is really how I got in the business.

I wouldnt say that I had a bunch of analytical

calculus how to get into the real estate business, but

it was really just for me, looking at how could

I leverage the sales experience I did have that summer.

And then I just thought, candidly, if youre going to

cold call and deal with a ton of rejection, whats

something that has a decent payoff to it?

And that just seemed like where

all the doors were open.

And I stepped through that first door and been in

the business ever since, coming up on 20 years.

So it's hard to believe.

Yeah, man.

There were parts of your story that I'd

actually hadn't thought about in a long time.

You talked about selling books.

You were with southwestern. Yeah.

And I want to talk about that for just a second.

Well, yeah, I mean, elaborate a little bit more.

Cause, like, it's kind of crazy.

They do, like, you show up at this convention, it's rah,

rah, rah, and they then tell you where in the country

you're expected to go and who you're going with.

Like, walk us through that for a minute. Yeah.

It's crazy.

So this company's been around for 150 years.

They used to sell really for about 120

years, they sold bibles door to door, which

is a little bit easier to sell.

I think if you find someone who's a believer, they'll probably

buy one out of sympathy, just to help you out.

But probably 30 or 40 years ago, they

started selling these study guides door to door.

But they recruit really heavily on college campuses,

and they recruit a lot of Baylor recruit

a lot of a and m.

And I had another fraternity brother who

had gone through the program the year

before and just done exceptionally well.

And I think he made, like, $13,000 that summer.

And I remember thinking, I could probably work ten

summers and not make that amount of money.

And so it was intense training.

I mean, you, you meet with your sales sponsor who

was his fraternity brother of mine, and we met once

a week before even leaving for the summer.

And then the summer hits and you leave

for a week, you go to Nashville and

you do a sales school for that summer.

And it's like 90% rah rah.

Like, hey, here's the mental training.

There's not a whole lot of technicality behind.

Here's how you handle objections or here's how you

close the order, here's how you collect payment.

There was a little bit of that, but it

was, it was a lot of mental toughness training

and not like Navy SEAL mental toughness, but, you

know, but sales, mental sales training, toughness.

And that's required there because the dropout

rate is 70%, 80%, maybe higher.

A lot of people don't make it. Yeah.

And you may not remember this,

but I actually didn't make it.

Well, you had some unique circumstances there.

But I did. Yeah.

But yeah, I lasted for about four weeks and learned

a ton that I still use to this day.

One of the big things that they would say over and

over and over again is there's so much you can't control.

You can't control really.

You can't control if someone's going to buy from you.

You can't control what you're going to see

on the other side of that door.

You can't control how they're going to react,

but you can control how many doors you

knock on and you can control your attitude.

You can control what time you start

work, what time you end work in

control how you react to certain situations.

You're in control of those things.

And so a big part of their training was,

I mean, just simply stated, control the controllables.

And I still use that to this day.

Try to incommercial real estate, try to take

the emotion out of the transaction because you

would think that the commercial side of business

is, is less emotional than the residential side.

And it can be, but it's still, you

know, in most cases you have a tenant,

a landlord who'd never meet face to face.

They never talk on the phone really.

Theyre dealing with their brokers and the brokers are trying

to appease the situation sometimes and having a kind of

broker, a peace treaty between a tenant and landlord even

before the deal starts can sometimes come up.

But if I can control what I can control, that

makes me, I think a lot better advisor to my

clients because theres just all kinds of emotional ups and

downs in a commercial real estate transaction.

That was a big part of it.

And then just, you know, being

with a team was huge, too.

I mean, you go out to your territory by yourself, but at

the end of the day, you come back to a house.

And this is wild, too, but the way you

find a place to live is you knock on

doors I cannot wrap my mind around.

Okay, I'm in Nashville, I get an envelope and

it says you're going to Toledo, Idaho, or Ohio.

Yeah, there we go.

There's probably Toledo, Idaho somewhere. Probably.

I mean, there's a Paris, Texas. That's true.

But yeah, I've never been there before.

I don't know a soul.

Yeah, I have no money except for whatever I came with.

And they're literally just like

feeding you to the wolves.

So no money, find a place to live.

Live on, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, three meals

a day, and knock on doors and just get rejected

after, you know, time and time and time again. Yep.

And that was how you found a place to live.

I mean, so they, like you said, they don't

have, they weren't doing a bunch of demographic studies

on where they're going to send you.

They literally pulled out a map.

And in those days, it might have been a

maps go or a giant road atlas, and they're

literally circling zip codes, and they have zero income

data, zero demographic data on any of these territories.

And they're just like, you're going here, Adam

Scott, you're going here, Jake, you're going here.

And so you pull up and you have no idea

if most of these families can afford these houses or

afford these, these study guides you're trying to sell.

But in order to kind of get you to

overcome that, the way they want you to find

a place to live is knocking on doors.

And so it was a little passive aggressive.

I mean, you knock on a door and you'd

be like, hey, I'm a college student from Baylor.

I'm here working this summer with some buddies of mine,

and we're looking for a cheap place to rent.

So you're asking for them to

give you a lead, essentially.

But you're fingers crossed.

You're angling, you're hoping they're like, oh, I've got

a back house for rent for $300 a month.

But, man, we knocked my team before, we knocked

on doors all day, every day for a week.

And at the end of the week,

we didn't find a place to live.

And that was extremely demoralizing because our teams

had found awesome back houses to rent.

And and I called my sales manager.

I'm like, what do we do?

He's like, well, why don't you rent a hotel

for a week, and then we'll figure it out.

So we just started selling books and rented a hotel.

And, man, thank God that summer, someone had called the

school, the sales school from that territory, and she was,

like, a yoga instructor or something and had a room

that she had rented to salespeople the year before.

And she was like, oh, I just love the

energy of having young college students in the house

for that summer and could use the income.

If they're students that need to rent

a place, then we'll do it.

So myself and my three other teammates, we slept on.

There was a queen bed, and then there was room on

the floor, so we would rotate who slept on, who slept

in the bed, and who slept on the floor.

So if probably if you had the boar stay

of selling, you got to sleep in the bed.

But just a wild experience.

But that set you up for if you're willing to knock on.

The philosophy was, if you're willing to knock on a door to try

and find a place to live, which is a lot more of a

direction ask than try to sell a book, then you can for sure

knock on a door to try and sell a book.

But like I said, crazy sales experience.

But the mental training for controlling the

controllables, controlling how many people you can

talk to, controlling your attitude throughout the

process has really served me incredibly well.

And actually, this is cool, too.

But the owner of the company that I first went

to work for when I was interviewing, even though I

had it in with the, one of the principles there,

the guy who founded the company had sold Bibles with

the southwestern company in the 1940s or something.

And so it was a cool. You had that connection. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so many valuable lessons there, obviously, that have

served you well in your real estate career.

But, man, that idea, if you take one

thing from listening this episode, the idea that

control the controllables, like, that's huge.

And that can be applied to anything, whether

it's sports, whether it's school, whether it's business.

Control the controllables as an aside for

owners and founders who are listening.

And if you are ever hiring for a sales position

and you find somebody that has southwestern on their resume,

if you find somebody that's crazy enough to have done

that, you need to give that person a shot because

they're everyone I've ever known that has done it, they

have had phenomenal, phenomenal sales careers. Yeah.

Like I said, I only lasted about four weeks doing it.

But, but, yeah, those four weeks were, we're

training enough to last me a lifetime.

But yeah, if you're looking to hire sales folks

and you see that on the resume and that's

the only thing you see on the resume, it's

probably going to be pretty good, pretty good shot.

They're going to be successful.

It's worth the interview. For sure.

Yep, for sure. All right.

So today you are with Holt Lunsford, very reputable real

estate firm here in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

How did you come to Holt?

Yeah, so really last year I was working

for a Fortune 1000 commercial real estate firm.

I spent the first five years at that

firm that initially hired me out of college.

And then at the end of that five years

I was recruited to go work for another kind

of smaller boutique firm here in town.

And part of the recruitment pitch from that owner

was hey, why don't you come over and help

me kind of hire and train brokers?

And thats a piece of the

business that I really, really enjoy.

Just like going out to your territory

and selling books like brokers on their

own can be a very individualistic sport.

And at the end of the year its kind of

like you and your 1099 high fiving each other and

saying hey man, we had a good year.

We didnt, you know, its you and this piece of paper.

And the year starts over every year.

So it can be a very kind of lonely individual sport.

Even though youre working deals with clients and

youre working deals with other brokers and lawyers

and contractors, theres a ton of interaction.

The production at the end of the day falls on you.

But what I really enjoyed at my first job was

we had an intern that would come in every summer

and I really enjoyed kind of training him and kind

of mentoring and discipling him in the business.

And, and so when I got hired by my

second firm, he kind of hired me to kind

of expand that desire in that role.

And so that, that worked well for a while.

And then I decided I needed to be

with a bigger firm after a while.

I think what happens at the smaller firms is even

if youre a good salesperson, its just harder to break

the corporate veil or the veil of the bigger square

footage if youre trying to chase bigger business.

So I went to Fortune 1000 company and then

I hired a teammate about two years ago.

We were having the same kind of success

that I was having ten or 15 years

ago, I was really enjoying training him.

And about six months ago, I start thinking,

man, you know, what if I didn't just

have one of these young teammates?

What if I had a team?

What if I had eight to ten of them?

And so I was kind of looking around at the firm I

was at the time, and I was like, I know they would

support me to do it, but there's a lot of brokers here.

I wouldn't have the autonomy, probably, to run that

team the way I would want to run it.

And so I was candidly thinking about start my own company

to do that, and was pretty far down the road in

the thought process, was kind of studying on the side.

To get the broker license, you got to have that.

And so was working through that.

And then I got a call from a guy I know at

Holt Lunsford Commercial, and he was essentially like, hey, we'd love for

you to come over and do exactly what he had no clue

I was thinking about maybe start my own company.

So it was, it was a total godsend.

But he was like, hey, we want to talk

to you about running our industrial tenant rep division.

And I was like, man, I'm all ears.

Holt Lunsford himself is a 30 year business owner.

He's a former Trammel crow guy.

He's very involved in development and

brokerage and leasing and management.

They have an office in Dallas, Fort Worth, and

Houston, a huge landlord presence at close to 100

million leasing and management assignments just in those three

cities, of which about 90% is industrial. So it's a.

They're an industrial juggernaut, but most of

their business is on the landlord side

and leasing buildings and managing buildings.

And they didn't have anybody that was overseeing

kind of their industrial tenant representation division.

They had two brokers on the team that were

young and hungry and knocking on doors, and.

And they were like, we want.

We just want somebody to come in that has some

experience and desire to train and help these guys succeed.

And we think that they're, they have what it

takes to be successful, but we want someone to

come, to come in and kind of put some

framework to the team and build it out.

And what he described was, number one, exactly

what I was thinking about doing on my

own, and number two, my dream role.

I mean, it was really the side of

the business that I've enjoyed a lot is

that training and discipleship mentorship piece. And.

And so we worked out details pretty quick.

And so I started there in December of last year.

So still its kind of a relatively new role,

but one that Im super excited to take on. So. Yeah.

Well, youve worked for a lot of different firms,

but youve done similar work across them and something

you touched on a couple of times.

And I kind of want to drill down from there.

You mentioned something thats really important, that

youre in the industrial real estate space.

And just like doctors have specialties. Right.

Real estate's a pretty specialized thing too. Right.

And you're not prohibited from leasing or working other types

of space, but you have chosen to focus on the

industrial side of things, maybe kind of talk about what

the different niches or types of property there are, and

maybe just kind of distinguish a little bit for people

who may not really understand. Sure. Yeah.

So theres various asset classes

within commercial real estate.

Commercial real estate is a broad umbrella term

for anything that is not residential, but even

multifamily itself, which is apartment complexes that would

technically fall underneath the commercial umbrella.

But youve got multifamily, which is

apartment complexes, single family rentals.

Youve got retail, which is anything from mom

and pop kind of small strip shops to

large malls like North park or the Galleria.

And then you have office space, which is anything

from like the building we're sitting in here, to

high rise downtown, you know, million square foot office

buildings that are 50, 60 stories high.

I really wanted people to think that

we were in that big 50 million.

You're in half a million feet? Yeah. Yeah. Spirit.

We'll go with that.

We'll get then there eventually.

And then you have industrial, which is

the sector that I'm in, which is

essentially bulk distribution warehouses or manufacturing facilities,

nothing fancy about them.

But even between of the close to a billion

square feet of industrial product that exists in the

metroplex, there's no two buildings that are identical, even

though they're all going to have similar features.

But it's essentially trucking facilities that

are shipping and receiving product.

They're warehousers, third party logistics providers.

I've got clients that are printing companies, the

large printing equipment that do large format printing,

other clients that are electrical contractors that do

a little bit of distribution.

And, and they have an office component up in

front of the warehouse, but that's essentially industrial.

Anything that has a dock door is typically industrial.

I mean, you got to be a little careful because

retail has, you know, dock door on the back.

But if an 18 wheeler can pull up to it

and pull product out, rack it in the warehouse, and

then put it in another 18 wheeler to go to

a customer somewhere, then that's probably an industrial building that

we're looking to do business in.

So, yeah.

And I mean, is it fair to say that

when you're going down a path that it really

is important to work with somebody that, like, that

is their focus, that is their specialty?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is part of my pitch

as to why you should hire us.

One of the things I start with, in

the state of Texas, you get a real

estate license and there's r1 estate license for

every single transaction you can possibly imagine.

So in theory, I could represent

you buying an office building.

I could help you find a house to buy,

I could help you find a house to rent.

I could help you find an office building to buy.

I could help you with a lot of different

things, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to

be great at any one of those things.

So, you know, what I say in a lot of

our presentations is that it's pretty easy to get the

real estate license, which buys you the right to represent

somebody, but it doesn't mean that they're going to be

the best person to do the job.

And so I've always tried to, and this

is something I learned from southwestern company.

They were very geographic specific.

They literally drew straight lines on the map and

they were like, hey, Adam, this is your territory.

Don't go outside this box.

And so that's how I grew up in the business

where they train you to be an expert in a

submarket and then be an expert in a product type.

And then I've tried to really become an expert in

lease transactions in a specific product type as well.

So, you know, a lot of what I say, too, is that

a lot of brokers just want to get you in the car

and they want to tour you as fast as possible.

But we've got what I consider to be likely

one of the most thorough processes in the business.

And it's really just accumulation of the 20

plus years experience that I've had negotiating deals.

But, you know, you've got to know a little bit

about everything and because of that, you really want to

specialize in a sector if you're looking to get in

the business and if you're looking to hire a broker

to do your deal, you want to hire somebody whos

got a pretty significant track record.

In fact, ive got a list of questions that you

should be asking your real estate broker in an interview.

I think the best thing to do is interview two

or three, take the relationships off the table and say,

heres what im looking for in a broker.

How would you handle my transaction and have them

tell you, number one, why theyre the best fit

and number two, what they would do for you?

I think you get a lot of people that will

read a resume and they're like, look at all these

deals I've done, but they don't really know how to

explain how they're going to run the transaction for you.

So we try to do both.

I mean, there's obviously, I've not seen everybody's pitch, but

I think that we've got a very thorough process that

benefits the client at the end of the day.

So that's what we try to focus on.

Is it common for people to

represent themselves in a commercial transaction?

I would say no.

In fact, this is part of our presentation as well.

Is that the, if you go up against a landlord, most

of the buildings in Dallas now are owned by institutions.

And so those institutions are going

to have an attorney on retainer.

Theyre going to have a construction management team.

They have a local asset manager.

Theyve got a property manager.

They have a real estate broker.

They have a giant team of people telling them how to

make the best deal on their side of the transaction.

And so you take one guy who does a real

estate deal, maybe if he's lucky, every three or five

years, most lease terms, depending on a variety of different

factors, or five, seven, sometimes ten years.

So you take a guy who is doing a

deal only three to five years max, they're just

not going to be an expert in it.

And I, I like to tell prospective clients, too, like,

I feel like I'm a pretty good negotiator, but I've

only bought three cars in my life and I only

buy them like once every six or seven years.

And I always walk in thinking I'm a pretty good

negotiator, but I've never once walked out and thought, man,

I got the better end of that deal.

I have one time.

I've never, maybe I'll have you

do my next car negotiation.

Yeah, I must have slept at a holiday in

the express that night before that, that last negotiation.

But you got very lucky.

So what I tell my clients is, hey, or prospective

clients even, hey, we do this all day, every day.

So you can go get data on the Internet

and you can try to negotiate against the landlord.

But then there's all kinds of

other things that come up.

And it's not just like buying a

house where you just negotiate the price.

There are hundreds if not thousands of issues that

can come up during the lease negotiation process.

That if you're not careful, if you're only focused on

the lease rate, you can really get hosed and you

end up in this lease that becomes legally enforceable and

youre stuck with it for five to ten years.

So youre way better off using a broker to help you

negotiate all of the ins and outs of the transaction.

Preston, just jumping in on that for a second, youve

represented on a couple of transactions, and there are things

that I dont even know that theyre a thing.

And youre coming to me and youre like, well,

hey, I think we should approach them like this

and heres how the offer should be structured.

And da da da da.

And oh, my gosh, if I had tried to do

things on my own, I would have totally hosed myself.

I can think on one of the first

ones I was a little bit concerned about.

We were growing really fast and I just don't

know if this is going to be big enough

for us and probably only a three year lease.

Maybe, maybe it was five, but you said,

okay, no, here's how we'll handle this.

We'll put in a clause that at this point in

the contract, you have the option to buy out early.

It will cost you, but it wont cost you as much

as if you ride the whole lease all the way through.

And we actually ended up doing that.

And from a timing standpoint, it was right as

COVID was happening that we got to move out.

And so in a lot of ways,

that timing worked out real well.

And then in the most recent transaction,

man, you worked some magic in.

There was a tenant in the building and

we wanted in as quick as possible, but

we didn't have to tell them that.

And they actually had to pay us for

a year that we were in the building.

And we basically covered our cost for the first year.

So, like, these are things I would have never even

considered if I was trying to represent myself in this.

Right? Yeah.

And that stuff you just accumulate

from the school of hard knocks.

You know, I've got a trainer guys on a lease

audit system that I use that I've kind of developed

over time, that when I first started it, it was

only like 20 or 30 points, but now it's up

to like 65 points on this checklist that I use.

And the reason is because you just accumulate knowledge over

time and you just learn things that like, hey, if

we ask for this, but we also give them this.

If we give and take a little bit.

If we find some things that are like, hey, these

are non negotiables, but what could we give the landlord

to kind of entice them to negotiate on that term?

I believe in, you know, it's got

to be the right deal for everybody.

But everybody has an incentive and everybody's like,

hey, if you can help me get out

of the building early, maybe I'll pay you.

Maybe I'll pay you for an option that you wouldn't

otherwise ask for if you weren't working with a broker.

But I think that comes down to really just finding a

broker that you think is going to run a thorough process.

And, you know, we're commission only.

So that's one thing to be aware of.

There's a tendency in our business just to, we

have brokers, we hear it all the time.

They just want to, quote, slam the deal home,

just get the deal done as fast as possible.

But I want clients for life, and I want clients that

are going to come to me for 2030 years of transactions

that are like, Adam, you're my guy no matter what.

Of course I can still screw it up, but

I don't want to take the short term approach.

I want to take the long term approach.

And I want you to feel comfortable that you're in

a lease or a building that you bought, that we

ran the due diligence on together, that you're like, hey,

I knew all the good, the bad and the ugly

before I bought it or leased it.

And I made a business decision to

move in or to walk away.

Hopefully there's no.

I mean, we can't find everything, but

hopefully 90% of the surprises that would

normally pop up or taken care of.

So that's a big deal.

And I also think, like, if I were a small

business owner, how would I want to be treated?

And this is one thing that Holt Lunsford himself

is really great at, is one of the core

values of our company is the doing to others

as you would have them do unto you.

Like, how would you want for a broker with 20

years experience to, to advise you on a transaction that

you do once every three to five years?

If you were in that seat and I

was in the other seat, how would Adam

Curran want to be advised on the transaction?

Not knowing what? I don't know.

So that's kind of my core philosophy.

And I try to try to not be so thorough

that we're never going to get a deal done, because

I think some brokers can treat the deals like attorneys,

no offense, to the attorneys out there, but we don't

get paid until the deal closes.

So there is an incentive on our end, too, to help

try to find some common ground and negotiate a deal.

But I've also told clients, hey, they're

not going to budge on this.

And I think it's a deal killer.

And that's a four letter word.

In our business, a good negotiator never wants to use

the term deal killer, but sometimes you have to, to

get the point across that's that important to the client.

So, and then if they don't, you know, if the landlord

or seller doesn't agree to it, then you move on.

And if, you know, you likely can find

somebody to give you what you're looking for.

So you've, I think, touched a little bit

on some of the specifics, but maybe if

we could unpack it a little bit more.

Like you talk about the process, or maybe even

ask differently, like, what does a process look like?

So if I'm an owner and I'm looking to get

my first space, like, what does that look like? Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think a lot of tenants and even first

time building owners, they have kind of a perception of

what the deal is going to look like.

And one thing that's super shocking to first time

tenants is the triple net lease structure, which essentially

a triple net lease structure is that the landlord

is going to take care of three components of

the building, the roof, the walls and the foundation.

And then you're going to reimburse the

landlord for the property taxes, the real

estate insurance, and then common area maintenance.

And that's all done on a per square foot basis. And.

But what most tenants are shocked to find out if

they didn't use a broker or they didn't use one,

that explained something to them is how much they are

physically responsible for maintaining inside the space.

You know, an air conditioning unit breaks in July.

They call their property manager

like, hey, air conditioner broke.

And the property manager's like, well, sorry,

your lease says it's your responsibility.

So that's always not a fun call.

And so we try to negotiate that.

But I think for first time tenants just be aware

of the lease structure itself, and there are things you

can negotiate and then the things you can't.

Like, no landlord's going to say, I'm going

to do away with the property tax reimbursement.

They can't fix their expense for what would be a

five year lease and just lose money if there's no

ability to go back to the tenant to recapture it.

There are things you can do to protect yourself

that you can negotiate into the lease, but understanding

just kind of the basics of that and then

just, there are other little things too.

You know, the certificate of occupancy process

can be a pain in the rear.

So you can actually, most cities will allow you

to pull a co before you sign a lease.

And so if you have any question as to whether or

not the space is going to work for you from a

zoning perspective, a lot of industrial spaces, there's nuances in lease

or in zoning laws that, you know, may prohibit you from

doing certain things like welding in the space or buying a

large printing equipment or plano here locally has a zoning called

RT zoning, where each building has to have at least 30%

office space in it.

So if you were to go in there thinking you could go in

and rip some out as a tenant and you go to pull a

permit for that, the city's going to say can't do it.

So you can pull a co before you

move into a space and make sure that

you understand what the city's going to require.

But the other thing that I think people

find shocking is how long the transaction takes.

And this is what I tell clients all the time.

And, and it's way better to start

way earlier than you probably think you

need to because it just takes forever.

And if you pick a spot that needs construction done to

it, you just got to add another three to four months

of timeline onto your, on your total project timeline.

So for clients that are under 50,000ft, we're

encouraging them to hit the market no later

than twelve months before the lease expires.

Go out and tour, solicit rfps from landlords, negotiate Lois,

and then just be aware of whatever construction is needed

in each building you're going to move to.

If you're a bigger tenant than that

and you have a bigger construction need,

you probably need to start sooner.

And there's ways you can negotiate, you know,

lease commencement language to make sure that you're

protected if the deal, you know, if the

lease commences, but the construction is not done.

So we're helping tenants with that all the time.

But there's a lot to it and can't stress enough

working with an expert to help you navigate the process.

But I would say those are a couple things.

Make sure you're aware of maintenance obligations

in the building, who's paying for what.

Another big thing is, make sure you understand, even

though if the landlord's taking care of it if

what the bill back rights are, because the landlord

can sometimes recapture those costs, they can go spend

money on your behalf and then send you a

bill for it, which is never fun.

So triple net lease structures,

understand those, understand zoning.

Whether the space is going to work for you and then

just make sure you're starting early I think is probably so

it's not like a, hey, I need a new apartment, I

can go look on Monday and move in on Saturday. Yep.

Yeah, I joke there are no look

and lease specials in our business.

There's no like, hey, come look on a Friday and

sign that same day and we'll give you the keys

that day and then you can move in on Saturday.

I think a lot of new business owners, young

entrepreneurs, they think that unfortunately that's how it works.

And they get very frustrated when the landlord's

like let me see your financials, let me

see your business plan, let me see this.

That the landlord's doing a bunch of due

diligence because they don't want you in the

space for a long period of time.

If, if they don't think the space is going to work

for you, and then we're still in a landlords market.

So some landlords are evaluating two or three

deals at a time for the same space.

That's going away a little bit, but that's

one thing to be aware of too.

You got to put yourself in the best position possible.

So as a buyer, you've actually got to be more

competitive than other people looking at that same space.

Yep, yep. Interesting.

I mean obviously we hear all the time

about people having to over bid for houses.

I didn't realize that was the case

in commercial real estate as well.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean its been a tight purchase market for a while.

Even though interest rates were very friendly towards owner

occupants, there just hasnt been a lot of inventory

available because everyones got the same idea.

Everyone coming out of COVID was flush with cash.

They had low interest rate availability from the bank.

The bank was calling them saying

let me make you a loan.

All kinds of banks were wanting to make

loans but there just wasnt enough inventory.

And so then you had this pressure down

on inventory which drove sale prices way up

and lease rates have gone up too.

But yeah, there's not a lot of quick transactions.

Even a standard sale transaction from when you sign a

contract is a 30 day inspection, 30 day close.

So there's a lot and that's if

everything is like really smooth, right? Yeah.

That's typically if the buyer has everything in line.

They've run their due diligence.

The seller has all their stuff in line.

The lender is teed up early because a

lot of times in a commercial transaction, especially

with business owners, the lender will, they'll want

to look at personal financials, they'll want to

look at personal financial statements.

They'll want to make sure all your LLC

tax returns are filed on time and correctly.

And so there's a lot that gets scrutinized and

especially bigger the loan and the bigger banks just

have a lot more due diligence behind them.

Thats always something I think is a big

surprise to first time building purchasers as well.

Its like I thought I could just call the bank

and get a quick loan and here the bank is

45 days later and you still have loan approval.

That can be pretty frustrating. All right.

Weve talked about leasing.

Weve talked about buying from the business

owner perspective, from the tenant perspective.

Walk us through what should be going through your

mind when youre considering leasing versus owning the space.

Why would I do one the other?

Yeah, I think assuming you had

options available on both sides.

So let's say that you had a market with a little

bit more equilibrium to it where you had available options to

lease and a handful of options that you could buy.

I think it starts with, I always ask my clients,

hey, what's your ten year plan for the business?

And if you think that 3000ft or 30,000ft or 100,000ft

if that initial square footage is going to last to

you, if you're able to grow your business in that

initial square footage over a ten year horizon, you're better

off purchasing because you can get a 20 year note

and at the end of that ten year timeframe, your

building is half paid off and you're maintaining all the

business or all the building systems inside the space anyway.

So you don't really have any

more increased financial exposure there.

But it really comes down to

down payment amounts as well.

You can do SBA loans below $5 million and put 10% down.

So that's a pretty good program for

first time building owners that are going

to occupy majority of the building.

And there's, you know, there's some restrictions to it.

But one thing that a prospective client is not going

to tell you until they trust you is how much

they're looking to pay on a down payment.

But I typically tell them, hey, look, on a

most loan transactions, you're going to need about 20%

of the down payment and then any construction cost

is going to be on top of that.

So we start there and then

just whats available in the market.

So we have clients all the time that are like

I want to buy something or lease something and well

go run a search 30 to 50,000 sqft.

Come back to them like, hey Mister Jones,

you said you want a 30 to 50,000ft.

Theres 20 options available total in the geography you said

you wanted to be in, 18 of them are lease

options and here are the two options for sale.

And theyre kind of junkers.

Theres a reason theyre still on the market.

And so if youre looking to buy a building, you

really got to be patient, especially in this market.

You got to be probably willing to make some

off market offers and maybe even willing to negotiate

against yourself, which most people hate doing.

But if you make an offer that doesnt get accepted,

be ready to probably up the ante if you really

want the building and you think its a good deal.

But the biggest question I ask is

what's your ten year business plan?

Are you kind of towards the

growth end of your business progress?

Are you still in infancy stage?

Like it wouldn't have made sense for you

to buy a 1500 square foot office building

when you've got big growth plans.

We've seen it too, where a client will buy a

building and they think they're going to be there forever

and they land a huge account and all of a

sudden they're like, well man, I need more space or

I got to go buy something that's different.

And now they get to sell that

building and go lease something else.

So theyre having to time the market a little bit.

But thats one big question I start with and

then go to what the options are and then

a lot of clients want to build something too,

but thats a whole other can of worms.

Ive only had a few clients do that in my 20

plus year career because its just a, its a much longer

process, a lot more involved and you really got to have

some expertise on the construction side to really pull it off.

But earlier we talked about things that ive learned along

the way and try to do this on your own.

You need that expert and you just touched on

another one and that is that off market.

I wouldn't even know where to begin to go

and find something that was off market or how

to go about contacting somebody and in fact how

we came to the place that we are now.

It was off market. Right.

And you made the calls and opened a

door that I didn't even know, existed.

Yeah, you just got to uncover opportunities.

I mean, once you have, you know, kind of the desired

space that the client is looking for, if you found it.

I mean, I I've asked questions all the time

of prospective sellers, like, hey, would you consider selling?

And a lot of times the answer is no.

And sometimes they'll say, well,

yeah, we consider selling.

Then my next question is, well, what

are you looking to get for it?

And sometimes they throw a number out, and you're

like, man, let's go to title company right now.

That's a phenomenal deal.

Or they may throw a number out that's

so above market that you're like, all right,

well, at least we know where you're at.

But it's just asking the question and trying to

be creative and trying to figure out, again, making

a deal for both parties, that's beneficial.

Maybe the landlord doesn't want

to be a landlord forever.

Maybe they want to retire in five years, and

they want this big payout from this building sale.

So they don't want to do a ten year deal with you.

Well, maybe they'd give you a purchase option,

and maybe there's all kinds of things that

you can do on a creative.

From a creative standpoint to try to hit

everyone's goals, because everyone's got every building owner,

every business owner, they should have some idea

of where they want to be.

Five to ten years.

And a lot of building owners will have to sell

at some point to either pay taxes or the next

generation inherits the building, and they didn't want it.

They're like, I don't want this building.

I'd rather have the cash. So.

And it's just staying in contact with

brokers and having good relationships and be

willing to make cold calls as well.

That's how we've uncovered a lot of opportunities on

the purchase side for clients, like buildings for lease

for two years and just sitting there.

Maybe they're willing to sell it, but if no

one asks them the question, they're not gonna.

They're probably not gonna bring it up.

Did you ever see the show american pickers? No.

Oh, man, it's so great.

I don't think they're airing new episodes, but

these two guys drive around the country in

a van, and they literally, they go antiquing,

like, in people's houses and yards.

Like, they'll knock on a door if they see

a bunch of junk out in somebody's yard.

And if they'll let them in and pick

through their junk, they'll offer them stuff.

And one of my favorite things that they do

when they say, hey, would you sell this?

And they say no, the question is what's

the I don't want to sell it price. Yeah.

And it reminds me of what you

were talking about a minute ago. Yeah.

Kind of similar, the zillow make me move.

But yeah, one of my old bosses who was a

savvy investor, he told me, hey, he used to say

everything but my wife and kids are for sale.

And depending on when you asked him,

his kids might be for sale, too.

But if youre a true investor and you see real

estate as an investment, then you should be detached enough

emotionally to have a number in mind that if someone

were to come close to that, youd say, all right,

im ready to sell it and do something different.

So you mentioned earlier when youre

starting the process, interview two, three

brokers, you gave some good questions.

And if you got other questions, id

love to hear those as well.

But whats the best way for someone to go about

finding those two or three people to even interview?

Yeah, I think, I mean, coming from a veteran

cold caller, I think your best bet is somebody

who's been knocking on your door for a long

time that truly wants your business.

You know, if you got to go chase down two to three

brokers and they don't want to do your deal and you're chasing

them, it's probably not a good fit for that broker.

And you want to work with a broker who's

going to take your transaction seriously, number one, and

someone that it means something to you.

And, you know, here in DFW,

there's no shortage of brokers.

I mean there are thousands, thousands

of commercial real estate brokers.

Dallas Fort Worth is like the

Hollywood for commercial real estate. Yeah.

I mean, the, the industry wasn't invented here, but it

sure feels like it was, it feels like, like chick

fil a, we didn't chicken but invent the chicken sandwich.

Yep. Exactly. Yeah.

A lot of that comes from Trammell Crow, who pioneered so

much of the way that we still do business today.

And then third party brokerage side.

But if youre a business owner and someones been

cold calling on you and theyve been persistent and

theyve been bringing value to you every time you

talk to them, I would give them first crack.

And you probably, if you have been in your

space for a while, youve probably got two or

three of those business cards sitting on your desk,

at least here in Dallas Fort Worth.

But if you dont have anybody thats Colt

calling on you, id probably talk to maybe

your neighbors like hey, who did you, have

you guys done a commercial transaction recently?

Did you work with somebody liked, would you recommend

that person a referral is, is huge as well.

Word of mouth as we know

is the best advertising out there.

And if my next door neighbor would say, man, we

just sold our house and we loved our agent, maybe

uh, even if I don't need to sell today, I

might stick that card in a file.

So if you don't have people calling on you, I

probably talk to some of your neighbors that may have

just moved in recently and who they work with.

And I'd probably stay away from Google just googling brokers

and LoopNet leads and that sort of thing because you

can buy those ads as a broker for pretty cheap

and you can buy search engine optimization catchphrases that make

you look like more of an expert than you are.

But finding somebody, and that's how I've

always tried to find the experts that

I work with, like real estate attorneys.

I've asked clients like hey, who'd

you use in the last deal?

Or do you have a real estate, ive

asked other brokers, do you have real estate

attorneys you like or title companies you like?

I mean try to find somebody whos done a

transaction in your market and I would start with

at least two or three of those and then

interview them and find out whos the best fit.

Lets talk for a minute about trends and whats going on.

You touched on something, you said that its cooling a

little bit for the landlords side, but for a while,

much like the residential side where its been a sellers

market, sounds like its a landlords market right now.

What are some other things that

you are seeing in this space?

You know COVID was a crazy accelerator for industrial and

the main reason for that is when you take millions

and billions of people in the world and lock them

in their houses for at least 30 days, everyone goes

to the Internet and they start purchasing stuff on the

Internet they normally would drive to the store for.

So that creates an immediate

demand for industrial product.

So a lot of industrial suppliers, they ramped up

their inventory huge over the last four years and

they need a place to put it.

And they needed a place to put it. Yeah.

And so DFW for the last four years

has led the nation in total industrial construction.

Net new construction every year, so anywhere

from 40 to 60 million product.

But the challenge has been for tenants and I

hear this all the time is they drive around,

they're like what do you mean there's nothing available?

I'm driving around, I see

buildings going up everywhere.

I'm like, well, it's true, but a lot

of these buildings that are being built are

million square foot, 2 million foot.

Unless youre willing to take a 300,000 foot

section of that building, theyre just not going

to cut it up any smaller than that.

So then you start looking at vacancy rates.

Right now, the metroplex is around 7%, but

weve had five consecutive quarters of interest rate

or not interest rate, vacancy rate increases, which

is direct correlation to lease rates.

And if vacancy rates continue to go up,

then youll see lease rates come down.

But it's a lease rates are a lagging indicator

of vacancy rates, and it doesn't happen overnight.

In fact, I've had clients call me, too.

As soon as the interest rates are raised 25

basis points, they call and they say, hey, can

I get a good deal on my lease now?

I'm like, well, it doesn't really work like that.

There's like a twelve to 18 month lag time

between vacancy rates going up and then landlords really

starting to fill the pinch on their vacancy before

they cut you a better deal.

But if they've got long term debt on the

building and they locked in low, then there really

is no leverage for the tenant side. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah.

And that's what you never know is you

never know what the landlords true position is.

Sometimes they'll tell you.

Sometimes they'll say, we're about to refinance this debt

and we got to get this deal done.

And it would look a lot better on our balance

sheet if we had this vacancy off the books.

And so at that point, they're still not going to

let you take advantage of them because they're savvy enough

to know, like, I'm just not going to do that

deal if you make me a terrible offer, but at

least you know enough to go to that landlord and

say, maybe if you give us another month or two

of free rent, we can get a deal done.

And they'll probably do it.

But we're not, we're not really

seeing that yet, which is crazy.

And I don't think we will.

I think we've kind of bottomed

out on where the market is.

And as much as I hate to applaud the

federal government, I think they did the right thing

by raising interest rates when they did, and they

did it pretty quick, and I think they were

forthcoming about when they were going to do that.

And so ive had investors tell me too.

I dont really care what the playbook

is or what the rules are.

I just cant have them changing constantly.

I cant have interest rates going

up and down all the time.

Ive got to have some steady playbook to run with.

So I think a lot of investors, they knew, thankfully,

that those interest rate increases were coming because it felt

like the roaring twenties for a while, where you're like,

man, we are going so crazy up that I hope

there's not a major crash on the other side.

But I think we've balanced out a little bit.

Interest rates did cause developers

to pull back on development.

It's harder to get capital, harder to get

debt and equity, those deal terms that you

could get two years ago or gone.

And so that makes it a little bit more difficult.

So developers pull back in construction, tenant demand, if it

doesnt go up, then vacancy goes down as well.

And so you just have this direct correlation between

what landlords are building and what tenants are leasing.

And so landlords are always looking at

whats tenant demand, whats net absorption.

Absorption is simply how much space

was leased in a market.

Positive absorption is more space being

leased, then more tenants moving into

space and more tenants moving out.

So anytime theres positive absorption, landlords are

looking at that as a good thing. Rates are going up.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, as we kind of come down the home stretch

here, is there anything else that you would want to

educate the business owner community on this topic?

Yeah, I think we covered most of it.

I would say probably ask more questions of

your prospective real estate broker than you do.

Some of the questions I would ask for business owners.

Tell me about the last three to five deals you

did in this geography and also this product type that

im looking to lease or to buy in.

Tell me about how you handled

that transaction for the client.

What are some of the challenges that came

up that you were able to navigate?

One of the things that ive been fortunate to do on

my own is to buy buildings on my own, which has

been a big motivation for me to get in the business.

My father in law and actually your dad was a

huge motivation factor for that, owning rental houses and college

station and, but that motivated me to own commercial product

and so I'm able to tell clients that too.

Hey, I've, I've been in that driver's seat as

not only an advisor but also a client.

I've done it myself and so I can advise you.

And so I think that's a good question too.

I mean, it if you're looking to buy a

building with a broker at the helm, like what

are some sale transactions you've worked on?

How did that go?

And, you know, tell me about what you think.

I mean, the question we answer almost all day,

every day is what's going on in the market.

That's a pretty simple one.

Someone starts throwing out stuff, that's

just headline Wall Street Journal.

But they don't know what's going

on in your own backyard.

That's a pretty telltale sign because if your broker's working

with the same info that everyone else is, they're probably

not going to get you as good of a deal

as, as they can if they have some on the

streets knowledge about a particular product type.

I listened to a podcast recently where Barry Sternlicht, the

CEO of Starwood Capital, multi billion dollar asset under management,

and he said when he interviews brokers, thats what he

asks, like, hey, how come that space on the corner

has been vacant for so long?

Just unbelievably simple stuff that most business

owners arent really asking the question about.

So, r1, quick point of clarification, your father in law

and my dad are not the same person, correct?

So yes, switching gears being a real estate broker

is a lot like being a business owner.

In our audiences, owners and founders.

You're kind of an intrapreneur.

It was a term I was introduced to recently, and

now I want to use it every chance I get. It's perfect.

You're an intrapreneur. Right.

You are very entrepreneurial, but youre

able to build your business within

the infrastructure of this larger firm.

Man, for somebody that may not be thinking of starting

a business like mine but wants to go into real

estate, what advice would you give them for how to

build a successful commercial real estate practice?

Yeah.

Again, experience is going to be key.

I wouldnt stop if you are a software company owner.

I wouldnt sell your company and immediately go into

third party brokerage if youre interested in owning a

brokerage firm, is that kind of what youre, Im

thinking more for maybe that young guy coming out

of college or somebody thats maybe earlier in the

career thats thinking about changing careers and getting into

that space as a broker?

As a broker, yeah, thats fortunately what Im doing

a lot now is interviewing to grow the team.

And so really what Im looking for is somebody

whos, they dont have to have sales experience.

But that's a pretty good indicator, you know, in

an interview you hear a lot of, I mean,

you, you've done way more interviews than I have.

But you hear a lot of, yeah, I'm willing

to do that, but it's a lot more compelling

when someone's like, no, no, here's what I've done.

And so what I've said is if somebody

has sales experience, whether it's selling software or

cars, you know, they're successful real estate brokers

that were in the car business before.

But if you can sell a product or service, then I

can help you learn what the nuances are between what were

selling were service providers at the end of the day.

So, I mean, sales experiences is great if youre looking

to get into the business and youre in college and

as an intern, you can make some calls.

You got to be a little careful because

if you dont have your license, you cant

be really soliciting the firm's solution to anybody.

But you can make calls and gather information.

And if you like cold calling, you're a rare breed.

But it's something, you just don't really know

if you like it until you do it.

And I think a lot of people are like, no, I

can do it, but I don't really want to do it.

I think it's unnecessary evil. You hear that a lot.

But the most successful brokers in our

industry are ones that are just day

in, day out, disciplined prospectors.

And they're either really good at networking or they're

really good at cold calling or they're good at

social media has been something that a few brokers

have picked up on the last five years on

LinkedIn were historically dinosaurs in the technology space.

But, and I think if you dont have that on

your resume, but you can get some sort of sales

experience doing something, you know, selling books door to door,

or maybe summer, youve helped a business owner, like, go

find 500 new business cards to put into their mailing

list, and you did that by knocking on doors.

I mean, you can start small somewhere that

can help you get that experience, that shows

a perspective broker that's looking to hire you,

that you're willing to actually do the work.

So that's what I'm, I'm looking for that over

more so than GPA or even college major.

I mean, those are things that are most important to me

is are you really willing to pick up the phone and

try to find who the decision maker is and confident enough

to tell them, like, no, I think I'm the best guy

for the job or the best girl for the job, and

then can you communicate why you think that is with conviction,

because I think there's no shortage of people in our industry

that'll say they're the, they're the market expert.

But what does that really mean?

Are you able to really kind of unpack that for,

for the client in a way that they understand it?

One more kind of thought on

this, or maybe a quick story.

I'll tee it up and you fill in the gap.

I remember you telling me that somebody that

you called on early as you were looking

to get your first commercial real estate job,

they told you, hey, I'm not interested.

Why don't you go back to school

and get a, finish the story? You remember this one?

Oh, this is a hiring.

Yeah, yeah, this is hiring.

Yeah, yeah.

This is a funny story. Yeah.

So I had graduated.

I was actually getting my real estate license.

So I was like, gung ho.

I was getting into real estate, and I was, probably

would have taken a bad job if I had to

get in because I wanted to do it.

But I had met with a family friend, a connection of

a family friend, and had driven up here to Dallas.

And he looks at my resume, doesn't ask

me any questions, sees that I wasn't a

business major, I was a religion major.

Kind of slides the resume back over to me

and says, hey, man, if I were your dad,

I would tell you to go to community college

and probably take some accounting classes.

I was like, well, what do you, what? Accounting?

I don't understand.

He's like, well, you need to, you need to know

how to read a profit and loss statement and need

to know how to read a balance sheet if you're

going to advise clients on real estate matters.

And I was like, man, that was a punch to the gut.

I mean, the last thing I wanted to

do was go back to school and, and

sit in community college and learn accounting.

I was like, man, I'll, I'll read whatever

book you put in front of me.

I'll even read accounting for dummies.

I mean, what have you got, you know?

But needless to say that

that opportunity didn't work out.

But when I got hired by my first boss,

I went back to all the people that I'd

met with and just said, hey, thank you.

Here's where I landed.

I sent that guy a thank you email.

Appreciate you meeting with me.

And he said, hey, the guy that you landed

with is one of the best in the business,

and you're going to be more successful than you

thought possible if you do it his way.

And so it worked out but, yeah, well, and

I think there's some lessons just in that story.

And ultimately, to be successful in

this business, it's about the tenacity.

It's about the willingness to make that next call

and knock on that next door, and you can

learn the other things, but if you don't have

that, that tenacity, you're not going to make it. Yep.

Yeah.

And that was talking about selling book lessons.

Again, one of the things they used to say that

would drive me crazy was they would say, the answer

to all your problems lies behind the next door.

Like, don't stop cold calling,

essentially, is what they're saying.

Like, it starts raining and you need an umbrella.

Guess where the umbrella is?

It's behind the next door.

Knock on the door, and the person

sees you're standing in the pouring rain.

They may not buy a book from

you, but they hand you an umbrella.

Well, now you got an umbrella to walk

the rest of your route with, you know?

And so I think that's huge, too.

Just don't let the kind of minor circumstances

pull you away from your big goals.

And I think if you want to get into the

real estate business, you got to have some big goals,

too, which I've been fortunate to hit personally.

But if you're looking at it just as a day in,

day out job, I don't think you're going to be successful.

But I think if you say, here's where I want to

be in five years, here's where I want to be in

ten years, and you're working towards that bigger goal.

When you get punches in the gut, you know, on

the weekend, week out, when you have a bad quarter,

bad half a year, when you go a couple of

months without making a deal, and your, your income falls

a little bit, but you have your eye on that

bigger goal, you're like, all right, this is just a.

A one inning and a nine inning ballgame,

then I think you're gonna do well.

Good advice.

Well, Adam, thank you for coming and sharing.

Appreciate you being a guest on in the thick of it.

Yeah, thanks, man.

Thanks for having me.

That was Adam Curran, managing

principal at Holt Lunsford Commercial.

To learn more, visit holtlunsford.com.

If you or a founder, you know, would like

to be a guest on in the thick of

it, email us at intro at Founderstory us.

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