A Picture Is Worth More than a Thousand Words

Don't Be a Mystery... Let's say that you're a tenant seeking space or an investor searching for a property. A colleague has told you about a broker at a national firm who is excellent in your marketplace. Naturally you'd like to find out more about him or her. So what are the chances that you'll find his picture or her bio on the web? Pretty slim. With very few exceptions, national service providers simply do not make it easy for you to contact one of their professionals directly.

For years I've thought that this is crazy. Why make it hard for me to do business with your company? After all, I'm trying to make you money. And now I've got proof. Well, sort of. According to an article in the New York Times (Nov 26, 2001), research shows that a picture of an item for auction on the net will increase its value by 12%. By extension, doesn't it make sense that the more information you provide on your own people (including a picture!), the more comfortable clients will be doing business with your firm? Of course.

Here's your New Year's Resolution: Increase the visibility of your professionals. For the record, of the ten national service providers listed below, only Colliers International and CB Richard Ellis make it easy to look up one of their professionals online. At Colliers, click People on the home page. At CB, click Our People in the lower right corner.

Correction... Oops, Trammell Crow should have been #5 in the ranking of Dispatch subscribers in the last Dispatch (Dec. 20). The correct list of national service providers is as follows: Colliers International (365), CB Richard Ellis (322), NAI (179), CRESA (175), Trammell Crow (154), Grubb & Ellis (146), Cushman & Wakefield (132), Jones Lang LaSalle (107), Staubach (107) and Marcus & Millichap (67).

--Peter Pike