Meet John Black
We went behind the scenes at Tsimos Commercial recently to take a peak at the everyday life of a Commercial Sales Agent, and had the pleasure of chatting to Tsimos Sales agent John Black, who has been an integral member of the Tsimos team for over 5 years.
Here are some of the insights into his role –
What really attracted John to commercial property coming from an experience in commercial property development, was the opportunity to embrace the challenge of what John refers to as ‘less of an emotional game and more of a numbers-based game, where you are only as good as your last result.’ John tells us how much he is motivated by the challenge of being active and ‘constantly looking to match people with the right properties for them.’
A typical day in the life of a commercial sales agent? From Johns view, its chiefly comprises of dealing with people, being on the hunt, and seeking to make a perfect ‘fit’. It is satisfying and rewarding, John says, to know someone is going into a place that they feel they can successfully run their business from.
Generally, as a commercial sales agent his day revolves around communicating with buyers, owners, tenants, depending on where a buyer is in a cycle. The variety however is constant as there are inspections, meetings and paperwork processes to prepare. Whilst his role is generally across leasing and sales, at the moment its predominantly about leasing, as the Industrial part of the commercial property market is the strongest, and there is not a lot of stock.
In summary? Effectively, John tells us that a commercial sales agent gets out as much as they put in. ‘We make our own luck’ he tells us. ‘It’s incredible sometimes how a door can close and another one opens.’
What’s involved? ‘A lot of communication and collaboration’. Every meeting is an interesting one, John says and ‘you are sometimes challenged in how you might respond and other times you feel like you’ve known someone for a long time.’
Advice for a career in commercial property sales? Johns advice is to manage expectations of the pace at which transactions occur. ‘As a sales agent in Commercial Real Estate we can be in touch with owners for many years before things eventually happen. You need to be persistent and keep working. Every day is closer to another property being listed and coming online’ Anyone who thinks it happens quickly is in for a rude shock.’
Johns advice for those investing or divesting of a property?
It’s all about knowing what’s important personally as the purchaser or vendor, and your motivation.
- Investing – Look at what you wish to achieve- ‘Do you need a retail space, or are you an investor needing a return? Ascertain which type of property you are most comfortable with before starting the process,’ he advises.
- Divesting – Consider on where you are at and the motivation for divesting? ie ‘Are you in the process of retiring? What sort of return are you going to get? Is there work to be done ? Would it be better for someone else to do that?’
Finally – we asked John what destination we could take him to.
‘If I was allowed out of Australia I’d be heading to the Greek islands !!
Thank you to John Black for sharing his real -life experience as a commercial sales agent.
