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get this show rolling. I got a guest on

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the line. He's a legend to me in this

2:57

business. and I got to

2:59

bring him up. I can't believe

3:01

I got him on the show,

3:03

but he decided to set aside

3:05

his busy schedule to talk to

3:07

Richie McDonnell, money -making conversation masterclass.

3:09

My guess, company's mission is to

3:11

expose and create space for people

3:13

of color in commercial real estate,

3:15

elevate the level of service by

3:17

putting clients first and empower others to

3:20

expect excellence without exception.

3:23

His company has represented the

3:25

commercial real estate interests of

3:27

summer, the most notable corporations

3:29

in the country, including but

3:31

not limited to Airbnb, St.

3:34

Jude, AT &T,

3:37

ATHLEASE FOOT, Coca

3:39

-Cola, FedEx, IBM,

3:43

JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft,

3:46

Truis, and Veratex, just to name a

3:48

few. Please welcome to Monday

3:50

Making Conversations Masterclass. I hope I gave

3:52

him justice in my interview. The legendary

3:54

T. Dallas Smith. How you doing, sir? Man,

3:57

I'm doing wonderful now. I got you

3:59

on the phone brother. I'm good You

4:01

know, you know, I appreciate you taking

4:03

the time because of the fact that

4:05

You know when you when you've done

4:07

as much as you said and you

4:09

you came right to the heart of

4:11

it's about service and about consistency and

4:13

I was in communication Tells everybody a

4:15

little background about you for really getting

4:17

to the interview because I want to

4:19

talk about mentorship I want to talk

4:21

about your vision and I want to

4:23

talk about moving into 2025, how

4:25

the young people and the people who are

4:27

my age who are listening to this show can

4:29

win. Floor is yours, Dallas. Well,

4:32

we're trying first again. Thank you, man, for having

4:34

me on the show. You

4:36

know, I borrow a line from I

4:39

got him going blank on his name,

4:41

but he used to say Atlanta born Atlanta

4:43

Brea when I die be Atlanta dead

4:46

That's me, so I've been up from the

4:48

west side of Atlanta grew up off

4:50

of Simpson Road and Went to Turner High

4:52

School, E .C. Clement then Turner High School

4:54

and a family move when I was

4:56

14 the college part broke my heart But

4:58

I ended up I'm graduating from Lakeshore

5:00

High School in college part Didn't know what

5:03

I really wanted to be when I

5:05

grew up all I knew is I wanted

5:07

to make a lot of money Yes.

5:09

So in 1982, I took a Forbes magazine

5:11

and I studied what the richest people

5:13

in the world did. The

5:15

richest people in the world in 1982 did

5:17

one of four things. They were in

5:19

the real estate business, they were in the

5:21

oil business, technology, or

5:24

investments. So

5:26

again, I'm from Atlanta, oil would have

5:29

taken me to Texas. Investments

5:32

would have taken me to New York. Technology

5:34

wasn't my thing, so it left me with

5:36

real estate. I didn't want to

5:39

work on the weekends, so residential was out

5:41

of the way. I like

5:43

you, team, because you tell everybody you

5:45

gotta have standards if you have

5:47

a dream. Hey, at the end

5:49

of the day, you may not know what you

5:51

want to do, but I rest assured there's

5:53

a lot of things you know you don't want

5:55

to do. Yes. So I tell people you

5:57

don't know just back into it. So literally, that's

5:59

what I did. And My

6:01

sister would happen to be dating a guy, but I

6:03

think with Michael Hightower, a lot of people know Michael

6:05

Hightower. And I joke when I say that story, a

6:07

lot of people say he was dating my sister too.

6:10

But Michael was the youngest

6:12

politician in the United

6:14

States at one time, the

6:16

city council member in

6:18

College Park, called him, asked

6:20

him if he knew somebody, he knew somebody

6:23

who introduced me to somebody who ultimately

6:25

ended up opening the door for me to

6:27

get into commercial estate. And I have

6:29

been in this space now. We're

6:31

shot for 43 years, brother.

6:33

Wow. Let me just, let me

6:35

just, to commercial real estate,

6:37

explain the audience for different between,

6:39

you know, commercial real estate

6:41

and just, you know, homebuyer real

6:43

estate. Yeah, absolutely. So first,

6:45

and then I'll get even more

6:47

specific about the piece that

6:49

I do in commercial, but residential

6:51

is just that typical homes

6:53

or any, if it's less than

6:55

four units is considered residential.

6:57

Right. Anything over six units or

6:59

four units is commercial, but

7:01

we focus them primarily office space

7:03

industrial space and raw land

7:05

And we're on the side that

7:07

we call tenant representation or

7:09

occupier services So what that means

7:12

is Roshani if you go

7:14

to a building want to leave

7:16

some space The landlord already

7:18

has a guy in there who's

7:20

representing his interest right? We're

7:22

the people who represent your interest or

7:24

the occupier of the space I tell

7:26

the people, I tell you, you never

7:28

go in the court by yourself against

7:31

somebody else on the other side. Don't

7:33

go and do this business by

7:35

yourself. And we help, we help companies

7:37

save millions of dollars. And so

7:40

the companies that you named, obviously a

7:42

large companies and obviously they have

7:44

people are professional and be able to

7:46

do this kind of work. But

7:48

this is all we do 24 seven,

7:50

uh, 365. So,

7:52

um, But imagine

7:55

this, Mr. Smith, you

7:57

know, because you're real estate, you walk by, you

7:59

see these buildings empty? You

8:01

know, you go, man, they might want you

8:03

to just give away that space, man, you know.

8:07

You know, because you hear that, I know I thought like

8:09

that. You know saying? The building's empty. They should

8:11

be able to just let me go in there and do my

8:13

thing. So talk to the audience

8:15

about an empty building don't mean they're gonna

8:17

cut a deal for you. The empty building

8:19

means something to that person who owns that

8:21

building. And also talk about, When

8:23

you rent a space, how people can

8:26

give you some build out and all

8:28

those little things that people can look

8:30

at. Do you go from that area

8:32

of conversation to that granular, when you're

8:34

doing a commercial space rental? Absolutely.

8:36

Our job is to represent your

8:38

interest. So the first question in

8:41

terms of vacant buildings, you never

8:43

know. There are people who will

8:45

keep their buildings vacant because it

8:47

represents a tax write off or a

8:49

loss. Okay. They may

8:51

be making more money in somewhere else, and they

8:53

need to defer it. So they want to

8:55

take a loss over here because they're making a

8:57

ton of money somewhere else. So you never

8:59

know anybody's tax situation. So that could be the

9:01

case, not always, but that definitely could be

9:03

the case. But as it relates

9:06

to, there's a lot of companies, I won't name

9:08

the company, but there's one particular company that we represented.

9:10

And for a full floor

9:12

deal, call it 28 ,000

9:15

square feet. Ironically,

9:18

this group knew the person they

9:20

were trying to negotiate with. They

9:23

brought us in. And

9:25

fundamentally, the difference between the deal that

9:27

they were going to get from

9:29

their friend and the deal that we

9:31

struck, Richon, was a difference of

9:33

$3 million. So we

9:36

saved them $3 million. $3

9:38

million can buy you more equipment,

9:40

hire more employees, can do a lot of

9:42

things for a small business, for sure. So

9:47

that's what we do ultimately at

9:49

the end of the day. Our

9:52

goal is to represent your interest

9:54

and to help you save money

9:56

and make sure that you have

9:58

somebody representing everything from the rental

10:00

rate, the incentives that you'll get

10:02

up front, improvements,

10:07

all of that from the parking. You

10:09

name it, if it impacts your business, it

10:12

impacts your face, we're negotiating. Everything's

10:14

a journey, you know that T Dallas. Yeah,

10:16

no doubt about it. And they, you know,

10:19

you know. the role of mentorship, you

10:21

know, you have the firm is

10:23

the largest African -American owned pure tenant

10:25

representative commercial real estate firm in the

10:27

country. So let's go back

10:29

to, you know, when you rented

10:31

to me, you know, I got an

10:33

idea for a little restaurant around

10:35

the corner, you know, you

10:37

know, I know T Dallas, a man,

10:40

he's renting out stuff to everybody. What

10:43

mistakes or what do I need

10:45

to come to you back then? Because

10:47

right now you, you're huge and

10:49

you know, you're doing a lot of

10:51

large space, a lot of office

10:53

space and that you built that reputation.

10:55

You work with a certain type

10:57

of customer now, but this is my

10:59

show money making conversation masterclasses, small

11:01

entrepreneurs getting in the door, trying to

11:03

understand how they can become a

11:05

brick and mortar or get out of

11:07

that food truck. What advice or

11:09

how should one approach that next step?

11:11

T Dallas. Yeah. I'd say the

11:14

first thing make sure you get somebody representing

11:16

your interest. And you know, you

11:18

would come, you know, ironically, the

11:20

very first deal I ever did was

11:22

a, I was a taxi cab

11:24

company. And I remember that

11:26

deal like it was yesterday. I made

11:28

$300 off that transaction. And I say

11:30

this, you know, I say to folks

11:32

the money, but that $300 may as

11:35

well have been $3 million because it

11:37

was my very first deal. And what

11:39

I learned was the ability to have

11:41

a tax a trade to know a

11:43

skill set That can help somebody save

11:45

money and in doing that I can

11:47

make some money, right? Well, the first

11:49

thing is make sure that you get

11:51

wise counsel I don't care what the

11:53

business is and I and now we

11:55

represent a large large large companies But

11:57

we also represent some small companies too.

11:59

Okay, so if you got an idea

12:01

and you I mean it's a small

12:03

company we've got say 20 people at

12:05

this office, we've got people who are

12:07

starting, but the difference here is that

12:10

even people who are starting, they have

12:12

the resources that are around them in

12:14

this office, people who've been around the

12:16

business a very long time. We've

12:18

got more than 150 years of

12:20

experience in this office. So we want

12:22

to be able to use that

12:24

to your advantage. So making sure that

12:26

you've got your P &L together, make

12:29

sure you've got a clear vision

12:31

for the next three to five years

12:33

for what you're trying to do

12:35

for your business. And we talk about

12:37

restaurants, so that's retail space, so

12:39

office, industrial, land. I was

12:41

real big into retail early on when I

12:43

got into business. One the guys I

12:45

worked for was a guy by the name of Herman Russell. Yeah,

12:50

if you don't know him, you know, look him up. We

12:53

did a lot of retail together,

12:55

but get counsel first. Number one,

12:57

get counsel. And the other thing

13:00

that people, they think it's expensive

13:02

to hire us to do work.

13:05

But here's the little secret, the

13:07

landlords pay us. We

13:09

get paid from the landlord because it's

13:11

a marketing item that's already a line

13:13

item. And the thing is, if you

13:15

don't use it, you're not gonna

13:18

get the benefit of it. Explain it to

13:20

my audience when you say that, you know?

13:22

So if you know, I'm a person out

13:24

there looking for a space. And so I'm

13:26

worried about hiring you. Yeah.

13:28

So you drive by, you see a

13:30

sign that says, you know, call,

13:32

respond, McDonald. the least

13:34

space. And so they called

13:36

you direct. Now mind

13:38

you, you're representing that particular landlord.

13:42

They called you direct, and you're going to be

13:44

a nice guy, you know, fun to hang out

13:46

with and everything. So all of a sudden people

13:48

like you, and you know what, we're going to

13:50

do the deal with you. Now

13:53

you tell them everything except

13:55

you not representing them. You're

13:58

representing the landlord. What

14:01

happens is if they go direct with you,

14:03

you get a larger fee. Versus

14:06

it would have been the fee that would have gone

14:09

to your broker. They just get to keep it.

14:12

So that's the crazy thing about it.

14:14

It's already a line item. It's

14:16

in the marketing line item for the

14:18

landlord. So take advantage

14:20

of that. And again, I tell people

14:22

all the time, you don't have to call

14:24

T. Dallas Smith and company. I hope

14:26

you do, but you don't have to. All

14:29

I ask you to do is make

14:31

sure that you have somebody who represents your

14:33

interest in the deal. Please

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18:57

Future You faces some big expectations,

18:59

work out more, go to bed

19:01

earlier, and most importantly, make smart

19:03

money decisions. Thankfully, today you has

19:06

Bank of America. One place with

19:08

tools and guidance to help balance

19:10

tasks from budgeting to saving, so

19:12

you can just be you, with

19:14

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like the power to do? Explore

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our tips and more, Bank of

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america.com/ Future You. Welcome

19:27

back to the Money

19:29

Making Conversations Masterclass hosted

19:31

by Rashawn McDonald. Money

19:33

Making Conversations Masterclass continues

19:36

online at moneymakingconversations.com and

19:38

follow Money Making Conversations

19:40

Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter

19:42

and Instagram. His

19:45

firm is the largest African

19:47

American owned pure tenant representing

19:49

commercial real estate firm in

19:51

the country. As he

19:53

says, he's a team of go -getters at

19:55

that office. Networking is his strong point,

19:58

dedication, mentorship, support.

20:00

That's where he offers at his place. And

20:02

that's why he's been successful over the years.

20:04

He has been in the real estate business

20:06

over 40 years. Because he told

20:08

you, you know, he didn't want to go to

20:10

Texas for all. He didn't want to do

20:13

no finance up in New York. And, you know,

20:15

he wanted the weekends. He didn't want to

20:17

work on a weekend. So. home real

20:19

estate was out. So he found his dream

20:21

and he's focused on it. When you

20:23

find your dream on your focus on it,

20:25

people have to guide you down that

20:27

path. So mentorship plays a role. Can you

20:29

tell us how mentorship played a role

20:31

in your success? T Dallas Smith. Absolutely.

20:34

Well, the first guy ever went

20:36

worked for was a guy named Thomas

20:38

W. Tift with Atlanta Airstream, a

20:40

realty. He was the one that really taught

20:42

me the business. Ironically, I was on

20:44

the landlord side of it first. So I represented

20:46

all of his Properties near

20:48

the airport. He owned about 80

20:51

acres worth of property was office

20:53

industrial land and retail Love him

20:55

dearly missing. He died some years

20:57

ago. He was an older white

20:59

white guy and in fact I

21:01

was the first black anything he

21:03

had ever hired and Make the

21:05

story even more complicated. His father

21:08

was the grand dragon of the

21:10

Ku Klux Klan and tipped him

21:12

But I tell people all the

21:14

time, but God God can change

21:16

anybody's heart And sometimes you

21:18

just got to get out of your way and allow

21:20

God to do what he's going to do. And

21:22

don't judge people by anything other

21:24

than the content of their character and

21:26

allow yourself to meet them. But

21:29

he taught me the basis of the

21:31

commercial estate business. From

21:33

there I went to work for

21:35

Cushman and Wakefield. I was the first

21:37

black broker at Cushman and Wakefield

21:39

in 1989. There I got

21:41

to work with some major players. Um,

21:43

a guy by the name of Andy

21:45

Gertner was sort of the, the godfather

21:47

of tender representation in this town. He

21:49

represented the largest deals in this town.

21:51

You could, I mean, the Georgia Pacific

21:53

building was a builder's suit for him.

21:56

Um, so he was that dude. He's,

21:58

he's still around a dear, dear friend

22:00

and a, and a, and a, uh, and

22:02

a friend to T. Dahl Smith and

22:04

company and definitely resourced to me. And then

22:07

I worked for Herman Russell. Herman, uh,

22:09

started a broker's division from Herman when I

22:11

left Cushman and Wakefield. I

22:13

was still in my thirties and

22:15

hadn't really gotten coming into my

22:17

calling. When you

22:19

talk about mentorship, I

22:21

met a young man by the name of Leon

22:23

T. Benton, who wanted to get into the business. And

22:26

I told Leon T. like I told

22:28

50 people before him, people come to

22:30

me and say, hey, I want to get into commercial state.

22:33

I say, do you have a license? They say, no,

22:35

I don't. I say, get your license and we'll talk. So

22:37

nobody ever came back. So that's how I

22:39

literally got rid of people. But

22:42

this kid, I told him to get his

22:44

license. Three weeks, he comes back with his

22:46

license. Now I'm going like,

22:48

oh, what the heck am to do with this kid?

22:51

So literally, for two weeks, I'm trying

22:53

to get rid of him. I got him

22:55

walking my dog, washing my car, getting my lunch,

22:57

getting coffee. He's not going

22:59

anywhere. And finally,

23:01

I'm fed up with it. So, you know, one day

23:03

I was like, man, I'm getting rid of him today.

23:05

I said, Leon, how many square feet in the acre?

23:07

He said, I don't know, sir. I said, well, you

23:09

better figure that out. He come back 43 ,560 square feet,

23:11

sir. And I was

23:13

like, yeah, that's right. I said, give me

23:15

some coffee. Oh, well, he went

23:17

to get coffee. UPS

23:19

was delivering a case of water to the

23:21

office. And as he was

23:23

putting the water up, God had this

23:25

epiphany. God said, Dallas, that

23:28

was you. That was you

23:30

when you got in the real estate business in

23:32

1982. But there was nobody who

23:34

looked like you who could help you. Wow.

23:36

You can help that kid and like anybody

23:38

was ever able to help you. And it

23:40

was literally Rashad. At that moment, at that

23:42

time, I realized what God had called me

23:44

to do. Me and that

23:46

kid, we've been together now, December be

23:48

18 years. He's the president

23:50

of this company now. Because within

23:52

two weeks of that time, God told me to

23:54

train him up as a son. But this will

23:56

be the guy who will run your business when

23:58

you turn 60 years old. And we've

24:00

been on that plan and I tell

24:02

you, he's killing it. He's killing it. He's

24:04

killing it. And we're bringing more people

24:06

up, coming up behind him. So my business

24:08

partners, Dexter Warrior, a lot

24:11

of people in town know Dexter. Dexter,

24:13

I've been in the business at the same time. Dexter

24:15

always represented landlords. I was always on

24:17

the tenant side. When I

24:19

realized he was a free agent, I said, man, you got

24:21

to come over here with me, brother. You've been ripping

24:23

off tenants all your career. Now you can actually help him.

24:28

We're coming up on 14

24:30

years ago. I'd say

24:32

all this to say, we realize Dex and I

24:34

are being the two oldest people here. The

24:37

future of this industry really

24:39

depends upon us training people up

24:41

to do this industry. And

24:44

I tell people, this is the only business I know we're

24:46

selling. You can be broke on a Friday and rich on a

24:48

Monday. Right, right, right,

24:50

right. That's a beautiful thing,

24:52

you know, because you know, the thing

24:54

that I enjoy, first of all, your energy,

24:56

you know, energy. And I always heard

24:58

about that. It was legendary. Your enthusiasm for

25:00

life. Your ability to communicate but more

25:02

importantly the give back part I never heard

25:04

that story because I always know in

25:06

my life I'm sitting behind this mic because

25:08

there's so many people I was called

25:10

I would say they bumped me, you know

25:12

when I was about to fear off

25:14

This we shut you don't belong over there.

25:17

Won't you go back where you supposed

25:19

to be? Okay, okay. I'll just test it

25:21

out. We're tired of watching you test.

25:23

Okay, go where you're supposed to be. And

25:25

so, with that young man, it

25:27

is important for people to understand

25:29

that the word no and also

25:31

humbleness is why he hung in

25:33

there. Because so many people want

25:36

to check. I always

25:38

tell people, because I started out in

25:40

entertainment in my career. I got a

25:42

degree in mathematics, but I left IBM

25:44

to do entertainment. And I always tell

25:46

people the amount of work I did

25:48

for free. because I wanted people to

25:50

see my talent. Even today, I'll take

25:53

opportunities just to see how it is,

25:55

drives my wife crazy, of course. She

25:57

should be charged. And I say, well,

25:59

that's a relationship I'm building out. It's

26:01

like a relationship. Every time I'm talking

26:03

to somebody like you, it's a relationship

26:05

that I'm doing. I'm down here. Nobody's

26:08

paying me a check to be on

26:10

this show an hour every Tuesday on

26:12

WCLK in Atlanta, Georgia, because I'm getting

26:14

them. Introduce myself and also you individual

26:16

like you to the world because my

26:18

show is broadcast internationally broadcast locally my

26:20

podcast gets 1 .3 million downloads a

26:22

month And so that lets me know

26:25

there's a voice out there, but your

26:27

brand T Dallas man, brother You know

26:29

when you say 40 years man, you

26:31

you make it seem like that's a

26:33

journey of happiness and you throw faith

26:35

in there How powerful is faith in

26:37

business? How does that correlate to your

26:40

life and how does it allow it to allow

26:42

you to be so humble? Man,

26:44

let me tell you something. There's

26:47

a T .J. has in his

26:49

book, The Crushing. He talks

26:52

about you can't have

26:54

fine wine without crushed grapes.

26:58

Wow. And we all go through some

27:00

crushing. So I had an ego back

27:02

in the day that was as big

27:04

as this building, I mean. God

27:07

has a way of crushing

27:09

you and bringing you back to

27:11

a place of what is

27:13

really all about See it was

27:16

never really about all it

27:18

was never really about the money

27:20

It's really about you walking

27:22

in the calling that God has

27:24

for you and then walking

27:27

in that calling Provision comps and

27:29

Getting not to my knees

27:31

and having to start all over

27:33

again Was probably

27:35

the best thing not probably it was

27:37

the best thing that ever could have

27:39

happened to me Because if that didn't

27:41

happen that would have never met Leontae

27:43

Mm -hmm, and the odds are we you

27:45

and I wouldn't be on this phone

27:48

call now talking about T. Dallas Smith

27:50

and company hmm But I'm real clear

27:52

faith has everything to do with it.

27:55

I am the son of

27:57

Lena and Glenn Smith

27:59

My mother was a praying

28:01

woman and always prayed For

28:04

us We heard over and over

28:06

again you can do through all you

28:08

can do all things through Christ

28:10

who strengthens you I Heard that my

28:12

whole life And I know it

28:14

is true as I'm talking to you

28:17

on this phone That if you

28:19

hear Learn the ability to hear God's

28:21

voice for you To this day

28:23

people trying to figure out what I'm

28:25

doing and I tell you at

28:27

the end the day I'm gonna give

28:30

you the cigarette shot mm -hmm I

28:32

just hear guys voice and I

28:34

do what he tells me to do.

28:36

Period. Hard stop. And

28:38

so, man, I'm looking at the stuff we're doing.

28:40

You wouldn't even believe the stuff that we're doing.

28:43

The stuff that comes out of nowhere

28:45

is, I know it's not out of

28:47

nowhere. People think it's out of nowhere,

28:49

but these relationships, building relationships before you

28:52

need them, that's one of my keys. Stay

28:54

green enough to grow. The

28:57

day I stopped learning, put me

28:59

in the box, bro. Always

29:02

keep something learning try to

29:04

get better. I can be

29:06

better tomorrow than I am

29:08

today. That's always my prayer

29:10

my brother Your humbleness and

29:12

your storytelling is incredible. I'm

29:14

talking to T Dallas Smith.

29:17

He began his commercial real

29:19

estate career in 1982 Now

29:21

today the largest African -American

29:23

owned firm in the country

29:25

My brother This

29:27

half hour wasn't long enough for me and you.

29:29

I'm just gonna let you know that, man. We

29:32

got more stuff to say, but I got another

29:34

guest on another half hour of this. But

29:36

more importantly, I just wanna let you

29:38

know that we gotta get together off

29:40

air. I love to do

29:42

that. And I gotta show you one thing

29:44

that we have in common. We

29:47

both did stand up. Okay.

29:49

Well, I can see the energy there,

29:51

but you know, I did Def Jam. I

29:53

did BED Cover View. You know, I

29:55

did all that now. I know you did.

29:57

I do. You bad man. You bad

29:59

man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You bad man, baby.

30:02

I appreciate you, brother. Thank you for coming on

30:04

Monday, making conversation, T -dialogue, Smithman. Thank your staff,

30:06

man, for connecting us, because they reached out

30:09

to me and made this happen, man. And they

30:11

did, they do dealings, just work your schedule

30:13

so we can make this interview happen. And it

30:15

was well worth the wait, my brother. Thank

30:17

you for coming on Monday, making conversation about the

30:19

class. We talk soon, okay? Make

30:21

that money, baby. All right. Appreciate you.

30:23

Let's talk soon. All right. All right.

30:26

Bye. This has been another edition of

30:28

Money Making Conversation Masterclass, hosted by me,

30:30

Ruchan McDonald. Thank you to our

30:32

guests on the show today. And thank

30:34

you, our listening audience. Now, if you

30:36

want to listen to any episode or

30:38

want to be a guest on the

30:41

show, visit moneymakingconversations.com. Our social media handle

30:43

is Money Making Conversation. Join us next

30:45

week. And remember to always leave with

30:47

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