BIGGEST RISK with Joey Kline

J Darrin Gross: 

I'd like to ask you, Joey Klein, what is the biggest risk? 

 

Joe Kline:

Sure.

I don't have an insurance related answer. So that's, that's good. I have to say, I do think that your industry is a very fascinating one. And I think if we had more time, I'd love to throw some of these back at you. Because insurance is a very rapidly changing industry over the past couple of years as well. I look, I think that any Anyone, anyone who makes their money solely via Commission has to constantly be thinking about risk. And if you're not, you probably won't be doing it for very long. So it is something that I think about a lot, sometimes too much. And Atlanta is as well as the commercial real estate in general, right? Unless you're in a really small tertiary market. Valdosta, Georgia, right, you kind of have to be a jack of all trades, okay, there's not enough of one food group to really, you know, feed you. In a market like Atlanta, you really have to specialize. Okay. What I've tried to do is within my special specialization, diversify, that's how I think about risk. So my specialization is that I only represent tenants, I do absolutely no work whatsoever on behalf of landlords marketing buildings. That's not to say, I don't think there's anything wrong with that there are absolutely guys I know who do both sides of it. And they do well with it. I have very simply chosen to, for that to be my line in the sand, I only do work with tennis. However, within that work with tenants, certainly since 2020, I have tried to diversify the areas in which I do work and in which I target prospects, you know, potential clients. So I was very, very heavy into, you know, sort of growth stage early stage technology companies at the start of my career, and part of that was because I enjoy spending time with those people. And part of it was because as a younger guy starting out, it's a little bit easier to get a meeting with the, you know, CEO, who's your age at a 10 person company than the managing partner at a law firm. Okay. And when 2020 came, you know, those those were some of the really hardest hit companies, not only because venture funding dried up, not immediately Of course with them. But also they were some of the ones that took the most to work. So ever since then, I have diversified who I work with right more of a focus on professional services and finance, right those are some of the biggest uses of office space recently. A A good portion of business focused on not pure industrial manufacturing, but more of flex Flex is basically the office in the back the warehouse in the front, all right. So you know I helped a large water meter company establish kind of an HQ To where they had a big office there a warehouse and manufacturing, not only was that diversified type of group that I work with, it was also extremely interesting. You know, I do some sort of pseudo hospitality work, I have a social club that I'm working with right now he wants to set up a location in Atlanta, likely it will be in an office building, but it's a different use. So my, my risk assessment has been that, while I am not trying to be a jack of all trades, in terms of just any industry out there, that it's really important, especially right now to change, not change to increase the types of people and industries that you have in your orbit.