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all right i think we're ready to roll uh well students good good morning our good afternoon or good luck to to everyone this is a great uh ccap partners event it's always great when we have a chance to listen to the preeminent commercial brokerage organization that's global that's the ccim institute and we're thrilled to have uh members of the album a chapter with us today to talk about their careers uh about their the impact that ccim has had on on on those careers and i'm blessed that joe strauss he's also he's the chair of the student outreach for the alabama chapter so you'll get to know joe throughout all 2021 but he has been gracious enough to agree to be the moderator for today's panel he actually does this across the state so joe thank you he's also alumni of the university of alabama as are several of our panel members but joe i'm going to turn it over you to drive the program i'm going to sit back and relax and listen and i'll chime in as necessary but joe the floor is yours absolutely thank you grayson and you're saying you're going to sit back and enlist and i'll i'll see i'll believe that when i see it but um all the students participating and signing up for this um event that we're putting together y'all are very lucky to have someone like grayson glaze at the university of alabama for y'all i remember telling you my age right now i graduated in 2008 right when he was getting the real estate program ramped up and from what he's done from then until now y'all are in great hands i know he's the type of guy that if you need help getting in with a company or getting an introduction he's really the man to do it and we'll break down all the walls to do so so for any of the students i really encourage you if y'all are trying to get into real estate and y'all need to you know find someone to talk to or get you in the door you got them right there but i want to go in and tell you a little bit more about ccim for any of the students who don't know what ccim is um you know i don't blame you i didn't know what it was when i was at the university of alabama but it's a certified commercial investment member and you're a recognized expert in the commercial investment real estate industry um you earn this designation not only by uh taking a couple of classes but you you earn it by the portfolio by the transactions you do um by the square feet you manage and there's only 9 000 individuals who currently hold the designation and so i want to tell all the students who are interested in getting into commercial real estate or banking or appraisal or development this is a great way to start it's a great program to learn if you want to get into this business and then also it's just a great networking tool and so the alabama chapter can do a student membership which is only 25 typically all the members all across the the state have to pay over upwards of 600 dollars a year but students you can just join this program for twenty five dollars it's a great networking tool um it's a great what thing to add to your resume and um you know since i'm head of student outreach um you know and you do decide to join if there's anyone i can ever introduce to you to get you in as an interview throughout the state southeast or even out of state i'd be happy to do so whenever i was doing this last year in grayson's class one of his students from the state of pittsburgh had reached out to me afterwards and said hey i'm looking to get into real estate i want to stay in birmingham for the summer is there anyone you know i can talk with and so i got him an internship over the summer with a birmingham developer who does dollar generals all over the southeast and so he got to learn the whole development business and do a lot of site selection for this specific developer so you'll probably hear me say it's just a great networking tool a million times today but uh i truly believe it um and you know i believe in it so any further questions afterwards you know feel free to reach out to me and i'll get grace and all my contact information but more importantly what i'm excited about today is introducing the panel to everyone um you know it's great experts in the business but i consider all of them you know close friends to me i've met them in different different years of my life and uh just a great group here everybody's going to be excited um to kind of learn their expertise and kind of hear how they start in the business so i'll introduce everybody uh kind of one by one and then we'll kind of get get with the program so the the first guys uh joe azar he recently got his ccim designation over a year ago he works with collier's international out of birmingham alabama and he does specializes in industrial does uh landlord representation tenant representation does it throughout the state so he's got a great pulse in the state right now on where potential new jobs could land he's got ties to everybody at the state level many many county members many city members and has done a great job he joined the ccim program and it's pretty remarkable on how quickly you know he earned his designation next we got mr tuscaloosa himself patrick agee with the advantage realty group i'm sure all the students that they're driving all around tuscaloosa you'll see his sign everywhere with advantage realty group he's been probably for over a decade the top producer market leader for the city of tuscaloosa and west alabama he has the biggest pulse on the market he does he wears many many hats which he'll tell you about he does everything from office retail industrial multi-family and even does property management one of the most hardest workers and he in particular was the one who introduced me to ccim and i showed how well it helped him out in his career so when i was making the switch from residential to commercial that was the first first thing i decided to do and what he highly recommended was you know get get my cci membership and then work towards my designation next we've got martin smith with srs real estate partners he is a retail restaurant expert in the southeast in alabama and mississippi he's been responsible for bringing many new to market restaurants and retailers uh to the states of alabama and mississippi he also has a lot of landlord rep accounts and leases over a million square feet of retail shopping centers uh throughout the southeast um great thing about everybody here y'all probably eating at the restaurants or shopped at the lifestyle center of midtown village well martin was the main guy getting that off the ground before it was just a field he started with the new project leasing new construction leasing and for me being a retail nerd and what's so cool about this that was over a decade ago and he's continued to do the leasing there and i guess what a lot of these students probably didn't notice a lot of these tenants that originally started there just the way the retail world adapts sometimes some of these big tenants will go bankrupt i would have to close down he's just done a great job on finding the best tenants to to really fit the lifestyle center and keep that uh property occupied and and has absolutely done a great job and then he's also brought a lot of restaurants and retailers new to market retailers to the city of tuscaloosa and last but but not least and i'm honored to introduce her is cassandra chandler with the chandler group she's based out of birmingham alabama and she's also the first african-american female to earn the ccim designation in the state of alabama and she is her work ethic is unmatched she does stuff all over the country she just doesn't specialize in real estate in alabama she does everything from hospitality to multi-family to property evaluations uh industrial office throughout the throughout the country and as i had learned last week she's even taken it out of the country and will be you know doing it worldwide um so it's my honor to introduce everybody here and another great thing about everybody on this panel they all graduated from the university of alabama and they're happy to to be here and uh and and tell you about their careers so i've done enough talking and rambling on but we'll get into it um and what we'll do just i guess i'll introduce deuce to everyone we'll just go in that order so uh the first question um you know that i'll ask and that y'all can kind of give your advice to the students what was your path into your career you want me to go first joe okay um yeah guys i'm joe azar work at collier's on the industrial team um here i graduated from alabama in 2015 my path into the business was i guess pretty traditional in a sense junior year uh at the university i started working towards my alabama real estate license and and taking the courses i met with grayson at some point during those last few years at school gave me some good advice and and i had an opportunity um prior to making that decision um to visit some real estate firms and that was really what sold me um so that was uh you know kind of a no-brainer once i figured out what it was that i wanted to do and that was be somewhere in the real estate the commercial real estate industry um i took the initiative to go ahead and um begin working on my licensing and i think that gave me an advantage as i uh graduated to go ahead and have that as i interviewed for for jobs perfect uh patrick you're gonna go so um i don't i don't do a lot of this uh zoom meeting stuff so it takes me a minute so my path into the real estate business was um was more of a need for a job i was i graduated in 2002 and i was working at indian hills country club which just happens to be across the street from my current office and got to talking to mr ellis who founded the advantage realty in the late 70s and he told me he's like look i you know i told him i needed a job he said what do you want to do i said i want to make a lot of money and um he said all right and um martin and grayson and uh joe you guys all know mr ellis and i don't know that i probably could have told him anything better to kind of get his uh get his motor going but um for me i was very fortunate to have somebody like him um at the time i came to work for him we had about 2 000 beds uh student housing beds and then we had another 500 uh class a conventional beds and then we also have a commercial portfolio of retail office warehouse we also do some outdoor advertising work as well that's the billboard business for those that uh that have a curiosity um so i've been in september i started my 19th year in this business and um it's it's one that this business is uh the one thing i like about it is it uh it rewards hard work um because if you keep if you keep chipping away eventually you'll uh you'll figure it out um but as far as dcim is concerned um i probably get uh between two and three referrals a year um which which amount to money it's not hey here see if you can help this guy it's uh hey i've got uh somebody wants to sell a warehouse in tuscaloosa uh need you to help or um hey i've got our this tenant i don't have time to work the tuscaloosa market can you help um the letters the ccam letters to me uh i mean credibility uh experience um and all those things when you start relying on other people as you do as your real estate career starts to to progress a little bit you want to you want to rely on people that you know you can trust and when you turn them over to somebody or our network you know you're going to get somebody you know if you if you're rating people on a scale of 10 you're gonna at least get an eight um and um that's you know that's what i think cci stands for is you're gonna it's not what you know until you know um and uh that's kind of kind of how our world works it's just the way the real estate business works i'm good hey guys i'm martin smith um joe and grayson thank you so much for having us on uh i think it's a great event and um hopefully you guys will get a little bit out of it um i don't know that i had a very conventional um i guess path and to get to my career i was in i graduated from alabama and after school i got into sales i did some advertising sales i worked in a staffing business for a while and really never really found a home that i was comfortable with but it always had an interest in in buildings and you know kind of had a sense that i i was a bit of a designer or an engineer at heart and you know over the course of sort of figuring out i didn't like the path that i was on i i decided i wanted to get into real estate and i went through the exercise that a lot of you guys are going through right now unfortunately uh probably five or six years later than i would have liked to have so i think you should consider yourself fortunate to have somebody like grayson uh who's put together an incredible program and created some amazing resources for you guys to take advantage of i didn't have any of that uh i had to literally go out and you know sort of network among my friends and people in the business to figure out who was doing what and um you know because i was a consumer uh retails of interest and um actually found my way to a grocery anchored center developer and just called him up out of the blue said i wanted to come by and talk to him and as i had several sort of brokerage house owners here in town and and i was able to sit down with him tell him what i was thinking uh try to get a sense of what he did on a date on a daily basis and and at the end of the meeting you know sort of ask for an opportunity to work with him well um you know was probably three or four months later he called me up and he had a guy that had been working with him that was moving on to a different company and and uh lo and behold he needed someone and uh it couldn't have been a better opportunity for me you know um he was a developer we did site selection for grocery store anchored shopping centers throughout the process we negotiated with vendors for the construction and um you know things like landscaping and electrical work and all that so i got to learn that side of the business once it was built we did the management at least the new spaces so there really wasn't a single aspect that i didn't have a chance to learn so i think i was fortunate in that regard and it just so happens that i sort of figured out through the process what i was good at or what i enjoyed doing and doing the deals being able to participate in deal making was something that i had a passion for and uh found my way to um a company that's based out of birmingham retail specialists that joe's connected with and um they were just starting up and and we were able to build a really fun company and a great practice there and was able to build a lot of relationships throughout the country and in the business all focused on retail as joe said retail restaurants shopping centers owners hotel guys land developers you name it you know chasing the the money as patrick might have said uh i i got out there and hustled and met and talked with and and got to know so many people and the guys that develop cyprus are cyprus equities the group that developed midtown village is our sister company srs real estate partners those guys bought a handful of other assets in the state of alabama and they needed somebody locally so i sort of raised my hand and i said man i'd love an opportunity to to do that to run a company and so we handle all of alabama mississippi for uh an international company that's solely focused on retail and uh it's been a it's been a great move and and for me personally and it's a great company to work with it's a great industry to be a part of despite what you read out there i'm sure grayson does a good job of making sure you guys know that it's not all bloom and doom you know sometimes volatility in the marketplace creates opportunity and uh we're all doing our best to take advantage of that i'm sure uh joe and patrick and cassandra would agree uh there's a lot of opportunity in uncertainty and we're taking advantage of that now and uh guys i i don't want to beat a dead horse here but in in grayson you've got a really unique resource that many of us did not have uh please please take advantage of that and have him introduce you to people give me a call i'm s re these other guys would be happy to hear from you too we'll give you our two cents um you know one bit of advice i would have is to talk to as many people in the business as you can to try to figure out what it is you want to do because there is something to be said for specialization and i just happen to specialize in retail but there are a lot of other things to do out there relative to real estate um but anyway i look forward to meeting some of you i know i've met some of you already and thanks thanks again joe and grayson for the chance to talk good afternoon um i think you know on uh thanks joe thanks grayson on inviting me um to speak to these students uh i i almost threw myself in every one of these forums because uh it's my pleasure just to be a part of cc i am um i like to uh and i think uh george may agree uh i think it's important that we show um diversity of the organization of ccim and the diversity that we're now seeing in commercial real estate um you're seeing more um females hey cassandra i think you're echoing a little bit let's see am i still okay so as i was saying um the great thing is um ccim is um it's diversified you're seeing more um um races that getting into commercial real estate in the state of alabama uh definitely with the organization and i just think it's important that you see um there are females that are in our uh state of alabama as well commercial real estate and really doing well my passing um real estate has been out in real estate on my line my father uh is a builder that's how he fed a family of nine uh he was flipping before uh the coin flipping ever uh took place and i just uh i went to the university of alabama uh i actually majored in real estate finance and that was over 25 years ago actually and um after then i really didn't get into the field when i graduated from college but uh i found my way back to real estate uh first crazy uh i became an appraiser and then in 2008 when i saw the decline and what was happening the the obama drop out of real estate i for some crazy reason switched to uh from appraising to uh commercial real estate i'm an analytical type person and i thought that would be the best the best opportunity for me at times you may have think that that may be odd but because i was an appraiser i had a relationship with banks so during the down time it was great for me to learn commercial real estate because i went back to the banks and actually sold all the foreclosure commercial property for them so the key thing i think you've heard from a number of us is relationship and with ccim that is just um number one the relationship and i had i'm very fortunate to have someone to introduce me to ccim and really pushed me uh to get my uh designation and um and i do so and through cc i am i have um and the reason joe said that i am international i'm just that crazy type of person i just always saw myself uh doing commercials in other countries so relationship has been important with that because a lot of my clients are from other countries and because i got into really uh studying a lot of gas stations and i am a part of the asian american hotel owners association and i know i'm not asian but you know relationships so um through ccim i uh joined a whole asian american culture owned association i meant have met a number of people in other countries so i am just uh trying to fulfill what i thought uh was impossible and that's doing deals in other countries and like everyone and i see today relationships ccim clients relationship thanks joe absolutely that's great cassandra and i think you know heard from four of the experts in different sectors of the industry and got four completely different answers on on how they got into their career uh my two cents was you know i graduated around 2008 when the market completely crashed but tuscaloosa was still strong and got into residential for a couple years and then transitioned over to commercial but my my two senses if you do think you want to get into commercial real estate i'll try to start as as soon as possible and really really go for it uh next question um you know what is your typical day like in this industry and i know there's no typical day like in the commercial real estate industry it's all it's all over the place but we'd like to you know tell the students what is your typical day like and what do you like the most and least about your job and we'll start in that same order yeah so kind of echo what joe said there is there's no typical day um you know there's some days where i spend six hours in the car going from mobile to montgomery to huntsville um to gadsden for property tours there's some days where i'll have you know eight hours to business develop there's some days where there's critical items that you have to push along for transaction management um like putting together and responding to rfps and lois and lease review so that's definitely an exciting piece of the business my advice and and what i've spent time over the past four or so years refining is what i can do to be most effective during the times that i am in the office and everybody operates differently but for me that was try to stick to some sort of a schedule so in the morning after i have a cup of coffee i'll hit the phones cold call for a couple hours maybe until 10 then respond to critical emails uh work on um you know that transaction management load that we always have that piles up um you know and and spend the afternoon doing other things that i need to do to be effective and make sure that i'm getting my job done that day but it's different for everyone of course and and kind of in that same light part two of the question my favorite part of the job is is the um spontaneity of it where there's always a different challenge there's always another client uh there's always something else to work on and and um if there's not something else to work on then you pick up the phone or you get in your car and you go find something else to work on that's probably just from talking with my peers over the years and their experiences with their work um it's my favorite and my least favorite part about it is that there's nobody's gonna give you rarely your books gonna give you things to work on it's not like you get to work and you have an email with a memo that says we need you to do this this and this today it's totally up to you um you know you got to go find your business that's going to pay you you got to go find your clients that are going to entrust you to manage their real estate sell their real estate find them real estate's a buyer lease so it's it's the lack of structure can be challenging but if you if you really sit down and dial in on how you can make that work for you it can actually be a fun challenge and something that you can make work for you so um i got to make sure i'm doing what i need to do here so um so what joe and joey said there's uh there's really no typical day and i'll give you a good example of that and that was yesterday morning um somebody had broken into a couple of spaces at one of the shopping centers that we own and manage so you got to kind of go and sort that out you you know you know it's one of like 60 tenants that that we deal with but you know to them it's the most important thing in the world so you pretty much have to for the two hour window that i was there dealing with that you know it's um you know you kind of have to you know be all ears and paying attention to what's going on but so uh you know what i do is i would say probably 50 of my day is uh i do a lot of asset management for the for the family that i work for here at advantage realty um i've been fortunate enough to pick up a couple of real estate investments uh myself um which i think to everybody on this call and to to you guys that are you know watching it trying to soak up what you can that's to patrick agee that's the ultimate end game and that's uh to try to generate uh you know some some future income to you know support myself my kids um you know but you know to me that i think the the management part of it is extremely important um you know where joey talked about cold calling um i've never really had to do a whole lot of cold calling being in tuscaloosa um joe mentioned you know when he started everything was crashing but we had a condo boom that we were fortunate enough to be a part of representing all the developers here when they when they came to town and started building so when you manage the assets you get to understand the intricacies of the the workings of the properties the the income the expenses um you know and i hate to say this but with the theft we had yesterday uh before i before i left i told by you know one of our administrative folks that this this must be an inside job and then when i when i get there the detective also said something like that so you know you get this experience and you never want to be uh you know want to have a predetermination about something but um you know the the asset management or property management side of it is it gives me a ton of experience for any of these problems or the ability to problem solve when things come up when i'm doing what we call third party work which is we represent another landlord or we represent some tenants um but you know for tuscaloosa we're not like like martin and cassandra and joey our market is small enough to where we have to do a little bit of everything if if we want to kind of get to that next level of you know generating business deals and expanding on our you know expertise um you know it's uh you know with all the kids coming from around the country uh you know we see a lot of guys that you know developers people that do tenant rep work you know and and then you know they call us when they're in town visiting and uh if they say they're a ccim it immediately gets my attention um but um you know we no typical day but you know asset management's probably half of it and then uh we work on trying to secure leases for for other folks you know when we've uh when we got some time so no such thing as a typical day um yeah so yeah i think everybody will probably say the same thing if there's one thing that can be true about working in a real estate business uh is that every day is different i come in and and um you know i i can count on that it's going to be different than the day before and a lot of times when i come in i may have in my mind what today's going to be be like and a small fire will pop up that i've got to take care of kind of like patrick in that break in yesterday and it changes the outlook of the entire day you just walk in and get punched in the nose with something different you got to deal with it if you're fortunate enough i think that's what's going to happen you'll have business that's happening and every day i'll change my my everyday now uh while different is different than it was when i first got into business uh and when i first got in the business i probably had a little more routine because i had time to create routine and i think that's important you need to set aside a certain amount of your day to make outgoing calls whether it's if you've already picked up some business and you're trying to do the right thing for your client by finding new tenants for their space or by finding opportunities for a client that's looking for space or whether it's uh trying to find business for yourself you've got to set aside a time because if you don't do it you know it won't happen you're going to have to make yourself do it it's there's not another um well sales in general is like that but you know a lot of times if you go to work for some um medical equipment company you know what you're selling and you know who you're selling it to in real estate uh you just sort of have to figure out what direction you're gonna go it's totally self-directed and um so that makes it different um if i could say you know what i like best about working in real estate it's probably the freedom that it gives you to to make every day different and to chase the things that you believe will be best for you and your career and your family you know i encourage everybody if they do get into real estate to find a way to invest in some way whatever field of real estate it is that you get into you know that's that's my retirement you know where other guys might work at some professional career whether you're an accountant or an economist or whatever you don't have the opportunity to invest in that thing that you're doing every day you're investing in the stock market we can do that too but you don't know necessarily about the companies you're investing in and when you're investing in real estate that you're working on uh you're the expert and nobody knows how to care for it better than you do so i encourage you to look at that um you know if i had to pick out one thing that uh you know the thing that i like least about working in real estate it might be that you know every day i have to reinvent the wheel if i'm working on deals you know every day i start from scratch in some way certainly i've got things that are ongoing um but it can be a challenge and if you're not a self-starter it can be challenging for you but um i couldn't i couldn't have imagined anything uh better for me uh as somebody that's a self-starter and i like to control which way my life's going and this is a good way to do it and it's certainly been a blast for me um i have to say this the thing that i uh about um having my own company working in commercial real estate you you eat what you kill you eat what you care uh you have to be a hunter uh if you want to provide for your family you've got to go out there and hunt and you've got to go out there and make that kill and that's the way you're going to survive uh and that's challenging for me and i think uh i like that challenge and i know you have to self-analyze yourself and you've got to know what type of person you are and for me i constantly self-analyze myself and i know if i'm not making my numbers or uh uh if i'm not bringing home what i need to bring home i have no one to blame but myself i have no one to blame about myself so i have to go and reinvent the wheel which is okay which is okay for me uh uh i don't specialize i'm a little bit like patrick uh i'm not saying that i won't specialize i i definitely am looking into particular area but right now in order i like the fact that um i can be innovative uh my expertise is in different areas in order to uh provide for my family i do a little bit of property management i do a little bit acquisitions for my clients because my clients trust me because of that relationship thing they want me to do different areas and so if i'm doing them to a deal and they're not in the state uh they're out of state or whatever they might want me to uh properly manage the uh the commercial um um the transaction after they acquired it for some period of time and that's all you know and that's i like that you know to be led to be diverse and to have the expertise in order to uh problematic after i help my client acquire the property so um that's what i love about this industry and to be honest i learned so much from working and being a part of going to certain classes 60 out of classes with these guys these guys are telling me like people like patrick or uh they're telling me you need to uh acquire some property for yourself you need to when you see a big deal you may need to think about uh a crime for yourself just like he says so you can have some residual income uh when things are are not so good when you're not able to make a deal every month or every other month so i'd like to be around people who have more knowledge than me who i can learn from and that what that's what ccim has afforded me in this business um um you can't be the smartest uh person in the room if you're for me it's just me if you're the smartest person in the room then you're not gaining knowledge and i like being around people who've been in a business who have uh have a diversity of clients more diverse in mind and i continue to learn from these guys i like going to the meetings with them i like being even on forums like we are today to hear what they say uh because i although we re here with you guys and trying to uh inspire you guys and give you guys tonight i'm learning myself so you're constantly learning and i'm constantly learning in the game so what i like least is just offers what i like most if i don't have anyone black on myself until i build up that uh income uh that was that's great and i think everybody kind of touched on on the point especially what martin had said you know in this business especially commercial real estate you have to be a self-starter um you know you're not working the traditional hours you're going to continue to grind and build your pipeline and a great way you know building your pipeline is getting into the ccim and working towards that designation i know everybody and they'll later on tell you some of their stories but uh the first ccim class i went to was out in chicago outside of alabama and i i was about four years ago and i met six groups of guys from all over the country one in kentucky one in arkansas one in illinois one in iowa and we've kept in touch since four years later and uh i just received a referral actually this week um for a property in jackson mississippi in front of a walmart from you know one of my ccim classmates and each year as uh patrick had mentioned he gets a couple referrals uh we just kind of keep up that referral pipeline and it's really helped me create a pipeline get more business and then also another thing is the existing business you have um sometimes people uh say for these institutional reits or real estate directors they change they switch jobs sometimes a new person can take their place and uh one one recently for this read that i've been working with my contact where the dispositions for uh changed and so the new contact luckily uh was this lady who had her ccim designation she saw that i had my ccim designation we did a quick phone call and she said you know what i'm sticking with you because i i trust that i'm involved i like how you're involved in the the alabama chapter and we'll just continue to continue doing business with each other um so leading on to this kind of last question but before we kind of wrap this up and open it up for the students to ask it'll be kind of two parts what advice do you have for students interested in entering your chosen profession industry and how has ccim impacted your career and what advice would you give students on working towards it uh yeah joe so the uh the advice i'd have and this is just strictly from trial and error on my uh on my own behalf is you know talk to as many people as you can as often as you can um you know going back to what martin said birmingham is is just big enough to where you're able to specialize in an asset type whether that's industrial office retail multi-family having an idea of something and it could just be what piques your interest you know do you want to work more uh with blue collar folks that are in the industrial um uh sector of the business do you see yourself showing class a office space and the um you know in the in the large buildings downtown um do you like retail it can be is that something to go in to interviews with to where the folks that you're talking to and and you know jockeying for a position at their firm know that you have given this thought um ask people to help you um i do that today even when i'm working a deal with someone or cold calling it never hurts especially as a younger professional or student getting into the workforce to ask for help generally speaking people want to help you um you know flip it say what would you do if you were me knowing that you want to be in this in um how would you suggest that i go about getting the position uh at this firm or in this market um after you make your rounds and and talk to as many folks as you're able you'll have a pretty good idea of uh of what you want to do where you want to work you know seek out a mentor find someone that [Music] will help you you know i know some people are great success stories that have gotten into the business and been told here's your desk and your computer and your phone book uh good luck but it that's in my opinion and i don't know others would agree that's that's a really hard way to make it um find somebody that's willing to give you a shot and help you learn the business that's probably the the biggest um been the biggest success factor for me in my short career is that i had someone that took me under his wing and included me on deals and transactions until i was able to at least know how to talk the talk and um you know understand how the business works um and uh ccim has just it's been wonderful again my mentor fellow that i was referencing when i started probably eight months in he said you know this is something that you want to do long term you know you ought to look at going ahead and getting your designation and i did i didn't study i wasn't a finance major at alabama i was in consumer sciences taught with the idea of law school didn't have a big background in um you know in business or economics so not only was i networking learning the business uh in the language through the initial ccim courses but it was also a big confidence boost to work on some of these more heady um you know in the weed sources transaction examples uh from the best in the business your your professors in ccim are going to be the gold standard of uh you know successful real estate professionals they're going to help you and they're gonna help you learn and understand so you know in my opinion i don't think there's any reason to wait um i took three of my four ccim core courses in different cities around the east coast uh dc charlotte and charleston and did 101 in birmingham and kind of like joe said earlier i still have good friends from all of those courses and i think that in all but one in all but uh charleston i was the only guy from man or woman from alabama in my course so i made an effort to be personable and outspoken to where they ever thought here i have a deal in alabama do i know anyone in alabama i'll say there was that tall loud guy that wasn't very good at um you know pro formas or whatever it might be so the value of the ccim program is awesome and if you have any other questions about it from a relatively new designee's perspective feel free to ask me now or shoot me an email or give me a call so to to to kind of piggyback off uh what uh joey was saying um and i think a couple of people have mentioned like reinventing the wheel um i think in our daily tasks we do reinvent the wheel a lot uh just because every every uh instance opportunity problem whatever whatever it arises you know we've kind of got you know some experience to kind of to kind of pull off of and you know my advice to to anybody that wants to get in this business is to find somebody that that you can ride their coattails um experience is uh i mean you can't pay for it um and you can't um the only way you're gonna get it is getting your elbows scratched up busting your toe up you know having a bloody nose um and unfortunately you know the first five years you're in the real estate business you're trying to figure out what day of the week it is um because you're you know you're chasing and you're chasing and and you know you get something to you know to take you know to take hold but i'm i'm real big on uh you know finding you know experience is number one number two would be find a mentor um i've been very fortunate to have a couple of mentors in my life that you can pick up the phone and get an objective opinion about something because um one thing most of us in the commercial real estate bit we're all a little bit egotistical um whether we want to admit it or not but you know we like seeing our signs around but you know we really don't know everything and so i would suggest finding a mentor and then uh you know once you get you know once you get your career started snuggle up to the group of people the the ccims of the world or if you're you know in property management uh it's iram or you know you've got you know the sior and i think uh cassandra uh mentioned one that she's a part of but you know snuggle up to these people man um they're you know picked their brain ask their experience um you know i've got we're doing a deal with a publicly traded company and you know i'm i hope i'm not kind of blowing over everybody's head with this but you know i needed some advice on how to handle the guarantee of the lease and so i picked up the phone and i called you know uh lynn shannon who's a cc i am called ogden dayton who's a sior um you know and a couple of others that you know that had you know been into a bigger pond than what i'm typically uh you know swimming in on a daily basis but you know that the big thing is is being able to ask questions of people that have been there and done that um and if you can find somebody's coattails to get on i was i was very fortunate i did it for you know 12 or 15 years um let somebody else you know pay me to learn um and then you know once you figure out kind of the ultimate direction that you want to go in then then you can kind of start you know start smoothing up to the to the ccims and the ira members and you know all the people that you know find somebody that emulates what you want to uh where you want to be in life um you know and then then kind of go from there well um this is one area where i had actually written a couple things down um and and uh joey and patrick kind of nailed it um cassandra may say the same things i don't know but um because it's not some career you know with a super clearly defined path you know you're you're not going to have and as many folks to go out and and get information from but you have to do that you can't just go out and expect the information to come to you you've got to chase it and that's part of proving sort of who you are and what your character is um but i i'd say you know anything that's of interest within the realm of real estate go out and find people that are doing it figure out what what they're doing um see if they've got an opportunity for you don't be scared to ask for that opportunity um you know because i took a little bit of an odd path to get into real estate i missed you know five or six years by the time i got into it i was already married and worried about you know how am i going to be a provider and you know what am i going to put my wife through if if the path that you're looking at involve involves brokerage some of you may be going down the management path some may be looking to work with a developer or be an analyst and that's great too i can only speak to the brokerage side of the business and eat what you kill that cassandra was talking about don't do it as soon as possible dive in head first into that commission-based opportunity if you have to live at home do it don't fear it and if you work hard it will come people want to do business with people that are working hard and want to work hard don't be scared like um patrick and i think joey said to ask for help seek guidance and if you get an opportunity to work for somebody that can be a great mentor do that and work for free if you need to figure out you know wait tables at night chase your passion during the day and do it for no money uh until that opportunity comes and try not to think about the money i know it's hard but if you focus on the job if you focus on doing that thing that you're you're passionate about doing the rest will come and it'll come in spades so um you know i say don't worry about that get involved in groups get involved whether it's ccim or some other club in town that's focused on real estate get involved in groups where you find yourself forced in the best way possible to socialize with and communicate with people that are doing what you're doing at other companies this way you can find out about who's doing what maybe somebody's got some career path that you like better than yours uh it's never too late to make a change and by all means get your ccim again going back to my career path to get to where i am i didn't have a past in in real estate i didn't know the language i didn't know um you know the importance of certain things about the deal um the to people that i talked to about my experience in getting to ccim i always talk about it in terms of being a mini master's degree um you know it it educated me on so many levels so uh you guys are fortunate to have something i didn't have and that's the acre program and grayson as a resource uh take advantage of that and that pursue your ccim and and uh it'll give you instant credibility when you're out there in the workplace chasing deals and opportunities and feel free to call me anytime if anybody's got any questions or want to talk i'm an open book um martin i think uh what you said was uh spot-on um if i can't say anything else in this business knowledge is power knowledge is power but um one thing that cc item has provided for all of us is knowledge um i can say um for me um being open-minded uh has been powerful um being able to kind of like change what i need to change is powerful and also i also wanted to um what mark said is also patrick getting someone in uh or or taking someone's coattail and i have to say for me that was an instructor for ccim i to be honest just totally honest there's not many people who look like me and commercials say alabama but i an instructor from cci who has been who uh i just i've made about this for i just really had fun bill moss he's been a great friend he's been i can call on him at any time i don't care how long you are in this business uh you're gonna come or you're gonna get into a situation that you're gonna need advice from someone else and um you know if i can't call me a mosque and he gives me that advice the first thing he will tell me well the second thing he don't know is to put it in a ccim4 and i think joe that um we uh we found submission we have a forum uh with the ccim where you can put a situation that you're you come across in a deal and it blasts out to everyone who is a member of ccim all across the world and you get advice from people everywhere about that particular situation so that has been a big help to me uh if i can't uh turn to uh bill or someone locally i put my uh questionable situation i formed the cci 4 and i get advice from somewhere probably five states over i mean from everywhere so um relationship having uh being able to uh touch base with an instructor like be a moss uh being able to really tap into our form uh has been a plus and i have to say don't be afraid if you don't see a person like you uh if you don't see a female or some nationality uh there are always people here that are willing to help that uh you can reach out to myself and many of the other candidates so just don't be afraid to ask and don't be afraid to uh open yourself up to uh commercial that's great uh thanks again everyone uh for participating on the panel and just a repeat cassandra don't be afraid to ask as students everybody in this business loves to hear from the younger people wanting to get in and you're a student you have all the right to call up every owner of commercial real estate company in the state of alabama and ask just to get five five minutes on a phone conversation or even to meet them it really goes a long way when you pick up the phone and reach out to everyone and it's just i highly recommend that as a student the worst thing that could ever happen is they might say no and if you kind of can't handle no then this probably will not be a good business to get into because you'll be hearing that a lot but uh and if you look at all the uh ownerships in real estate companies in the state of alabama in birmingham huntsville mobile you'll see many of the principals and partners of those companies they have their ccim designation so if you sign up and become a student member and say hey i became a student member ccim i'm looking to explore that a little bit more i guarantee there's so many people who are you know find that very interesting and important to them that they'll definitely take the time out of their busy day just to chat with you so i know we're we ran a little bit uh past time but i'll turn it back over to grayson and if th re's a couple questions any students have uh be more than happy all right joe uh is are there any questions from students hey um my name is charlie i really appreciate y'all coming today i was wondering if y'all have any books y'all recommend about commercial real estate i do uh this book called brokers who dominate um look real quick uh keep my rod set up yeah yeah that's right it's it's great charlie it um gives you the young guns the like middle age brokers and then the guys that have been doing it for 50 years and it just gives you examples walks through how they got in the industry it's it's awesome hey miss johnson just talk about my office i'll let you like a little library just come by and see me i'll give you my copy darling oh awesome thank you so much i wouldn't particularly say about real estate as much as i would about life that's what that's what i'm reading right now i like it well and part of it is i didn't grow up on facebook it kind of came in right you know in my early 20s when i was trying to make a living so you know like i read a guy named gary vaynerchuk who understands social media i don't really understand social media but gary vaynerchuk and i said does um i also recommend uh if you're interested in commercial real estate uh you know what's going on worldwide and i had uh someone told me which i've been and and that is to uh get a subscription to the wall street journal i mean it's don't just read what's [Music] and i will say a shameless plug for ccim and and joe i know you're proud of me i haven't said a word in one hour so man i am i'm rolling but i want to thank the students for investing in themselves it's a small portion of skin in the game but it is time students to make a financial sacrifice 25 i promise you that's like five visits to starbucks in one week it's getting close to christmas ask your parents for a christmas gift whatever it takes when you're reaching out to and all our students are panel members know our students are coming from everywhere alabama across the united states you can say your name and you're a you're a member of csim guys you're a student member but you're you've just joined the fraternity you've just got you've just joined the five or six folks in this call just like that and then when you're over the holidays go to the ccm website get the directory find those in your in your in your town where you're you're you're going to be home for six or seven weeks i mean make hay while you're there and uh so it is just time to make that commitment if even if commercial brokerage is not the primary man ccim has all different types of members finance accounting appraisal so 25 is the promotion it's a gift that will keep giving it goes once you join it's on your linkedin profile which is your online resume your your paper resume uh just immerse yourself over holiday break and you know use them i'm mrs johnson i'm a proud student member of cci institute and just they're in your opening salvo with that whether it's via email or call it opens the door just like that so you know that's all i got as far as saying please at 25 bucks is a phenomenal deal and i'll close with that i want to thank our panel members joe everyone you're always giving back uh students always all these members are right here in alabama primarily in birmingham uh we have over 300 members from huntsville to mobile again when you join they become part of your family and and if you're up if you're a sophomore on this call today i mean do it now use it for two three years so i want everybody have a great rest of the afternoon uh my colleagues will see sam thank you again and we will see uh everyone soon enough stay safe and have a great thanksgiving and we'll talk soon thank you guys appreciate it there you go thank you guys you