In this episode, we sit down with Ben Blumenthal of NOAH to dive into his journey from struggling through cold calls to founding a cutting-edge real estate brokerage that’s revolutionizing the industry. Ben shares how he built a platform combining technology, time management, and team support to empower brokers to do more deals in less time, plus, his unique insights into recruiting top talent, navigating the current real estate market, and even volunteering as an EMS in NYC.

Transcript

Hal Coopersmith: Welcome to Broker’s Angle. We are speaking to Ben Blumenthal of NOAH. Welcome, Ben.

Ben Blumenthal: Thanks for having me.

Hal Coopersmith: So you decided to start your own brokerage. Why did you decide to do that?

Ben Blumenthal: So I had started in the business and had not closed a single deal for my first year in the business. I had cold called consistently every day, you know, got a lot of people hanging up on me and kept a running list, worked on a ton of deals, you know, they all kind of, died somewhere along the line before closing and  I spent the first year in the business really with not too much success to show for it. My second year in the business, I had closed the most deals at the company I was at. And in my third year, I was a top producer. So I was at age 24. Didn’t have necessarily the technology or the tools that I felt could really help me streamline and make my business more efficient. I had two options. Number one was to maybe try at a bigger firm, try going after bigger fish. And grow that way by, growing and, trying to get, you know, more institutional level clients. Or, I could focus on the middle market that I was working on, but just with a little bit more of a supportive platform, whether it’s a team, more role based team for people to handle certain functions that I was, you know, doing exclusively myself, and also coupling technology with it.

So in 2017, I, along with, Noam Ben Ami, who runs the company today, we had decided to build this platform that was going to enable and supercharge brokers in the sense that you can make four times, your money. How? You would do half the amount and two times the amount of deals. You’d be more productive and you’d win more margin on your time. So that was the thought and we created a technology platform and we also hired transaction managers and, you know, admin support, really just to have that as a baseline. And recruited brokers who were interested in the business who found that, you know, if they use these tools and were ambitious and motivated and really wanted to do this, can go much further with their time than they would have with the competition, whether it was a big shop or a small shop. And I think to date, we’ve found a good spot in the market and, you know, have completed many deals to show for it.

Hal Coopersmith: So a lot of your technology is, imagined quite proprietary. You talked about leveraging your time and gaining more margin on a deal. Talk a little bit more about how that works.

Ben Blumenthal: Yeah, so I think a lot of it’s about being organized. Brokerage at the end of the day is a return on time business. Time is our inventory and you can make a million dollars on a deal, but if it takes you four years to do, and you’re working on it, you know, ten hours a week, you’re not necessarily making a better margin on your time than you would if you’re working on a twenty or thirty thousand dollar deal that, you know, can be done in two or three months. So a lot of it is about standardizing process because while every deal is different, the process is usually the same. So if you have people that are trained on the process that know what to expect that can be proactive and diligent in following up, it really lets you rest easy as a broker in doing what you do best, which is guiding the transaction, managing the relationship and creating more opportunities from all the information that you’re gathering from that deal. And not being tied to things that A, you may not be best suited to do, and B, that can be handled very dutifully by people who are specifically trained in, you know, those specific activities.

Hal Coopersmith: So in your first job, how long were you cold calling for? How many hours a day? 

Ben Blumenthal: I was probably cold calling, you know, 60 to 70 percent of the day. But that was only after I would canvas, I would literally walk through every building in Midtown. I would probably spend nine to twelve, one I’d come back, eat lunch, and then spend the rest of the afternoon inputting the information from the morning I had made a walk through all these buildings with a yellow pad, rode the elevators or the stairwells, whichever one it was. You know, some had re-entry floors, some didn’t have re-entry floors if you’ve been through the stairwells of Midtown’s buildings, but I basically covered every building in Midtown, created my own database of all the tenants, and that was a very early stage of the prospecting list that we still work off today. I still do cold calling. However, my return on my cold calling, you know, 13 years into the business is a much higher return than it would be if you’re just starting out. You know, you develop a nose, you know, where’s their interest here, what’s the best time to check back. And I always say cold calling is not about hitting the bullseye. It’s really about how do I position myself and how do I stay relevant to this person based on what they’re telling me. So you know, people sign three, five, ten year leases. So not everyone’s thinking about it today. And we say in the office, there’s two types of prospects, those that are not in the market and those that are not yet in the market.

So,  that’s really what a lot of cold calling is about, is about, you know, positioning and, understanding how you can stay relevant to people and what’s relevant to them.

Hal Coopersmith: Do you have a good technique that you’ve mastered for cold calling.

Ben Blumenthal: So I have, we have this, tool that we use, it’s,  integrated through our CRM, but it’s basically called an A and a B list. An A list is someone that gets a call every month, you know, they’re at a certain point where you want to be touching them every month and there’s a hundred people that get on that list and your CRM feeds you every 30 days, hey, it’s time to call John, and a B list, which is a call once a quarter, hey, you know, once a quarter you’ll get, a task in your CRM, hey, it’s time to call, Jane. So those are two systems and if someone is, you know, within medium term, you know, you just put them on your B list. Someone’s short term, you put them on your A list. And that keeps you on top of them, and makes sure that, you know, they don’t slip through the cracks.

Hal Coopersmith: And I imagine that with your platform and your company you’re looking for brokers. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing in the market for brokers, people entering the business, people leaving the business.

Ben Blumenthal: So we recruited, you know, we’ve been recruiting brokers since we started. And in 21, 22 people, you know, would look at me like, you sure this is like a good thing for me to be doing right now? And I said, it’s actually the best time, because what happens is in slow markets, or at least if it’s perceived to be a slow market, or, you know, the media does a successful job at, you know, bashing the industry enough, people are running away from it. They’re saying, oh wow, office space in Midtown, I would never touch that. And what happens is, is that the supply of brokers kind of wanes. There’s not as many people interested in becoming a broker. There’s probably a net loss. There’s more people leaving the business than coming into the business. Yet with tenants still in Midtown, the demand stays the same. Their needs may be different, but, you know, even if you were here in 21, 22, there were still people coming into Midtown, decisions still needed to be made, leases were still rolling, so there was pretty much a constant demand for office brokers, but the supply of brokers had diminished, so there was a supply and demand imbalanced,  I think now you’re seeing demand return in a more, active way, you know, in volume and quantity is probably higher than it was in 21, 22, because you have more people companies looking to come back into the market now. So I would say the demand is even up for real estate brokers. And I don’t think this, the supply is necessarily, of brokers has necessarily caught up to that demand. So the people that have established themselves that are, you know, in the business and have been in the business day in and day out, I think you’re seeing, a lot of, deal flow in that way. And I also think that, you know, what we saw in like 2015, 2016, all the way up to. Let’s just say 2022, is there was a lot of growth in the city, especially in the tech space. A lot of VCs are very active. There’s a low interest rate environment. There’s a lot of liquidity around. So there was a very low barrier to entry for a new tech company to come on the scene and offer all kinds of compensation packages to, you know, hungry, sales individuals who, you know, may have considered brokerage, but there’s a lot of money out there for other types of startups and tech companies and whatnot.

And I don’t think you’re seeing as much of that today. So as far as the offerings and the availabilities go for a young person who is interested in building a sales career, I think real estate brokerage probably ranks a little bit higher than it did in previous years.

Hal Coopersmith: What are you doing to recruit brokers?

Ben Blumenthal: It’s really about, finding someone that’s, for me at least, is someone who’s interested in this business. You know, I don’t like to evangelize people, I don’t like to sell people I like to really just pair up with people that have an interest in this already, because what we’re about is if you are interested in this business and this is something you want to do and you understand what it is, we can help you get further, faster than the competition. So as far as finding them goes it’s a big challenge, you know It’s a 99 out of 100 people are not built for this business,  I don’t have the secret sauce of how to source these people and how to find them.  You do your best to make sure that expectations are correct up front.  I tell people, you know, look, if you make a deal, you make a dollar, you know, before 12 months, you’re doing better than I did. And, everyone that we’ve recruited has done that. So, you know, it’s a little bit reassuring for the model and, I think a proof of concept. But, you know, it’s really just about expectations, just finding people that are interested in this business. And, once they’ve evaluated some of the other alternatives out there, if they come back to us and say, Hey, this really speaks to me, then, you know, we’ve made a match.

Hal Coopersmith: So you talked about what you’re seeing among brokers and how that’s affecting your company. What are you seeing out there in terms of what’s in the marketplace right now?

Ben Blumenthal: So I think, you know, the common consensus out there, you know, I think really aligns with what we’re seeing, which is that the Class A product is very strong. A lot of the Class A buildings have repositioned themselves, had made themselves very compelling value propositions for companies looking for space. A big challenge over the last two or three years for companies has been getting people back to the office and having an office in a building that people enjoy going to, that they’re excited to go to, not just a functional cubicle that they can sit in and, you know, kind of be depressed at has been a big focus for companies. So the class a buildings that have invested in themselves, obviously new construction is off the charge, but the class a buildings that have invested in amenities, upgrading spaces, light and air and really well located buildings have done quite well and are doing quite well.  Class B is a little bit of a mixed bag. You can talk about Class B in well located areas, which are moving and clears at a price. You know, buildings are leasing up. And they do, and the space does move there for more value conscious tenants. And then you have your Class B buildings that are in not as great locations. And, again, everything in Manhattan clears at a price, but the challenge for a lot of the Class B buildings that are not necessarily in a good location is that the price at which they would clear, meaning the price that they would rent for, are not necessarily numbers that the ownership, based on their capital stack and their capital, and their, you know, financial situation, can necessarily support.

So a lot of the vacancy that we’re seeing in Midtown is a residual vacancy, which has been sitting for a while, and I’d say it’s, it’s just frozen because,  a lot of the capital behind these buildings has not been restacked or reshuffled yet to really be competitive with what the market’s willing to pay. So that’s starting to change now. You’re seeing more liquidity in the market. More buildings are trading, more banks are ready to take haircuts and kind of get into shape and, and move on. And that’ll trickle down to the leasing market where these spaces will ultimately get absorbed with the market’s bidding for them. And, you know, look, if you have that and then a combination of demand coming back in a strong way as interest rates start to creep down and more liquidity comes into the market, more investment, more, more business comes into the market. You should see things start to, pick up and, hopefully we’ll be on the upswing for the next up cycle.

Hal Coopersmith: And what makes you and your firm different?

Ben Blumenthal: So I believe that, real estate, you know, everyone says it’s a local business. And one thing, as I spoke about earlier is real estate is a return on time business. So being specialized is the core of our firm. In that, every deal that we work on is making us an even sharper and sharper sphere to do the next deal. You know, the information that we learn from one deal is, you know, always going to be relevant to the next deal. So I’d say the specialization that we have of working in midtown office space, is really something that’s core to our firm. I really don’t believe in going too far out of that and, you know, spreading ourselves too thin because the compounding, which is the beauty of the brokerage business, really works best. And the wheel spins much, the flywheel spins much faster when you are focused on a, you know, a single market. So that’s our specialization.

Hal Coopersmith: Is there a transaction that you want to talk about where you help navigate a difficult situation?

Ben Blumenthal: Yeah, we were working for a client that had a large excess of space. They had taken way more space than they needed and we’re looking to, sublease a big portion of it. And, it took a couple of years, positioning the space properly. I mean, in the throes of COVID, they didn’t need the space. And, one thing that it really boiled down to is uniquely identifying who wanted, who wants this space, because it was, if you look at it from an aerial view, it would be commodity space, everyone has a full floor with offices, but what’s really going to make something unique about this space? And with this opportunity, we were able to identify that there was a special entrance that this tenant had to the building. And what we did in that was create a building within a building. So a building within a building is you have your own entrance. It’s as if you have your own building, but it’s not all the space in the existing building. And by creating that building within a building, we were able to attract tenants that needed a specific and exclusive entrance to the building. So that was a real key for us in identifying specific tenants in the market, creating something unique about this opportunity, and distinguishing it from, you know, the rest of the mountains of space that were available,  you know, comparable to this space.

Hal Coopersmith: What sort of tenants need their own entrance space?

Ben Blumenthal: So high traffic tenants, medical tenants, Tenants that, you know, may saturate the lobbies, may abuse the elevators more than,  you know, than necessary, those are things a lot of times that a landlord would be reluctant to bring in. Remember, the landlord’s got many tenants in the building and, the last thing he wants is to bring in one that’s going to spoil it for the rest of them.

So there are certain tenants in the market who require or, you know, would be required to have a unique and dedicated entrance.

Hal Coopersmith: And last thing I wanted to talk about is, I saw the walkie talkie on your hip. Can you tell me what that’s for?

Ben Blumenthal: So I’m a volunteer, EMS, basically I, sit in my office in Midtown, the volunteer ambulance corp that we have is called Hutzala, based all across New York City. We have two ambulances in Midtown. They both sit, on 47th and 48th Street, going in each direction. And whenever there’s a call, nearby in Midtown of somebody, who needs, immediate medical attention. We try to, field a crew to go, help that person and, if necessary, transport them to a local hospital.

Hal Coopersmith: That is an incredible thing that you’re doing, a great way to end things. Ben Blumenthal, thank you for being on Broker’s Angle.

Ben Blumenthal: Thank you so much.