Happy New Year!
One week of sabbath turned into two, but I’m glad to be back in your inbox for my first letter in 2022.
If you’re new here, be sure to subscribe to get this in your inbox every Sunday. We have an archive, but it’s more fun to get these in real time.
Sit back, pour yourself a cup of that tumeric tea that made its way on your list of resolutions, and let’s get to it …
While having grandiose annual goals is important, I’ve found quarterly goals to be more actionable.
In 1Q 2022 we’re going to focus on two things …
1) Excellent freelancer matches, and
2) AMaaS
Freelancer Matching
To date, we have prioritized matching the skills of freelancers in our network with employer needs. While this works, we’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that skills aren’t always the most important criteria when hiring.
The best freelancers are:
- Prompt
- Honest
- Confident in what they know (and what they don’t know)
- Humble to admit mistakes
- Entrepreneurial (willing to take a shot at figuring out a problem)
- Patient
- a Clear Thinker/Communicator
- and last but probably most important … Kind
In 1Q 2022, we’re pivoting our matching process to over-index on the above intangibles … but don’t worry, everyone still has great commercial real estate skills too. 🙂
AMaaS
At the end of last year, we teased an asset management “teams” concept in this letter. The response was MASSSIVE.
Since then, we’ve hired a stellar asset manager (👋 Emily) who has helped us build a team to launch Bullpen’s first managed service that we’re calling “Asset Management as a Service” … let us know if you have a better name, I’m open to suggestions.
In short, we’ve identified that there are a lot of sponsors who can manage everything themselves until they reach four to five properties, then the wheels start falling off the bus.
In addition to a good property manager, owners need an asset manager to create, manage, represent, and report on their asset strategy with key stakeholders.
A few things that we’ll manage as part of this service …
- Asset Strategy (created annually to optimize for yield on cost)
- Capex Plan
- Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual Reports
- Annual Budgets and Variance Analysis
- Compliance with debt/insurance requirements
- Vendor price negotiations
- etc
Our goal for AMaaS is to be a force multiplier for small and mid-size real estate companies.
Let me know what you think! Your feedback is invaluable.
PS – If you or someone you know might want to learn more about AMaaS, feel free to reply to this note. It comes directly to my inbox.
