Opportunist or Professional by David Berger

Opportunist or Professional
7 Questions to help you face the awful reality or rewarding truth

The commercial real estate industry is comprised of many consultants who epitomise the image of the consummate professional. Regrettably there are also those at the other end of the spectrum who operate upon the premise that if they hang around long enough, and stick their hand out often enough, they will eventually fall into the deal of the century. Over the years I have known numerous leasing agents, CRE brokers, investment brokers and capital markets advisors that have deluded themselves into believing that they had a real business with sustainable enterprise value, when in fact they are only hanging around street corners, hat in hand.

Very few industries afford the opportunity for high income and wealth creation like the commercial real estate industry. It is precisely this lure that attracts many would be entrepreneurs and deal makers to jump into the market. I would like to have a dollar for every time I met someone who introduced him/herself as a real estate professional.

While I would never begrudge anyone the opportunity to earn a living, there is a substantial difference between being an opportunist, pouncing on a deal here-and-there and a true professional having a defined process, a pipeline and a real business target. Please note that the distinction I am alluding to has nothing to do with intelligence or appearance, but rather everything to do with planning, implementation and preparation. I have witnessed the implosion of swaggering, wheeling dealing brokers that appeared on the surface to be substantial and sophisticated. While on the other hand, I observed quiet and steady CRE agents that appeared to be fragile survivors, yet they thrive and flourish during good times and bad. The declines in the commercial real estate cycle have caused many a formerly high-flying real estate agent to crash and burn, while many agents have continued being prosperous through a steady, targeted, well-planned and consistently implemented business plan.

So my question to you is this: Are you just another deal junkie or do you have a real business with sustainable enterprise value? Your answers to the following seven questions should make it poignantly obvious as to whether you are an imposter or a professional:

Do you have a vision that has been translated into a mission, which is used to drive a strategy, which identifies your client and minimum transaction guidelines that define your key business development objectives and tactics?
Do you work all the time on any potential deal that pops up on your radar screen or on opportunities that you find or create and that conform to the rigor of your transaction guidelines?
Do you provide a certainty of execution when you engage a transaction or does the outcome of every deal you touch depend upon the intervention of Angels?
Are you a recognised brand? A brand in growth mode or a brand in decline?
Does your business create tremors in the market using strategy implementation and innovation to create market opportunities and to separate you from the competition?
Does your business have the right focus, skills, knowledge and market share necessary to exhibit the staying power to endure market transitions and business cycles?
Does your business create value in the market by adding value to the clients you represent and the transactions you participate in? Or are you just living from day-to-day waiting for the Heavens to provide?

So, what is the outcome…erratic opportunist or sustainable enterprise? To the chagrin of many reading this article, they are not one in the same.


The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense importance of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time.
-- W.J. Davison