The Power of Social Media in Commercial Real Estate Branding and Marketing

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is Elm C. Kim. Elm C. Kim, thank you so much for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week, week. This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Mr. David Murphy. Mr. Murphy is an executive vice president at CBRE.

down in Orlando. But what gets me so excited about having Mr. Murphy on the podcast today is the fact that he is not just an EVP at CBRE, but he is the Dock High guy. David, thank you so much for being on the show today.

David Murphy (00:47)
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Aviva (00:50)
So tell us a bit about your journey into commercial real estate all the way through how you became the Dock High guy.

David Murphy (00:58)
So when I started out in commercial real estate, I was one of those people that always wanted to do this. When I was 14 or 15, my dad, he owned a residential brokerage company and he would have me work in the summer times. I'd have to go to the courthouse and pull property records. So this is back in the eighties, pre-internet, before you could just go and look up the property appraiser and get all the records on the property. You had to physically drive to the courthouse.

and then walk in and look up the property address and then figure out what the folio number was, write that down, hand it to the person behind the desk and they would give you a cardboard piece of paper that had all the information on it. Then you had to go to the copy machine, put a dime in the copy machine, make a copy of it and bring it back to the person at the counter. So my dad would just leave me at the courthouse all day and he would give me 50 properties that I had to get those things for. So that's how I got my start in the business.

I always thought I was just going to do residential sales. And so I took the classes when I was 17, took the tests when I was 17, got my license on my 18th birthday. So at least I'm tied as the youngest real estate agent or licensed real estate agent. And that was in 1989, right? It was when I got licensed. So I went to Penn State and got a job at a residential brokerage company in State College.

Aviva (02:14)
Wow.

David Murphy (02:23)
and worked there for four years while I was going to college. And so I got a real estate, bachelor's of science degree in real estate from Penn State, but I really wanted the practical knowledge. And frankly, I went there to play hockey. I didn't go to really do the school. I probably would have just gone straight out into sales after I graduated from high school. I hope my kids aren't listening to the podcast because I'm pushing college for all four of my boys. They have to go to college. But, you know, so I've always kind of been into it. And then my junior year, I started working with a person in our office that did commercials.

Aviva (02:26)
WAH!

David Murphy (02:54)
And I kind of liked the prospect of not having to work on the weekends because my job would be they'd stick me at an open house on a Saturday and Sunday and I'd just be, you know, it was tough. You were always working at nights, right? Cause that's when people could go look at houses and I watched this guy and he was, you know, he left at five o'clock and his car was a little nicer and he seemed a little more chill and relaxed. And I'm like, Oh, I gotta figure out what this guy's doing. So I followed him around my junior and senior year. And then when I graduated,

My dad also did appraisal work. So I thought I would just do commercial appraisals. And I got into that and opened up my own appraisal company when I was 24 up in state college and I was just going to go that route and I've got my MAI. So I've got, you know, the appraisal background and that's where I was going to go. And I realized early on that I didn't want to write book reports for the rest of my life and that's what appraisals were to me, right? It's 50 page book report. So what I really loved was the business development. I love going to the banks.

and getting them to hire my appraisal company, which is just me and some part-time person I hired to help me get comp photos. And that was our team. And I realized, wow, I wanna be in real estate. I like the commercial side, but I wanna go out and find deals. And that was brokerage to me. So I ended up moving to Orlando, didn't know anybody in Orlando. My parents bought a second home in Merritt Island, which is about 30 or 40 miles east of Orlando on the East Coast. And...

I came down and fell in love with Orlando, met with the broker of record at CB in Orlando. He took a chance on me and he said, I've got one opening and it's in industrial. And so I'm the dock high guy because that's where the opening was at CB, right? I could have been retail or multifamily or whatever. Early on, I realized industrial was kind of like being put in the penalty box. Okay. Nobody wanted to do industrial back in the late 90s. You know, you're talking about, you know,

Aviva (04:35)
Wow.

David Murphy (04:51)
$4 rents and just unglamorous as heck. So I got into it and really enjoyed it and embraced it. And that's how I kind of got my start at CBRE doing what I do.

Aviva (05:05)
That's so funny because, you know, I hear the same stories from my old man who started in industrial in the late 90s and now we're all smiling cheek to cheek. So can you explain for the listeners what has happened to industrial real estate since you started to today, March 29th, 2024?

David Murphy (05:29)
Absolutely. So really for the first 15 years of my career, it was just a grind. Right. You had to do a hundred. I think our team, we still do between a hundred and a hundred and fifty transactions a year. Right. But back then we were geared because we had to do that because the deals are so small, small financially, the spaces were big, but you're talking again, three, four dollar rents. It was tough. And so.

It went from being a just a hustle mentality and it wasn't very sophisticated. You just had to know where all the properties were. And that was the value that you brought, right? If you knew where the properties were and this was before you had a co-star and CREXI and these other services that help you. And so it was all about market knowledge.

and going out and hustling. And that worked really good for me. I think that's what helped me to be successful, was there was a premium on being able to go out and find a business. You know, if you think about brokerage, you can find, win, and execute. And there's people that do one or usually somebody does one of those three things really well. If you're lucky, you do two out of the three things really well, right? But I was really good at finding and winning business. And so that's what I did. How it changed?

was with e-commerce. E-commerce changed the game completely. And so, for example, in Florida, prior to e-commerce, most of the product was stored outside of Florida. And it would come down from Georgia. So if you think about a supply chain, it's really a hub and a spoke. And the hub is where the product starts. And then it goes out to the spoke is where the product ends up. And the hub was in Atlanta.

And we just had little spokes in Orlando. So we would get these 25 and 50,000 square foot deals. And, and then they were always brought in by another CB broker from some other market. And so you'd have, it was just, you know, it was kind of tough. So we made most of our money by going out and, and being what we call street brokers, right? Go out, find a listing, uh, did a bunch of one-offs, right? And that's where we were making most of our money. Then when you had Amazon enter our market, and this is kind of like 2014,

2015 in Florida, they changed the whole dynamic. And so if you think about in the old days, if I wanted to buy a

you know, a jacket, right? I would go on to the Sears catalog, find the jacket, order it, and they would say it'll be here in, you know, 10 business days, which is like two weeks. So that'd be great. Well, the expectations went from two week delivery time to two day delivery time. And when that happened, you needed to have product, you had to have more product and closer to the end user. And that completely changed. So if you think about this, for every...

a billion dollar increase in e-commerce spend, you need an extra 125 million square feet of industrial product. And so when we went, we started to see it with the advent of the e-commerce sales, right? And then as e-commerce penetrated the total number of retail sales,

the demand for industrial just skyrocketed. And so the requirements got bigger because now instead of having the hub, if you use that analogy up in Georgia somewhere, now they had to deliver to Florida from Florida and build a statewide distribution center in Orlando. So all of a sudden, instead of doing 25,000 square foot deals, we're doing like a half a million square foot deals. And you know,

all your listeners should appreciate this, it's probably easier to do a half a million square foot deal than it is a 5,000 square foot deal, right? And so the deals actually got quicker, easier, more sophisticated and like, you know, exponentially grew in size. And so that change happened.

in kind of like the 2015, 2016 period. The e-commerce trend was going to continue without the pandemic, but the pandemic just acted as an accelerant to that. And so when the pandemic hit...

My first thought was this is my nightmare scenario because I'd always thought being in Orlando I'm like, man, what if something in the world happened where people didn't travel and the convention center closed and Walt Disney closed down and Universal closed down. And I was like, that would be like, that would be the end of my career. And it happened. And I, you know, I remember telling my wife, I'm like, man, we really, we need to buckle down. I don't know when our market may, I may have to change jobs. I don't know what's going to happen here. And then the phone started ringing.

Aviva (09:56)
Ha ha ha!

David Murphy (10:14)
And the phone, I got so busy so quickly and it really hasn't stopped. And we've been incredibly busy ever since. So when that retail, when the e-commerce penetration of retail sales went from like nine to 15 or 18 or 20%, our market just took off. And it's really kept at that pace ever since.

Aviva (10:38)
Did you see it coming? Wait, you know, you talk about getting it in the late 90s. Well, there were a few years between the late 90s to queue e-commerce, queue COVID. Did you see this? Did you feel this or?

David Murphy (10:52)
No, what I liked about industrial was it was a product type that a lot of people didn't like to do Right. It was not it did not have like a sexy factor to it by any stretch, right and And I looked at it. I'm like, well, here's what I think I was looking at the people that were doing what I do and I didn't see a lot of personal marketing in my business and so, you know

Aviva (11:06)
Eh.

David Murphy (11:19)
coming back from what I did when I was in residential real estate, I would say a good residential broker crushes a good commercial broker from a branding and marketing perspective all day long. And I'm like, okay, what if I take that technique that I learned in residential brokerage and bring it to commercial? And so I saw this opportunity in a product type that just didn't have a lot of competition in it, and I said, I can do this.

Right. And I just looked at it as an opportunity. It was fun. It was kind of industrial was, you know, it might not have been the most, everybody went into office, right? If you came into Orlando, you wanted that multifamily sales role or you wanted the office leasing role. Those were like the two. And it was like a hierarchy. And industrial was way down at the very bottom of that hierarchy. And so I looked at it as an opportunity. But to answer your question, no, I did not see.

Aviva (11:55)
Yeah.

I'm sorry.

David Murphy (12:13)
in 1998 or 99, I couldn't even fathom that if you look at CB, for example, the top performers over the last few years, many of the top performers have been in the industrial sector. That would have been unthinkable when I started.

Aviva (12:30)
It's outrageous. I, uh, you know, I talked to a lot of folks who are like you, where they started in to, uh, industrial and it's the same thing. It wasn't sexy. We're selling boxes, but we like it. And then queue e-commerce and you know, hold on for dear life because we all knew what hat was going to have, well, hindsight, 50 hindsight, 2020. Um,

We all know what happened to rents and pricing and space needs like you're talking about as a result. So when did you discover and start using social media to grow your business?

David Murphy (13:15)
So I look back at my YouTube, I've got the Dock High guy on YouTube and I'm gonna start using that page again, but I started it in 2011. And what I did was, it was when the phone started taking the video, right? They were pretty reliable. I went out there, it's super cringe-worthy. I have maybe like 10 views after this podcast, maybe I'll have like thousands of people unfortunately go to some of these.

Aviva (13:35)
Hahaha

I'm sorry.

David Murphy (13:45)
and it's me in like a suit out there talking about, and I'm literally, and the screens jiggling all over. I mean, there's no quality filming on this. This is me with the camera holding it in the air and talking, right? And so, but I realized even then the value of being able to visually represent the property. And so I kind of got onto it and then I really started picking up on it three years ago, I would say.

Aviva (14:04)
Yeah.

David Murphy (14:12)
where I realized, wow, and maybe it's because I have kids and they're all on the social media, and I'm like, maybe I really need to get into it. But it's like so many people, you just don't know what the ROI is on all this, right? And I'd heard from a lot of brokers who were like, yeah, I tried it, but it didn't really do anything for me, or I don't get it, or that's a fad, or whatever, right? And so I think I just stuck with it, and I got into it, and I first focused, and I still focus heavily on LinkedIn, that's kind of like my main,

page and what I do and I realized one, it was a way to network with other people and find out information about them. It's kind of a Rolodex of people in the corporate world. So I was using it for business but then I just decided, I'm like, well, if I'm going to be on here anyway, instead of watching all of the posts, why don't I make the posts? And I started doing it and I would say for the first six or nine months, like I had no positive reinforcement. I just kept going and...

I don't know what, looking back on it, I'm not really sure how I stuck with it because there was nothing that was telling me this was making sense, but I just kept with it. And I would say I probably got momentum about a year and a half into it. And my followers started to increase and people were starting to follow me. And I got up to...

Aviva (15:19)
Wow.

David Murphy (15:33)
I think last year I got to the point where when you get to 30,000 it doesn't let you, you know, like you can't accept anybody's request anymore, the contact, they just have to be a follower. I think I've got like 31 or 32,000 people now. And it's been amazing. And I'd probably say 20% of my revenue is in one way or another directly attributed to social media because what does it do? Here's the thing. When I started out, let's go back to the late 90s, your goal as a commercial broker is to become famous.

Aviva (15:47)
Wow.

David Murphy (16:03)
You wanna be known, right? If I'm thinking about a market, if I need an industrial building in Orlando, I ask around, who are the industrial brokers? And I need to be, David Murphy needs to be, I don't always have to be number one, but I have to be in the conversation, right? I have to have a seat at the table. And so to get that, what I had to do in the late 90s and early 2000s is I did a lot of speaking events. I would go and try to get, I would try to get press. I made friends with the Orlando Business Journal, with the Orlando Sentinel.

Aviva (16:26)
Wow.

David Murphy (16:33)
Anything I could get quoted in, I would do. I would do any speech, anybody that would listen to me, I'm in, I'd do public speaking like crazy. And that's what you had to do. Now social media makes it so much easier because you can do the same thing that you had to do to get your name out there and become famous and it's free and they're available. You wanna quote, do right now, quote, put it out there. Create content, send it out.

And I just fell in love with it because it helps you brand yourself, right? But you have to be in it. You have to be involved in it. And so, you know, what I try to do is I try to answer like when people put the comments in, like I try to answer that. I want to feel like, you know, like I really read this stuff. Right. And so, um, and the other thing I realized was I was putting in a lot of advertisements about listings and you can see the metrics and like nobody looks at that. But if I put in something about, Hey, this is

what happened to me in my brokerage business today or something that is more personal, I get a ton of hits. So I'm like, all right. So I'm kind of like learning as I go. I don't have nearly the follow-overship that you do, so I could probably learn a lot from how you do it. But what I've realized is authenticity and sharing your wins and your losses. Like I would say some of my biggest hits on some of the stuff I post is when, you know,

Aviva (17:38)
Yeah.

David Murphy (17:57)
I lost a pitch and I'm like, hey, this happened. Or, you know, I just put one out the other day because it just hit me. I'm like, hey, I've been in this business 26 years and I had to ask somebody in the office how to do something, right? Like you never stop learning in this business and you have to be humble. And so many times when you go on social media, you just see the best, right? And there's a lot of this business that's not the best and I think people, you know.

Aviva (17:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

David Murphy (18:23)
They sort of wonder deep down, are they the only ones that find like challenges or no, we all find challenges in it.

Aviva (18:32)
So let me ask you, do you feel like in your brokerage community, other gentlemen or ladies of your stature are using social media? If yes or no, do they look at you a different way because you do it?

David Murphy (18:53)
They don't do it. I'm glad they don't do it. And I think they do look at it and there is kind of like, you know, a thought process of like, hey, like that's a waste of time or why are you doing that? Or you're really putting yourself out there. And I think that it's just so beneficial to my business and what I do. But I don't think a lot of people look at it

Aviva (18:56)
Hahaha

David Murphy (19:22)
like it's a good thing for some reason, right? And I don't know why that is. I'm like forthright, like I said, I'm not like hiding it. I'm getting a lot of business from social media, right? I'm really glad that a lot of my competition doesn't jump on the bandwagon. And frankly, they're so far behind that even if they did, it would take them years to get caught up to where we are now. And so I'm surprised, I think, as much because if you think about it, a good broker is a good

Aviva (19:32)
Right.

David Murphy (19:51)
We're supposed to be, especially if you're on the listing side. Now, if you're a tenant rep broker, if you're on the occupier side, a lot more of that's execution, right? But if you're on the listing side, if you're marketing a property, you know, if you can't market yourself, how can you market your property?

Aviva (20:07)
Yeah. Look, I see the same thing in my market. I could scream from the mountaintops about how impactful using social media to market ourselves and our listings are. And I get poo-pooed. I know it's taboo. You know, because I get that feedback at listings. Oh, are you going to put this on your TikTok? Are you going to do it? And it's like, it's kind of like what you said, like

Yes, and you should be too, but I'm, you know, it's only advantageous for me that you look down on me for doing this because if the top 10 brokers, if the top 10 industrial brokers in my market, the big wigs were doing this, boy, would this be a lot harder for me, and they just leave nothing but opportunity. So I'm glad we're in different markets. Because.

David Murphy (21:04)
I know, I know, and it's great. And I love learning, it's fun because what I've found is it's not saturated yet. And so when you get together, you know, and go to events where you've got social media folks gather, it's usually they're in different markets and we kind of like riff off each other and can learn. And I watch what you do and other people that are successful in the industry do and try to learn. And I think it's fun. And I think there's a sort of kinship.

between the folks that are doing it and we kind of get it. And it doesn't come natural to me. I'm not computer oriented and to me, the whole social media thing, I'm still kind of learning. But I think if you just put yourself out there engage in it, accept it, and I just know what it's doing for me, right? I can't answer when people say, well, I did it. I think...

It's a lot like brokerage in general. If you think about brokerage in general, the first couple years you're in brokerage, it's painful, right? And then somewhere along the way, the dam breaks and the activity flows. And I would say social media is a lot like that. I think if you start in social media, you could probably have no results for eight to 12 months, right? And you could be out there every day. And I don't know what it is, but at some point, you just break through that barrier.

Aviva (22:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

David Murphy (22:30)
And I have, you know, we were at a festival, my wife and I, and somebody came up to me and was like, hey, the dock high guy. My wife's like, what in the world? You know, and I'm like, yeah, see? You know, it really works, and it builds your brand and puts you in touch with people that you normally wouldn't have reached, but for that platform.

And so I think it's really powerful. I think people will jump on the bandwagon eventually, but I am surprised that we haven't seen more, you know, get on board.

Aviva (23:08)
And for everybody listening, so David and I met, we were at the Commercial Real Estate Influencer Conference down in Lake Nova in Orlando. And we sat down at a table together. And the second that it resonated with me that you were a warehouse guy who was at the social media for Commercial Real Estate Conference, it was like, oh, like this person gets it, like I can relate to this person because

You know, warehousing, I don't want to speak for you, but warehousing is my passion. If you're the Dock High guy, I'm assuming you like it. And the fusion of using the internet and commercial real estate and marketing is just nothing but value add to our clients, our warehouses, and everybody, you know, and everybody we work with, everybody in between. So.

It's a special time. It's very cool and opportunistic.

David Murphy (24:14)
It is. Yeah. Again, I don't know why more people don't jump on it, but it and it's fun. And the other thing you do is you get to give back a little bit. Like I know a lot of people reach out that are in the brokerage business that are starting out. And I try to answer everybody's, you know, DM, I guess, the messages that come in. I will say we're trying to do the other. We haven't really gotten on TikTok yet, but we've started on Instagram and we started on

on X and boy, I don't know, I'm so much better on LinkedIn. Like I said, we've got a big following on LinkedIn, but on Instagram, I've got maybe 970 followers. I'm like, we have a French Bulldog, and my wife follows other French Bulldog sites, and these French Bulldogs have like 300,000 followers. And I'm like, struggling to get to 1,000. I'm like, I'm gonna make up names and just sign up so I get to 1,000, I don't know what it is. And on X, I think we...

Aviva (24:59)
Ah!

David Murphy (25:12)
I think I have maybe like 2,500 followers. So, you know, I probably have to figure out the, you know, what people on Instagram and X-Lake versus LinkedIn, but you know, it's funny how those different, you almost have to change how you're marketing or mix it up to do one or the other. That's like next level. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm still, you know, I'm still learning.

Aviva (25:36)
You know what? Uh, see, I see LinkedIn as next level. I didn't touch LinkedIn until I heard Gabe Maron's talk about it. And I literally ran home and haven't stopped since.

David Murphy (25:48)
It's powerful. Yeah, I love it because it's like, you know, corporate Facebook, right? I mean, everybody's on it and you can track people down and you can reach out. I will say what I like about X is that it's a little more conversational and you can sort of like post something on somebody else's tweet and then they'll reach out to you and you'll like, it'll be like.

Aviva (25:56)
Yeah

Yeah.

David Murphy (26:15)
as a CEO of a company or like you'll get access to people that you normally wouldn't get access to. So X is something I'm really trying to figure out. Instagram, I'm just gonna say I'm clueless, right? We'll have to figure it out, I don't know. Yeah, it's not translating on IG as much, but it's fun to kind of experiment with the different platforms for sure.

Aviva (26:36)
Hey, you'll get there. I have posted a property for lease to my Instagram for lease. DM, I want that space. Get them through. So, just hey, everything you did to figure out LinkedIn and X, you will get there with Instagram, right? There's no magic potion to any of these. It's all the same strategy, which is...

David Murphy (26:48)
That's so good.

Aviva (27:05)
Get up every day, get kicked in the teeth, and then keep smiling. Which is exactly like brokerage, right? And I say brokerage is a long game. Commercial real estate is a long game. Social media is a long game. You come in for a year and you expect big results in either, you're gonna have a bad time. Let me save you a year, don't do that. Play the long game and it will pay dividends. Just depends on.

David Murphy (27:09)
Exactly.

That's right.

Aviva (27:34)
You know, you just gotta find the people who can see that.

David Murphy (27:37)
Yep, yeah, it's great advice. I couldn't say that any better.

Aviva (27:40)
So, well, let me before, before I have you tell us where everybody can follow you and contact you. I always end the Commercial Real Estate Secrets podcast with this one question. What is currently making you happy in commercial real estate?

David Murphy (27:58)
What is making me happy, that's a great question by the way. What is making me happy in commercial real estate is how the work that I'm putting in to build our team, right? Because it used to just be me. Brokerage, the team concept is really a relatively new thing over the last 10 or 15 years. And what's making me happiest is watching my team flourish and do well.

and watching Monica Wanus, who's my partner, she's been with me 10 years and watching her transform her career in industrial real estate to where she's, in my opinion, one of the top industrial brokers in the country. She's killing it. Watching Jose Rivera and Cameron Thomas and Lee, or some of the other people on our team that are just, it's fun watching, because I'm at the point of my career where,

I wouldn't say I've made it, but I've kind of made it. And so, you know, for me, it's more about what's kind of, what is gonna be your legacy? And that's what's making me happiest in commercial real estate right now, is the ability to watch the next generation, embrace all this new technology and the new things that we didn't have and run with it. And it's just been fun to watch.

Aviva (29:03)
Sure.

Mr. David Murphy, where can everybody find you on social media platforms or contact you in general?

David Murphy (29:27)
So, at @dockhighguy that's it. @dockhighguy is pretty consistent among all platforms. And if somebody has a question, my business email address is david.murphy at CBRE. Just shoot me an email. You can find me, DM me on one of those platforms, LinkedIn, X, or Instagram, and I try to answer every question I get.

Aviva (29:51)
It's a genius username. I was pretty jealous. You got that one. That's a good one. So especially on Instagram, go follow Dock High Guy. David, thank you for being on commercial real estate secrets and for everybody listening, we'll see you next week.

David Murphy (29:55)
Thank you.