I’ve always said that Commercial Real Estate is the Navy Seals of sales. It’s about as tough as it gets. Keep this in mind when recruiting because you want to look for teammates that are excellent or at least committed to becoming excellent.

Here are the four things I look for when hiring. Most people won’t have all four so we look for at least three out of the four. If you look at anyone that is already successful in this business you’ll usually find they meet these requirements.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

People with an employee mindset won’t make it in this industry because employees will treat this like a hobby. This business only works if you make it work. Employees clock out at 5. Entrepreneurs don’t stop when they’re tired, they stop when the job is done. Employees expect others to solve their problems for them. Entrepreneurs want to know how to solve it themselves. Employees wait to be told what to do. Entrepreneurs take initiative and constantly ask “How can I make things better around me?”

I’ll never forget what my mentor told me when he was first starting his Auto Repair franchise. He had just immigrated from Mexico, barely any English, no experience, and no education. While all of his friends were working at a textile shop making $500/week. He was repairing cars for $250/week. When I asked him why he opted to take a pay cut. He said, “Edward, never focus on the paycheck. If you focus on the education, the paycheck will come”. He wasn’t just being paid to fix cars, he was being trained on how to build and run a business. And he knew that in the long run that would pay dividends hand over fist compared to the immediate reward his friends were receiving.

Why am I bringing this up? I am mentioning this because employees will be focused on how much a job pays. While entrepreneurs will be focused on what they will learn. You want the latter. One of the best candidates I ever hired said to me during the interview process, “I really appreciate the small salary this comes with, but I care more about what I’m going to learn in this position”. You reap what you sow in this business, which is why that’s the type of shit you want to hear.

Sales Background

It always helps if they have some type of background in sales (i.e.—insurance, car sales, b2b). At the same time though, it can become difficult if that person is uncoachable because it’s hard to get salespeople to unlearn bad habits. But most of the time I do consider it a bonus.

Works Hard

I always look for some type of story or example that they voluntarily and proudly share about their work ethic. Everyone will tell you what you want to hear in an interview process. Which is why I try to refrain from asking directly, “Tell me about your work ethic”. Instead I just go about the interview process and look for signs that demonstrate their self-discipline. Obviously we know why this is important in this business—there is no way around it.

Connection to Real Estate

Steve Jobs once quoted “The only way to do great work, is to love what you do”. And I believe he’s right. Commercial real estate is tough, and you have to be at least a little bit passionate about Real Estate in order to stick around long enough to see meaningful results. That is why I always look for someone with some type of passion for Real Estate. It doesn’t have to be magnificent, it just has to be a good story. They did an internship at XYZ Investments, their father brought them up in the business, they think about it everywhere they go, they want to retire with passive income, they want to repair the social injustice in their community and be a good agent.

All of these are good answers and better than “I heard you can make a lot of money in this business." It usually takes 6-12 months before an agent closes his or her first deal. Because of this potential dry spell, having the passion for real estate helps keep the person around long enough to see that paycheck.

So there you have it, my winning formula for what I look for when hiring someone for a commercial real estate position. It took me a while to create this list because I had to go through a few bad apples before I knew what I was really looking for in that person. You might not agree and that is okay. Maybe you have different standards when hiring. And if that’s the case, then I encourage you to take inventory of all the qualities that all the successful people have at your company, and look for that. It’s hard to go wrong when you don’t try and reinvent the wheel.