Overview
You're sourcing commercial real estate redevelopment opportunities for an impact investment firm. This means building relationships with city officials, community organizations, property owners, and local business leaders to identify large-scale properties (think defunct malls, old industrial sites) that Second Horizon can acquire and transform. You're in a 10-person firm, so you're figuring out the motion yourself.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Full-cycle AE / BD hybrid |
| Sales Motion | 100% outbound relationship-building |
| Deal Complexity | Strategic - multi-stakeholder, community-involved |
| Sales Cycle | 12-24+ months |
| Deal Size | Multi-million dollar property acquisitions |
| Quota (est.) | 2-4 qualified opportunities per year |
Company Context
Stage: Private equity / family office backed (likely)
Size: 10 employees
Growth: Early-stage team building, actively hiring
Market Position: Niche player in impact-driven commercial real estate - not competing with traditional PE firms, positioned as community-first redevelopment partner
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 70% Direct outreach - cold outreach to municipalities, community development orgs, property owners
- 20% Referrals - existing relationships, community connections, local chambers of commerce
- 10% Inbound - word of mouth from completed projects
Support Structure: You're likely the first or only BD hire. No SDR, no playbook, no established territory strategy. You build it.
SE Support: None. You're presenting alongside the Managing Partners or solo.
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Traditional commercial real estate developers, local/regional PE firms, community development corporations
How They Differentiate: "Impact-first" approach - they position as community partners, not extractive investors. Bring stakeholders into the process vs. top-down development.
Common Objections: "How is this different from gentrification?", "What's your track record?", "Community process will slow everything down", "Traditional developers move faster"
Win Themes: Local economic impact, community ownership/voice, patient capital approach, track record of keeping commitments to communities
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Research/Targeting (25%) | Relationship Building (40%) | Deal Support (20%) | Internal (15%)
Key Activities
- Market Research: Identify municipalities with underutilized commercial assets, research local economic development priorities, map key stakeholders (mayors, city councils, community groups, chamber presidents)
- Outbound Outreach: Cold emails and calls to city officials, economic development directors, community organization leaders. Most ignore you. You're pitching meetings to explain who Second Horizon is and what you're looking for.
- Relationship Cultivation: Coffee meetings, city council sessions, community forums. You're showing up repeatedly to build trust. These are not transactional conversations.
- Deal Coordination: When you find a potential property, you're coordinating site visits, facilitating community meetings, managing stakeholder expectations, working with legal/finance on structure
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Deals take years. You might work something for 18 months and it falls apart because of community opposition, city politics, or financing issues.
- You're selling an unfamiliar concept. Most municipalities and property owners don't know what "impact investment" means or why they should care about community engagement.
- Small firm means limited brand recognition. You're constantly explaining who Second Horizon is and proving you're legitimate.
- Success is measured in 2-3 deals per year, max. Long periods where you have nothing closed to show.
- Community stakeholder management is messy - lots of meetings, competing interests, slow consensus-building
- You're building the sales process from scratch - no CRM, no scripts, no territory plan handed to you
What Success Looks Like
- 2-3 qualified deals per year that enter serious due diligence
- Network of 50+ active relationships with city officials and community leaders
- Pipeline of 10-15 properties being tracked at various stages
- Reputation as a trusted partner in target markets (people take your calls)
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- City mayors, city managers, economic development directors (public sector)
- Property owners of distressed commercial assets (private sector)
- Community development corporation leaders
- Chamber of commerce executives
What They Care About:
- Cities: Job creation, tax revenue, community benefit, political optics, avoiding gentrification backlash
- Property Owners: Exit strategy for non-performing asset, credible buyer, fair valuation
- Community Groups: Local hiring, preservation of character, preventing displacement, genuine voice in process
Requirements
- 3-5 years in commercial real estate, economic development, or community development
- Comfort with ambiguity and building processes from scratch
- Relationship-building skills - you're playing a very long game
- Understanding of municipal government and community stakeholder dynamics
- Willingness to travel to secondary markets and spend time in communities
- Self-directed - no one is managing your pipeline or telling you what to do daily