Yep, Glenn Walsh is a Gemini, all right, multiple personalities and all. Perhaps Sybil didn’t get much traction out of it, but Walsh believes that having more than one personality to call upon has helped him ring up his share of deals. “In business, you have to have different types of personalities for all of the different types of people you deal with,” explains Walsh, senior director at Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. “Sometimes you have to be hard, sometimes you have to be soft, and sometimes you have to be light. It’s never the same because you confront different situations and have to take a different look at each one.”
For instance, Walsh played it tough with one client who had no reservations about telling him exactly how frustrated he was with him. “I was trying to buy a building from him, but he didn’t want to sell. Every time I’d call, he’d scream and yell at me a little and hang up.” Walsh let the tongue lashing roll off his sturdy back. “That went on for about two years. Then, one day, he picked up the phone and was nice to me.”
However, Walsh, who rang up 300,000 square feet in leasing space last year, wasn’t about to let his guard down. “I still had to play hardball with him.” After all, some people like the challenge of dealing with others who play hard to get. In any event, Walsh’s approach paid dividends. “At the end of the day, we made the deal and shook hands. He’s become a good friend of mine,” says Walsh, who is based in Rye Brook.
Ultimately, he believes his way of working with clients hits pay dirt because he’s doing nothing more than being himself—and clients notice. “It’s just who I am,” he says, nonchalantly.
At the same time, customers appreciate the fact that Walsh devotes as much time as needed to deals. “They can always find me. I’m not going to sleep until a deal’s done. Saturday, Sunday, or the holidays, they know they can call me.”
They also know—or should—that Walsh almost never calls a deal dead. “My associates and I have found deals that were dead and brought them back to life just because we were able to go the extra mile. You have to have the diligence to find out what’s killing a deal and why and then fix it.”
Geminis…
