25 Things My Clients Know

One of my favorite posts floating around online about customer service is from Sonia Simone titled "50 things your customers wish you knew".

It is quite the opposite of what many business books teach and tout about mission statement, features and benefits etc.

The full list of 50 can be found here.  I left 25 or so that I know my commercial investment real estate clients certainly represent.  No insults intended; just a bit of psychotherapy.

Client speaking/thinking:

1.  I don’t need you to be perfect, but I do need to know I can rely on you.

2.  Telling me what you don’t know makes me trust you.

4.  You don’t need to do all that much to be a superhero. Just do exactly what you say you will do.

7.  I don’t mind spending the money, as long as I feel I’m getting real value.

8.  My life is really stressful. If you can reduce that stress, you become immensely valuable to me.

11.  My life is very complicated. If you make it easy for me to just buy a simple all-in-one package that I can use without learning anything, I’ll take it and be grateful. (I’ll even pay a premium for it.)

12.  I want to trust you, but it’s hard for me to trust anyone.

13.  Once you’ve won my trust and loyalty, the truth is you can screw up once in awhile and I will forgive you. If I don’t think you’re taking me for granted, that is.

15.  I spend an awful lot of time being scared to death.

16.  The wealthier I get, the more I like free stuff.

18.  I’m lousy at admitting I was wrong, but I respect you when you do it.

22.  Our relationship isn’t equal and it never will be.

24.  I don’t have any interest in your excuses. In fact, I usually don’t notice them at all, and if I do, they annoy me.

27.  I only like to communicate over the phone/Web/mail and I hate when you try to make me communicate with you over the mail/phone/Web.

28.  I want to buy your product, but I need you to help me justify it to myself.

29.  There’s something in my life I’m afraid of losing. If you can make me feel like you’ve protected it for me, my gratitude will be intense and eternal.

31.  I want you to do the hard work for me. Even better if I can get all the credit.

34.  I have the attention span of a goldfish. Go too long without contacting me and I’ll simply forget you exist.

35.  Money is no object when it comes to my obsessions.

38.  It infuriates me when you answer the phone while I’m talking with you face-to-face.

39.  Embarrassment scares me more than death.

46.  I want to tell you everything you need to know in order to sell to me, but I’m lazy. Make it easy enough and I will. (Especially if you flatter me a little.)

47.  I don’t know what I want most of the time. You need to figure it out for me.

48.  I mostly daydream about making life better for myself, but I’ll take action to keep from losing what’s mine.

49.  I believe that most of what’s wrong in my life is someone else’s fault. Let me keep that cozy illusion and I’ll believe anything you say.

50.  It really is all about me.

Yes, we are trained in business school to pitch ourselves and sell us and our product/service.   Really it is not about the product service, it is about the customer/client.

Change the perspective from me to you; or maybe keep it on me (meaning you).  Right?  Got it?

credit:  50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew | Remarkable Communication.

Always Doing Both

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both. ” ~James A. Michener~

as seen on Instagram via solo_with_gopro

Good Deals find Good Money

Freshman year in college, I met a friend. The friend's dad was a commercial real estate developer. I had always wanted to learn more about commercial real estate given that my dad was in the hardware business, owned his stores and as well as a few strip centers. I offered to take my friend's dad to lunch. He actually took me to lunch. We visited his office. Met his small staff: an office manager (the type of woman who you know is the one who really runs things and makes sure it all stays together) and "the engineer" who also wore hats as an architect, surveyor and a lawyer. Three people, the manager, the engineer and the developer.

The conversation zig-zagged from "how's school?", to naive questions from an eighteen year old, to real nuts and bolts lessons from the trenches of a life long commercial real estate person.

Boom times in Deer Valley, UT. Major failures in Vail. Huge successes in Chicago and the midwest. Now, if only the city would agree to that damn traffic light and bypass at project so and so.

"See now" the mentor said. "Your dad has to open the stores everyday. Someone has to unlock the doors and let the customers in. I did not want to open the doors everyday, I wanted to own the doors and collect the rent."

He continued with more stories of leases and financing and lore. His excitement was relentlessly contagious.

"The yield, I do it for the yield." (Yield what's that?) He grabbed his HP off the desk. "Look, cap rate. Capitalization rate." He punched the numbers in the calculator. Rent, net income, price, value, yield, cap rate.

The specifics pretty much went over my head. However, the lesson sunk in. Income streams create value. Income streams are created by location, tenants and buildings. By the enterprising developer, of course. (And, if I really understood it correctly, I would never have to work in a hardware store the rest of my life.)

His projects were big. Even by today's measure. He was on the leading edge of developing these new projects that are now commonly referred to as Power Centers or Regional Centers. Not malls. Kohls. Bed Bath & Beyond. Dick's. Best Buy. Target. All in one project perfectly located to draw shoppers from all directions from up to 30 minutes away. And not to mention the in-line retail spaces that were really just gravy.

These projects were 10, 20, 50 million dollar deals. I could not even fathom the dollars. When he showed me the numbers the last 000 were not written. Everything was short form for million. 1,000 was $1M. 20,000 was $20M. Wow, I thought.

"But, but, but.. where, I mean how do you come up with money?" I said. He replied "That's the easy part. The money finds me. I create the deal and the money comes."

Uh. OK. Sure. My 100 was $100, not $100,000.

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Many years later, after being in the CRE a while myself. I decided it was time to do my own deals.

How would I finance them? Where would the money come from?

I remembered that first CRE lesson as an 18 year old hippie (yes, I had a ponytail at the time).

Just to be sure, I asked a CCIM friend what the best deals would be to get started in and get financed. He said it does not matter. What, all these people are crazy, I thought. Millions of dollars easy to get? I asked him to extrapolate.

"Good deals find Good Money" he said. "There is so much money out there. Sitting there. Just looking. Waiting. Looking for a home. A good deal."

A good deal, he explained, was one that was fundamentally strong. Good location. Good building or bones. No hair. (environmental or title issues etc.) Good tenant(s). Good price. Nothing over the top. Just good all around. Solid.

Even better if it had upside: below market rents, extra land, below market purchase price, etc..

In other words, create a good deal and the money will come.

I have now seen it first hand. Whether it be my own land subdivision on the river that was easy to sell the parcels at crazy prices. Or a $12M Walgreens with non-recourse financing. Or a NNN Dollar General attracting multiple all cash buyers. Or a trailer park on the river with unsolicited offers.

Bad deals or marginal deals on the other hand struggle. Languish. Sit on the market. Need personal guarantees (and your first born child). Fall apart.

Finally, I got it. And get it.

Thank you Mr. Cap Rate.

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Now, what is this all about? It is about a new kind of deal. A deal that is not just about money. It is a deal that does good. Of course it makes money. But it does not have to take every penny off the table. It is a deal that does good at the same time while making money. A deal that helps people. Helps the environment. Maybe helps animals. A deal that does good.

The current lingo is "impact investment" or "social fund" or "CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).

I see these deals as building reuse, parks from vacant lots, public art, community uses, historic preservation, corporate reuse, conservation or any real estate deal that can actually do some good besides just make money.

Do you care? If you do, call or email me to find out more. I'm not eighteen anymore.

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Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

- Andy Warhol

Transdisciplinarity

A discipline to call our own. Andrus & Morgan is a creative real estate company that does important work on meaningful projects nationwide.

We specialize in commercial real estate reuse, repositioning and investment.

We make the world a better place by combining real estate redevelopment, impact investing, media, design, architecture, historic preservation, crowdfunding, green, reuse, finance, commercial real estate, residential real estate, non profit, real estate donations, web, technology, crowdsourcing, social media, law, planning, land use, brokerage, conservation, philanthropy, marketing, art, public affairs and CSR.

For a minute, we seriously considered blending all the disciplines above into one word. In the end, we felt that this company name was too long (laugh laugh):

The Real Estate Impact Media Design Historic Crowdfunding Commercial Non Profit Weblaw Planning Use Philanthropic Art Affair Firm

We settled on Andrus & Morgan instead.

Besides the unseen well of daily inspiration that has created all of this, Candy Chang helped me take the leap with this short two minute video about "Making your own Discipline". Thanks Candy!

This is Your Life; Do what You Love

"This is your life.

Do what you love and do it often."

via "The Holstee Manifesto"

via About | HOLSTEE.

How do you count your money?

In today's tech age people are using online banking, balance by text or mobile apps to check their balances or make payments. Does anyone still use an actual calculator? I mostly use my iphone but when doing some serious math use my HP-10bii or spreadsheets.

A client and friend told me he has a simple system for counting his money.  The guy is worth probably $80M and I expected a series of controls and systems to keep checks and balances.  However, this is what he told me about knowing if he is running his business efficiently as well as "the secret to building wealth".

I have a simple thing I do each month.  I check the bank statements.  If the ending balance is higher than it was last month, then perfect.  If the ending balance is lower than it was last month I know I have some hell to raise.  In terms of building wealth, the best thing I think a person can do is watch their lifestyle and not let it grow with the amount of money they are making.  I always kept my lifestyle pretty much the same.  Sure, I splurged and have toys and cars and houses.  But over the years, even when I had a big year, I kept our lifestyle the same and never got over extended.  I also only pay cash and do not borrow.  Banks are your friend when you don't need money and run the other way when you do need it.

I think that is some of the best advice I have ever received about money.  What about you?  Any good money tips to share?

When talking to another client the other day about writing up an LOI on a net leased property, I asked what he wanted to offer.  He said "hang on a second" and all a sudden I heard an adding machine in the background.  Seriously.  You know the electric kind with the paper tape.  He was doing a quick cap rate calculation to figure his offer price.  After we got the serious details out of the way, I almost asked "Do you save or file the paper tapes?" But I didn't.  It is his system and it works for him.

Here are a few photos of an antique Victor adding machine I bought at a rummage sale for $27.  And, no, I don't save the tapes each day.

I was interested to see if I got a deal at $27.  This is what I found:

Company History Victor Adding Machine Co. was a fledgling company in 1918 when the operator of a successful chain of meat markets gave a Victor salesman $100 for what he thought would buy an adding machine. Instead, he got 10 shares of the company’s stock. In an effort to protect his investment, that man – Carl Buehler – became a director of Victor in September 1918 and was elected president of the company three months later. The first Victor adding machine, Model 110, was introduced in 1919.

Usage his machine was widely used in offices for doing fast additions and calculations. The results were printed. Input from a ten digits keyboard in a 9x10 matrix. Extra function-keys to the right.

Cost The first Victor adding machine, the Model 110 , was introduced in 1919 and proved to be an extremely successful device. The Victor 110 was a full-keyboard non-printing machine with a front-mounted register, with only repeat and zeroing keys. The company sold 100000 of its Model 110 by 1926. The early nonprinting model cost $85, the model without carriage cost $100, the model with carriage $125. In 1921 the machine was extended at the rear to include a printing mechanism and was released as the 200 series. At a retail price of $100, 2000 units sell in the first year.

Current Value

•     Antique Victor Adding Machine Brown Bakelite with Green keys circa 1940 It WORKS (Price: $75)
•     A 1920s Victor Adding Machine. Fair condition. (Price: $100)

Source: ebay

So yes, it looks like I did OK.  If I sold it, which I'm not, I would stand to make a few bucks.

Do you think the Victor can calculate the IRR?

What do you do?

Often times people ask me what I do. I also ask people "what do you do?". We Americans are so obsessed with labels and identification. In most cases the responses to "what do you do?" are job related.... I am a lawyer, nurse, executive, broker etc. but really that is just our job and is not really us.  We are also fathers, friends, gardeners, weavers, collectors, daughters, travelers, lovers.

We all have deep inside of us passion and reasons for what we do and why we do it. The surface only tells a part of the story.

Here is a list I jotted on one of my inner explorations a few weeks ago.  This one is titled "Love to....". (I have typed it further below in case you can't read my chicken scratch.)  So... "What do you do?" Would love your comments and emails or tweets

Here it is typed...

Love to...

    -see potential     -make change     -be creative     -resourceful     -make money     -involve team members     -joint success     -contribute     -help     -understand and be understood     -give back     -provide for my family     -be passionate     -involved, intrigued, excited     -feel good     -see opportunity and act on it