Among the talented young staffers recruited by Boston-based Richards Barry Joyce & Partners are: (clockwise from bottom) Chris McCauley, Amanda G. Lyons, Paul A. Leone II and Brendan Carroll.
It was cast in the new millennium, and Richards Barry Joyce & Partners seems intent on keeping things New Age.
Having marked their third anniversary this summer, RBJ&P leaders credit a fresh outlook for the company’s rapid ascension in Boston’s highly competitive commercial real estate sector. Backed by a compensation system that eschews commissions, RBJ&P touts a team-oriented approach favoring cooperation vs. competition, providing a different model than seen in traditional real estate service companies.
“It’s very challenging in an industry so ingrained in the commission mentality, but we think it’s a better way to do things,” explained RBJ&P President Robert B. Richards Jr. “When something good happens, it is positive for everyone in our company, and that fosters greater teamwork.”
After bursting on the scene in mid-2001 when nine industry veterans broke ranks with various local firms, RBJ&P now has nearly 50 employees who are rapidly filling the 37th floor at Boston’s Exchange Place, quarters the company expanded into this summer after outgrowing its space in the tower’s 29th floor. Along with Richards, all of the founders remain, those being John P. Barry, Michael R. Frisoli, Michael J. Joyce, John M. Lashar, Brian M. McKenzie, Stephen M. Purpura, Johnathan M. Varholak and John C. Wilson.
Despite the veteran base, Richards credited the company’s pursuit of young talent as another reason RBJ&P has flourished. Some, such as Paul A. Leone II and Research Director Brendan Carroll, do have commercial real estate experience, but others sport divergent backgrounds. Amanda G. Lyons, who assists the firm’s National Brokerage Team, had managed a design studio and later was an account executive with iCrossing Inc. prior to entering commercial real estate. Associate Chris McCauley is a certified public accountant who worked at Arthur Andersen and later software maker Oracle Corp. as a sales representative.
McCauley today is part of RBJ&P’s Cambridge group, assisting in landlord and tenant representation. Given real estate’s impact on the bottom line, McCauley’s accounting acumen provides extra insight for clients, said Richards, adding that the firm felt the high-tech sales experience would steel him for the demanding real estate brokerage business. “To us, Chris had a very attractive skill set,” said Richards. “That’s a unique combination of talent.”
Other up-and-comers at RBJ&P include suburban specialist Jamey Lipscomb, who matriculated from CBRE/Whittier Partners; Shawna Plociak, director of national accounts; and associate Shannon Herold, a member of the firm’s downtown operation. Richards cited the arrival of Leone two months ago as a coup for RBJ&P, with the Holy Cross alum coming over from Trammell Crow Co. after five years in the suburban west markets.
“We had noticed and admired his work from a distance for years,” said Richards, with the shift to RBJ&P allowing Leone to partner with Lashar, providing strong representation in the broker-rich MetroWest area. Richards is equally enthused by the hiring of Carroll in March, claiming he “has taken our research to a completely new level.”
“I had high expectations, but he has easily exceeded them,” said Richards. “Not only is he producing more reports than anyone I know, it is more creative and more forward-thinking research than anything we’ve seen before.”
‘Total Flexibility’
Carroll credited the willingness among RBJ&P staff, such as the Marketing Department, for helping increase the firm’s annual output to 43 publications from four previously, ranging from market-specific overviews to in-depth details on drivers such as the research-and-development market or life sciences. Having worked for a national real estate company with a rigid research template, Carroll said he appreciated RBJ&P’s eagerness to let him develop the Research Department into a multi-pronged tool valued both in-house and by company clients.
Carroll has switched the delivery date of some research to assist companies with quarterly reporting deadlines, for example, and is striving to ensure data is better defined geographically and by asset class. Along those lines, RBJ&P has broken out the industrial figures to delineate warehouse/distribution space from manufacturing properties. The two are sufficiently different from each other to warrant the separate treatment, said Carroll, maintaining that independent, local firms are better equipped to decipher trends or sort information than those using cookie-cutter formulas.
“The national philosophy just doesn’t work,” he said. “It’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.”
RBJ&P not only encourages innovative number crunching, Carroll said he gains extra knowledge by the willingness of brokers who can identify street-level changes or explain market anomalies. “At [RBJ&P], there’s a very real feeling of being on a team, and the importance of the Research Department is also very real,” he said. “Everyone here is committed to having the most appropriate research platform for the client.”
Whatever the reason, RBJ&P certainly has emerged as a formidable player in Boston’s commercial real estate scene, as well as beyond. The company is doing business in several markets nationally and is also assisting clients looking to expand overseas. RBJ&P is employing a different strategy than many competitors by not joining a network of companies such as Oncor International or GVA Worldwide. “Why should a client use the third-best person in Detroit just so they can get the best person in Chicago?” argued Richards. “We have total flexibility, and if people aren’t getting the job done, we’re not shy about letting them go.”
Boston-based OneBeacon Insurance Group was comfortable enough with RBJ&P to select the firm from several competitors to handle its real estate responsibilities throughout the country, while the company has scored numerous other victories during its brief existence. The firm represents several significant buildings throughout the region, including such downtown Boston towers as 99 Summer St., 75 State St. and 200 State St. In another milestone, Equity Office Properties retained RBJ&P as leasing agent for 245 First St. in Cambridge, a rare instance that the national real estate company had hired an outside firm in that capacity.
RBJ&P also has dabbled in investment sales, recently brokering the $2.2 million sale of a Marlborough building and a 23,000-square-foot Billerica building, 9 Executive Park Drive. Many of the company’s veterans have experience in the sales arena, although it still makes up only about 10 percent to 15 percent of company revenues. “I do think that will grow over time,” said Richards, although he stressed there are no plans to launch a group dedicated to investment sales as seen at other firms.
Overall, Richards said he is encouraged by RBJ&P’s position. The firm exceeded both its one-year and three-year goals, he said, and is on track to better its five-year aims. In that regard, Richards said he is not surprised at the firm’s performance. The bonus, he said, has been in the corporate culture RBJ&P has fostered.
“I never had any doubt we would be successful,” he said. “The biggest surprise to me has been the level of enjoyment and happiness we’ve had as a company during the first three years … It has just been a real joy to be a part of.”
