Episode 54 – A Librarian, Technology, and Real Estate

The Redemptification Podcast

A Librarian, Technology, and Real Estate with special guest Andrew Segal

Welcome to “The Redemptification Podcast,” today, John interviews our special guest and the founder of Boxer Property Management Corporation, Andrew Segal.

In 1992, Andrew Segal founded Boxer Property Management Corporation, embarking on a journey that would redefine real estate. The company began by leasing a 108,000 square foot office building in Dallas. Initially, Boxer focused on acquiring, managing, leasing, and administering commercial office buildings. Over the years, they expanded their horizons, transforming retail centers, resort hotels, and various real estate ventures into stable and profitable properties.

What sets Boxer Property apart is their dedication to enhancing the value of the properties they manage. They employ innovative strategies, revamping assets and offering cost-effective solutions to create a superior experience for tenants and customers.

Today, Boxer Property Management Corporation manages over 15 million square feet of commercial buildings in major cities. Their approach blends progressive management and logical strategies to redeem under-performing assets.

During this episode, Andrew Segal shares insights into the evolution of Boxer Property, highlighting the transformative power of technology in reshaping the real estate industry. He emphasizes the importance of clear measurement, organization, and streamlined business operations. We also explore Boxer’s unique approach to workforce expansion, which focuses on assembling a bench of talented professionals ready to join the game. Andrew shares his vision for the future of real estate, advocating for an industry that is more accessible, customer-centric, and cost-effective.

Insights & Inspirations

• Andrew Segal (04:15): Well, I think ironically, technology caused us to devolve in the way that we were organized. It’s almost like the iPhone is so entertaining. It kind of ruined our ability to talk to each other. We’re just, we’re on it all the time. So when I entered business back in 92, and it seems recent, but it was a long time ago, we had file rooms and those file rooms were guarded over by file clerks and the intelligence and the records of companies were kept in a way that was accessible.
• Andrew Segal (05:04): It was like a library with a librarian, and then we started filing things electronically. Electronic filing is this dark room and you just are putting things in there. They’re very hard to find, and we lost access to our record keeping.
• Andrew Segal (05:22): It used to be that you could go back and you could refer to a construction job you did and you could see the file on it and all the invoices and all the bids and the correspondence and the returns of the correspondence, and now that’s gone. So my brother and I were very concerned about that.
• Andrew Segal (06:04): So the first thing we did is we hired a librarian for our electronic filing, and it was really weird to advertise for a librarian. In the private sector, but we didn’t really know what else to call that person. And then we ended up building a software product that kind of embodied organization. It had data management, it had single places of truth, and we felt that there would be this huge payback because we would be able to get away from just remembering, asking, responding, which was a big part of our day, and actually go to the part of work that was valuable.
• John Marsh (08:22): we say you can’t manage what you don’t measure and it’s hard to multiply what you don’t manage. So you through having the content there of what’s happening in your organization, starting to see what the activities, and I guess it probably gave you a look into the roles and behaviors that were really happening
• Andrew Segal (08:43): You need to even start at a much more profound way is you need a list of things you don’t measure.
• Andrew Segal (11:58): So when you think about there’s a storm, the roads are ice, there’s a mass shooter, there’s a hurricane coming, there’s covid, there’s a hack. What are the playbooks for these things when you don’t have time to have 20 organizational meetings? And that’s one of the thousands of things we were able to organize once we got organized.
• Andrew Segal (12:28): it’s almost like having an iPhone and adding an app as we started off with very light approvals or here’s a checklist like an inspection.
• Andrew Segal (19:27): Our world doesn’t stop at five o’clock on Friday. So the question is how do we extend the work cycle for two reasons, number one, to match up with when our customers are interacting with us. But number two, to just do things faster.
• John Marsh (19:58): So really in three, a 24 hour cycle, there’s this potential for possibly a three multiple of accomplishment within that 24 hour cycle because it’s being handed off,
• Andrew Segal (20:12): It’s a third of the price and three times the speed. There’s not a lot of things in our life that changed the needle that much. And at Boxer it was about an $18 million direct savings, not counting the other dividends we got by running. I tell people the sun never sets on our accounting department.
• John Marsh (20:37): What I love is that this is everything that when I looked at the relay and looked at the possibilities there, first thing I noticed was the job descriptions, the level of clarity that it has because a person that has the problems I have made the, I mean you can tell you were in the companies and the verticals that you needed that type of work. As you look at it, it’s not fluffed up. They’re really clear. And so I mean it’s so easy. I guess it’s hard to even imagine that I could say, Hey, I need some accounting help and I could get someone this afternoon and they’re on my team this afternoon. And what’s quite different, you’re not buying a five or any kind of person, you’re getting a full-time person to have their eyes on your prize.
• Andrew Segal (21:32): They’re like a cloud server. So when you get a cloud server, you don’t have to worry about the roof leaks or the power supply, whether the licenses are there. So we have an office, we have a computer, we have an internet connection. They only work at their desk in our office, but everything they do is at someone else’s direction. And these people really wear the colors of their company that they’re working for. Is it for them? It’s a career, it’s not a gig.
• Andrew Segal (25:16): So what we realized is we wanted something like a bench for a coach. When a coach wants to put someone into the football game, you don’t turn around and go recruit someone from high school. That would be insane if they have someone who is suited up on the bench ready to go in and when they point at them in less than one minute, they’re in and they’re part of the team. So what we did is we replicated that.
• Andrew Segal (26:30): it was a revelation that the value that people perceive, you would think that they were just people trying to save money, but what they perceived to be very valuable was condensing the entire recruiting process is read their resume, watch a video interview of them, talk to them if you want to, and then bring them on board. They become an immediate long-term employee, but you’re only committed for one month. So a company can give people back basically guilt free because they never miss a day
• Andrew Segal (31:38): I think that as people in the real estate industry, we need to continue thinking about making it fast and easy for our customers…. And sometimes people just want space. So that means in the office market is having space available that’s turnkey, different sizes. Think of it like an inventory in a store, really spending a lot of attention, getting that space to be easy for a consumer to see, understand and acquire. So compress the cycle of moving into real estate. And then the other thing, and I think that this is going to become a very big issue certainly in the housing market, is that we need to focus on lowering the maintenance costs of the real estate that we have.
• Andrew Segal (34:10): One of the most interesting things, and I forget who said it, but it wasn’t me, but we were talking about real estate and he said something profound. He said, we think of class A and class B and class C, but it doesn’t describe the structures that you and I both love is historic building and they’re the best. Do they have walls of glass? Do they have hidden ventilation? No, of course not. But it’s class X. This is what is beginning to see the highest rents and the highest levels of depreciation.
• Andrew Segal (37:49): we have to go back and remember what we liked about them, what did we like about downtowns? What did we like about malls? Because those things are still there. I think we just need to see them in a different way.
• John Marsh (38:47): If you’ve got clarity of vision, you can accelerate toward the goal. I tell people, I say if the price is fuzzy, no price is really cheap enough, but when the price gets clear, the price gets easy.

Information & Links

• Connect and learn more about what we do at https://www.marshcollective.com/
• Connect with Marsh Collective on LinkedIn
• Connect with Marsh Collective on Facebook
• Andrew Segal
  • LinkedIn
  • Boxer Properties – About – website
• Relay Human Cloud – website
  • Be sure to use the referral code: “MARCOL”
• Boxer Properties – website

Closing Questions

What have you read that we should read?

• Andrew Segal (46:30): So I reread a book that came out when I was, I think nine years old. It was Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman. Milton Friedman was an economist who won the Nobel Prize in economics. He was the person who was credited with explaining to us how inflation worked, and it was really the first version of Freakonomics. And there’s so much in that book that was relevant in the seventies, that’s even more relevant dust and see why he won the Nobel Prize for.
• Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman

Who do you know that we should know?

• Andrew Segal (39:51): So two groups that you should pay attention to. One is the Caruso organization based in Los Angeles. They did a project called The Grove, which may be the most fabulous urban renewal mall, whatever you want to call it. It’s kind of a little bit of everything that’s there. I took my team to go see it and we were standing at the valet service watching what was like a valet and a guy, the head valet comes, he puts his arm around me. He goes, so you own a mall? I said, how did you know? He goes, nobody else would be staring at the valet operation as long as you dido’s execution is just amazing. And the other one is our mutual friend, Chris Powers at For Capital for capital made a decision to become a connector, to become a leader, to become someone who was socializing thoughts and innovation. And you say to yourself, how does this drive more warehouse purchases? But when you spend enough time with his team, you realize how great they’ve become by leading. It’s really, really interesting. Those two are two of my inspirations.
• Caruso – website
• Caruso – The Grove – website
• The Grove LA – website
• Fort Capital – website
• The Fort Podcast – website
• Chris Powers – LinkedIn
• Redemptification – episode with Chris Powers

Where have you been that we should go?

• Andrew Segal (44:18): A couple of things. One thing that blew my mind very recently was Manila, the Philippines. I’ve traveled around the world, I’ve been to India things, and I was horrified at how great a city this was that I really knew very little about. I was standing in some shopping centers. There was one, I think it’s the most beautiful shopping center I’ve ever been in India, and I’m talking about Miami and New York and Paris. They really taught me some humility about thinking that all the answers were here. And part of it is just exploring and exploring without a necessary agenda. I went to Mongolia twice last summer, a long story, and I learned so much about politics from that country. So longer explanation, but get out there and go see things. The explorers win in the end. And of course come see our mall in Fort Worth. It’s really fun.
• La Gran Plaza – website
• Manilla – website
• India – website