How SIOR Membership Saved a Company

In 1987, as the country was reckoning with a brutal recession, Brian Ball, SIOR, then managing partner at the commercial real estate firm Larson, Ball & Gould, attended a series of seminars hosted by the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR).

He credits those seminars with saving his company.

SIOR represents nearly 3,200 industrial and office real estate professionals in 36 countries around the world. An SIOR designation is a sign of a professional at the top of their field.

Part of SIOR’s mission is to provide its high-achieving members with continuing education on issues related to the ever-changing commercial real estate landscape. At a seminar addressing the recession, Ball heard how certain areas where the recession hit early were dealing with the financial ramifications.

At the time, his firm engaged in both tenant and landlord representation. The seminar inspired him to shift the company’s resources to the tenant side. This, he said, was responsible for his company remaining in business.

“We always thought we were recession-proof,” said Ball, now principal, Advisory Services at the Mid-Atlantic commercial real estate firm NAI KLNB.

“The SIORs at the seminar said, ‘Here’s what’s going to happen. It’s coming to your market.’ And it happened. If part of your business was landlord representation, you were really impacted financially. Lenders were not making or renewing loans. So we took steps the SIORs recommended. I came back and, after discussions with my partners, instituted those steps, and they saved our company. We did a pivot and moved dramatically out of landlord representation into tenant representation, and we protected ourselves.”

Given Ball’s long tenure in SIOR—he joined in 1985 and has served as president of his local chapter—he tells the story with little surprise. The 1987 seminar is just one aspect of being an SIOR that has profited him over the years. While he takes advantage of the organization’s educational opportunities, compiling eight books worth of resource materials from them, SIOR has also provided him with a network of experienced, successful professionals who enjoy facilitating business opportunities with and for each other.

“I probably do 15 transactions a year. Two to four a year, I do with other SIORs. SIOR has made me a great deal of money,” he said. “I always try to find an SIOR when I refer business, because I know who these people are. I know they’re bound by the same ethics and sense of professionalism we all aspire to.”

Tom McCormick, SIOR, the president of TEM Consulting, can relate.

Also a member since 1985, McCormick attributes over 50 of his completed transactions to his membership in SIOR, either by doing deals with other members, or as a result of referrals.

He shared with us one key example from his early years.

“At the beginning of my career, I worked on a deal for a Fortune 500 company, and it was referred to me by an SIOR in L.A.,” McCormick said.

“When you’re learning the business, they always say, talk to the next-door neighbor when you have something for sale. In Sacramento, that particular company had a piece of property on the water, and the next-door neighbor was Unocal—Union Oil Company of California. An SIOR I met in an SIOR class referred the opportunity to me. I met with the Fortune 500 people, got the listing and set up an appointment with the facility manager next door. We did a deal for about $1.4 million. It was a relatively big sale early in my career, and I never would have worked on it if I hadn’t been an SIOR.”

SIOR became an integral aspect of McCormick’s business. He’s attended both of the organization’s biannual World Conferences for 33 years. He’s also served as SIOR Global President in 1998 and as the president of the SIOR Foundation in 1999 and 2000. He currently sits on the organization’s board.

McCormick even mentions one corporate real estate executive he knows who will only deal with SIOR-designated professionals.

“Some brokers he referred did a poor job,” he recalled. “He was ready to do another deal, and somebody recommended an SIOR. The person did a good job for him, so he decided his point men would all be SIOR. He and I did a deal together, and I was his 13th deal with an SIOR.”

True to form, McCormick is currently co-brokering with an L.A.-based SIOR on a deal for a 100,000-square-foot property that he expects will sell for somewhere between $5 million and $6 million.

“The only reason I’m involved,” he said, “is that there’s a fellow SIOR involved who referred me.”

Ball and McCormick are just two examples out of thousands who know that, for commercial real estate professionals, there’s no smarter career move than becoming an SIOR.

“It’s been such a positive experience,” said Ball. “I can’t imagine being in our business and not being an SIOR.”