Hi, my name is Christian N Peter II and I'd like to share my story with you of growing up in a Commercial Real Estate family, then going from a struggling first year agent, to running a successful brokerage firm, and helping others create the business and life they dream of for themselves...
I grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey in a commercial real estate family. Dad was a commercial developer, and from the time I can remember I spent many of my school holidays and nights at my dad's work learning about the business. He was mostly working on construction sites in those days. It is a lot of little boy's dreams to play on big construction equipment, so I loved going to work with him because it meant that I got to play on all the bulldozer, backhoes, and big pick up trucks. In those days, I didn't know exactly what Dad did, but I know I wanted to grow up to be like him and work in Commercial Real Estate.
I grew up quickly, went off to college at Florida State University, and studied Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, because I had a strong desire to work in my family business. For fun, I was a member of the FSU marching band drum line, and joined a fraternity by the name of Sigma Chi and met life long friends.
When my senior year of college came, I was expecting to graduate and join the family business, but in my Dad in his infinite wisdom had other plans...
He sat me down at dinner one night and told me "A business degree is great and all, but what we really need from you is something that we don't have in our business"... I said "What's that?" He explained that "We really need someone with plumbing skills and more importantly a plumbing license to take care of all the plumbing work that comes with managing 125 tenants and the construction end of the business" This came out of left field and I didn't know what to make of it at the time, but I did what I always do, and that is to put my head down, and do my best every day to achieve my goals. I eventually see that it was one of the best decisions of my life...
From Drummer to Plumber.
So, I graduated FSU and started to work as a plumber, working during the day, and going the the required vocational training at night. I learned the trade relatively quickly, and in true entrepreneurial fashion, within a year and a half, I was moonlighting at night and on weekends, and on some nights making more money in 4 hours work than I did all week at my 9-5. I used this time in my life to learn as much as I could about construction, with my vocational classes covering electrical, blueprint reading, surveying, boiler operation, air conditioning, and heating systems. My mindset was that if I was going to go through this rite of passage, I was going to get as much knowledge as I possibly could to benefit me in the future.
5 years passed, and I came out with plumbing license in hand, a vocational certificate and a marketable skill that I could then bring to my family business that I wanted to work in my whole life. I began to handle the day to day activities of running a crew of workers and maintaining 500,000+ SF of industrial and office parks. Every day was a new learning experience as I was given new challenges to overcome, and my learning grew by leaps and bounds daily. All the while, many of the people that I worked with spoke very little English, so I made it my task to learn Spanish so that I could communicate effectively and get the job done right. So, all projects and management that I did over the next 10 years were done 99% in Spanish. How is that for a challenge???
The next 10 years passed quickly and my skills and competencies grew as I gradually took over more and more of the day to day operations until the day came that my folks could go away for a week or two at a time, and we would barely have to speak, because I had it all under control.
Finally the time came, when it was due for my folks to hang up their spurs and move on the next stage in life. I treated this as a new opportunity to test my mettle and see what I was made of. I decided to get my real estate license, move to Miami, and start to sell commercial real estate. After all, I had basically been working in commercial real estate, my whole life and built commercial buildings from the ground up (literally)... How hard could it be?
Spreading My Wings.
Really hard. I moved to Florida and my first year of brokerage was in a word- humbling. I took a 90%+ pay cut to get in the business. There were many times that I wanted to quit, but a quitter is not what I am, so I set out to figure a way to make this work... Even with all the knowledge that I already had, I couldn't convert it into sales as there are so many new skills that I had to learn in order to be competent in the business. I can't tell you how many times that beat my head against the wall and wondered, if it would all be worth it.
I dove head first as I always do into learning everything I could, taking sales training, reading books, getting an advance certification (CCIM-Certified Commercial Investment Member) so that I could speed up the process of being success in my given field. Through time, I figured out a lot of things until one day I had the business that I had dreamed about.
My First Truly Successful Business.
Dark Horse Commercial Real Estate. I started Dark Horse in 2016 and in a short period of time I had 20-25 commercial listings on the market, closing 2-3 deals in any given month, and creating new opportunities every day, I found myself a handful of years later exactly where I wanted to be... Or so I thought.
People had asked me throughout my life, what would I do if money was no object? My response was always the same- either a paramedic, or a teacher. I love science, and I love learning and teaching, and those 2 vocations are both right up my alley for that reason. Well, once I got my business up and running, the strong urge came over me to give back... And that is precisely what I plan to do.
What we are doing today.
What I have done is distilled the last 22 years of my life into an all encompassing Commercial Real Estate training program for agents that want to learn what they need to be successful in commercial real estate brokerage in a fraction of the time it took me. With this course, they can avoid the pitfalls and frustrations that I experienced while getting maximum efficiency with their time invested in the program. We work with students from all over the country as well as from around the globe to bring to them the knowledge and support they need to be successful. We have the online course work to provide the relevant information, and a private Facebook group as well as weekly coaching calls to help answer any questions, and provide support along your journey. You can learn more about the program by clicking on the "CRE Basic Training" tab on the home page of this site. Let us know if there is anything we can do to help.
What About You?
If after reading this, you believe my company can help you grow your business, and replicate what my students and I have done, then consider looking at our program. We strive to have the best product out there and we won't stop until there is no argument that the Dark Horse CRE Training Team is where you go when you want to grow a super successful commercial real estate business.