If you want to get more, you just need to be willing to give more.

Most commercial real estate leaders don't talk enough about the importance of generosity.

I say not enough because generosity isn't just a virtue—it's a strategic imperative.

By looking for ways to be charitable, kind and magnanimous, we can create a ripple effect of positivity that extends far beyond the bottom line, while still directly enhancing it.

Generosity creates a sense of abundance that infuses your company culture and creates better results for your clients—leading to lower employee turnover and higher customer loyalty.

There are so many practical ways you can incorporate generosity into your business; you can hear all about them in episode 175 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Episode transcript:

In commercial real estate, one thing that we probably don't talk about enough is the importance of being generous.

So, in today's episode, I want to present the case for generosity; generosity of spirit, generosity with causes.

And also, I'm going to be generous by sharing something with you.

And I hope that motivates you to find something that you can share with your potential and existing clients to make their lives easier.

Hello, and welcome to episode 175 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak. And I'm here to give generously to commercial real estate principals, leaders, business owners that want to see their business larger than it is right now.

And in today's episode, I want to talk to you about generosity.

And I'll just spend a moment talking about a couple of points on generosity which I have touched on before, before I get into the crux or the motivation behind today's episode.

And in terms of a book to read that gives you the case for being generous rather than me telling you what it is, I'll just tell you to get this book, which is the Go Giver, by Bob Burg. I've mentioned it on the podcast before.

Lots of stories with direct relevance to commercial real estate which show you the benefits that can come to your life through being more generous.

Another way that you can be more generous, I think generosity of spirit is again, something I've talked about before which is being magnanimous. The power of magnanimity.

And that is being generous or kind in spirit to people who perhaps haven't done anything to earn your kindness and generosity, but deciding to give them that generosity and kindness.

Anyway, that is the crux of magnanimity. And it is a skill, a trait, which I encourage all of my private clients to put on display.

Recently, a client of mine had a person leave their business, and it was under difficult circumstances.

And I reminded him of the importance of being magnanimous in that moment, because it was an opportunity for him to, I guess, leave things on a positive note.

And for him to be able to walk away from that relationship, knowing that he had been the one who had been kind and generous.

Now in today's episode, I want to talk to you about generosity in terms of donations and charitable donations.

Now, this was something that I wasn't going to talk about at all on the podcast, but then something motivated me to do this.

But before I tell you the story, I just want to give you the back story.

Late last year, I decided to make a donation to a charitable cause.

It was something that I was inspired to do by a former client who shared on LinkedIn that he was giving a donation to a cause that he supports.

And I thought that's a good idea. That's better than sending out gifts to clients.

I wonder what I can do in that regard. And funnily enough, very soon after having that thought, I managed to be listening to the radio and a cause that was very much aligned with what I would like to support was advertised on the radio.

And I thought, that is the cause that I would like to be a charitable give it to, it has something to do with my family as well.

So, I knew that when I sent the email out to my clients saying, "Hey, in lieu of a Christmas or holiday gift, we've made a donation to this organization. And this is the reason why I have done it."

So, they sent me a thank you note, which is the reason why I decided to do this episode, because this thank you note that they sent me actually meant a lot. And I really appreciated receiving it.

It says, "Dear Mr. Krakowiak, you are amazing. Caring people like you are the heartbeat of our foundation. Thank you for choosing to support the vision of the founder. He'd be so proud to have you on his team."

And then it goes into talk about what my donation actually did in terms of its impact for the lives that they are trying to improve.

It says if you ever have any questions about the work you make possible, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks for all that you do. And kind regards from the team at this foundation, with their personal email address if I've got any questions.

And you know what this letter did? It made me think about what can I do this year to give more?

What is it that I can do at the end of this year to be able to give a bigger donation that I gave last year?

What would be the milestone, the benchmark that would be appropriate for me to set which would then allow me to give a bigger donation than I did last year?

Because that is what generosity can do. It gives you a purpose to make more money as opposed to just having the goal or the desire to make a certain amount of money.

You can say, if we make this amount, then we can give that amount to a cause that's important to us.

The other thing it does is the original inspiration for me to give was based on someone else giving is it inspires others to give when you give. You're setting a good example.

It also enables you to support a cause, which is important to you. And as I shared that this particular Foundation did something which I could see the link between something in my family and this foundation.

And the other thing that giving generously does is it helps with your money mindset.

So, if you're someone who has difficulty parting with your hard-earned cash, if you a notoriously known as maybe a little bit tight, then encouraging yourself to get beyond that identity and be someone who is a giver is a good step of progress that you could make personally to be more generous in your life.

And of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be generosity in terms of just giving to charitable causes.

I do also endorse giving to your clients in terms of more traditional gifts.

Because charitable donations aren't the only option. You can choose to take your clients to events, you can give more traditional gifts, whether that's wine or hampers or whatever it is.

I think though, mixing it up sometimes and also giving a donation to a cause that you feel is important is a good balanced way to go.

Now, I did mention that I wanted to give you something and it is the commercial real estate listings copy generator that I created.

This is a GPT that I've created inside chatGPT. And you can grab it at cresuccess.co/gpt

And it basically works as your own personal copywriter for writing listings that you have for commercial real estate.

So, if ever you come across a GPT if you're using chat GPT Plus, you can go into all the GPS that other people have created.

I recommend going in and searching commercial real estate because the commercial real estate ones are the ones that are going to give you more specific commercial feedback responses outputs to your prompts, as opposed to just the general chatGPT realtor selection, which is more built for residential real estate.

So, find the GPT is that you want to learn how to use and then just ask it, 'How do you work' and it will tell you.

And just let you know what is included with the GPT that we've created, the commercial real estate listings copyrighted GPT.

If you ask that question, "What do you do? How do you work?", it will give you some variation of the fact that it's there to help you to create engaging and informative marketing copy for commercial properties, including office, retail and industrial spaces.

Here's how I work, I gather information you provide them with details about the property you want to market. This includes the type of property like office, retail, industrial, location, size, amenities, unique selling points and other relevant information.

It also will then write the copy for you based on the information you provide. It crafts marketing copy that highlights the key features of the property.

And this GPT has been specifically built and designed to make the copy engaging and informative, suitable for a broad audience.

So I've asked her to write at a seventh grade level, so it's relatively accessible by a lot of people.

And I've also said that it should focus on presenting the property accurately without resorting to overly salesy language.

So, if it doesn't know something, it should ask you about it, so it can then present that in its best possible light.

You'll always want to make revisions and you can provide feedback based on your review of the copy that is generated by this or any other GPT.

So, this GPT is specifically designed to be open to your feedback. It's going to make revisions based on what you tell it.

And the goal of the GPT is ultimately to ensure that the final copy meets your needs and effectively markets, your commercial property.

So look, if you hate spending time writing marketing copy, or maybe you've got some listings, which perhaps have been sitting on your books for a while and could use a refresh, then using this GPT to upgrade, update the copy in the advertisement is a really quick win.

It does it almost instantaneously. It strives to produce content, which is credible and trustworthy. I programmed it to not be too much of an exaggerator and also not too verbose, right?

We want it to be succinct, and for it to truly reflect the value of the property and the potential of the listing.

So, if you want to get started with that, you can go to cresuccess.co/gpt

And all you do once you've gone into GPT is provide the details of the commercial property that you would like to market and then the GPT that I've created will write the marketing copy for you.

So, today is all about generosity. I've got something for you. I've let you know about a way that I've been generous.

And I want to encourage you to look for ways to be generous as well because as the book 'The Go Giver' will tell you that when you are generous, then the world has more to give you.

That is our episode for today. Thank you so much for listening and I will speak to you soon.