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“If you invite
someone out to
play golf, you
have their
ear for four
hours.”
It might mean breaking in his new eight iron at the local golf course. A ball game? Sure—whatever it takes for Lawrence Ruggieri to satisfy a client or prospect. Heck, if he had to, he might even attend a bridal shower.
“My job isn’t just working nine-to-five,” says Ruggieri, director of Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., in Rye Brook. “I might be out until ten or eleven o’clock at night, whether it’s attend- ing events or networking.” Needless to say, he’s all in, no matter how tired he might be, or how full his day may have been. “There’s always room for a little extra.” Sounds like a mantra.
While Ruggieri’s relentless routine might seriously sug- gest sleep deprivation, “it’s really a matter of knowing the right people and being out there. The more people you know, the more connections you’re going to have.” Often, his high- octane efforts yield results. “Hopefully, someone needs some help with their commercial real estate,” he says. “The more you know about a client or person, the better you’ll be for it.”
He thinks he’s also better for the fact that he understands the meaning of the word “no,” immediately backing off when a client needs a little space. “I’m typically not super- aggressive. If they tell me to call back on a certain day, I do. It goes back to knowing the person, the clubs he goes to, his hobbies, whether he has kids or likes sports. If you invite someone out to play golf, you get out there and have their ear for four hours.”
Ruggieri says he’s also benefited from his experience in the Air Force. “You learn how to deal with people and get things done, which isn’t always easy. I wasn’t in combat, but I used to work with ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles], so you had to know who you could turn to.”
Okay, so perhaps an aptitude for working with ICBMs wouldn’t necessarily come in handy at most bridal showers. Then again...
t
t
c
a
industrial space last year.
It’s all relatively rote for Weber. “I think I’ve always been
this way. I’ve been in the business for about four years and it’s something I’ve kind of honed on my own. I’ve seen a lot of dif- ferent approaches from a lot of different brokers and can’t quite say that any one broker operates the same way,” says Weber, who adds that he’s simply taken those things he’s found to be most efficient and applied them to his own work.
And, when it comes to doing his due diligence, Weber certainly is diligent.
”By the time I take a client out, I know the market so well, I have in mind the perfect space for them,” he says. Of course, that doesn’t mean a customer always sees it the same way—at least not immediately. Naturally, Weber’s prepared for that. “Sometimes you have to run around the market twice before they finally realize that’s the space for them. Everyone needs time to find out what works for them.”
JESSE WEBER
Director, Newmark
Grubb Knight Frank
process simple, you can make it an exciting
p
experience [for clients].” Yet, he drills down
e
when it comes to getting a job done right. If
w
anything is even slightly askew, it does not
a
elude Weber. “I don’t like to let things slip
e
through the cracks.”
It’s something Weber knows his clients
depend on him for, given their typically
d
unrelenting schedules that afford them little
u
time to micromanage specifics themselves.
Fortunately, Weber believes he’s ideally
F
engineered to bear the brunt of whatever
e
comes his way.
“I’m very process- and method-oriented,
so by making [a deal] simple, I try to take the
s
questions out and go back to the client every
q
step of the way with simple directions. It’s
s
“By the time I take
a client out, I know
the market so well, I
have in mind the per-
fect space for them.”
Why complicate matters when simplicity is much less stressful? “I keep things casual and simple,” says Jesse Weber, director of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank in Greenwich, Connecticut. “By keeping a complicated
a formula that’s worked,” says the “analyti- cal” Weber, who leased 65,000 square feet of retail, office, and
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LAWRENCE
RUGGIERI
Director
Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.