Embracing a community-driven approach to communication

Embracing a community-driven approach to communication: Why networking, education, and relationships are important to us.

At REATA Commercial Realty, Inc., we pride ourselves in being involved with our business community outside of the office because we know that active professional networking is vital to career growth. Relationships matter. Over the past three decades, our owners, Bob and Jan Gibbons, have spent many years staying involved in a variety of different organizations. From elite business, networking, coaching, and commercial real estate, we believe that it's important to be part of the community that we also serve.

Despite its inconvenience at times due to a busy work schedule, networking is actually about building those long-term relationships so your business continues to stay busy. It also gives us the opportunity to allow others to get to know us personally and learn to trust us when it comes to our area of expertise which is commercial real estate tenant representation.

There is nothing better than a great happy hour, right? Appetizers, drinks, and new conversations at every event can potentially have a positive impact on our business. More importantly, perhaps we can provide valuable information that could help someone else thrive in their business. We really love attending the Business Navigators events in the Dallas area. The organization is full of like-minded business leaders with just one goal in mind - develop trusted relationships and learn how we can support each other and our community. Our Broker, Bob Gibbons was introduced by our President, Jan Gibbons, and shortly thereafter, Bob became a member and a part of a Forum committee. This committee acts as a peer-to-peer Board of Directors for the members of the group. Jan Gibbons said, "Folks are very genuine and truly want to give back - it's not just a networking group."

The organization also has monthly Friday morning meetings where they bring in excellent guest speakers. But when they aren't upping their business game, they can also been seen getting together for their monthly happy hours too. "I enjoy being a part of this organization for the educational value and it's great that we can attend social events with our members and guests as well," said Bob Gibbons.

In fact, it is just as important to our licensed agents as well. Tenant advocate, Kristi McCampbell oftentimes takes her clients out for lunch, as shown below with the owners of Matt Mail Services. McCampbell stated, "I want our clients to know that we care about them too. Meeting up with our clients from time to time is essential to not only maintaining our relationships, but getting to know them more as well."

Bob also attends regular luncheons with the NTCCIM organization. The North Texas CCIM Chapter hosts monthly happy hours and luncheons every month to bring everyone together for our traditional business conversations coupled with a little sports smack! Yes, sports! It just so happens our next happy hour is the "End of the Summer Social" at Sidecar Social, with activities such as cornhole, basketball, darts, raffles, prizes and more. A little friendly competition doesn't hurt anyone, right? The best part is that we get to know more people on a social level too.

RAISE YOUR PROFILE. Being visible and getting noticed is a benefit of networking that's essential in building your career. The old adage is 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind,' so the worse thing you can do for your business is not make the effort to be present and stay relevant in front of other professionals on a consistent basis.

When you really think about this, it applies to both networking and professional organizations. They are exactly the same, just in a different environment. Bob plays an active role in membership inclusion for several organizations. He said that the organizations that have helped him the most are NTCAR, IBA, ATR and Dealmakers. In all cases,?"The?networking to find solutions for clients and get referrals has been useful," said Gibbons. While acronyms are a common reference to a thousand different groups in business, the one thing they all have in common is exclusivity. You must be member to access resources and tools, attend inclusive meetings and events. For over two years now, Bob has served as the Chairman for IBA (Independent Brokers Association), serves on the Board of Directors for NTCAR and is the President of ATR (Alliance of Tenant Representatives), an international association of independent tenant-rep-only firms.

"I feel networking is extremely important.?Networking, seeing what others are doing and possibly most importantly finding others to hire are crucial and can be accomplished by being involved in these organizations," said our President, Jan Gibbons. Jan also believes that our office culture is just as important. REATA hosts weekly status meetings and quarterly meetings to make sure everyone is on track and we plan to incorporate some of our own Happy Hours. This year, our brokerage will also be sponsoring a hole sponsor for the NTCAR Annual Golf Tournament coming up in September at the Stonebridge Ranch Country Club in McKinney, Texas.

Develop long-lasting personal relationships.

At the end of the day, developing long-lasting professional and personal relationships matter. Some of the strongest and most long-standing friendships are born from work connections. Your networking contacts not only serve as resources in your network, where you can tackle and resolve problems, come up with new ideas, create collaborative projects and so much more. More importantly, these valuable relationships also become referral opportunities too.

Embracing a community-driven approach to communication will be one of your most powerful tools and resources in business.

For more information on how we can become a resource for you, for your tenant representation needs, please visit us at: www.texastenantrep.com