DID YOU HEAR? Madsen Re-Creates Dallas Area Brokerage Firm as Unique Boutique That Gives Back
A Daily Look at the Movers and Shakers in Commercial Real Estate
Paladin Partners co-founder and partner Conrad Madsen is working to grow and re-create his Dallas-area brokerage firm.
By Tony Wilbert
CoStar News
November 12, 2020 | 11:00 AM
When Conrad Madsen worked as an executive recruiter right out of college in the late 1990s, he couldn’t help but be impressed by people he’d see who worked at the Staubach Co., which had its headquarters near his Dallas apartment.
“I’d just see how these brokers are carrying themselves, the cars they drove, the professional way they’d dress,” Madsen said in an interview.
He quickly realized he wanted to do what they did. Lacking industry connections and not being from Dallas, Madsen took a shot and asked a Staubach broker to lunch.
“The brokers took time with me and offered advice,” Madsen said, and that had a lasting impact.
The brokers, Scott Collier and Tom McCarthy, helped him break into the industry, Madsen said. “They didn’t know me from Adam, and I had zero contacts in Dallas,” he said. Madsen and McCarthy’s son, Conor McCarthy, who works at JLL, now are close friends.
In 2001, Madsen landed a job at NAI Stoneleigh Huff Brous, then the NAI affiliate in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex that was acquired by Transwestern. He then spent nine years as a principal at Lee & Associates. In 2014, he co-founded Paladin Partners Commercial Real Estate Services in Plano, Texas.
Six years later, Madsen, along with Paladin co-founder and partner Greg Nelson, are working to reimagine their firm, with making a positive impact on the community at the heart of their mission. Paladin has established a program to give a percentage of the fees it makes from every commercial property transaction to charitable organizations.
“After seeing national and local brokerage firm models, we decided about a year ago to create a better culture and organization that really has a greater purpose,” he said. “I always give other people time because somebody gave me time 20 years ago, and it changed my life,” Madsen said.
Madsen and Nelson also have plans to greatly expand their brokerage firm, which right now focuses “on all things industrial” from corporate services, tenant representation, project leasing and investment sales, Madsen said.
Paladin plans to grow by adding people who would beef up services such as property management, construction management, office project leasing, office tenant representation, retail, medical, and all classes of investment sales, including debt and equity brokers.
“We have brokers from all across the country reaching out wanting to know more about Paladin and when we are going to open up an office in their city due to the culture we are creating,” Madsen said. “We are in business to impact other people’s lives first and foremost by creating ownership opportunities and more importantly through our ‘give-back’ platform.”
Giving back to the community is important, Madsen said, as is offering equity opportunities to people who work at Paladin Partners.
“The plan is to impact more communities outside of Dallas by expanding over to Fort Worth and then down to Houston and Austin, San Antonio and then ultimately take Paladin to 10 to 20 cities across North America over the next decade,” he said.
The firm would like to have 20 to 25 brokers by mid-2021, Madsen said. “Until Staubach sold to JLL in 2008, this town was always led by a local-regional firm as the dominant player, and that’s where we have set our sights,” he said.
Madsen said Paladin plans to leverage the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and social media to recruit new brokers. His SIOR network has been key during his career and while he and Nelson were building Paladin Partners, Madsen said. Their connections have enabled Paladin to complete transaction in 125 markets.
Madsen also leverages LinkedIn to fortify and create new relationships by actively posting and engaging with people on the social network.
“You would be blown away by how many people have reached out to me asking, ‘How can I be part of your network?'” Madsen said. “I’m 45 years old. I’m not some Millennial, and most of my recruiting involves people who get to know me through social media and feel like they know me.”
Madsen’s regular LinkedIn posts include a ‘Monday Motivation’ message and videos he posted every other week. Social media enables Paladin to brand itself and give people a look inside the firm and insight into its culture, he said.
While several brokers across the country including Allen Buchanan in Orange County, California, Natalie Wainwright in Las Vegas, Coy Davidson in the Houston area and Ken Ashley in Atlanta are savvy social media users, Madsen said commercial real estate has been slow to adopt the channels to increase their business. “It’s just an old-school industry,” he said.
Madsen grew up in Mission, Texas, in “deep south Texas” near the Mexican border. Mission is best known as being the hometown of legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry. Madsen is a lifelong fan and has in his office a Cowboys helmet his parents gave him when he was 5 years old. “I’d wear the helmet and pretend I was Roger Staubach,” Madsen said.
Madsen’s love of the Cowboys merged with his professional career as he watched Staubach, the former Cowboys star quarterback, build what Madsen considered the preeminent commercial real estate services firm in Dallas until that sale by Staubach to JLL 12 years ago.
Looking back, Madsen said he made the right decision when he left the world of executive recruitment for commercial real estate.
“I would never trade this industry for anything,” Madsen said. “It’s allowed me to meet some incredible people.”