The Sundance Company

July 3, 2018May 24, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

8 Entrepreneurial Skills You Should Teach Your Kids

About The Sundance Company
Established in 1976, The Sundance Company has the experience to help you with your commercial real estate needs throughout the Boise Valley. If your requirements include property management, leasing, real estate development, project planning, construction or space planning then look to us. The Sundance Company has more than 1.5 million square feet of office and industrial space available in prime locations in the Boise metropolitan area. More information is available at www.sundanceco.com or 208.322.7300.

June 29, 2018May 5, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

How Some Successful People Start Their Day

Whether it’s rising with the sun to get a jump on the day or hitting the snooze button as many times as possible, we all have different morning routines. Nobody can tell you the perfect way to structure your morning, but if you’re hoping to reinvigorate yourself or your business, start by taking a hard look at how you begin the day.

And if you’re looking for inspiration, many of the industry’s top performers and the world’s most successful people follow a similar set of morning rituals. From getting up early to setting goals, here are five things many of the world’s most successful people do before getting to work.

Up and at ‘em

The easiest way to make your mornings more meaningful is to make them longer, and there’s only one way to do that — get up earlier.

Laura Vanderkam, author of “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast”, said 90% of executives wake up before 6 a.m. on weekdays. Many of the world’s most successful people get up even earlier.

In addition to giving you the time needed to complete the rest of your morning routine, getting up with the sun gives you the necessary quiet time to gather your thoughts and prepare for the day. And especially for brokers leading busy lives, starting early helps you gain control of your business by granting you the time to plan your day.

Set goals

Top performing brokers set goals, and most do so in the quiet of the morning. Setting goals gives you clear objectives to work towards, and that clarity hones your focus and helps guide you to the finish line.

In addition to setting weekly goals, it’s helpful to break down larger goals into smaller steps. To be more precise, set daily goals that will bring you closer to achieving larger aspirations. While it’s important to update your checklist as the day progresses, begin your day with focus and set clear goals every morning.

Keep a journal

Our memory isn’t usually as good as we think it is. That’s why it’s important to actually write goals down, not just keep them in our heads. It’s also why many top brokers keep some type of journal handy.

It could be a physical journal, an app on your phone or even, in cases of emergency, a post-it note. Whatever it is, use a journal to write down important ideas that come to you. And since our willpower tends to be highest in the morning, keep a journal on hand to write down new strategies you come up during the course of your morning routine.

Put down the phone

Unlike many other professionals, brokers are surrounded by uncertainty. While it’s tempting to reach for your phone first thing in morning to see if your latest prospecting efforts paid off, a bit of time off the grid can do wonders.

Studies show being glued to your smartphone hurts your sleep and can even make it harder to think. So while you certainly need your phone during the day, embrace the time in the morning to just think in peace and quiet. Not only is a bit of daily silence restorative, but disconnecting from your phone in the morning makes it easier to focus on the rest of your morning routine.

Exercise

It’s no secret exercise keeps you healthy, gives you more energy, and reduces stress. With benefits like that, it’s no wonder many of the world’s most successful people love to work out.

But when the day gets busy, we tend to have a way of postponing exercise — often indefinitely. To ensure they actually get their workout in, many highly successful people exercise first thing in the morning. It’s a great way to wake up, prepare for the day and accomplish something important before even getting to the office.

In addition to exercise, a huge percentage of top performers meditate. From brokers to surfers, Tim Ferriss interviewed 140 people at the pinnacle of their fields and found that about 90% practice some type of meditation. Ferriss said most of the people he spoke with meditate for 20 minutes every morning.

As American historian Will Durant famously summed up Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

So whether you’re looking to supercharge your business or rekindle your motivation, start by examining your morning routine. What you do when you wake up sets the tone for the rest of the day, and from working out to setting goals, learn from the world’s top performers and kick your day off right.

This article originally appeared on the Apto Commercial Real Estate blog.

June 19, 2018May 24, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

Your Brain on Sleep

June 12, 2018May 5, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

5 Ideas for Automating Your Day

As a CRE professional, you’ve got enough to do in your day without having to do it over and over and over again. You know what we mean: from re-typing the same exact thing a zillion times to sending twenty emails to schedule one simple meeting.

Today, we’re simplifying your life with these five must-try tips for automating your day. Here’s how to free up more time for better things, starting right now:

Never write it more than once.

Whether it’s an email or a proposal, you shouldn’t have to write out the same thing more than once. We recommend using a text expander like TypeIt4Me or Phrase Express to paste a full block of text into whatever you’re working on, all with a couple of keystrokes. So, for example, if you usually write something like: “Let’s schedule a call to go over this listing,” now you can type something like: “lets” and it’ll paste all of that in for you, saving you the extra keystrokes. Or if you tend to send the same listing info over and over to different people, you can name it “Listing 1” in your text expander and simply type that to put a whole block of text into your email or document. You choose the long text phrases or paragraphs you tend to reuse, assign them a shortcut, and let the text expander do the rest for you.

Make marketing a little more automatic.

We love the simple genius behind Buildout: enter your listing info once and see it spread seamlessly across your website, proposals, marketing materials, and even emails. And now you can make the most of Apto’s integration with Buildout to make marketing even easier. You can create properties and listings in Apto and then publish them to Buildout with a single click. Everything—from your property images to relevant text fields—is copied over. You can then change your listing in Apto without having to do double the work in Buildout, because it’s all automatically updated each night.

Don’t make the extra trip if you don’t have to.

Site visits and tours can suck up a lot of your time—and a lot of the time, they don’t pan out. So if you can give people more info about a property up front, you’ll end up with a smaller group of higher-quality prospects who are genuinely interested in seeing the real thing in person. Consider using time-savers like 3D tours to offer prospective buyers or renters a tour of the property without having to get into your car each and every time someone wants to check it out. Take a look at Matterport andGet3DTours for a glimpse of what’s possible.

Simplify scheduling.

How many times has one simple question—like “When’s a good time to meet?”—turned into a 20-email back-and-forth exchange? Probably more times than you’d care to count. Cut down on all the back and forth with a simple scheduling tool that makes it simple for clients and prospects to book time with you online. Tools likeYoucanbook.me, Calendly and Assistant.to can do everything from sync with your calendar to send automatic follow-ups, giving you your time back.

Get it signed and be done with it.

Tracking down signatures shouldn’t be so hard. With services like DocuSign, you can get everyone’s legally-binding signature in a matter of hours, without shuffling papers back and forth. Just upload and send the contracts, agreements, and documents you need signed. People can access and send them back to you from their computer, tablet, or smartphone, so it makes things easy from start to finish.

This article originally appeared on the Apto Commercial Real Estate blog.

June 5, 2018May 5, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

10 Sleep Relaxation Techniques You Need to Try

May 29, 2018May 5, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

Using Agile to Increase Productivity in CRE

“Now agile methodologies—which involve new values, principles, practices, and benefits and are a radical alternative to command-and-control-style management—are spreading across a broad range of industries and functions and even into the C-suite.” – “Embracing Agile” by Darrell K. Rigby, Jeff Sutherland, Hirotaka Takeuchi. Harvard Business Review, May 2016

Agile is by far the most commonly used methodology for software companies. But why? It’s not something that’s specifically for software companies. Anyone can use Agile.

In the 2017 global survey “The State of Scrum,” executives from the Forbes Technology Council cited the benefits of Agile as:

Faster feedback
Ability to adapt to change
Problems identified early
Flexible prioritization
Team purpose

Sounds helpful, right? And if you read any business press or newspaper (Harvard Business Review, Forbes, New York Times) you’ll find articles discussing Agile outside of engineering and IT.

Which got us thinking…can Agile work for CRE? We’ve examined how brokers can be more efficient with different productivity and prioritization frameworks, so we wanted to dig into one in particular.

What is Agile?

The Agile Manifesto was created in 2001 by seventeen technical experts who simply wanted to find a better, and more humane, way to build complex software systems.

At its core, Agile is a mindset. Agile is a way of thinking that influences attitude, culture, and leadership styles. This mindset is described by four values:

Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
Working Software over comprehensive documentation
Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to Change over following a plan

The values are underpinned by the 12 principles, from flexibility in changing working requirements to simplicity and efficiency.

In the CRE industry, you can think of the “deliverable” unit of value as a deal. Development of that value involves prospecting, nurturing relationships, and building expertise as a trusted advisor in speciality market segments. When you frame your work around those concepts, the Agile values and principles suddenly apply easily to CRE brokers.

Think about it through this lens:

Individuals, relationships, and interactions over processes and tools
Working deals over comprehensive documentation and paperwork
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a fixed plan (especially in the contract phase when dates and deadlines become very important. If you miss a key date it can be costly and even void the contract.)

4 suggested Agile practices for CRE

Here are some common Agile practices that already translate well to the commercial real estate industry. If you don’t already do these, consider giving them a try!

1.Daily stand-ups (aka daily scrum)It’s common for broker teams to have meetings to sync up. Think of the Monday morning powwows that review all deals in flight, the backlog of future work, and what has closed. If you don’t already do this, think of how easy and helpful it would be to meet for 15 minutes to determine who is doing what.

Note that these are called “stand-ups” because the meetings aren’t held in a conference room where everyone sits around a table. Physically standing during the meeting helps things move more quickly. They shouldn’t be overly formal, but are meant to keep everyone on the same page and moving forward with their work.

Cross-functional teams
Agile software teams always include the skill sets and expertise required for the team to deliver on work. Similarly, broker teams can include a mix of senior and junior brokers, admin support, researchers, and marketing. (If you haven’t hired a team yet, you can read more on hiring a junior broker or building out a larger team.)
Retrospectives
Teams should regularly meet to talk about how to improve. Agile teams employ the concept of Kaizen or “continuous improvement” in their working lives. Try taking a Friday afternoon to regroup and talk about “pluses” and “deltas” from the week—or what should be changed and what could be improved for next time.
4. Tracking work on boards
Our previous post described KANBAN boards and work tracking. CRE teams often have Deal Boards, which may be physical sticky notes on a wall, a spreadsheet, or a CRE deal tracking tool. In using KANBAN, Agile teams will have daily stand-ups by the actual board and will review and move tasks that way.

Other companies and teams using Agile

Agile has been widely adopted outside of product development to different organizational departments and into different business sectors. National Public Radio uses Agile methods to create new programming. John Deere designs and develops new machines using Agile. Saab uses Agile to produce new fighter jets. Other companies use them in marketing, human resources, and sales. Mission Bell Winery uses agile techniques for everything from wine production to warehousing to running its senior leadership group.

If it works for them, it could work for you! Let us know in the comments if you put any of this into practice on your team.

This article originally appeared on the Apto Commercial Real Estate blog.

May 22, 2018May 5, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

The Evolution of Communication

May 15, 2018April 2, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

In the Flexible Space Market, One Size Does Not Fit All

When the co-working concept was first introduced, it was to the advantage of the growing number of startups that were giving rise to NYC’s Silicon Alley, as those spaces served as much-needed incubators for the companies that had yet to graduate to independently leased offices. The success of companies in this line—most notably WeWork—helped to launch the concept of what we know today to be the sharing economy, which has given us such iconic brands as Uber, Airbnb and Rent the Runway, among an ever-growing list of others spanning dozens of business lines.

In the office market specifically, the sharing economy has resulted in the proliferation of what is known as the flexible space market—offices and meeting rooms meant for short-term use by individuals and companies alike. The flexible space market can be broken down into three primary segments, each offering a different product and value depending on the building and the clientele being targeted.

“When I’m looking to bring flex space into a building, my top priority is to determine which operator makes the most strategic sense, in terms of the amount of space needed and how it will be used—not every operator makes sense for every building,” said Michael Rudin, senior vice president of Rudin Management, which has worked with a number of flexible space providers, from WeWork to Breather. “When we’re introducing flexible spaces, we want them to be used by our tenants as well as others. It’s of the utmost importance to evaluate the existing tenant mix and long-term vision for the building, so we can ensure the operator we sign on is a fit for the most logical use of the space.”

Providers have also noticed a paradigm shift among office landlords. “Recently, we’ve seen landlords starting to view flexible workspace differently, as a way to attract new tenants and capture different users,” said Hank Jonap, director of real estate at Breather. “Tenants, meanwhile, are listening to employees and adjusting to today’s needs—they understand the that flexible space provides a convenient option and an overall space solution for today’s workforce.”

So, what is it that the various flexible space models offer? And, how can landlords and clients determine which is the best fit for them?

Co-Working: For the Young (Company) at Heart

The co-working model offers freelancers and startups the opportunity to share large spaces with a number of other companies with the goal of fostering a collaborative, creative and vibrant environment conducive to long-term growth. Champions of this model include the likes of WeWork, Regus and Knotel, which places a particular emphasis on providing companies with headquarters spaces.

These companies lease large floor plates and tend to be best suited to young companies that have not yet matured (or hired enough staff) to fill an expensive office. Typically rented on a monthly basis, co-working spaces are viewed as a long-term space solution. While this is the norm, it should be noted that there are exceptions to the co-working rules as more and more enterprise clients look to co-working space solutions for their business. This occurred most notably late last year in WeWork’s landmark deal with IBM to manage the tech giant’s 70,000-square-foot space at 88 University Place.

The primary advantage for landlords is that the co-working sector is one of few that is still hungrily leasing huge office blocks, making these operators the perfect fit for buildings where there is a lot of contiguous space available. On the flip side, these spaces have a high impact on building resources, including utility usage and foot traffic.

For co-working clients, these spaces can offer a great place to establish a footprint for growth that fosters a sense collaboration and camaraderie with other companies and offers well-designed spaces that would otherwise be out of budget. The disadvantage is that it can be hard to find quiet spaces to focus, as by nature co-working spaces are louder, more bustling environments than the typical office.

Offsite Meeting Room Providers: When You Need a Flexible Change of Scenery

The real estate industry took note of the offsite model in 2017, elevating the level of space and options available to companies looking for dedicated space to host team brainstorms, client meetings, small events, focused individual work, product sprints and spillover space. The leading operator in this space is Breather, which in 2017 saw more than 200,000 square feet added, taking its portfolio to 500-plus distributed meeting rooms across its 10 markets.These providers offer truly short-term solutions, secured and paid for on an as-needed basis, for durations ranging from one hour to a few weeks to several months. Breather notes that the sweet spot—so far, at least—is around one to two days at a time but continues to expand its product offerings.

While specialization in offsites is a more recent invention, the concept of hosting meetings outside of the usual office environment isn’t a new one. In the past, companies relied heavily on hotel conference rooms and restaurants to serve this function. But what the founders of Breather noted was that these spaces tended to be dark, outdated and lacking in consistency from one property to the next. Offsite operators were founded in answer to both the bustling co-working model and the outdated conference room options—providing a well-designed, quiet, tech-enabled space to focus that is completely private.

These providers lease smaller floor plates than their co-working counterparts, focusing on identifying niche areas in buildings where they can elevate the landlord’s offering in a low-impact way—serving as a building amenity that also provides revenue.

“While there is an audience for each flex space offering, what makes Breather stand out is our hands-on approach, our design and management of each space, which allows us to provide a consistent experience for our clients on a global level,” explains Jonap.

Peer-to-Peer: Making Use of Excess Space

The final piece of the flexible space puzzle has provided welcomed assistance to companies with excess space looking to offset their real estate costs. Peer-to-peer operators like LiquidSpace have, in a sense, become the Airbnbs of the office market.

As companies increasingly seek to consolidate space, and as the remote workforce continues to grow, firms are often left with unused space that can easily be monetized to help counterbalance overhead costs. These models allow companies to place their unused space on a centralized site, which individuals and companies can rent on an as-needed basis. Price points for these spaces tend to be lower than other options, though the quality of spaces being offered will vary widely, as will the level of privacy available.

“Each model has a place in the market, as this is not a winner-take-all industry. Companies can really take advantage of the flexibility to find what best suits their needs,” said Rudin.

Jonap agrees, noting that “by offering companies the chance to tailor their spaces to their needs, not just physically but through agreements which offer long term-flexibility without long-term commitment, Breather has created a truly flexible, space-as-a-service option for evolving companies, the value of which cannot be overstated.”

This article originally appeared on the Commercial Observer website.

May 8, 2018April 2, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

7 Techniques to Remember Anything

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May 1, 2018April 2, 2018 sundancecompany Uncategorized

18 Ways to Generate Commercial Real Estate Leads

The most robust real estate marketing strategy in the world means nothing if it cannot effectively generate leads.

In commercial real estate, it’s critical that both marketing and sales efforts are 100% aligned to help create visibility, capture interest, and fill your funnel with warm leads that you can nurture and close.

Let’s take a closer look at 18 proven tactics to generate commercial real estate leads today.

Build a List from an Existing Commercial Real Estate Database

Mining your existing contact list is a good place to start and try to segment your contacts based on interest, profile type and level of prior activity. Even contacts that have been inactive for several years may prove to be potential opportunities as their needs may have changed alongside what you can offer. Reach out via email, phone, or LinkedIn to reengage these older contacts.

Research Contacts from Online Databases

Beyond your existing database, you can also create curated databases of potential leads from listing sites like Loopnet Property Records. Below is an example of how you can target building owners for a specific property and gain direct access to them and start filling up your contact list.

Use Prospecting Tools like ProspectNow

ProspectNow has a predictive algorithm that helps you identify properties that are most likely to be listed for sale in the next 12 months. The way the algorithm works is it looks at hundreds of data points each week on properties that are actually selling and then they apply the characteristics of properties that just sold to properties that have yet to sell.

Research Leads on LinkedIn

Use Linkedin’s people search to find prospects by location, industry, current company, and degrees of separation. You can then send direct messages to open doors and start your outreach efforts. If you want to get more serious about your lead generation, then check out Linkedin’s Sales Navigator tool. It is one of the most effective social selling platforms for CRE professionals that want to engage brokers, tenants and investors at scale.

Generate Leads Through your Website

The foundation of any inbound marketing efforts is a website that can be easily found and help successfully capture, engage and converts visitors into potential leads. No matter who your target is (investors, tenants, landlords) building an effective website is the single most important marketing asset of any lead generation effort.

Capture Your Blog Visitors

A blog provides high value content to prospects, as well as a new avenue through which they can find your website. Articles covering topics related to local real estate, commercial real estate in general, state and local laws and financial news, and editorial insights on recent events establish you as a thought leader and will generate new traffic for your website. Offer your visitors a simple way to subscribe to your blog by providing invaluable information.

Include Lead Generation Forms on Your Website

Contact forms are vital to capture user information when they are looking for for general questions, a consultation or sales call requests. Optimize your forms to be accessible on all devices while capturing all of the information you need. Some of the best practices for capturing visitors’ information is to minimize friction when filling out forms: include fewer form fields (3-5 is optimal), link to your privacy policy and pay attention to design and strong call to actions.

Create Gated Documents

In addition to your contact forms, you should have gated content in the form of eBooks, white papers, checklists, case studies, and other documentation. These gated documents, also known as lead magnets, can be promoted on relevant pages of your website, linking to forms that capture user information before they can download the content.

Target Prospects with Google AdWords Campaigns

Google AdWords is a massive advertising platform that allows you to reach people through pay per click campaigns. By targeting the location and property-specific keywords like “office space Chicago” your prospects are searching for, you can rapidly expand your reach and drive people to your website or landing page to convert them into leads. Google AdWords is expensive though, and in our previous post we analyzed the most expensive commercial real estate keywords, so you’ll need to carefully calculate which keywords you can actually afford to get a positive return on investment.

Advertise on Facebook

Facebook ads allow a social alternative to Google, with targeting based on demographics, location, and interests as indicated in Facebook Profiles. You can also target by Page (ex. anyone following CBRE, JLL, Colliers, etc.) , audience segment, or retargeting from previous visits to your websites. A well-optimized Facebook ad campaign can also be at times less expensive than Google’s larger platform. The goal of the ad is to drive a bigger audience to your lead generating page where they can download a piece of useful content or sign up and share their email with you.

Advertise on LinkedIn

More expensive alternative to Facebook ads are LinkedIn ads, that also allow you to target a very specific audience based on their job position, company, location, interests and skills. For example, if you are leasing a large bio/pharma space, you could launch a campaign and have your Ads show to any C-level executive in the Pharma industry in San Diego, CA.

Exhibit at Conferences and Events

Exhibiting at national conferences and local events exposes you to a large audience of potential prospects, opening up new networking and partnership opportunities, along with direct lead generation opportunities. Prior to the event, you can research who will be participating and setup as many meetings as possible to optimize your time while you’re in town.

Participate at Local Events

For events at which you cannot exhibit, attending and networking offers similar benefits. Local small business meetups, real estate seminars, or local conferences are all ideal locations to engage with prospective leads and partners as you build your personal and professional network. Again, make sure to setup meetings well in advance before the day of the event and remember that follow-up is the key to convert those business cards into opportunities.

Get an Event Attendee List

As an exhibitor at a conference, most conference organizers will provide at least a partial attendee list with the option to pay for access to the full list. Take advantage of this opportunity to access already warm leads with whom you have a direct connection from that event. Combined with both the inbound and outbound tactics mentioned above, you can drive new leads rapidly after a successful event.

Host a Networking Event

To ensure maximum exposure at an event, you can host it yourself. The focus of your event should be on providing value to attendees with a large turnout and ample opportunities to network with each other. The exposure you gain alone is enough to generate new interest and produce new leads.

Reach Out to Your Personal Network

Your personal network is a prime resource you can tap to spread the word about what you do and is oftentimes an overlooked “quick win”. While they may not represent potential commercial real estate sales leads, they can help to share details about your services, your listings, and may be able to provide referrals or new contact information for parties who are interested.

Ask for Referrals

Your most valuable list of potential leads is the one you’ve already converted to clients. Existing clients are most likely to recommend you because they are familiar with how you do business and can trust you. Never overlook the value of reaching out to existing clients and ask for referrals.

Connect with Current and Former Colleagues

The people you work with now and have worked with in the past are a prime resource for accessing a wider audience of potential leads. They can help to share information about your newest listings and may be personally interested in pursuing a conversation either for their current company or on behalf of a client.

This article originally appeared on the Sharp Launch website.