Inside the Mind of a Top Producer: Brokerage Success With Michael Arnold, Real Finds Podcast #23 Transcript
Gordon Lamphere: Hi, I’m Gordon Lamphere with the Real Finds Podcast, the podcast series where we interview key entrepreneurs, scientists, and activists shaping the real estate industry and, as a result, our world. In today’s podcast, we’ll be speaking with Michael Arnold. Michael is Vice Chairman of Elite Global Corporate Services and founder of their tenant consulting group. On the podcast, we take a deep dive into tenant representation and how tenant reps serve the workspace needs of occupiers. I learned a lot, and I hope to apply many of his techniques to my own practice. It’s well worth a listen. Michael, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast today.
Michael Arnold: Thank you for having me.
Gordon Lamphere: Could you start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Michael Arnold: Certainly. I run our tenant consulting group at NAI Capital Commercial, and I’m Vice Chairman for Elite Corporate Services with NAI Global. I’ve been with the NAI companies for approximately six years. Prior to that, I ran the LA office for Newmark for twelve years, and before that I started my career at CBRE, where I spent nine years and was national office rookie of the year in my first year in the business.
From Professional Basketball to Brokerage
Gordon Lamphere: That’s awesome, being a stellar rookie. We’ll pop back to that later, but why commercial real estate? A lot of people have stories about what got them into the industry.
Michael Arnold: It’s a funny story. I was playing professional basketball in Israel, and when my career ended, I came back and had no idea what I wanted to do. My mother, of all people, had a friend who was pretty high up at CBRE at the time and ran their Western United States. In fact, Brett White, who now runs Cushman & Wakefield, used to report to him. He said, there are a bunch of ex-athletes in our industry, and I said, that sounds great, I have no idea what this industry is. So I interviewed and got the opportunity to start in the research department. I did that for about eighteen months, and then a broker brought me on at his sole discretion as a runner, which I did for eighteen months. So the reason I got into commercial real estate was happenstance more than anything else. I came back thinking, what am I going to do with the rest of my life, and this opportunity presented itself.
Gordon Lamphere: Do you think there’s a crossover between what you learned as a professional athlete and the real estate world?
Michael Arnold: A hundred percent. There are so many parallels: winning, losing, preparing, teamwork, communication, verbal and nonverbal. Athletics are a great metaphor for life, because you have to learn what it’s like to fail in order to succeed. There’s that great quote, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, whether that was Jordan or Gretzky. I notice a Jordan jersey behind you. I have one at my house as well. I think you have to be built a little different. There are a few different nuances to what we do. People have to solicit business, process business, and win business. What I’ve essentially done is verticalize it, maybe making up my own word, where a percentage of the transaction goes to each vertical: getting the meeting, winning the business, processing it. What I’ve found is very similar to athletics: teams work and service business better than individuals. So I’ve tried to instill in my team a different mentality about approaching commercial real estate. You have to have a captain, a leader on the court. You have to have somebody willing to do the dirty work and get rebounds. You have to make the extra pass and think that one plus one equals three for the betterment of the team. To use the playoffs, the reason Denver and Miami are both winning is they’re sharing the ball more, making bigger shots, and look like they’re having more fun playing with each other than their competitors. I’m a diehard Lakers fan, so that’s hard for me to say.
Why Tenant Representation
Gordon Lamphere: There’s a great book I read not long ago, The Captain Class, about how certain individuals create the unique makeup of winning teams, and I imagine it’s true for real estate too. You’re a major player in tenant representation. What makes tenant rep unique, and how does it function in your world?
Michael Arnold: Great question, and thank you. I’ve worked very hard to be a leader in that field, in my community and nationally, and I think a true leader leads by example. You provide and help people with opportunities and information without expectation of return. By helping elevate everybody, like a team, everything has more success.
From a tenant rep perspective, my sole and only fiduciary responsibility is to my client. I don’t represent landlords. I was just in a very heated discussion on Twitter yesterday with somebody about bias. Say you and I are in the same firm, but you represent the landlord and I represent the tenant. That’s a slippery slope, where we’re talking at the same company about how to get the deal done. This other broker, who happened to be at a national firm, said, well, you still talk to brokers. I said yes, but my company isn’t putting pressure on me to represent both parties, because what’s the truth of the matter? You’re making a bigger fee. From my standpoint, I don’t care. I get paid the same fee wherever I take my client. And a hundred and one times out of a hundred, I’ll create leverage with multiple landlords on behalf of my clients and figure out a way to get them the best possible transaction that aligns with their cultural, economic, and operational needs. At the end of the day, I negotiate on behalf of my clients like it’s my own transaction, with that passion and fervor.
How Tenant Reps Add Value
Gordon Lamphere: Can you touch more on how you add value? Some occupiers listen to this podcast, and they’ll get a call saying “we add value” without knowing what that means or where the rubber meets the road. What value do you typically provide?
Michael Arnold: There are a number of ways. Most brokers say they create value, and I always ask the same question. Another competitor on Twitter this week asked, how do you work with a twenty-thousand-foot occupier who doesn’t want to give you an exclusive? My answer was simple: does your client work for free? No, they don’t, and neither should you. Your time is valuable, and that’s the one commodity we have.
So what I share is, let’s lay out a process. There’s a timeline for decision making, identifying opportunities, lease negotiation, bringing on a project manager and an architect. Before even doing that, I roll up my sleeves and we do a whole workplace study to understand the efficiencies and inefficiencies of a workplace and how different units within it work together. There are financial components, FASB 13 regulations, whether you’re underwriting your lease on a GAAP or cash basis, understanding the way your business operates. If you’re a law firm, you’re not a company, you’re a firm, so understanding how that S corp finishes its year and how capital is deployed among the partners. Typically the senior partners want the cash and the junior partners want to put it back into the firm.
The true value is understanding the company or firm you represent and how their business operates, then asking the appropriate questions about the pressure points and pain points. A lot of times people don’t recognize what those are. We had a meeting last week with a company where a national firm like ours did a ten-year deal two years ago. People ask, why are you talking to companies that just did a lease? Well, it’s a portfolio company, so you’re asking about other leases and opportunities. And we hit the nail on the head. They said, we have a problem, we need help, we’re not utilizing the space. Just two years later. Now we’re in the process of being engaged to represent that portfolio company in the disposition of some of their assets across the US, and specifically in a Southern California market where they have two leases and a campus, and their burn rate is too high and needs to come down. So we’ve come in as a strategic partner, an advisor, really a consultant. This is much more about an advisory role than being a transactional real estate person. And the one thing I’d want people listening to understand, as I’ve said often: God gave us two ears and one mouth, not the inverse.
Creating Leverage in Negotiation
Gordon Lamphere: That’s probably the most important advice you can give any young salesperson or consultant. Speaking of not flapping my mouth: negotiation comes up a lot on this podcast, and from what I’ve seen, you’re a negotiation expert. How do you add leverage for a client?
Michael Arnold: One thing I’ve always said, as a coach for my kids’ teams and as a leader of my team: what’s the one most important thing you need to understand going into a game?
Gordon Lamphere: I don’t know, you got me there.
Michael Arnold: Understanding your opponent. I need to know their strengths and weaknesses. So the first thing I do is understand the strengths and weaknesses of all the landlords where I’m representing my clients. If my client is an existing tenant occupying ten to twenty percent of an asset, the first thing I’m doing is understanding the debt service on that asset and what it means to the landlord. If I understand that’s a pressure point, say the CMBS loan is coming due in eighteen months and our lease is up in eighteen months, that leasehold means way more to the landlord than a traditional lease comp. Then I break down the base rent, taxes, insurance, and everything else they’re underwriting to see their potential profit, and say, let’s give you a three or four percent profit, but it’s going to be substantially lower. And I understand the loan covenant that says the landlord can only provide X amount of TI. Really understanding those nuances before the negotiation lets you know the pressure points and have thought-provoking conversations.
For example, I represented a law firm about a year and a half ago, and we negotiated an unbelievable deal. We got over a million dollars in furniture for free, because we recognized a tenant was vacating and not taking it. We knew the landlord had fifty percent vacancy in the asset, and we were the first tenant in the door after COVID, when people were desperate to do deals. We did a deal substantially lower than what the building was asking. Now, in a million-square-foot asset, thirty thousand feet isn’t that ten to fifteen percent, but it’s still a big deal, and we negotiated terms well beyond market because we recognized the landlord’s pain point around vacancy and the drive to lease up.
The Post-COVID Office Market
Gordon Lamphere: In the post-COVID world, we’ve seen drastic amounts of leverage from declining office values. What are you seeing in California, and how have you found leverage for clients?
Michael Arnold: Primarily a flight to quality, where certain assets are coming down, or the quoted rate isn’t the whisper rate landlords are saying: just bring me a body. It’s very much a tenant’s market. Tim Cook said he’s looking forward to everyone coming back to the office at Apple. Even pre-COVID, there were discussions about a four-day workweek for quality of life. I don’t believe this hybrid model is a true model. There’s some sustainability to it, but unless you’re putting headphones on, not talking to anybody, and writing code, you probably need to be in an office. It’s really hard when you have a team of people, especially in our industry, who have to listen to conversations and ask questions. You can’t do that over Zoom. You have to hear things, see documents, understand the process, and ask, why did you say that, what was your response? There has to be collaboration and the nuance of seeing a person with more experience. I hate saying juniors and seniors, because it’s a negative connotation. I prefer associates or partners, because whether you have fifty years in the business or five minutes, they’re your partners. As a coach, which is the role I have, my job is to build up my team to be as successful as possible.
Gordon Lamphere: A lot of our occupiers’ big concern with work from home is that they can’t train younger staff. Partners and executives have the breadth of experience, but people with a year or two in the office haven’t built up that corporate capital. Is that a concern you’ve heard from your occupiers?
Michael Arnold: I do think it’s a concern, and I’ve had those conversations. There’s an energy in the office when you get off a great call and somebody really understands the value you provide, and you’re like, yes, they get it, let’s go. From the meeting we had last week, hearing the passion of the prospect saying, we have a problem, can you help us solve it, and coming back to the office and saying, yes, we know what we can provide. To me, that’s the exciting part. It’s not where can I make a dollar; that’s going to come. The true value is listening to people and collaborating, and that’s where a lot of people drop the ball, because they don’t understand the process to get to the transaction. For me, that’s the win. If I can help somebody solve a problem and they get it. Granted, I’ve solved a lot of problems where clients think they did it themselves, and God bless them, but you’re not making decisions without the recommendations and information to make an educated decision. There’s no substitute for having people together with great energy, sharing ideas. In fact, I have some people coming to my office today to network, brainstorm, and connect the dots. I can still do deals and send LOIs, but let’s figure out how we get new opportunities. There aren’t a lot of people who like to hunt, but I’m one of them.
Prospecting Tips for Young Brokers
Gordon Lamphere: You’re well known as a great prospector, and a lot of young brokers listen to this podcast. What are your top prospecting tips for reaching that new tenant?
Michael Arnold: Great question, and we talk about it often. I’m not an advocate of the two hundred and fifty calls a day thing you see all over Twitter: I wake up and cold call in my sleep. It’s not just the numbers. I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but I’m not an advocate of dialing for dollars. What I suggest is: find your prospect list, whether driven by a company acquiring or selling a firm, an expiration coming up, or, more importantly, a new opportunity in the market where you’re providing value to somebody without expectation, just because you’re thinking of them. That’s the most value we can provide. If you’re prospecting, make thirty calls, then follow up with emails and figure out how you’ll provide value. A directed approach matters more.
I use this analogy: if you want to go on a date, you need to understand who you’re interested in dating. If you want to make a million dollars a year and your fees equal X, you only have so much bandwidth to go after certain prospects to generate that income. If you source a five-thousand-foot deal at two dollars a foot, you’re going to make twenty-four thousand dollars. How much time will you spend on that, and does it get you to where you want to be? When I have people do business plans, I have them delineate: I’m going to work with Mike on this deal and get thirty percent, and I’m going to create my own opportunity where maybe I get ninety percent because I need Mike to take it over the finish line. So really understand who you’re prospecting.
And by the way, you may find the perfect prospect and they’re having a bad day. That doesn’t mean you can’t still get information. On your follow-up call: hey, I hope you’re having a better day, it sounded like you were going through some hard times. These are usually the gatekeepers. You get their name, so when you follow up, hi John, hi Suzanne, there’s an opportunity I wanted to share that could be valuable for Mr. or Ms. whomever. That’s how you create relationships, and our business is about relationships. If you’re a ten-thousand-foot user or greater, maybe even smaller, because the market’s getting tighter as people right-size, you’ll have a lot of senior people working on smaller deals. If you’re not used to that experience level and you’re not working with a more experienced person, you’ll probably lose the opportunity.
Gordon Lamphere: That’s terrific advice. I joked on Twitter last weekend, with a little one on the way, about how many calls he needs to make during tummy time, because every broker talks about how many calls they make but rarely about the quality.
Michael Arnold: Gordon, think of it this way. If I called you asking something of you and you don’t know me, why would you give me anything? I get cold called by financial companies and insurance, and sometimes I keep the person on the phone, not to mess with them, but to ask questions. Most of the time, I get hung up on by the person who cold called me. I’m scratching my head. I asked you a hard question and you should know how to respond, which means you’re not being taught the right way to inquire about an opportunity. Even with negative responses. “I’m not interested.” Are you not interested in saving money? In finding out how your business works from an efficiency standpoint? If you could reduce your workplace by twenty percent, which is your second largest line item next to salaries, and hire two more people and increase revenue by fifteen percent, would that be worth talking about? Now we’re in a whole different discussion. And they might say, no, my cousin’s my broker. Wonderful, I’m glad you have allegiance to somebody. What we’d like to do is be a second pair of eyes and ears.
Here’s what happens. Someone’s lease has been on their desk for five, ten, fifteen years, and they say, so-and-so did my deal. So I ask questions. They provided you a lease abstract, right? What’s that? It’s like the CliffsNotes from college when you didn’t want to read the book. Fifteen or twenty years ago, there was a firm in Beverly Hills that said, we’re fine, we’re already engaged with somebody. I said, give me the lease, I’ll sign an NDA, and if I can create value and find an opportunity, would you be interested in moving forward? They said yes. I found a line in the parking provision that said if the landlord couldn’t provide X number of parking spaces, they had the right to terminate the lease. They had no idea. My first question was, were you aware of this? And by the way, how’s the parking? We don’t have enough. Ding, ding, ding. We terminated their lease with no penalty and relocated them to another asset. The other broker probably did a great job negotiating that clause but forgot about it, because they weren’t using a CRM with the right follow-up tickler, hoping this is my client and no one will call on them. You can have family, but I’m running a business, and if my cousin dropped the ball when there was a way to save money, with all due respect, this other person is creating more value. Maybe I even throw the cousin a referral. There are ways to work around it, but you have to ask the right questions.
I get LinkedIn messages all the time: I saw you on this podcast, I just started in the industry, it was so helpful. I’m sharing information that’s pretty much proprietary, learned over the years, because what I’ve also learned is that if you help others be successful, and there’s an opportunity down the road where I can be a resource, God bless, I’d be happy to work with you. But if I can make somebody’s life better and I have the ability to do so, I always said if I were in that position, I’d do it. That’s why I do these.
The Final Four
Gordon Lamphere: That’s why we put this podcast together, to add value, and it’s come back tenfold in referrals. Capital always flows toward people who add value. We’re getting to the Final Four, and I’m disappointed, because we’ll have to have you on again, but I have a showing this afternoon and don’t want to leave my client in the parking lot.
Michael Arnold: Better early than on time.
Gordon Lamphere: Yes. First question, one of my favorites: where do you see commercial real estate going ten years from now? It’s a little Nostradamus, but if anyone can see what’s coming, it’s you.
Michael Arnold: Thank you, and I’d love to be Nostradamus and have a different life. But if people aren’t embracing AI, there’s a big discussion that ChatGPT will replace brokers. There’s been talk of replacing brokers since I started almost twenty-six years ago. Each asset is underwritten differently. Brokers aren’t going away. But the way commercial real estate is evaluated and valued will change. People always need brick and mortar. There’s been talk of converting vacant office buildings to residential, at substantial cost, so you look at the ROI of what it costs to convert versus what you’ll achieve, because people always need places to live. Industrial is the queen of the prom right now. Retail used to be, then retail was dead, and now retail’s back. Industrial is getting twenty-four dollars a foot in certain markets, which we’ve never seen. I was working with a client where we did his deal twenty years ago at eighteen dollars a foot, and now we’re looking at sixty or seventy dollar rents, and he said, I could have bought the building for that. You can’t look in the rearview mirror. You have to look forward.
Where I see it going depends on the vertical. There will be some right-sizing in office. People will come back, but it’ll probably take another twelve to eighteen months before we really see it, and landlords are holding steadfast on rates. Retail: people don’t want to shop only online. My wife has seventy-three things in her Amazon reminders, but she doesn’t want to try something on and send it back over and over. She likes going to an actual shop. Multifamily will continue to be relevant because people need places to live. Industrial still has the logistics component; items have to go from point A to point B and be held somewhere. I think we’ll see more drones for videos. And AI is going to be a big component. I don’t know if there’s a true final answer on where we’re going, but AI will be a big part of it.
Gordon Lamphere: I think AI is the future in a lot of sections of the industry, but supportive rather than wiping out jobs. It’ll change the way support staff and brokers interact.
Michael Arnold: Here’s an example. One of the clients we’re working with does robotics. You go into a Chipotle or a White Castle, and the fryers have robotics that cook the fries or the burgers. People’s first response was, you’re going to put people out of work. No, you’re going to enhance people, because now you have to teach them to use technology, which increases their skill set and lets you pay them more. You’re also removing the teenager on their phone who undercooks or overcooks something, and the HR liability issues that come with it. We’ll see a lot more of that on the retail side, teaching people to use technology differently.
Gordon Lamphere: Wonderful point. Second question: instead of going forward, we go back. If you had to give yourself a one-minute spiel of advice leaving college or high school, what would it be?
Michael Arnold: Be more patient. Ask more questions. Take a step back and really evaluate opportunities. I was the bull in the china shop, going through and asking questions and constantly creating opportunities. Maybe that bull doesn’t need to be so bullish. Be more thought-provoking, less reactive, more proactive. That’s really what I’m trying to share with people today: think about different ways to be a consultant or advisor versus just transactional, even though that’s how you’re compensated in most circumstances. If I went back, I’d tell myself to think about things before I do them and ask more questions, primarily.
Gordon Lamphere: Phenomenal advice. There’s that book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, which I’m sure I’m butchering, but I read it a while ago and it’s something I’d take on as well.
Michael Arnold: On books, when we talked before, you asked what book influenced me, and I’ve forgotten the name of it, but there was a new movie based on it, which my kids would call mid. That book was compelling because you really understand the process of building a business: the hurdles, finding the right debt and equity, building a company, going public, bringing in a board, and all those nuances. Understanding the way companies and businesses operate from a younger perspective is something I wish I’d tried to understand, but I didn’t know the questions to ask. That was one of the books I found really interesting.
Gordon Lamphere: We’re voracious readers around here, and sometimes you don’t know how important what you’re reading is until you start doing it. Our last question: you know a lot of people in the real estate world. Who’s influencing the industry that we should have on next?
Michael Arnold: There’s a guy with a really great personality I met through a group where I’m chairman of corporate fundraising, the CREi Summit.
Gordon Lamphere: I’m going to try to make it down, if I can. We have a baby on the way, and a lot depends on how happy the baby is.
Michael Arnold: This is the third year of the event, and there’s a gentleman with a pretty interesting story. You know Shlomo?
Gordon Lamphere: Shlomo, yeah, we’ve talked on Twitter a couple of times.
Michael Arnold: He has a very realistic perspective on capital markets, CMBS, what’s really going on with office buildings, and the general market. A lot of people say he’s Mr. Pessimistic, like Schleprock from the Flintstones. But getting clear advice from a different perspective is really important. You want to understand both sides of the equation and make an educated decision, and his journey is really interesting. This event brings people from all different companies together to learn how to use social media better, which, for your listeners, if you’re not doing it, people ask, what’s the ROI? You can’t put an ROI on it yet. Coy Davidson from Colliers is part of the group, and he just commented to Ken Ashley at Cushman & Wakefield, who’s kind of his baby now, that he got another opportunity just because he shares information on Twitter. I was at Santa Anita on Friday, and when I got back I had a great LinkedIn message: you don’t know me, I just started my career in New York in retail tenant rep, and your advice was immeasurable because I have no direction or mentorship. There are lots of people in the community willing to share information on Twitter and social media. So I’d highly recommend somebody like Shlomo. Ken Ashley is another great human being.
Gordon Lamphere: Ken is awesome. I drove him to the airport once from Chicago. Nicest guy.
Michael Arnold: Genuinely nice, humble, very successful. A lot of people say successful people don’t have time to be on Twitter. Not true. They just choose not to share information, or have other things going on, which is understandable. But as a parent and as a leader in commercial real estate, I think it’s incumbent on us to share information to help others become better. Doing podcasts like this, which I appreciate you having me on, is an invaluable opportunity to share.
Gordon Lamphere: Michael, thank you so much. I hope to see you in person in Orlando, baby pending.
Michael Arnold: By the way, it gets better. My youngest are going to be in college next year, all four of them for the first time. So it gets better.
Gordon Lamphere: We’re very excited around our household. It’s our first, but I’m sure it’ll be absolute chaos for at least a month.
Michael Arnold: Chaos is good, buddy. Enjoy it.
Gordon Lamphere: One final question, and it might be the most important: how does someone get in contact with you?
Michael Arnold: I’m on LinkedIn as Michael Arnold, NAI Capital. Twitter is @MPABaller6, and Instagram is @MPABaller1. You can text or call me at 310-694-4550, or email me at first initial, last name: [email protected].
Gordon Lamphere: Awesome. Michael, thank you so much, and I hope to see you in Orlando.
Michael Arnold: Me as well. And get some sleep.
Gordon Lamphere: Thanks again to Michael. We appreciate his insights. If you enjoyed the podcast, please give us a like, a five-star rating, or a review. Your comments, interactions, and subscriptions truly matter and help us continue to provide quality guests. You can follow us on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Gordon Lamphere with the Real Finds Podcast. Thank you for listening.
Van Vlissingen and Co. has been the Midwest’s oldest commercial real estate brokerage, development, and management firm since 1879, and today is independently ranked the #1 commercial real estate agency in Chicagoland, home to the #1 independently ranked agent, Gordon Lamphere, and the region’s #1 ranked commercial property management team. If you own, manage, or invest in energy-adjacent, mixed-use, or transit-oriented property across Lake County, the North Shore, the Northwest and O’Hare corridors, DuPage and the I-88 corridor, Will County, or southern Wisconsin’s Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha, and Racine markets, contact Van Vlissingen and Co. at 📞 847-634-2300 or 🌐 vvco.com. For a market-wide view of where these dynamics sit today, see our State of the Chicagoland Commercial Real Estate Market for Q3 2026.