YOUR INTENTION MATTERS! The Sales Podcast
YOUR INTENTION MATTERS! The Sales Podcast
Ep. 213 - Paul Choukourian (Executive Managing Director & Market Leader @ Colliers International)
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Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Your Intention Matters the Podcast. My name, of course, is Paul Madot. Thank you very much for being here today. We have Paul Chakurian. He is executive managing director and market leader coming to us from College International in Detroit. Paul, how are things in the big city in Motown? Everything's great here. I was gonna say the motor city, but is that still a term?
SPEAKER_01It's the motor city, it's the Motown home. It's uh yeah, motor city is probably my favorite.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. And did I get your last name correct?
SPEAKER_01Yes, you did. Chikorry and right.
SPEAKER_00Check that box. Perfect. Good to reconnect. Thanks so much for being here.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. So do me a favor, say hi to everyone and provide a real quick introduction.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Hello, everyone. My name is Paul Chikori, and I'm, as Paul mentioned, the executive managing director and market leader for Detroit. And actually, now for the entire state of Michigan, we've got about six locations throughout Michigan. I've been here for 15 years. My background is uh office and industrial leasing. I started with a small development company where I got really great roundabout experience with leasing, with construction, with property management. And then I next moved on to a REIT where I focused on leasing of large industrial and uh office buildings. And then I ended up joining Colliers in 2011. And at the time we were just in uh or I would say towards the end of a big you know recession, as most people are aware of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And colliers in Detroit had gotten beaten up pretty good. We were down to about nine brokers, and uh at that time best breaking even if not losing money. And I've been fortunate enough to uh to last here 15 years, and and we've now grown to about 65 brokers just out of Detroit. So we're probably I think clearly the biggest uh brokerage firm here in in Metro Detroit and now probably the state.
SPEAKER_00Paul, what was it before nine in 2011 in terms of headcount roughly?
SPEAKER_01Before, like what at its peak? Well, I would say in the in the 90s and early 2000s, Colliers was the biggest firm historically. We we had probably about 50 brokers at one time here, and then we went down to nine in the recession, and you know, the leadership previously uh had retired, and you know, they had just gone through a big transition. So you combined all the factors, and and yeah, we would we got uh probably I'd say rock bottom in around 2010-ish, 11 before I joined.
SPEAKER_00And you built it back up. Congratulations.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha, Paul. Remind me, married father, neither, both.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, married, four boys.
SPEAKER_00Four boys, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_0125, 22, 16, and 14. I just uh last night attended my youngest son's eighth grade graduation.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. Wow, amazing. Are they still all on the payroll?
SPEAKER_01No, no, then the good news is my 25-year-old is uh he sells software and he just took a new job and he's moving to Miami. My 22-year-old is uh college student and uh college athlete at Purdue. He plays football for Purdue.
SPEAKER_00Where's Purdue again?
SPEAKER_01That's West Lafayette, Indiana.
SPEAKER_00Indiana, gotcha.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then my 16-year-old's uh gonna be a junior in high school and now uh soon to be ninth grader in high school.
SPEAKER_00Wow, busy. Yeah, all right. Well, nice to reconnect. Thanks so much for being here.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_00You know, Paul, as we were talking before I hit record, and obviously you have a better sense as to what I do for a living with my partnership with callers. The podcast really stems from my my mindset as it relates to mindset overall, specific to sales, because every salesperson can be armed with every tool to go dominate, but if we're not wired, ready to go, we're likely not going to get the results that we want. And I'd love your take on that coming from a commercial real estate perspective, given the fact that unless I'm wrong, in most circles, there's no leads for anybody in your space.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh mindset, as you said, is is is everything. That's what guides everybody and their daily actions and activities. Uh and in real estate, it's I kind of joke, I think it's like the land of misfit toys because you you kind of have to have a screw loose to be a broker. I mean, not a lot of not a lot of people are uh excited about going in to a 100% commission position where you basically lose money every day, and you've got to truly create your own opportunities and upside in a lot of senses. Uh so it's it's bad in that regard, but it's also a beautiful opportunity with high earning potential and and a sense of freedom. So, really, for this business, mindset is everything. And you know, a few things that I think are important is long-term thinking. You know, when a young broker comes to me, I describe it as you're building a house, and in your early years, you're building the basement and you're digging the hole and you're almost starting in the hole. Yeah, and then you know, after a couple of years, hopefully you got your basement done and now you're starting to lay the bricks. And as you do your as you build your career, one day you're gonna come home and have a beautiful house that you can live in, and that's where you've got an established book of clients, and your business just hums. Uh so that that takes a lot of things, that takes resilience, it takes the ability to up, you know, recognize opportunities. Uh you have to build relationships. I mean, as as you everyone knows in commercial real estate, building the relationship with a client is critical. I mean, that's that's everything. Uh, and you're gonna be continuously learning. You know, I've got I've got some amazing brokers in my office, and a few of the oldest ones and longest standing ones are the ones that are telling me all the time that they're still learning and constantly growing and learning. And you have to. Every day it changes, every everything changes in this business every day.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. You know, Paula, I I want to go back in time with you a little bit here, if you don't mind. Uh, you went to Michigan State, correct? That's right. Yes. Is that the Trojans? Spartans. Spartans, Spartans, sorry. Kid from Canada here. Kid from Canada here. Close, close trying here, truly trying. So, okay, so you so you went to Michigan State. I saw that you took business. What I'm curious about is when did you get into professional selling as your first kind of as your first selling job?
SPEAKER_01So how did that happen? Yeah, when I went to Michigan State, and and this is another thing I think most people recognize there's not a lot of real estate focuses in in college. There's a few colleges now, I think Wisconsin's got a program, uh New York, I think there's a program in New York. There's a few good real estate programs around the country, but many colleges don't have a real estate major. So you have to kind of take business courses. If you I always knew I wanted to get into commercial real estate. I I think that's another question I always ask people. Why do you want to be in commercial real estate? There's got to be something that's pushing them. Some people might just think it's for the money. That to me is the wrong reason. In some cases, it's you know, I love architecture. Like for me, I love construction, I love architecture. I think real estate's tangible. You can touch it, you can go look at a property and understand, you know, what makes it a good piece of property or a negative. What are some of the negatives? So, anyway, Michigan State, I I studied business, but I took finance, I took some construction classes, I took some ergonomics classes, just things that I thought would help me because I always knew I wanted to get in commercial real estate.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so commercial real estate was your first selling job, so to speak, professionally.
SPEAKER_01When I my first job out of college was for a developer, and I uh I was I I guess I was selling. I did a little bit of everything. I did construction, we were building, I did build-outs, but it was purely office back then. The the firm that I worked for was just an office developer, but I did leasing, so in that regard, I did a lot of uh marketing, sending out the flyers, talking to the brokers that had tenants that needed space. So I was on the landlord side of the equation.
unknownGotcha.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, that would be my first selling job.
SPEAKER_00You know, Paul, the reason why I asked the question is because anybody who listens to this podcast knows my background a little bit, where I gained my my pedigree in selling was selling for Xerox. And so I was flipping copiers for a long time. But when I when I joined that company, I went in with a very much a I'll give it six months kind of mindset. I I'd been out of work at the time, I was looking for a job, I had no background or mindset or thought of selling at all. I came from finance and economics, and that was kind of my my base, so to speak. And then all of a sudden I found myself out of work. Buddy in my calls me up and says, Hey, I think there's a job opportunity for you. Why don't you go apply? And I'm like, selling? Well, I don't I don't know anything about this. This is this is not in my wheelhouse at all. So I joined Xerox at the time, I was 100% commission, and in that first year, man, did I ever struggle. I I just could not get my grounding, and I was all in in early, out late, working hard. Like there, like failure was not an option. But to the where I'm going with this, I must have mentally quit five or six times in that first year. I just couldn't figure it out. And I'm curious about your experience when you first got into professional selling. Did you take to it right away? Was it like me? Was it a hard, or what was it like for you early on?
SPEAKER_01You know, that's a funny question and a great question. I think some people are naturals, and I think some people have to really work at it. And I think I'm lucky in that regard that for me, I think selling kind of came naturally. Uh I I think in you know, different people's and personalities uh and different different uh personality types, I love talking to people, I love meeting new people, I love interactions. So to me, anytime I have an opportunity to spend time and and talk to someone or get to know them, uh, and I think that helps sell. So I think the people that have to work at it more, they need to develop a uh style. And I tell these guys, you know, who are young brokers in the office, you know, what's your learn your strengths, learn your weaknesses, learn what makes you appealing to to somebody and and why they're gonna trust you, why they're gonna believe your information or believe you. So for me, I I I would I would say selling kind of came easy. And and I think that's helped me in my uh my managerial role. A big part of managing brokers and staff is relating to them and and recruiting, right? When you're trying to build uh an office and you want to bring over the best people, yeah, being able to connect to someone is is a huge part of that. They want to believe in you and trust you and feel good about you in order to make the move.
SPEAKER_00Did you relish the 100% commission world?
SPEAKER_01I did. I did. And when I talk to young brokers, I say, look, this is a risk for you, but it's also one of the greatest opportunities. I've got brokers who make more than brain surgeons, you know. I've got brokers who make more than you know most people can ever imagine. And and that's because they took the risk of doing 100% commission. You know, if you want a nice, comfortable salary, you're gonna be capped, you're gonna be limited. So that's what I think draws people to this business is they want to own, you know, and this is what I tell them as well. I say you basically own your own little company, you're you know, X, Y, Z broker at Colliers, but you're your own little entity, and you've got the ability to create your own business plan and grow your business and benefit from it. So that's what draws people to brokerage, I think, as well as having flexibility and freedom.
SPEAKER_00You know, Paul, as I mentioned uh a minute ago, I gained my start selling copiers at Xerox. Uh, again, I went in with a six-month mindset, we'll see what happens, see how it goes. It turned out to be almost 10 years of my career, some of the best years that I've had. And I kind of went through the Xerox path, so to speak, sales rep, product specialist, sales manager. I then became a trainer there and I ran a division for Western Canada as well. But when I turned when I became a sales manager at that company, that was a really hard transition for me. I was terrible at that job because what I quickly realized early on was that it's a totally different skill set required. When you carry a bag, to your point, it's your own business, it's you do what you do, you're you're you're on the feet, on the streets, pounding pavement, you're trying to gain deals. Managing is totally different. And what I ended up doing, which was a recipe for disaster, was this is what I would say. Well, here's how I did it, Paul. So here's how you should do it, which was just a nightmare. And so I'm curious about your decision to get into leadership. Was it yours? Did somebody pat you on the back to say, let's do this? Or how did that happen?
SPEAKER_01Well, so I never I guess thought of myself as a manager or a leader. I love deals. To me, I'm a deal junkie. Uh, so when this opportunity presented itself, it was uh it it intrigued me. I really, you know, I said I've never thought about you know being a managing director of a firm. So uh it it I gave it a lot of thought. And obviously here I am. I I decided to take this this position, and I love it. You know, what I've realized is I think to be a good managing director, you have to be somewhat of a salesman. I mean, you really do. And and that's like I'm so where I was looking at real estate as my deals, and I'm looking at an office building, and I'm saying, well, here's you know, 15,000 square feet, and we can remove these offices and open up this floor plan and do these things, and here's the rental rate, and we can give you some free rent, but I need to make it up on the on the years four and five, you know, where I was structuring those deals, where you know, you're trying to make them everyone kind of happy and come to a deal, it converted for me into recruiting. So, one of the most important parts I think as uh as a managing director is building a strong group and a strong firm, and that requires recruiting. So I turned the real estate deal into people deals. So now my deals are people, and it's kind of the same thing. So when I'm talking to someone who's at another company and they're considering making a move and they're talking to four other companies, I've got to sell them why Colliers is the best. What advantages do we have? I know I need to understand what's important to them, what are their hot buttons, what are their you know, deal breakers. So it it became that became my new deal, and that's that's how I have attacked it, and uh and it's been I think very it's worked for me. So the managerial part is everyone again has their own styles, you know, when when when some managers are very I think you know, here are the rules, here's the box you have to fit inside, and they just exercise and they just you know enforce enforce the rules, it's and different managers do different things. I'm more of a relationship manager where again I want to understand. I'm not saying I'm like their best friend, they know, but they know I'm here for support, I'm here to help them, and I think they trust me. Where if they have a deal that they're having a hard time on, they can talk to me about it because I've been there. If they're having a challenge with a coworker, they can come to me and we can talk about it. So I think I've earned the trust of everyone in this office because I've done what they've done and I've been there and and I can help them through deals and I can help them with with uh you know situations.
SPEAKER_00Well, congrats on the success to this point, especially given where you started with only nine when you first joined the organization in Detroit, now where you are today. And so, you know, Paula, I've never walked in your shoes in terms of selling commercial real estate, but in my business today, if there's one industry that keeps me the busiest, it's yours. And with my partnership with Colliers uh in particular, and so where I'm going with this, I want to go back to 2020, where when COVID took over the world back in 2020, 2021. Obviously, it was a massive impact for all of us globally, but your industry in particular, at the time I felt got hit pretty hard in terms of its impact, to the point where I received a phone call from a colleague of yours at MD in one of the local offices, calling me up, saying, Hey, Nisapal, I want to talk to you about something. Um, I would never do this to you, but I have no budget, I have I have no ability to pay you, but I've got these brokers kind of in limbo right now. Can you support me in any capacity? Because we're in Uncharted Waters here. And I'm curious about what it was like for you as you were leading the charge back in 2020, 2021 with the whole work from home movement and furloughing and so like how'd you manage that? That could not have been very easy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it was not, no. And it was, it was uncharted waters for everybody. But I again I went back to connecting with everybody as often as I could. We would we would try to have calls to keep everyone engaged. You know, I think a lot of people looked at that as oh, it's it's it's a vacation, I guess. I can't come into work, but it wasn't a vacation. We still had to be communicating with our clients, trying to keep things in you know on track. A lot of deals got put on hold, and you had to check the check their pulse and keep keep them alive if you could. So it was uh it was challenging. Obviously, I hope we never have a an odd time like that again. Uh, but you know, we all made it through. We kept all of our brokers, nobody left. Uh, and and we we actually had, I think the year after, we had a pretty strong year. I think 21 and 22 are two of our better years. Uh in fact, I think 22 was our best year uh prior to, and now we're we're gonna probably surpass that this year. So interestingly enough, we came out of that very strong. And I in some positives, I do think where I think with all the the support that the governments were giving, people were flush with cash. So, and I think they also realized real estate was a great place to park your money. So I think 21 and 22 were strong years in the real estate world after that. So it was challenging, but uh we came out strong.
SPEAKER_00Well, congratulations. That's uh I think that's probably more in the minority, unfortunately. Most people did not come out strong, but to your point, perseverance, mindset figured it out, and yeah, kind of kind of rode the wave, so to speak, and and here we are kind of growing your business uh across all of Michigan. So congrats on that.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. Yeah, and one more thing on that. If you look, I think 22, we probably had historically low interest rates, and we had uh incredibly uh liquid you know clients at the time for for whatever reason, there was money flowing. So again, we had a huge investment sales year in 2022, and even 21, they were you know, it was it was on a steep incline. So, with all the challenges of COVID, uh in terms of commercial real estate, it actually led to a couple strong years.
SPEAKER_00You know, Paul, I want to close the podcast with asking you a question about a best practice or advice that's been given to you over your career. When you think about your selling career, both as a broker, as a as a as an individual contributor, as well as now a managing director on the leadership side. Any best practice or advice that's been given to you that has served you well?
SPEAKER_01There's been quite a bit. I've been fortunate to work with some really great people. Uh but one of the, I'll tell you a funny one. When I started as the uh MD, I was talking to another MD who'd been around for a long time. And you know, I've I've built a great culture here, and I just wouldn't say just I, the whole team here. We've created as a company a wonderful culture, and uh but that's not to say you don't have rubs in this world. Brokers are always gonna be facing each other and and negotiating against each other and competing against each other, whether it's internally or externally to some extent. But early on, you know, I think it was one of the first little internal conflicts between two brokers. And I was talking to this other MD, and he said, you know, Paul, I've found they're gonna always look to you to kind of rule, make a decision. He said, I've always found that if you just let it settle, let them work it out amongst themselves. Interesting, that's the best thing you can do. And I and I I I've lived that for 15 years now. Now they'll come to me and say, Hey, this guy wants me to take a discount on my fee, or this, and I just said, Well, you should both talk about it and and share why you think you're right and why you think he's wrong, and vice versa, and and talk about it. I said, if you guys can't figure it out, then come back to me. And I said, I really would like you to work it out yourselves. And 99.9% of the time, they've worked it out themselves and they're both happy. And it when you do rule as an MD and you try to say, Oh, this guy's right and you're wrong, you're never making them both happy. You're gonna upset one person, they're gonna potentially leave. Who knows? I've seen that happen where an MD has kind of picked who they thought made you know was the right, and the other person's left. I've seen them leave the company over that. So I think you know, we're all adults, we're all dealing with you know complex situations, they can negotiate amongst themselves. So, again, I found that one of the best things you could do is let people work out.
SPEAKER_00Nice, lead, don't manage. Love it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let them, you know, and if you have to sit them in a room, sit them in a room. So you guys sit in this room and come out and let's talk about where you guys found.
SPEAKER_00Got it. Great, great advice that you were giving. I'm glad it's working for you. Paul, one last question for you. You know, we're recording this today on Friday. What's it, June the 5th? Yeah, the World Cup is coming to town in the next couple of weeks or so in North America. Uh, what are your thoughts on the tournament? How the US is gonna do?
SPEAKER_01Oh boy, that's the I'm the wrong guy to ask. I'm not a big soccer follower, so yeah. Ask me about anything but soccer. How about the tigers? The tigers are doing all right, I think. Uh, you know. Um, we got Verlander back, one of our big pitchers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01So that's exciting.
SPEAKER_00We're supposed to be back soon.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of Tigers, one of the things you know, we talk about culture. We're gonna take the office to a tigers game in a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful.
SPEAKER_01Every year we do that. So that's one of our funnest days as a company, is we all go to the Tigers game for a day.
SPEAKER_00Love it. Well, Paul, thanks so much for being here, man. Nice to reconnect with you. Appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Paul. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00You bet. Okay, everyone, we're gonna wrap this one up right now. Remember, as I always say, your intention matters. Why? Because that's the result you'll tend to get. We're out of here and hope to join us. I hope you'll join us on the next episode. See you guys then.