#254: Sarah Kennington - Founder of Thirty-Four Commercial - The Queen of Office Leasing

Sarah has 20 years of experience in office brokerage in the DFW region. Prior to founding Thirty-Four Commercial, she was previously a Principal at Peloton Commercial Real Estate (acquired by JLL in 2019) and an Associate at Transwestern. Sarah graduated from Miami University before relocating to Dallas, Texas in 2003. Sarah focuses her life on wellness and balance. In 2018, she obtained a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification. Sarah enjoys spending time with her husband and children, as well as traveling whenever their schedule allows. On this episode, Chris and Sarah discuss: her career stories and the lessons she learned along the way her view of the current office environment and where we go from here how to lease Class A Office buildings how she leased a Class AA office building from the ground up how she manages a growing family and business Links: Thirty-Four Commercial The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren Topics: (3:21) - Sarah’s career & background (30:11) - What did you learn selling gym memberships that translate to any sales position? (33:01) - What does good training look like for people early in their RE career? (37:53) - How do you build trust with owners? (47:50) - How would you describe the office market today? (59:40) - What’s your process of working in development? (1:01:40) - Where do people waste money in office development? (1:07:53) - How do you approach marketing? (1:11:22) - When are you able to start leasing a building? (1:16:36) - Is there a point where you realize a deal isn’t going to get done? (1:18:43) - What’s your role once a new building is fully leased? (1:20:08) - What needs to happen for a lease to turnover? (1:23:05) - How do you balance building a family and a business?

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The Fort is an entrepreneurship podcast. Here, we uncover the proven strategies, insights, and inspiring stories of today’s greatest leaders in the worlds of business, real estate, entrepreneurship, and investing. Each episode’s mission is to help you to level up your entrepreneurial game by hearing directly from the men and women in the arena. Chris is able to uniquely uncover things not commonly discussed because he is an entrepreneur himself. We not only cover business, but we also cover the personal side of entrepreneurship. The Fort began in 2018 as a way for Chris to publicly explore the fascinating world of entrepreneurship. Since he was a child, he’s been characterized as obsessively curious about the world around him.  The Fort has now been downloaded over 2M times, across more than 50,000 unique listeners. Each week features conversations with entrepreneurs, Founders, CEOs, and Executives from some of the leading companies in America. Past guests have represented companies such as JLL, Hillwood, S2 Capital, Chick Fil A, Morning Brew, Founders Podcast, Tiny Capital, Permanent Equity, Fort Capital, Matthews REIS, Bonobos, and ConvertKit. 🐦 Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris 💡 Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/ 📹 Subscribe to The FORT on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FORTpod