A Nod to the Dons of the Massey Knakal (MK) Mafia

They say it’s the teachings we pass on that make us immortal and, in this sense, Paul Massey and Bob Knakal have secured their place as the godfathers of investment sales brokering in NYC. Few in the business measure up and if you haven’t sat in on a panel with either of these guys, do yourself a favor and sign up for the next one you can find. The war stories alone are worth the price of admission. Add to that, Bob’s encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything NYC commercial real estate related (i.e., pending legislation, zoning intricacies, and sales metrics going back decades across all asset classes; yep, he knows it all). These two created a thriving mid-market brokerage that consistently dominated the rankings. Oh, and then Paul decided to do it all over again from scratch just to prove it wasn’t a fluke. As one of their disciples referenced in the recent Real Deal article [Link here], I wanted to weigh in on MK and my thoughts as to what made it the juggernaut it was.

First and foremost, Bob and Paul love what they do and, to no one’s surprise, they are still very much at it and in top form. Bob’s sales stats speak for themselves and Paul’s brokerage includes a 45-person team handling more than 120 listings last time I checked. And the passion they imbued was contagious, permeating the halls of MK headquarters at 275 Madison which we all breathed in. Bob has often remarked that he will keep brokering until they have to carry him off the field and Paul similarly demonstrates a “can’t stop, won’t stop” approach to the business. In short, it was all in for the MK investment sales agents and it started at the top. As they say (though Confucius said it first), “Choose a job that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

A great relationship isn’t about a perfect couple coming together; rather, it’s about partners learning and benefiting from their differences. Bob and Paul were and remain great at their craft but stylistically they are very different and, as partners, they were the perfect complement to each other. Two Bobs or two Pauls probably wouldn’t have had the staying power that MK had and together the two built a team of agent “assassins” who dominated their territories. They also had an extraordinary and unrivaled idea which, at the time MK came into existence in 1988, was truly revolutionary. It was known as the “territory system” and it involved subdividing the entire city into submarkets or neighborhoods and placing individual agents there with a singular focus to know everything knowable about every building and owner located in your “hood.” Remember this was pre-internet and cell phones where information was hard to come by—it required real hustle. No brokerage was doing this at the time and it worked, very well in fact. 

They emphasized hiring well and, of course, this makes sense, as human capital is everything in the world of brokerage. Hire well and good outcomes follow—hire poorly and, well, you get it. The plan, as Bob explains it, was to hire “former athletes, members of the military or [those] who showed some excellence” as folks with these backgrounds are likely to excel in a competitive environment. Division I athletes populated the ranks at MK and intra-company softball games were as charged as a UFC title fight. Rumor has it Bob would pick up his golf clubs once a year with little to no practice and score in the 80s but this may just be apocryphal folklore and Paul, for his part, worked in rounds of boxing several times a week no doubt pummeling someone half his age. Competitive prowess and overall excellence were necessary but not sufficient to get in the doors at MK; you also needed to be a likable person—someone they would want to “have lunch with…or go have a drink with,” as Bob explains. Likable agents win business. Through weekly meetings, one-on-ones with the founders, regular training sessions, and outside speakers, Bob and Paul methodically crafted a culture of excellence evidenced by MK’s results as the number one brokerage in NYC by sales transactions 14 or 15 years in a row.  

In the article, Knakal says there wasn’t something “in the water or any secret sauce” that explains the high number of MK alumni success stories but I respectfully disagree. The secret sauce wasn’t tangible but it was felt in the examples set by the trailblazers themselves: Paul Massey and Bob Knakal. Yes Bob, “it was a good run.”