Dreaming Big, Being Big & Remaining Big, Real Estate Way!

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“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure” … Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who was the 65th United States secretary of state from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American secretary of state. And the reason for remembering these words of Mr. Powel is, an interesting question or say query from a friend (who himself works with revenue services, which supposedly gives you maximum exposure to business/trades of the society) & he asked me what is the reason or say success mantra of big companies like DLF or Soba (big companies in real estate) in real estate, how they grow so big & why many of other fails miserably! I first thought he is pulling my leg as he himself is at such a position where he must be coming across many top-level businessmen & seen their organizations closely & then who I am to comment on companies’ success or failures which are thousand times bigger than my own setup on every front! But the question remained in my mind, so I messaged him back that I will try to write as I spoke with myself (I do that often, though it’s one sign of madness), why not as I remembered a story in Zen (where else) regarding this aspect of understanding! The story was about a young Chinese scholar who has read many books on religion & philosophy & he came across a book on religion of which few chapters he was unable to understand so he started asking people around who can help him in understanding those chapters. But nobody in his village was able to make him explain the meaning of those chapters, so he decided to venture to other cities & started for a journey. In one town he came to know about an old wise woman who can help him, which is what people told him, so he went to meet the old lady. After meeting her the young scholar greeted her & asked whether she can help him to understand the chapters of the book he has. On this, the lady said she will be happy to help but the only problem is, she can’t read as she hasn’t learnt to read, so, if the young man reads her out those pages, then she will try to explain! Hearing this, the scholar was shocked & he asked back, old lady, if you even don’t know reading then how can you explain its meaning to me! The lady smiled & pointed her finger to the moon in the sky & asked the boy to look at the moon. The boy looked in the direction of the finger & then the lady asked him, is my finger a moon, the boy replied, no, it isn’t! The lady asked, does I move the moon to its location, the boy replied, no, you didn’t! On this, the lady said, yet I could guide you with my finger to you to sight the moon, right! Hearing this the boy got enlightened & he bowed in front of the old lady & said, I understood the meaning of the chapter, thank you very much & left!

Well, I am not playing the old lady here nor I am some Zen master yet I used the story for the readers who will continue to read ahead, that what I will be sharing is just what I have understood about the real estate or say business a little bit & that’s what I will share with my friend as my answer to his query & to justify my daring, I used this Zen story, lol! Ok, coming back to the question which actually is like opening a box of pandora (especially in real estate) as I have been associated with business for more than three decades & has seen many companies around me to rise at mega level & then managed to vanish in the thin air & then there are companies which are going great even today, while few were small units & now are aspiring to make it big. Speaking about myself, I never even dreamed that I would be running my own business & now it's nearly two decades since I am running a real estate business of my own! I haven’t made it big or great by myself but I am happy for what I could do, let me confess this at the start & I have survived, is also a fact, an important one! While DLF was in deep trouble a few years back, may be still in but Soba is surely doing great across our country as well in the Middle East also, to my knowledge! These two names I took, as my friend has mentioned them, nothing in person I have anything with them! By me, a real estate company becomes big can be a fluke or stroke of luck also, if you are counting bigness (read as success) on the scale of money earned or profits, because when your raw material is land & country’s population is ever increasing then you need not have to be a fortune-teller to tell that anybody who has land holding is going to be rich! Though this is half-truth as even if you are owning thousands of acres in the desert, still you will end up as  poor only (unless that desert has oil fields underneath), so one must be smart enough which land to be bought & when! Because in our country every land use is governed by the govt & it’s not the land but the development around your land defines the fate of your land! And even a gambler needs to be wise (rather more than in any other trade) as he must know when to stop, is what decides the fate of the gambler! Again, with due respect to all big & successful firms in real estate, the similarity between gambling & real estate ends here i.e., the raw material land & luck, so from here the journey towards becoming big starts & to retain that bigness is a success!

First & foremost, whatever the product may be, the major character which makes any company big or say trustworthy in the eyes of its clients is, consistent delivery of what you have promised! And here a client doesn’t mean only those who books a flat or shop or office with you but every that person to whom you commit something, may it be a payment against some service or returning a call or acknowledging a mistake in time, everything matters, as you become big only by making people around grow along; this, most of the firms in real estate forgets & that’s the reason of not having many numbers in big league & for long! As well, this simple Mantra may look easy on the face but it’s extremely difficult to achieve when you are making it big because to grow big you need to build a team, a team which believes in what’s your idea is, of right & wrong as then only that team will deliver what you are committing!  This I have observed with many firms as they were really good in delivering their promises when they were small or medium in volume (read as turnover) but once they grew big, they failed because the team which also got bigger in the numbers was not in tune with what owners were & then failures towards promises happened in multiplying terms, resulting failure! Here again, we are not much fond of setting up systems leave apart following them (accept it, dear countrymen) & if you want to grow big, more than that want to sustain that bigness, then there must be an ever-evolving system in place which has to be followed by majority of the team, which is a hard job & needs a focused approach which many developers either lack or doesn’t think it’s important! And the companies which have become big on turnover scale, every one of them has a proper system for every front of the work & a system to monitor the system is also is in place! Do mind, no system works by its own, a very senior IAS officer has once told this to me, British ruled us from thousands of miles for two centuries & without any modern electronic communication system support available then, but a reporting system & a documentation system (7/12 types) & bureaucratic system to monitor the work-system, is what made this possible!

On top of it, the systems must be flexible on surface as real estate is a very local business where policies as well people, everything is different on city-to-city basis also & a company which wants to grow big must be open to changes, one more characteristic for which our businessmen (read as builders) are not famous for! As every city’s needs are different from the homoes & so are the people we need to handle & all these differences must be accommodated by your team as well by the system. Only the companies which are flexible enough to make such changes without touching the core of the systems have made it big! A big company focuses more on systems as well as team building than just setting their eyes on the profit margins & one more thing, which again is a weak link of real estate & that is data! Of-late many companies in real estate have been doomed only because of over-trading (we all know this) & what is overtrading but lack of data, right? As, if you know how much demand is at which place & keeps building that much only then you will never venture in over-trade, is simple logic which most failed to understand & adopt! Along with over-trading, one more thing the companies which has grown big in real estate have followed & that is, sticking only to doing what they are good at & not try to venture in other businesses just they become successful in real estate! This doesn’t mean I am against expansion or diversification, but what it means is, every business or trade needs different skills though the basics may be the same & I have seen many big real estate firms losing their fortune made from real estate in venturing into different trades IT or Hotels & other such!

Finally, the businessman himself /herself must have a fire within to become big as then only all above qualities or habits or characteristics are of any use (for e.g. I don’t have it in me, let me confess this very frankly)! Do mind, every successful company which grows big & carries that bigdom has followed mostly the same path whatever trade it may be in but failure comes in many ways, is what in nutshell I have understood; with this note, I conclude my humble sharing about becoming big & staying big!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s

 

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying! 

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html

Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below) 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

www.punecorporation.org

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https://secure.mygov.in/

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com / https://junglebelles.in/