Repositioning Your Business or Career

The reports coming from last week's Fall Meeting of the ULI point to a long, slow recovery, or as Ivy Zelman once described it, a "canoe" rather than a broken "W". The extend & pretend recovery will continue to force many builders and developers– i.e those without access to public money– to the sidelines for the foreseeable future. So, what happens when a talented management team finds itself blocked from their normal line of work? The answer: attack the issue the same as a real estate project in need of repositioning: develop new product and services to address the "new normal".

Perhaps the best example of this can be seen on Lakewood Real Estate Solutions new website. LRES is comprised of the former management team of Lakewood Homes, founded in 1990 by Buz Hoffman. For the last 20 years, Lakewood has been known in the Chicago market as an industry leader, offering superior housing product and thoughtfully planned communities. During their reign, Lakewood attracted some of the best talent in the Chicago market, the same talent that now comprises Lakewood Real Estate Solutions. When the recession and resulting credit crunch pushed them to the sidelines, they chose to leverage their in-house talent as a workout team, helping banks and institutional owners with distressed real estate assets.

That alone isn't necessarily headline news; after all, many professionals in our industry are trying to do the same thing. The differentiator in their case is a unified team with a proven track record, combined with a website that is simple and delivers a crystal clear message. We first learned about it when one of their first blog posts, "Buzzwords" arrived in our Inbox. The email announcement captured our attention for two reasons: it was clean and attractive, but also lent a positive feel to an otherwise discouraging business (workouts). We also like how they invested the time and energy to develop a professional, multifaceted website. Everything about it smacks of professionalism.

Whether you're a one man show or a team of talented people, you might want to consider doing something similar to what Lakewood has done. It will require some investment, but there are plenty of off-the-shelf products to quickly build something similar to what you see on Lakewood's site. A $1500 investment and monthly fee of $40 (for web hosting) should get you there. (Check out Adobe's Business Catalyst, a suite of services that in addition to web site development also includes blog posts and email campaigns.)

Before you balk at the cost, keep in mind that promoting yourself and your experience has never been more important. If the latest reports for a long, slow recovery are an indication, short term contract gigs might become de rigueur. A multifaceted site like this helps people find and learn about you. One other benefit– it lends greater credibility to your job search when you've been "consulting" for over a year (or longer).

Check out Lakewood's web site and feel free to post your comments; they would appreciate the feedback.