Take that to the Bank!

After the juice debacle, I was out of work for about six months. The Lord blessed me with a few connections that ended up landing me a gig with CB Richard Ellis – Global Client Services, Transactions and Investments group on the Bank of America account.

CBRE was good to me for a short stint (one year exactly). Similar to the Jamba Juice story, but this time the US economy was to blame. The Feds has a lot to do with the growth plans for the bank, in so much that is virtually haulted all new developmet plans to a stand still.

During my time with the Bank of America account, I ended up doing more than what I was hired to do. Right before the economy blew up, I was on track to hire an apprentice and administrative assistant. That was all pie in the sky thinking as the economy took a dive. Once the hammer came down on all new hires, I was then put to the task of doing three persons job all by myself. At first it was not too bad, and I was able to manage it all in a day’s work. Soon, after I settled in, it became virtually impossible to work because of the amount of desk work that needed to be done, just so the bank was able to see what was actually going on in the field. Although I remained perfect in getting in the updates, it was very time consuming and began to interfere with the tasks at hand.

Franchise protection became my function as the list of renewals grew bigger and bigger as time went on. I was not complaining by any means, as this is one area that I excel in. I was able to pull off some great deals for the bank, but the process started to become so cumbersome that it did not make sense to even talk with the LL prior to getting an approval of the deal first.

Often times, I would have had the deal done and negotiated, to only get it kicked back by the bank committee because of some new process (which was updated monthly!). So, time was only a matter in the big scheme of things, to come short. And it did.

One year after being the only one capable of doing the right deals, and making the bank a substantial amount of profit, CBRE was awarded 14% additional square footage across the country. Jones Lang LaSalle was the other company that held a portion of the bank portfolio, and because of the bank policy to keep things on a even keel with outsourced vendors, JLL needed to be set even, and thus they were rewarded with the territory I was under.

Now, check this out. In April of 2008, CBRE was awarded my territory of AZ/NV from the bank. Prior to that, JLL was responsible for that territory for the last 6 years. In September of 2009, JLL was “re”-awarded that same territory. So, short stint of time, meant that JLL still had the same people in place for the job and did not need me to fill the spot.

Thus ending my time with both CBRE and Bank of America. It was fun while it lasted!