John Zikos

My 18-year-old son Nicholas, who just started his senior year in high school, interned for Venture Commercial this summer. He worked with a lot of the brokers at our firm, with tasks ranging from delivering documents and doing research to attending meetings and observing deal-making.

After Nicholas completed his internship, I sat down with him to discuss what he had learned and observations he had made. It was interesting to see things from a fresh new perspective.

Nicholas was amazed at how quickly some things moved and how time-sensitive some information could be, while other things seemed to be stuck in quicksand over the course of the entire summer. Hours or even minutes could be the difference between a deal getting done and falling apart. Other times nothing seemed to happen for weeks or months.

One thing that really interested him was the varying amounts of information different brokers had on the properties they were marketing. Some had very little information while others had a great deal of it. But some of the people who had a lot of information were not able to connect it with what Nicholas was looking for. He found that it was somewhat rare for people to be able to use and apply facts and figures in a meaningful way to provide answers.

Seeing things from Nicholas’ fresh perspective, I think as brokers we need to strive to keep deals moving and create urgency for all the parties in a transaction to get them done. We also need to be knowledgeable about our properties, tenants, buyers, and sellers—and understand the needs of all of the parties. We need to be able to provide information to meet those needs and create solutions to their problems.