Real Estate, Resilience, and Forging Partnerships with Bill Himmelstein

In this episode, Patrick and Shelli chat with Bill Himmelstein, founder and CEO of the Tenant Advisory Group, a tenant-focused commercial real estate brokerage in Chicago. Bill shares his journey from the early influence of his real estate investor father, to his accidental but fortuitous entry into the world of commercial real estate, including his initial struggles and eventual success.

Emphasizing a tenant-first philosophy, Bill discusses his commitment to always seeking the best deals for his clients, even when they are ready to accept current offers. He highlights the importance of honest relationships, exceeding client expectations, and treating other people’s money with the same respect as one's own.

Bill shares his advice for entrepreneurs, stressing the importance of valuing one’s time and building genuine, mutually beneficial relationships. Throughout the discussion, Bill demonstrates an authentic passion for helping others, and shares ways to leverage relationships to maintain a client-first approach in business.

• (00:25) Introducing Bill Himmelstein
• (01:57) Bill's Early Influences and Real Estate Journey
• (07:17) The Importance of Sales Skills in Entrepreneurship
• (11:18) Building Trust and Relationships
• (16:31) Tenant-First Philosophy and Client Success Stories
• (19:13) Building Long-Term Client Relationships
• 22:54 Current Trends in Chicago's Office and Industrial Markets
• (30:24) Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned
• (33:57) The Value of Making Connections

About Our Guest

Subscribe to Your Favorite Podcast

If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.

Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Full Show Transcript 

Patrick Emmons: Hello fellow innovators. This is Patrick Emmons.

Shelli Nelson: And this is Shelli Nelson.

Patrick Emmons: Welcome to the Innovation and the Digital Enterprise Podcast, where we interview successful visionaries and leaders, and give you an insight into how they drive and support innovation within their organizations.

Shelli Nelson: Today's guest is Bill Himmelstein, founder and CEO of Tenant Advisory Group, Chicago's tenant-focused commercial real estate brokerage.

Over the past 25 years, Bill has negotiated more than $1 billion in transactions for tech startups, professional service firms, manufacturers, and physicians.

In 2017, he was recognized as one of Chicago's most influential commercial real estate brokers by Cranes and was also featured in Voyage Chicago.

A CCIM-designated managing broker and Cranes most influential honoree, Bill also lectures at UIC, DePaul, and Columbia College, sits on a dozen startup advisory boards, and helps develop hotel projects worth 150 million nationwide. When he isn't brokering deals, he hosts a real estate show on Advisor TV and spends time with his neuroscientist wife, Diana, and their two sons. Bill, welcome to the show.

Bill Himmelstein: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Patrick Emmons: Bill, it's great. We've known each other for years. I've always admired your style, how you do business, the amount of times on a weekly basis somebody says to me, "You know everybody in Chicago." And I say, "Well, you don't know Bill," right? "Because Bill knows more people than anybody I know."

And so I'm really excited about having you on. It's such an interesting time with real estate and what's going to happen. So really excited to have you on and to share your wisdom and your experience.

Before we get to that, I'd love to kind of go backwards and hear the origin story of how you got into this, the entrepreneurial leap that occurred. So what first drew you to commercial real estate, and what gave you the confidence and the courage to start your own business?

Bill Himmelstein: Well, it was really just about a series of mistakes and bad decisions that originally got me into real estate. It was me trying to pursue fame and fortune, not really the fame, but the fortune side.

Ever since I was younger, I was very fortunate. My father was an investor in real estate, and he would take me to his properties when I was a kid, and we'd empty the washing and drying machines of the quarters.

And the bag would be as big as I was. And so I thought we were rich. I said, "Dad, I can't even lift this bag of quarters. So now that we're rich, what are we going to spend all this money on?"

My dad would take me to the bank. He said, "Come here, let me show you what's going to happen." He deposits the money. He says, "The bank is going to pay us to hold onto this money, and each month after they've paid us, they're going to pay us on top of what they'd already paid us."

So he teaches me about compounding interest, and my mind was blown. I said, "Boy, I need to put more money in the bank." And then he was teaching me about leverage and how he goes, "This building, let's say it's $200,000. Well, guess how much I had to pay for it?" And I go, "I don't know, $200,000?"

And he says, "No. I only had to pay $40,000. And the bank paid the rest of it." And my mind was blown again. And he's telling me about how all the tenants are going to pay his mortgage, and they're going to pay his taxes, they're going to pay his expenses. And, in theory, there's a little bit of money left over and he's going to buy the next property with it. So I was just very lucky that I had someone I looked up to that was teaching me about this stuff.

So fast-forward to when I was in high school. One summer I was a bank teller, and most people would come in every two weeks, every other Friday, and they'd deposit their $165, $210, and their bank accounts pretty much match that. They did not have much money.

But there was this one woman who would come in on a frequent but irregular basis, and she would deposit $36,000, $19,000, $24,000. Just huge sums of money, and her bank account was stacked. She was crushing it. And so finally towards the end of the summer, I said, "Ma'am, I don't mean to pry, but may I ask what it is you do for a living?" And she says, "I'm a real estate broker."

So light bulb pops off. I'm like, "Okay, my dad owns real estate and this woman is just banking on the brokerage side of real estate."

So I'm, like, "What I want to do is earn the money through the brokerage side and then take that money and buy real estate with it." And so, then it's my senior year in college, and I knew I was going to go into some type of a sales role.

But I didn't think many of the roles were necessarily that respectful until one of the real estate companies from Chicago at the time called Equus. They've since been purchased by Cushman and Wakefield.

Equus comes to campus, gives me an interview, and they say, "Bill, you're going to be working with the CEO, CFO, or COO of companies." And I thought to myself, "Well, that's a great network to have. Even if I'm not successful in real estate, I'm going to know all these people running businesses. Surely I'll have an opportunity with one of them."

They said, "You're going to be negotiating their second-largest expense, which is their real estate transactions." And I said, "Well, that sounds exciting." And they go, "And because you're negotiating such a high-value transaction, there's going to be pretty large commissions."

And I'm thinking, "Okay, just like this woman when I was working at the bank. I'm going to try and make some bank."

I said, "I like that." They said to me, "Bill, we don't care when you come and go, as long as you're producing." And that's exactly how I wanted to be judged. I didn't want to be forced to make relationships with the right people so I can get a promotion versus not.

I wanted to work hard, do well, and make money, and not have anybody control my destiny but myself. The last thing they said, which was planting the hook, right?

This is exactly what they want, is guys like me, young and stupid. They said, "Oh, by the way, you'll probably fail at this." And in my mind I'm, like, "Oh hell no they said I wasn't going to make it. I'm going to show them. I'm going to show them I'm going to be successful in this."

That's exactly what they wanted, is the young idiot that didn't know anything but to grind, work hard, keep their head down, stay focused, and knock it out of the park. And fast-forward 25 years later, that's exactly what I've done.

I didn't want anyone to say that I was a failure. I didn't want anyone to control my own destiny but myself, and that's kind of where we are today, is I am not a failure. I might be close to it, but I'm not a failure, and I'm controlling my own destiny.

Patrick Emmons: Yeah. Clearly, you're not a failure. And the truth of the matter is when you do what you do, when people do that, I call it you're an outside cat, right? You're outside. You got to eat what you kill. You develop skills that inside cats, they don't know how close they are to failure because they're inside, right?

And the awareness of, like, "Hey, we got to produce," right? That clarity of, "Listen, great job. You're a good person. You tried really hard, but ..." It does develop a certain level of, like, "Hey, I just got to work. I got to stay active. I got to do the right things. I got to hustle."

And I got to believe that almost all entrepreneurs I know are generally pretty good at sales, right? They've got to develop the ability to go find a deal. But they also have to have the ability to find people and then sell them too on the mission, and the purpose, and that they're going to have impact. How do you feel about that?

Bill Himmelstein: No, spot on. I mean, you can develop the greatest product in the world, but if you can't get in front of the right people and tell them why they need it, you're not going to make any money.

And so, I'm not knocking developers. Those are obviously very difficult and highly skilled jobs, but without the ability to be an outside cat and kick the bushes and attack whatever comes running out of those bushes, I just don't think you're going to get very far.

I mean, ask attorneys, right? It's a very hard lesson for an attorney to learn. They start working in the law firm, and they're grinding away and working hard, and they pick their head up after seven, eight, nine years and say, "Hey, I'd like to be a partner." And they go, "Oh. Well, you've got to go out and bring in business if you want to become a partner."

Patrick Emmons: Totally. Totally.

Bill Himmelstein: And so that's really ... I think it's a valuable skillset, and it's a big part of it. It's not just about showing up, although that's very important, is being out there, being seen, shaking hands, kissing babies, meeting the right people.

But it's also about having a very short memory. I get told no exponentially more times than I get told yes. I have people ignore me. I have people not responding to me. That's common. That's every day for me. And I've got a thick head. Again, that's part of my stupidity, is that I just ... I don't let it bother me. I don't care, because that old saying, "Every no, you're one step closer to a yes."

And it might sound a little silly, but it's true. You have to have that mindset that, "Look, not everyone's going to like me. Not everyone's going to need me, not everyone's going to want to work with me. But the ones that say yes, that's what keeps the wheels turning. That's what keeps things moving forward."

Patrick Emmons: Whenever I hear a no, I just hear, "Not now."

Bill Himmelstein: Right. I love that.

Patrick Emmons: Not now.

Bill Himmelstein: I love that.

Patrick Emmons: Right? It's not, no. It's just not now. The other part is, Bill, you and I, have a lot of different styles. And one thing I've always admired about you is you are a super likable guy.

So I think when you say like, "Oh, you may not like me, I don't know anybody who wouldn't like you." I know the list of people who don't like me. It's pretty long, and I'm proud of it. I check out glass door all the time to find out if I'm properly cultivating new additions to that, and I've been successful, so ... but that's my charm.

Bill Himmelstein: It's very kind of you to say. No, I appreciate that, and people enjoy your presence as well, but what I would say-

Patrick Emmons: Oh. That was ... I was not farming for a compliment. You're missing it. I relish my curmudgeonly, right? That's part of who I am.

Bill Himmelstein: What benefits me is that I genuinely enjoy people. Meeting new people, learning their stories, connecting with them. It's just kind of in my DNA, right? I don't think I necessarily learned it. What I learned how to do was take my skillset and sort of tweak it so I can be a little bit more memorable, maybe be a little bit more likable.

But the fact of the matter is, especially when it comes to entrepreneurs, and business owners, and CEOs, it's just, I'm genuinely interested to hear their origin story, and to hear how they got to where they are, and then offer, in a genuine way, what can I do to support you?

Because I found that one of the greatest ways to build a relationship, to build trust, is to honestly want to support someone else. And just say, "Who in my network is beneficial for you? What challenges is your business facing, and what resources do I know that might be able to support you in solving those challenges?"

And so, it's very counterintuitive to not sell people, right? To say, "Hey, I am selling commercial real estate, so let me jam that down your throat and find out who needs it." That's what I was taught. That's what the big real estate firms that I work for, they all said, "You cold-call people, and you ask them what's going on with their space needs, and then you tell them that you can solve those needs."

Well, once I started my own business, I don't even talk about real estate. I don't even bring it up, and I'm getting hired exponentially more than I used to, and I'm not even talking about it.

So it's just a really interesting approach to be able to just try and support others, and come in there and say, "How can I support the growth of your business?" And that alone separates me from any of the competitors that I know. I don't know any of my competitors that are out there not talking real estate and talking about, "How can I support the growth of your business?"

Patrick Emmons: I will say there's a couple who adhere to your philosophy, but no one matches your level of, like ... you bring up that dichotomy of the indirect, right? Of, like, "Listen, the givers get," kind of mentality. And, Shelli, you and I talk about this all the time.

Shelli Nelson: Yeah. Absolutely.

Patrick Emmons: And sell technology. You sell space. Shelli is selling jobs, right? And the thing, the thread that I think separates the people who are good because the product is good, and people who are great because they're great.

It really comes down to that giver mentality of, like, "Listen ..." I've had people I've known for years talk to a bunch of times, and at some point they say to me, "Pat, I don't know what you do for a living."

And I tell people, like, "Now we can talk business," because I clearly have done enough for you that you give a damn about me.

Bill Himmelstein: Beautiful.

Patrick Emmons: So I've given enough of a about you, right, that you are now looking to help me, right?

Shelli Nelson: Yeah.

Bill Himmelstein: That is ... I love that.

Patrick Emmons: And I think that that should be always our goal. You did mention also the idea about sales. And I think it's important because I'm a big advocate of sales as a career. Because I think when done by honorable professionals, it is an honorable profession, right?

And I think when you approach it the way that you do, and that others that I know like you and myself and Shelli, I to think. I know Shelli is, but I like to think that I do too.

When you approach it with that level of honorable, and professional, and service first, that's actually where it works. But most people, they're so inundated by the crumbum email annoying people that they think that's sales, and it's really not. It's not. Anybody who's good at sales, you don't know they're in sales.

Bill Himmelstein: Right.

Patrick Emmons: One of my best friends who I think is an incredible salesperson, when I started this last business, I'm like, "Well, I got to get better at sales. Who's the best sales guy I know?"

And I thought about my friend, Silverio Miro. And I'm, like, "He's awesome. All I hear is how successful he is. What does he do? Where does he work? Who does he work for? What's his job title?" I have no idea, right? Because he never talks about himself. But he knows everything I'm doing. And that natural curiosity that you have, Bill, is one of those great assets of, like, you're ambitious but not selfish, right?

Bill Himmelstein: I appreciate that. And the key I think is it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and an instant to destroy it. And so there's just some very simple values that, again, came from my parents that I take with me every single day I ...

Team members of mine must have them or else they can't work with me. But it's simple things like the, "Do unto others," right? Treat others how you want to be treated. It's, "Be honest," right? If you're honest, you never have to remember the story, because you're just telling the truth.

And then some other, a little bit more sophisticated, but still not very difficult. Like, "Set proper expectations and then meet or exceed them."

These are really easy things. I did not reinvent the wheel, but when you bring them into your business, whether you're an owner or not, when you bring them into your daily lives, and in your professional career, you will stand out.

You will get ahead. Because people can trust you. You're treating others the way that you want to be treated, so presumably you're treating others very well. And it just makes life far more simple when you know the story because you're not making one up.

Patrick Emmons: Totally. All of that I think leads into my next question around your tenant first philosophy. Do you mind telling us a little bit about that? Maybe share a deal, something that would demonstrate your differentiation, how you approach these opportunities, how you partner with your customers. I'm sure it's all going to be founded in the same kind of core values that you were raised with.

Bill Himmelstein: Yeah. No, absolutely, Pat, and you just used the word partner, by the way, and that's a big mentality, is rather than being a vendor, I want to be a partner.

Patrick Emmons: Many people say it. Not many people do it.

Bill Himmelstein: Not everybody does it.

Patrick Emmons: Yeah. Totally.

Bill Himmelstein: It's just simple. I'm looking at my clients as if it's my business, and it's my money that I'm about to spend. It's very easy to spend OPM, right? Other people's money, but I treat it as if it's my own. And what would I do in this scenario?

So a great example just happened within the last couple of weeks. I had a client where we got a proposal back from a landlord, in a building she wanted to be in, and she said, "Bill, this is a great deal. I'll take it."
And I said, "Hold on. We're not done yet. I can make this better. I can get more free rent. I can lower the rental rate. I think I can get more tenant improvement dollars."

And so where 99% of the brokers, and frankly any salesperson, would stop because they got the client to say, yes, I knew there was more room on the deal.

I knew there was more on the table that I could secure for my client. And so instead of just saying, "Great, I'm glad you liked the deal, let's have them write it up." I said, "Well, let me go back one more time and see if I can get some more."

And lo and behold, I was able to, and that's how you blow people out of the water, is when they're ready to accept and you say, "We're not done here. I can make this better."

And to me, again, I'm doing unto others. If this is my money, and I'm spending it, and I think there's room on the table, I would like to secure that.

And again, another key differentiator I think is I was taught, getting involved in the business, to get hired on the deal, close the deal, get paid on the deal, move on to the next deal, right?

Highly transactional. And I get it. I only get paid when a transaction closes. But I have found that I don't look at a client and sum up the value of that relationship based upon the value of one commission. I look at a client as exponential, right? It's, "Well, yes, there's this transaction. I'm going to have an opportunity to show what we're made of." And if we do a great job, we're going to get their expansion, we're going to get the deal when they move into the other city, we're going to get their referrals.

And so no client to me is one commission. It's a long-term relationship that has exponential value to it. So that's how we're approaching our relationships. Not as, "Oh, if I do this one deal, I'm going to make $30,000." No, it's far greater than that. And so I want to make sure that my clients have the best deal in the building. Because another reason is tenants talk to each other.

Patrick Emmons: That's true.

Bill Himmelstein: And when one tenant hears that the guy down the hall got a far better deal, more free rent, lower rental rate, they're going to say, "You know what, can I talk to your broker? Your broker clearly did a better job." So that's my goal, is to get my clients the best deal in the building because I want all the other tenants to know that.

Patrick Emmons: Awesome. And I think it's definitely visible in the way that you carry yourself and the way you do business, right? Clearly that long-term lifetime ... I tell people if I don't want clients that I can't be friends with, because we're going to be spending a lot of time together, so we better like each other, right? And people think that's kind of ... I don't know. I guess it's shocking for people.

They generally don't believe me. But it's beyond ... There's a part of ... As entrepreneurs, I think there's certain freedoms, right? And I do think freedom of relationships is one of the great benefits of being an entrepreneur, of, like, "I get to pick who's in the universe of my world," right?

Bill Himmelstein: 100%.

Patrick Emmons: And there's no more draining or wasteful than to have non giving people in your circumstances of, like, the takers, the energy vampires, right?

The sooner you can reduce their impact on your daily life, the more you can flourish. So I do think being careful about, "Hey, I need to cultivate really strong relationships, not just the dollars," it's just good business, right? You have more energy to actually be great at your job. You have people who are going to appreciate that. So I definitely think ...

Bill Himmelstein: 100%.

Patrick Emmons: Yeah. We agree. And I think some people, they don't recognize or they don't see that the relationships, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're not, you really got to invest in that. And I think, Shelli, I think you've seen it where there's a lot of people who get to that higher level. You start getting to senior directors or VP levels, and the absence of some of these relationships are what hold people back from their careers.

Shelli Nelson: Yeah, 1000% agree. Yeah.

Patrick Emmons: And too often I hear, "Oh, it's who at that level." And it's, like, it's not just who you know. You still have to have some what's. The what you knows, right?

But if you're over indexed on the what's and under indexed on the who's, you got to get that a little bit balanced, right?

And are you partnering? Are you partnering with everybody, right? Or is it, are you looking at everybody like how do they serve you? So Shelli and I talk about this all the time, about how the most ... you want to be successful at life, find people to help and just help them.

Bill Himmelstein: Well, to your point, Pat, even if you're at a big company, you still have to maintain a network. Because you just never know what's going to happen.

Patrick Emmons: Totally.

Bill Himmelstein: Things change. That's the one constant in life. And so you've got to be ready for when the shoe drops. You got to be able to lean on a network. And the only way you're going to be able to lean on a network is if you allowed your network to lean on you. It's very important to be able to give back. Because at some point, you're going to need to ask for something.

Patrick Emmons: Absolutely. Well, I do want to pivot a little bit, because I do want to pick your brain on what you're seeing in Chicago's office and industrial markets right now.

I think it's super interesting. I'm curious to hear your take on railroads, the future, trucking, Texas, all of that, of ... Chicago's always been the hub of so much transportation, which is really ... there's a lot of, for want of a better term, dirty businesses that kind of help Chicago grow, right? A lot of jobs involving tools, and some oil, and grease. And now, are those jobs staying? Are they growing? Are they filling?

Do you see reshoring already starting? Is their manufacturing going to be growing here like it's kind of sprouted up in Ohio already? What are you seeing?

Bill Himmelstein: Yeah, so I mean, there's a lot to digest with that question. First of all, one of the beauties of Chicago and the Chicago land area is our diverse economy. There's really no one industry that's dominating.

And so we're very well positioned to weather various storms, whether it's financial services, technology-based businesses, or the dirty businesses like manufacturing, shipping, and logistics, and things like that. So we're a very well-diversified economy here in Chicago.

Patrick Emmons: Great point.

Bill Himmelstein: And so what I'll talk about is the office market first, right? Got decimated in the pandemic. Our vacancy rate went from, depending on whose numbers you're looking at, anywhere from 10, 11% up to mid-20s now. But my belief, and you can quote me on this, is that I believe that before this year is over, we will see a quarter of positive net absorption. Meaning, there'll be more space filled by businesses than what was left vacant.

So what we're seeing right now is a very interesting dynamic, and we just ... a nice article in Cranes Today about this. About how, for the first time, I think ever in recorded history, more space came off the market, just no longer office space than was added.

And that's because they're not building any space right now. There's not really a market for brand new buildings. But they are taking some old office space and converting it to other uses, like residential.

What we are seeing is a bit more of a push for RTO, return to the office. We're seeing companies kind of getting emboldened. I mean, it started off with Chase, JP Morgan, Chase. With Amazon, with AT&T requiring their people to come back. It was fueled by the federal government requiring their people to come back to the office, so we have a much softer job market.

I know the Bureau of Labor Statistics talks about a 4.2% unemployment rate, but when you look at the true unemployment rate, they count people ... if you've worked one hour in two weeks, you're counted as employed.

I would say you're living well below poverty if you are working one hour every two weeks. So when you look at an amount of work that keeps you above the poverty line, our unemployment rate's 24%. I mean, that's shocking, right? It's gigantic.

But the government, Democrats or Republicans, they don't want you to know that. However, the fact of the matter is that we have an underemployed economy, and this is evident in adults with college educations, who are having a very difficult time finding jobs right now, as there aren't many opportunities available.
There's not nearly as many as I think people would have you think. So people aren't leaving their jobs right now, and it's a lot easier for leaders of companies to call their people back into the office.

We're going to see that more and more. And I'm seeing that just on the ground level with more and more of my clients saying, "Hey, we're ready to get back into the office." Or," We had 5,000 feet, now we need 10,000 feet."

So we're getting more and more active on the office side, which is why I can confidently say, I believe we've hit bottom. If we're not at it, we're very close to it. And by the end of the year, probably in the fourth quarter, we will see a quarter of positive net absorption.

So hold me to it. I want everyone to check up on me on that one. Now, let's talk about the industrial sector. We've got a really interesting thing going on in the industrial sector. From the start of the pandemic, as you mentioned, you used the word Reshoring. There has been a lot of that happening.

There has been more companies wanting to have their warehouses here rather than in China. The industrial market has had an incredibly low vacancy rate. Right now, it's around five to 6%.
However, it's very misleading, where a lot of the vacancy rate in the industrial sector comes into play is those spaces that are 250,000 square feet and above, up to 1 million or more, right?

These big box warehouse and manufacturing facilities. There's been a lot of spec building, meaning developers are building these without a tenant. But if you look at spaces under 250,000 square feet, and specifically in that, call it, 50 to 150 to 250,000 square feet, the vacancy rate is probably closer to 2% when you look at those spaces.

Because they're not making new buildings that are, A, incredibly small. And you can't make a cheap new building. Because the new materials that are going into it are more expensive. The labor's more expensive. So if you're going to build a new industrial building, you're going to build a giant one.

And that's really where the demand is starting to soften up. But when you get 200,000 square feet and below, there is huge demand, very little supply, which means prices in that area are going up. They've been going up about 8% annually. And I'm talking about rent and purchase prices.

So that's a really ... and the vast majority of businesses are not Amazon, Kimberly Clark, Procter & Gamble, right? They're mom and pops that have one, maybe two locations, and they need 50 to 150,000 square feet.

Those are the businesses that we represent, and there is very little supply, very high demand. So it's been an interesting ... if you just read the numbers and read the story, it's, "Well, there's a 6% vacancy, so things are softening up." Well, but when you take the market and kind of slice it in two, you've got two totally different market segments that are performing very, very differently.

Patrick Emmons: Well, it makes sense. I mean, you do see the ... especially when you get into the data centers and things like that. There's that new one right off of the tri-state where I'm, like, "Look at all the refrigerators on the roof," right? All the air conditioning units.

And I know Shelli's ... one of the businesses in your portfolio, actually, manufacturers those ... the air ... Are they air conditioner, what do you call them? Air conditioners?

Shelli Nelson: HVAC, and yeah-

Patrick Emmons: HVAC.

Shelli Nelson: ... we've got a data center cooling business. Yeah.

Patrick Emmons: It's massive. And they're growing fast, aren't they?

Shelli Nelson: Yes.

Bill Himmelstein: Incredibly fast. With AI it's going to ... And not to mention just things like social media. Everybody's taking pictures, saving pictures, posting a bunch of hogwash. I'm guilty of that as well.

But that requires server space. And then you pile on AI on top of that, and that requires exponentially more server space. So that is going to be, I think, one of the hottest markets going forward is that data center space. It's already happening.

Patrick Emmons: Well, I appreciate you sharing that. I guess I'm curious, if you could share your biggest entrepreneurial lesson with our audience, right? So what is the ... if you were going to talk to yourself, 25 years ago, when brave or stupid, whichever one it was, right? You're, like, "You know what? I'm going to do this," right?

What's the thing you've learned the most? Not that you would've listened to yourself then because that wouldn't have helped, right?

Bill Himmelstein: Right. I wouldn't have listened to me.

Patrick Emmons: I wouldn't have. "What do you know? You just didn't try hard enough. That's your problem." But what is that? What's your biggest lesson learned?

Bill Himmelstein: There's two things. Number one, it's an Abraham Lincoln quote about, "The best way to predict the future is to create it," right? That's what entrepreneurs do, is they see the future and then they work every single day to make that future happen.

And the biggest piece of advice that I would give my younger self is treat your time as if it's valuable. When you're younger, you got all the time in the world, you don't have a family yet. And so all you have is time. But what I would say is treat your time as if it's valuable.

Meaning, "Should I be meeting with this person? Will this benefit me in the future? Should I take this meeting? Should I go to this event? Should I be doing this? Should I take this client on?" Whatever it is, if you treat your time as if it's valuable, then, I think you're just going to end up being incredibly more productive. You're going to weed out a lot of the noise.

I can't tell you ... and I hope none of you are married to or are best friends with attorneys, but I can't tell you how much time I spent wasting trying to network with attorneys. I've got over 500 attorneys, and 99% of them have been entirely useless. Incredibly useless.

And so, my gosh, if I could go back and get all the time that I wasted on trying to get attorneys to refer me business, gosh, how much more money would I have made and how much more successful would I be? So my point is, take your time as if it means something, and-

Patrick Emmons: And don't be an attorney.

Bill Himmelstein: Don't be an ... No. You can be an attorney. That's fine. Just don't meet with attorneys, because they're not going to do anything for you.

Patrick Emmons: That's true. It's true. I think if you could draw the opposite of an entrepreneur is in fact an attorney.

Bill Himmelstein: You bill by the hour, right?

Patrick Emmons: Right.

Bill Himmelstein: There are some entrepreneurial attorneys out there.

Patrick Emmons: Very few.

Bill Himmelstein: But I have a handful of attorneys that I've enjoyed building a career with. But the vast majority of attorneys, they're billing by the hour. That's their entire life. And when they get a client, that's all they have.
And so the last thing they want to do is introduce a variable to that client. AKA, make an introduction to them. Whereas, I look at it as an opportunity to make an introduction, as benefiting both sides of that introduction.

I'm doing both of those people a favor by putting them together. And it's not just attorneys, it's anybody, right? But you got to find the right people that find value in making connections for others, and that work with similar clients as you, and that are open to actually opening doors, right?

Not everybody understands the value of connections, and I just wish that I would've known that lesson a long time ago. I'd be in a far better place than I am today, and I would know exponentially fewer attorneys, and I'd be better off for it.

Patrick Emmons: Well, I also think one of the things that you do incredibly well is that if you want to be introduced to people, be introducible, right?

Bill Himmelstein: That's part of it.

Patrick Emmons: Right? Be somebody people would like to meet with.

Bill Himmelstein: That's such a good point too, because I'll ask somebody and I will ask. I'll say, "Hey, I see you're connected to so-and-so. Would you mind making the introduction?" And they go, "Well, I don't think they have a real estate deal coming up."

And my response is, "You didn't have a real estate deal coming up, and I've been valuable to you, have I not?" And they're like, "Well, I guess he has introduced me to some potential clients, and he's brought me to these great events. And yeah, you've been worth knowing." I'm like, "Then don't worry about their real estate."

Patrick Emmons: Totally.

Bill Himmelstein: "Introduce me as somebody worth knowing, and I'll take it from there." But you're absolutely right. I mean, just, you do have to be able to bring value to the table. Whether it's ... you said, the price of admission is being great at what you do, and then the next step is bringing value to the table outside of what you do.

And I hope I've proven myself as being very competent at that. And so I get that, especially from attorneys. "Well, Bill, my client hasn't said they've wanted to meet a real estate broker." Yeah, and they're never going to tell you that they want to meet a real estate broker, but-

Patrick Emmons: "Have you met the other real estate brokers," right? "I'm Bill," right? I think all you got to say is, like, "Do they like going to Cubs games? Do they want to meet some other cool people," right?

Bill Himmelstein: Do they want to meet new clients?

Patrick Emmons: Totally.

Bill Himmelstein: That's why you put people in front of me.

Patrick Emmons: That's right.

Bill Himmelstein: Because the goal is for me to introduce them to other clients. That's what my goal is. And so I just got introduced to an attorney today who goes, "Oh, Bill, we're working with the broker." I said, "Great. That's not what I want to talk to you about.

I want to talk to you about the things that I'm doing that can put you in great opportunities to meet potential clients. Is that something you're interested in?" Haven't heard back from them yet, but it's an attorney, so what do you expect?

Patrick Emmons: I mean, what's their billing rate? I mean, you might be able to buy some time from him, right?

Bill Himmelstein: Right. Right. I'll take one hour, please.

Patrick Emmons: I'll take 43 seconds, so ... But, yeah. Awesome. Bill, thank you so much for being on the show.

Bill Himmelstein: My pleasure.

Patrick Emmons: If you don't know Bill, reach out. Honestly, he is, without a doubt, one of the most genuine connected ... Right? It's amazing how people misunderstand success, where they think successful people are these bad, mean, evil people. Where it's like successful people are generally the nicest people. That's how they got there, right?

Bill Himmelstein: I appreciate you saying that. It's very nice. No. And this was a great opportunity. I appreciate the chance to be on the show, so looking forward to sharing this now with my network.

Patrick Emmons: Awesome. We appreciate you being on the show. We also want to thank our listeners. We appreciate everyone joining us.

Shelli Nelson: And if you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, you can subscribe by visiting our website at DragonSpears.com/podcast, or find us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Patrick Emmons: This episode was sponsored by DragonSpears and produced by Dante32.