A Self-Inflicted Wound

The business of advising office tenants dates to the 1950s, when Julien Studley established his eponymous brokerage. By the 1970s, Roger Staubach had founded The Staubach Company, further establishing the market for exclusive tenant representation. During the 1980s and 1990s, large, full-service brokerages developed specialized practices focused on either tenant or landlord representation.
 
The principle was simple: tenants deserved expert advisors whose interests were aligned with their own.
 
When I began my career in the early 1990s, office brokers in major U.S. markets were taught to specialize. As a tenant representative, I learned to orchestrate competition for my clients' tenancy and negotiate every facet of a lease to minimize risk and maximize value.
 
The best practitioners were respected as masters of their craft, not only by their clients but also by those across the negotiating table.
 
We took pride in our expertise and worked hard to improve it. We understood the value we delivered and were confident in our ability to produce meaningful results.
 
We also never worked without an exclusive representation agreement. Our services were provided at risk, with compensation contingent on completing a transaction (a process that could take months or even years). We made sure clients understood our services, compensation, our risk, and mutual commitments.
 
Today, particularly in the Bay Area's venture-backed startup economy, something fundamental has changed.
 
Expert advisory has increasingly given way to a business of showing space.
 
Tenants aren't necessarily hiring advisors. They're using brokers to tour properties. And brokers aren't selling expertise or strategic representation. They're selling access to space.
 
Rather than selecting an advisor and conducting a disciplined process, tenants tour properties with multiple brokers, often without any formal engagement. Brokers scatter their efforts across prospects, knowing many will never produce a commission.
 
It's a numbers game, and the economics reward minimizing service rather than maximizing value.
 
This is a business I barely recognize.
 
The consequences are increasingly evident. An experienced practitioner who approaches a prospective client as an expert advisor and requests an exclusive engagement may as well be speaking a foreign language.
 
The predictable response: "Why would I sign an agreement with you when none of the other brokers are asking me to?"
 
It's a fair question. Unfortunately, an entire generation of brokers may no longer know how to answer it.
 
We've conditioned clients to believe that our value lies in opening doors rather than delivering outcomes.
 
This erosion of a once-proud profession is both self-inflicted and self-perpetuating.
 
Fortunately, many corporate leaders still recognize the value of experienced, independent advice and approach their real estate decisions accordingly.
 
But I worry about the next generation of brokers, many of whom are entering a business that increasingly fails to teach, demand, or reward the specialized expertise that once defined our profession.
 
And I worry about the tenants who may never know what they're missing.