The case for being more aggressive in commercial real estate.

CRE Success Principle: In 2026, you’ll gain momentum from being more assertive than feels comfortable, not from politely waiting your turn.

Aggression gets a bad rap in business. For a lot of people, it feels uncomfortable, even risky. But I believe controlled and appropriately channeled aggression is one of the most important traits you can develop if you want better results in commercial real estate.

I see too many capable agents doing the right things, like prospecting, following systems and showing up consistently, yet still falling short. Why? Because they are not doing those things with enough purpose, conviction, or decisiveness. They become what we used to call “plodders”. Certainly capable, suitably diligent, but nowhere near being dangerous.

Being more aggressive does not mean being reckless or pushy. It means being more proactive. It includes pursuing business outside your usual patch when growth demands it. It’s about not assuming a client is off limits just because another agent has worked with them before. It includes backing yourself to move into bigger deals instead of staying where you feel safe.

It also shows up in how you follow up and negotiate. If a conversation stalls, it is your responsibility to move it forward. If a client is hesitating, your job as a trusted advisor is to give them clarity, not comfort.

In uncertain markets, leadership matters more. Clients need conviction, context, and guidance. That requires you to be decisive and, at times, a little more assertive than usual.

If you want more momentum, more deals, and more confidence, this episode will challenge you in the right way.

Listen to Episode 254 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership and ask yourself one simple question: where do I need to be a little more aggressive? 

Episode transcript:

There's a fun movie from the nineties called Bring It On. It's all about cheerleading, and one of the best cheers from that movie is: be aggressive, be be aggressive.

I can't do it fully in tune because that wouldn't be the manliest thing to do while I'm being recorded. But I can tell you that being more aggressive is something that I see more commercial real estate agents and leaders should be doing.

Now, there is this negative connotation that is attached to being aggressive.

Certainly, I think in my past people have called me aggressive in a work setting and not meant it as a compliment.

But I think it's a real opportunity, particularly in today's marketplace, to be a little bit more aggressive in order to get the results that we are looking for.

This is episode 254 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. My name is Darren Krakowiak. I'm here to help you lead better, grow faster, and stress less.

This is the third installment in our special series of episodes to help you get 2026 off to the right start.

We're talking about momentum and also mindset—the reset that you need to make sure that 2026 is your best year ever.

Today we're talking about the power of being a little bit more aggressive in commercial real estate.

I reckon that there's nothing wrong with a little bit of aggression—controlled aggression, not reckless aggression, but decisive action.

You're going to learn in this episode why controlled aggression creates momentum. You'll also discover how it creates opportunity, and it's going to help you win more of the business that you should already be winning by maybe just being a little bit more purposeful.

And yes, I'll use the word aggressive, than you are as a matter of course. I hope you enjoy today's episode.

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Today we're talking about being more aggressive, as I mentioned at the top of the show.

I remember that more recently someone said to me, "Oh, you've got a real shake-the-tree approach." I remember thinking, shake the tree? I want to climb the tree, not just shake it.

I think there's nothing wrong with being a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more proactive, a little bit more decisive, and a little bit more assertive when it comes to pursuing business.

My observation is that many people who are looking to get bigger and better results in their business are not actually doing things to the level of assertiveness, proactivity, decisiveness, or, for lack of a better term, aggression that they need in order to get those results.

They're being kind of proactive and they're prospecting. They're doing a lot of the right activities, but it's not just at the right level, which is going to ensure that they get the results.

I can remember one term that we used to use to describe somebody who perhaps lacked that aggression or lacked that motivation was they're a bit of a plodder, right?

We'd say, "They're a bit of a plodder." We'd say, "Oh, so-and-so is a bit of a plodder. They're okay, but they're not really going to get the job done," or "They're never going to be a superstar."

So, I think the choice here is: do you want to be a plodder, or do you want to be someone who's actually getting the results?

If you want to get the results, then it might need a little bit more aggression. You can put that in terms of energy and focus—whatever you want to describe it as.

I want to give you right now three ways that you can and should be a little bit more aggressive in order to get the results that you are looking for, if that's important to you.

The first way that I want to encourage you to be more aggressive is when it comes to pursuing business.

I was having a conversation recently with a commercial real estate agent who was looking for some coaching and wanted to grow their production from where it was now by about 60 or 70%.  He told me was what he wanted to do in the next year.

But he told me that he had some reluctance to pursue business that was outside of his patch, for example.

I really recommend having a specialty and focusing on that, but you may actually reach the limit in your specialty. If you want to grow more, you might have to move into another area, which is perhaps outside of your so-called patch, in order to get to the next level.

If you've got a belief that, well, somebody else is already covering that patch, therefore I can't go and touch it, then that's going to be a limit to your ability to continue to grow more.

Another way that sometimes we can be a little bit cautious when it comes to pursuing business is seeing that there is a prospective client that typically does business with another agent and deciding, "Well, I'm not going to pursue that because that is so-and-so's client."

Of course, we've got to respect exclusive listings, but I don't think that we need to necessarily assume that because somebody has been doing business with one particular agent for a period of time that we should never pursue that business.

Being more aggressive would be saying, "Well, I want to be the person who they're going to contact when that other agent drops the ball, or when that other agent has too much on, or when that prospective client is looking to try another provider in the marketplace."

Another way to increase your production is to start doing bigger deals than you're currently doing.

Again, if you decide that you're the person who's doing deals up to $4 million and something at $6 million is outside of your reach, then that is going to be true unless you change your beliefs and decide, "You know what? I've really mastered this level when it comes to sub-$4 million deals. I've got my win rate up to a certain amount, and now I want to start pushing into the next range of deals," which might be $4 million to $10 million, for example.

The other way that I find people not being aggressive enough, and again, I can remember when I first moved into a new company a few years ago and we were looking for some contact details.

One of my team members said to me, "Oh, we've looked up this way of finding them." I said, "Well, have we tried this, this, this, this, and this?" He looked at me like, "Whoa, we've really got to try all those different ways to get in contact with this company?"

I said, "Well, yeah. If we want to actually have a conversation with them, we've got to try a little bit harder than just asking one person for the contact information."

We've got to try and find different ways to have that conversation and ask for the introductions.

If we do get in contact with someone and then they don't respond, what is our sequence or cadence of follow-up?

If we then get engaged in a conversation and then we don't receive any response at a certain stage, well, if they've gone dark or ghosted us at a point where we believe that we deserve to have received a response, then I think we've got the right to follow up and chase that response to make sure that we continue the conversation.  

We take responsibility for the conversation moving forward.

So those are a few ways that I think, when it comes to pursuing business that you can be more aggressive.

A couple of other ways that I reckon we should be a little bit more aggressive in the current marketplace is in terms of the recommendations that we are making to our clients.

I want to make the distinction here that I'm not recommending that you are an ambulance chaser or somebody who's trying to peddle fear.

But I think we do want to be painting an accurate picture of what is actually going on in the market today.

If you have conviction and belief around what it is that you are telling your clients about the future in the marketplace, then I think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing to be telling clients to make sure that they've got the contextual awareness of what is going on.

And that may at times motivate them to make a decision to move forward.

That is part of your role as a trusted advisor: to provide relevant information that helps people make an informed decision.

And related to that is negotiating in general.

Most of the people who I deal with in commercial real estate are very good at advocating for their clients' interests.

In a negotiation setting, when they're representing the vendor and dealing with a buyer, they're very good at pushing back on certain deal points, asking for more if appropriate, of being willing to advise their client to go in another direction if that needs to happen.

That can be risky at times, but often it is the right move.

But the point I want to make about being more aggressive with negotiating is that sometimes we also have to stand up to our clients.

We have to be willing to push back on some of the things they're doing that can put the deal at risk, or let them know when it is time for them to move forward.

This is the deal. This is what we negotiated. This is what you wanted to achieve. Here's the outcome that we can achieve right now if we move forward, and I recommend that you do that.

Being a little bit more aggressive—or at least proactive and decisive—and using your authority to advise clients is a way that you can use some more aggression in order to achieve outcomes, particularly in the current marketplace — when there is more uncertainty, more noise, and perhaps people are feeling a little bit more fearful about what to do next.

I hope that's been helpful for you when it comes to being more aggressive.

If you need a little bit of a pep talk to give yourself a push or some motivation to do that little bit more, I know it can feel like sometimes you're doing everything that you can.

I don't believe in doing everything that you can. I've said before on the podcast: don't do everything you can. Do everything that you should, and do a little bit more.

Find the things that are important, the things that are going to make a difference, and do those things. Those are the actions that will help you move the ball forward and get more deals done, particularly in today's marketplace.

When it comes to pursuing business and prospecting, if you're looking for more ways to help you find more leads—whether that's inbound leads, outbound leads, or generating leads from existing clients through repeat business or referrals—I want you to check out the A to Z of Commercial Real Estate Prospecting.

It's a free guide that we've had out for a while now, but I think right now is a good time to freshen up your prospecting skills.

You can download it at cresuccess.co/abc. It's completely free and contains 26 ideas that will help you freshen up your prospecting efforts.

That is our episode for today. I hope you're all fired up and ready to go after that. Thank you so much for listening, and I will speak to you soon.