How we work

Scoped in writing, then handed over

We are not trying to become permanent infrastructure inside your business. Almost everything we do is built to be left behind: a system your team runs, and software sitting in accounts with your name on them.

A dim hallway lined with shoji screens
Photograph: 5010 / Unsplash

Four ways to engage

  • Diagnostic

    A short, fixed review of the property or the portfolio. You get written findings and a ranked list of what to do first. It stands alone, and plenty of owners take it away and do the work themselves, which is a perfectly good outcome.

  • Build

    One tool, specified and built. Then tested with the people who will use it, and handed over with full ownership. 6 weeks is typical.

  • Retained

    Standing counsel for owners and management teams. A fixed rhythm of review, and a reply inside 2 days in between. You are not re-explaining the business every quarter.

  • Embedded

    We take an operating seat inside the business part time, with real responsibility for a function, usually while a permanent hire is found and trained.

Method

  1. 01

    Understand the business as it is.

    12 to 24 months of data before we form a view. Then the property. Then the people, who usually rearrange what the data seemed to say.

  2. 02

    Find the constraint.

    Most businesses have 2 problems that generate everything else on the list. Fixing all of it at once fixes none of it.

  3. 03

    Design around the team you actually have.

    A system needing more discipline than the business can supply becomes a second problem.

  4. 04

    Build it with your people.

    The capability has to still be there when we leave.

  5. 05

    Measure, and say so if it did not work.

    Agreed numbers and a review date. If it failed we change our own recommendation.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

Scope in writing before anything starts, including what is not in it. If we think the work should not go ahead we will say so. Nobody but you pays us, and we spend your money like it is coming out of your pocket, because it is.

NOT FOR US

Where we are not the right fit

Branded and group properties. If there is a corporate revenue function and standards handed down from a head office, a larger firm will serve you better.

Software licences. We build custom tools and we set up third party systems. We sell neither and we hold no reseller agreements. If you want to buy a property management system, a reseller is cheaper than us.

An endorsement. We do not put our name to yield projections or fundraising material.

A conclusion you have already reached. Tell us the objective. If you also tell us the answer, you are paying us to agree.

Regulated filings. We map what applies and sequence it. Licensed local professionals do the filing and sign the opinion. We do not.

QUARTERLY NOTE

Every quarter we write up what we have actually seen working, across the properties we advise and the ones we run. What moved a number, and what a regulator changed while nobody was looking. No news roundups.