Ben Beckman

“The real value they’ve given me is confidence. The ability to keep things moving, to not be stopped by any negative chatter in my head.”

Seton Woods is an inner-city multi-family housing developer looking to build apartments close to the city that ordinary folks can afford. Having just started, I’m still a long way from selling to tenants. Right now I’m generating interest and gathering investors. I’ve been wanting to do what I do now since I was 15 years old. Back in the 80s there was a lot of empty land between the suburbs, where I lived, and downtown. To me it was just incomprehensible. I thought, we have all these folks that need housing, why isn’t somebody just doing this? So after university I worked in construction. I spent a lot of time talking to city planners, local developers, and non-profit folks. And then I went to law school. If you had talked to me back in September I would have said I was looking for 30,000 sq. ft. or so to develop 10 to 12 apartments. That’s what I thought I could handle. But I fell into a deal that is 110,000 sq. ft. and 65 apartments for half the price. So what was originally going to be $3 to 4 million is now nearly a $10 million project. The real value Sales Concepts has given me is confidence. The ability to keep things moving, to not be stopped by any negative chatter in my head. I know I’ll be able to raise the equity and convince a lender to support this project — even though it’s my first and it’s three times the size. That’s because I have the tools to identify their needs and to present the ways I can help solve those needs (and if need be) move quickly to a “no” so that I can move on to the next prospect