Key Data and Indicators

Researching properties, markets and organizations is important in identifying opportunities and developing strategies. Use of services like First American Corelogic, CoStar, LoopNet, RCA and LexisNexis can make the job significantly easier and more effective. Free sites such as Black Book Online can provide access to much of the same information, but will cost you days of searching and will still be incomplete. It is important to stay organized. Every day you need to communicate with your partners, clients, and team. Tools like Leo Software make this easier, even as you must provide more transparency on your activities.

An efficient decision-making infrastructure supports speed in execution.

Establish a decision support system and update it monthly, planning ahead for multiple scenarios. When the starting gun sounds, you don't want to be caught trying to figure out the impact of rapid changes on your interests and plans. Use this lull as the ideal time to hone your strategy. What are your requirements and needs? How do they compare to others? What is the relationship you could have with others' who have similar, or opposite needs? For example, if you must maintain a steady positive return in every quarter, how can you partner with others willing to take more variability but are looking for an eventual home run? Identify where you are flexible and where you need assurances. Position these concepts around your existing interests, and then apply them to other situations. You may quickly find situations where a trade produces a mutual benefit. As always, find ways to break yourself from rigid thinking patterns. Humor, role playing, or transposing your situation into sports or entertainment metaphors can help identify creative ideas. Spending a little time exploring the what-if outcomes is useful before applying the inevitable skepticism. Of course, engaging an experienced outside consultant can be very helpful as well. Exposing yourself to questions about your current situation can often help you realize better answers. Thorough research about your competition, individuals, properties, and the markets will help you quantify the values of new ideas. Put it all in a decision system so you can quickly remember the results of each exercise and reevaluate them in the face of updated information. So what are your creative concepts? Please send a note and let me know what you think is interesting to explore.