Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Beider.
Daniel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was raised in the hotel industry, working for my family in numerous capacities as part of hotel operations including housekeeping, engineering and front desk. Because my non schooling education was primarily done at hotels it seemed inevitable that I would wind up back in the industry. While I tried hard for example to pursue a career as a musician, as expected I was back working with my family as I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Chicago at DePaul after transferring from Arizona after 3.5 years.
Our family business had changed. My father had passed away several years prior and the family in general was moving towards being more asset light. It was at this time that I was exposed to asset management and participating in the sales of some of our assets, hiring brokers to represent us and take care of properties that were dear to all of the family. It wasn’t long before I felt there was something missing in the hotel brokerage process. The agents didn’t seem as in tune with the operating model as they should have been. Some weren’t responsive. Most of all as we had fewer and fewer assets I sensed that the brokers who we hired to represent us began showing less interest in our needs and sensed at times them wanting to transact with a specific buyer who may become a longer term client who was growing in the industry as we were selling. I very quickly determined that when we completed our goals as a family at the time, I would go into brokerage and create a hotel brokerage platform that was unlike any that existed before.
I began at a Global Real Estate Services company and started toward building them a hotel brokerage group. Within a few years we had built a team, recruited talent and had a couple of fantastic years near the end of that last cycle. The organization we were with began touting that their future would include many specialty practice groups like the one we started for them. It was during this time I ran into my current business partner, who had similar experiences with the brokerage community and an equal passion for creating something unique that could compete at the highest levels and surpass by focusing mainly on the things that one would expect a brokerage group is built on. We wanted to build something based on industry acumen, ethics and advocacy at the core on a mission to never compromise those core items.
The organization we were at did not see eye to eye with us on how we wanted to grow, while at the same time the realization we were beginning to build someone a brand made little sense when we could build it for ourselves. So in June of 2007, right into the teeth of the downturn a number of us left and started Paramount Lodging Advisors.
At Paramount, we were free to really pursue our ideals, hire uniquely, train differently, and create all proprietary systems that nobody could copy. We were able to build an organization that would always be nimble and able to adapt to technology or changes, and run lean so we could grow when appropriate and more importantly survive the downturn we were facing. For several years we spent our time mostly doing consulting engagements to keep the doors open and providing our valuations to lenders, special servicers and anyone else who would look at our work. We knew how proud we were of how we valued assets and believed it was the most accurate approach to valuation. Without a robust transaction environment, we were able to refine our tools over and over again knowing that our platform would work and create unmatched value for our be clients. We started receiving engagements consistently sometime in late 2010/early 2011. In 2014 PLA was named to the Inc. 500/5000 as the 188th fastest growing private company in the United States using the prior 3 years revenue. In 2015, we again were listed at #419, #660 in 2016 and were just recently notified we have been honored for the 4th consecutive year in the 2017 issue.
In June, we celebrated our 10th Anniversary now with 24 agents in 11 locations throughout the United States and over the past 3 years have successfully transacted over 96% of our engagements which we believe is significantly higher than any brokerage firm in any real estate vertical. These assets on average have sold at 108% of the median values that we delivered to our clients. We are looking at more ways to evolve our organization constantly and are in the midst of a full rebuild of our internal systems to grow with the technological advances that continue to develop around us and allow us to give our clients the best and most valuable hotel brokerage experience well into the future.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Considering we started the company in June of 2007 the first several years were like starting to drive on a very long and smooth speed bump. However, we were able to utilize that time to evolve our tools, reports and methods continuously through feedback from the groups we were delivering complimentary valuations to and our own internal reviews. Sure, it was a significant bump and we all tell stories about how difficult it was, but we were not going to waver from our plan. We envisioned what we wanted to be when it’s all said and done and made certain the entire team was on board to fight through and reap the benefits.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Paramount Lodging Advisors – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We are a hotel only brokerage, capital markets and consulting organization. Our team either comes from hotel operations and/or ownership or have been hired with little to no hotel knowledge so they can learn about the business in what we believe is the right way. We very rarely bring on agents who have been in sales either in the lodging space i.e. franchise sales and rarely consider bringing on someone who has been a broker. Our motto from the beginning has been Hotel Brokerage Re-Defined, which requires that we have fresh ideas constantly that were not developed by our competitors. We view ourselves as hoteliers instead of brokers and salespeople.
We are known by our clients as having the most reliable and realistic valuation process. This is due to us not having analysts and not relying on general statistics nationwide or regionally or even locally. All of our assumptions are supported by meaningful and real items that are critical to the fundamental health of a hotel. We work hard and have a lot of fun knowing that our primary goal is advocating for our clients. So long as we looked out for their best interests, even if it means removing a property from the market, we’ve know that we’ve advocated which is the core principal brokerage is based on.
We’re incredibly proud of far too many things to discuss. However, a few things that come to mind:
– We have never had an agent leave our organization to join a competitor in the brokerage space.
– Our success rate on listings sometimes still shocks me. Even with the confidence we have in our process, we know 96%+ of listings successfully sold is unheard of, until now.
– Our largest clients we have sold every asset they have listed with us. Ranging from 23 hotel assets for one client and up to 87 consecutive successful engagements for another.
– Our ability to adapt to new technology due to remaining nimble is something we take a lot of pride in. We were introduced to the auction.com (now Ten-X) platform by a client several years ago and knowing nothing about it. It was entirely different from our typical brokerage process with far less time to do all the work. We now have completed approximately 110 transactions through Ten-X on their auction platform with a sell through (success) rate of over 97%. We understand we may have completed more transactions as a broker than anyone else potentially in any real estate vertical. Not only were we able to adapt to the technology and benefit from managing it well, it has improved the way we run our traditional brokerage process which is now shorter and leaves far less likelihood of deals falling apart late in the process.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
The future for us is going to be about continued evolution. We know we will look very different in 5 years and completely different in 10. We will continue to target clients who see the value we bring with our unmatched knowledge of the operating model from top to bottom of the organization and can lean on us as hotel experts so they don’t have to become experts on the most operationally intense real estate asset class. We will continue to advocate for our clients whether they are the largest owner of assets in the United States or if they own 1 property, they will get several agents working with them delivering constant attention and immediate feedback. Most important our plans are to maintain our success rates, which will take continued hard work, advocacy and innovation, all of which are part of the fabric we are built on.
Additionally, we are just getting started on building our own new home, a small office building that fits our personality. It will provide us the opportunity to host clients and/or our own team for events, good work space that feels like it’s daytime as the agents work into the wee hours of the night and a sports court, fitness area and grill area for when all the hard work is done.
Contact Info:
- Address: 939 W. North Ave.,
Ste 750, Chicago, IL 60048 - Website: http://www.paramountlodging.com
- Phone: 312.239.0166
- Email: marketing@paramountlodging.com
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
