ment, which was flirting with the idea of taking the
building for itself.
• Don’t expect the same level of commissions you
get in the United States. “Leasing pays a significant
fee in the United States,” he relates. “It does not work
that way in most foreign countries.”
• Understand the local compensation structure
and get your client to understand that early on.
According to Chris Cuff, SIOR, MCR, executive director of Colliers International in Shanghai,
the three questions every broker should ask a multi-national client are:
3) “Where else in the world can I help you?”
Contributing SIORs
1) “I just did an office deal with you, when can I
do another?”
2) “Is there another service I can offer, like indus
trial, consulting or valuation?”
Cuff also adds, “when you are dealing with multi-
national companies, everyone is banging on the door,
but you can set yourself apart when you talk about
multiple product types and multiple geographies. If
you are an industrial guy from Chicago, you can talk
about Chicago warehouses, but a lot of guys can do
that. However, if you tell the corporate real estate
guy, ‘hey, I see you are considering a downtown
office, I can put a team together to help,’ or ‘I see you
have office around the world, I have a team that can
help you there.’ It’s one-stop shopping, solving a lot
of problems for the real estate guy.”
As Collier’s Fink observes, “If you are not help-
ing your client with all their needs, including interna-
tional, then your competition is.”
Chris Cuff, SIOR, MCR
Jim Fink, SIOR, MBA
.
