By Jenn Quader, President & CEO, The Smart Agency
Ask a prospective investor, lender or tenant what they’re really trying to learn about a commercial real estate firm and the answer is not the size of its last acquisition. They want to understand a company’s operating performance, how well it holds on to clients and tenants, and how assets are onboarded and operated for long-term durability.
Most firms announce a transaction then turn their attention to the next one. But the real proof of a firm’s abilities comes after the deal is closed. A recent interview reminded me exactly what that proof can look like.
One number from a conversation that stayed with me
I recently interviewed Katherine Pinkard for a GlobeSt Women of Influence podcast. She built Pinkard Properties to 2 million square feet, sold the firm to MCB Real Estate last year and now oversees property management across MCB’s $4 billion, 22-million-square-foot national portfolio.
We talked about onboarding assets, data systems and the work that starts at closing.
One detail stood out: every client that came over in the acquisition is still with the firm.
Anyone who has been through an ownership change knows what that number costs to produce. Management transitions are often where relationships come apart, so keeping every client through the transition is clear evidence that an operating platform works. It’s also the kind of fact that many companies inadvertently keep to themselves. That habit is a mistake, because the people sizing up a firm can only judge what it puts in front of them.
Why does post-close performance go untold?
A deal is an event, while operations are a habit.
Most of our communications calendars are built around events. A closing has a date, a dollar figure and a natural news hook.
On the other hand, a property manager who kept 100% of inherited clients through an integration has no obvious day to announce such a milestone, so it simply never gets announced.
Yet a firm’s reputation is built on that day-to-day operating record, and the people evaluating the firm increasingly check it themselves. A growing number now start by asking an AI tool, so what a firm has published about its operations is what the tool has to work with. In a recent Gartner survey, 45% of B2B buyers had already used generative AI to research vendors, and 69% preferred to validate what AI told them with a sales representative. The survey covers B2B buying broadly rather than commercial real estate specifically, but CRE teams will recognize it from first calls with investors who already knew the portfolio. When a firm’s operating record isn’t public, the AI tool has little to find and the sales conversation has little to confirm.
What post-close news can a CRE firm share with the press?
A firm can put its operating milestones in front of the press in several forms, such as case studies, bylined thought leadership articles, and executive Q&As and profiles. The raw material usually sits in internal reports, so the work is picking the right wins to highlight. Four kinds of wins tend to make good press stories:
- Retention through a transition. Clients, tenants or staff who stay on after an ownership change, with the number and the time period. A deal usually gets its coverage at closing; a retention figure hands an editor the follow-up, and it works as a case study. Pinkard’s client retention after the MCB acquisition fits this category.
- An onboarding method. How a newly acquired asset is brought into the firm’s operations without disrupting the people living or working in it. Other owners and managers face the same integration, so the steps can translate into a useful bylined or “how-to” article. Pinkard’s onboarding playbook in GlobeSt does this well.
- An operational decision with a result attached. A systems consolidation, a staffing model, a maintenance approach and what changed because of it. Lead with the result, then explain the decision behind it, in a short trade feature or a Q&A with the executive who made the call.
- A named person’s judgment. The story of a property manager trusted to run an asset like a CEO can become a strong executive profile, especially if told in their own words.
Each of these pieces does three jobs at once: it sets a firm apart from its competitors, gives a business development team something concrete to send a prospect and provides a trade editor with a story worth running.
What does a post-close communications program contain?
The good news is that a workable program is smaller than most people expect.
- One operating story each month, sourced from the asset management or property management team and turned into an article to pitch to trade editors, is a solid place to start.
- Award submissions built from the same material, so nothing has to be gathered at the last minute.
- A named executive who is available to reporters between deals to talk about operating conditions, not transactions.
- Every published piece brought back to the firm’s own news page, so it is findable and attributable later.
The main constraint is attention. In most firms, no one has been asked to notice the stories that are already there.
Why does a public operating record matter?
Investors, lenders and tenants research a firm before they ever meet it, and AI tools are confirmed as part of that process. A commercial real estate company that has shared its retention results, its onboarding method and its operating decisions gives these target audiences specifics to find. A firm with only deal announcements to show offers very little. People still make the final call, so the record needs to be specific enough to hold up when a sales conversation tests it.
What this does not replace
None of this is a substitute for good property management or sound underwriting. Communications can’t manufacture a track record. What it can do is make a strong one easy to find.
Firms that turn operating wins into publicity get credit for work their competitors are also doing but never talk about. That opportunity is open to any firm ready to start its communications calendar at closing.
