Fifth in a series
In the age of Google Earth and email blasts that can reach thousands of prospects, Rich Beynon has found there’s one thing that still sells real estate — the personal approach.
“Real estate still goes back to the basics. It’s still a one-on-one industry. It doesn’t really matter who you’re with. It’s a matter of who’s working on your property and the relationship that you have with the owner and the relationship you have with the client. A lot of that comes down to trust,” he said.
That’s why brokers at Beynon & Co., a Downtown real estate and insurance firm, have a quota — at least three breakfasts or lunches each week with potential clients, prospects, bankers or others who can help with business. It’s all about face time.
“Because if you’re not face to face, you’re really not selling anything. Everything else is just leading up to the opportunities that will get you face to face,” said Mr. Beynon, the firm’s president.
“When the Steelers start fumbling and losing their games, they get back to the basics. It’s the same. Selling’s still the same, no matter whether you’re selling insurance, real estate or you’re selling copiers or widgets. The basics work. Don’t deviate too far from it.”
That approach — doing the basics right — has served Beynon & Co. well. It will celebrate its 105th year in business in 2017, surviving two world wars, the Great Depression and numerous changes in the real estate and insurance industries.
Mr. Beynon cites a number of reasons for the company’s longevity, from the tenure of his employees — more than 60 percent have been with the firm at least 25 years — to its ability to adapt to change.
He believes the company’s culture has played a key role.
“As corny as it may sound, the core values of honesty and integrity is something we beat into our employees. It’s something that’s extremely important to us, that we continue the values that we were raised on,” he said.
The company’s genesis dates to 1912. That’s the year Charles C. McKallip opened C.C. McKallip and Co. in a one-room office in the First National Bank Building, Downtown.
Twenty-four years later, William Beynon joined the firm as a stock boy. After serving in World War II, he worked his way through the company ranks and became vice president in 1951.
During his time with McKallip, William Beynon served as broker for the land in the Golden Triangle that now contains Gateway Center, which was part of the city’s first renaissance. The company also was involved in the land acquisition for the former Gimbels Department Store on Smithfield Street.
On Jan. 27, 1965, William Beynon made his biggest move, purchasing the firm from Thorne McKallip and renaming it Beynon & Co., as it continued to be a player in the city’s transformation.
It was a consultant in the assemblage of the 3-acre site for U.S. Steel Tower. It acquired land for the construction of Liberty Center and One Mellon Center, now BNY Mellon Center. It bought the Jenkins Arcade and Empire Building so they could be razed to make way for construction of Fifth Avenue Place.
But perhaps its biggest contribution was serving as a straw man for the Howard Heinz Endowment in buying land in the Penn and Liberty avenue corridors for what would become the city’s Cultural District. Beynon & Co. acquired 25 separate parcels in all, from the former Woolworth’s store on Sixth Street to the Stanley Theater, now the Benedum Center, for which it paid $4.6 million.
When William Beynon died in 1986, Robert Beynon, Rich’s brother, took over the reins of the company. Rich Beynon succeeded him in 2000, although Robert remains as CEO.
“One of our abilities to sustain and have longevity is our ability to diversify, going into some development, and partnering in the ownership of commercial properties,” Robert Beynon said.
Beynon & Co. today has 21 employees, including eight brokers on the real estate side and nine on insurance.
From brochures to emails
Over the years, Rich Beynon has seen the real estate side of the industry evolve dramatically, from individual companies to the creation of real estate investment trusts and development firms with large portfolios of properties. There’s even pension fund involvement in real estate now.
But he said the biggest change involves technology. He recalls the days when real estate companies hired photographers to get on airplanes to take aerial shots.
Now with Google Earth, “You can do street view, drive down the street ... see weight limits on roads and see access into sites that you would normally have to get into a car and drive two hours for. It’s amazing to me,” he said.
And then there’s the internet. The company used to print up 2,500 brochures at a time. Now it can reach many more through a simple email blast. The technology has allowed the “boutique” company to become national in scope.
“The ability to get to a national reach quickly and easily as opposed to just your local reach that you had is unbelievable. We used to have to get a directory list, put the mailing labels on, type up a letter, and mail them out. Now with a hit of a button, you can get a property distributed to 10,000 people,” Rich Beynon noted.
Beynon & Co. has been quick to adapt, enabling it to stay relevant in a field now dominated by much bigger competitors. Its most recent focus has been in the Marcellus/Utica shale industry.
Rich Beynon personally counts among his favorite deals the selling of the old Trailways bus station Downtown for $2 million, one of his first big transactions, and selling the Standard Life Building four different times during his career.
And while he believes real estate companies like his must continue to make better use of technological resources, such as drones and virtual tours, there’s still no substitute for a personal approach.
“I still believe it’s a one-on-one business at its core, that the real opportunity, the real successful people will be the ones that are still able to develop the relationship and be able to present the property’s features better than the next [person],” he said.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First Published: December 23, 2016, 5:00 a.m.