This blog post was last updated on January 4, 2023.
Global market volatility and high interest rates have forced investors across many asset classes to slow deal flow in 2023, refocusing their strategies and resources. Despite these headwinds, many institutions have found new opportunities in this market environment. Whether pivoting into a new asset class or doubling down on recession-resistant investments, harnessing competitive insights within proprietary data is key to acting early and quickly on the most profitable opportunities–before competitors.
At Dealpath, our priority is to empower your firm to ingest, review, analyze and execute on deals with optimal speed, efficiency and precision. In this post, we’ll review 9 ways you can position your firm to outperform the competition on Dealpath with the help of your Customer Success Manager.
1. Eliminate Manual Data Entry with Dealpath Data Ingestion (DDI)
As you source and ingest new deals into your pipeline, analysts and associates spend significant time requesting, inputting and updating deal data. All too often, this begs the question: is vital institutional knowledge slipping through the cracks?
Dealpath Data Ingestion, or DDI, is a managed data service that extracts and ingests new pipeline opportunities so your firm can act instantly. Eliminating manual data entry empowers your firm to prioritize analyzing and negotiating deals, while creating the opportunity to scale your pipeline and outpace the competition. Seamless deal ingestion also reduces the risk of preventable data entry errors, protecting hard-earned competitive intelligence.
2. Revisit Data Analytics and Reporting Templates
When is the last time your firm reevaluated its deal screening and review process? Are there other data points or comps that could paint a clearer picture about a deal’s profitability? Could capturing new information or reviewing specific details earlier on in the deal lifecycle create stronger conviction to close?
Despite a slow in deal flow, the market is responding to opportunities faster than ever. To act sooner and close faster, reconsider how your firm evaluates new opportunities based on competitive intelligence like reporting and visualized data analytics.
Speak to your Customer Success Manager to learn about reporting and analytics best practices based on high-performing institutional investors.
3. Audit All Pipeline Deals and Clean Up Deal Stages
Accurately tracking deal stages is critical for prioritizing deals that are furthest along in the pipeline, while maintaining real-time visibility. If deal information in Dealpath doesn’t reflect real-time changes, then it could be blocking progress.
One simple way to kick off the new year is auditing all deals to ensure that deal stages are up-to-date based on internal decisions and any external deliverables. This exercise prepares your team to take the next step on every deal. Encourage your team to leverage mentions, follow-ups, tasks and reminders in Dealpath for optimal collaboration and centralized communication.
As you polish current deals, take a step back to reconsider deal stage options. Could adding one or several deal stages provide more specific details about the latest deal progress? Remember to use actionable terminology that your team will understand.
4. Re-Evaluate Info Fields
The data and information that you track for every deal in Dealpath empowers your team to work efficiently, collaboratively and strategically. Is there additional deal information that might prove helpful during future analyses?
To position your team for success in 2023, consider adding, refining or repurposing info fields. For example, adding priority levels based on potential IRR to every deal can help your team pinpoint the best opportunities. As a result, they can allocate their time and resources accordingly.
Alternatively, consider what data or information could help your team learn from historical deals in the future. One other way that firms frequently learn from dead deals is by evaluating deal sources. Adding an info field to track the brokerage, or even the specific broker, who provided the deal can illuminate where the highest number of deals, or the best deals, are sourced from.
5. Audit Dead Deals to Identify Process Bottlenecks & Refine Investment Strategy
Historical and dead deals offer endless insights into your pipeline, portfolio, processes, and the markets you invest in. Dealpath makes it simple to tap into and learn from this data. As you pause to re-evaluate your strategy, try thoroughly auditing these dead deals to identify bottlenecks and refine your investment strategy.
Some bottlenecks are inevitable, but others can be solved or minimized through simple process changes. Explore dead deals to see if certain tasks or deal stages consumed more time than others.
Are there commonalities between similar deals that dragged on? Can you proactively bypass them? Or, could adding another member of the firm to Dealpath reduce deal friction? Take the action you can to streamline deals to the extent possible.
Additionally, knowing which deals advance furthest in your pipeline often dictates how your pipeline strategy should evolve. If multifamily deals often die earlier than industrial deals, that might mean you should pursue a larger volume of industrial deals. If multifamily deals in San Francisco perform better than those in NYC, consider prioritizing west coast deals. Finally, take a look at bottom-line metrics like IRR and NOI to see if deals in a certain market, sub-market or other niche stand out.
6. Schedule a Team Training
Dealpath is intuitive and easy-to-use, but even the best teams might benefit from a refresher, or broader team training. Re-training your team on Dealpath ensures that:
- Your team is following the right internal investment processes and protocols
- Deals are ingested, evaluated, and reported on properly according to internal standards
- The team is leveraging all relevant functionality and following best practices
Reach out to your Customer Success Manager to schedule a team training session.
7. Leverage Integrations
Dealpath sits at the center of the modern real estate investment management ecosystem, helping investors access data where and when they need it. Investment deal data is critical for real estate investment managers, but it represents only a small slice of the broader tech ecosystem pie. To lay the groundwork for streamlined and centralized workflows, consider leveraging integrations with other software, like CompStak, box, and others.
8. Make Dealpath the Single Source of Truth By Adding Team Members
Dealpath’s goal is to centralize critical deal information so that your team can build efficiencies and collaborate effectively. It only fulfills this goal, though, when everyone on your team can access, update and view the deals and data they need. As the new year begins, consider how adding new team members might help establish additional efficiencies and transparency across your organization.
9. Schedule a Working Session With Your Customer Success Manager
At Dealpath, our Customer Success team has worked with leading real estate investment managers spanning every deal type, market, and niche. Based on this experience, we’ve learned best practices that drive success for teams of all sizes.
To learn how your firm could better leverage Dealpath, schedule a working session with your Customer Success Manager. They can help you work through integrations, identify and solve bottlenecks, and offer other platform guidance to ensure your team is gaining maximum value.
Feel free to reach out to your assigned Customer Success Manager to schedule a working session.
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