Coaching Sustainable Commercial Real Estate Success With Robert Powell, Real Finds Podcast #26 Transcript
Gordon Lamphere: Hi, I’m Gordon Lamphere with the Real Finds Podcast, a podcast series where we interview key entrepreneurs, scientists, and activists who are shaping real estate and, as a result, our world. On today’s podcast, we’ll be speaking with Robert Powell. Robert is Chief Executive Officer and Principal at Resolute RE, and a coach with the Massimo Group. On the podcast, we glean insights from decades of experience leasing properties, representing tenants, and advising land sales, then take a deep dive into building effective organizations, coaching brokers, and getting the most out of your team. If you manage a real estate team, this is a must-listen episode. Rob, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast.
Rob Powell: I’m thankful to be here and grateful you invited me. Thank you for the opportunity.
Gordon Lamphere: Before we start, could you introduce yourself to the audience?
Rob Powell: My name is Rob Powell. I’m a broker in New Mexico, principal of the New Mexico office, and CEO of Resolute RE, a commercial real estate brokerage out of Austin, Texas. So I wear a few hats.
Building a National Brand
Gordon Lamphere: Texas and New Mexico are very different places. People sometimes lump them together as the South or the Southwest, but why work in two different markets?
Rob Powell: Our corporate office is in Austin, and Resolute RE is also in Arkansas, Louisiana, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Albuquerque. We have brick and mortar in all those cities, and we’re in expansion mode, looking at Arizona, Colorado, and so forth. We want to be nationwide. That’s my job as CEO: get the brand into every state, following our brand that’s already national on the retail level.
Gordon Lamphere: How do you get everywhere? Some people do it through acquisitions, some through sustained growth. What’s your plan to scale, or as much as you can tell us?
Rob Powell: I wish there were a secret formula, and I should be asking you that question. We’re doing it twofold. Currently, all our brick-and-mortar offices are corporate offices. Now we’ve hired a consultant out of Manhattan to help us set up an affiliation program, so that in different states, someone who already has an established team can affiliate with us and take advantage of what I feel is our intellectual property: our marketing, research, and analytics. That’s a really cool product we have.
Modern Marketing for a Brokerage
Gordon Lamphere: That’s actually how I found you originally, your marketing setup. What got you started with a more modern marketing style, and what tips can you give folks who’ve been doing things the same way for twenty or thirty years? Maybe they have a website, maybe they’ve explored SEO, but they haven’t fully jumped into marketing in 2023.
Rob Powell: There are two components. When we talk about what we do for clients, there’s the marketing analytics and research, the analytics of getting the best site for our clients and prospects. Then there’s what we do internally to market the brand. When I first joined Resolute RE, we were Retail Solutions, and that really isolated us. All we did was retail. But being in New Mexico and other markets, we had clients with other needs, industrial, office, and so forth. We knew we needed to expand the brand beyond retail, so we transitioned to Resolute RE, and our marketing came behind that to push the brand out.
Here’s the key: it wasn’t something I came up with, or something the founder came up with. We have a lot of young brokers who understand how marketing and social media work. And I got coached. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, so I hired a coach. Being a Massimo coach and coaching people across the country, that was natural for me, and I needed to get coached myself. I relied a lot on the young bucks in the office, in New Mexico and in Texas, for how to stretch the brand. Then we hired a marketing director who understands how important branding is and protecting that brand.
Gordon Lamphere: What’s your primary marketing focus? Digital, SEO, social media?
Rob Powell: All of the above, and everything has its own strategy. We have a CRM, and we’re constantly building that database of players in the market, not only landlords and retailers but brokers, because we’re recruiting. We do a lot of email blasts and social media posts. We have a very talented young guy in our Houston office who focuses on social media and video content. When we post, we make sure there are faces on it, because people scroll quickly past plain text. All these little things that you and I might not think are relevant, there are people who understand how they work, and having them on your team is huge. Our marketing director, Shastin, came in and said, we have to get people commenting on Google about what they think of us, we have to get the website moving, and here are the tools I need. There are people in our company who know what the hell they’re doing, and that’s crazy important. At the same time, leadership has to acknowledge that it matters, that we don’t have all the answers, and that there are people out there who do. Let’s get them in here.
Transformation Starts With Mindset
Gordon Lamphere: How do you make that transformation? It takes leadership that understands the times are changing, to quote Bob Dylan. It’s a tough thing to say, we need to change as an organization.
Rob Powell: It’s tough if it’s ego driven. If you’re abundance minded versus scarcity minded. When you’re scarcity minded, you feel you have to have all the answers, that it ends with you, and you’re leading a company. The reality is, I don’t know everything, so let’s find the people who know a lot more than we do. If leadership starts by saying we don’t have the answers, that’s how we grow, because now we’re looking for people who can help. We’re not supposed to know everything. We’re supposed to gather the right people going in the right direction. So transition starts with mindset. If you’re competing with the people under you and people aren’t first, you start trusting yourself and thinking you know better than everyone else. I know I don’t know jack, and there are people way better at certain things than I am. Let’s bring them on. Transition isn’t possible from an egocentric, scarcity perspective. It’s only possible when you know you don’t have all the answers.
Gordon Lamphere: The Massimo Group is a great organization. How does one transition into that mindset? A scarcity mindset is particularly plentiful in a recession, and we’re probably about to go into one, if we’re not already there, depending on whether you’re on team red or team blue. How can brokers, developers, and managers put themselves into a positive mindset?
Rob Powell: That’s a fantastic question, because the right mindset serves every aspect of your life, whether you’re a father, a husband, a CEO, or a broker. It comes down to one thing, and you can only grow from it: it’s not about you. The mindset is making sure everyone around you has the tools and your support, and your objective is to make everyone around you better. I don’t want to be the number one broker. I don’t want to be the guy. I want everyone around me to succeed. So you’re asking questions, not “hey, how’s it going, need anything? Great, have a good day,” but “how’s it going, what are you struggling with, how can I help you?” As a CEO, you’re asking your board that. As a managing broker, you’re asking your brokers and figuring out what you can do to help them succeed. My goal is that if I’m even a small reason why someone is successful, I won. It’s been said in different forms, but if you help everyone around you get what they want, you’ll get what you want. In any position I’m in, what can I do to make everyone around me better? If everyone around me is getting better, that benefits the company and it benefits me.
There was a point in my life when I wasn’t motivated, and it was because all I did was look at myself. I love being in leadership because I’m concerned about everyone around me, and when I’m concerned about everyone around me, who I’m not concerned about is me. When all I do is think about me and everything I don’t have and want, that’s a pretty depressing place. When you’re thinking about everybody else, that’s an abundant mindset, and I love being there. When I start getting sad or depressed, it’s because all I’m doing is thinking about me. That’s the secret, at least the one I’ve found.
Coach of the Year and Why Coaching Matters
Gordon Lamphere: Let’s think about you for a second. You won Massimo Group Coach of the Year in 2021, a tough year with office in the tank, industrial all over the place, and retail trying to figure itself out. How did that recognition affect you, and what would you say to aspiring coaches or managers in a brokerage office?
Rob Powell: There are a few questions in there, so remind me of any I don’t answer. Winning that award was pretty badass, because there are some really great coaches in the Massimo Group, and it comes from what the members say, who they pick and comment on. That was a great honor. The biggest thing that changed my life, and there have been some pivots, is coaching. I was an okay broker, actually a terrible broker, until I started putting these methods into place. Then when I started coaching others, I got better at those techniques myself. The Stephen Covey principle: if you want to get really good at something, teach it. Commercial real estate is technical, with a lot of components, and when I coach my team and my Massimo members, it’s always repetition of the things that work. Not things Rod made up, but techniques really successful brokers use, repeated over and over. I’ve been coaching for several years, and I’m constantly reminded not of what I’m doing but of what I’m not doing that I know works for other people.
We’re in a great industry with no ceiling. The money you can make is incredible. If you find you’re average, making two, three, four, five hundred thousand a year and not breaking through, it’s because there’s stuff out there that works and you’re not doing it. If you can get uncomfortable enough to figure that out, that’s where your business explodes. Coaching has helped me as a father, as a husband, as a broker, and as a leader. I’m coaching amazing brokers across the country who are tired of being comfortable and want to know what they’re not doing. You get insight into their business in every market: LA, Manhattan, Nashville, Texas. Does that make me a better broker? Absolutely. A better leader? I hope so. Coaching has been life changing.
Gordon Lamphere: What got you interested in the Massimo Group originally?
Rob Powell: I’d known about Rod Santomassimo. I was a broker at Grubb & Ellis in New Mexico, and Rod came to a lunch-and-learn they’d hired him for. He and I had been part of Strategic Coach years before, a pretty powerful coaching company, so I knew the perspective he was coming from. I was impressed that Grubb & Ellis had hired him, and I was really impressed with the session. It was only a couple of hours, but it impacted me. We met in the elevator afterward and talked a little, then I forgot about it, but I kept seeing his name over and over.
You have to understand, I was a terrible broker. I came in as an investor first, thinking brokerage would help me be a better investor. I was wrong. But I was desperate. This was 2007 or 2008, and I needed something to change. At the company I was at, there was no coaching. It was, let’s see who survives and figures it out. That was rough. Then I realized there was a way to do this. How do you prospect? How do you figure out who to call? How do you use a CRM and build a prospecting list? What is presence? How do you manage your pipeline? These were basic things I didn’t have and didn’t understand. So coaching was huge for me, and I realized the best way to get better was to coach it. I got my CCIM, met Bo Barron, who was working with Rod’s group at the time, and when they started recruiting, I thought, what a great way to reinforce what I’m learning and to experience other people across the country. Coaching gets you inside a person’s life. It’s not just about the real estate. There are personal things, mindset issues, abundance and scarcity, what’s your point of view? I get more out of coaching the people I coach than they get from me. I love it, and I’ll do it as long as Rod allows me to.
Gordon Lamphere: The whole reason I got involved in social media wasn’t even really to promote our business, though it became successful at that. It was to get knowledge from other markets. One of the most undervalued things brokers can do is look outside their market. There are so many amazing things happening across the country, new brokerage techniques, new investing techniques, and if you live in your bubble, you’ll never get better. Phenomenal advice.
Greed Kills Deals
Gordon Lamphere: Transitioning away from coaching, what do you think is the biggest issue most brokers face when doing transactions these days?
Rob Powell: I’ll give you a story. A long time ago, when I was an investor, I owned a large tract of land and was negotiating with a partner, and I didn’t like the price we were getting. Looking back, it was a fair price, and we were getting a lot more than we paid. But I thought I could get more. I got greedy. My partner said, for you to be a really good investor, you have to fall in love with the transaction, not get caught up in the money. Greed kills deals. Fast forward, and as a broker, the biggest problem I see in my office, in the company, and in the people I coach is that they get caught up in the money. The commission. They let the money interfere with the relationship. I’m not saying we shouldn’t battle for money. We have value. But the more transactions, and the deeper and stronger the relationships, the more money you’ll make, and you have to pick your battles. Commission is a battle, of course, but sometimes that ruins relationships. You might win that battle and get the deal done, but you’ve lost the war. You’ve lost that relationship and burned bridges. Think about brokers in a brokerage house: they complain about the splits, they complain about all these things, and they’re not seeing the big picture or the ability to grow. If you’re complaining about a split but you’re not a producer, how does that make sense? Letting money get in the way of a much bigger payoff, more transactions, deeper relationships, is a huge mistake I see at a macro level.
Gordon Lamphere: It makes sense, and it answers my question, but I have a follow-up. How does a broker fall in love with doing transactions? A lot of people get into our industry with big ideas about big commissions, and that’s such a small part of the industry.
Rob Powell: Two things, and I learned this from Rod Santomassimo. First, understand the value you bring to the table. Make the transition from broker as a commodity to advisor. What I love, and what most brokers love once they understand it, is that you get a seat at the table. Imagine a long conference room with the CFO, the CTO, the CEO, and there you are representing the real estate. Now you’re an advisor. I have a handful of clients I love working with because they understand my value. One I have drinks with monthly to discuss real estate. They’re a big company getting bigger, and I’m helping them come up with their real estate strategy. To me, that’s way more fun than the money. The money’s huge, I love it, but being part of that discussion as an advisor, there’s nothing better. Commissions come from great relationships with decision makers who rely on you and the value you bring. That changes everything, and it should change everything for everybody. If you’re just a transaction broker going for the commission, you’re missing the beauty of this business. I can’t think of anything more fun. Well, of course I can, but this business is really damn cool.
Gordon Lamphere: I wholeheartedly agree. I predominantly work with industrial and smaller office businesses, and I get to help people’s business dreams come true and hold their hand through some of the most difficult decisions they’ll make. For a large industrial client, figuring out a property that works for their machinery or logistics can be one of the most critical decisions of their business. Being part of that and seeing dreams come true is phenomenal. Brokers who focus only on commission and don’t value the relationships and the ability to make a life-changing economic deal happen are underselling our business.
Investing Alongside Clients
Gordon Lamphere: You’ve done major deals with big clients, McDonald’s, Applebee’s, down the list. Before the Final Four, is there one tidbit you’ve learned from a major negotiation that adds value for folks trying to close that gap?
Rob Powell: I’m going to kind of answer your question, but not quite, because we’ve talked about how important relationships are. One thing I love to do is invest, and I’ve had the opportunity to do that with some of our clients, as an LP and as a GP. When I see a specific piece of property, most brokers can line something up with a tenant and create a really cool investment opportunity, but I also partner with my clients to buy certain property. That’s the piece that has really entrenched me with a lot of clients. I’m top of mind constantly. Now I’m being invited to invest in other deals where I might not be the broker, but I’m the only non-family member investing, or I’m invited into opportunities I wouldn’t normally be. Most brokers see things as a transaction and a commission. I like to see how I can make the relationship deeper and stronger, be more involved in their life and their family, have discussions that aren’t just about business. Investing is a huge piece of that. Every time I work on a deal with someone, I look at how I can provide more value and maybe be part of that investment. And I haven’t had a bad deal yet. I had bad deals in 2008 and 2009, but that was a different story. Having success with your clients makes those relationships stronger, not just at the transaction level but at the investment level. Now we’re all making money together and looking at other deals. It’s a snowball effect. Is there risk? Absolutely. But the reward is huge.
The Final Four
Gordon Lamphere: We’re getting to the end, but we’re going to add value with our Final Four. First, one of my favorites: where do you see retail real estate going? There are all sorts of predictions in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, but you’re on the ground and better situated than someone in a New York office. What are you seeing?
Rob Powell: Great question. First, I think we’ll see more adaptive reuse in the retail market. In all the markets Resolute RE is in, there’s not a lot of industrial available. Some is coming out of the ground, but because of the supply chain issues we’ve been through, people are going to carry more inventory rather than rely on the supply chain to get product. Meanwhile, we’ll see closures in the retail space, and industrial prices have gone up to where they’re not far from retail prices. So you’ll see adaptive reuse, taking 20,000, 30,000, 40,000-square-foot boxes and using them as industrial-type space. For instance, one of those deals where we invested with a client was an old Babies R Us box, 40,000 square feet. I represent a big defense contractor who couldn’t find space. Now they have office and lab in a retail area adjacent to a Conn’s home furnishings store. The rates aren’t that different. Industrial rates are close to where retail rates were, so it makes sense, and I think we’ll see a lot of that. Within retail, we’ll see more experiential and showroom-type things. Everyone’s life pivoted since the pandemic, and we’re seeing things differently, including workspace. We’ll see the remnants of that in how we treat commercial real estate going forward.
Gordon Lamphere: I’ll say this definitively: I’m working on two deals right now, and did another this year, that were retail deals coming from an industrial perspective. There’s very little supply in industrial, particularly industrial that needs a lot of parking. It’s definitely the future for a lot of areas, particularly low-end malls and retail that’s seen a lot of vacancy. Fascinating to hear it’s happening outside Chicagoland.
Rob Powell: One more point: the new industrial coming out of the ground, with construction prices through the roof, is leasing at much higher rates, easily double a couple of years ago. That easily matches retail, and you get a lot more parking. So I see it coming more and more.
Gordon Lamphere: And there are so many more experiential uses in the industrial world now that need visibility. If you’re an Amazon fulfillment center, you don’t need visibility. But if you’re a pickleball facility or a company doing kids’ parties, that sign can be the difference between being in business and out of business in eighteen months. Now let’s go back to the past. Rob, looking at yourself coming out of high school, what’s your two cents of advice?
Rob Powell: Man, don’t be a jerk, because I was. But the biggest advice is to find someone doing what you want to do and get mentored, get coached. At that age it’s hard to even know what you want to do other than make a bunch of money. So find someone you respect and love, who’s doing something you think you want to be part of, and stop trusting yourself. Stop thinking you know it all, and just do what they tell you. That’s the biggest problem with a lot of young people: they trust themselves and think they know the answers. I have an eighteen-year-old daughter. Get mentored. Work for free. Do what you need to do to be under their wing and watch them, and you’ll save yourself a lot of grief.
Gordon Lamphere: I couldn’t have put it better. There’s a reason you were Coach of the Year. So many folks need humility and to understand they don’t know it all. When I was eighteen, nineteen, even twenty-five, I thought I knew it all. I went to law school thinking I’d be a super lawyer, and it turned out I hated it. One of the best ways to find humility and learn is books. I’d highly recommend reaching out to a coach or at least a mentor, but I always like to up my game through books. Is there a book you’d recommend?
Rob Powell: There’s more than a couple, so I’ll pick a few. For life in general, and it goes back to what I’d tell myself, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. Learn how to connect with people and have relationships. Relationships got me into coaching, into brokerage, into investing. I owe everything to the relationships I have, and I burned some bridges I shouldn’t have. So relationships are crazy important. How to Win Friends and Influence People: read that at least once a year, over and over, so you can build really strong relationships. I’m a relationship guy. And for brokers, Brokers Who Dominate by Rod Santomassimo. That’s the book everyone in the brokerage community needs to read. I have tons more, but I’ll leave it there.
Gordon Lamphere: Three great ones. Rod is phenomenal, Dale Carnegie is phenomenal, and upping your relationship game in general is great. Our last question, the greatest and most important, and the whole reason for the podcast: who should we invite on next? You know a lot of people in real estate, both established and up and coming.
Rob Powell: I’m afraid to name someone in case you’ve already talked to them, but I’m in an investment group with a guy named James Nelson. Do you know who I’m talking about?
Gordon Lamphere: I think so. I don’t know him well, but I think so.
Rob Powell: He’s a broker in Manhattan, but he’s an investor, and he just wrote a book. It’s going to kill me that I didn’t mention it as one of my three: The Insider’s Edge to Real Estate Investing.
Gordon Lamphere: I saw that on Twitter two days ago.
Rob Powell: I’m really impressed with him. He and I serve on something like a Shark Tank, where we listen to other brokers pitch investment opportunities. It’s Rod Santomassimo, Brad Ahrens, James Nelson, me, and one other guy whose name I can’t remember, and I’ll probably get beat up for that. James is pretty impressive. I’m gushing, but he deserves it. He’s that good, and he’s a product of Massey Knakal out of Manhattan.
Gordon Lamphere: We’ll have to reach out. We’d love to have him on. One final question: what’s the best way for someone to reach out, whether for coaching or more information?
Rob Powell: For contact, LinkedIn. Look me up: Rob Powell, Resolute RE, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Easy to find. For coaching, go through the Massimo Group. I can’t pick my members, and I’ve actually capped my membership and haven’t taken new members for a while, but there are tons of great coaches there. I tried Twitter and I’m still not there. Instagram, no. LinkedIn, all day long.
Gordon Lamphere: I’m on LinkedIn as well. It’s a great networking group, and I’d highly recommend the Massimo Group as a coaching platform. Rob, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast today. We really appreciate it.
Rob Powell: My pleasure. What an honor. Great to meet you, Gordon, and hopefully we’ll meet in person someday.
Gordon Lamphere: Hopefully we do. Thanks again to Robert. 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.