What I Learned From Writing ‘Selling Buildings’

As some of you may know, I recently published my best-selling book, Selling Buildings. Book sales launched May 20, and copies sold out in five hours. 

The book chronicles my over 40-year career selling buildings in New York City. Along the way, I’ve seen a lot. I have seen folks do some great things and have also seen so many mistakes made by others and also by me. There were so many market shifts, too, that we lived through. 

Writing the book brought back many memories of days gone by. It was quite a process to get it done, and I wanted to share with you some of the observations that hit me when I looked back on the process of writing Selling Buildings.

One of the most fun things was all of the time spent remembering the old days and walking down memory lane. I had a lot of help here because I tend to hold onto many things from the past. When I knew I was going to be writing this book, I dug out all of the boxes of old memorabilia and files I had saved from the old days. They even included my very first tax return filed in 1982 for my summer earning the year before. In terms of Massey Knakal stuff, I uncovered 22 boxes full of materials that for some reason I decided to save.

I never contemplated there would be anything like social media or that I would ever write a book and would find it helpful to have all this stuff. I have no idea why I saved it all, but I did and, now, I am happy I did. Old deal files, photos, letters, reports, articles, press clippings, newsletters, etc. — all packed away as if in a time capsule.

When I was going through everything and organizing it into subject matter piles, I had everything spread out on a series of tables when Ed Winslow came into the office and was blown away by the old archives. He immediately said we had to create a website to hold everything, and a long process began to scan everything. A few months later, BobKnakal.com was born, and the risk of fire or water damage destroying all those memories was no longer a reality. It all lives in cyberspace now.

The process also afforded me with the ability to go back and relive days gone by, which provided great memories with which to tell my story. That was the most fun part of this process.

What wasn’t so much fun was all of the hard work this was. Almost every paragraph was written, rewritten and rewritten again to get it just right. Co-author Rod Santomassimo and I did not want to use AI or anything that would make the words seem inauthentic or our perspectives phony.

And then at the conclusion of every chapter, I reviewed the text for the messages that I wanted property owners to walk away with. Rod did the same regarding what we wanted brokers to benefit from. I am the first to admit that I have made thousands of mistakes in my professional career. I have learned much from those mistakes and wanted to make sure we shared those lessons with the reader. 

I often say that I am not in the commercial real estate business. Our business is the information and relationship business. I feel so blessed to have such solid relationships with so many people in our industry. One of my favorite relationships is with my coach since 2011 — Rod Santomassimo. Since then, I have spoken to Rod at least once a week. He is not only my coach, but has become one of my best friends. Writing this book gave us a great excuse to chat multiple times a week over the two and a half years it took us to write it. That in and of itself was a blessing.

For those of you who follow me on social media, you know I frequently say, “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.” Selling Buildings was also written to get more people to know who I am. Why is that important? Because I believe that the more people who know me, the greater the probability that my clients will get better results on the work I do for them. 

Becoming known through writing a book, or any of the several marketing initiatives we undertake to advance our market presence campaigns, increases the probability of me getting in front of someone who may advantage one of my clients. Perhaps it is a buyer who will pay more than anyone else. Perhaps it is a vendor who has a way to make a property more attractive or more compelling to the buyer community. Perhaps it is a financing source who will allow an existing buyer to pay more for a property I am selling. Any of these would help my client, and helping clients is what it is all about at the end of the day. 

Sharing lessons was also important to me as it can help others achieve more success in their careers. The Massey Knakal days produced much for Paul Massey and me to be proud of. From 2001 to 2014, the No. 2 company in NYC sold about 1,300 properties compared with Massey Knakal selling over 4,000. The little local firm that competed with regional, national and global giants lapped the field by more than three times and did so for 14 years in a row. I am very proud of that.

We started the firm with just the two of us and a secretary, grew to over 250 people in four offices, and sold the firm to Cushman & Wakefield for $100 million. I am very proud of that.

But the legacy I am most proud of from the MK days, by a wide margin, is the fact that in today’s NYC investment sales world, there are 32 companies, or divisions of companies, that are owned by, or run by, people who learned the business at Massey Knakal. We tangibly changed people’s lives for the better, and that is extraordinarily rewarding to me. In the same way, and on a much broader scale, I wanted to write the book to help others.

To the extent Selling Buildings motivates or inspires others — and, even in a small way, enhances their careers — that will make me feel great. So many people helped me along the way, and, in part, this helps me say thank you to them.

It wasn’t easy, but anything that is beneficial rarely is. Would I do it again? Stay tuned!

Robert Knakal is founder, chairman and CEO of BK Real Estate Advisors.