Building a Personal Brand for High-Value Clients | Brokers Round Table

A strong personal brand is essential for commercial real estate brokers looking to attract high-value clients, differentiate themselves from competitors, and establish credibility in the industry. In 2025, brokers must go beyond traditional networking and leverage digital platforms, content marketing, and thought leadership to gain visibility among investors, landlords, and corporate decision-makers.

Key Takeaways:

• Leverage LinkedIn and social media to become a thought leader by creating valuable, client-focused content rather than self-promotional posts.

• Ensure your social media presence and brand aligns with the type of high-value clients you want to attract.

• Publish regular, data-driven market reports to differentiate yourself and stay top-of-mind with potential clients.

• Seek out speaking engagements and other opportunities to position yourself as an industry expert.

• Develop a system to proactively identify and build relationships with the key players and decision-makers at large industrial, retail, and corporate clients.

• When given an opportunity to work with a high-profile client, make it your top priority to over-deliver and exceed their expectations.

Check out CRE Central: www.crecentral.com

About Your Host:

Tyler Cauble, Founder & President of The Cauble Group, is a commercial real estate developer and investor based in East Nashville. He’s the best selling author of Open for Business: The Insider’s Guide to Leasing Commercial Real Estate and has focused his career on serving commercial real estate investors.

Episode Transcript:

Tyler Cauble 0:00

This episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way. Go to www dot cre central.com to learn more. Welcome back to the commercial real estate investor podcast. We are live today with a broker's Round Table diving into building a personal brand for high value clients. If you're a commercial real estate broker wanting to know how to break into the 510, $20, million plus clients, or the big million dollar plus leases, this is going to be a great conversation for you, because we're going to talk through how you can leverage social media becoming a thought leader, as well as content marketing for lead generation, because that is one thing that everybody that is on this show is incredibly good at. And since it's pretty much just me and Chad right now, Chad's also amazing at it. For those of you all that don't know, Chad is actually the reason that I got started doing any sort of content creation whatsoever. He reached out to me back in like, 2015 or 2016 and in, you know, interviewed me for a Forbes article. And from there, I kind of reached out to him, and I was like, Hey, how did you get this gig with Forbes? What did that look like? How do you go about creating content? And he started sharing his blog and, and it was, it was really fascinating, because, you know, I think at the time, and probably still today, he was getting a majority of his leads through his blog and through the content that he was creating and sharing, and so figured, why not break that down a little bit more and dive into it? Adam, what's going on, man? So like I said, we'll kind of kick it off with the leveraging LinkedIn and social media. I mean, let's dive into the best practices for attracting investors and business owners. Obviously, LinkedIn is the best social media platform for that, because that's where your your highest and best customer probably is. So Chad, on the industrial front, what's the most effective way to showcase industrial properties and expertise online?

Speaker 1 2:16

Yeah, and it's an honor that's to have known you for that long, too, by the way, coming on, that's, that's pretty crazy to think it's been that long. I was looking at Twitter or x now, and I started my account in 2009 so that's Wow, 16 years. I guess coming on. That's crazy to think about. I guess the one premise that I would say is that nobody gives a shit about you, and I know that that's that's hard to hear, and we all think that we're super important, and people want to hear about what we did for what we had for lunch, or how we just went to a cool conference, or we went on a holiday. Nobody gives a shit. Maybe your close friends do, but everyone else doesn't care, because they're concerned about what's on their desk, or they're concerned about a vacancy they have coming up, or there's some problem that they have, they don't care about you. Don't take that personally. They don't care about me either. What they do care about is solving their problems. So I think it takes a fundamental reshift on how people have traditionally thought about marketing, and it's especially marketing on social media, is that it's not about you unless you are incredibly charismatic or really hot chick, which we've talked about numerous times on this channel, that people do care about hot chicks. So unless

Unknown Speaker 3:42

on this call,

Tyler Cauble 3:44

yeah, if you really care about hot chicks, you're turning into the wrong show. Sorry.

Speaker 1 3:52

But they do care about things that help them. So if you can create content that speaks to them, all of a sudden, you're differentiating yourself from the guy that just goes and posts nothing but just sold or just listed or very self serving posts. And there's time and space for that. I do think that. But overall, as a high level, you need to be offering value to people that are tuning in. And if you really want to scale, if you really want to grow a big audience, you have to be focused on the audience so that that's that'd be foundational. Thing that I would say, is make it client focused, audience focused. Anything you put out Ask, ask a question, are people going to find value in this, or does this just add to the endless amount of noise that we all see on social media and become almost desensitized to it, because we see so much of it, separate yourself by adding value and speaking to the audience, or by being a hot chick.

Tyler Cauble 4:52

Yeah, if you could separate yourself by being that good for you. Chad. Do you have any anecdotes that come to mind of. High value clients that have come directly from a LinkedIn post or LinkedIn Outreach.

Speaker 1 5:06

Well, here's the best part, is that I haven't had anybody that's actually just sent me a DM and said, Hey, I liked your post. We should talk business. Where it does happen, though, is that if I'm talking to somebody in person or at a networking event, it will come up and say, yes, I've been following you for however long, and I really like whatever you're having to say on this market or your approach to it. And that leads to business. And I think that that's, that's the misconception that everybody has, is that you just, you go out and put a post out, and again, I've been on this for 15 years, so I've, I've put the time in on this to actually have a decent enough track record to be able to look at this is that the business comes by the work that you're already putting in. So if I'm cold calling someone, the amount of times that I've cold called someone and they've said, Oh yeah, I follow you on Twitter. I've been connected with you on LinkedIn, crazy amount of times. So at that point, it's not even a cold call. I'm calling somebody who knows who I am, just because I've, I've been putting out this content. So I think that that's that's been really powerful, is don't look at it, at social media as terms of being a lightning rod of new business coming in. Look at it that it strengthens your existing prospecting efforts that much more. So that'd be the key thing that I would say on that is, Don't lower your expectations, just change your expectations.

Tyler Cauble 6:30

Yeah, I think that's really powerful, because LinkedIn is basically a business billboard for you that you don't have to pay for, right? And so if you're taking advantage of it and you're sharing thoughtful content on a daily or, you know, multiple times a week basis, you're going to constantly be in other people's feeds. And that's, that's really what, what starts to matter. I mean, Adam on the retail front, I mean growing from, you know, working with with smaller local retailers to some of these big national brands that you've got. I mean, it's, it's kind of a big leap, man, I would love to know, especially since you know retail brands are heavy into social media, right? Especially Instagram, like you guys are. I mean, how can retail brokers utilize social media to engage with those types of clients?

Speaker 2 7:16

So two things, I'm going to answer that, but I want to go back to something that Chad said real quick, yeah, I and they're kind of the one of the same. A lot of times when I am going on, pitching, pitching business, talking proposals, and this can be on the landlord or tenant side, the number of times to echo what he said a second ago, that they said something like, Hey, I listened to some of your podcasts. Hey, I read this thing that you put out on LinkedIn is it's much more often than not that I hear that when I'm in these proposals. So to reiterate it, it is definitely not just like throw a hook in the ocean, expect to land some kind of whale. It's more of just kind of building the the scaffolding or building the foundation that that when people talk to you, they're like, hey, there's a reason this guy's supposed to be in this room, right? There's a reason why this guy's in that room. So I just want to add on to that, because I thought it was a really good point, and I can't agree more with that on and kind of in that vein, I've never looked at social media as I'm going to go out and land this, this perfect avatar for my business on that the way that we really try to look at our social media and our LinkedIn, and it's a working process, but is more to make sure that that we pass kind of the vibe check and the credibility check for these type of users, right? Like, like, we've done a lot of work with just this month. Like, we got a lot of deals get done with chop salad and Ace Hardware. And sorry my somehow I'm ringing into my computer, apologies. So just just having the type of social feed that shows that that we that they're in the right place, we're in the right room. We share a vibe. We understand esthetics, we understand their brand. And I know that can sound different, because when you think of Ace Hardware and chopped salads, you know, one wants to be in the middle of Manhattan, and one is okay in secondary and tertiary markets, but it's still, it's, it's, it's understanding how customers work and how brand works. So that, to me, has always been much more important than like, Hey, let me pay a bunch of money to meta to make sure that all my posts are amplified in this kind of pay to play model and much more like add value, add thought leadership, and really get across kind of our brand ethos and what we like to work on. Some of that becomes. Kind of self selecting, right? Like people can see, like, This guy's a little too edgy for me, this guy, you know, we don't really fit, and that's fine, too. Yeah. I mean, that's what

Tyler Cauble 10:09

you want, right? I mean, if somebody goes to my Instagram and sees me covered in tattoos, wearing a t shirt, they don't want to work with me because of that good I don't want to work with you either, because that would not be fun, right? Like, we're clearly not on brand for each other. I think that's an important point. I mean, if you're going to go out and attract a certain type of Avatar, a certain investment group, you want to speak their language, right? And that means crafting a LinkedIn profile that fits that it means. I mean, if you guys want a really cool like, if you want a good example of what it looks like to be a cool social media company. Go check out rebel rebel, because Adam and his team do a phenomenal job on Instagram, setting the vibe like you can tell like when Adam says that, like, that is exactly what they mean, Chad. I mean, kind of getting back to what we were talking about earlier, with with you, you know, helping me get my entree into the world of creating content. I mean, you've been writing market reports for years. I mean, years, and you publish them on your website and you share them in the newsletter. I mean, how can other industrial brokers leverage data driven reports, like what you're doing in order to stand out the market? And also like, how has that benefited you.

Speaker 1 11:23

This is an interesting topic, because I think, and you're not active in brokerage anymore, but you've spent a lot of time in brokerage. The brokerage community at large thinks in quarters, and sometimes not even in quarters. We might think in days, what's on my desk right now? What's on my desk in three days, and that's what I'm focused on. I think anything beyond that simple idea becomes too far out for a lot of brokers, whereas that's that's where the opportunity to really build a meaningful brand becomes so powerful. Because if you take a long term approach and in for my marketing, I think in five to 10 years, which is almost crazy when you compare that to on my desk right now, is stuff that I have to deal with right now, I'm thinking of my marketing. What can I accomplish over five to 10 years? And to do that, I'm thinking I need to put out something quarterly, so I still have that, that mindset of getting something regularly. But if I do that over time, if I'm making touch points with a potential investor or somebody that I want to do business with, and it's over several years that I'm going to be top of mind for that person, because I'm creating something and actually giving them something of value, as opposed to just calling and checking up and saying, How is business? Anything I can help you with if I'm sending them something saying, Here's a market report that I specifically made. It's not just a generic costar report, but it's actually something that puts some thought into you just start differentiating yourself. And it's akin to that idea that you're not going to send out one newsletter and all of a sudden get business off of it, and you're not going to make a post on Twitter or LinkedIn and automatically get business out of it. It's that long term mindset. And I think social media ties in very neatly with being a thought leader. Is that it's over time, and it'd be no different if, if you're looking to hire a lawyer, and you see a Lawyer Go on and put something out about an interesting legal topic, you're not going to be like, Yeah, I'm going to switch my lawyer, because this what this guy made a really good argument. You're not. No one's going to do that, and they're not going to do that with their broker either. But if you're following that lawyer regularly over years, and something happens with your current lawyer, and you're like, I've been following this guy really like him, that's who you're going to reach out to every single time you're going to reach out to a guy that you've been following. So I think that that's what brokers need to embrace, is you're creating content that people are going to get some value from, and you're doing it over the long haul. And that's not sexy, and it's not fun. It's not fun thinking I might start a relationship with somebody that I might never do business with. That's not a fun thought. But five years down the road, if you do business with that person, that five years is going to go by either way. So you want that five years to go by and not have a have that client for you, or that five years to go by and potentially have a huge client. So that'd be the one thing that I'd recommend, is creating something of value. Differentiates yourself from 99% of all the other brokers, and having that long term outlook is building a career, as opposed to just building a job and just building

Tyler Cauble 14:30

tasks. Yeah, you don't have to be the best. You just have to be the one that they know, right? And that's who's getting the phone call. Adam.

Speaker 2 14:39

I'm not putting that on my business card. Yeah, I'm not the

Tyler Cauble 14:43

best, but I'm not the best, but you call them, that's great. That would be a funny, that would actually be a hilarious business card, like back of the card. Quote, Adam, you mentioned the. Podcast earlier. That's actually how you and I originally met, was you were running redeveloped, retail, redeveloped and, you know, I'm sure you've done some speaking engagements too. I mean, how, how does that help you as a retail broker, gain credibility within the market with some of these higher profile clients? It

Speaker 2 15:18

just keeps coming back to thought leadership, you know, it keeps coming back to trying to add value these speaking engagements, like I'm doing one in three weeks, it's going to be a total pain in my ass. Like, there I'm having to go and get, you know another panel member I'm going to have to emcee, like they want me to do slides, none of which I want to do right at all, but it's, we're a really good group. There's going to be a ton of architects and property managers in the room, and it's just another way to be in the right room, not asking for anything, not handing out business cards, not, you know, looking like you need business like, Hey, I'm here because people that organize this think that I can add value to this group. I'm here to add value to this group. I want nothing in return. And, you know, to Chad's point, when, when they have that need, that that I'm not even really selling them, it's going to be very easy for them to pick up the phone and put me in touch with somebody to fill that need. So it's not something that I necessarily go out and continually cultivate. But every time I'm asked to do one, not every time, almost every time I'm asked to do it, I gladly do it. I gladly help. Because there's just something about about being in the room and and being looked at as a thought leader that you can't put a price tag on. It's just, it's, I just think it's really important. I always have, yeah,

Tyler Cauble 16:53

Adam, you should. You should pull a Tyler Cobble and just start showing up to speak at these conferences in a T shirt and jeans. That'll that'll really make you look like you don't need the business. They're gonna love you.

Speaker 2 17:06

One day, I hope to have those kind of cojones Tyler one day, I'm already in Charlotte. I already people make fun of me that I show up to meetings looking homeless. So I don't know if, I don't know if I'm probably ready to make that next leap. The beer doesn't help either. Beer doesn't help. Like,

Tyler Cauble 17:23

can you please get this guy out of here? We're waiting on Adam,

Unknown Speaker 17:28

waiting on the professional to show up. That's

Tyler Cauble 17:30

right. Okay, so a lot of what we've talked about so far today has been relatively passive, right? I mean, yeah, you can go out there and you know, maybe you're actively doing LinkedIn posts, but you're gonna let that kind of do the fishing for you while you're out hunting. I want to talk about actually prospecting for high value clients. Like, what are the action items on your list on a day to day basis, to get in front of these people? How do you identify them? Well, you know, how do you build long term relationships? I mean, Chad on the industrial front, what strategies work best? I would imagine, industrial developers, larger corporate logistics companies, probably high ticket clients for you. How are you finding these guys? How are you networking with them and building a relationship?

Speaker 1 18:13

Yeah, I think it comes down having a system. You need to have a good CRM system, and you need to be diligently tracking who the players are. And I'm in a city of about a million people, so kind of a small to mid market size market. In bigger cities like a New York or Los Angeles, you might be so focused that you're only looking at several blocks in downtown Manhattan. That might be your niche. I think you just figure out what the size of the pool is on, what you're going to go after, and I go after industrial. So figure out who the big players are, put them into and it's not difficult like you spend a year or two in the business, you're going to identify just based on transactions and who's in the market. You're going to figure that out relatively quickly. And these people are accessible. They want to be looking at deals. If anybody that's a player in this industry wants to be looking at deals, they want to be talking to more brokers. They want to be on their radar. So they're very receptive to having a phone call where they're not receptive to is just making a quick switch, because anybody that's successful in this industry, they have powerful relationships already with brokers. That's just a fact. You're coming into it and trying to deal with a company that owns 5 million square feet. They've got significant relationships that they've probably had for decades. Your job, if you're trying to get in there, I think, Well, I think there's a couple ways where I've had successes seeing if they have any properties that they're really struggling with, any assets that you're having a really hard time leasing up or you just haven't been able to sell? Would you give me a crack at it? Just let me show you what I can do. I'll take your worst property, thing that you've been having the hardest time doing with, and let me put a lot of attention and noble grease into it. That foot in the door technique is helpful, but it really comes down to just being there. Being top of mind when something does go wrong, because just as every successful player in this industry has strong relationships, those relationships almost inevitably end. That's for some reason. Guy retires, he gives it to his junior broker. There's not a fit. Maybe there's an age gap, or something happens where there just isn't a fit, and that client wants to make a move, they will eventually make a move. Their relationships are very loyal, but that loyalty can be tested, and all you want to do is be the person to be in that position where, when they think about making the move, you're the top of mind. That's That's it, in a nutshell. Other than that, trying to pierce a strong relationship with the with a client that has a broker that they really like, it's futile. I think your efforts you just spent somewhere better else. But that doesn't mean not to keep planting seeds. You still want to be planting all those seeds along the way. You're just you. The chances of you successfully getting that broker out of the picture. It's just very unlikely. Yeah,

Tyler Cauble 21:02

I was taught a phrase by an older real estate agent when I was first getting into the business, and everybody listening to this podcast should just steal it if you're in this exact same spot. But whenever I was cold calling, he told me, tell them, Look, I know you've already got a guy. I just want to be the second guy, right? I'm the backup, right? If anything ever goes wrong, I just want you to know I'm here. I'm ready to take care of it. I know you got a guy 2am

Unknown Speaker 21:28

you're the 2am choice.

Tyler Cauble 21:32

Text me. You text me. You are going on

Unknown Speaker 21:34

the bar.

Unknown Speaker 21:37

I'm not a hot chick, but I could tell some funny jokes.

Tyler Cauble 21:42

That's right. Yeah, I'll be there. I'll be there, baby.

Let's dive into franchises, national retailers. I mean, how are you breaking into the door with these guys? Right? I mean, you know, kind of, kind of leaning into what Chad was saying. I mean, these guys have a guy generally, or if they're moving into a market, there's probably a a corporate real estate director. You know, how are you building How are you finding that person? How are you building that relationship, and how are you getting ahead before that person's had a conversation with the next guy?

Speaker 2 22:19

Luckily, there's there it, the room gets kind of small when you're doing national retail, restaurant stuff. So a lot of times these people are coming out of, you know, New York, Chicago, LA, and there's a pool of national brokers that like to take these, take these people all over the country. But the problem with with that is, they can't really do that by themselves, right? It's almost impossible. So the smart guys that that are, you know, head of restaurants for JLL or Cushman or CB, they try to find the expert in the market, in, you know Nashville, Charlotte, you know DC, wherever, wherever these places are. So you don't have to be the best broker in the country, right? You really have to own your market demonstrably, right, like you have to really be able to prove even before somebody shows up, right? Even if they're doing a Google search, even if they're calling a buddy, there's their one to college with in Charlotte that is kind of somewhat involved in industry, you have to be on that list. And so it really comes down to two things. One, nurturing long term relationships, really providing value to people once. So when they get that question, they don't even think about they don't even think about giving two or three different choices to give one, and really knowing how to cultivate those national relationships with the people that might that they might not just rep one brand, they might rep 10 or 15 brands, and so you know that anytime that brand starts to look anywhere in the Carolinas, you're at least going to get a phone call. Maybe you don't automatically get the business, but you're going to get a phone call. So that, for me, has worked time and time again, and it's snowballed, right? You get you have to get lucky somewhere down the road and get a shot at at a deal that you're probably not qualified to do, and when you get that shot, you better stop everything else you're doing and and perform for that person, because it's, I mean, it's paid dividends for me for 1520, years. Yeah,

Tyler Cauble 24:34

all it takes is one deal right to totally change your track record, right? If you can go around and say, Oh yeah, I just did you know five locations for torches, tacos to the next usr that's coming through. They're a

Speaker 2 24:47

huge pain in the gas for the record, and I don't care if they're watching, holy crap. Sorry. Continue.

Tyler Cauble 24:54

That's amazing. No, I appreciate that. The brokers need to know, man, just. Bro,

Unknown Speaker 25:02

dude, not dropped what I'm doing.

Tyler Cauble 25:04

We could sit here and talk for days about the national retailers that are, I mean, Starbucks, I'm looking at you, buddy, they are horrific to deal with. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 25:13

No comment, no comment on that. Yeah,

Tyler Cauble 25:18

it's, you know, it's, it's something we'll have to do, like a private conversation around that one sometimes we know, recording, yeah, well, Patreon. Check our Patreon. Yeah, for only five bucks a month. Oh, guys, if you listen to the podcast of takeaways, I mean leverage, LinkedIn and social media right. Get out there. Get in front of these people. Become a thought leader. Start sharing your thoughts on these things. And when you couple that with the active prospecting like what we were talking about here, it really is going to amplify your ability and hopefully your deals closed. So thank you guys for joining us on another round of the brokers round table. We will catch you all in the next one, don't forget to like and subscribe and let torches tacos know to stop being a pain in the ass. It's

Unknown Speaker 26:07

pretty good, but

Tyler Cauble 26:09

food's great. Yeah, see you guys, this

episode of the commercial real estate investor podcast is brought to you by my cre accelerator mastermind, where you'll get access to my step by step investment blueprint, essentially a library of resources on how to invest in commercial real estate. You'll get connected to a supportive community of other commercial real estate investors that are doing projects just like you. You'll get personalized coaching and feedback from me every step of the way, go to www dot cre central.com

Unknown Speaker 26:41

to learn more you.