How Tenant Reps Build Pipeline in 2026 (Systems, Data, and Discipline)

0:03 This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Ryan Hartsell. Ryan is a principal and Managing partner of Oxford Partners, a Houston based commercial real estate firm. Ryan, thank you for being on the show today. Absolutely. Thanks for having. Me. So for my understanding, Oxford Partners focuses exclusively on tenant Rep and buyer representation, correct? Yeah, correct. That's kind of how that's actually what we do. That's how we market ourselves. I guess occupier services, we don't call it that, but that's, you know, essentially what it is, office, industrial and now healthcare, tenant representation or occupier services. So we just focus on leasing.

0:43 We help companies purchase properties. They're sick of paying rent. And then, you know, we do some listings, particularly on the industrial side, you know, half of the transactions are probably sales, but they're all business occupied, owner occupied listings. That's interesting. Yeah. So I think tenant Rep is the best kept secret in commercial real estate brokerage. Right. And I think it's funny because I didn't, here's the thing about tenant Rep, nobody talks about it. You don't really know about it. It's sort of like the gateway to our business. But you do these small lease deals, right? So you understand leasing and you start to know transacting in the players. But then the very natural step is to then go into sales.

1:27 I then I stumbled into a few of these institutional tenant Rep deals and did I have fun with these girls and I fell in love with what is tenant Rep. Right. Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I didn't know anything about it either when I interviewed with Steve. I wanted to get into investing in development, like every kid out of school that's interested in commercial real estate and then just learned about it on the interview. And I was kind of somewhat, you know, fashioned myself as an entrepreneur. It seemed like unlimited opportunity for income, pretty neat opportunity to meet with, you know, become clients and friends with C suites that operate the wide range of industry. So, you know, I really enjoyed it and I invested some, not a lot, just the way the cards, you know, life gave me.

2:11 I got into ownership and managing and the team and growing the team. So I've mostly put a lot of my energy in that. It is not as well known, but it's, you know, I always say there's no barrier to entry to do it other than it's really freaking hard, right? And if you can kind of get through those first couple years and make a name for yourself and provide good service, it just starts to feed on itself and gets easier and easier and easier. And so, you know, I'm a, I'm a huge fan. And so I want to talk to you about Houston as a market because I operate in Denver, all I do is warehousing here in Denver. There are 2253 industrial properties in Denver in the category that I transact. And we use Houston as the example of the exact opposite market of Denver because Denver you can actually get anywhere in 20 minutes if there's no traffic. But Houston is a absolutely massive metropolitan. We metropolitan, we'll call it.

3:16 How in the world does a broker learn a market in somewhere like Houston that is so colossally? Huge, right? Well, in some ways it's easier. You don't have to think as much 'cause there's no zoning, so you don't have to worry about your warehouse use not not working. Most places. Huge market. As you know, it's the largest city in terms of land mass, 4th largest in terms of population count. And it could take you, you know, two hours sometimes to drive from one end to the other. And I really enjoy Houston. It's a very open, very much open for business. It's one of the most diverse cities in the USI did a survey once, many, many years ago, 1/3 of my clients were not born in America.

4:07 So the world comes to Houston. We have the second largest port and we do have a manufacturing base. I think we are a winner post COVID because of that. And so very, very interesting dynamic system. Lots of opportunity if you're willing to roll up your sleeves and work. There is no like good old boy network here or you know, closed doors. It's just tons of opportunity. So as far as how you learn the market, I don't think there's anything super revolutionary about it. You pick your asset class, you pick your specific type. So here and you know, you have your landlord wraps, you have your sales brokers, you have your tenant wraps. So you specialize that way. And then you focus on your asset class.

4:48 And then you start a little area and, you know, start door knocking, cold calling in that area, learning about the tenants and the landlords and you come become a little market expert in that little area and then, you know, grow from there. You make it sound easy, but no, it's fun. I find that like discovery phase of the players in the game and the numbers to be, it's not something you could learn overnight. It's an ongoing thing and it's really for me, it's fun to put all the pieces together. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me your tech stack, like your three top technology or platforms rather you couldn't live without. Right.

5:33 It's going to be tough for three, you know, I will, I'll combine two. First is just a really good outbound sales enablement platform, which is kind of technically different from a CRM, but we call the CRM. So ours is outreach dot IO and you can load up that database with your, your companies and your tenants and you can make calls from it. You can, you know, you can record all of your calls. There's these different call dispositions and stages to keep your pipeline organized. You can create sequences, multi touch sequences where you're cold calling, auto emails, voicemail prompts, you can text message like multi touch procurement, you know, system.

6:17 And so, you know, we do that. I'm gonna borrow from something else. We don't have to talk about it, but it's powered by, you know, obviously Co star data. But but zoom info is huge and there's some crazy stuff that's been launched, you know, with fire intent and website visitors on, you know, where you actually see the person that like visited your website. So you know, we feed outreach with zoom info and people have been saying we cold call a lot. We do other things and people are saying cold calling is dead for a while now. And I mean, I got in the business in 2009 making lots of cold calls. It kind of seemed like it got all, it got a little bit more difficult for a while and then all of a sudden you can get people's cell phone e-mail address, you know, direct number and hit them up on LinkedIn. Like I feel like it's actually gotten easier, you know, and there's some articles, recent articles. It's harder now.

7:03 Everybody has the data. People are getting like the text message cold call atrophy and I kind of started believing that, but you know, we send thousands and thousands of thousands of calls a week. I was looking at our data and our connect rate with decision makers just same as it was like 10 years ago. So, you know, in my personal experience, I just, I'm always very cautious. I'm paranoid that that is going away and we'll have to pivot to other, you know, and we do a lot of different things. But anyways, it's a cold calling is alive and well in my opinion. You got to have a good data source and CRN sales enable platform. They're like cool that off. So that's like, you know, very important.

7:45 Another tech, another tech, I mean, you know, a new one that we really like, I'll give them a plug is Scout Space. They are a virtual survey company. That's how they started where you can take those Flyers and those costar PDFs that are kind of boring and you can load it up into a online survey that will kind of you import the PDFs and the different, it'll kind of with some machine learning AI will know where to put data in different. You know, you still got to work with it, but when it's done, it's a very nice online survey platform that's real time. You can provide your client the link, they comment on it, you comment on it, you can disqualify, you can save mark for tour, you can remove it, you add a new property and no more.

8:29 You don't need an e-mail all the time, you just add the property. So that's really good. But beyond that, why I like it is, you know, we have 18 agents here and we all have teams of transaction managers that help us kind of build those surveys out is to share database. So if one of my agents or transaction managers down the hallway searches of information on the property, put some details on it like 3 weeks ago, I can just go in there, pull that information, assume it's probably mostly accurate. We don't have to contact the listing agents. You can get that survey like quick to the to the client. So that's really important. And then also have they have a lease comps component to it as well. So we do a lot of deals here. All of our deals get put in our comps database.

9:09 We trade comps with other landlord and tenant Rep friendly firms. We pull in some costar where we can and Comstack. And so we build a pretty comprehensive comp database again, that's shared by the company and generate these nice reports. It's an excuse to get in front of a company to talk about like kind of the deals that we're seeing. And so that's a really good one. I really like that one. Let's see what else. I guess some custom stuff like, you know, we're learning like everybody else. AI craze. We're proud of you that. And so we're tinkering around with different ChatGPT models that we build on their own, taking some stuff off the shelf and starting to learn about it. We've built some some great little ChatGPT ChatGPT bots that do like a lot of great things didn't even take that long to like build.

9:59 So like one that we used is a proposal lease comparison tool where you literally just upload the proposal. You upload the lease 15 seconds later. It gives you a insanely accurate comparison of did everything in the proposal make it into the lease? Is it different? Is something missing? And so that just that part immediately eliminated. And then you can kind of focus on your broker or like lease comments and same thing for Commission agreements. We have a ChatGPT where we can copy paste or there's you know, we have to worry about confidentiality, but you can copy paste a provision and the chat ChatGPT, it pulls from our, you know, negotiation manual and our preferred boilerplant language that we would suggest to the attorney.

10:42 We can't give offer, you know, can't give legal advice, but it'll like pull that and then tell you, OK, that that this what it says and these are the recommended bullet points to negotiate the deal better in favor of the tenant. So, you know, yeah, so we do that kind of stuff and that's great. I mean, I hate, I mean that's my least favorite thing by far is to make least review comments. And I used to outsource that, you know, and then do a review and now I'm doing it on my own with this ChatGPT thing. But I look just like amazing, you know, I like it finds Oh my gosh, you know, and like the their attorneys are complimenting me, you know, they're reviewing my AI generated comments before they're, you know, layering in their AI generated comments. I don't know what's going to happen for the world, but. Oh my gosh, no, no, it's so funny because this is an old school business, right?

11:35 Phone calls, handshakes, wet signatures. And now we exist in 2025 and the technological options are so robust and we do not know the answer like, like it's, there's so much opportunity, there's so much advancement. Nobody has the right answer to A + B = C and it gets me excited. It's it's fun. You know, there there's the other side of the coin. Like I'm working with a big family and one of the, you know, we got a great offer on a property and one family member underwrote the property on ChatGPT And boy, were the numbers wrong.

12:21 Like holy smokes. And like, you know, and that family members younger and that older family members don't understand that it's ChatGPT. And so it's a really interesting balance. It it's funny you say that. I don't mean to interrupt, but like I, I have been recommending commercial real estate attorneys with commercial transactional experience more in the last 12 months than I ever have. And obviously you're referring attorneys, but like my clients are more and more they're chat TPT ING it and it doesn't really give you the right answer or it's like the wrong answer for that state. And you're trying to like manage your expectations like here. And like, so I almost have like 2 very here's my version of the least comments.

13:05 Let's put yours off to the side. Let's funnel that to like a transactional real estate attorney. So they can kind of like walk you through that 'cause it can, it can be a mess. So. Well, when you figure it all out, you call me. You let me know. So, so I don't have to. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, it's it's fun. It's eye opening at how opportunistic it is. But you know, I know you just you said you have 18 brokers under you. Yeah. What are the top 3 traits of the most successful brokers that you see every day in Houston? I will have 4 core values if you don't mind. I have a hard time picking your numbers and I'll kind of tell you, let me tell you a little bit about kind of our recruiting process or front end and like what changed? Like it's a hard business, right? And we've been a recruiting and mentorship brokerage first and foremost.

14:07 And what I mean by that is we bring in brand new people into the business or we'll find someone transitioning out of another sales roller industry, you know, come to work for Oxford Partners and we'll grow them our own from like the ground up. No one really wants to do that 'cause it's the loss leader for 18 months. It's a lot of work. And we just kept doing it over and over and over and over and over again. You can't do that. You get better, right? So like we used to bring in 10 people, maybe one person would make it. And now we have an extremely high retention rate, you know, very few people. I mean, we have people that not make it in the first year, but like how much much high, high percentage make it and most of them stay with us with the ones maybe grasses greener, they go try somewhere else, but at least they're still in the business and they were successful and I can hang my hat on that.

14:49 And so we got really serious about, you know, recruiting. We have a very stringent recruiting process. We're really big on testing. You know, we do comprehension tests. You can't give an IQ test, it's illegal, but we do comprehension testing and it's like a very important that we're only hiring smart people. Hawaii, you only hire smart people. Hooray, like surprise, like, you know, your workforce gets stronger. So we do that. But then the personality fit, you know, it's like we do personality fit assessments. I used to kind of make me squirm and like uncomfortable and you know, but we have years and years of hiring people. And then you got, we'll go back and look at three years of data and it's just like the realities pops out. You know, certain results you got like a 20% chance of success and another test result, you have like a 72 percent chance of success.

15:36 Like sorry to pass on that 20%, but if you're in my shoes, I'll take the higher lottery odds, you know? And so that's like really important. But outside of that, when you come on board, and that's not everything. We found our 4 core values are consistent, coachable, collaborative, and creative. And that fourth one used to be independently creative because we can't, you know, teach you everything. You got to think on your feet. But we wanted four CS, so we dropped independent and now it's just creative, right? So, yeah, consistent, you know, you come in daily routine, keep doing the same thing over and over again. Don't overthink it. You know, one of my favorite landlords in town once told me like 3 or 4 years in the business, he was like congratulating me on my success at some happy hour. And he says, Ryan, he goes the trick to your business is not being smart enough to think there's a better way of doing things.

16:21 You know, which he's like, don't take it the long way. I didn't take it the wrong way. I love that. Like it's so great. Is it just keep the don't doubt it. Be consistent, super important and then coachable. We've learned not everybody can take constructive criticism or do things your way as they're learning before they figure out how to do it their way. They just want to do it their way before they've ever done anything ever. And so that's a high negative quality. And so we we will hire and fire and retain based off coach ability. And then collaborative is really more of a culture thing, very friendly or very open. We don't really compete on deals if we accidentally step on each other's finger. We just partner on deals, you know, we get together all the time. It's just like that friendly atmosphere, I think is like incredible.

17:03 It's, it's so important. So, but we coined it collaborative. And then I already told you, creative, just like being able to figure out some of your problems on your own, not take it all to your, you know, broker, your managing agent. Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a crazy business. Yeah. As as our team's growing, we're bringing in new brokers, some junior, some experienced, you know, I've got some, I'm taking notes internally and I digress. No, it's, it's, it's really interesting. So one final question before we get to the final question. I saw that you are an SIOR.

17:47 I am tell. Me a bit about that. I mean, it's been great. I joined that organization 10 years ago. I'm in a, you know, leadership role. I'm on the on the nominating committee board right now. I've been president of the independent broker group inside Sir. I've gone to every conference for the last 10 years other than the one conference when my second child was being born. Great community. Since I'm an independent, I'll speak to the independent agents out there. Right now, 40% of that organization are independent brokers. And then when you go to the conferences, probably I'm making this up, but I think it's like 70% of those attendants that actually go to those conferences or independent brokers. So that is your network of highly proficient, very successful agents that you can network with, do deals with, learn from.

18:39 I mean, they drink the kool-aid, man. They drink the kool-aid and it's great. I mean, I joined that. I've learned a lot. I'm not necessarily strong public speaker presenter, but I've learned how to do that almost every single conference. You know, I've I've done started doing some national business after joining those organizations. I've like I used to just receive deals. Now I think our company sends more business out than we receive, which is like fun. We have 4S RORS. We have 6 people in application process right now just for full membership or member social. I love SRORSOR is great. All right, well, tell the folks at Denver to hurry up the application process. Just kidding, just kidding.

19:19 No, I I am as someone who is currently working towards my SIOR. It's awesome. I just, it's a, it's a great organization. And I also ended up doing EO entrepreneur organization, not to pop over, but it met a bunch of broker owners and leaders at, you know, different markets. And like, one thing that they recommended to me outside SIOR is not to join any of those other real estate organizations is to join an entrepreneur organization locally in my Houston chapter. And that's been huge. I've been a huge learning experience. It's 240 business owners in Houston. You can't ask for business. I didn't join it. I've done some really nice deals from friends that I've made in that organization. But you just can hang out with a bunch of business owners from random industries and you learn how they run their businesses and their practices. And it's just been IO, but it's been a great organization there as well.

20:08 One of my favorite things about this business is just that it's learning about other businesses and then working with these unbelievable operators who created these businesses, seeing how they negotiate, seeing how they run numbers and inventory and projections. And it's like when you get to be closer to the sun with more successful people, exactly what you're talking about. You know what? What's the phrase? All tides lift, the rising tide? Whatever. I live in Denver. There's no tides here, but it's a good house. Yeah, or you're this dumb of people you hang out with and associate with. I mean, that's kind of true, you know, you know, my, my, my parents taught me a lot of very valuable things, you know, that I that that or contributed to my success. You know, like, maybe one thing that I learned along the way is that is very true.

20:59 Like, you know, you got to read more and you got to associate with highly successful people more. That's key. And I have heard SIOR is a play, one of the many places to do that within our community. So. Absolutely. I'm happy to hear you're enjoying every. Everybody I talked to has nothing but great things to say so. Yeah. Now, Ryan, we always finish this show with the most important question. What is your commercial real estate secret? You know, I'm going to sound like Rod Santamosimo here. It's about working on the business, not in the business is so important.

21:46 And you know, you can drive a lot of revenue and make a lot of money just by kind of focusing on the next deal, big deal and just be a deal junkie. And that's great. But in order to like, I think elevate and delegate, you really have to focus on getting out of the business to work on the business and figure out how do you develop support staff around you, you know, resources that elevate your service offerings, technology team around you so you can go on vacation for a week and the house doesn't burn down and you can enjoy your family. You know, that's, that's, that's super important. And so you can do that as a high-powered agent slinging lots of commissions, or you can do that as a broker owner where you're leading the team.

22:32 And like, you know, I could talk lots and lots about how we've done that, but you know, just that that you just get out of the daily grind. Working on your business as opposed to in your business, right? We're we're big Rod fans. Edit I do Massimo coaching so I love Rod and his practices. Shout out to Massimo. So Ryan, for the listeners, our Houstonites, our Texans, an international listener, I don't know how many international listeners we have, where can they find you, follow you, contact you, etcetera? Man, I'm not a very great social media personality. I would just I'm you know, you can Google Ryan Hartzell. I'm right there.

23:22 My LinkedIn is LinkedIn slash Ryan Hartzell, Tedet Buyer rep.com But if you just Google Ryan Hartzell or Oxford Partners, we got a really great marketing company. They splatter our name all over the place. Amazing. Go check out Ryan Hartzell at Oxford Partners. Ryan, thank you for being on the show today of. Course no. Thank you for having me. It's been great. Yeah. And for everybody listening, we'll see you next week. That's a wrap for this week on commercial real estate secrets. If you found value, do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review and share it with a fellow commercial real estate lover.

24:07 For brokerage services or to connect, visit warehousehotline.com. I'm Aviva. We'll see you next week.