Strategy for Real Estate Companies

“It is critical to have a strategic plan that is updated every 4 to 6 years to guide your annual business tactics in order to achieve your long-term objectives. Goals related to growth, profitability, efficiency, capital, platform resources, and talent management should be defined. The foundation of the plan is our culture and purpose. By having a thoughtful strategic plan, Bell has created a sustainable scalable company that fosters a special culture and team as well as continues to outperform during a full cycle, through the ups and the downs. The RCLCO team was critical to helping guide our journey by assessing our core competencies, market opportunities, and aspirations as well as creating a path for continued innovation, evolution, and success.  Working with RCLCO has been AMAZING! In fact, we are getting ready to do it again this summer! With their guidance, we will create a thoughtful, deliberate plan that is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and helps to keep us focused, disciplined and aligned so that we may outperform over a full cycle and be ready to make adjustments during inflection points.”

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there. Having a clear-cut strategy with alignment from our team guides everything we do. RCLCO was an invaluable partner as we frankly assessed where we were and mapped out where we wanted to go. Working with RCLCO was a joy and I’d highly recommend them to anyone who wants a fantastic thought partner in strategy and planning.”

“Strategic planning is crucial to the success of our organization. Not having a set of goals and a strategy on how to achieve those would be like captaining a rudderless ship. The excitement and energy of the entire leadership team during the strategic planning process carried over into the implementation of the plan. We have been using RCLCO for three decades now to facilitate our strategic planning. They truly understand the real estate business, at all of its various levels, and add an outsider’s perspective that challenges our thinking. With RCLCO we have gotten to places that we would have likely never gotten to without them.  In our most recent strategic planning initiative, Charlie and the RCLCO Team took a group of 14 type A personalities and molded and massaged the meetings so that all fully participated and more importantly got everyone to think out of the box. At times, processes like this can be like trying to herd cats but these guys are real pros and save time, which is $$, and push everyone to really think strategically about what to do versus just thinking how to do something. We will use them again when we next update our strategic plan.”

“I participated in a strategic planning exercise forty years ago, as an employee. The facilitator of that planning exercise was RCLCO. Fast forward to me being a business owner and president of a real estate organization. I knew in order to plan company growth and succession that we needed to conduct a strategic planning process. The only company I would consider for this important job was RCLCO. Charlie Hewlett and Adam Ostler were invaluable partners in that process.”

“RCLCO is the proven subject matter expert in this critical role of strategic master planning. Their land uses, pricing and pace when analyzed with their comprehensive economic model provides the land developer with the ultimate tool to assist/guide the development.”

“RCLCO has unrivaled product and market knowledge that can help you select promising strategies. Beyond that, their insights in organization dynamics can help you build a culture that ensures successful execution of your plans, and becomes self-replicating through leadership changes allowing the creation of enterprise value greater than the sum of the mere assets that you own.”

“It is so easy to get mired in the day-to-day activities of running a company that time for big-picture thinking is often overlooked. However, to move a company forward one must slow down and periodically think about long-term strategy. It would be nearly impossible to go through a strategic planning process without an outside facilitator to keep the process on track and offer a “seen that” perspective. That is where the whole RCLCO team comes in to make sure that your company is committed to a timeline with a start point and end point in mind. RCLCO offers the perspective of hundreds of real estate companies that they have worked with over the years.  I enthusiastically recommend RCLCO as a great partner for your strategic journey.”

“Charlie literally wrote the book on strategic planning for real estate companies! This book helped put us on the path to reach our strategic goals. I’m grateful to the entire RCLCO organization for their wisdom and guidance. This is a must read for anyone aspiring to build a real estate company.”

“I am often asked about attributes of growth or success that we have experienced, and I almost always respond with the following perspective. We could be the best at what we do with the best people and the best culture, but if what we do is not accurately focused on the right secular trends we will not succeed. Some things are obvious—demographics, ecommerce, housing crisis, workforce flexibility—and developing strategies and capabilities to capitalize on these trends is the most important thing we can do. Working with RCLCO enhanced my ability to focus on the long game, on where we should be many years from now without constraint as to where we are today. To look carefully at our platform, our people, our competitive strengths and apply these against where the world is likely to be in the future. To better articulate this across our organization, to engage our people in this discussion, and to become part of the changes necessary to achieve a future state attractive to the people that work here. I was introduced to Gadi five years ago, and had previously met Charlie working on a market research project where his knowledge and expertise was palpable. Together they have helped me work through constraints in my thinking to unlock opportunity across our organization. They have become valued advisors, including me in their broader business engagement, establishing new relationships, and providing me with ongoing intellectual content and ideas. They have become good friends and I am grateful for their presence in my life.”

“RCLCO is the gold standard when it comes to strategic planning for real estate companies. While it’s not easy to take the magic they provide in person and translate it into a book, they have done a remarkable job. Strategy for Real Estate Companies is a must read for anyone about to participate in the creation or refreshment of a strategic plan.”