I started in commercial real estate at 18, working at my family's office firm in Arizona. Over the years I assisted in more than $1.5 billion in transactions and developments, including representing a family office in the $701 million sale of more than 200 commercial properties in Phoenix.
I later spent ten years as a real estate instructor and trained more than 60,000 agents. When I moved into tech and marketing in 2018, I expected to leave all of that behind. Instead, I found that almost everything I learned in real estate applied directly to building brands and selling online.
1. Relationships close deals, not listings
A great property does not sell itself. People buy from people they trust. In CRE, the deals that closed were the ones where we had built a relationship long before the property hit the market. Online, the same rule holds. Your content, your emails, and your social posts are how you build that trust before someone is ready to buy.
2. Know your numbers cold
Commercial buyers do not care how pretty a building is if the numbers do not work. They want cap rates, occupancy, and cash flow. Your customers are the same. They may not use those words, but they want to know what they get, what it costs, and why it is worth it. Lead with value, and back it up with specifics.
3. Location matters, and online it means attention
In real estate, the right location can make an average building a great investment. In marketing, your location is wherever your customers spend their attention. For most businesses today, that is social media. Being in the right place, with the right message, matters more than having the biggest budget.
4. Training beats talent
After working with tens of thousands of agents, I learned that the best performers were rarely the most naturally gifted. They were the ones who learned a repeatable system and worked it every day. The same is true for sales teams and content creators. A simple system followed consistently will outperform brilliance applied at random.
5. Big deals are a series of small yeses
A $701 million transaction does not happen in one meeting. It is hundreds of small agreements, each one moving the deal forward. Good marketing works the same way. A follow, a click, a sign-up, a call. Design each step to earn the next one.
The takeaway
Whether you are selling a portfolio of commercial buildings or a product online, the fundamentals do not change. Build trust, know your numbers, show up where your buyers are, work a system, and earn every next step.