Power Brokers: Local masters in the art of the deal

“Experience taught me a few things,” Donald Trump writes in The Art of the Deal. “One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know.”

The five local art-of-the-deal masters CBT has selected have indepth knowledge unique to their own arenas—business brokerage, commercial real estate, construction, public policy and commercial development.

They’ve learned that daily habits, persistence and the courage to both succeed and fail are crucial to finding, negotiating and closing deals.

These five power brokers also share a common outlook—an almost blind faith that there is no deal that can’t be made, that there is no chasm that can’t be bridged, that opposing views can somehow be reconciled. The optimism shared by these successful deal-makers is tempered with the stark reality that not all deals will come to fruition. For these successful brokers, however, there is no looking back—only looking forward to the next deal.

The daily habits that they share include making priority lists, returning every phone call or e-mail message and keeping abreast of all local news. While national trends are important to the group, far more important to them is knowing what’s going on with the city and county governments, the business community, the university and colleges, and the state legislature.

Jeff Guinn

Jeff Guinn, owner of LGI Business Brokers, has been buying, selling and running businesses in Columbia for more than 20 years. A self-described “serial entrepreneur,” Guinn realized early on that he was going to focus on the niche segment of real estate that deals exclusively with brokering businesses. Over the years, Guinn also has bought and sold several businesses of his own.

While Guinn enjoys success now, he admits that it wasn’t always that way. Guinn believes that many prospective business deals do not succeed because people simply give up too easily.

“One thing I see people not having is the ‘stick-toit-ness’ to make it. It takes a long time for a business to mature, and people are too quick to pull the trigger,” Guinn said.

According to Guinn, many people advised him that he wouldn’t make it selling businesses in a community of less than 200,000 people. “I just kept focusing on the business and keeping my overhead low,” he said. Guinn said it took him three years to truly get his business off the ground.

“I went for nine months before I made a cent. I made $6,000 the first year I was in business and about $13,000 the second year,” he said. “I lived for five months on a credit card. One of my first deals was supposed to close but kept getting delayed. I’d say to myself to give it one more month, then one more month, then another. I guess I just always knew that it was going to close,” Guinn said.

These days, Guinn said, he hears from 10 to 15 people who want to work for him every year. But Guinn continues to keep his overhead low by employing only one office administrator. “There’s a high turnover in real estate, and I don’t want that,” he said.

“I’ve learned to work the highs and lows. You can’t get too high on a good deal or be too hard on yourself with a bad deal,” he said. For Guinn, it’s all about negotiation. “The seller’s not always right and the buyer’s not always right. It’s somewhere in the middle,” he said. And when it comes to negotiating, Guinn said, the key is, “You can’t have an ego.”

Paul Land

Like Guinn, Paul Land has carved out a specialty area within Columbia’s real estate market. Land is vice president of the commercial division of Plaza Real Estate Services, specializing in business property leasing and sales.

“I’ve never listed or sold a house—not even my own houses,” Land said. “I deal with office, retail, industrial, and investment leasing and selling.”

After graduating from the University of Missouri- St. Louis, Land started out working for a grocery wholesaler that helped retail outlets find and develop locations. Land tired of the travel and decided to go into real estate in Columbia in 1987. Armed with 20 years of experience, Land has this advice for potential power brokers: View every deal as a “big” deal.

“Every deal is big to somebody,” Land said. “It’s kind of like having an injury. It’s major if it’s on you but minor if it’s on somebody else. For me, the client who is a five-acre user is treated the same as a half-acre user. It’s all relative to their own station in life,” Land said.

Land’s most important deal was his very first one. Like his long-time friend, Guinn, Land had a rocky beginning to his now-successful career. “The first three years, I was always within one transaction of being out of business. The difference between an up year and a down year can be just a couple of transactions,” Land said.

According to Land, successful deal making requires integrity, accessibility and responsiveness. “I don’t think I’m smarter than anybody else in my trade. I’m just more responsive, more accessible and more up on community issues,” Land said. Keeping up with planning and zoning, civic movements and even charitable events is a top priority for Land. “Just put yourself out in front of as many people as possible,” he said.

Land also makes a list of top priorities every day, and he catalogues every single phone call he receives. Not a fan of computers, Land has stacks of hand-written spiral notebooks with names, contact information and other pertinent information on landlords, tenants, buyers and sellers. He and his associate also meet daily or weekly to summarize what events have occurred and with whom they need to make follow-up contacts.

For a deal to be successful, Land said, everyone involved has to walk away from the table feeling like he or she got a fair deal. “All anyone really wants is affirmation that it’s a fair deal,” Land said. “If two parties agree it’s a fair deal and they both have the same feelings, it’s a good deal.”

Persistence is also crucial, according to Land. “When I hear people tell me ‘No,’ they just mean, ‘Not yet.’ To me ‘no’ means just ‘not today, but maybe someday,’” Land said. “Buyers and sellers, landlords and tenants all have differences of opinions. Everything in between is called brokerage,” he said.

Randy Coil

Unlike Guinn and Land, the scope of deal-making for Randy Coil, owner of Coil Construction, is not limited to mid-Missouri but includes industrial, retail, institutional and professional building projects in surrounding states. Known locally for the retail developments of Broadway Market Place, Broadway Shops, The Colony Shoppes and Broadfield, Coil Construction also has built numerous medical facilities, office buildings and manufacturing sites in Columbia.

Although Coil’s work takes him beyond mid- Missouri, he is diligent about keeping up with all local events. “What I try to do every day is keep up with Columbia business, the administrative issues, city council items, university issues. I’m always reading the paper, listening to the news, finding out what may affect our industry,” Coil said.

Originally from Independence, Mo., Coil came to Columbia to attend the University of Missouri. After graduating in the early 1970s, Coil and a couple of his buddies began performing commercial remodeling work. At that same time, the country was experiencing interest rates well into the teens. The high interest rates forced many companies to remodel rather than build new facilities. Coil’s young business was poised to fill the commercial remodeling needs caused by the double-digit interest rates. “We just fit that market, and it grew from there,” Coil said.

Thirty-some years later, Coil no longer swings a hammer, but his early experiences help him in his contract negotiations. “Eighty-five percent of our business is negotiated or pre-designated contract work. The developer has a budget and time frame in mind. What we bring to the table is to hold that budget in check and keep the time frame in check,” Coil said.

Two elements in deal-making are essential, according to Coil. First, the deal has to be fair to all involved. Second, the details of the deal need to be crystal clear. “Everybody has to understand what we’re agreeing to. The deal needs to be clear. If everyone knows what you’re bringing to the table, what the limitations are, there is never a need to go back to the contract,” he said.

This clarity of structure and elements of a deal allow for all involved to leave the table satisfied that a fair deal has been reached. “If, indeed, the deal is good and fair for everybody, in the long term it leads to a great relationship,” Coil said.

One of Coil’s most interesting development projects is occurring right now. Coil is building the new Anheuser Busch Clydesdale breeding facility in rural Cooper County, slated to open this spring. According to Coil, Anheuser Busch is moving their main breeding facility from California to mid-Missouri. “The chances of us building another facility like this are slim. This is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Coil said.

Fortunately, Coil was selected to build the project on his construction expertise rather than his knowledge of the equine industry. “I know zero about horses; I’m a city boy,” Coil jokes. “I’ve learned all sorts of things about breeding horses that I did not know. We even hired an equestrian architect and visited three or four other breeding facilities. It’s been a lot of fun,” he said.

Dianne Drainer

M. Dianne Drainer’s deal-making prowess lies in the areas of providing services, building consensus and solidifying a uniform vision for Columbia. Although Drainer does not broker deals involving bricks and mortar, like the other power brokers featured here, she shares their views on deal-making.

For Drainer, personal daily habits enhance deal-making. She believes in high energy, hard work and focus. “Every day what I do is focus on priorities. You take your energy to focus on priorities and be a hard worker,” Drainer said.

A mantra that has kept her focused throughout her years as vice chair of the Public Service Commission, executive director of the Mizzou Flagship Council and, most recently, co-chair of the Columbia Visioning Process has been: “Don’t let the barking dog distract you.”

Drainer explains, “When people bring up other things, don’t get distracted. It’s not that you don’t process it; you’re not ignoring it, but don’t lose focus on your goal.”

A second tenet that Drainer finds crucial to the negotiating process is courage. “The bottom line with deals and negotiating is: Always ask the question. Be willing to accept the ‘no’ because you can’t get a ‘yes’ unless you ask the question,” she said. Better yet, Drainer said, “Take the no and turn it into negotiation.”

Also, according to Drainer, deal-makers have to have integrity. “If you’re working on an issue, you have to have your drop-dead position and be willing to walk out the door for your own integrity.”

Like Coil, Drainer said that clarity in the details and processes of deal-making are essential. “To be successful, there has to be an organized process to work through. Everyone needs to know the process, and everyone needs to follow that process from beginning to end,” she said. Drainer said this is particularly important for community issues in which stakeholders may be wary of participating.

During Drainer’s tenure as the chief telecommunications economist for the Public Service Commission, she was deeply involved in Missouri’s role in deregulating and restructuring the electricity and telecommunications industries in a 13-state region. She said she learned a great deal about negotiation and deal-making from that experience. “It was a time of being a change agent. It was about team and bringing all the parties together,” she said.

That experience made her the natural choice for co-chair of the Columbia Visioning Process. “They needed someone with past expertise and also to be the neutral facilitator. Isn’t that what a deal maker really is?” Drainer said.

Jay Lindner

Nearly 20 years younger than the other dealmakers featured here, Jay Lindner, executive vice president of Forum Development Group, got a jump start on his deal-making career as a second-generation power broker. Of his father, Jose Lindner, Jay said, “His mentoring is incredibly valuable. He’s been a great representative in our community, and he has a terrific financial mind.”

Still, his father has given him a great deal of freedom in finding, cultivating and closing his own deals. Only 28 years old, Lindner has worked at the family business for 13 years and has been directly involved in leasing for the last nine years. “I oversee all leasing,” Lindner said.

Lindner admits that his age is a factor in dealmaking. “Don’t give up,” he advises fellow 20- somethings. “Starting out, it can be frustrating to build relationships—especially if you’re young. Sometimes it’s hard to be taken seriously.”

To help build relationships in the Columbia business community, Lindner is on several committees with the Columbia Chamber of Commerce and was actively involved in the Columbia Visioning Process. “It was a great way to meet people. It was so interesting to meet people with different values and beliefs—a definite learning experience with its fair share of frustration,” he said.

Lindner is also a frequent observer of Columbia City Council meetings. Asked whether the Visioning Process would make the development process go more smoothly in Columbia, Lindner said, “Both sides need to bend a little. I’d just love to see a council meeting that doesn’t run past midnight.”

Currently, Lindner is working on the proposed mixed use for the 225 acres Forum Development owns at the proposed Gans Road and Highway 63 interchange. “We’re one of the funding partners and are in the planning process right now,” he said. “It’s a multi-year project, and we don’t anticipate turning the first dirt until 2009.”

In the meantime, Lindner continues his daily regimen of making cold calls to national prospects to lease retail space in Forum Development projects, which include the Nifong Shopping Center, the Forum Shopping Center, The Broadway Shops and the Broadway Bluffs. He also relies on direct mail, e-mail and real estate brokers to build business. Lindner said persistence is the key to successful deal making. “Work hard. Put in the long hours. You will eventually see results. Don’t quit just because they’re telling you no.”