Introduction follow up

Hello FirstName,

Good to meet you at EventName. I shake a lot of hands in a week and yours was one I wanted to follow up on properly rather than just adding you to a list.

Short version of what I do: I am a commercial advisor with Commercial Connect Group, and I work the Houston market on industrial, office, retail and land. Some weeks that means helping a business owner find or renew space, some weeks it means getting a building or a tract sold.

No pitch here. I would just rather know what you are working on than guess at it.

If a coffee is easier to book than to schedule, reply with two mornings that work and I will come to your side of town.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the week has been good to you. One of the things I have learned from networking is that nobody can refer you if they cannot repeat what you do, so here is mine in a form you could say out loud.

I help Houston businesses and property owners with commercial space. If somebody says their lease is coming up, they are out of room, they are tired of paying rent, or they own land or a building they are thinking about selling, that is my conversation.

That is it. No qualifying questions, no forms. Send them my way or send me their name and I will take it from there.

And the reverse is true. Tell me who a good introduction looks like for you and I will keep an eye out at the next few events.

Hello FirstName,

Hope your week is off to a decent start. I wanted to try once more on coffee, but with an actual reason attached rather than a vague catch up.

Tell me the part of town your business sits in and I will pull together what is available around you before we meet: what is on the market, what is asking, what is sitting, what is being built nearby. Thirty minutes, and you keep the sheet whether we ever do business or not.

That is usually more useful than it sounds, because most owners only see their own corner of the market and only when they are already out of time.

If mornings are rough, I am just as happy to do a late afternoon or a phone call on your drive home.

Hello FirstName,

Good to have you in my corner of the world. Here is the single most useful thing I can tell a business owner, and it costs nothing.

A renewal is won nine to twelve months out, not at the renewal date. The landlord's renewal letter usually shows up ninety to one hundred twenty days before expiration. By then you have no time to tour alternatives, no time to negotiate a buildout, and no credible way to say you might leave. The number you get reflects that.

Start a year out and the conversation inverts. You know what comparable space asks, you know what it would cost to move, and the landlord knows you know.

If you want me to put your expiration in my own calendar and reach out at the right moment, send me the date and I will handle the remembering.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the month is treating you well. Following on from the renewal note, here are the three lines I look at first in a lease, and the rent is not one of them.

One, the annual escalation. Three percent a year compounds into a very different number by year five than the rate you signed. Two, the operating expense reconciliation. On a triple net lease you pay your share of taxes, insurance and common area costs, and that share gets trued up annually. Most tenants never ask to see the backup. Three, the renewal option language. Market rate, fixed rate and landlord discretion are three completely different futures.

None of this is exotic. It is just unbillable to check, which is why it often does not get checked.

Happy to read a lease over with you if you ever want a second set of eyes on one. No charge and no obligation attached to it.

Hello FirstName,

Hope you got a decent weekend out of it. Quick one that comes up constantly.

Every rate you can see on a listing site is an asking rate. What actually signs is a different number, and the gap moves by submarket, by property type, and by how long the space has been sitting. I label the two separately every single time, because comparing an asking rate to an executed one is the most common way a good decision gets made on bad information.

Anyone can see asking rates. They are public. What takes work is knowing what is actually clearing, and that comes from executed comps and from being in enough deals to know which asking numbers are real.

If you are looking at a space right now, send me the listing and I will tell you plainly whether the number is realistic.

Hello FirstName,

Hope business is good. This one is for you rather than about me, because the people in your world will tell you they need space long before they tell me.

They are renting storage on top of their main location. They have added people and somebody is working from a hallway or a car. They are complaining about their landlord or about rent going up. They just landed a contract that needs equipment, inventory or a crew they have nowhere to put.

Any one of those and there is a real conversation to be had. I will take it from there and keep you in the loop on whatever you sent me.

And if you would rather I just answer a question for them with no meeting involved, that works too. Send them my number.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the quarter closed out well for you. Every business owner asks this one eventually, so here is my honest answer rather than the one that gets me a bigger commission.

How long you will stay put. Under five years and buying rarely pays for itself once you count closing, financing and the eventual sale. How specific your use is. The more your operation depends on power, clear height, loading or yard, the better owning looks, because that space is hard to find and harder to be evicted from. What else the money could do. A down payment that would otherwise buy equipment, inventory or a salesperson is not free.

Plenty of businesses should keep leasing. I will tell you if yours is one of them.

If you want to run the actual arithmetic on your own situation, that is a good coffee. I will bring the numbers and you tell me whether the answer surprises you.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the summer has not run you ragged. Networking only works if it runs both directions, so here is my half of it in plain terms.

Who I am looking for: owners of industrial and retail buildings, anyone sitting on five or more acres they are not using, and business owners whose lease comes up in the next year.

Who I can send you: between the businesses I work with and the builders, contractors, lenders, title people and CPAs I talk to every week, I meet a lot of people who need something. Tell me specifically who a good introduction looks like for you and I will actually remember it.

Reply with your one sentence and I will keep it in front of me.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the week is moving along. Here is a habit that has saved deals for people I work with.

Before anyone signs on a commercial property, there is a stack of public information worth reading: the deed chain and how the current owner took title, the appraisal district record, floodplain, utility service, recorded easements, and what has been permitted nearby. None of it is hidden and none of it costs anything. It is just tedious, so it usually gets skipped until something goes wrong.

I do not have access to anything you could not get yourself. I have just made the checking routine, which is the only real difference.

Looking at a building or a tract? Send me the address and I will run the public record on it and tell you what I find, good or bad.

Hello FirstName,

Hope things are steady on your end. One for anyone who runs trucks, trailers, equipment or crews.

Stabilized yard is worth real money and never shows up in the rate. An acre of usable, fenced, stabilized ground around a building is the difference between an operation that works and one that parks on the street. Two buildings can look identical per square foot while one of them is useless to a contractor or a trucking outfit.

Same logic in reverse if you own a property with extra ground. There is a whole category of tenant who will pay for it, and they are hard to reach through a generic listing.

If yard matters to your operation, tell me how much and what kind, and I will keep an eye out. That is a specific enough search that I can actually watch it for you.

Hello FirstName,

It has been a few months since we met and I never stopped meaning to buy you a coffee, so consider this the standing version of the offer.

No agenda and nothing to sign. I would like to understand your business well enough to send you something useful, and the fastest way there is thirty minutes face to face. If commercial real estate never comes up at all, that is a fine outcome.

I will come to you. Pick the spot.

If a coffee is never going to happen, a five minute phone call works too. Tell me which you prefer and I will stop guessing.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the fall is treating you well. A question I get constantly, answered honestly.

A lease runs a letter of intent, then the lease itself, then permitting and buildout. A purchase runs a contract, then a feasibility period, then financing and closing. The piece that surprises people is almost always the buildout: if the space needs walls, power, plumbing or a certificate of occupancy, that is months, not weeks, and it starts after the paperwork is done.

So the date that matters is not the signing date. It is the day you need to be operating, and everything backs up from there.

Got a date you are working toward? Tell me what it is and I will tell you plainly whether it is realistic.

Hello FirstName,

Hope you are getting through the busy stretch. This one is for owner occupants, and it is the group that gets the least honest advice.

You will get unsolicited offers, and the first one is rarely the number. Someone calling you cold has a reason to believe your property is worth more to them than they are offering. Knowing what it would actually bring on the open market is a free thing to find out and it changes that call entirely.

Selling does not have to mean moving. A sale with a leaseback keeps you in the building and turns the equity into working capital. It is not right for everybody, and I will say so, but almost nobody knows it is an option.

If you would like to know quietly what your property would bring and what is happening around it, I will put that together for you. No listing conversation attached.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the holidays are shaping up well for you. Land is the quietest part of my business and often the most valuable, so it is worth a note.

What a tract is worth comes down to a handful of answers: where utilities actually stop, how it drains, what the frontage and access look like, what is recorded against it, and what is being built within a mile or two. Owners frequently carry a number in their head from years ago that has very little to do with any of that, in either direction.

Zoning and permitted use always get verified with the jurisdiction rather than assumed. That is on the short list of things I will not guess at.

If you or a family member holds acreage anywhere around Houston, send me the county and the rough location and I will tell you what I know about that pocket.

Hello FirstName,

Hope the new year started well for you. I am not going to send you a market report, because most of them are written to be forwarded rather than read.

What I will do is answer a direct question with a direct answer. How long space in your area is taking to lease, whether landlords are still giving concessions, what a particular corridor is asking versus what is signing, whether now is a strange time to be buying. If I do not know, I will say that instead of estimating.

That offer is open whether you ever become a client or not.

Reply with your question. One line is plenty and I will give you a straight answer.

Hello FirstName,

Hope business has been good this year. A simple proposition rather than a newsletter.

I will make you one introduction worth having, from the builders, contractors, lenders, title people, CPAs and business owners I deal with every week. You make me one. Neither of us has to force it, and if nothing comes to mind right now that is a perfectly good answer.

Mine, to make it easy: a property owner, or a business owner whose lease is up in the next year.

Reply with who you would want to meet and I will go look for them.

Hello FirstName,

We met about a year ago and I have been turning up in your inbox ever since, so first off, thank you for not sending me to spam.

This is the last one on the schedule. From here I would rather be useful on demand than on a calendar. The offer that does not expire: if you need to know what space costs, what your property is worth, whether a number you have been quoted is real, or what is happening on a particular street, ask me. I will answer whether or not there is a deal in it.

And the coffee offer stands. It has stood for a year now.

Either way, good to know you. I will see you at the next one.