Why Finding a Niche Is the Fastest Way to Win in Commercial Real Estate

Ken Ashley (00:00)
back to your comment earlier about tools, ⁓ you need, as an expert, the ability to sit down at a table with someone at lunch and tell them what is really going on. And Knakal has a saying that I love, you when somebody asks you,

At a cocktail party, how’s the market? Don’t answer with adjectives, answer with facts.

Scott Bursey (01:51)
Welcome back to the real estate pros podcast. The podcast dedicated to giving you the blueprint for maximizing your success in the world of real estate investment and brokerage. I’m your host Scott Bursey. And today we have a true game changer joining us.

Ken Ashley (02:03)
you

Scott Bursey (02:07)
He’s the Amazon bestselling author of Prescription, the blueprint for breaking into commercial real estate and closing multimillion dollar deals. We are thrilled to have Ken Ashley here to discuss how you can stop chasing small deals and start building a monumental career in commercial real estate. Ken, thank you for being here.

Ken Ashley (02:07)
you

Scott, thank you for having me on your air. It’s an honor.

Scott Bursey (02:31)
It is an honor on our behalf. For those of our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us how your career began and what is your main focus now?

Ken Ashley (02:42)
Sure.

So I was very fortunate to discover this career. guy named Brad Smith introduced me to the concept of tenant-reported brokerage, which is, I believe, the best profession in the world. And it’s just a terrific career if you can only make it through the first few years of this ⁓ journey. today, my team focuses on helping ⁓ companies solve real estate problems. So we don’t focus on landlords.

team that’s another mission. We’re focused on U.S. corporate occupiers. We certainly love to transact in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia and we will do that all day long but we go wherever Delta goes and we will help people solve problems anywhere in the world.

Scott Bursey (03:30)
Can your book immediately address one of the biggest challenges, the barrier to entry? For that ambitious newcomer who sees the potential in CRE but feels overwhelmed by where to start, what is the absolute first non-negotiable step they need to take to successfully transition their career into commercial real estate?

Ken Ashley (03:37)
Yeah.

Well, I appreciate the question. A non-negotiable first step, think, ideally if you can find someone that is in the profession and been their ear, so-called an advice meal, you know, that’s terrific. ⁓ If you can’t, the book goes through how to identify the firms that are in your community. And real estate is fundamentally local. So wherever you live, there are some real estate firms that are supporting the market. If you’re in a major city, they’re going to be major firms. And putting together that list of folks and

And then finding, you know, Scott, if you run the office in Minneapolis, ⁓ then, you know, finding the Scott Bursie of that particular market. And then the book has a way to pick up the phone and call you, Scott, and to set a meeting, what to say in the meeting, and then how to follow up. We have a very prescribed follow-up plan. I think a lot of mistakes, one of the mistakes young people make is they will have this big meeting with you, Scott, and then they’re all excited and they go tell mom and dad, had a great meeting with Scott.

it’s great and then they never follow up. Well, the fortune is in the follow up and I tell people all the time, know, if I met with you, Scott,

one time you’re a busy guy. got a lot going on in life. If I want something from you, it’s incumbent upon me ⁓ to have the call to action and to follow up with you.

Scott Bursey (06:03)
That’s such a critical point, Ken. Everyone looks for the shiny new tool, but you’re reminding us that without a focused intention and clear personal strategy from day one, all the tools in the world won’t matter.

Ken Ashley (06:20)
Yeah, that’s right. ⁓ mean, AI is a great tool. We have great listening tools through AI. But if you think about who is buying or potentially buying your services or hiring you, as you were saying, because it’s a similar sort of purchase model, what people are looking for initially to hire brokers say is potential.

And one of the things we talk about is, you know, I’m in a commission only profession. So why in the world is it so hard to get hired in a commission only profession? Desk cost. What is a desk cost? Well, Cushman Wakefield pays, I’m in an office. So they pay for the office. They pay for support. They pay for some services that I use. All this cost, you know, big firms have different numbers, but it’s three, four or $500,000 a year per broker.

So what the manager of that office, what the Scott Bercy of the office is doing is he’s building a baseball team and he is looking for a great fastball pitcher. He’s looking for a catcher. He’s looking for a second baseman, someone that he thinks he can train into the role to do to perform a specific task. And the people that are at the top of the roster are those that can develop business. If you can reach out and make it rain, you will have a great career in commercial real estate.

Scott Bursey (07:38)
Absolutely, that was broken down sensationally, Ken. And the title of your book promises the ability to close multi-million dollar deals. That scale requires hyper-focus. How important is building a specialized niche and what criteria should a new agent use to identify the most lucrative and sustainable niche for them personally?

Ken Ashley (07:48)
Okay.

Yeah, I have a saying the riches are in the niches.

And ⁓ so focus is a very powerful thing. was just meeting with a young person a few minutes ago and we’re focused on a certain vertical, happens to be engineering firms. And so ⁓ the key to expertise is focus. You remember when we were kids and you had a magnifying glass and you had time after school and you would sit out on your back porch and an unfortunate aunt would come under there and you could focus the sun and create great power through that magnifying glass.

the same thing that focusing on a niche does. And I think about to get to multi-million dollar deals, you start with a niche. So let’s talk about what those can be. They can be a vertical and this we’re talking about tenant rep now, like a law, ⁓ accounting, engineering. They can be a micro market. So let’s say you join a team and you’re seeing a broker did a monster deal in a building. all the buildings, including that one around, you would make calls. Doesn’t matter if it’s industrial or office, it’s the same concept.

you

And there are certainly plenty of people that farm a sub market. That’s what most people think commercial real estate’s about. So there’s a guy here who’s wonderful at the Northwest market. I can drive around with him and it’s a marvel. He knows every building, every tenant, every landlord, all the facts about. That’s a great way to become an expert. Think of Bob Knakal in New York City knowing his markets so well. So if you can work with your senior broker to find that niche, then what the niche gives you…

is credibility because you have real knowledge of something that’s happening. You go to the trade association meetings, you go to the community improvement district meetings, you really have knowledge of what’s going on.

back to your comment earlier about tools, ⁓ you need, as an expert, the ability to sit down at a table with someone at lunch and tell them what is really going on. And Knakal has a saying that I love, you when somebody asks you,

At a cocktail party, how’s the market? Don’t answer with adjectives, answer with facts.

Scott Bursey (10:42)
Absolutely. Expertise translates directly into trust. And in these multimillion dollar transactions, trust is the currency, Ken, that opens the doors to the biggest opportunities.

Ken Ashley (10:54)
That’s right.

Scott Bursey (10:59)
Your book is called…

Ken Ashley (10:59)
Indeed.

I’m sorry, Scott, I would just say real estate is the second biggest cost after labor.

in a company and many of these real estate transactions are by definition high profile. They’re long-term commitments. They’re big bets for the company. And ⁓ so if you were trying to hire someone like me, Scott, you know, you want the guy that graduated first in medical school, not last. We’re both called doctor, but you want, you want someone that has the credibility of having done this for a long period of time. So as a young person, your job is to go out there and open doors and take in a senior person who

has that credibility until you build it in your own practice. And I didn’t understand this when I first started in my career, but you can absolutely be effective from almost month one. It’s going to take a little bit of time to learn the lingo, to learn a little bit about commercial real estate so you can have one conversation. And the last thing I’ll say on this is ⁓ when I started in my career, for the better part of two years, my most favorite activity was sitting in my broker’s office.

listening to him talk. I learned so much just by listening to the conversation.

Scott Bursey (12:12)
Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. Ken, your book is called The Prescription for a Reason. It’s a blueprint with practical steps. Let’s talk about deal flow. Can you share the single most effective networking strategy that aspiring commercial brokers can implement tomorrow that actually results in actual leads and closing large, complex deals?

Ken Ashley (12:20)
Yeah.

Okay.

Well that’s an interesting question. I spend a lot of time in… ⁓

not-for-profits in my town. And what I find is there are other executives and leaders who are on those not-for-profits. And a lot of my business development actually starts out having nothing to do with business. It has to do with a shared passion for something like shooting sporting clays or golf or any of those things that help you build a relationship with someone. And we have to think about the buyer behavior. So people that are in my age and stage enjoy the relationship. It might be different to a different generation.

So you might spend some time reading about and there’s plenty of ⁓ material out there on how different generations make purchase decisions ⁓ Because I see things through my lens just like everyone does I believe in gripping and grinning at the cocktail party and doing it again But that maybe that is or isn’t the right strategy for you But I but I would say an answer to your question it all begins with a trusting relationship and trust is built not only

based on expertise, but based on common bonds and shared experiences. I’m a big fan of, you know, I buy a lot of steak dinners and, ⁓ you know, we’ll do a lot of ⁓ overnights if I can with people because there’s sort of the magic of the 24-hour experience to help you really get to know someone and to build a relationship.

Scott Bursey (14:07)
That is a master class in relationship building right there. It’s not about collecting business cards. It’s about providing genuine well-researched value, Showing up prepared with insights is the difference between being a ⁓ contact ⁓ player and becoming a trusted resource who gets the first call when the big deal surfaces.

Ken Ashley (14:34)
Yeah. I mean, you know, I would say, Scott, people don’t really care what you know, because after a while they assume you know what you’re doing. They care what you know about them and what you can remember. And ⁓ so we believe pretty deeply in that. And ⁓ now when it is game time, you got to play the game. And that’s why, how someone who is younger in their career can partner with a senior person to really execute on the transaction.

Because all the good natured, ⁓ know, handshaking business cards, all that stuff, steak dinners, if you can’t perform, none of it matters. And it will very quickly, ⁓ you know, injure reputation. So be authentically good at your craft. I don’t want to dismiss that. I don’t want to avoid talking about that. You have to be the real deal. If you’re going to be a carpenter, you need to know how to use the saw.

Scott Bursey (16:09)
Absolutely Ken, a lot of people are intimidated by the sheer capital and level of review they perceive is required to play in the big leagues.

Ken Ashley (16:21)
⁓ Yes. Go ahead.

Scott Bursey (16:21)
And how many?

On

that note, Ken, what is the biggest misconception about the entry barrier into commercial real estate that you see wholly talented people back?

Ken Ashley (16:37)
Yeah, well certainly fear of failure ⁓ and certainly the financial piece of it. And I will say a couple things. ⁓ I’ve dealt with that fear. My first ⁓ eight months, I didn’t make a bean. My wife was pregnant.

And I will never forget that time in my life, the anxiety, which is real, the fear that you couldn’t do this, that you made a poor choice, because the demons in your head are real thing. So the antidote to that is a couple things. It’s finding people that you respect and trust in your life. ⁓

that you can confide in and say, listen, you’re a friend of mine. I know you’re going to tell me the truth. You here’s a fact pattern. What do you think? The second is what I call a gratitude audit. And that is waking up in the morning, which I do. ⁓

every morning and I think about the blessings in my life and I’ll take a few minutes and write down 10 or 12 and they can repeat. It doesn’t have to be different but the reality is we all have you know tremendous blessings and we all dig from wells that we did drink from wells that we didn’t dig and you know others have come before us and helped us along the way so keeping that perspective ⁓ is important.

So dealing with the financial issues, ⁓ you know, if you didn’t come from a family that has money, if you did, God bless you, I didn’t. And, you know, I want to give people permission if you’re young in your career to work that second job. I want to give people permission to save money before they would embark on something like this. Now there is a balance. If you think about your working life, if you’re going to break into commercial real estate brokerage, you have to really do it in the first third of your career for most people.

Number one, it takes a while to get this thing going. And number two, if you think about the beginning of your life, you probably aren’t married, you probably don’t have children, and you probably don’t have huge overhead. And so that’s the least risky time financially in your life to get started. And I started out, you know, for nearly two years, I violated cars until four in the morning and, you know, just did the things you have to do. And it is okay for you to do that to… ⁓

Invest in yourself to make your career go.

Scott Bursey (18:59)
Absolutely. Those are some golden words. And I want to leave our listeners with an immediate action, Ken. For someone who has just finished reading your blueprint and is feeling fired up to start closing their first large deal, what is the single non-negotiable action they must take ⁓ this week to start building a sustainable commercial pipeline?

Ken Ashley (19:14)
Yeah.

Hmm?

Okay, so first of all, there’s a workbook that comes along and you would be in section three of the book, which is how to be successful from day one forward. And I think the non-negotiable is this, and that is to build an accountability system for yourself involving some points. And let me quickly describe, you know, if the goal is to get 100 points a week.

And you want to reward the actions that will generate business. So let’s say every time you make a phone call, even if it’s a voicemail, but you made a real phone call, that’s a point. If you wrote a real email, meaning not a blast to MintLot, that can be a point, because that’s you reaching out, that’s you trying to make a connection. And then now let’s say every time you had a substantive phone conversation that’s worth five points, a meeting where you’re presenting your credentials might be worth

points and getting hired is 50. So very quickly you can figure out how to get to 100. Obviously if you get hired twice that’s a good thing. But here’s the key point and that is that when you have accomplished your goal for the week you have an understanding with your team that you’re gonna do something fun. Let’s say you like to go kayaking or you want to climb a mountain or go on a run or take Friday off or do whatever it is that you like to do or whatever brings you joy. The serotonin in your in your brain will

help direct your activities. So this is like the bowling ball alley, the gutter guards for your time. I think the biggest mistake that people make when they’re early in their career is they’re bad busy, not good busy. We’re all busy when you go home at the end of the day. If you cut grass for a living, you can see what you’ve done, but in knowledge work, it’s a lot harder. So you have to build systems that will allow you to hold yourself accountable. Now you might be saying,

what if I actually put down a few more calls than I made? Well, that’s cheating. And that’s like going to the gym and saying you lifted weights. You’re only hurting yourself. So if you will be honest, if you will have integrity about your own accountability. And then I think the last thing is this, Scott, I have something called a Friday five.

And that is that you find somebody that’s in a profession that’s different than yours. They’re trying to do different things. And you each set down three or four goals that you’re trying to accomplish. And every Friday morning at seven, eight, nine, eight, and whenever you want to do it, you spend five minutes on the phone with your buddy. And the first half is he is going to ask you questions. Did you do this? Did you get that goal accomplished? You’re going to prescribe the questions that he’s going to ask you. And then they flip the script.

And I think you will find Thursdays are incredibly productive because you’ve got to talk to your buddy, you can’t lie. And every week, if you didn’t get your goals accomplished, it’s going to become a stressful conversation. Build accountability and build control measures around your time and you will be successful.

Scott Bursey (22:23)
accountability. Absolutely. Couldn’t agree with you anymore, Ken. Ken, what would you like our listeners to know about your book? What’s the big golden nugget or takeaway you would like our listeners to know about your book?

Ken Ashley (22:29)
things.

Well, I think it’s a passion project of mine. I’m hoping to have some impact. This industry has been so good to me and it’s so called the prescription because when I meet with young people, I write down six or eight things that they should do and sign it and write prescription at the top. So now my hope is that you would take this book if you’re interested in commercial real estate and use it to write your own prescription and use the workbook to help you so that you have an action plan. And what I would say is I’ve designed the books

So the first, third explains our industry. The second is how to get hired and the third is what to do from day one to be successful in my opinion. Pick the section that makes sense to you, where you are in your career. ⁓

And I hope that I’ve written for the first time about some things like how brokers are compensated. What are some things you should negotiate with your senior broker? What are some questions you should ask? ⁓ How to establish a business development plan, which is very important. So I hope that you will, as a reader or a listener of Scott’s show, take advantage of some of these tools. ⁓

I want to assure you I could do one real estate deal and make a lot more money than the book is going to make. It’s not about money. It’s about me trying to have impact. And I realize, I’ll leave you with this thought, Scott, that when you are successful in this business, your success blesses others. So you think about it, it blesses certainly your client, your company, your team, your family, but your entire community. Because when you have some jingle in your pocket and you go buy a new suit or a new car or, you

whatever, all of those on the other end have people that have financial success because you made that cold call, because you solved that problem, and because you served your client well.

Scott Bursey (24:29)
Absolutely, and that’s what it’s all about. Ken, this has been just a pleasure. And we love fostering connections here at Real Estate Pros. For the listeners who want to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Ken Ashley (24:47)
Sure. So ⁓ in any of the social media handles, you know, Ken Ashley, I’m KenAshleyAtlanta on LinkedIn. ⁓ You know, I’m pretty, I’m around on ⁓ X a good bit. If you would ⁓ like to meet, I would ask you to come to CREI Summit at CREISummit.com. We’re meeting in Savannah, September 23, four or five. We’re focused on using digital tools to develop business. That would be a good place for us to meet.

And if I can help you, just send me a DM and don’t be afraid to follow up. There’s a few emails that happen in my life, so be persistent.

Scott Bursey (25:26)
Ken Ashley everybody. Ken, this has been an absolute masterclass. Thank you so much for joining us,

Ken Ashley (25:30)
Thank you, Scott.

Well, I really appreciate you having me on and good luck to you and all of your listeners.

Scott Bursey (25:40)
And for our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have more conversations coming up with exceptional operators, just like Ken. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.