HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown
Are you intrigued by Commercial Real Estate? Join Heather Ewing, CCIM each week as she dives into CRE trends, Deals, and Developments throughout Madison, WI. Learn the crucial role of Mindset in CRE and Marathons! Success leaves Clues.
HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown
Ep. 56 Allison S. Weiss - Women Speak CRE: Bridging the Gender Gap in Real Estate
Join us for an engaging episode featuring Allison Weiss, an inspiring leader in the commercial real estate (CRE) industry. As the founder of CRE Recruiting and Women Speak CRE, Allison shares her unique journey, the imperative of storytelling in recruitment, and the critical role of women in propelling the industry forward. Discover her insights on building meaningful connections and navigating the complexities of networking within CRE.
Allison reflects on her entry into the commercial real estate landscape, illustrating how her diverse career path shaped her approach to recruitment and client relationships. Her initiative, Women Speak CRE, tackles the gender disparity in leadership and representation at industry events, creating essential visibility for women professionals in this space. This conversation not only addresses the benefits of inclusive recruitment practices but motivates listeners to step out of their comfort zones and take charge of their career trajectories.
Get ready to be inspired by the powerful stories and actionable insights shared in this episode. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting in CRE, Allison’s advice on cultivating relationships and embracing challenges will resonate with you. Don’t miss the chance to connect with us, subscribe to the podcast, and join the movement toward greater representation in commercial real estate!
Welcome to Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown. I am your host, heather Ewing, and today I have a lively, vivacious guest you are going to meet none other than Allison Weiss. Allison is the founder of CRE Recruiting and Women Speak CRE. Welcome Allison.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Heather. It is so fun to be on the podcast of someone who is a Wisconsinite. I went to high school and college in Wisconsin and so I love the Midwestern energy and I'm excited to be here with you today.
Speaker 1:Terrific. Well, let's jump right in, because you know women real estate speaking what more do you want in a fulfilling life right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, well, I've known you for, oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, go ahead. I've known you for a couple of years, so share with my audience, though, more about you.
Speaker 2:For sure. So I found my way into commercial real estate kind of on accident. I initially started working at a small private equity firm family office in Milwaukee the Marcus family, marcus Theaters and Hotels so worked for them a little bit, so got some initial exposure to commercial real estate and then took a circuitous path back when I joined Marcus and Millichap, working out of their corporate offices. I did broker recruiting, teams of brokers, identified small acquisition targets and did everything from that first cold call all the way through onboarding, negotiation, integration with our businesses. I also set up campus recruiting programs and then I did a similar thing at Colliers before I went.
Speaker 2:I like the work, I like what I'm doing, but I don't necessarily love the environment. So let me work with other companies that are maybe, you know, smaller, midsize companies that want to compete with some of these big firms and are looking for best practices. They're looking how to how to create leverage in their business and also to treat people with just as much care as they do their property. So that's really what I've been doing for the last 10 years is the people side of commercial real estate, and this will be our sixth year with CRE recruiting.
Speaker 1:That's terrific, and what an ingenious idea. Right, it's finding the gap and filling it with great service.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, it's been a wild ride because I think I started CRE recruiting maybe six months before COVID, so I technically have started the same business twice. But it's been so much fun and I love the people that I get to work with and I've always worked nationally, so it's very fun for me. Whenever I travel I have friends, clients and candidates all across the country, which makes every trip that much more entertaining.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure, and there's nothing that replaces meeting people in person. It's nice to connect through LinkedIn and social media, but just having that face to face is really a new level.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Definitely, so what are a few things that you look for when you're taking on new clients? Are there any things that jump out at you to share?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. I would say I really love to hear the story. I like to hear the why behind the company and kind of what greater overarching goals that they're trying to achieve. I think these days, especially with younger generations and talking about Gen Z, who's in the workplace and coming into the workplace with even more force these days, they're really looking to align themselves with companies that match their same values and they want to understand how their role contributes to the overall picture and mission of a company. They want to have that kind of connectivity and that alignment. So I love to hear from companies why they got started, what's their vision for the future, how they're planning on growing and all of those things, because really good recruiting is storytelling and matchmaking.
Speaker 1:Right, which ties in with sales right. It's all story and and it's also identifying the needs and connecting it to the right person, the right resource, the timing and everything else which, like yourself, I think it's very fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:So, with the busyness, the travel throughout the nation, all these different people, needs, wants, desires, what mindset do you employ and how did you cultivate that mindset?
Speaker 2:Good question. So I think the biggest mindset that I have and it's something that started when I was really young was that I have never met a stranger. I grew up moving all across the country. My dad was in the military, so by the time I got to Wisconsin in high school, I was 15. I had lived 13 places before that.
Speaker 2:So for me it was all about getting to know people, understanding what made them tick, finding a connection point and building that relationship. So for me, that served me incredibly well in my career. It initially was a necessity for me right In my life. I had to very quickly make friends and get to know a new environment and new people. But that mindset I think of I'll always have something in common with every single person that I meet makes me feel like every single conversation, every single person is just a friend I haven't met yet, and I think that that's an incredibly liberating way to go through life and especially to with all the division that we see today in our country and all the travel that I've done the last four years I've been living this RV life all across the country and traveling from state to state is you realize that we have so much more in common than we have different from one another, and so I think those two mindsets really have been crucial for me in my work, but also just my happiness as a person.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, and I think one of the things that fascinates me and in talking with the various people in the podcast deals and in networking and everything else, is really how past experiences fuel your future. Right, and I think so frequently it's easy to take that for granted or you don't think about it with the busyness of life. But as you take a step back and look at it from a bigger perspective, it's really neat to see how different aspects plug and play, and something that's really been surfacing for me in my life and career too, that I think you'll relate to, is how certain skills will they'll bust you out of a certain level, right, and they'll put you up here and then you start realizing, hmm, maybe it's time to replace those again and continue that level up process.
Speaker 1:So what's something you would suggest for people you know, different firms, careers, all of that for identifying that and taking the next step to up level.
Speaker 2:For sure. So I used to get in my career when I was still in corporate, this like two and a half to three year itch. I would start to feel uncomfortable, complacent, I wasn't learning and growing enough anymore and I really needed to kind of take on something new and challenge myself. Well, it's very common for us, I think, to expect that all of these different opportunities and all of this education is just going to come our way because we've been spoon fed it our entire lives as part of the traditional educational system, whether we're in elementary school, middle school, high school, and then, you know, for those of us who went to college, we kind of would sit back and all we had to do is physically go attend class and we'd learn things.
Speaker 2:I think, as we get older, we really need to be responsible for our personal and professional growth and we need to identify you know what are the areas that are right at the edge of our comfort zone. So for me, I know, when I start to feel a little nauseous, when I start to feel a little nervous, anxious about something, that's a sign, that's an opportunity for me to go explore that and to go to the edge of my comfort zone, because that's where the growth is, and I think whenever I get that feeling, that's just a guide for me to know that I'm on the right track, I'm pushing myself forward, I'm growing, and so getting comfortable with that unease and that discomfort I think is so important for our professional growth.
Speaker 1:I agree completely and I think one of the things that really attracted me to commercial real estate is that it's an endless emporium for education growth. You know I've often joked too. It's probably one of the most challenging but it's probably one of the best self-development programs you can choose to enter. And I just remember, you know, especially those first five years is they were grueling and then there's something about that five year mark and it's like, oh, thank God, it's like finish the marathon, but it is. It is a really neat arena. So what I've noticed too and it's happening obviously Madison, midwest, throughout the country is, you know, you always hear the term sexy with commercial real estate, and I just remember I always laughed at that right.
Speaker 1:But anyways, I see it as very artful. But there's a surgence of the young 20-somethings graduating from college, or maybe some that just decided the standard path is not for them. What are a few tips that you would give them as they're searching out their initial brokerage firms to work for, or maybe another arena within commercial real estate?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I would encourage anybody who's thinking about commercial real estate as a career path to treat it like a scientist and do as many experiments as they possibly can. So getting out there and meeting people from all different walks of life within the industry I think going and putting themselves again in the uncomfortable spot of maybe going to networking events where you can find a wide variety of career paths and different niches within the business I think is really important, and I think asking people to not just the good about their career path but what have you really struggled with or what challenges have you faced and asking them really deep and probing questions, and and also being willing to listen, to take advice and then to follow up on that advice. I am constantly asked to give advice, whether it's to entire classes or real estate societies or even young professionals groups within commercial real estate, and it is the very rare percentage of people that will follow up after the fact to say hey, Allison, I know you mentioned this book, I read it and I wanted to tell you.
Speaker 2:These were my three favorite takeaways, and I have one more question for you. Would you mind sharing with me X, Y and Z it's? It's a great way to be memorable. It's it's the extra mile, is not very crowded, as they say, and it's something that I've seen over and over that those are the people that are memorable to me. Those are the people that when I do have a search that I go to immediately to say, is this person interested? Because I know that this person is someone who has great follow-through, they have great communication skills, they're really engaged in the process.
Speaker 2:So I would say be a scientist, experiment, go to events, try new things, have lots of deep conversations, but follow up after the fact to let that person know what you learned, what you took away, and ask them one more question and you will be amazed at how much people want to help you. One of the things that Benjamin Franklin used to write about way back hundreds of years ago was that people actually like you more if they're able to do you a favor, and so I think sometimes we hesitate to reach out and to ask for help, but really it ingratiates us to those individuals and they're happy to have had the opportunity to help you and they're, in fact, more engaged and want to help you more in the future. So use that law, you know, in your benefit and definitely be a scientist.
Speaker 1:Definitely and tying in with that, you know, reminds me of the Napoleon Hill statement too, you know, to the point of the razor's edge of the 1%.
Speaker 1:It really is just that one tiny thing that that takes you beyond. But I think something, too that I've noticed and something that I would share with others is make sure you have your non-compete reviewed by a commercial real estate attorney that specializes in labor and contracts. And I hear this in deals too, and I cringe every time and I always give people the forewarning of like, I don't care if your aunt or your cousin or your husband is an attorney if it's not in that arena, you're not putting yourself forward for your best win. So great tips. I love all of those ales.
Speaker 2:And I just had to chime in on that one.
Speaker 1:No. That's a great tips. I love all those ales and I just had to chime in on that one no that's a great one.
Speaker 2:I do think we sign a lot of things without reading them and I think our phones condition us to do that right. Here's the terms and conditions, except, you know, we have to be really careful and hopefully. I know it's gone back and forth a few times with the FTC and banning non-competes, but that's still under review and so until if and when that day comes, you know, you you really need to know what's in your agreement and you need a labor and employment attorney and, and hopefully, someone who also has real estate experience, to take a look at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely so. Switching gears again the busyness, the fun, the wild. How do you de-stress at the end of a day, or maybe throughout the day, right, when you just need one of those timeouts? What's your tricks of the trade?
Speaker 2:Good question. So you can't see them right now, but I have three dogs. I have one specifically who's naughty and has been trying to interfere with this call the entire time. So for me it's getting outside, it's taking the dogs on a walk, maybe tossing the ball around. For them it's it's being in nature. I think that's a big part of also why I love this RV lifestyle and I've been doing it for, you know, four years now. It's been so fun for me to be out of doors.
Speaker 2:I also really love to read again back to the owning, your personal development and education. I love to read, I love to learn new things documentaries, history, podcasts, things like that. I also am a very creative person, like you, who I know paints and has a variety of different creative outlets. I went to school to be an art teacher and so for me, even just knitting and crocheting you know doing things like that or drawing, sewing I love the arts. I love, you know, craftsmanship and all of that. So for me, there's almost nothing more satisfying than creating something with your two hands and watching that you know kind of process develop. So that's really what keeps me grounded and sane when it gets really busy, mind, or?
Speaker 1:you had an inspiration or something came through, and then you have that physical gift that you either get to give or, you know, put it on the mantle, or for me, like this is one of my paintings on the wall, and it's something that you get to enjoy for months, years to come, and I agree it's very gratifying, and I think too with with all the deadlines and the pushing and the going.
Speaker 1:It really is nice to have the yin and the yang of all of that. Absolutely, Before we run out of time, share with the audience a little bit more about your Women. Speak CRE.
Speaker 2:For sure. So this is something that I am probably more passionate about than anything else that I'm working on at the moment, and I've always had this feeling. When I joined commercial real estate, I really looked around and went wow, there's not a lot of us women here and there's, as you go up the ladder, there are fewer and fewer, and I was always really jealous, I think, of my male colleagues and their friendships with each other, and I noticed a huge disparity, especially when I went to events that women we were attending much less frequently and also we were on stage. You know a scant percentage of the time when you compared us to our male counterparts. And so one night I was on Twitter I tend to be a little bit of a late night doom scroller and I saw my friend, dali Becker, who I believe you are also friendly with, and Dali had posted that she was going to be a speaker at a one day commercial real estate event in Austin. She was the only woman out of 14 speakers, and I am not great at math, hence the art degree so I did the little math and I was like 7%. 7% of the speakers at this event are women, and that, to me, was just a galvanizing moment where I went. We have to do better than this. It is 2025. We are 51% of the population and we, you know, we're a long way from parity, but we should be better than 7%. And so at the time, I didn't have anything constructive to say about it.
Speaker 2:But the next morning I thought what are the reasons that this is happening? Because I know these women are out there, I'm friends with these women, I meet them at conferences, we're LinkedIn buddies, all of these sorts of things. So I said what if we took away the excuse that you know I hear so often, which is that I don't know a woman who does industrial development, or I don't know a woman from Chicago who does triple net, or you know, whatever that excuse might be? I said let's take it away. Let's create a database of these women who I know are out there, who want to speak, who want to be more visible, who want to comment in the media, and let's make it free, let's make it easily accessible, let's make the signup process for women real quick, let's make it look professional.
Speaker 2:In the space of just, I think, a week, we had 100 women sign up, and so what I was initially thinking was going to be like a Google spreadsheet that we just hosted and you know people could go in and download. I thought this needs to be bigger. This is a movement and we need to create a better experience so we can really attract these conference organizers and podcast hosts and you know the Real Deal and Globe Street and all of these other great media organizations in our business. And so my original post in response to Dali's post was, I think, october 28th or 29th, and we launched Women Speak CRE three months in a day after that.
Speaker 2:So it was a really really fast really fast and plus, we also had, in that amount of time, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, all of that craziness, but I just really felt compelled. I also had the help of a couple women who did a similar list and platform for hospitality executives that are women, and so we put that all together and I we were sharing prior to recording that we have actually already helped 21 women land speaking opportunities at one of the most premier events in our industry that happens every summer Globetrotts Women of Influence event. And I want to be clear this is more than just for women's events. We want to, you know, ensure that everyone is using it to book conferences. Again, it's free.
Speaker 2:There's no reason anyone shouldn't use this, and the feedback has been incredible from the conference organizer in the quality of the women on the list, the diversity of the women on the list, you know, the real practitioner level, skill set and all of that, which is very exciting. And so there are more developments to come in the future for Women Speak CRE. But I'm tremendously proud of what we've done so far and it's been all developed and created by women for women, all, every single part of it, from the brand identity to the back end of the system to. You know the website. All of it has been done by women.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, and two. I mean that was a very quick execution you know, three months from the idea popping into executing that's terrific. And you know, three months from the idea popping into executing that's terrific. And you know something I've thought of, because Madison's small and I think there's probably only seven women, but it's one of those two. What's interesting, though, is the women are because to make it, you have to be a hard hitter, right Like if you're not delivering.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what you're doing, you're not going to make it and you're going to be out after year one.
Speaker 2:So they're all hard hitters.
Speaker 1:And what's interesting is, I would say there's there's, for the most part, two of us, maybe three, that are on different speaking forums and things like that, and I feel fortunate that I do speak and represent the Madison market and that I'm in Milwaukee, or you know, different radio things and things of that nature. How much do you think it is of being able to create visibility through media, through, you know, your different connections and network? Do you think that's also where it's falling down? Like what do you think aligns, you know, in that?
Speaker 2:down Like what do you think aligns, you know, in in that? Yes, it's definitely a visibility problem and an amplification problem. It's not a supply problem. I think the women are out there. I think some of it is also the way that we're conditioned as women to not speak up about our accomplishments and to, you know, not be too proud or not be too boastful or what have you. So I think you know we're maybe not putting ourselves out there as much.
Speaker 2:I think there's also just this thing that I've seen with these events, where the same people are asked to speak on the same topics over and over and over, and they're done through a small network of relationships and there there isn't a lot of you know fresh voices being brought into that environment. So I do think it takes women standing up and saying and declaring this is what I want. I want to be more visible and also stepping out there on their own, whether that's in social media or attending events, or even just making it known to their networks you know their support systems that this is something that they're looking for. I feel like when you declare it out loud and you take those daily actions to make it happen, we've seen it pay off. We've seen this work and even a fun, fun story. So there there's a woman who got a speaking opportunity through the platform. I personally had to tag her and say I think this is something that you should do. And she said, oh, I really don't want to do it, like I'm really uncomfortable, and I said you know, I think you'd be a great speaker. I think you've got a lot to share. She's also one of the wittiest, funniest, most entertaining people that I know, just personally, and so it was a little outside of her comfort zone.
Speaker 2:And what I'm also finding is women like to self reject. We like to say, oh, maybe next year. I'm not ready for that, I have more work to do, I have more learning to do, I want to get this certification. We delay kind of the results that we want because we want that permission slip slip or we want to be more qualified so we aren't judged or criticized or you know what have you? We're, I think, more risk averse maybe than men in that way, and I think we're conditioned to be that way. But I do think that if we're willing to step up, if we're willing to start to share our stories, those stories resonate, they help other people, and that's the first step in amplifying your voice and being more seen and more visible means more opportunities and, at the end of the day, more income, which is something that all all women and all people are looking for all women and all people are looking for Definitely and I think you nailed it of more opportunities, but also people taking the opportunity to get uncomfortable and grow in a safe environment.
Speaker 1:And I remember years ago I threw myself into Toastmasters, yeah, and it's, it's one of those. It's kind of like you got to feel the pain and discomfort if you want that next level right, because it's not going to just suddenly descend upon you and you are an eloquent speaker. So I love that you've created this to give visibility, and I'm excited for women to continually step out of that comfort zone and just rein it in and share that expertise. So, allison, thank you so much for joining me. It was a true, true joy to connect and I look forward to connecting with you soon.
Speaker 2:Me too, Heather. It was such a pleasure to join you and you're such an inspiration, I think, for all women in stepping out, putting yourself out there and really leading from the front. So thank you for everything that you do Well my pleasure, thanks so much, Alison. Yeah, all right, bye.