When tenants (and their clients and customers) become more cautious with their spending, how do you help your investments bring more cash in the door…when you also are becoming more cautious with your spending?

Same Stuff Reimagined.

So Do Fun Sichuan Cuisine (155 3rd Avenue) uses the same ingredients available to every Chinese restaurant and have created a Hot and Sour Soup which is the best I have ever experienced.  The vegetables are bigger cuts, are layered (not blended into an indistinguishable mush) and the broth is light (and free of thickening cornstarch). Consider whether you already have ingredients (e.g., coffee free to those coming into your office) which your staff could deliver to the door of certain tenants (e.g., paid rent on time) as a surprise. 

Inexpensive Add-On

Auntie Anne’s (Newark Airport Terminal A) is in a tiny space with a very limited set of ingredients (dough, hot dogs, drinks). They now offer a shot of mango to “transform” their lemonade. Would a resident in a condo townhouse pay a premium (to save them going shopping) to obtain some of the mulch you are already having delivered for your landscaping?

Space Reimagined

United flies between Richmond and Newark using the CRJ-550 (Bombardier Aerospace). For someone several years back with a left arm recovering from a break, having a carry-on cabin saved me trying to get my bag up into an overhead bin. Watch how your tenants make use of the common space you provide.  What may be for you adequate, may well be frustrating for use by tenants and their customers. 

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Slow technology

When I attended “Open Pride Night” at the US Open, we all received a bracelet which would emit one of four colors when it received a certain radio signal. The light show was amazing!  Unfortunately, the “sing along” signs ran 2 – 3 lines behind the songs. Maybe before a significant prospect visits your property, suggest that the staff have a practice run-through to work out kinks.

Have Their Attention

The United Airlines self-service kiosk – when I plugged in the wrong code to get my boarding pass – prints out a message “THIS IS NOT A BOARDING PASS”! Are you missing opportunity to better connect with your tenants when you already have their attention (e.g., send an email confirming rent received…and pitch some additional available service)?

BOTTOM LINE

There is much we can do to obtain “money for nothing, and ‘checks’ for free” (apologies to Dire Straits) if we repurpose what we already have, considering the needs and wants of our tenants, their customers, and our investors. 

We are in a never-ending roller coaster of changes in the economy, applications of technology, uncertainty of the near future, and changing attitudes on use of rental space. 

Sometimes, rather than waiting for the market to tell us what is needed, a little creative thought applied to our opportunities will generate solutions for tenants/their customers/our investors to problems they did not already know existed!

It is time to get a little ahead of the curve.