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Social media remains a hot topic among most businesses, including those in the commercial real estate sector. There is one platform in particular that offers a great deal of value, especially as a business development and business to business (B2B) research tool: LinkedIn.

As we continue to exit the Great Recession, a number of realities have changed, and the way that commercial real estate professionals — whether investors, property owners, managers, or brokers — identify new business opportunities represents one of those shifts. Professionals now need to be more creative when it comes to identifying and connecting with potential clients and business partners, and LinkedIn can be a powerful, but often overlooked, tool.

Unlike most social media tools, LinkedIn was built by business executives who understood how business development and sales cycles work. The resources within LinkedIn can provide businesses and professionals with the information they need in order to make connections and grow. Given the size of the LinkedIn network, it’s tough to pass it up. According to latest numbers, LinkedIn counts more than 259 million users in more than 200 countries.

Making the Connection

Most LinkedIn users know that they need to have a fully completed profile and a catchy professional headline. But the true power of the platform lies not just in the ability of people to find you, but leveraging LinkedIn to identify your own potential clients or new business partners. If you know the name of the individual with whom you are trying connect, LinkedIn offers great material on people’s profiles — contact information, previous experience, and educational background — which can help create common ground to build a relationship.

The best feature, though, is seeing what connections you might have in common. When looking at someone’s profile, there will be a series of boxes on the right side of the screen that lists how you are connected to that person. This may be through a group you have joined or, more directly, it may be through shared contacts. Thus, if you’re in a common discussion group, you can reach out to the person through the group. Even better, if you have a shared contact, you can ask that connector to introduce you.

This approach has worked for our company. We recently targeted a construction company as a potential business partner and researched their leadership team through LinkedIn. We discovered a common connection and asked that connection to introduce us via LinkedIn. It’s an easy and nonaggressive process. That intro led to ongoing conversations and a meeting about possibly working together.

The approach is very similar to in-person networking: a friend introduces you or you seek out a potential client at a CCIM chapter event or another networking function. LinkedIn provides the online equivalent. However, just like you must show up at the networking event, you need to show up on LinkedIn through your contacts and groups.

Company Pages

LinkedIn company pages also provide a wealth of information for business development purposes. When researching a company on LinkedIn, you’ll find a list of a company’s employees on the company page. This listing also includes a detailed summary of what, if any, connections you have to that company. This listing is incredibly valuable and often more comprehensive than the staff listings on a company website. For example, if you are interested in meeting the executive in charge of real estate holdings, you can look for that person on the LinkedIn company page to see if you have any connections, belong to the same organizations, or have similar interests.

LinkedIn users can also follow company pages, which allows you to keep track of any new developments, projects, or initiatives that a company is undertaking. As the company posts updates to its page, you can be alerted through LinkedIn. These news tidbits can provide you with a reason to reach out to a prospective client.

This research tool has become an intelligence boon for number of commercial developers. They track the company pages of tenants with which they want to work and analyze their potential clients’ growth patterns to see if they’ll need more space and where they’ve been active in the country. This information helps them anticipate the real estate needs of these prospects and is used as a reason to reach out to them.

LinkedIn can be a powerful business to business (B2B) tool for the real estate industry. However, commercial real estate professionals have to put the time in to dig for the information. It’s not a panacea, but it does offer valuable information for business development research — all you have to do is to look.

By: Mike Gray and Andrew Ryan (Commercial Investment Real Estate Magazine)

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April 3, 2014
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Instructor:  Lou Tulga
Location:  State Bar of New Mexico
Print flyer or register online 
Every NMREC licensee must complete this class once every three years!

Since the start of the Great Recession of 2008 and the Fed’s decision to inject trillions of dollars into the banking system, there has been constant talk of the US dollar losing its position as the world’s reserve currency, the position it has held since the end of WWII. After all, our debt is huge and growing, DC is thoroughly dysfunctional, our share of the world economy is shrinking and China is increasingly pushing for a post dollarcentric financial system. Despite all the concerns above, the dollar’s position as the reserve currency of the world is safe for a long while.
First, which currency can realistically unseat it? The British pound is simply too small to do the job as the British economy is about 1/7th the size of the US economy. As for the euro, while it is large enough, there are too many structural problems including weak growth, over taxation, an inflexible central bank and the outside possibility of the collapse of the monetary union to entice many central banks to significantly increase their euro holdings.
As for the Yen, Swiss Franc or Chinese renminbi, you have got to be kidding! With a debt to GDP ratio greater than that of Greece, Japan makes the US look downright fiscally responsible. Moreover, Japan and Switzerland are both pushing down the value of their respective currencies making them that much less appealing to hold. Lastly, the renminbi does not freely float and there are significant foreign exchange controls in place. As a result, it will take at least a decade before China has the necessary legal framework and deep and open financial markets that are a necessary prerequisite before the renminbi can become a credible reserve currency competitor.
Second, because of increased capital flows between nations due to increases in trade and investment, central banks have been repeatedly told by their respective governments to hold larger quantities of safe and easy-to-sell assets which can be easily liquidated in time of crisis. As a result, total foreign reserves have nearly quadrupled in the past decade and this has dramatically increased the demand for dollars. For example, when foreign capital suddenly flees a developing nation, it puts downward pressure on the local currency. By selling some of its dollar holdings to purchase its own currency, a country can stabilize its currency and avoid large currency swings. Moreover, simply holding a large supply of highly liquid foreign assets, like dollars, discourages speculation and demonstrates that a nation has the necessary reserves to pay foreign creditors for things like oil and wheat.
Lastly, with large holdings of dollars the last thing foreign nations want to do is harm the dollar as that would reduce the value of their holdings and that, in and of itself, reinforces the dominance of the dollar and thus improves its stability. That is at least partly why for the past 15 years 60% of world foreign exchange reserves have consistently been in dollars. Were that percentage to slowly fall to 50% over the next few decades, it would matter relatively little.
To sum up, despite lots of talk, there exists no strong competitor to the US dollar and one is unlikely to appear anytime soon.
Elliot Eisenberg, Ph.D. is President of GraphsandLaughs, LLC and can be reached at Elliot@graphsandlaughs.net. His daily 70 word economics and policy blog can be seen at www.econ70.com.
By: Elliot Eisenberg (GraphsandLaughs)
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Social Media and Commercial Real Estate: Strategies to Grow Your Business and Build Your Brand
Social media has created a momentous shift in how we communicate with one another. It has become the great digital equalizer; small and large companies alike can build their brands, expand their businesses and connect with their clients online via social media outlets.
To understand social media, one must understand how communication has changed. Traditional marketing involved identifying a target market, crafting a compelling message and “pushing” it out via channels that would reach a specific audience. Typical strategies included advertising, commercials, brochures, direct mail, billboards, flyers and even websites. Social media has changed this dynamic. Now consumes have a public voice. Did you have a bad experience at a restaurant? Complain about it on Yelp. Do you love a certain athletic brand? Share your passion on Facebook or Instagram. Clients, colleagues and employees can become your biggest advocates or your greatest critics.
Another dynamic occurring today the overload of marketing messaging online and the need for compelling, relevant content. Consumers are inundated with an excess of unsolicited marketing messages, and commercial real estate professionals are no exception. When asked if they get too many emails, most say “yes”. Consumers now have the power to say “no” through action: they can unsubscribe from e-blasts, skip TV commercials using TiVo or a DVR, or avoid radio commercials by subscribing to satellite radio.
More Pulling, Less Pushing
Brands now must figure out how to “pull” clients and consumers to relevant content. Users who are interested in a company or a brand can subscribe to its e-blasts, read its blog, “friend” it on Facebook, follow it on Twitter and so forth. The brand’s content thus is “pulling” fans toward it rather than “pushing” marketing messages to them. The challenge for companies is to produce relevant, interesting content that their clients find useful, not more marketing messages.
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By: Ruth Brajevich (Commercial Real Estate Development Magazine)