Pauldine France is the director of leasing at Thor Equities

Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their thoughts on the top trends in real estate.

This week, we talked with Pauldine France, director of leasing at Thor Equities. Previously, she was with the international business development team at Shawmut Design and Construction, and was the US territory project manager with Luitor and San Bernardo USA. She has over 10 years handling various aspects of commercial real estate and retail leasing, as well as over six years in luxury brand and property marketing, as well as strategic branding.

Miami Agent (MA): With more and more foreign investors interested in American property, how do you best approach working with clients from other nations?

Pauldine France (PF): Being culturally sensitive. The number one thing I don’t see in this industry is that people tend to approach foreigners with one broad stroke. You can’t treat your Chinese client as you treat your Persian or Russian client. You need to understand the client both as an individual, and culturally.

For example, there are parts of China where the color red is considered very offensive. Sending them an email with everything bold and in red can be off putting. Brazilians tend to ask a lot of questions, and ask them fast, but a Middle-Easterner will throw two questions out there and be silent while process what you said. On a sub-cultural level, you have to understand differences such as age and whether the society is patriarchal or matriarchal. I’ve seen deals lost because accidentally establishing a sense of mistrust by not understanding culture.

Take three minutes before meeting your client, and use one minute to understand where they’re coming from, both cultural-wise and country-wise. Use the second minute to learn ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’ in that person’s native language. I know ‘Thank you’ in 15 different languages, and it makes a huge difference because your client will know you took the time. Use the third minute to get to know your client separate from work, even if it’s just small talk.

MA: How do you make sure that your satisfying your luxury clients unique needs?

PF: Specifically with luxury clients, you have to understand two things: understand the brand, and the lifestyle. To understand someone’s brand, all it takes is a minute to google them on your phone and see what the client base is, see what product they’re pushing, see what the price point is, and what lifestyle they represent. You just have to know the client.

Whether it’s owners, partners or chairmen, they live a certain lifestyle. They don’t expect you to live that lifestyle, but they expect you to understand it. For example, having any sort of expectations on Friday for CEOs is next to impossible, because that’s their downtime. Many of them are out of the office. It’s the same way with a chairman over the summer. They may not give attention to certain things as they would at another time of the year.

MA: With things constantly innovating, thanks to the internet and new forms of social media, how do you keep yourself relevant and distinct from your competition?

PF: I’m a huge Linkedin fan. That is the one platform that has maintained its integrity as a business networking site. People do check it, people do look at your job history, people do look at your contacts. You can get a quick view of the type of person you’re dealing with and what their experience is. A lot of people don’t place the same importance on their business networking as they do on their social networking. Your presentation online is even more important than in real life, since people research you online before they meet you.

I put in the same amount of time on Linkedin that I do on Facebook or other social media. I look at other people’s posts, I make comments, I add onto information, then those people go to my page and share it. It makes my page a business/social media destination to the people I’m connected with. It’s more than just hitting that accept button. If you’re not using your connections as they were meant to be used, then you’re just wasting online time.

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