From Buddhist Monastery to Managing Director: This is Ty Blanch’s story

This is the unique story of Ty Blanch, who recently became the Managing Director of Knight Frank Central Coast.

After completing Economics Law at the University of Sydney, Ty’s desire for introspection and spiritual exploration saw him spend six months in a Buddhist monastery.

But it was his mother who suggested he try his hand at residential real estate – which he did successfully for 10 years.

Following another stint overseas, it was time for Ty to transition from residential to commercial real estate.

He faced some early challenges but quickly hit his stride, reaching over $1 million in his second year in commercial.

He then pursued business ownership and built one of the biggest commercial real estate agencies north of Sydney at LJ Hooker Commercial.

His recent move to Knight Frank signifies a new chapter, blending multinational reach with local expertise, promising enhanced service for clients and exciting growth opportunities for his team.

Beyond real estate, Ty's passion for his family, the martial arts (he’s a Munen Muso instructor) and entrepreneurial spirit (he also owns a network of childcare centres) shine through.

His broad range of accomplishments are a testament to how diverse interests enrich professional endeavors.

Throughout his journey, coaching played a pivotal role, offering guidance, perspective, and a trusted sounding board for strategic decisions.

This has helped him to become the leader he needed to be.

In Ty's words, "a boss has the title, but a leader has the people."

His commitment to personal growth and leadership excellence underscores his success and I know it can inspire others in the industry.

Join us as Ty shares his insights, experiences, and lessons learned along the way in episode 179 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Episode transcript:

On today's episode of the show, we're going to be talking about how you go from a Buddhist monastery to the managing director of one of the world's leading commercial real estate firms.

It's one of my clients. And while I would like to take a lot of the credit, I should really give more of the credit to the Buddhist monks.

We'll find out who's responsible for this journey in today's episode of commercial real estate leadership.

Hello, and welcome to Episode 179 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak.

And we are launching into a series of interviews with clients of CRE Success. And I'm very excited to be able to introduce to you, Ty Blanch. He's the managing director of Knight Frank, on the Central Coast.

We'll meet Ty in just a moment. But before we do, I just want to invite you to, if you'd like to get on the same path as Ty, and a bunch of the other clients that will be interviewing on the show over the next few episodes, you've got to download our free guide, 'Multiplied Growth'.

That is the first step to unlocking more organic growth in your business.

And then also being invited to have a discussion about potentially working together to help you get your business growing faster. So, download the guide, go to cresuccess.co/growth.

Now to our interview with Ty.

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Darren Krakowiak
Ty Blanch, Managing Director of Knight Frank Commercial Central Coast, welcome to Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Ty Blanch
How are you, Darren?

Darren Krakowiak
I'm very well, really appreciate you being here. There are three things I want to talk to you about today, Ty. I want to hear from you about your commercial real estate career. I want to talk about some non-commercial real estate stuff. And then I want to hear from you about your impressions of working with CRE Success if that's okay with you?

Ty Blanch
Absolutely.

Darren Krakowiak
All right. Well, let's talk about commercial real estate first. How did you find yourself in this illustrious industry? What was it that made you choose commercial real estate as a career path?

Ty Blanch
There were a lot of things as I was sort of growing up, I guess that led me towards being somebody who had a little bit of a gift of the gab. I had done a lot of travel. And I'd also done a little bit of study at the University of Sydney for Economics Law. And it wasn't something that suited my disposition. And I also did a bit of study around Buddhism, and I spent about six months in a Buddhist monastery, which was really, really enlightening, I guess. It certainly has been something that has carried through with character traits that I would like to develop and focus on in my professional career and in my personal life as well in many ways. But when I came back from there, it was my mom who said, "Oh, you know, you'd be really good at real estate, I think that you should give it a go." And I ended up getting a job in Gosford in residential real estate, which I did for 10 years. I then did another trip, about a year, traveling around the world, backpacked and just went left, came all the way back around. That was fantastic. And when I got back, I had decided that I wanted to do something other than residential real estate. It wasn't something that I, you know, disliked, because I was very good at it in a way and I got the results. But I just didn't want to have the weekend work and the emotional sort of level that I think is a heavy sort of a thing to be involved in over a longer period of time. And for me, it just wasn't something that I wanted to do. So, I decided commercial real estate would be worth really trying my hand at. And after nine months of not doing a transaction, my first nine months with LJ Hooker Commercial, I ended up becoming in the next year, the number one agent for number of sales and separately for number of transactions as well. And I wrote a gross income of over $1,000,050, which back then 20 years ago, 23 years ago, was a lot. And yeah, that was really what set me on the path, I guess, to stay as a commercial real estate agent because I knew that I was good at it and I built the relationships for the foundation of my business going forward.

Darren Krakowiak
What do you think clicked into place after those first nine months of being in commercial where you weren't getting the success, and then all of a sudden, you had a huge leap forward over the following 12 months? Can you pinpoint something that changed?

Ty Blanch
Most of the work that I had done in the first nine months was actually what produced results in the following 12 months. So, I do remember a story about, you know, putting up my first sold sign as a commercial real estate agent, that was for $100,000, odd factory. So, it was a $3,000, odd fee at 3%. And I'd been used to being the licensee of an agency in Terrigal, which was producing, you know, much larger figures than that on a regular basis. So, it was very strange to make the transition in that way. But I think most of the relationships that I had built during that first 9 to 12 months are what flowed through to all of the results in the years after that. And really, with commercial real estate agent is there's a big difference. You normally have a commercial real estate agent working in an area, building a relationship with people that stay in that area, because they own commercial property in that area on mass, more than one factory I'm talking about or a small shopping center, or a bunch of offices, or a mixture in their portfolio of something along those lines. Whereas with residential agents, often you sell someone's house and they move to another suburb or they move away. So, it's still about relationships, it's just a different way.

Darren Krakowiak
So obviously, moving from residential to commercial was a big move. Moving from a Buddhist monastery to residential was a big move, but you've recently made another big move, which was after nearly two decades of leading LJ Hooker Commercial on the Central Coast, you've moved across the Knight Frank, which is first of all, congratulations. What has moving to this new brand meant for your business, for your clients, and also for you and your team?

Ty Blanch
Look, obviously, the Knight Frank is a multinational corporation. It's got a very, very good name specifically in commercial real estate. Those things were definitely factors. But I guess the relationship that I had built with Ross Cooper, who's the Managing Director of Newcastle, and the ability that I had to talk to him about a problem that I had that I wanted to solve within the framework of the setup that we were in at the time, and the ability to show him that with just under thousand assets under management, and a very successful sales and leasing team, there was an opportunity as well for him and his group of investors and shareholders from Newcastle to be a part of, something that we thought would then just be a logical connection between Sydney and Newcastle and beyond, with the Knight Frank brand. That was all, you know, a bunch of information and opportunities that came as a result of an issue that we had, which I'm not going to go into. But it was something that was solved by going to Knight Frank. And Knight Frank also gave us an opportunity to join a group that has a much larger spread across the world, but also even nationally, and in the area that we're talking about sort of Sydney and Newcastle, there's a much stronger presence there as a commercial agency.

Darren Krakowiak
So, what learnings or reflections can you share about the process of selling your business and merging your business and also changing brands?

Ty Blanch
So, in talking about selling the business, we never actually put the business on the market for sale. It came about as the result of an idea that I had to talk to Knight Frank in Newcastle about an opportunity to come together and for us to rebrand as part of that opportunity. So, I know a lot of people obviously in business being in business property that have had their businesses for sale for a long period of time. And there's a whole heap of different sort of emotions, and it's a bit of a roller coaster ride, I think in that respect. Which was very different to what we did. We had a series of meetings and conversations about the way it could work. And once the two sides felt comfortable with the way that it was going to fit, we just moved forward towards getting an exchange of contracts and then obviously settling and rebranding the business. So, there's a lot involved with doing the rebranding, I want to make that really clear. It's not something that very easy process because there's so many different things that you don't know about until you actually look at the company that you're rebranding to. And you don't normally get the insight into that, until you've settled in. You have to go through the process. But with Knight Frank, I guess, and the team that we had in Newcastle, the most important thing was the support the intention of the people in Newcastle. And I'm talking about all of the people, the people in marketing, the people in sales, even the people in valuations up there, which was a new part of what we can offer to our clientele, is shopping center, specific shopping center management at a larger scale, as well as valuations. We didn't have those two components as part of our Central Coast operations. All of those things sort of came together in a way that it was as easy as it could possibly have been, given that it was very challenging, because of the people involved and the support we had in the way that had happened was very, very good.

Darren Krakowiak
And has it been received by the market?

Ty Blanch
Yeah, it's been great. I think, probably, 9 out of 10 people that I've spoken to have had something to say about it. There's the odd person that says, "Oh, you're not Frank now. That's great. And that's that." But a lot of people, 9 out of 10 people that I've had conversations with, want to talk about, "Wow, this is fantastic. This will be really good for you." They see it as being good potentially for them as clients of ours. I was talking to a gentleman the other day, who has a very large landholding and portfolio with his father to family, sort of a commercial business, and they've got businesses in Sydney as well. And he was just wrapped. He said that it's fantastic that we've made the move to Knight Frank. And he believed that, you know, it would be something that would sort of see us very well into the future with growth. And, you know, just the reputation as well. And in marketing, the brand as a whole is very strong.

Darren Krakowiak
Fantastic. Well, I want to talk a little bit about you and outside of commercial real estate. Father with two boys. Who are the boys?

Ty Blanch
Dalton and Charlie. So, Dalton's eight and Charlize just turned 10.

Darren Krakowiak
And are they into martial arts?

Ty Blanch
They are. They're both Junior blackbelt. They've been doing martial arts since they were younger. So, I had a long time in the martial arts and became a sensei, I have my own dojo. I was training for over 17 years.

Darren Krakowiak
We talked about Karate?

Ty Blanch
It's a mixed form. The type of martial art that I was doing is called Munen Muso. My teacher, Gary Johnson had very high qualifications. He's actually a 9th Degree Black Belt in Karate now, recognized in the Australian Martial Arts Hall of Fame. So, he introduced me to other teachers as well from around the world that were 8th, 9th degree Black Belts, very, very high level of martial arts teachings that were passed down. And that was fantastic. I really enjoyed that. When my boys were younger, my wife asked that I could stay home. And I actually have only been doing my own training over the last few years. But I still do a little bit of teaching, I've got one student. He's a private student that I teach on a Wednesday, and I enjoy that thoroughly. But my boys, they've got into it. I wanted them to do it, so did their mom. And it's definitely good for discipline, respect and honor. You know, those types of things that you don't get taught in a normal school environment in the same way.

Darren Krakowiak
And you referenced the Buddhism before, your commitment I've sensed with regards to just your own personal excellence and spiritual growth. What sort of place does that occupy in your life right now?

Ty Blanch
Yeah, I think spiritual growth is something that's talked about in a different way. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's the way that it is. But it's almost, you know, if you are on Facebook, it's almost every second or third post, there's something about spiritual growth or something like that, maybe a new quick fix thing here, an opportunity to learn something there. I think that for me, it's the day-to-day activities and the challenges actually, really that I have in this role at my work, in my role as a dad, that I've learned to use as my teachers. So, even when somebody is, you know, in direct opposition to me in some way, shape or form, where I feel that there's something unethical, it's really about looking inside yourself, and how you're going to deal with that rather than perhaps blaming somebody else or doing that. So, that they're very, I know that sounds simple, but this morning when I got up, you know, I ran through the 32 body parts and just focused on those things. It's not something that I walk around with a big sign on my head saying, "This is what I do." But these are things that I do that helped me in my day-to-day life, and that helped me stay grounded. And I guess give me that perception of, okay, I'm sitting in front of a computer, talking to a mate who's a long way away, who's my coach, and we're discussing my life in a framework that's going to be portrayed to other people. But in reality, at the end of the day, what's actually happening inside of me, my world is within me. And that's the part of me that I can control. You know, I'm hopeless, sometimes. I'm looking to my EA for help consistently. "Can you help me with this. The printers not doing that, or I can't get this to work". You know, it's being spiritual is not necessarily about being more elevated or better than anybody else. I think it's about actually being able to understand and ask for help and get assistance in just your general day to day life so that you can make better decisions, get better results for your family, through work, your social interactions with other people, and really be mindful of your position in the universe at this point.

Darren Krakowiak
It's really interesting. I want to just maybe talk about one other thing to do with you just to show the broad spectrum of man you are Ty, and that is your business interests outside of your main business. And I guess I'm aware that you operate some Childcare Centers in the Central Coast, I believe. I guess, what I want to know is, what is your message for commercial real estate agents around business interests outside of the main thing? And how does that help you to be a better agent with your clients?

Ty Blanch
I came to Childcare through commercial real estate. So, I actually bought a commercial block and industrial block actually at Morisset, which I had revalued. It was rezoned, not by anything that I did. It was just rezoned as part of the natural mapping course of Lake Macquarie Council. I used that value to build a childcare center for somebody on a long-term lease. And something changed with their life and their family. They needed to move to Queensland and wanted to sell it to ABC at the time, which I didn't end up doing. I bought it myself. And they helped me out with a little bit of vendor finance, which was good, which I paid back over the next two years. But that got my foot into that industry. And it probably was 5,6,7 years of really learning on the ground instantly without a teacher or without a coach directly about how to improve that business to a certain point. And then I had a couple business partners became involved, a very good friend of mine now. They were friends before we did it, but certainly, we've grown a group together now, where we've got five coming out of the ground at the moment, four centers operating on the Central Coast, centers going up into the Hunter Valley and a different format and configuration where we've got Karate, dance, drama, and music, all in a separate room, like in a separate multipurpose hall within the service center. So, we can give students a proper Karate lesson in front of the mirrors with their belts and their little karate T-shirts on and things like that. From a young age I think, it's really some points of difference that have led to our success in that space. It's another income stream, or set of income streams, which I think is probably the key point that I would like to make in response to your question. I think that having the ability to write good figures and make money in commercial real estate, you can invest in commercial real estate itself, invest in other businesses. You get insights into other businesses through business property that you're dealing with, so you get to meet business people all the time. So, there's opportunities to learn there. And I think having different income streams is important in anybody's life. Anybody that I mentor or coach, I suggest it's a really great idea. Of course, bridging the gap from no income streams, outside of your own work, to having separate income streams is the challenge and the difficulty and that's what takes the courage, I think. And the ability to invest and save, get deposits and all of those things to actually make that change to having income streams in your life other than just your work.

Darren Krakowiak
And I love how you're incorporating other interests and passions from your life into their business, commercial real estate, martial arts, etc. So, I really like that. In the time we've got remaining Ty, I just want you to tell me about the work that we've been doing together. You've been a client of mine now for nearly two years, so, thank you for that. I want to hear from you what was going on in your business before we started working together.

Ty Blanch
So, we have had a very successful business with a very strong, almost linear growth that has been funded by purchasers of rent rolls along the way as well. So, the recurring income, obviously, with a rent roll is the main value of the business. Call it $3 or $3.50, whatever it is in the dollar. It's different to when you purchase a sales business where it may be 20 cents, or 50 cents in the dollar, depending on the team and the configuration of the sale. But I guess for you and I, where we were was, I was in a very, very challenging and difficult situation where I had an issue in the model and area that we were set up with. I just don't really want to go into that space too much. Because it's something that we've really leapfrogged from transitioned towards something that's much, much better now. So, you were there, I guess, holding my hand and talking to me about different ideas, giving me insights into ways to manage the team, and particularly the sales and leasing teams with one-on-ones. You know, very strong insights into ways to look at the business as a whole goals, dreams, aspirations, and income streams as well within the business, and then separately looking at the asset management and how we could identify things there. So, it was a comprehensive view that you gave me from your experience, managing larger teams of 30 odd people in commercial real estate specifically with an understanding and an innate understanding of how to trigger change in smaller ways that then leads to potentially better growth. And that's really been a huge thing for me. I've always had business coaches, or personal coaches, or life coaches. My life coach had a motorbike accident, haven't been able to get coaching from him for a little while, although we're still good friends and talk. So, you filled the void for me there. And I think that you really became a good friend as well and a confident sort of person in the space that you're in, where I could talk to you about things privately, and have a sounding board that would help me a lot as well in my business.

Darren Krakowiak
I think your case is interesting or different from most of the clients I start working with, because you were very familiar with coaching as a modality. It was something that you had done before, whereas a lot of the people who I work with in commercial real estate, they haven't done much of this work before. When you were familiar with what it is that I do with my clients, were there any hesitations that you had to getting started?

Ty Blanch
Look, I think it wasn't that I had hesitations. I hadn't had specific commercial real estate principal coaching before. I had a coaching that was for my broader business life or for my life as in a personal sense. Obviously, coaching in martial arts is an important way of coaching people. It's a different way, but it's still coaching. And all of those different things didn't really give me any insight into what it would be like with a commercial real estate principal coach, because I thought that's very specific. And I wondered what you could actually teach me that I hadn't maybe touched on or learn in other areas before. But I think that the truth of it is that people need to be aware, "A boss has the title." And I'm using this quote more recently, but I've known about it for a long time. "A boss has the title", but a leader has the people. And to be a good leader, you're not perfect, you're not going to be able to shine a light on, you know, every single staff member and make them just glow and feel warm and fuzzy all the time. But hopefully you can have a relationship that you can work through any issues that are there or make it easier for them to understand that there is great value in you as a person leading them because they can see what you've been able to do in your own life. If they're blind to that, if they don't understand that, you know you've done certain things, even if it's not things that they want to do. If they don't understand that you've done things, you may be able to help them to achieve what they want to achieve, then I don't think that you're a good leader. And I think that you are leading me. So as a leader, you need to understand that the most important thing is to be led. If you can't be led, you can't be a good leader. All of the best leaders, if you look at an army, the way that you know, you've got colonels and generals and all different stars on different people, that the reason that you've got a hierarchy like that is because each person needs to be led by somebody else. And I think that's probably one of the most important things that you've been able to do for me, is to help me to be a better leader by leading me on that path.

Darren Krakowiak
I've never heard that it framed that way before in terms of, in order to be a good leader, you need to also be led. And it's true. Like in order to be a good client, or you want to get good clients, you need to be a good client to people who are providing you with service, right? You like attracts like. It's a really appreciate you putting it in those terms, it's really helpful.

Ty Blanch
Well, without being silly about it, there's so many reasons and so many parts of my life that I'm not the best at. And I don't think that you ever want to try and be the best at everything. There's a Buddhist analogy that says, "Don't try and be the best. The best man is nobody, and nobody is the best man." And you have to accept that you're working in an environment with other people, you need their help. So, when you ask for their help, if they're happy to help you, that will probably be because of the way that you have had a relationship with them as a leader. If you have people that want to help you, you will achieve your goals. If they don't want to help you, then time to get off the bus. Like, you know, that's basically, this bus is going that way, and we're all on that bus. If you want to help, great. If you don't, then that's cool too. Just get off, it's no problem.

Darren Krakowiak
What's been something that maybe you weren't expecting from the work that we've done together, or a positive surprise in terms of a result that we've worked on together?

Ty Blanch
I would suggest probably, I was pretty surprised that you asked me to do this podcast, that was a bit of a surprise. But our relationship is unique. And I don't want to make it sound too warm and fuzzy. But I genuinely feel like I've dealt with a lot of people in my life. And that I've made a true friend, somebody that I can trust, and somebody that wants to help me. So, that probably is the nice surprise for me.

Darren Krakowiak
Thank you. And I really appreciate you saying that. Why is that a surprise, though? What is surprising about that? Like having worked with coaches before who I hope and assume also want to help you, why was that in particular surprise?

Ty Blanch
Yeah, I guess each of those relationships is unique as well. Damon Woodhouse, who was my life coach for a few years. Fantastic and really a good mate. And I got a lot out of that. But I knew him for 10 years beforehand. I'd sold him commercial property, and we managed properties for him. And I had a relationship with him. So that wasn't really a surprise.

Darren Krakowiak
Right. We never had a relationship before we started working together.

Ty Blanch
Correct. And that's why it's a nice surprise, because so many times you do have relationships. And relationships like people are very seldom perfect. So, you just have to hope that you're going to get a good one and have a good relationship with that person. Especially when it's looking after your business interests and the interests of your team and your people. I want to try and be the best leader that I can. But I'm just like everybody else, I'm just a person doing the best I can in this position. So, I need to have confidence that I've got support from different people around me and it's nice to have you there.

Darren Krakowiak
Thank you, Ty. Before we wrap up, I just want to hear from you maybe a piece of advice that you'd have for commercial real estate principals like yourself who might be thinking about doing this work, what would be your advice for them?

Ty Blanch
I think irrespective of whether they get you as a coach, as a specific coach and I think that you can offer them certain ingredients to make a cake that's probably a lot more focused and specific for the type of cake that they want to make for commercial real estate businesses. Get a coach. Because having coaching is just such an important extra part of your life. And if you dedicate yourself to trying to follow the advice of people and try things that may be outside of your sort of sphere of influence or what you think might be right, I think that's very, very important. It's really good thing to get coaching. Full stop.

Darren Krakowiak
Yeah. I'm not everyone's cup of tea or not the right piece of cake for everyone. But you know, when there is a good match, then you know, we can do some good work together. A focused on specific cake, I prefer a rich and tasty cake.

Ty Blanch
I think you're probably like a big ear cake, because you really listen. And I think that that's very important. So, when I had our meetings together over the time, I've always found that you really listen. And I know you're listening because you asked me questions to clarify things that I've said, and really dig deeper into that sort of space. So, that means a lot to me, somebody that listens, really listens, and tries to hone in on what you're saying. That's what you need so that you can move forward with a potential solution or opportunity out of that issue or problem.

Darren Krakowiak
Well, Ty, I obviously really appreciate you coming to share with the listeners today about your experiences. I've loved the work that we've done together. I hope it continues age of the future, as I'm sure, regardless of whether the work does the friendship will. Congratulations on all you've achieved on this milestone of joining Knight Frank. I know it's going to mean bigger and better things for you, for your team and for your clients as well. So, thank you so much for being here on Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Ty Blanch
Thanks mate. Thank you very much.