Beth Azor – Keep your Arrogance and Overconfidence in Check

Beth Azor is a 33-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry and owns Azor Advisory Services, which specializes in consulting services in training, sales, leadership, coaching, acquisition, due diligence, and market analysis. Beth owns and manages a US$79 million portfolio of commercial retail properties in southeast Florida and recently wrote and published a book called Don’t Say No For The Prospect, a collection of stories from her career, and her career as a retail leasing rock star. She is also a frequent guest on business and commercial real estate podcasts has her own Retail Leasing for Rockstars podcast and hosts the Rockstar Book Club Monthly Call, where she and guests review nonfiction, business-related books. A graduate of Florida State University (FSU), she is also chair emeritus and founder of the FSU Real Estate Foundation.   “Timing is the key and I would rather go for it and make mistakes, and even lose money than to never go for it ever.” – Beth Azor Lessons learned Timing is everything, but arrogance can the cause of failing to act in a timely fashion. Beth waited too long and rejected another, a cheaper offer that could have saved her in the long run through the 2008 real estate crash in the US. Pay very close attention to due diligence. In this case, it was due diligence about the location of her property and its demographics. Beth failed to appreciate the negatives about the location, which was surrounded on three sides by unpopulated areas. Andrew’s takeaways 1. Never underestimate the quagmire that bankruptcy swamp you in. Whether it is you as a company or you as a person, bankruptcy courts can change things suddenly and for the worse. At the bang of a gavel, a judge can make a judgment on bankruptcy that you really can go against an investor. 2. Arrogance and overconfidence is among the most prevalent of the mistakes investors make.                a. Macro factors are a major thing investors should always think about when investing. Sometimes it’s about preparing for events, such as the 1997 financial crisis in Asia, or the 2008 global financial crisis, which in a way started in Beth’s world with real estate. 3. Andrew recommends people follow his six-step investment process.               a. Find an idea               b. Research the return               c. Assess the risks               d. Create a plan               e. Execute the plan               f. Monitor the progress All those suggestions apply, whether it is a land investment or a stock investment. The key item for Andrew is that he separates the research on return from the research on risk. “Everybody who’s getting ready to make an investment needs a devil’s advocate … (who) must be focused on what can go wrong, and why it will go wrong, and what will be the impact when it does go wrong.” – Andrew Stotz   You can also check out Andrew’s books