This summer, Connect CRE is producing a series entitled “Inspiring Leaders in Our Changing Industry” as a continuation of last year’s “Leadership in difficult times” Series. We have selected leaders from across the U.S. and the commercial real estate industry to discuss significant changes in the industry and their organizations. In this episode, you will hear from Helen CalvinCEO of Buildout.
Set a new course: How do you manage the transition from established practices to groundbreaking new territory?
There’s a notion that entering uncharted territory means breaking away from everything that’s come before, but that can be a recipe for disaster. Great innovation often lies in the connective tissue between ideas. In Buildout’s case, we have successful products, an incredible team to support them, and a decade of experience helping brokers succeed. We have an almost unheard of 99% customer retention rate and don’t take for granted that we’re partners with our clients, not just another vendor. As we plan for our future, we’re doubling down on our efforts to integrate every service we offer with another to make our clients’ lives that much easier.
Catalysts for change: What are the essential elements to achieve meaningful progress in your company and the industry as a whole?
We’re fortunate to serve a large, loyal client base full of incredible experts in their field. What I appreciate most about our clients is that they prefer to call themselves advisors rather than brokers. They advise and coach their clients through all the changing investment and market conditions, and that momentum flows back to us. We get incredible feedback from the people who use our products, and every single employee at Buildout is empowered to make sure what they learn goes into the continued development of Buildout. It’s important to recognize the wealth of knowledge you can leverage from the people – both internal and external – who have the most direct experience with what your company offers. Listen and learn from everyone you can.
The way to the future: Looking to the future, what key changes do you predict for the industry in the coming years? What progress do you hope to see?
With all the innovation we’re seeing, especially with AI, we hope that agents will take advantage of the critical disconnect between the special and human, like building relationships, and the routine work that technology can do more efficiently and with the same quality. The commercial real estate sector used to lag behind when it came to technology – manual methods still got the job done. Now agents come to us with questions about all the emerging technology trends and are excited about how they can use each new change to improve what they already do well.
Jeff Bezos once said we shouldn’t try to predict what will change in the future, but focus on what won’t change. What will continue to be true in the commercial real estate business is that relationships will be critical, and agents will continue to be experts at growing their network and advising people on big financial decisions. Yes, the types of people involved will continue to change: we’re seeing a shift in the average age of an agent to significantly younger people, and there are more types of commercial investors than ever before. But successful agents will always be self-made agents, hungry for every advantage they can leverage. We want to meet that appetite with tech solutions that reflect what brokerage is all about and streamline the complexity of commercial real estate. That means serving as a partner to the entire brokerage business, connecting full-featured, easy-to-adopt tools that allow people to simplify their jobs.
Click here to view the full Inspiring leaders in our changing industry Series.
