Can the metro learn anything from Trammell Crow ?
I think the suburbs and the city could learn alot from Trammell Crow on how cooperation leads to more success
From: The Dallas Business Journal
<a href="http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2002/08/05/story5.html"> <h2>Trammell Crow adopts new team approach</h2></a>
Puckett, Bernet tapped to lead office division
Christine Perez Staff Writer
DOWNTOWN DALLAS — Over the past two weeks, Trammell Crow Co.'s office brokerage division has picked up 1.1 million square feet of new tenant representation assignments, including two of the most hotly pursued deals in the Metroplex — a 320,000-square-foot headquarters search for Yum! Brands Inc. (formerly Tricon Global), and a 100,000-square-foot headquarters search for Neiman Marcus.
The assignments come as the result of a radical strategy being implemented by the group's new co-directors, Phil Puckett and Brant Bernet.
Since its inception in 1998, Crow's Dallas tenant rep group has followed the traditional model, where brokers work much like independent contractors, cultivating business and being compensated for the deals they close. But a couple of months ago, Puckett and Bernet, Trammell Crow's top two producers, had an epiphany and decided to lock arms and represent clients together.
"We just looked at each other and asked, 'Why are we not working together as a team instead of internally competing against each other?' " Bernet said.
Top executives at Trammell Crow Co. took notice and asked Puckett and Bernet to co-lead the Dallas office, succeeding Bill Lamberth, who had recently been put in charge of leasing Crow's 18 million-square-foot Metroplex office portfolio.
"They liked what we were doing and asked that we consider taking everyone to a team model," Bernet said.
Within weeks, the group picked up four key accounts.
"Nothing in this business happens fast, but we got a quick confirmation our approach was the right one to take," Bernet said. " Our new strategy had everything to do with winning that business. It was directly responsible, 100%."
Neiman Marcus' 100,000-square-foot lease in Renaissance Tower expires in 2004.
Yum! Brands Inc. is the parent company behind Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silvers and other fast-food restaurant brands. Patty Sullivan, director of public relations for Pizza Hut, said Trammell Crow was picked because the company felt it could "do the best job of meeting our employee, financial and work environment needs."
Yum! Brands has leased 320,000 square feet in The Aberdeen on the Dallas North Tollway since 1997, when Pizza Hut relocated its headquarters from Wichita, Kan. About 800 of the company's 3,700 Metroplex employees work in the building. The lease doesn't expire until 2005, but Yum! Brands wanted to get an early start.
"We have complicated requirements," Sullivan said. "We have two kitchen labs where all of our research and development takes place, office space, conference rooms and our museum. We wanted enough time to investigate all of the options."
Trammell Crow's other new assignments are a 300,000-square-foot consolidation for Premier Inc., a San Diego-based health care concern, and a 400,000-square-foot space disposition for NTT Verio.
Much of its business comes from national accounts, such as American Express and Ernst & Young, Puckett said.
"One of the goals with the reorganization of our team is to really focus on Dallas and opportunities in our own back yard," he said.
The Dallas office of New York-based Insignia/ESG also is moving toward a team approach, said Randy Cooper, senior managing director.
"We are implementing what is called a managed brokerage process," he said. "Brokers submit their prospects to a sales manager who will then build the team, matching up the best people in the company, even if they're outside the Dallas office. It's absolutely putting the client's interests first, because they get the best the company has to offer, and it puts the brokerage's interests first because it increases the chance of winning the account."
Puckett and Bernet say they hope to have their restructuring complete by Dec. 1 or Jan 1. It includes a total revamping of the compensation system, which previously was commission-based. Bernet said the specifics are still being ironed out as he and Puckett decide how to handle deals that were already in play.
"Change is always hard in a big company, but this is the right thing to do," Bernet said. "We have enough competition on the outside. We don't need it inside, too."