Jeffrey B. Ackerman is smiling a lot these days -- and with good reason.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Jeffrey B. Ackerman, left, managing director of the investment property group at CB Richard Ellis, with Rob Blanchard in the conference room at the CB Richard Ellis offices in the U.S. Steel Tower, Downtown. Mr. Blanchard is director of acquisitions for Sun1031 LLC, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based real estate investment firm. Click photo for larger image. Graphic: Surge in sales

As managing director of the investment property group at the Downtown office of commercial real estate broker CB Richard Ellis, he has watched his group's sales -- measured by value of the real estate sold -- more than double, from $174.1 million to $363.3 million, in the past two years.

It made that dramatic leap by making a similar dramatic leap into the national market, joining a long list of local businesses that have found that the path to growth lies in expanding their customer base beyond the city, or even the region. Accounting firm Schneider Downs began developing clients in Columbus, Ohio, 12 years before opening an office there in 1989.

Advertising firm Blattner Brunner, within a decade of its 1990 launch, found that more than half of its clientele was outside of the city, and has acquired firms in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. And of course, financial giants Mellon Bank and PNC Financial Services have long since expanded their footprint beyond southwestern Pennsylvania.

For Mr. Ackerman's group, the path to growth meant joining their parent company's private client investment group, a network of brokers who represent private investors rather than institutional investors, such as pension funds.

The transition, which Mr. Ackerman described as "long and involved," began in March 2003 with the challenge of transferring information on its clientele to the national group's database, as well as gathering information about what its clients were looking for in an investment property.

"It took almost two years to do that," Mr. Ackerman said.

Now, when the group obtains a new listing, it is able to send the information to all of the buyers in the national database who have expressed an interest in the type of building being offered. Typically, that means between 5,000 and 10,000 buyers -- out of 90,000 listed -- receiving notice within minutes.

"Speed to market is important, and the [private client investment group] system allows us to get properties to market very quickly," Mr. Ackerman said.

With its expanded marketing reach, it now receives dozens of offers on properties that previously might have garnered four or five.

And the offers are coming from a new class of buyers. "Five or 10 years ago," Mr. Ackerman said, "[a potential buyer] was always either a local business or an out-of-town institutional buyer." Now, he said, 70 percent of buyers are private out-of-town buyers.

And those buyers, besides being motivated, are often flush with cash. Fellow broker Cindy Kamin, who specializes in selling apartment complexes, spoke of a California buyer who "sold six units in California and bought 120 units here."

In the last year, Mr. Ackerman has expanded his team to deal with increases in the volume of sales and changes in the types of sales, hiring Casimer C. Kawecki as director of operations, Reid Mauro as head of market research and financial analysis, and Ryan Sciullo as financial analyst, to join longtime team members Abe Leizerowski, an attorney, and financial analyst Heidi Zutter.

Ms. Kamin loves the automation.

"I wish I could do everything by e-mail," she said. "When I started in this business, I never dreamed that commercial real estate could be at this level."

Technology also allows training to go national. In the past, Mr. Kawecki might have relied entirely on Mr. Ackerman, and his availability, for his training. Now, Mr. Kawecki engages in regular conference calls with employees from 15 to 20 states, led by the national head of the private client group, Bob Burke.

A look at the parent company's performance suggests that the success of Mr. Ackerman's group is characteristic of the company as a whole. After an initial public offering at $19 in June 2004, CB Richard Ellis' stock doubled in eight months, buoyed by an energetic commercial real estate market. The stock began this year by breaking the $60 mark, and has dipped below it only once since then.