All posts by Keith Thompson

You don’t always have to be first, to win

Career

With many situations in life you want to be first, but there are also situations when coming in second isn’t so bad. In the sales world, particularly hotel real estate, it sounds almost sacrilegious, but there are times when coming in second place, is better. What do I mean? We have sold more hotels than I can count being the second brokerage firm to bring a property to market. In real estate like many professions, it is the first one in that gets all the seller’s lofty expectations and is on the receiving end of the seller’s frustration because the market is telling him/her their pricing expectations are out of line.

By the time the seller has vented his/her frustration and fired the first broker, it is sometimes (not every time) easier on the second broker to reach the seller’s expectations and many times that broker becomes the one that wins the day.

I have a good friend of mine who is an auctioneer and one of the funniest guys I have ever known. He has this saying that cracks me up every time I hear it. He says, “you want to be your wife’s first love, her second husband and her third real estate agent.” Again, it makes me laugh! What he is saying (in real estate terms) is you don’t have to always be first, and in fact many times being second or third isn’t always bad. KT

Testing the market

Career

In real estate, determining what someone will pay for an asset is the first course of action in the sales process. It all starts with the estimated and projected value of the (in our case, hotel) property. We are asked many times weekly and monthly to provide what we call a BOV. This stands for brokers opinion of value. This is not a sheet of paper with numbers on it, rather it is a 35-page book on the methodology of how we determined the applicable value for a hotel.

There are certain properties and certain times where as a broker, you just scratch your head on value and just put it on the market to see what someone will pay. Case in point was a foreclosed hotel in Vermont that was closed and environmentally contaminated. The property had Legionnaires’ and friable asbestos. Legionnaire is an airborne bacterium caused by standing water, mildew and mold. This was the worst property I had ever worked on. The lender was one of our biggest clients, so I couldn’t just punt the ball to someone else. I had to button my chin strap and get on it. I flew up to see the hotel and the address was so remote, it wouldn’t even show up on GPS. Once I found the place, there was guard outside to help you “suit up, mask up” before going inside. I had just spent 800 dollars getting there but there was no way I was going in that building. My 800 dollars was just so I could say I had been to the hotel. Ha

I remember the guard asking me if I wanted to go inside and I said, no,,,, I think I am good. He looked at me like, “why did you even come up here?’ No kidding, our, BOV value we told the client was, zero. Yes, zero. Nada, goose egg, donut. Zero! Well, if you are a broker, when you sell/ give something for free,,,,,you don’t make any money! Ha. Our strategy was to earn a long-term relationship with the client by getting them out of this deal, so after we gave our zero value, we told the client we were going to get them out of the hotel even if we didn’t earn anything to demonstrate our commitment. The client loved us for this commitment and we started the marketing process with the goal of giving it away if we had to.

Well fast forward to the marketing process. We put a price (not zero) on the hotel for marketing purposes and it wasn’t a week later, we get a call from a buyer living in Florida that had grown up near the hotel and his family had eaten in the hotel every Sunday when he was a boy. He has an emotion attachment to the property. He wanted it because it reminded him of his childhood. He offered to buy the hotel with no contingencies and paid a big number for the hotel and was just as happy as he could possibly be.

We earned that client’s business and favor and have since sold 60+ hotels for them. I guess our strategy worked.

It did teach me a big lesson. The actual value of real estate is in the eyes of the buyer, not us as the broker. This is the point; a buyer never buys anything without some emotional connection or reason. That my friend is why we as brokers do the best we can to estimate a property’s value but always realize the ultimate valuation, is what the market will pay. KT

Mirror Ministry

Life

There are many people who go through life and never understand the why, the how or the when. I believe if one can understand the why, they can get to the how and when of their life. Understanding the why, is, I believe the core issue to understanding who we become as a person. Back 29 years ago when I was at the point of bankruptcy, I found my why when I would look into the eyes of my wife and my two daughters. For me, that was enough. I didn’t need to read 21 books on life or hear speakers tell me the philosophy of changing or prioritizing my life. All I needed was my why, and I found it at home.

The title of this blog is mirror ministry and that simply means to look in the mirror because the only person that can change your life is looking back at you. No one else can decide and make you change. You can only make that decision yourself. It’s a funny thing that when you look in the mirror, it’s impossible to lie to yourself or use the excuses you tell others.

I was counseling with a person the other day and we discussed finding the why. The individual was consumed with wrong theology and basically stinking thinking. He/she just didn’t believe in their own self. I recommended an overnight trip to the mountains or just locking in the garage until they had the why in their life. The person did not take my advice and kept doing the same thing as before. They were either too afraid to honestly confront the person in the mirror or they were happy without knowing the why. They most likely will be in the same place in life five years from now as they are today.

The why makes hope come alive and hope, propels us to greater things in our life. There is something very special and very humbling when you force yourself to be honest on what is really holding you back. Don’t laugh, but when you are looking into the mirror, allow yourself to speak the words out loud. Examples would be “I am afraid because I am intimidated,” or “I am afraid because of what other people might think,” or, I don’t allow other people to see the real me because I am afraid they will disapprove.” This may sound strange, but it is biblical. The words that come out of your mouth represent what is in abundance in your heart. The only way to heal the fear, pain, hurt, failure is to speak the words out loud and let God help you deal with them. That may sound like hocus pocus magic but trust me when I tell you that the God that lives inside of you already knows the truth. He is just waiting for you to admit it. KT

The most important things

Family, Life

This morning I met a client at his office in what was expected to be a 20-minute meeting. It turned into an hour and a half. We talked about life and family more than business. It has always seemed to me that the more you get to know the client on a personal level, the better the relationship. That is true in business as well as personal life. That said, people can always tell if you are in it just to sell something but for me that has never been an issue. I truly enjoy knowing people on a personal level with or without the business component.

As we were talking, the three most important things in his office were hand drawings his three children made for him when they were young. Those three drawings were the only items framed on the wall. We talked about giving, charities and our mutual love for our families. I must think that because of the bond we developed personally there may be some business opportunities. If not, that is ok as well.

Last week I visited one of my oldest friends who is also a client. We have known each other for 29 years and his family has been in my home and our family has been in his. We know each other’s family, history children and have a great respect for each other. He is also one of three people in my life that I could call on to help if I was ever in need and vice versa.

Today when I got back to my office I looked around to see what represents the most important things to me. It’s the pictures of my family. There are 16 pictures that represent the greatest loves in my life. I have pictures of my daughters when they were little going all the way up through now. There are pictures of my wife, son in-laws and my granddaughters. When I looked around, I realized if someone came in that didn’t know me, they would quickly understand what is important to me. KT

PS,,,,,, I also have diecast models of my three dream cars. ha

Good and Bad examples

Family, Life

In life people have good examples to emulate and help guide their life and unfortunately many also have bad examples. I have always wanted to give our children good examples to follow and hopefully my wife and I accomplished this a little.

My parents separated when I was in the 3rd grade and both of my parents remarried within several years thereafter. While there could be some debate regarding the issue, I can tell you that in my parent’s case it was the right decision to make. My mother married one of the greatest men I have ever known and has been my dad from the first day. He and my mom always set the example of what a real family should be like which included safety, love, respect, thoughtfulness and honesty. They were my good example.

My dad remarried a woman and the life they had together set the example for me of what I never wanted my life to be. The opposite of the positive attributes I mentioned in the above paragraph were true for my father and stepmother. As soon as I graduated high school, I joined the Navy and never allowed myself to be influenced by them again. In high school I was the president of my senior class and caption of the football team but could never be good enough to earn their love. They never came to one of my games or school events and said by their actions how unimportant I was in their life.

Last week I was counseling with a young man in his 20’s with a similar family situation. I told him to cherish both the good examples and bad examples in his life because one shows you what you want and the other shows you want you don’t want. Both are equally as powerful and impactful to your life. I told this young man that when I left for the Navy, I knew I could never earn my dad’s or stepmother’s love, so I closed that door in my heart and stopped trying to achieve something I knew I was never going accomplish. I told this young man how I was always kind and respectful and often visited but I never allowed myself to open that door to my heart again.

Sometimes there are people in our lives that we just need to walk away from and gently close a door to our heart that we never allow to open again. Then there are the cases like my mom and stepdad where you cherish the relationship and do everything you can to keep it fresh in your life.

With the young man I was counseling, I don’t know if my story had an impact for him or not, but he did tell me several days later that he closed that door in his life and chose (he close) to start being the man he was meant to be instead of living his life influenced by his bad examples. KT