HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown

Ep. 35 Will Curtis - From Military Service to Commercial Real Estate Mastery

• Heather Ewing, CCIM • Season 1 • Episode 35

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Discover the transformative journey of Will Curtis, Managing Director of Phyllis Browning Commercial, as he shares his unique path from the Army to a successful career in commercial real estate. Will recounts how he transitioned from property management to full-time brokerage, and offers his insightful perspective on the wealth of opportunities within the real estate sector. Highlighting the importance of finding your niche and remaining true to your values, Will also delves into his passion for mentoring new agents and his innovative approach to training residential agents for the commercial market. Gain valuable advice on how to navigate this dynamic industry and uncover the secrets to achieving your goals.

In this episode, we also examine the crucial role of resilience and a positive mindset in commercial real estate. Learn how being early adopters on social media and leveraging years of content can establish credibility and keep you ahead of industry trends. Hear my personal account of launching a company during the tumultuous times of 2020, and how innovative marketing strategies like video tours proved invaluable. We stress the benefits of persistence, optimism, and the creative aspects of content creation, while discussing effective marketing techniques such as cold calling and email campaigns. Tune in for an enriching conversation on the significance of mindset and the enduring advantages of maintaining positivity in the face of real estate challenges.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Welcome to Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown Today. I have a great guest for you. It is none other than Will Curtis. He is the Managing Director of Phyllis Browning Commercial. Welcome, Will I appreciate it.

Will Curtis:

Thank you, Heather.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Definitely so. We've known each other through LinkedIn. We're also fellow CCIMs, so I look forward to hopefully meeting you in person at one of the upcoming chapter officer training or pinning ceremonies one of these days. But until then, share with our guests a little bit more about you.

Will Curtis:

Yeah, so I'm a full-time commercial real estate broker based out of San Antonio, texas. For me, commercial real estate's a second career. I started off, actually, in the Army, thought that I was going to be a real estate investor. I was going to get out, get my degree and be the smartest house flipper there ever was. And while I was in college getting an undergraduate in real estate, I had a fraternity brother who said, hey, I need somebody to answer the phones for us. And he ran a small little family run office and I started there and next thing he was like hey, you want to show a space, you want to do a lease, you want to. And next thing, you know, here I was starting to do property management and from there kind of went through the property management, asset management track in my career until, I don't know, four or five years ago I moved into the full-time brokerage side of things and haven't really looked back since then. Right, definitely.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Which is great. You know, one of the interesting things in talking with various brokers and other CRE-aligned professionals is there's either the straight track of someone knew they wanted to get into it, or it was kind of like you have, hey, we need someone to do this, and it's kind of neat to see how that path really paves itself right, and I think it gives hope to people that may not be 200% clear on what they want to do that great things can and do result from this.

Will Curtis:

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of things in real estate that most people think. You know, when you think real estate, you think I'm gonna go sell a house, like that's what most people think when they hear real estate. And then I think, once you get into it you realize that well, I mean there's appraisal, there's banking, there's, you know, there's the development, there's commercial versus residential. I mean there's so many other aspects of what we can do in real estate. And you know, I think once you kind of find where it is and what you enjoy, you're there. I think it's just a little, it's a little challenge to kind of figure that out. Early on I just kind of lucked into commercial real estate and kind of lucked into property management, which kind of fit with with me. And then you know, I think, like most of us that are on the institutional side, we're like man, we're paying those brokers a lot of money. Maybe I should figure out how to make a switch over to that side and then realize the grass isn't always greener in those senses.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Which is so true, right, and I think in life there's always that tendency to think another area is where the jackpot is and there's no problems and it's upper list, right. But no one's going to experience that in any arena. But I think you point out something really important for people that there are various ways to get into commercial real estate and you can drive that both from a time perspective and also your values, what's important to you, and things of that nature. So I love that. Speaking of the arena, what are you enjoying most about brokerage and also growing your team?

Will Curtis:

Yes, that's a loaded question. I know we could be good. You know, for me it kind of comes down to my why and I think over the last I don't know four or five years it's kind of been. You know, you get to that mid-career point You're like, ok, why am I doing this? What am I really doing? And for me I really had to dive into my why, understand what my why was, and it really comes down to just being a force to help others achieve their goals. It's kind of simply put and if you kind of look at my career, even prior to the Army, I've always done that so I've enjoyed.

Will Curtis:

You know now that I've kind of stepped into, you know, the real estate brokerage side of things. I'm working with investors who you know they're, you know, not necessarily going out there and buying you know hundreds of millions of dollars of assets, but they're buying something to get some cashflow to work on the retirement, to pay for the kids' college, like those are real reasons that I'm a part of that. Right, I'm not out there calling the shots. I heard somebody sit down and say that we as real estate agents forget that we're the help sometimes and I think that's really kind of humbling in that I'm just here to help them hit those goals and do all that. So in the brokerage side I love and enjoy that side of it. And then from the same side with bringing in new agents, and a lot of what we do here is we do take a lot of residential agents and teach them and train them and mentor them on how to kind of make that career path into commercial, which can be a little controversial among us commercial real estate folks. We kind of have a new residential but finding those individuals that have the right capacity, have the right ideas of what they can do, I think absolutely can grow and can become great agents.

Will Curtis:

We've got a few here that again kind of going into that. Why is they wanted to make the switch? They realized residential wasn't quite for them but they take all the great habits they had from residential that made them successful, like answering the phone, calling back, speed, the lead, those kind of things that maybe those of us on the commercial side can get a little slow on. I've got a couple of voicemails. I know I need to get back to this morning as well. For them it's instantaneous. So you know they bring in a lot of great habits and then teaching, training them and giving them that mentorship to really become. You know who they want to be and hit those.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

And you also bring up another interesting point too, of I agree here in Wisconsin that there seems to be a great divide also between residential and commercial brokers, and a lot of it, I think is part of it, personality Right and also immediate gratification versus longer term investments, putting in generating to get a bigger end result. But what would you say are some of the maybe even three key factors of residential brokers shifting into the commercial arena that you've seen with your experience that tend to lend well for that conversion?

Will Curtis:

So one of the things I think the residential agents a lot of times do a whole lot better than we do in commercial is really on the relationship building. Their clients are friends and I think sometimes in us it's a business relationship, b2b, and they really get to know their clients, really become friends with their clients and I think they reach out very differently and they connect very differently. They reach out very differently and they connect very differently. So I think that's one of the things that they do well in that transition and those that really have that idea of doing the pop-bys, reaching out to that database, continually connecting with them. I know when I first started off I assumed all my clients would come back to me.

Will Curtis:

I quickly realized that is not the case and as I started doing the math, I don't want to admit because my wife may watch this how much money we missed out on, because I come back to be in residential agents don't have that mindset. They know they have to go back out. They're kind of beating their head that they've got to continually work with their clients and continually build those relationships. I think the other side of it's really kind of mentioned before was speed the lead. I think the other side of it's really kind of mentioned before was speed the lead. Those that produce high for residential agents is something like if you can't respond within an hour it's a dead lead. It's that fast they really are jumping out there, they really are going out there and having that speed of the lead they win business. As much as we like to say that, oh, they're going to shop around, they're going to do all that, we all know that some do. Some are just going to pick up the first person that actually returns a phone call and actually is willing to work with them. And you know, I think they've got a lot going on for there and I think part of it's the market shifting right in commercial real estate. That baby boomer generation is definitely, you know, the vast majority of those of us that are there, but that generation is starting to retire, they're starting to slow down there's. You know, with COVID we saw quite a few of them just say you know what I'm done, I'm going to go ahead and step aside. I'm going to refer to some of those junior guys and you saw, you know, mid-career folks like myself now finding ourselves in leadership positions and we should be doing some of the biggest deals of our career. We should be in that phase and quickly we're finding ourselves in management and it's those smaller deals that somebody's got to pick up. And I think a lot of those residential agents are the ones that are realizing I can pick those up, I can do it when traditionally that would be our junior associates or our newbies that are kind of out there would be doing those deals, but they're being kind of thrusted into that next level of deal as well. So those are definitely things to kind of keep in mind, that the residential agents really do come in.

Will Curtis:

And I think the other thing they do well is social media. They really are on social media. Granted, their social media is vastly different. That's definitely one of the things I coach, that, hey, we don't want to see pretty pictures. We don't want to see that kind of stuff. That's not going to sell nearly as well. Some of it does, but to the extent that they do it's different. But does, but to the extent that they do, it's different. But they're not afraid to put their self out there, they're not afraid to put on their self on video, they're not afraid to tweet, they're not afraid to do all those things because that's how they've built their business and I think that's going to be one of the things that we see change. You know, really through you know, this change in generations. I think we'll start seeing that We'll see a lot of that start to change.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Definitely, and one of the things I like, too, is that you were an early adopter of social media. What would you say was some of the greatest benefits?

Will Curtis:

from that. So I started off with LinkedIn and again we kind of talked about, before we got started, right, I am, I am absolutely an introvert. The idea of cold calling, I'll do it, but man, I don't, I don't like it. Uh, the idea of going out networking I have to have a drink or two before I can go out and do it, because that's just not how I'm wired. For me, linkedin was great because the algorithm that says you post once a day, that's what they want to see okay, that that seems pretty low effort. Um, I can get out there, put good, put good work or good content out there and start attracting folks.

Will Curtis:

And I was actually at a redevelopment authority for a while and we kind of found that as we started putting it out there this is pre-COVID started putting it out there and going and going, we started finding more people were coming in and were finding us or finding out about the projects we were working on. Based off of my LinkedIn, where we closed a considerable amount of deals with two full time business development reps. I was just the kind of asset management type role, my LinkedIn, you know, not as much as the two full time folks were, but significantly enough to to make a note that we were able to pull in business. I remember you know some folks that had been around much longer than I. You're wasting your time, you're wasting your time. And then, as soon as COVID hit, like we saw my social media falling, just expand because I was already there, I was already doing it.

Will Curtis:

So for me, kind of being that early adopter in social media and LinkedIn helped tremendously and that's part of the reason why I'miktok as much as I think it feels goofy and putting myself on video all right, I'm not doing all that kind of stuff, but I mean exactly on tiktok, I think it's that same mindset is that, as we see, the generations start to change and I think we're seeing that already that baby boomer generation is not the ones that making all the decisions anymore. They're handing it off their kids, they're handing it off to that next generation, the older, millennials or Gen X, which generally do use social media a little bit more Maybe millennials more than Gen X but we see that decisions are made, you build relationships, there's a real connection to people that you meet on social media and you build trust and you build kind of that relationship early on. So for me. I mean it's the same thing, like I did LinkedIn, where I was probably two or three, four years early. I see TikTok and Reels and those kind of things.

Will Curtis:

The same thing is being early and as that demographic really starts to trend, you know, here I am already out there putting content. You can see I've got years worth of content that's out there and I just didn't start it last week to try to get some business. It's something that's on, you know, forever. I even started with. There's a brand new one that just came out last week. It's called no Place. It feels a lot like MySpace but just kind of yeah, it's kind of weird, definitely a different vibe, but we're out there putting content on no Place and if it goes anywhere, who knows? But you know you recycle some content and throw it out there and we'll see if it goes anywhere. But you know, just try to be early and be on the next trend.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

That's great, I think, one of the really important things too, and I completely echo what you're saying about social media, and I started abstract in 2020.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

So it was during the wild upset and that's where I figured, if I can't physically bring people in, that's when I started creating videos and they were self guided tours.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

So, as you know as a fellow broker, that you know what's important to anyone, whether it's a regional and national firm, of what they're going to want to know the different metrics, I would share that in the video They'd see the property interior, exterior, and I remember even I was surprised that local and even the big nationals it reached out and I was just like fascinating, and to me I find that as a creative and artistic form. So to me it's a great avenue and something that I enjoy, and I think that's an important point for people of find where your natural gifts and talents lie and invest in that arena consistently, whether it is cold calling, canvassing videos, social media you know a little blending of everything. Because your point about being open to new trends and it's not the same generation, we do have a lot of younger people coming into the industry and you're going to have to market to them differently than the baby boomers. So I think that's important and without a growth mindset, I don't know, you're just not going to be able to withstand all of the changes in commercial real estate or life in general. So I think it's really important to follow that.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

But I like your idea on no Place Too. I'm excited to see where that goes. I'm not on there yet.

Will Curtis:

It just came out literally last week, I don't know who. Ok, somebody brought it up. Somebody said, hey, it's coming, and I was like, yeah, let's give it a try and see what happens. But I think you're right in that it's also not all. My marketing is not just social media. Right, we're cold calling, we're doing emails, emails, we're doing all the traditional stuff as well. So it's just a part of it. And I think what I I like with social media other word first, other things and we need to see what happens in social media transcends into our other marketing is that we get actual reactions, real time, from our social media.

Will Curtis:

It's like a drip campaign exactly email campaign that you're out there doing already. But if nobody likes what you talked about well, then they're probably not going to like it, your email campaign either. So just the ability to go like okay where okay, I had. You know, I had a 50% open rate and a 18% click-through rate and I'm doing great, but could you get it better? And you know that social media can give you real-time examples and social media can be a little mean sometimes too, so you know it doesn't work as well. Very quickly.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Well, I think also to your point of tracking the impressions which reels get the most attention, which don't, and you know, looking for the common thread. So to your point, we can continually as we shift through all of this. Consistency is obviously a big part of it. Where, would you say, mindset is?

Will Curtis:

Like my mindset.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Yeah, how does mindset feed into commercial real estate?

Will Curtis:

So I think commercial real estate in general can be fairly brutal. We were talking a little bit when we started as well. Right is that the timelines that it can take. I've had lease deals that have taken two years to complete right, and then the construction was another year. So by the time I met the client I was three, three and a half years before I finally got everything I was owed on a deal right. That timeline is huge, huge.

Will Curtis:

I think it's definitely got to come into resilience, on just mindset, just alone, that you know if you're coming into commercial, your first six months are, I mean, quite frankly, going to suck. I mean you're going to be out there, you're going to make your cold calls, you're going to be doing all the things you got to do, and it can be depressing if you've got nobody else there to encourage you or mentor you or push you. It can be encouraging because you're just going out there getting rejected all day, every day, and then finally something clicks and then it turns out it's a terrible lead and then you know you're back to trying to. You know prospect some more. And so I think it really comes down to, especially early on, is resilience, is making sure you're resilient, make sure you're willing to go through the pain, make sure you're set up to go through all those.

Will Curtis:

Not a lot of people can jump in and go a year, two years without a lot of pay. That's what we ask a lot of times. We ask commercial real estate brokers to come in and do is to go without pay for the first year or so while they build that business. So I think that resilience has really got to come into it and then from there, just kind of being that optimist to an extent as well, hey, it's going to happen, it's going to get better, and I think that's any sales role.

Will Curtis:

But you know, coming in and having that mindset as well as being serving others, I think we've seen definitely seen brokers come out there and serve themselves and what's the best deal for them and how can they make the most money. But you know a few of them will make it long term. A few of them will stick around forever, but the vast majority of them their turnaround is pretty quick In a market like we've got. Here in San Antonio it's about a thousand of us doing commercial real estate full time.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

It's definitely a relationship business and, like you said, it's the a relationship business and, like you said, it's the long, the long term. So if you don't have that type of mindset, it's not going to be pretty and that's where they do last a few years and then they're gone. And I think for getting into commercial real estate, I think it's 75 or more that actually drop out within year one. And to your, your point to me that seems like an accurate stat. And to your point about resilience and things of that nature, you have to be self-driven yourself but also have a great mentor or someone to help guide you, because otherwise I don't know how you'd ever make it through.

Will Curtis:

No, I completely agree with that relationship. I mean, if there's you know, in San Antonio there's a thousand people. You start looking at product types. I do office industrial, right, so I probably work with you know 300-ish or so brokers on a regular basis, right, so very quickly, if I do something wrong or do something a little shady, it's going to, they're going to know pretty quickly and very quickly you can make a couple of phone calls hey, have you done a deal with so-and-so? Hey, I've done what's going on here? That reputation goes quick, absolutely, absolutely, can kind of destroy what you're trying to build. And if you're being shady while you're trying to form your business, I mean, yeah, that's 75 percent, I've heard 80 percent is somewhere in there.

Will Curtis:

I would say, even for us, as we bring in training cohorts, we usually bring in 10 to 15 people for a training cohort and even at that I mean the instruction. I'm biased, right, I'm doing the instruction, the instruction is good, the instruction is there. But even at that we see, you know something close to 60 to 70 percent of them. You know they'll make it through the program but they won't really go anywhere. And even at that, the folks that do make it through the program. They'll do a little bit and you know, out of 15 people, if we get two, maybe three that are, you know, good, solid producers, that's a win for us.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Right, I joke that it's true Darwinism Only the strong survive. But my final and most important question for you, will, is what does living fully mean to you?

Will Curtis:

Yeah, so you at least prep me on that question.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

That's a tough one to answer right.

Will Curtis:

But I think it's living fully is, for me, it's living to that, why, right, understanding what motivates you, what excites you, and then living in that realm. Again. I think I mentioned before that you know, a handful of years ago I really had to dig into why, what is it that made me tick? Why was I not happy? It actually came from my wife talking about hey, you're coming home and you're just not happy every day Like why? And I realized very quickly that the client base I was serving just wasn't who I wanted to work with anymore. It wasn't there, I wasn't helping them grow, it was just very transactional. And as I sat down to kind of figure out my why, what made me tick, and what I enjoy and what I don't enjoy, I started to build my business based off that. And it goes back to wanting to help others and I'm a bit of a nerd.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

So I like the fact of sitting down, researching, finding the data and then going out there and presenting that data, whether it's for a client that's trying to find a new lease space, if it's investor, finding that data or even teaching for things like ccim or universities or what have you um, finding that, why and then just living towards that why to me that's that's living fully, is just understanding that why and going after it that's perfect, and I think something that's really important within what you just shared was something that's really important within what you just shared was taking the time out to analyze what brings your energy up, what robs you of it, and starting to put together a new picture, because I think sometimes people, we all get really familiar with our routines, even if we don't like some of them, and taking the courage to step back and really ascertain what you enjoy, what you don't, and then shifting your business which can be scary, right, because it's our bread and butter and you've got a family to support, and so I think it's well worth the time, and I think if more people did it, they too would be able to experience those shifts that you've created for yourself and family.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

So that's a big kudos to you Will.

Will Curtis:

It's scary, I mean, I'm not going to lie, it was absolutely scary to shift from being a traditional broker or doing traditional brokerage to try to move into more of a research consultant type role, moving into more education and those kind of things. But again, if you start looking back, I've been most people don't know this I was a minister prior to the army. Like I've been researching, teaching, presenting forever, even while I was in the army. That's what I ended up finding myself do is doing the researching and then doing the training and presenting uh, for the unit. So as you start really soul searching, going back, you'll find what you're good at, because you've been naturally doing it forever, just figuring out what you keep being gravitated towards and then finding yourself more fulfilled.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

I love that, and I didn't realize that about you. So see, I learned something new today. Well, on that note, will, what a great way to end this podcast, because as people soul search, they are going to find those answers, and then it's believing in yourself, having some type of faith or something, and moving forward into that new life that you create. So I love that. So thank you very much for joining me today. And how can people connect with you?

Will Curtis:

Yeah, so you can find me easily. We talk a lot on social media, right? So for me I'm easy. I'm at Bill Curtis CCIM on all platforms. Then as well, you can find me. You know that Phyllis Browning commercials website, or Phyllis Browning company's website, or my email is wcurtis at phyllisbrowningcom.

Heather Ewing, CCIM:

Perfect. Thanks so much for joining me. Will Appreciate it. Thank you, Heather, you bet Bye-bye.