The CCIM Institute often showcases new technologies that are at the forefront of the commercial real estate industry. We recently attended a training webinar on one of those new technologies, Esri Story Maps. Story Maps are great way to combine maps with text, photos and other multimedia content into an interactive web-based presentation.

What is the one trait that has helped you the most in your commercial real estate success?

If you can’t beat em, join em.

When you are a privately held, local Commercial Real Estate Company, it’s extremely valuable to create relationships across different markets. Expanding your reach and gaining this competitive advantage will help your team secure new business and retain existing clients. The ability to reference, or call upon a contact in New York, Houston, Chicago, or even Monterrey Mexico proves that you are heavily invested in your business. If nothing else, you’ll have someone in almost every major market to take you out for dinner whilst you’re on vacation.

While poking around on LinkedIn a couple of years ago, I discovered a program called the CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member). At the time, I was living in Toronto and didn’t know anyone that had taken any of the courses or completed the designation. All I knew was that it featured a series of classes on real estate investment and development – the topics that I was most interested in learning about. After doing more research, I decided that I wanted to take the courses in the next few years.

I was trying to think of what I could talk about in our first blog, when I remembered sitting at my desk the other day, looking out the window and seeing all the trucks driving on Taylor to and from Grant Park Pavilions.  Not pick-up trucks, but large dump trucks, cement trucks, front-end loaders – machinery going to work.  People working.  It made me think about all the jobs the Grant Park Pavilions development is creating.