Top three traits of strong real estate principals.

CRE Success Principle: Prospecting is the starting point for accelerating revenue growth in your business.

What makes a great commercial real estate principal?

Episode 217 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership features a conversation with Tom Donnelly, Head of Commercial at LJ Hooker Group.

With his perspective across a national network of offices, Tom shares what distinguishes top performing principals in commercial real estate: strong leadership, the ability to build lasting relationships and exceptional negotiation skills.

Tom emphasises that there's no magic pill for growth. Instead, sustainable revenue growth comes from investing in your people. That means training not just agents but also property managers and support staff, with a focus on core activities like prospecting and continuous professional development.

Tom has implemented this at LJ Hooker, creating new pathways into the commercial real estate industry through tailored training programs and structured business support.

Finally, Tom shares his first-hand experience with CRE Success' Top Performer program.

If you’re looking to elevate your leadership or grow your commercial real estate business, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

Hear how to scale your commercial real estate business by prioritising training, building strong foundations and leading with clarity.

Episode transcript:

Each week on the show, I talk to you about what I believe is important for commercial real estate principals if they want to accelerate revenue growth.

Well, today I've got a special guest in, someone who has exposure to a number of businesses to get their perspective on that topic.

Hello and welcome to episode 217 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak. I really appreciate you joining us for another episode of the show.

I'm here to help commercial real estate principals to accelerate revenue growth by building the right team, serving ideal clients and implementing scalable systems.

To help me deliver on that promise today, I've got a special guest. It's Tom Donnelly, who is the head of commercial at LJ Hooker Group. Let's have a chat.

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Darren Krakowiak
Tom Donnelly of LJ Hooker Commercial, welcome to Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Tom Donnelly
Thank you, Darren. Thanks for helping me on. Great to see you again.

Darren Krakowiak
Really appreciate you being here. LJ Hooker has been a great support to me. I've been engaged by the group for coaching your HQ team in the past, I've done training for the network, I've spoke at virtual and in-person events, and recently LJ Hooker has become a sponsor of the podcast. So, at some point in this conversation, Tom, we will be interrupted by one of your wonderful ads. So, thank you again for being here. I work with a few of your officers as well.

I guess my first question is just to understand what it is exactly that you do at LJ Hooker Group?

Tom Donnelly
Yeah, sure. I'm head of commercial for the LJ Hooker Group. Specifically, the role is to support the LJ Hooker commercial officers and promote commercial in general across the network. Now, what that entails is I oversee business support for the officers, commercial training, marketing and PR, network events, organisation, and obviously other key roles like retention of officers and strategic network growth. So, it's a lot, but yeah, fairly enjoying it.

Darren Krakowiak
Well, as the head of the commercial network at LJ Hooker, you have great exposure to a number of officers across the network. So, I'm wondering what do you think are the common attributes of a really great commercial real estate principal?

Tom Donnelly
A great question. I think there's probably three that I recognise in great principals. One is strong leadership skills. Second is relationship building, absolutely vital in commercial. And great negotiation skills, Darren. You know, you have to get the deal done and I think the top agents have great negotiation skills, really vital for their business.

But I'll touch on strong leadership skills first, and what I mean by that. The ability to make tough decisions, you know, motivating their employees is really, really important. Just leading by example, you know. Because it sets the tone and the vision for that company and that's what I mean by strong leadership skills.

Relationship building; well, that goes without saying. You know, in commercial real estate, you have to build those long-term relationships. And that in turn, you know, gets you repeat business, I feel. In certain markets, there's small pockets, small relationships. There's, you know, it's not a big pool like residential. So those long-term relationships is absolutely vital for a commercial principal.

And I mentioned negotiating skills. I think that goes without saying and I've seen the best. It's absolutely vital for them to get deals, and obviously helps income, helps them build their business and sets them up for success.

Darren Krakowiak
Yeah, agree with all of that. If you were to maybe pinpoint one area of focus that a typical commercial real estate business can do to accelerate their revenue growth, what would that be?

Tom Donnelly
I'm going to be boring here. I don't think there's any magic, you know, ingredient…

Darren Krakowiak
Magic pill

Tom Donnelly
Yeah. You get what I'm saying? I think investing in comprehensive training is absolutely vital for the directors, sales and leasing team, and property management. I think that's the key for me, for success. I think if you get everything set up, and understand obviously the offerings you do, you know, I think having a business coach, I think is a great start for people to try and help grow their business. But get the staff specific training on like prospecting, for example.

I find that a lot of agents take it for granted or don't do as much prospecting as you should have. But that's where the hard work, that's where it starts. If you get that right, I feel that that's where you start. You, you know, you'll actually start accelerating the revenue growth for the office and for individuals as well. So, yeah, that would be mine. I would completely invest in that.

Darren Krakowiak
Yeah, that rings true to me when you think about like, what is the one resource that business owners have? It's people, right? So, investing in those people and really being committed to continuous improvement is probably a first principle way to really being or setting yourself on a pathway towards acceleration of growth.

In LJ Hooker, like I've been involved with you guys for a few years and I know that you offer a pathway of learning and development for your commercial principals and also for everyone within the network. Can you just tell us a bit more about what do you focus on when it comes to support and training programs?

Tom Donnelly
Look, given my experience, there wasn't any pathway for me. I actually got lucky to be honest and fell into the commercial real estate space. And, I think it's still true to this day, Darren, I don't know if you agree with me, but I think there is a real lack of a commercial real estate pathway. There is a residential one, you know, everybody can get jobs in residential, or there's always something happening in residential. But I just feel there’s not in commercial.

My focus was to change that internally first at LJ Hooker and we’ve designed programs in business support for our commercial officers. Training programs like commercial property management, we've got both fundamentals and advanced courses. Prospecting courses for our sales and leasing team – leasing fundamentals, Retail Leases Act, absolutely vital training courses for the network. And I'm really proud that we're implementing that. I think it's a real point of difference.

But going back to the business support for the officers, we sit down and we discuss their strengths and their weaknesses, recruitment strategies, which is always tough. You know, we always want to get the best guys, but you need to have a strategy against that. We need to talk about that. How can we attract these guys? You know, we need income targets. Implementing, you know, staff training programs, which I've mentioned. Marketing and PR, you need to get that a hundred percent right as well.

That program I've set up is basically setting them up for success. And Darren, you've obviously played a part in that, and you help us, I guess, execute our prospecting, one we're using at the moment.

So yeah, I think that’s a great start. We've given a pathway. And again, I just feel there's not a lot out there for, I guess, younger people who want to get into commercial real estate. But LJ Hooker Commercial offer that path.

Darren Krakowiak
Yeah, and I've loved being involved. I've had an opportunity to go to a couple of your conferences in Cairns and the Gold Coast last year, which is a nice little perk of being involved. And of course, the lack of pathway and resources for people in commercial real estate is one of the problems that CRE Success has been set up to solve.

And speaking of the platform, you were actually a member of Top Performer – which is our program for commercial real estate agents – before you rejoined LJ Hooker. I checked the books and you joined the program in April 2023.

If you can cast your mind back to two years ago, can you remember what was the reason why you joined back then?

Tom Donnelly
Well, you can tell, and I hope your audience can tell as well, but I'm really passionate about training and really passionate about commercial real estate.

So, what I was doing internally at another firm I was working for, I wanted to improve the internal training pathway. But I wanted to focus on more sales and leasing, and prospecting.

So, someone in the industry mentioned, “You should check out this guy, Darren Krakowiak.”

And I did. I joined Top Performer and it was fantastic. And yeah, I'm still a member.

Darren Krakowiak
Awesome. Well, pass on my thanks to whoever that was.

Of the sessions that we've delivered, is there one in particular that's been most impactful or helpful for you?

Tom Donnelly
There is. Well, first of all, I enjoy how it flows, Darren. I think it's great, I love the way it flows.

My personal favourite is week one: Personal experience. And the reason I mentioned that personal experience is because it gets you in the right mindset, because if you're not in the right mindset, then I don't get as positive. And I don't think you're at your best when you're prospecting. But when you do get that mindset correct, you can do anything. So that would be my takeaway from that. So, the personal experience module, to get that mindset right and just get, you know, focused on what you want to do, what you want to deliver, and where you want to go.

Darren Krakowiak
Thank you, Tom. I think a lot of success is what's going on in between the ears, so that's why we start with that module: to really set people up for success and to help them understand about what the opportunity is for them.

You've been a member now for two years, which means we clip the ticket every month with you. Why are you staying a member? Why are you continuing to stay on board?

Tom Donnelly
Look, I like to keep my finger on the pulse, given I'm not an agent day to day these days, you know, I'm in a different role. I still think of myself as a commercial real estate agent. I enjoy prospecting. I love building relationships and, as I mentioned previously, the program helps me. As I said, it gets that mindset right, flows into the prospecting. And yeah, I just like to do that refresher and any changes you make, I like to know as well. Anything that I could let my network know, et cetera. But yeah, that's the reason I still stay a member.

Darren Krakowiak
Well, on next week's episode we're going to be announcing a prospecting workshop that we're going to be inviting people in our network to join, and on the back of that, there'll be an invitation for people to become a member of Top Performer.

So, in anticipation of that, what would you say to any potential members or even future clients of CRE Success?

Tom Donnelly

It's a great program. I highly recommend it. I would say to commercial principals out there, look, invest in it for your team. You won't regret it. It's not overly expensive, Darren, if you don't mind me saying. And look, I've got to know you quite well now, and I also want to recommend you as a business coach. I think, even though I haven't utilised you as a business coach, I feel as though I have. I have learned a lot from you and, yeah, definitely to anyone out there I highly recommend that they check out your business coach offering.

But yeah, especially the Top Performer. And I think for the sales and leasing guys, I think it'll be absolutely vital.

And it's easy to use because it's recorded, Darren. You know, you can work at your leisure. But I think for an hour a week, you know, just sitting there understanding, taking everything in and I think it sets you up for success.

Darren Krakowiak
Wonderful. Well, Tom, I'm really grateful for the fact that we've got to know each other pretty well over the past couple of years. I'm really looking forward to coming up to Sydney next month to go to the footy with you. You invited me to come as your guests to go and watch Carlton in Sydney at the SCG.

Just a little side note, like you've been in Australia for 21 years from Scotland?

Tom Donnelly
Yes

Darren Krakowiak
What motivated you to actually join the Sydney Cricket Club?

Tom Donnelly
Well, it's funny, I'm a massive cricket fan.

Darren Krakowiak
Is that common in Scotland?

Tom Donnelly
No, it's not. People don't think I'm from Scotland when I say like, I actually love cricket.

No, it was my grandfather actually, funnily enough, who actually got me into cricket. We used to sit there when I was younger, you know, sitting 3, 4, 5 days and watching the cricket. I don't think my grandmother was too happy about it, but that's what got me into cricket and I've been a huge fan since.

It's funny actually, I was with LJ Hooker the first time when I actually decided to put myself in the waiting list and I just got it this year. So, there you go.

Darren Krakowiak
Well, I feel privileged that you're inviting me along too. I know you're not the biggest footie fan. I really look forward to that game. Carlton's not travelling too well, and we'll see how we go next month.

Tom, really, thanks very much for being my guest today. I really appreciate it and I really appreciate LJ Hooker’s support of the program. So, thank you.

Tom Donnelly
Absolute pleasure. And thanks again for having me on.