Want to Grow Your CRE Business? Focus on This One Thing

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is Miles for miles miles. Thank you so much for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week, week, week. This week on commercial real estate secrets, we have my dear friend, Amy Calandrino. Amy, thank you for being on the show today.

Amy Calandrino (00:27)
You're very welcome.

Aviva (00:29)
Amy is the managing broker of beyond commercial in Orlando, Florida. Correct. Orlando. Okay. Amy is an unbelievable broker, mother, friend. And I just want to start this podcast off by saying that absolute first time I ever met Amy, we were filming a content piece called tub talks where our friend Eddie shoots.

Amy Calandrino (00:35)
Yes, it's in Orlando.

you

Aviva (00:58)
content pieces from a bathtub. And we were all at a conference together. So we decided the three of us were gonna do a tub talk. We get in our bathing suits, we get in the tub. I had never met Amy. We have our handshake in the tub. It was beautiful. Little did I know how unbelievable of a broker friend mom Amy is. Amy, thank you for being on the show today.

Amy Calandrino (01:21)
you're very welcome. Yeah, I had no idea either. And then we kept talking. I'm like, this is amazing. This is this is gonna be forever. Forever ever, forever.

Aviva (01:27)
like you. I know. I never.

So Amy is a whip in broker out of Orlando, Florida, but she also just released a book from real to perfect. Amy, talk to me about your book. When did you decide you want to write it and tell me about the process? How did we get here today?

Amy Calandrino (01:50)
So the quick story is, is that I went to Syria, I decided to start a podcast and I was talking all about mindset. And at the time my mindset was in the shitter. And so the podcast really helped to kind of bring my mindset back. And then I landed a speaking engagement. I got to give a keynote. Everybody in the room, hundreds of people like loved my keynote and me sharing my story of, you know, things aren't always perfect and you can just rise out of that. And so I thought to myself, well,

One, I read a book about this too. People enjoyed hearing the keynote. So it was kind of a letter to myself not to go back to that dark place again and write a book, but it came out really good. And we have a lot of great stories. There's some stuff about Tony Robbins in there, Tom Brady, some people you know, people you don't know. And it all weaves into the sports success system that I created myself.

Aviva (02:41)
What is the sport success system?

Amy Calandrino (02:43)
So the sports success system consists of five pillars in which ⁓ S is synergistic and it's the people that you're around like you and also other people and that really feeds your energy. P is being persistent and never giving up and continuing forward. O is omniscient and continuing to study and read and become better. like Bob Knakal says, hitting the hammer and just keep doing it.

R is being radical and actually talk about our tub story in that chapter and not being afraid to do these things that you may think are so different. And T is tautological and it's all about rinsing repeat atomic habits and those things in your life that you like really drive you. And then it's really just a iterative process. And I think if you keep those five pillars in your life, the right energy, the right persistence and learning and all the habit stacking.

you'll be wildly successful. Yeah.

Aviva (03:39)
That's gonna

be a great clip for social media. Thank you. ⁓

How long did it take you to write the book?

Amy Calandrino (03:48)
Just about a year and a half. So I started writing the book in May 2023 and then I finished writing the book on the plane in September 2024. And then but from September 2024 until it launched in April 2025, I mean, it had to go back to an editor and they had to like make it pretty. I didn't do any of that shit, by the way. Like so like I wrote it, but

Other people made the cover and organized it and edited and all those things.

Aviva (04:23)
Tell me about what the reader can expect as a takeaway or two from the book.

Amy Calandrino (04:32)
Wow. So I would say the biggest takeaways are, is I give you real world examples that it's okay to be authentic. It's okay to be your real self and reminding you that when you are your real self and you're real authentic, people crave that. People don't want these fake people anymore. And it really shows that you will be very successful if you're authentic. ⁓ The second thing I think people will gather in the book is if you are struggling, I think mental health is a big thing.

that my big turning point in my life was that I finally admitted that I was not doing well and I broke down crying on the phone with my business banker. So like when I had that catharsis moment and I shared like where I was mentally and finally admitted it rather than putting on this false front, then I was able to effectuate change in my life.

Aviva (05:21)
Wow. So we do have quite a few commercial real estate brokers who listen to this podcast. Being a commercial real estate broker specifically in 2025 is fairly challenging.

Amy Calandrino (05:36)
You're kidding.

Aviva (05:40)
If I was a new broker in 2025, what tips would you give me so I could see success in 2030, 2035, et cetera?

Amy Calandrino (05:52)
Be consistent and then I also would be passionate about whatever that you're doing. If you're doing a specific part of commercial real estate just because you think that's where all the money is, you're not gonna achieve real happiness. So find that niche in the market marketplace that you are really super passionate about. Like my personal space is I'm not in the corporate institutional space.

which I may do deals with them, but I work with Moco Small and medium-sized businesses and that's my jam. And so I'm super happy and delighted even when it's not the best of days and we lose out on a bidding war or something else happens. But because I really like who I'm working with and I like who I serve, I can keep going and I keep having that drive. don't pick what you're doing because you really love it and don't try to just...

change asset classes every couple years because you know, car washes are doing really great. I'm going to do car washes and then, I think industrial is doing great. Become like an expert and find your niche and then really grow from there.

Aviva (06:57)
Unless you're doing office. We understand if you want to bail. No, I'm just kidding. That was a joke. No, I, uh.

Amy Calandrino (06:59)
Ha ha ha!

Office is actually doing great in two specific markets, a few specific markets in Orlando. I would say Winter Park and Winter Garden. They're small, know, super charming, really good work, live kind of play communities. And we're talking about on a class A office space sub 3 % vacancy. And it's just like musical chairs. One person expands and another person's back in there behind them. I mean, I was just trading in a 5,600 square foot off market office space in Winter Park.

Aviva (07:25)
Wow.

Amy Calandrino (07:35)
earlier this week and they said they already have like three unsolicited offers for people to lease this office space because there just is not office space. It's literally musical chairs.

Aviva (07:45)
I love that for everybody involved except for the tenants. But, you know, I come from the landlord side of things. So good for you. Good for the landlords. I love to hear it.

Amy Calandrino (07:50)
Yeah.

Aviva (08:00)
Let me ask you.

From real to perfect, I wanna get back to the book. From perfect to real.

Amy Calandrino (08:03)
Perfect to real.

Aviva (08:09)
No, I, there's so much I want to unpack, but I think, like you said, that fundamental of being authentic, it's so interesting as, you know, Amy and I came together as friends under the pretense that we have the same job and we have both found that we are able to expand our networks and provide for our clients when we heavily use the internet.

social media, digital platforms to enhance our business, be it whether we're working on the tenant side or the buyer side or the landlord side. And something I have found and I see in your content, Amy, is it's like you said, it's that authenticity. ⁓ And I see brokers struggling with it every single day, right? This industry has been so reluctant.

to come onto social media. And then what we do see for the most part is, and things are changing finally and thankfully, but what we do see for the most part is everybody does the run of the mill stuff. Same at this point, it's just like a prompt into ChatGPT and then a copy paste onto LinkedIn. unfortunately that does not reign as authentic and

It's pretty, I mean, if I want, it's pretty obvious. It's unbelievably honest that the content actually does not perform, right? When we post inauthentic content, it doesn't perform. When we post authentic content, amazing things happen. And it's like you said, when it comes to, you know, that is true authenticity in the space. And...

It's like you said like everybody wants to get into commercial real estate because it seems like Easy money and like and it's not

Amy Calandrino (10:03)
Mm-hmm.

It's funny though, I finally have had someone in my organization almost four years. She's amazing. She's got like a full ride to Stetson College. She's super smart. She's been with me this whole time and I told her, I'm like, I know you're gonna graduate in a couple of years, but you're gonna stay with me like, you know, all the way through. But we were talking about our marketing and I do curate my Monday market update and I find the stories and I do use Chat GPT to help me, but it actually does not, it does not perform.

Aviva (10:32)
Yeah.

Amy Calandrino (10:32)
And

what really does perform is when we share the stories of the entrepreneurs. And so I actually killed it this morning. I'm like, it's great, but it's busy work and, you know, it's not really performing, but what really is performing. now my marketing gal, she's like, well, I can also like after putting together these stories, I can call them and make sure they've actually posted their Google review. And then I can break this into like a carousel for Instagram. And then I'm going to do and she's going to make like a whole like content like waterfall out of.

Because she's sitting with me and making me do a story about every single deal. And then she's going to help like carry the torch to go. But that's like authentic. People love hearing like these cool success stories of what we've done and transforming the lives of, know, but then I'm killing something that I'm feeling is not as authentic. It's not moving the needle. And so I even have to like I got to kill the darlings. So they so they say you ever heard that saying it was the guy that writes all those ⁓ those

horror things, the guy that wrote Carrie and wrote all those things. He lives in Maine. You know, I'm talking about ⁓ Stephen King. Yeah, he would always say kill the darlings. He'd be writing and writing and writing and he'd have something and he's done it for a long time or he was really married to it, but he just killed it. It's like, can't keep this in the book. Kill the darling. So I killed a darling today. yeah.

Aviva (11:32)
Stephen King? Stephen King?

Okay,

this, okay. Ed Winslow proof stacking. Yes, yeah. Well, what you explained was deal story and then content waterfall as a result and then bring it all back to your website essentially for SEO purposes. I have started that as well. And you're right. It's the content people wanna see. It's real.

Amy Calandrino (11:55)
Yes!

Yeah.

Aviva (12:17)
authentic transactions. It's not market insights that we all can extract from ChatGPT in the literal click of a button and it works. I was very excited to see Ed on your podcast because ⁓ I had to hire an entire second VA to do the proof stacking.

Amy Calandrino (12:41)
I am well what I did instead of hiring someone else is like I said I'm gonna kill something else and kill some of that so I said I would almost rather on my Beyond commercial page have only just a couple social media things but they're super high quality super deep and like impactful and let's just get rid of the other stuff I think it's not the amount of time you're posting but the quality of the post and so and I carry the torch on my own

personal social media that kind of ties into the brokerage. on the brokerage side, we're going to kill some of the stuff. Yeah. To then focus on the good stuff.

Aviva (13:16)
Yeah. Well, I look forward to seeing how it plays out and sharing what it looks like with you at CREI in September. Listeners, you all have to go. It's a very, very, very worthwhile conference where commercial real estate professionals from across the country get together and essentially tell all our best secrets to each other. So come to that. If you're listening right now, you can't miss it. Anyway.

Amy Calandrino (13:19)
.

Yes.

Aviva (13:46)
Amy.

Amy Calandrino (13:47)
Yes.

Aviva (13:49)
from perfect to real. Did you enjoy writing a book? Or are you gonna do it again?

Amy Calandrino (13:56)
I did enjoy writing a book and I will probably do it again. It's actually funny. I think my children said, congratulations mom on your first book is what they said. They're four and five. And I'm like, I find it amazing that I didn't tell you guys I'm going to write other books, but they said first when I videotaped them and I didn't tell them to say that. I just said, can you say something to me about, you know, my books coming out today? And they're like, congratulations on your first book. And I'm like, but yeah, I think ⁓ I will write a little bit more about ⁓

Aviva (14:05)
Mm.

Wow.

⁓

Amy Calandrino (14:26)
perhaps having a curated approach to commercial real estate. think both of you and you and I are similar sizes in that you can deliver impactful services, but in a more tight way and then allowing you to be more flexible to your family and live a more meaningful life. Yeah.

Aviva (14:45)
Yeah, it's pretty, you know, I always compare our brokerage to like, you could sign up with a national international broker. You're to be like a cow in a mill and you just get a number and you just go through the mill. But you know, at the warehouse hotline and I know you do the same thing. It's very much a human to human contact where

You can call me pretty much anytime and I will answer unless, you know, I'm getting a little better boundaries now that I have a nine month old. ⁓ and, but I digress anyway, boutique brokerage.

Amy Calandrino (15:27)
But you should have clients that

understand that. I had a conversation with one of my very best clients. He's been a client of mine for 10 years. And I said, okay, got all your stuff done. I emailed it to you. I'm running to the gym. Tell me any of the comp, any of the piece, you know, any tweaks you have to that. And I'll get it when I get back. I went to the gym at 1130 in the middle of the day yesterday. Right. And he's like, yes, Amy, go get a good workout in and then get this back. And I was like, yeah, I haven't been going very often. And he went, Amy, just like that to me. And it was my client.

Aviva (15:33)
Wow.

Man, it's cute.

Yeah.

Amy Calandrino (15:57)
So you

should work with people that know that the more that you do for yourself, the more creative you're going to be and the better you're going to be in the deals because you're not burning yourself out. Yeah.

Aviva (16:08)
Absolutely.

And I feel the same way where my, you know, my clients become friends and, there'd be these deep relationships cultivate with strangers from across the country. And it's it's remarkable in that the more you give, the more you get period point blank. So that's my, my two cents, Amy.

Amy Calandrino (16:33)
Yes.

Aviva (16:34)
What is your commercial real estate secret?

Amy Calandrino (16:38)
My commercial real estate secret in something that I have to deploy is using snail mail. So I always have stamps and ⁓ this to even mail stuff out at my desk. And it's one of my secrets. It's how I acquired my building next door. I'm working on, So yeah, I say that's my secret. I think the personal touch of writing handwritten thank you notes to people or writing a handwritten note to someone of a building you want to buy or...

Maybe your client wants to buy and differentiating it. have all different colored envelopes too. I never use like a white envelope and everything's very craft and all of that. So I'd say that's my secret sauce. And especially if you're trying to get around a gatekeeper, I'll find the business owner's personal address and I will hunt them down. And that's where the letter will go. Not to their company. Yeah.

Aviva (17:22)
Wow.

It's something I think about not to... No, I'm gonna say it's something I'm thinking about recently is like people hate phone calls, like spam, sales, phone calls. And they should, 100 % rightfully so. have robots calling you all day long. A handwritten note is powerful. And I agree. That's a really good commercial estate secret.

Amy Calandrino (17:42)
Yes.

Yeah.

It works.

Aviva (18:00)
Amy, for the listeners, viewers, where can they find you, follow you, get the book, etc.

Amy Calandrino (18:08)
yeah.

So amycalandrino.com is my personal website and then my brokerage is beyondcommercial.com. Best email for me is amy @ beyondcommercial.com and you can get the book at Amazon. You just put in from Perfect to Real Amy Calandrino will pull up. We'll have the audible available by the time this episode airs and you can also get hardback paperback. All of those things. It's a really, it's a really good book. I've gotten.

Lots and lots of five star reviews so far. if you could read the book and also post a review, that would be very helpful. And if you know anyone who's struggling with perfectionism or maybe wants to shift their mindset and they want to thrive in life, this is the book for them. I've had some people buy multiple and give it to friends. So yeah.

Aviva (18:55)
And Amy is an unbelievable conductor to lead that train because you're a badass and I adore you.

Amy Calandrino (19:03)
You

Aviva (19:04)
So thank you for being on the show today.