S.E.C. Real Estate Observer

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With 2017 well underway, and in a hurry, no doubt, we have probably all forgotten about those quiet moments we spent over the holidays, pen and paper in hand, making notes, daydreaming, and thinking about all the things we were going to do in the coming year to improve ourselves both personally and professionally, and we have spun ourselves right back into the firefight of busyness that we thought we left behind us in 2016.

We don’t know the exact date or time, but we are heading into a season of shifting winds in the real estate business.  Liquidity is still strong in the market, interest rates are still extremely low, and deal flow is as hot as ever, but, as we all know, “it’s never too late to reassess and reposition . . . until it’s too late!”

Every quarter, I conduct an “out of the office” meeting with my entire corporate staff.  This is an opportunity for my entire development and hospitality operations teams to come together and spend an entire day in an off-site conference room going through our business strategy, function, and successes and failures.  I want to share with you the contents of our most recent quarterly meeting and the adopted strategy we walked out of the meeting with that day. We call it THE B-3 INITIATIVE.

B-3 stands for Better Before Bigger.

The philosophy that we developed as a group that day is this:

It’s not IF, but WHEN things slow down—the people and the organizations that will continue to rise despite easing in the industry and overall economy will be those people and organizations that have a solid infrastructure; a laser focus on executing what they do best, and ONLY WHAT THEY DO BEST; and that have surrounded themselves with and have formed fantastic relationships.

We have committed ourselves to the following, and I am now challenging you to do the same:

1. Get better on your leverage.
2. Get better on your cash position.
3. Get better on your planning and operational functions.
4. And most importantly . . . GET BETTER AT YOUR RELATIONSHIP BUILDING! One thing I think we all forget about when times are good is that RELATIONSHIPS ARE ALL WE REALLY HAVE!  Find time . . . no, scratch that—MAKE TIME every day to build a relationship. Whether laying the first brick of a new relationship or adding bricks to the foundation of a relationship you have had for years, MAKE TIME to build relationships.

We have to come to work every day assuming it can always get better.  If we ever come to work and think that it is “as good as it can get,” we have lost our edge and it will be the beginning of the end.  We CANNOT get complacent.

In the words of Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, “Don’t focus on getting bigger—focus on getting better.  If we get better, our customers will demand that we get bigger!”

My best to all of you,
Nick