Contact Us
News

What NAI's Learned From Techies

It's bonkers more brokerages aren't adopting technologies being born right in S.F. to streamline biz. (That would be like refusing electricity if Thomas Edison was your neighbor.) We caught up with NAI NorCal prez James Kilpatrick, who's ramping up innovation as his brokerage turns 10 this month.

He also hit another milestone, having just graduated from Wharton's exec MBA program—a degree he got, in part, to modernize the NAI brand. He thinks tech is underused and under-appreciated in CRE because people try to use tools that don't apply and then generalize that tech doesn't work. (Sounds like our parents trying to use a scanner.) While sipping his morning joe today, he tells us how his NAI NorCal office is learning from the Google geeks of our backyard:

1) Just say 'no' to multiple databases.

Many fought the idea of electronic databases for years, opting for biz cards instead. While the database concept is now being adopted in CRE, the vast majority are using one per salesperson (he uses one for the whole company). That lets salespeople see who is talking to whom to avoid stepping on each others' toes (it gets awkward when a potential client gets the same cold call from two people). For tech giants like Salesforce and LinkedIn, the idea of using one client tracking systems vs. 50 is obvious—but yet somewhat still unprecedented in CRE. The industry sometimes attracts lone-wolf salesperson types, and it takes a certain culture to implement the right tech in CRE. He's had to let people go who are less collaborative in nature.

2) Work in a green environment.

He couldn't be happier at 101 Cal, in part, because it's Hines' leafy nucleus; a basement greenhouse grows the plants Hines distributes to their buildings downtown. Cleaning is done with a natural alternative known as an ozone blast (James is sensitive to a bleach smell, which he notes is amiss when he strolls in every morning from his blocks-away home at Millennium Tower). 101 Cal is big on composting and even houses a worm farm. (They could cast a whole production of The Grapes of Wrath using worms.) The building also picks up batteries and hazardous waste for free, which means laptops might hit the trash otherwise. He's all about training new brokers on the benefits of pitching clients on green. Larger institutions will pay a premium for a building that is LEED Platinum versus one that's not.

3) Network with tech.

He chaired the Entrepreneurship Club at Wharton, where lots of NAI's relationships with newer startups are coming from. He strongly thinks there's not a bubble and rents will continue to rise. More SoMa startups are creeping into the Financial District, and one of his brokers is in the process of signing a sublease deal at 201 Cal with a tech tenant. There were six seriously interested tenants with only around 18 months left on the sublease, and the rate ended up being around 50% above the sublease signed only two and a half years ago. The glut of potentially available vacant space is quickly disappearing, which means companies will have to settle for the outskirts of town. As soon as vacancy comes up, they will pounce on S.F. space. (Space in San Francisco is like a gazelle at a watering hole, leave yourself exposed and the lions are comin'.)

4) Work hard, play hard.

To reward good performance, perks at NAI include Beer Cart Fridays, Taco Tuesdays, an allowance to take clients out, and office-wide local brewery tours. The concept isn't new for tech in S.F.; his wife Mandy works for LinkedIn, which sponsors 15 to 20 company events a year, like Tough Mudder and Bay to Breakers. This year NAI's top brokers will go to Napa. To celebrate their 10th birthday, he's throwing a catered company boat party on the Bay this Friday with a full bar. (He sailed 18-foot dinghys in his day, but since cocktails are involved, he's leaving the job to a sober skipper.) To quantify success and the metrics that lead to it, NAI's streamlined database system helps him see with a few clicks how many calls are being made, meetings are set up, and proposals are being put together. 

Related Topics: NAI Global