74: Powered By People With Mark Rose

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This is Real Estate Investing Live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program, you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find out why it's one of the largest investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson.

Welcome to episode number 74 of Real Estate Investing Live from New York. This is your host, James Nelson. I am principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales for Avis and Young. Thank you as always for tuning in. It means so much to me, your ratings, your comments on itunes, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Thank you also for introducing your friends to this. There's such tremendous information being given here. We want to make sure and let the world know. So back with us today, we've got a real treat for you. Mark Rose, Avis and Young's CEO, is talking about the keys to success. I'm entitling this episode Powered by People, which is the new motto of Avis and Young. We just underwent a rebranding and found that it's really the people who make a difference here and make these investments possible. So Mark's going to talk about that, but a whole lot more. He gets deeply personal in this episode and I think that's what really makes him such an incredible leader, is that he shares to be helpful to others. So I know you're going to get a lot out of this episode. We're going to have a brief word from our sponsor and we will be right back.

When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here. Voice America Business Network. Hi, I'm Mark Rose, Global CEO of Avis and Young, the world's fastest growing real estate services firm. And we are proud supporters of Voice America. With over 5,000 professionals in 120 offices in 20 countries, Avis and Young delivers local expertise in partnership with global reach. Because we are principally owned, Avison Young prioritizes client success over shareholder profits through our open architecture. Our firm's experts provide value added client centric investment, sales, leasing, advisory management and financing services to clients across the office, retail, industrial, multifamily and hospitality sectors. Our culture is the bedrock for collaboration that enables each assignment to benefit from the collective intelligence garnered from a company wide database partnership performance. Learn how we deliver different@avisonyoung.com to learn.

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You are listening to Real Estate Investing Live from New York. To find out more about James Nelson or avison young, visit avisonyoung.com now back to our show.

And now it's time for our investor spotlight. And back with us today is Mark Rose, the CEO of Avis and young. Mark, thank you so much for joining us again on the show today.

It's my pleasure, James. Anytime. For you.

Perfect. And for our loyal listeners, required listening. You need to go back and listen to our third episode. Yes. I know you've got to scroll all the way back because we're well into the 70s for episodes, but it is worth it to hear Mark's story. I'm going to be referring to it as we talk about the keys to success. So Mark jumping right into it. And I was listening to our interview that we did about a year and a half ago, and I think I was in shock when I gave you the interview. And you probably remember we were in a studio audience, but you were in our office in New York and you had our whole sales team there and you began sharing your story. So born and raised in New York, but at a very early age, you're clearly very driven. And even at the age of 12, you were very goal focused. You were a hockey player. I've got to ask you, I want to go back to your childhood because I really do believe that some of these key traits for success are established at a very early age. So can you fill us in a little bit more? Because in that early interview, I didn't ask you about family. I think you said that your brother is a swim coach. But what can you tell us about your childhood and maybe some things that you had picked up very early on.

Sure. You know, it's funny because this topic is coming up not just because of the new president of the United States, but people have asked, you know, a similar question that I've been on panels recently. And what drives you and what drove you? Well, first things first. People need to understand for the first almost 11 years of my life, I couldn't speak. I had such a terrible stuttering problem that it was very difficult. And even now, you know, when you know, my late great age here, you know, there are certain sounds that I can't put together. You know, and when you're young, these things impact you. Obviously, you have the negatives of being made fun of that. Of course that's part of it. And what it does is it gets you to think before you speak. And I'll go one step further with that part of the success. And this is why everybody should look at any affliction or any negative that they can always be turned into positives because I have to think about words that I need to form because of sounds I may not be able to make. And I'm completely comfortable that therefore there are words I can't say, but I have to think through what are the series of words that I can string together to communicate what I'm trying to say. Sometimes it comes out great if I'm very tired or very stressed. There are times where, again, those sounds don't allow you to do that. So as a kid, you know, you are insulated a bit by family, you are isolated a bit because of the issues that, you know, that can hit you around a socialization. But there are things that come out of that. Part of the drive is, you know, you're not stupid, you're not unworthy, you're quite worthy. You just have a physical issue that doesn't allow you to speak like others. And then, as I said, as you moved on, and certainly in my career, it has been extremely powerful that you're prone less to make that really quick statement. And that doesn't mean that you are thinking through to come up with words that people want to hear. That's not the point either. But you do have to think in order to form sounds. You do have to think about what you really want to say. And I think that's been a gift. You know, I had three older brothers. One, unfortunately, during COVID this past September has passed. But having three older brothers, they protect you and they shepherded you, and, you know, and that's something that impacts your life as well. So, you know, in many ways, where others might have said, you know, you can't believe how poorly I was treated as a child, I would say my issues in terms of my stutter were greeted with family and support and then working with some extraordinary therapists, I think it became one of the secrets to success.

You know, I appreciate so much you sharing that. And you know, what has impressed me so much of your leadership skills is how personal you're willing to get. And, you know, we clearly met when I joined Avis and Young, but, you know, the first time that I got to witness the power of your message was at our annual meeting where we were up in Montreal. And I have never seen a room. I mean, we had a thousand of our principals and leadership there. And I mean, tears in the audience. I mean, and like you are now, you were getting very personal about things and to be helpful and to encourage others. And I remember, you know, most corporate retreats, you know, you think of the, you know, rah, rah, and you know, all the excitement around growing the company, we certainly had our fair share of that. But that year there was a real focus on the Mental wellness piece and even the speakers that were brought to the table. So, you know, that is, I really appreciate. I know our audience appreciates you're sharing something that's so deeply personal. And again, you know, our hearts are out to you and your family for your loss this year. So, Mark, you did tell US in the third interview that you, at the age of 12, you knew that you wanted to be an attorney. So even with this speech impediment and, you know, I guess kind of holding back, you still seem to know what you wanted to do. So where did that come from?

It was just something that I knew of at 12, and there were attorneys in our family, and it was something that excited me. My father was a carpenter. It didn't come from him, but other parts of the family. But you know what he taught me about hard work, right? And, you know, things that you need to do to accomplish anything that you want to strive for. And at 12, there was a friend of mine, and we said one day, we're both going to be attorneys and we're going to open up a law firm together. You know, he actually became an attorney. And for me, I went a different direction, but it became a focus, a target. And as I've mentored and encouraged so many others, if you set your goals as young as they start, it doesn't matter if you set your goals, you have a much easier chance of getting there, whatever the goal might be. And we have some great stories around this, some that take a long, you know, a long time. But whether it's stories that we had talking to, you know, the individual who was deemed the best athlete ever and the best New Zealand All Black of all time. And the story was his father made him write down as a young teenager what he wanted to be. And he wrote down, I wanted to go to junior rugby, and then I want to go to the All Blacks. And his father said, but don't you want to be the best All Black ever? And he said, well, I'm like a kid. And his father said, if you're going to get there, you need to write it down. Years later, he found the note and he tried that much harder and was ultimately deemed the best of all time. And I use that with my mentees right now to say, I need you to write down including the most outrageous of objectives that you have, because we're going to go try to make them a Reality.

I absolutely love that. Because if you don't, if it's not in your realm of thinking, it can't happen. So if it's not a target, how can you land there? It's amazing. So you said you're the youngest of four boys?

Youngest of four, yes.

So I have three sons myself and it's a very active, rambunctious family and household, I will tell you that. A lot of sports, and it's love, hate, they're always bouncing into each other, but also the best of friends. I mean, I gotta think you're the youngest one. Cause I'm thinking about my youngest. I mean, he's a survivor. I mean, he is tough and you know, he gets sometimes the short end of the stick. But I gotta believe, kind of being at the bottom man on the pole, how did that kind of strengthen and toughen you up for the future?

Well, you start out as the baby and then you become the target. Right. I would just say the best thing that ever happened was I became a lot bigger and a lot taller than the other three, so was able to hold my own. And in many ways I looked at it that there was some higher power to make sure that that was the case because my two middle brothers are a year and a half apart and they went through different phases, whether that was a fencing phase where they would tie me to a chair and fence around me, or just other stuff that crazy teenagers do. And it was like, you know what, I'm going to have to get bigger and strong because if not, I'm not going to make it. So I would just say to your youngest, just make sure you're bigger.

I think he might be. As you look at the growth charts now, sports have also played a big part in your life. And I know you started as a swimmer. I was a swimmer and certainly takes certain type of mindset for that. But then you gravitated towards hockey, a team sport. I know there's been a lot of studies on kind of sports and how that translates to the workforce, but what would you say, what lessons did you take from either swimming or playing on a hockey team?

Well, again, I thought, you know, I think this is almost self evident, right. As a swimmer, you can swim on a team, but other than relays, your, you know, it's a solo sport. And if you want to be involved in what, what you can do and how you can achieve things for yourself, that's one thing I gravitate and was very, you know, whether it was water polo, because I used swimming to also play water polo and love that more because the team element. But quite frankly, I think hockey does explain things the way that other team sports do. You know, you have a center that makes things happen. They're the playmakers. You have your wingers who score. So even think real estate services, right? Your wingers or your brokers are going out there and they're getting it done, right? And there's somebody in the middle who's either managing or helping and making people better. So that's the center your defensemen are protecting. And think of that maybe as the, you know, the back office operations and your goalie, I would say more finance and risk management. They want to keep you from harm's way. And I think, you know, if you look at business and enterprise building in that way with sports analogies, the formation, if you work with and understand that collaboration. And by the way, I'll never forget that the first time I got benched in college, I was left wing, left the boards because my center just wasn't in the right place. And I thought they were going to score. And I came off the, you know, the, you know, the left side to help out came back and, you know, I was benched. I was like, wait a second, I don't understand. I went out, probably saved a goal because, you know, the center wasn't in the right place. So why would you bench me? Say, well, because your job was to be on the wall and let me deal with the center. Okay, Because I may, I guess I may replace the center. But you all have to talk to each other because you all have responsibilities. And the fact is, where that was thoughtful of you to try to bail out the center. You left the, you know, you left the wing open. And those are just some things that I think are just invaluable, right? And we don't have to. And I almost, you know, I always worry because some of the sports analogies can get, especially in 2021, they're, you know, a little sexist or male dominated. And that's not what we mean to be. I do see the academics of it for any sport, any team sport, for any gender. It's really the same thing that at the end of the day when you work together, you will be much better than the people who do it alone.

Well, I'll tell you, my sons, none of them like swimming, and my wife's a swimmer too, but they all play water polo. And so, as you know, I mean, great team sport and how to kind of think on your feet and work with others. So, yeah, no, a lot of parallels there, no doubt. So part of your story also was, I mean, at a very early age, you know, you were already achieving at a very high level. If I'm not mistaken, you went to college. Was it when you were 16?

16, yeah.

Yeah. So hard work has got to play into the story. I mean, I don't think you just show up unless if you were able to, you know, really apply yourself, get ahead. I mean, certainly intelligence plays into this, but what would you say to that? I mean, how are you able to get through high school so quickly? Was it your choice to start college at that young an age or how did that happen?

Yeah, no, it really happened in starting early, at the very, very beginning. So, you know, I think I started kindergarten first early, and then, you know, you skip a year in either junior high or middle school the way, you know, forever for however way anybody wants to label those. And I would tell you that again, some of these things are quite evident. Being 13 years old in 10th grade, that's not good. That's not good. And quite frankly, you know, as a parent, I was never gonna let my kids do this. I would say this 16 in college when I was still 5, 5 10, 155 in my freshman year, but ballooned up to 6, 2, 2, 30 in the sophomore year. I really started to feel like a person in sophomore year. But when you're 13, 14 years old. Right, I was 14 years old in 10th grade. And you're going to school with 18 year olds who are about to graduate. The physical nature of that just doesn't work. And again, part of it is how do I compete? The other part was how do I get the heck out of here? Right? Because you're like a little kid who should be in the playground and you're dealing with adults who are going through different parts of their life and you're just not going to measure up. And so sports in high school, brutal. I didn't make any of the teams. I was, you know, I was young and tiny, you know, so, you know, again, the positives and negatives, you, you know, you want to work hard and not being part of any sort of in crowd because you wouldn't be at that age with such a difference, you know, in age until, you know, I started again to my senior year. But again, on the other hand, you, you know, you work your way through and go, get out of here. And yeah, but then I had one of the greatest college careers. Whether it was student politics, the school, the hockey, every you know, everything it was, you know, it was awesome. And it shows you that you can be young and start. You have to have that confidence. And I think in many ways you can be as smart as you want. And I hope to think that, you know, the intelligence was there to allow me to do some of these things. But then when you get the confidence of also being having the physical follow the mental and you gain confidence, you have a better chance of succeeding.

Yeah, I've got to imagine, you know, learning to fit in and make your way through, you know, situations where sometimes people are, you know, above you and figuring out how to persevere. I gotta mention that that was certainly a crash course. Looking at kind of your career path post college and listening again to your story. And if I'm not mistaken, I mean, you were a CEO by the time you were a very young age. I mean, I think by even your late 20s and I mean, were you just a natural born leader that somehow just gravitated to the top? Were you in the right place at the right time? Because your story and kind of the successions, because there was one company that sold out and then you started your own firm that was acquired by Jones Lang Wooten. I might be getting the sequence wrong, but in every situation, by the end you were at the top. So what would you attribute that to?

Well, I would just say once you get to the top, you want to stay there. So you continue to work hard to make sure. I know very few people who want to step back. Although, by the way, stepping back is fine. There was an interim step when after we emerged and created JLL and I was one of the leaders from the US side for JLW and went to Chicago and it was really a step back, but it was a need for the overall company. And I thought that was the right statement to make to help with what, you know, with what was coming next. So, you know, you do do it. But clearly once you've reached a certain level of experience, that is your baseline. You know, I think most people I know for me at that point, you start thirsting for what else is out there, what's new. I just want to learn every single day. So, yeah, I mean, I was a 26 year old CEO of British Coles US REIT here. And I would say it was a combination of things. Again, I'd like to think maybe that I had some talent. I clearly had the benefit of having a mentor. And it's why I care so deeply about mentor mentee relationships and why I have so Many mentees that Jim Boazi, he was the vice chair of Morgan Guaranty, he went over to work for Harry Helmsley, his good friend, and he became the chairman of the board for British Coal. And he and I spent a ton of time together. He probably forgot more than I knew. And with him being able to impart into me some of the things that I should be thinking about, things when you make mistakes, mostly that you could do better and why you shouldn't worry about certain things, why you should listen more than you should talk, all of those things were quite helpful. And then there was the moment, I mean, there was the moment where Jim And I in 1988 wrote a strategy, brought it to the owners, the trustees of British Coles pension fund and said, we've got a billion dollar portfolio yielding 3% heading into what we saw was a collapse in the real estate market. And that's in writing, by the way. And you could repatriate this billion dollar REIT back to the UK tax free and put it into your own gilt that was yielding 14% risk free. @ that point, why on earth would, since you're investing on behalf of pensioners, would, would you have your money in US real estate? And they loved that and actually pitted the chairman and myself against the current CEO. And she's wonderful, she's very smart, but I was willing, even though I was just starting out, to do what's right for shareholders, which meant we would all be out of a job. And she, and this is right as well, trying to protect the people that work for the company. But when you get to write something like that, when it's accepted, when you're given, and I don't know if this is luck or mentorship, the fact that somebody with the experience that Jim had would back me on the thoughts, all of those things were very, very important to the success. And at that point, you know, you become a CEO, you sell everything off, you start your own company, and the people you sold off and made them one of the top pension funds in the UK because they didn't have exposure to US real estate in 89, 90, 91, they were willing to help you out. And it all just starts to build on itself. Success breeds success.

Amazing. I still have to think though, I mean, even if you have this incredible idea, you're 26 years old, I mean, most people, you know, you're trying to present to a board, they say, look, leaders have experience and you don't get experience until you've been doing this for decades, you've seen the ups and the downs. So it still amazes me that they were willing to give this a shot when you were kind of leading the charge at such an early age.

You know, I think the strategy was self evident, first of all. And then I also think that they may have wanted this to happen in the first place. And the fact that somebody would write something that met with their views, I think was helpful as well. And that's where, again, you do get. I don't by any stretch think I was lucky, but there are times where there's a little bit of luck involved. I mean, that it's at a moment of time with change in the marketplace, change in the individuals who were, you know, who were the trustees, that this was a really good idea to them. And maybe if anybody brought the idea, they would have liked it. I just think we did a really good job to support the, you know, the thesis and the case study as to why.

Amazing. All right, I want to fast forward to today, and I know and again, for everyone who has not heard the first podcast, you can hear about Mark's story from there. And then the ascent of Avis and Young because you helped lead our expansion into the U.S. there was what, three people in Chicago at the time? How big was the company then and how big?

Well, we didn't have anybody. We had three people in Canada.

Right. But, yeah, there's three people that showed up.

Yeah, we were 53 partners in Canada. I was the only American, but I was a Canadian partner working out of the Toronto office. And then in 2009, a team of four for Cushman and Wakefield came over. Oh, actually, I want to say this here in Thacker, our head of strategy was actually the first. The first employee in the U.S. and that was in June of 2000 or July of 2008. And then we brought in a Cushman team in 2009, and we started to bring folks in, but it started from. From scratch. There wasn't a human being on US Oil.

And what year was that again? I should know this.

That was 2009.

Right. So here we are 13 years later, 60 offices across the US, 120 around the world. So it's been an incredible story. So we just went through a rebranding. And a rebranding for a lot of people is, hey, you get a new fancy logo, maybe some colors, new color palette. And yes, we did have some of that. You'll see our new look and feel, but it's really what's behind that. And I was so Impressed with that process, the interviews and really trying to get at the essence of what we do for our clients. And ultimately the tag, and I don't want to call it a tagline mission statement. Powered by people is the mantra that came out of that and really has driven a lot of the direction. So can you talk a little bit about that process and what powered by people means?

Well, it starts with people. It starts with bringing in talent like Molly Kelly, who she and I worked together at jll. She had retired for a little while and when we bought GBA in February of 2019, knew that the best in the business needed to come back and needed to help us at Avis and Young as you know, as we were becoming a global company, the same way that I worked with her when we merged LaSalle Partners and JLW to created at that time, you know, the largest global firm. And you know, you bring the team in, the team then has the expert, you know, the expertise, the experience. Molly did as she filled out her team and then as she started to interview everyone, starting from focus groups, individual conversations, to the executive committee, to the board and you realize that globally that everyone came here as a culture based company. They wanted to work for a culture based company. And so the feedback was so consistent that the brand purpose, you know, you were searching for the words, there's not a tagline, it's not a logo. And you're absolutely right, a logo is, you know, what's in the top upper corner of the box I'm talking about. And that's supposed to mean something, but what that logo means, the power of it is what's behind it. And so we have settled on again, in our culture based organization that we want to deliver social, economic and environmental value, real social, economic and environmental value, powered by people. And so why is it powered by people? There's no other way to do it. For all the technology investment that we've been doing, and that's quite significant for all of. And we are just blessed to have an incredible client roster without our people. We are a service vertical, we are a service business. And you know, it's one of the reasons we're very proud of being a private partnership that by giving equity, right, the top 650 people own the company that you're acknowledging that they're putting their imprint on the company they are executing, they are the best practices. We have responsibility to build the tools for them so that we can solve the needs of clients. Nowhere in that discussion is any concept other than we are here for Our clients, who are people and is powered by our people to take care of them. And I think that's lost a little bit for some of the competitive companies. Not because they're bad people, they're great people with great companies, but public company structures don't necessarily allow for the collaboration that you need to truly deliver on the built environment serviced by people.

To grow like we have and to maintain that culture is such an unbelievably difficult thing to do, because every single person that you bring into the organization can change the chemistry. And what was amazing was when we acquired GVA in Europe, and here we brought on over a thousand people. And I said, I don't know how this is going to work. And I worked at a big firm before where we went in three years from 22,000 to 48,000 people. And when you start just packing on and acquiring one company after another, everyone has different cultures. But what's been so amazing is throughout this growth, to be able to maintain this culture, and no one's above the law. You might talk about one of the rules that we have in our bylaws that's actually stated. Maybe you want to fill.

Yeah. The narrative, which, again, no smirk and don't send hate mail. But the NAR is the no asshole rule. And there are people who've wanted to come to this company, and we just tell them no. And they say, but look at my revenue. No, you're an asshole. You can't. We don't need your revenue. And I think it was pretty important to this company that early on. Quick pause. We cannot come up with any real estate services company who has ever terminated a number one producer. And we have done it three times and still grown from 40 million of revenue to 1.2 billion. Okay. And that's with getting rid of three number one producers. Because the behaviors just didn't. Just didn't match our culture. And it doesn't mean you have to walk on eggshells. And we're not looking for Stepford people. We're just saying there's a base level of respect. There's a base level of how you view your clients and your partners. You know, empathy is involved here and good behaviors involved here. These are pretty simple, simple actions. And if you can't follow that, then we have to have a conversation about it. But, James, I went through this with you as well when we sat down, and I think that you can confirm this. We have an entire organization that follows suit on this. But to this very day, including with gva, I Try to meet every principal, but I tried to meet every person. There were 1500 people. And when we were recruiting you or when we recruit other people, I don't talk to them about their revenues or their clients because quite frankly, that's a price of admission for being recommended to have a sit down conversation. And if you remember ours, and I think that you would hear this from anybody at Avison Young, I try to sit down with everybody. Principals I have to sit down with, otherwise we're not going to go through it. I want to know what's in here. I want to know what's in here and what's in here. And so the questions are completely different. Tell me about your families. Tell me about what makes you tick. Tell me if there is something that we can help you with, because that's where you start to find out. You know, if they're civic oriented and charitable oriented and if they're good partners, this is going to be awesome. And if they're not, we got to think twice about it.

I know our listeners are going to get so much out of this as they think about how to grow their companies. And it's all about the people. When I interviewed Bruce Ratner, he actually used the word people over 60 times in an hour. And it was almost challenging to get him to take responsibility for anything that he had done personally. It was all about the team. And that's how he attributed success. So, you know, it is the people who power us and make things happen. But you got to do it in the right way. There's also a great podcast on entree leadership where they talk about was one of the early founders of Chick Fil A and their growth and, you know, very consistent with the right people and the right principles versus Boston Market that was powered by private equity, where they just grew, but all their standards went out the window. And, you know, guess what happened? You know, so slow and steady can win the race and you got to grow in the right way. So incredible stuff here. So Mark, coming out of this horrible pandemic, where do you see the opportunity today?

Yeah, so you know, James, I see opportunities in everything. And if you take a look at the opportunities that are here. Again, we looked at the pandemic and we said, here it is. We tried something back in 2001 with a different company. By 2017, we implemented it at Davis and Young and its strategy. 2019, we brought in the people to do it. And it took Covid to start to change the industry, to accept the change in the change management and the opportunity was to digitize commercial real estate services, to visualize them, to bring in data, data science, predictive analytics. To move the discussion from I've got pocket information and that's my value to I've aggregated and pulled together scientific view and turned data into information. So I can help you support an actionable thesis that was opportunity for Avis and young right in the middle of a pandemic. So then you say you started off with whether it's a veteran or someone who wants to come into the industry. Well, retail's been beaten up for quite some time. There's going to be distress in retail. Not everywhere because grocery anchored shopping centers aren't necessarily distressed, but there might be in certain areas. And if you want to seek out distressed buyers for distressed assets, that's an opportunity. And I picked retail because if that's the one that was kicked and kicked and kicked for a third time, that's probably the place that you should be looking. If it's office right now. Office is not dead. It's not going to be dead. It's going to go through two years of transition and what used to be the domain of the CFO to save cost or the CEO for brand purpose, it's definitely going to be those positions, HR and leadership teams to figure out what is the percentage of work from office, the percentage of work from anywhere and the percentage of work from home that's going to fit companies business unit by business unit, service line by service line, city by city, state by state and country by country. And I love that we're going to be more strategic about this. I think that there will be a short term reduction in space needed again in the short term, let me remind you, over the next 50 years there's going to be 3 billion more people on the planet. So I need no issues with the long term, I have no issues with the midterm. We can't live our lives even though we talk about short term of these things in front of us as being the most important, they're not right now. You have to make it through the next 18, 20 months. But the reason I'm saying this is the opportunity for people to spend quality time on strategy with both occupiers and owners of buildings. Take for example our strong belief that flex is going to be an important part of the future. And when I say flex, think of it this way. If somebody in the past used if they were an occupier of 1.4 million square feet throughout the US or maybe it's in the tri state area and all of those were on long term leases. They may very well be able to work with one owner. Take a 15 year lease on headquarters space, let's say that's 250,000 square feet and then with the same landlord sign up for 750,000 more square feet. But in flexible operations that are run or owned by the institutional owners. So that if an occupier now decides that they they're requiring for a business unit or a whole office that you only need to come in, work in office for two days a week. You can work from anywhere for two days a week. Well, maybe they can go either to the Northern New Jersey Touchdown center or the Westchester Touchdown center and then on the fourth day or the fifth day they work from home. We're working with clients right now for people who are not busy because of the pandemic's been brutal. Spend some time on what your advice is going to be to owners and users of space so I can keep going any negative you want to throw at me.

I love first of all, starting off with the retail and being a contrarian. But since you're a hockey fan and talking about office and flex, I mean you're skating to where the puck is going. I love it. And Mark, this has been amazing and we only have a minute left. But just because one of the big keys to success that's been consistent throughout your story first is having a mentor in your life and now mentoring others for our audience. What would be recommendation on how to find a mentor and what type of advice should you be looking to them for?

Okay, look inside your organization and look outside your organization. It doesn't matter about gender because there are tremendous people out there either way. Okay, Seek out someone who you find to be committed and empathetic. So the most talented mentor who really doesn't have time and they're mailing it in, there's no benefit to it. And if you don't find it, if you work within or if your group is small and you don't find somebody there, reach high, reach high and reach wide inside an organization. If you can't find it there, it could be family or family friend. But you should also be looking at all of the potential organizations that real estate has out there and it's many because they all have mentoring programs, all of them. So seek them out, but find somebody that's committed and there has to be a contract between both of you to put the effort in there.

Definitely it's got to be a two way street. I mean Mark, this has just been unbelievable, incredible advice. I hope the people listening, taking a ton of notes and more importantly, take this advice and put it into action. So thank you again Mark so much for joining us today. This has been tremendous.

James, it's always my pleasure. See you soon hopefully.

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you all for joining us once again. This is James Nelson, you your host of Real Estate Investing Live from New York. If you haven't already, please connect with me at James Nelson NYC on Instagram, Twitter or link in with me, send me a message. I'm here to be of service. I want you all to be the most successful investors possible. Until next week. Thank you.

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A Different Approach to Putting our Clients first Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office, retail, development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in their industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more.

Thank you for tuning in this week to Real Estate Investing Live from New York. Please join your host James Nelson for another program next Tuesday at 7pm in New York, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7:00am Eastern Time and 4:00am Pacific Time, as well as always on demand. We'll talk again next week.