Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
[00:00:00] Cameron Clark: What's the most challenging thing about commercial real estate business today?
[00:00:04] Marshall Saviers: Property management, asset management, development, investment. How can we do all these things and make it a, a whole pie, not just a piece of the pie
[00:00:10] Cameron Clark: after the merger? A lot of wind to the sails. Totally. Like pretty fast. We
[00:00:14] Marshall Saviers: grew really, really fast from 2016 to 2022.
[00:00:18] Nick Beyer: Does any of that impact the culture or do you think it has? Over time I said, Hey, something's off when the
[00:00:23] Marshall Saviers: culture's off, nobody's happy.
[00:00:25] Nick Beyer: Five years from now, 10 years from now, you think institution, more institutional capital's coming in here. How will that impact the commercial real estate market?
[00:00:32] Marshall Saviers: There's good and bad. There will be more available capital if you wanna do a deal, it'll feel different and less personal.
[00:00:37] Nick Beyer: Sage is doing what to prepare for that.
[00:00:39] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. Um.
[00:00:51] Cameron Clark: Marshall, thanks for coming on. You bet. This afternoon, not this morning. Yeah. Um, sitting here in y'all's conference room Yeah. Remodel. Just complete. That's right. Um, [00:01:00] looks really, really good. Thanks. If, um, yeah. People are watching, we can see all pinnacle here behind you. Yep. Um, so tell us, you know, a little bit, what is Sage, what all do y'all do here in the heart of the, you know, in the market here in Rogers and Pinnacle?
[00:01:17] Marshall Saviers: Yeah, so we're full service, commercial real estate firm. Uh, focus on brokerage, but do development investment work as well. Um, you know, what I say is we really, if there's a big complicated commercial, uh, job in northwest Arkansas, we usually are or want to be involved in some sort of fashion. We can manage it, we could lease it, we could put together an investment group.
Uh, we just, or we could, we could do all the above or one of the above. We really don't care. We just want to be able to help others. Mm-hmm. And you'll hear this a lot throughout the thing of if we're, we're a service company, right? Sounds really obvious, but we're here to serve others. And, uh, if we do that and we can, you know, help grow the, the area and while we're doing it, that's what we wanna do.
[00:01:54] Cameron Clark: Hmm. What's it been like? You know, we were just talking like over the last 10 years, I mean, really longer, [00:02:00] 20 years you've doing this Yeah. 20 years. Sage is 20 years old. Yep. Yeah. Just seeing the change over the last 20
[00:02:06] Marshall Saviers: years, it's incredible. I mean, I think about when I moved here in 2005, uh, when Sage started, um, you know, we were in the back of an appraisal office.
Uh, I had moved from Dallas in a, in a more like an office building like this, into the back of a one story building. And my desk was between two bathrooms. Uh, and I was thinking, what the heck am I doing here? And the reason I say that is just the symbolism of that. That's kinda where the market was. Yeah.
Right. There wasn't anything like this. And, and as we were talking about right before we got on the air, it's, it's hard for other people to come in this market and fathom. Everything you can see behind me wasn't here 10 to 15 years ago. Right. Or at least most Embassy Suites was here. Smattering of other things.
Yeah. But beyond that, that's it.
[00:02:49] Cameron Clark: The highway,
[00:02:50] Marshall Saviers: the that. Yeah. And so, you know, um, sounds super obvious, but this area is 25 years old, right? Mm-hmm. The highway, the interstate was, was mid [00:03:00] nineties. Mm-hmm. Late nineties, whatever it was. Uh, same with the airport. Yeah. Um, so when I moved here in 2005, that was just starting to ripple through.
Mm-hmm. Like the area really started to feel like a region and not just for, you know, small towns. And, um, so really lucky to be able to see it all feels like seeing it all over the past 20 years.
[00:03:18] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. And talk about, so growing up, grew up in Little Rock. Yeah. Um, and then like, just kind of give some of that, that background story grew up in the commercial real estate world.
Yeah.
[00:03:27] Marshall Saviers: So, um, most, mostly I grew up in the commercial real estate world outside of Little Rock actually. So my dad was an old Tramel Crow partner, so Trammel Crow. Was the largest industrial developer in the country, maybe in the world, uh, in the eighties and nineties. Uh, and my, my dad was a U of a grad. My parents were both from Fort Smith.
I was born in Fort Smith.
[00:03:47] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[00:03:47] Marshall Saviers: Uh, when I was two, my dad working for IBM, uh, which was kind of a pre prestigious job at the time, just said, I don't like working in a corporate world. I really like real estate. So he found Trammel Crow, went down [00:04:00] there, trained under them in his mid twenties. 'cause uh, I was born when they were 25, so maybe mid to late twenties.
And then after two years of training there, they said, go open an office in New Orleans. So in his late twenties, he opened an office in New Orleans, um, and started doing industrial development there. Got that office up and running. Then went to Chicago, uh, which was ob it still is the biggest industrial market in the country.
Mm-hmm. And ended up running that, uh, office on the industrial side for Tramell Crow. And then all the partners split in the late eighties. And when that happened, my parents always told us when we were growing up, Hey, you're gonna, we're gonna, you're Arkansans, you're gonna identify as that. Chicago was great, but it wasn't, you know, our culture.
And so, uh, we moved to Little Rock in in 1990 when I was 10. And, uh, so it's, it's home, but I still have the, the exposure of a lot of different things. And he was under a non-compete at the time, so he wasn't in real estate kind of when I was in my formative years in Little Rock.
[00:04:51] Nick Beyer: Mm.
[00:04:52] Marshall Saviers: Um, and then got back into it, which we can talk about later, but, but seeing that, you know, it's funny, I thought I always, I didn't think I wanted to be in real estate.
'cause what I [00:05:00] remember is being in the back of a car looking at warehouses
[00:05:02] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:05:03] Marshall Saviers: And being like, this stinks. Like this is the most boring thing I've ever done in my life. And, uh, and bucked it. And I think naturally as a teenager too, you want, you know, you think you wanna blaze your own trail. Yeah. Uh, but I went to school at SU in Dallas.
Dallas is, you know, feels like the real estate capital of the world, uh, at this point. And everybody you meet there is in real estate in some form or fashion. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I interned at a real estate company when I was a sophomore. And freaking loved it.
[00:05:27] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Marshall Saviers: And just was like, okay. And it's very different than what my, my father, uh, does and did.
Um, I was representing office tenants, so I, what I would do in, in college was go walk every, every office building in Dallas, and this is, you know, the very early CoStar days for mm-hmm. Those who know what CoStar is, which is a real large commercial database. And, uh, I'd write down the, I'd walk in the morning and write down tenants names and get chased off by security guards and try to put together stacking plans and then come in and then enter 'em all in, figure out who to call, and then hand it to my boss and he'd [00:06:00] go call those tenants.
[00:06:01] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:06:01] Marshall Saviers: And so that was a really cool way to learn the business, uh, gave you a lot of confidence. Also really made you understand how buildings are built and what works and what doesn't work. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I stayed on with that team after college, but then by my mid twenties, I knew I wanted to be back in Arkansas.
[00:06:16] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:16] Marshall Saviers: Uh, and at the time I could either, you know, really still, if you want to be in commercial real estate in Arkansas, it's like, do you move to Little Rock? We moved to Northwest Arkansas and northwest Arkansas seemed like a much crazier option at the time.
[00:06:28] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Talk about that. Like what, what, what was the feel?
So this was 2005, you said? Yeah. Yeah. What was the feel then?
[00:06:34] Marshall Saviers: Well, I'd love to say like, I had the foresight to, to see all this. Um, there was two things. One, my uncle Tommy Van Sant was up here. Mm-hmm. Which we'll get into, I'm sure here in a bit. And he was calling me saying, Hey, there's all these Walmart vendors moving here, and there's a bunch of people representing 'em that are like residential agents, and they, you are actually trained in this.
Like, there's there you can do really well here. And, um, uh, so that was, that was the first thing. The second thing is [00:07:00] already mentioned, my dad love my dad to death. Really, really close. But I knew if I moved back to Little Rock, I'd be his son in business. And I felt like I needed, for whatever reason, probably just to prove myself, uh, that I needed to blaze my own trail.
Yeah. I mean, he's always been involved in Sage. He's still, uh, you know, a, an owner in Sage, but he's always been, you know, very hands off as far as he's there to help guide and consult. But. I just needed to prove that to myself. And so that was, you know, that was, that was, that was honestly the main reason I moved up here.
[00:07:27] Cameron Clark: And so Mark and Tommy were partners at the time?
[00:07:29] Marshall Saviers: That's right. And they're not relate. So that's my mom's brother was Tommy. Okay. And so, but they, my parents have been together since junior high. So, um, my Tommy was like my dad's brother as well. They're, they were really, really close. So, um, so that was, that was neat.
And so when, when Sage started in 2005, I was, uh, the young guys as well as David Stein, who's still in the business here. And then, uh, Tommy Van Zant, Brian Shaw, um, who's still on our board, and my dad were the three partners.
[00:07:54] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. Your dad's still lived in Little Rock though? Everybody else up here. Yeah, that's right.
Yep. Um, [00:08:00] so the, yeah. Those, those first out the gate. Yeah. What, what were you, you were a lot of tenant rep work. I saw. I did. Okay.
[00:08:07] Marshall Saviers: All I new.
[00:08:07] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Marshall Saviers: So I would walk all these buildings, write down the tenant name. This is what I knew, right? Like. Call 'em up. And still, I still work with some of those tenants today that started in a couple thousand feet.
Now some of 'em are 20, 30, 40,000 feet.
[00:08:20] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:20] Marshall Saviers: Uh, I made quite a few landlords mad, uh, because they didn't understand the game. Like I was also pioneering that they didn't even know what tenant representation was.
[00:08:29] Cameron Clark: Why is this guy negotiating? Right.
[00:08:31] Marshall Saviers: And how is he gonna get paid? Yeah. Yeah. So I remember like one of the first things I did was like, have to write a one page sheet of like, this is what tenant representation is, and then I'd have to teach the landlords how to pay me.
Wow. And which wasn't easy. Um, and then teach the tenants why they needed to use me. Wow. And then, so the other thing that I did, which was even more impactful, certainly for the business that we're in today, is I also knew the game of these, these corporate, the JLLs Cushman's of the world, which we're now involved with, [00:09:00] um, they all had these national accounts.
Right. I knew that from Dallas.
[00:09:03] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Marshall Saviers: So I started cold calling all the, all the corporate real estate firms.
[00:09:06] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. I
[00:09:07] Marshall Saviers: called JLL and Cushman. Crea and cb and I'd say, Hey, if you need to do something in Arkansas, use me. And at the time, all they had was just like a spreadsheet.
[00:09:15] Cameron Clark: Yeah,
[00:09:16] Marshall Saviers: right. This guy
[00:09:16] Cameron Clark: actually called us, this guy actually called us from Arkansas.
Yeah,
[00:09:19] Marshall Saviers: yeah. Yeah. And so that we started getting a ton of inbound business, corporate business through that. Still do.
[00:09:24] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:09:24] Marshall Saviers: Yeah,
[00:09:26] Cameron Clark: man. Um, and so talk like those, those first probably maybe five years when y'all were, y'all were stayed pretty small. And then last intent, Tommy
[00:09:34] Marshall Saviers: and Brian always wanted to keep it small for, for different reasons.
Tommy had come from Dallas and from a big shop and just didn't want the, and he had been a manager over a lot of folks and just didn't want that burden, which understood. And, and, and Brian, uh, had come from Denver and from another big shop, and they just wanted to keep it smaller and boutique.
[00:09:51] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:52] Marshall Saviers: But then a couple things happened, you know, uh, 20, I was 29.
So in 2009, uh, [00:10:00] uh, was when my, my uncle Tommy, I had became a quadriplegic. And so. It was during the ice storm. Uh, a lot of people know this story. Mm-hmm. But he was cutting a limb. The limb hit the bottom of the ladder. He flipped around and, and, and landed on his neck, and broke his neck. And so it was a traumatic thing for our family.
Um, certainly traumatic for the business. The other traumatic thing for the business is that was February, 2009. Heart of the Great Recession. Mm. We had $0 coming in the door, like literally no nothing. And one of the two main guys is, you know, on his deathbed.
[00:10:30] Nick Beyer: Mm.
[00:10:31] Marshall Saviers: And so I was 29 and I'm thinking, you know, it's, it's, you, we all have these crossroad moments in life.
And that was my crossroad moments for sure of do I step up? Do I step out? Sage even gonna be around.
[00:10:45] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:10:45] Marshall Saviers: Right. And so, uh, I remember sitting there with my wife at a Mexican restaurant in Little Rock. I don't know why we were there and saying, all right, I'm, I feel, uh, empowered that we're gonna really ramp this thing up.
And, [00:11:00] uh, you think I've been working hard now, but just wait and see and I don't, I don't know what, what made me
[00:11:04] Cameron Clark: say that,
[00:11:04] Marshall Saviers: say that or do that. I just, I just vividly remember that. Um, and so those two combinations of things really shaped our next, you know, really until now of, okay, we're gonna become more full service.
We're not gonna have $0 coming in the door ever again. Uh, and we're gonna, and in order to do that, we gotta get bigger and better and stronger and not rely on one or two people or one or two deals.
[00:11:24] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So talk about that even more on that year. The, I mean, you say $0 in the doorbell, like how, how, how long did that really last?
What did it, what other kinds of things? I mean,
[00:11:38] Marshall Saviers: you know, honestly, you feeling Yeah. Uh, I've had to work through some of it mentally. 'cause I, you, you almost have like A-P-T-S-D, like Yeah. Uh, deal with it. Um,
[00:11:47] Cameron Clark: do you have any kids at the time?
[00:11:49] Marshall Saviers: Uh, didn't have any kids at the time. Yeah. Just freshly married.
[00:11:51] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[00:11:52] Marshall Saviers: Um, my kids came a couple years later and so, um. I don't know, uh, [00:12:00] how we came out of it. I do know there was a couple things that happened in our favor. One is we weren't part of the problem up here. It's hard for people to fathom what happened here in 2009 and how many people were gotten a big, big jam.
[00:12:10] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:11] Marshall Saviers: But because we were small, this is a testament to Brian and Tommy, we weren't, we didn't overstretch ourselves as far as getting into development deals or any of that. Mm-hmm. So the banks were coming to us and saying, Hey, help us get outta all this REO that they owned. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They couldn't go to a lot of other firms 'cause they were part of the problem.
Right. And so they came to us and said, help us. Help us. So that really, you know, whether it was, um, village on the Creeks, uh, which we helped, or, uh, all the land at the Wi Hunts zone just south of here. Yeah. Those were all deals that we did through banks.
[00:12:43] Cameron Clark: Really? Mm-hmm.
[00:12:44] Marshall Saviers: That, uh, which just sounds crazy. Those were all distressed sales at the time, but they were very distressed.
[00:12:49] Cameron Clark: Yeah. So, I mean, for people listening, it's like that's bank gets the keys back. Hey, we, we don't want this. Right. We don't want this. That's right. We need to get this, we need to get this off the books. Right. Help us. Help us sell it.
[00:12:58] Marshall Saviers: That's right. Yeah. And [00:13:00] so that was, and 'cause we had done a lot of corporate work, we knew how to talk that language.
[00:13:04] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:04] Marshall Saviers: So that really powered us through the recession. Yeah. And the other thing that, that helped, just, just being here, I mean, I know the exact data, but basically a year after the great recession started, we started climbing out of it here.
[00:13:15] Nick Beyer: Mm mm
[00:13:16] Marshall Saviers: The country took two or three years. Yeah. Um, but just because of all the things that go on here that, that make it somewhat recession resistant,
[00:13:24] Cameron Clark: still people moving here, Walmart does better
[00:13:26] Marshall Saviers: in recession.
[00:13:27] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:13:27] Marshall Saviers: Right. There's a lot of, there's a lot of those things. Certainly everything slows down.
[00:13:31] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:13:31] Marshall Saviers: But it didn't stop like the rest of the country stopped.
[00:13:34] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[00:13:34] Marshall Saviers: So, so that's what led us, uh, after that trajectory is like, okay, we're gonna go buy kind of the traditional commercial playbook of, you know, property management, asset management, all the things I just mentioned earlier, development, investment.
How can we do all these things and make it a, uh, a whole pie? Not just a piece of the pie.
[00:13:49] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Not just brokerage.
[00:13:50] Marshall Saviers: That's right.
[00:13:53] Cameron Clark: And then, so was there one of those that kind of started first like between like property management, asset management, or was [00:14:00] just like, Hey, let's just find the right deal and people need us to more like find the right deal.
Add more service. Yeah, add more service. Add
[00:14:06] Marshall Saviers: more service. Add more service. We never wanted to lead deals still don't we still want our clients to lead deals? Yeah. We, we don't want to be seen as the guys that are competing against them.
[00:14:14] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:15] Marshall Saviers: Um, but we do, you know, we do know we do see a lot of things and so we'll try to make some, match the right clients with the right deals, which, which also led to natural capital, which we'll talk about later too.
Um, but that's, you know, so it wasn't really like, okay, we're gonna do this in the playbook and this in the playbook. It was, it was more opportunistic than that.
[00:14:31] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:32] Marshall Saviers: Where do we see a void in the market? We saw it on the property management front. Um, so that was, that was not easy, but there was more low hanging fruit there.
Yeah. Uh, and then, you know, in the early 2000 tens also you, you could develop a lot easier. I mean, construction costs were so much lower, so much lower. Could do that, you could do that easier. So, and you gotta think, talking about the area not being that old, there wasn't a lot of legacy product here still isn't.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Still is an issue here. Mm-hmm. Right. Uh, where we've got low vacancy rates because we don't [00:15:00] have a lot of things that were built in the sixties, seventies, eighties. Here you gotta,
[00:15:03] Cameron Clark: you have to keep building, you have
[00:15:04] Marshall Saviers: to keep building your way out of it. Yeah. Keep building your way to the growth.
[00:15:07] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. And so talk about your specific brokerage business between 2010 and 2015. Maybe, like how, how did, how did that change or evolve? Still a lot of tenant rep work. Yeah. Or that kinda like probably percent
[00:15:19] Marshall Saviers: tenant rep work instead of 80 or 90. Yeah. Um, and then the rest would be, uh, you know, helping out if there's a development deal.
I'm not a developer, I'm a deal guy. I'm not a developer by trade. Mm-hmm. That's, that's just not how my, I'm a, I'm a total front end guy. Talk about the difference that
[00:15:33] Cameron Clark: people know too.
[00:15:34] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. So on the development front, uh, usually it's, it's somebody that's very detail oriented, task oriented. You know, you gotta get entitled to the city, you gotta get, you know, you gotta do all the blocking and tackling things to get something ready.
And as you well know, that can take a year.
[00:15:48] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:15:48] Marshall Saviers: Right? Yeah. Um, uh, you know, where, where I add value is I can see the deal, I can put together the formation of the deal and then hand it off to somebody, you know, much more equipped than I to [00:16:00] execute on it.
[00:16:00] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:16:01] Marshall Saviers: Um, so, you know, on the development front, that's just a longer, much longer, uh, process.
Uh, I tend to be, whether it's just my a DD or me or whatever I want, I wanna spin something up and then go spin up the next thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:13] Cameron Clark: It's a team sport. Yeah, totally. And that's,
[00:16:15] Marshall Saviers: that's, I think, and you, you can appreciate this too. Everybody always thinks, oh, I want to be a developer. It's like a development is a team thing.
Yeah.
[00:16:23] Cameron Clark: Hmm. What, what, what are you gonna do? Exactly. Right. Exactly.
[00:16:26] Marshall Saviers: That's right. And it's, there's, there's so many varied skill sets in that.
[00:16:29] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:30] Marshall Saviers: Uh, I can play a role in that, but I'm certainly not want to be, you know, the, the person in that Yeah.
[00:16:35] Cameron Clark: At the city council meetings. That's right. And
[00:16:37] Marshall Saviers: that's what we're talking about on the Sage side, because we're, we're getting more and more into project management
[00:16:41] Cameron Clark: uhhuh,
[00:16:41] Marshall Saviers: where it's like if a company, if a company wants to redo their space like we did
[00:16:44] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:16:45] Marshall Saviers: Whoever sees that. So that'll lead to development work.
[00:16:47] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:16:48] Marshall Saviers: Right. But that's probably gonna be partnering with a qualified developer. Yeah. Doing that. You know, at my heart and at our heart at Sage, we're partner people. Yeah. Uh, we are great with everybody succeeding. We want the community to succeed. [00:17:00] We want Sage succeed, but that doesn't mean we have to do it all.
[00:17:02] Cameron Clark: Did the name have partners in it from the Beg Get Go Did. That was intentional.
[00:17:05] Marshall Saviers: And that was another Brian and Tommy thing. If we don't want it to have a name of someone else, uh, because a lot of times, and I, I'm thinking about this a lot, uh, as I'm getting older, I'm 45 this year of. How do I position and how do we position this so that this doesn't die with me or anybody else?
This is, this is for, this is not my company. This is, this is everyone's company. So how does it succeed beyond me and how do I work myself out of a job and that that doesn't mean I'm leaving Sage. Yeah. It just means as it grows and evolves, there'll be somebody come better than me that's a better manager.
[00:17:39] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[00:17:39] Marshall Saviers: Um, I'm the right person right now from, mainly from a cultural standpoint. Um, but there'll be somebody come along better than me. Mm. And so I think you just see so many service firms die at the vine.
[00:17:49] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:17:49] Marshall Saviers: Uh, whether it's, you know, ego or, uh, generational thing or whatever it is. Um, but that, that's what's in my head all the time about how to, how to counteract that.
[00:17:58] Cameron Clark: And what is, why Sage? What was [00:18:00] the name? Like, where did that come from? Well,
[00:18:01] Marshall Saviers: uh, we're all, and I'm the biggest one, uh, big fly fishing nut. Yeah. So there's part of that. Um, and then part of it is obviously the wisdom, uh, side of it. So there's, there's dual, dual name reasons there, huh? Yeah.
[00:18:16] Nick Beyer: Um, talk, talk about the industry a little more during that timeframe, like coming out of the recession mm-hmm.
There were some other firms here. Totally. Were they full service? Was that, no. So that was like, y'all were really trying to figure out where the puck was heading and you could see it, we could
[00:18:32] Marshall Saviers: see the growth coming and knew that somebody was gonna step up and be, you know, the largest full service firm and, uh, had opportunities, uh, and projects we were involved with to be that.
So yeah, we, we bet on the come it was early mm-hmm. For what we did. Um, but we knew what was coming and so that now, uh, you know, fast forward to today and we can see where the institutions are gonna be here in the next five to 10 years. Mm-hmm. So how do we institutionalize what we do so we can sell to those institutional firms to manage [00:19:00] for them.
Mm-hmm. Or lease for them. Yeah. It's gonna be a very different playbook than it is right now. A very different playbook now than it was 10 years ago.
[00:19:07] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. And then you said your dad was in Little Rock at the time? Mm-hmm. Tommy here. Brian here? Mm-hmm. You here? Yep. Was there a little rock firm? My dad was in Little
[00:19:18] Marshall Saviers: Rock, but he was never, he always had, he was still developing in Houston actually at the time.
Okay. With his old Tramell Crow partners. So we had a, technically had an office in Little Rock, um, but really Aaron Nicholson, who's now in our office up here until he came on, I'm gonna get this wrong, but, you know, 2014, 15, maybe, maybe a little bit earlier than that. Uh, we didn't even have, we didn't have, we, we cover it.
Yeah. I could know it just 'cause I grew up there and we could, we could get him down business there, but we didn't have a true office there until Oh, mid to late 2000 tens.
[00:19:50] Nick Beyer: Hmm. Okay. Okay. So six, seven years into the business. Yeah. Y'all are, your focus is here, but y'all are still servicing Rock. Oh yeah. We wanna keep
[00:19:57] Marshall Saviers: growing Little Rock.
Yeah, for sure. And we've got a great team down [00:20:00] there and. There's a lot more management business down there. I mean, it sounds simple, but there's more buildings. Yeah, sure. Right. There's not as much, not nearly the deal activity. So I don't know if it's, uh, it's unscientific, but it's two x three x same size area, essentially, but two less.
We got two x three x the amount of deals up here.
[00:20:17] Cameron Clark: Wow. Bigger deals. Mm-hmm.
[00:20:18] Marshall Saviers: Yeah.
[00:20:20] Cameron Clark: And so the kind of the 2015, the 20 20 16 was when the merger happened, right? Yeah. But before, before we get in that, were there any other national affiliates in the market yet?
[00:20:30] Marshall Saviers: CB came. Yep. Uh, we talked to them. Uh, they wanted to own it.
[00:20:36] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:37] Marshall Saviers: Uh, we always were big on we were gonna, uh, control our own destiny here, so that didn't work out because of that. But we were always kind of the likely player just given our background experience, especially on the tenant rep side, which is really where the, the action was here.
[00:20:50] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Marshall Saviers: At the time. Um, and then I just started chasing Cushman.
I just knew it was right fit. I liked that, that it was an affiliate model, which we have now, which means we [00:21:00] independently own and operate it. Mm-hmm. They're great. They give us a platform, uh, to, to, to go off of and, and it's great when we're, we're pitching business, especially outside this region, but we also don't have, we're not beholden
[00:21:12] Nick Beyer: to them.
Yeah.
[00:21:13] Marshall Saviers: Um, so that seems to be the best model. It still, to me, I'm obviously highly biased, but, but the best model for us. And so, um, it took years. I mean, everybody, um, everybody in the state was trying to get it because of those reasons. Yeah. Um, and uh, we just, I just, you know, it's just my personality. I'm just gonna bird dog it.
Yeah. Yeah. And so it worked out. And so that was in, so you, you alluded to the merger in 2016. Basically the, the merger with Hunt Ventures and Cushman all happened within that 2016, 2017 timeframe.
[00:21:46] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:46] Marshall Saviers: And that's what took us from. At the time, we were about 30 people in our management business. I can't remember what we were management wise, but let's say we were a million feet, a million and a half feet, you know, that catapults us to five, 6 million feet.
Wow. Uh, in pretty short order.
[00:21:59] Cameron Clark: [00:22:00] And so people, for people who don't know, what is Hunt Ventures? Yeah. What was it, what was it at the time? And then like, obviously, what is it now?
[00:22:05] Marshall Saviers: Uh, at the time it was a similar size company to us. It had about 30 people. It was, you know, John O. Hunt. Um, everybody knows JB Hunt and John O.
Hunt.
[00:22:13] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:14] Marshall Saviers: Um, you know, he passed away in 2008, 2009 and maybe get that a little bit wrong, but in that timeframe. And, um, she's an incredible lady and partner and, uh, you know, everything that, if you can see this on video, everything it around here was his vision.
[00:22:30] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:22:31] Marshall Saviers: But she's always been the operator, whether it was at JB Hunt or on the real estate side.
So she's finishing his vision, and so, mm-hmm. I think at the time when we merged there was probably around a million feet, uh, that she had in her portfolio. That's probably, that's getting close to doubling at this point. And, um, so, so she's an she and Hunt Ventures is, and Tom Allen, who's, uh, you know, my main partner here at Sage, day-to-day partner here at Sage.
Tom and I had always talked about, [00:23:00] just because we really respected each other, I was representing all the tenants. He was the main landlord guy. Mm-hmm. Culturally, we fit from a culture, faith perspective, all those things. We were, we were locked in. Um, and it's a pretty funny story, but, uh, uh, not, won't name too many names, but we had a very young, aggressive broker at the time, uh, and, and Tom always said, Hey, when we do something, I wanna do something with you and y'all Great.
Let's figure it out together. Whether that means we were just a service provider, we didn't, we didn't know what that meant. Right. It was just a buddy talk, basically. And we had a young aggressive broker who just went in and met with Mrs. Hunt. Unbeknownst to us and pitched sage merging with adventures. Uh, and she was open to it.
Yeah. But then I get a call from Tom, not happy with me at the time, thinking I went around him. I was like, man, I have no idea what you're talking about. And he quickly figured out I was No way, no way. You not know this happened. Yeah. Uh, actually I don't, which maybe [00:24:00] is a bad reflection on me too. Uh, and so, um, so quickly the talks turned into, you know, something more serious.
Uh, and then now she, you know, is, uh, a partner at Sage and, um, it's been great. We, we integrated, we went from two 30 people, teams to a 60 person team and, uh, and had a pretty massive, you know, integration cultural culture, uh, being enforced and foremost. And you'll hear that a lot today. Just we're so, you know, culture's so big to us.
And so how to do that. Um, was, you know, it was a challenge and a, and a big lift, but we were able to do it. And then Cushman was right on the tails of that. Mm-hmm. And we, but we were having those discussions at the same time.
[00:24:37] Cameron Clark: Talk about the challenges of like, building a culture in a brokerage business.
[00:24:40] Marshall Saviers: It's really hard. Um, 'cause at, at, at its essence, brokers are independent contractors. Right. They're, they're brokers for a reason.
[00:24:49] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:49] Marshall Saviers: Because they like to do what they like to do.
[00:24:51] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:24:52] Marshall Saviers: Um, but it is, it's possible. It's really possible. Um, uh, I'll say this, you know, um, I view, [00:25:00] uh, my uncle Tommy as he was the keeper of the culture while he passed away about a year ago.
Uh, which he lived 15 years, which was incredible. He is, he wasn't supposed to live, he had an incredibly strong faith, was an unbelievable man. And so we had a, we had a embodiment of the culture coming in every day. And it would take him, uh, four hours to get ready, and then he'd come in for a couple hours and four hours to get ready for bed.
[00:25:23] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. So
[00:25:24] Marshall Saviers: he'd spend eight hours to get ready for two hours, essentially three. So to see that and to see he was all about, at that time, he couldn't really broker. Yeah. But what he could, and, and it was funny because we always told him this. I think he always had the mindset if he was still a broker, but he was so much more important than that.
I was like, Tommy, anybody can be a broker. Nobody can do what you do.
[00:25:44] Cameron Clark: Yeah. That's
[00:25:44] Marshall Saviers: so much more important.
[00:25:45] Cameron Clark: Which was
[00:25:46] Marshall Saviers: what, which is serve others to sit there. He'll, his office was directly behind us here. He would have somebody come in his office and, uh, we, we called him the, the HR nightmare, uh, jokingly [00:26:00] because he would ask, and I think it was because he was so exposed.
Like he was, you're, you're sitting there with, with a, a guy that's a quadriplegic. And he could ask, he would ask. He would ask and, and did ask anything. Yeah. I mean, very personal questions and a lot of times in a good way, it sounds bad and like a lot of ways people would leave his office crying. Yeah. But like, like just impacted not sad.
Mm-hmm. Just really impacted by the conversation. And it turned into faith a lot. And, um. Where they wanted to go. We always laughed about this was when his funeral, it was mentioned. 'cause um, they had all of his helpers stand up and there was like 50 of 'em that stood up. And you're like, why, why did he have all these helpers?
Well, it's because he would mentor them along the way and they'd go, he'd be like, well, you need to go follow your dream. And, and his wife would finally be like, we need people to stay. You can't, you can't keep talking people out of working for you. You know? But that was just his personality of how can I help?
How can I help? How can I help man? And so to have that cultural [00:27:00] influence. So I feel like since, uh, I'm the last guy standing from that original sage crew, and I mentioned this earlier about, you know, on the culture side, I feel like I'm the keeper of the culture to, to embody that to this next generation.
[00:27:13] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And what a, what an amazing like yeah. Guy to follow, follow in that. Unbelievable.
[00:27:22] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. And I'm, I'm doing an o okay. Job at it, but, uh, nobody can follow that, but, but. We still, I mean, we are sitting in his, we just renamed this boardroom after him. Right. So really, really cool. There's nothing up on him yet, but there will be.
Yeah. Um, but he'll always have a place here and the culture will always really reflect what his, what his values were.
[00:27:40] Cameron Clark: Hmm. So who was leading the company at the time? Or was it, was, was it individual or, or, or board back in,
[00:27:46] Marshall Saviers: um,
[00:27:46] Cameron Clark: like when, when the Cushman merger happened?
[00:27:48] Marshall Saviers: Uh, uh, all of that at the time was, uh, Brian Shaw was CEOI was president, so it was a, it was AB dual.
He was certainly, you know, had a, had the higher title and, and the power authority of that. Um, and [00:28:00] then, but I, we were leading it, you know, in lockstep day to day. And then, you know, as when Tom and Hunt Ventures came on board, he took a leadership position as well. You know, Brian decided three, four, or five years ago, two.
Go work for Blue Crane. He's a developer at heart. Yeah. Uh, he wanted to make an impact on the development side. Totally get it. Uh, and still again mentioned, still still on the board. He'll be in here Friday in our board meeting. Mm-hmm. Uh, great guy. Um, so that's when I stepped up CEO and then Tom stepped up to be president.
Okay. Yep.
[00:28:29] Nick Beyer: Going back to the culture piece, is there any, is there any in the intentionality, I know you said the, the word partners was in the name from the beginning. Yeah. But in the formation of how you become a partner, how you are a partner, how many partners you have, does any of that impact the culture or do you think it has over time?
[00:28:45] Marshall Saviers: Yeah, it has, and it's been hard sometimes. Um, and we've had brokers struggle with this, um, as we've gotten bigger, because when we bring on a partner and I'm gonna, I'm gonna die on this hill, uh, whether I'm right or wrong, you know, a lot of firms [00:29:00] will, if you make a certain amount in production, you become a partner.
And, uh, in my mind it's, and, and Tom's mind too. It's not all about production, it's also about how you treat others, how you service your clients. What you're doing in the community.
[00:29:13] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:13] Marshall Saviers: Um, certainly production's a part of it, but it's not everything. Uh, and if somebody's not going to, um, uh, you know, exude our culture, then they're not gonna be a partner.
And so I think that's where we are. We differ a bit. And, and by the way, we're bringing on partners that aren't brokers too. That's also, you know, uh, Bailey Benson, who has been, uh, with Sage for 15 years now, started as a receptionist now, uh, is over, um, all of our, uh, broker administration. And she's my right hand personally.
She's a partner. Yeah. 'cause she, she, she embodies everything we're about. Mm-hmm. So we're bringing on, you know, if you're all about what, what what we preach, we don't care if you're a broker, if you're, whatever what you do here.
[00:29:55] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:29:55] Marshall Saviers: You're, you're gonna have a chance to, you're gonna have a chance to succeed and be a partner.
[00:29:59] Nick Beyer: And is it [00:30:00] voted on? How does that Yeah. Okay.
[00:30:01] Marshall Saviers: It's voted on. Cool.
[00:30:02] Nick Beyer: Yep.
[00:30:02] Marshall Saviers: Yep. By the board. We have a board. Um. That consists of, uh, seven of us now since Tommy passed. Um, all of which were, have been involved or are involved in Sage in some way. Um, mentioned already Brian, Mrs. Hunt, Tom Allen, uh, TJ Loeffler, and, uh, my dad.
And then sure, I'm missing one or two, but, um, but that's the kind of core group.
[00:30:23] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cool. Um, so yeah, a after the, after the merger, um, and then the, and the, the affiliate, uh, of Cushman talk about like the next couple years after that, like it feels like it's a lot, a lot of wind at the sails.
Totally, pretty fast.
[00:30:39] Marshall Saviers: We grew really, really fast from 2016 to 2022.
[00:30:44] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:45] Marshall Saviers: And got up to 80 people. And um, you know, it was interesting and I gotta give Tom credit for this. Tom came in my office one day and he said, Hey, something's off culturally, we need to do something about it. And started noticing [00:31:00] it. I think I was just head down.
Doing my deal and not justifying it at all, should have had a better pulse on it. Uh, and so we made the decision to start, um, letting people go if they didn't, you know, so when you're, and also when you're hiring during COVID and during these really tough years to hire, uh, and you're growing really fast, we certainly settled, uh, culturally on some folks.
Um, and frankly have changed our hiring practices. Well, I can get into in here in a minute. So we, we went from 80 people to 60 people. Um, we also, um, if a client wasn't culturally aligned with us, um, and it wasn't something that was one culturally aligned and two, you know, not a money maker, we, we also said it's, it's not a good fit either.
[00:31:43] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:31:43] Marshall Saviers: So we went from I think 20 as far as like best year as a company. 2022 is our best year as a company, but also my most miserable as a boss, uh, because the culture was off. Uh, when the culture's off, nobody's happy. Yeah. Uh, and we're having to let a [00:32:00] lot of people go, which isn't
[00:32:01] Nick Beyer: fun. Hmm.
[00:32:02] Marshall Saviers: Um, so now we're building it back up the right way, methodically.
Um, you know, Cameron, we talked about it the other night with a lot of great young people and
[00:32:09] Cameron Clark: great young people.
[00:32:09] Marshall Saviers: Um, and so, uh, we're doing it the right way now. Uh, we've learned from our mistakes, frankly, about how to do that.
[00:32:16] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:17] Marshall Saviers: And so, like, by the time somebody gets to me, um, from a, you know, they, they get through the whatever, if they're an accountant or property manager, broker, whatever it is, I don't even look at the resume anymore.
I just look at, I just ask 'em questions about their family, faith, their, what makes 'em tick, where they're from. All those things matter much more to me than their skillset.
[00:32:37] Cameron Clark: And I mean, I feel like that's way, way easier said than done. So like, if, if you're sitting with someone right now that Yeah. Maybe, you know, working 12, 14 hour days Yep.
Growing like crazy. Yeah. Can't, I mean, can't think. And it's like, dude, I just gotta hire people. Like, what do you, what do you tell them?
[00:32:54] Marshall Saviers: Um,
[00:32:55] Cameron Clark: you
[00:32:55] Marshall Saviers: know, as far as like if it puts a strain on the company itself. Yeah. [00:33:00] Uh, luckily we're, so what we do is we try to get ahead of that by saying, okay, if a really good person comes along, even if we don't have a role for them, we're just gonna hire 'em.
[00:33:08] Nick Beyer: Hmm.
[00:33:09] Marshall Saviers: So that when we have those strains, that that person, we have a backup. Yeah. So, fortunately now, really since the pandemic, we're ha we see a lot higher, uh, skillset folks come through our door. Some of it's because of us, some of it's 'cause of the market mm-hmm. Uh, that have maybe experience in a bigger market, maybe experience at Walmart.
They just want a different, you know, phase of life. Yeah. And so we'll just be like, we're gonna, we don't have, we don't have a role for them right now, but they are a rockstar and they're a cultural fit.
[00:33:36] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:33:37] Marshall Saviers: We're gonna hire 'em so that we, we get ahead of getting in that moment. Yeah. It doesn't happen. I mean, look, there's certainly, uh, if you ask, I'm sure, uh, people would say there's times when they get strained.
Yeah. But we try to get, we try to get ahead of that now. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:33:50] Cameron Clark: That's. So, yeah. When did the sales post the post, uh, post merger, post, uh, [00:34:00] Cushman hiring a lot of people fast. Um, and then talk about like the 2020 to 2022 era when like market was gone. Bananas, yeah. Rates were super low. Like talk about you maybe your, your business then like when, when did, like, how do you balance the, and that the second question to this is like, how do you balance the management versus like your own, I mean, you're doing brokerage Sure.
You know, business as well. I'm sure during that time it probably was pretty, pretty challenging.
[00:34:28] Marshall Saviers: Um, it's a, it it was very challenging at the time. It's a lot easier now because we have, our team is so strong now. Mm-hmm. That, um, of course I'm managing day to day, but the team is managing day to day. Mm. Or it doesn't feel like it's all on my shoulders or Tom's shoulders or somebody else's, but there's trust there that they can, we have a great CEO now.
Great. CFO now. That, you know, they're really running the business Yeah. Day to day. Mm-hmm. And we're there to provide counsel and support. Certainly get stuff, bounce office all day, every day, all night, every night. But it's not, it's not as, um, [00:35:00] oh. Siloed as like, I'm managing here, I'm brokering here. Mm-hmm.
Now it's so interwoven. And frankly, our company's being run in a way that I don't feel like I have to insert myself as much.
[00:35:11] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:12] Marshall Saviers: Um, you know, I've learned a lot. Um, uh, you know, one of our partners at Natural Capital is Todd Simmons, who, you know, he's got 10,000 people. Right? Yeah. It's a, it's, it's kind of mind boggling, but he'll talk about how sometimes he'll get in the office and not have anything to do, you know?
And that's such a cool example. It's not any, and he's being, I mean, obviously being hyperbolic somewhat.
[00:35:31] Nick Beyer: Yeah,
[00:35:31] Marshall Saviers: yeah, yeah. But the point is, if you're really good, if you're a really good CEO, then you shouldn't have that much on your plate every day. Yeah. You should be directing and have the vision and looking forward and people, you know, following that vision.
You shouldn't have to be making those day-to-day decisions. Everybody should be in lockstep on that.
[00:35:49] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:50] Marshall Saviers: So I'm much better at that now. But to get your original question in 20 20, 20 20 to 2022, I was trying to spin all these plates at one time. Mm-hmm. And probably why I was not as happy [00:36:00] as I am today.
Yeah, yeah. Right. I wasn't unhappy. I've always been a, a, you know, happy guy, but, and optimistic, but I was, you know, I was putting too much pressure on myself.
[00:36:09] Cameron Clark: Yeah. There's no
[00:36:09] Marshall Saviers: doubt about it.
[00:36:11] Cameron Clark: You have to be somewhat optimistic to be in this business.
[00:36:12] Marshall Saviers: Uh, yeah. I'm an internal audience for sure. Yeah. It drives everybody around me nuts a little bit, but it's always true.
[00:36:18] Cameron Clark: Uh, you were just talking about natural capital though, when Yeah. So when, right around that timeframe when Nat Cap
[00:36:22] Marshall Saviers: started.
[00:36:22] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, talk about the inception there. Um,
[00:36:26] Marshall Saviers: yeah. You interviewed Brock. I listen to that. It's a good job. Yeah. Uh, thanks. I'll try not to be too redundant.
[00:36:30] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Yeah. From your perspective though, so you and Brock were just kind of having these organic conversations, right?
Well, and the market was
[00:36:38] Marshall Saviers: on fire, like you mentioned. Right. And so when that happened, I was really frustrated because let's just use, sitting in this conference room as an example, you had all these people coming in to Sage saying, Hey, I wanna be a part of what y'all are doing. If there's a deal you put together, great.
And Brock was also referring his clients to me. Yeah. Which, super appreciative of that. But then I was getting sup, I was getting very frustrated of, [00:37:00] okay, it felt like 10 do, for every $10 coming in this store, $1 is going back out. Mm-hmm. And that was horribly inefficient. So how do we, how do we form this in a way that our clients can succeed?
'cause we have a lot of crossover clients. Mm-hmm. Both Sage clients are also Greenwood gear, our clients. So how do we do that where our clients can succeed and we can help build the area.
[00:37:20] Cameron Clark: Yeah. And
[00:37:20] Marshall Saviers: so, uh, we want others certainly to come in and help build the area too, but we also want our Kansans, our friends and family too as well in an organized manner.
Yeah. And so. You know, uh, it's gone, it's gone frankly, above and beyond what we thought it would be. The area has a lot to do with that, but we also hit the right niche at the right time of filling a void in the market that I don't think people even knew was there. And frankly, I don't know. I mean, we felt it, but we didn't realize how big the void was.
[00:37:45] Cameron Clark: Talk about, I mean, like when you say what, what is the niche? What is like, I mean, obviously we talked about on Brock's episode a little bit, but like, what, what's the core of natural capital? Like what's, what's a good fit for like a, a good deal for natural capital? What's not?
[00:37:58] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. Usually a deal, [00:38:00] something of a bigger deal in scale mm-hmm.
Than what a, just, you know, if I was doing it by myself.
[00:38:05] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:38:06] Marshall Saviers: Could do.
[00:38:06] Cameron Clark: And is it LP Capital? GP Capital. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So it's,
[00:38:09] Marshall Saviers: yeah, it's a, it is a GP LP structure.
[00:38:10] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:11] Marshall Saviers: Right. Uh, and the, the partners there and myself brought Gearhart, the original partners myself, brought Gearhart, uh, Todd Simmons and Brad Henry, who runs it day-to-day.
And then we brought on Rob Kimball, uh, who's a great housing expert, uh, which is not my forte. And as a housing here was. Getting bigger, bigger, uh, we needed somebody on that side. Plus he's just a great guy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, and Ben Herberger, who was at Stevens, uh, as an investment, uh, guy, we needed somebody that could back up Brad on the investment side.
[00:38:36] Cameron Clark: Super smart. Super smart.
[00:38:38] Marshall Saviers: Needed that, a guy that could really get in the spreadsheets and really figure it out. Yeah. Uh, and so, um, so, and you know, we've got an unusual structure where we don't do just real estate, we also invest in companies.
[00:38:47] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:48] Marshall Saviers: And Ben had a background in that. Brad had a background in that obviously Rob and Todd are incredible operators and have built big businesses.
[00:38:54] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:55] Marshall Saviers: So, you know, when we formed it, everybody's like, y'all are, wait. Y'all are gonna do real estate in [00:39:00] this? And you know, we had a lot of things along the way that were unusual in our structure.
[00:39:05] Nick Beyer: Mm.
[00:39:06] Marshall Saviers: Um, but also felt like it really resonated with this area, uh, and our skillset.
[00:39:11] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:39:12] Marshall Saviers: So, um, so you know, plus or minus 75% of the deals we do are real estate, but it's about 50 50 and cash, uh, between comp.
'cause in companies you can't lever it. Yeah. Or you usually don't lever it. And you don't have co-invest. Whereas on the real estate side, we can also go to our investors and they can co-invest alongside us as well. So if it's a, you know, a 20, $30 million deal, we can do it and we can do it, you know, fairly quickly.
[00:39:36] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:39:36] Marshall Saviers: And as this area, uh, gets bigger and the scale gets bigger, those check sizes are getting bigger.
[00:39:41] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[00:39:42] Marshall Saviers: And there will be a time, as I talked about earlier, where the institutional money will come in.
[00:39:46] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:39:46] Marshall Saviers: And, uh, we'll hopefully already have a, a pretty good leg up, but until, until that institutional money comes in, that's the void.
[00:39:54] Nick Beyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right.
[00:39:55] Marshall Saviers: Of the bigger checks, the bigger developments, um, that the companies that need growth, [00:40:00] equity, all those things that, and they getting back to being partner. We're all partner people. So like, they gotta, they want to, they trust us. A lot of times we're not gonna be, you know, uh, maybe the cheapest money.
[00:40:11] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:40:11] Marshall Saviers: Right. But we are gonna be the part, the money that we don't need to control. We trust you.
[00:40:15] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[00:40:16] Marshall Saviers: We're gonna do the right thing. We're always gonna be a good partner. Uh, and that means something. Mm-hmm. So if somebody's, you know, somebody in our network wants to do a, a sale lease back, you know, sell their building that their, uh, company is in, but they wanna lease it back, they might not want a landlord from New York.
They wanna find somebody they go to church with and their kids go to school with. And, um, they might also be, there might also already be an investor, natural capital. So that's great. So it's, mm-hmm. It's this network effect that's been really, really helpful for us.
[00:40:42] Cameron Clark: Um, and so if, if someone just like wants to jump in as an investor in natural capital, like what's that?
Like, just go to the website and Yeah, just go to the website. Yeah.
[00:40:49] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. Um, yep. Natural capital firm.com I think. I think that's it. Uh, but you just Google Natural Capital in Arkansas and you can find it out and, um, there's a way to find Brad and Ben and they can help you out. 'cause if Brad and Ben, [00:41:00] you know, are, are doing it day to day.
Mm-hmm. Yes. Uh, you know, obviously the rest of us have our day jobs of running our own firms.
[00:41:05] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:41:06] Marshall Saviers: Yeah.
[00:41:07] Cameron Clark: Um, I do love the feel of just like the. Yeah. Like the Excel leaseback example, just like, hey, it's just a, it's a friendly culture here. That's it. Mm-hmm. It's like, Hey man, if we want to, we wanna help you just like, you wanna help us.
Like, let's totally, we're, we're all, we're both here. Right. We may, we may as well like do it great together and we're not gonna, we're not gonna
[00:41:23] Marshall Saviers: do something, you know, that's gonna screw you because you're gonna find you're gonna see me.
[00:41:27] Cameron Clark: Yeah, exactly. And that, and it's just
[00:41:29] Marshall Saviers: not in our personality to do that.
[00:41:30] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:41:31] Marshall Saviers: So that's what's really, uh, catapulted us. I think, you know, every one of our deals has been off market. Everyone's been through a relationship that we had, and that's not gonna change.
[00:41:41] Cameron Clark: And I mean, so the companies you've invested in, are the, have those been in northwest Arkansas companies or are they Some, most,
[00:41:48] Marshall Saviers: yeah.
Yeah. And we're looking to do more and more on that front too. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times we're not venture guys, so we're not, you know, um, I've, I've joked, like I've been on these panels where these companies come in and pitch. [00:42:00] Every one of 'em sounds great to me. Being an optimist, I'm like, that sounds great.
That's a really cool idea. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, but what we are is we know how to scale. Yeah. And so if somebody, um, that we again know, trust says, Hey, I, I'll take a smaller share of my company, uh, you know, and free to give it to you guys in exchange for growth equity to go acquire another.
[00:42:22] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:22] Marshall Saviers: And they might have 200 people, 300 people, they've got a set business case.
They're pretty far down their road.
[00:42:27] Nick Beyer: Yep.
[00:42:27] Marshall Saviers: That's, that's our ideal scenario. Mm-hmm. It's not, we don't need to and we don't want to control it. Uh, we're also not control people. Uh, that because of that we need a high level trust. It's not just somebody that walks off the street that we're gonna. Give money to on that front.
[00:42:40] Cameron Clark: And so, la last question here, then I wanna get, wanna get back to Sage? Sure. The, so the, the future of natural capital. Yeah. What does that, what does that look like kind of on the horizon? Keep,
[00:42:48] Marshall Saviers: keep growing, you know, it's, uh, we keep seeing more and more opportunities. Um, uh, we just finished our second fund, uh, and so now, you know, there'll be another fund on the horizon.
Mm-hmm. [00:43:00] Uh, we've, we'll continue to, to raise more and more money and, you know, hopefully be the go-to capital source for those that, you know, uh, either need, either need growth, equity, or need, uh, you know, a real, a friendly real estate deal. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. It's been, it's been a lot of fun.
It's been great working with those guys. They're just all, you know, really, really good humans. Mm-hmm. Uh, first and foremost. So yeah, we, we've all become, we were rock and I especially have always been close, but now we're all, we're all really close,
[00:43:28] Cameron Clark: well respected group. Oh, thanks. Like, yeah. Yeah,
[00:43:31] Marshall Saviers: yeah, yeah.
[00:43:31] Cameron Clark: Um. It's amazing. So kind of back to stage here now, the, so 2022 to call it the now 2025. Mm-hmm. Um, so you were saying like staff wise, kind of reduced staff. Yep. Let's get back to core culture. Yep. Um, and as we were talking the other day, like outside looking in, like it's, it's pretty obvious like you can ra radiates.
Yeah. Thanks.
[00:43:55] Marshall Saviers: I appreciate that. I love when you came and said that. I love when people come and say that, that that gives me a lot of pride.
[00:43:59] Cameron Clark: [00:44:00] Um, yeah. Talk, talk about how it's been building that, like, and, and what if, you know, what's been hard about that? What's,
[00:44:06] Marshall Saviers: what's worked? Yeah. Um, you know, on the brokerage side, what's really worked, I gave a ton of credit to Aaron Nicholson here is starting this analyst program, um, that, uh, for two years you are just, uh, given essentially that a lot of times they start as an intern.
We go to the business school, find the best and brightest in the real estate club, et cetera. Um, which is really now we're finding folks and, uh, males and females, not just from this area. But whether it's Kansas City or Houston or, you know, wherever there's, there's all these different, now they wanna stay, or at least some of 'em wanna stay.
Mm-hmm. Which is really cool and wasn't what it was like 5, 6, 7 years ago. Yeah. Um, and so we'll hopefully bring 'em in as an intern while they're in school. They can understand the culture and what we do. Then they start as an analyst. Uh, that's a two year program. It's rigorous. I mean, it's, uh, Ethan Fowler, we were talking about this the other day.
Ethan, who's a, who's a real talent, um, his [00:45:00] last year as an analyst, he touched 400 deals. So, geez. So isn't that crazy? Now that might be from an email to a full on help with a deal. Yeah. Right. But it's an NBA. Yeah. It is the best MBA you can get. I'm highly biased there, but I think what a lot of firms do is they just throw you, you know, the, uh, in, in my time it was a phone book.
Right. Or roll, you know, something to say, Hey, just go.
[00:45:21] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:22] Marshall Saviers: Uh, figure it out and we're gonna give 'em the support to when they come out after those two years, they're. Really, really well versed in how to do a deal.
[00:45:30] Cameron Clark: Who created that program?
[00:45:31] Marshall Saviers: Aaron. Aaron. Really? It's really his, his brainchild. Wow. And so, and he's a natural mentor.
Um, and so, uh, much more so than me. I'm, I'm, I think I'm good at helping support and, uh, take him under my wing after a certain point. But he's, he's really good at spotting the talent 'em in, bring 'em in his ring in those early years.
[00:45:48] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:45:49] Marshall Saviers: Uh, and that's a great, great quality. And so he's got, he deserves a ton of credit.
Um, and so we'll always have, uh, the goal is to always have a couple interns at a time, couple analysts at a time, [00:46:00] and then a and then as days roll off, basically one analyst a year rolls into being a
[00:46:03] Nick Beyer: broker. Yep, yep,
[00:46:04] Marshall Saviers: yep.
[00:46:05] Nick Beyer: And talk about that philosophy, 'cause it's probably different than how you learned real estate, right?
Yeah. I I was in the phone book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And so are you like, Hey, we Now I'd argue the way that we're doing it's better than Oh, no doubt. Yeah.
[00:46:16] Marshall Saviers: I mean, um, you can learn a lot of bad habits if you don't have structure. Right. I was just lucky that. I just, and, and gritty enough to figure it out.
Right. But, uh, to have that structure in place and to understand how to do a deal instead of, and you, I'm sure you remember this Cameron, like when you're for doing your first couple of deals, it's the fuck. Right. And they know, but they do. They know. They know how to do it and I didn't know. I didn't know what I was doing.
Yeah. And so, and they can do a really good job. So we just really rely on them. I'll bring them in even as a late analyst, you know, early broker. Yeah. And let them run it. I, I'll be overseeing it and just seeing how they do, but I'm not gonna get in them in their way. I just want, I want to see him succeed.
[00:46:56] Cameron Clark: You talk to Ethan and you think he's 10 years older than he. Yeah. Part of that, Tim, [00:47:00] part
[00:47:00] Marshall Saviers: of it's the program. I wish we could take all that credit. Uh, but, but a lot of that's him too. It's incredible. Uh, and we got a lot, you know, uh, we got others coming in online that are, they're really good. Like Ethan too.
It's really cool to see. Yeah.
[00:47:11] Cameron Clark: Um, so outside of like just building the people, uh, talk about the different silos being built over, like from 2022 to 2025. Like where, where's a lot of the time gone. Um,
[00:47:22] Marshall Saviers: yeah. Another thing that, that culturally went awry for us is it felt like we had a, a property management group over here, a brokerage group over here, and nobody communicated.
Mm. We talked about this before we got on, but like, part of that was the physical space itself and the way it was set up, part of it was our, we were running, we were running it like two different businesses instead of one business. So, you know, something I was banging the table about is like, hey, when we take on a project, everybody from the maintenance person to the owner needs to be in the room together.
Leasing person, property manager. Yeah. It needs to feel like a team. Mm-hmm. Instead of feeling like brokerage is over here, property management's over here, and they don't really know each [00:48:00] other or respect's probably too strong, but they just understand what each other do.
[00:48:03] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:48:04] Marshall Saviers: And so that's been our big thing now is how do we make it feel like one culture versus two.
[00:48:08] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:09] Marshall Saviers: Um, so, so that's what we've done. But that's, that's taken a, a lot of work. Um, it's taken a lot of work and, and frankly, finding the right people to, to do it.
[00:48:18] Nick Beyer: Hmm. Yeah. I mean, talk about each of those silos growing. I mean, I mean, you guys manage a ton Yeah. Square footage here? Yeah. About 6 million feet.
And is that just in northwest Arkansas or That's combined with Little Rock, mostly in Northwest Arkansas. Okay.
[00:48:32] Marshall Saviers: Yeah, there's, there's, uh, I don't know the exact breakdown, but, you know, plus or minus a million, million half feet in Little Rock, but most of it's up here.
[00:48:38] Nick Beyer: And so some of that came from the merger in 20.
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
[00:48:42] Marshall Saviers: We've been incredibly fortunate. It's not just continue to build an office building a year. Yeah. Right.
[00:48:46] Nick Beyer: So some of it's come from there. Did she, did that team have a lot of processes that, like y'all have? They were bootstrapping like
[00:48:52] Marshall Saviers: we were. Okay. I mean, they had more, they had more than we did because they had more product than we did.
Yeah. But, you know, at the time, that's where we saw the opportunity. [00:49:00] Nobody really had the proper processes or talent.
[00:49:03] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:49:03] Marshall Saviers: Talent's part of that too. Yeah. And so when you bring in the right talent that's seen how processes are supposed to work and they can start implementing themselves. You know, like our, our head of property management, Brad Freeman came from working at a, a REIT in South Florida and we, we brought him here, but he's got more experience than anybody in, in the state, for sure.
Probably the region. But he was attracted to this area.
[00:49:23] Nick Beyer: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:49:24] Marshall Saviers: And we were able to do a, you know, at least a, a regional search, semi nationwide search for that and actually attract someone here.
[00:49:31] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:49:32] Marshall Saviers: Um, so when you bring someone on like that, that understands the process is certainly a lot better than I do.
Um, that really helps raise your bar.
[00:49:39] Cameron Clark: That's good.
[00:49:40] Marshall Saviers: Yep.
[00:49:40] Cameron Clark: That's good. So, I mean, and now like in 2025, what's the most challenging thing about the commercial brokerage, commercial real estate business today?
[00:49:51] Marshall Saviers: Uh, lack of supply. Yeah. Uh, sounds super simple, but if you don't have enough things to lease or sell, uh, that's a problem.
And vacancy [00:50:00] rates, if you look at offices at four, retail's at three. Mm-hmm. Industrial kind of bips up and down from 5, 6, 7, 8. Yeah. But. We're not really an industrial market, uh, natural. We're not a distribution market. Multifamily is the highest, but we, we don't really do that. Cushman has, uh, an office here for multi, we do, we do some stuff, but not a lot.
Um, so we need more product and as incredible. And we talked about earlier how hard it is to develop now. Mm-hmm. That's, it's not a problem. We're figuring it out, but at some point you run through all the supply. It's either been leased, sold, whatever. Mm-hmm. Um, so we need, we just need more product on the ground.
But it's just, it's just too dang hard to do it.
[00:50:40] Cameron Clark: What do you, and what do you think that's gonna look like over the next couple years?
[00:50:43] Marshall Saviers: Um, as far as development goes?
[00:50:45] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Just, yeah. Development and just kind of e evolution of the market over the next just foreseeable future bigger 24 months.
[00:50:51] Marshall Saviers: Much bigger projects.
I'm just looking, uh, out the window to the Ruth Chris project here. Mixed use, that's an example. The whole foods. Yep. Deal down the road, [00:51:00] having these bigger scale mixed use projects are what? The only way to make the numbers work. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So you gotta have office retail multi integrated into one.
[00:51:08] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:09] Marshall Saviers: Um, you're not gonna see a lot of your one-off 20, 30,000 foot buildings. They just, your economy's at scale just smoke work. Okay. Just doesn't work. Yeah. So, uh, so you're gonna have to see, you're gonna just see the scale grow, which bleeds into why we, you know, for natural capital, we feel like well positioned to help fund those.
Mm-hmm.
[00:51:24] Cameron Clark: And do you, I mean, do you kind of see like the team continue to staff up more over the next couple years? Or is like, Hey, we've got like a pretty good basis here now.
[00:51:32] Marshall Saviers: We'll keep, we'll keep growing. Yeah. Yeah. We've picked up quite a bit of business, um, over the last, you know, six, eight months as, as the team's gotten, right.
[00:51:40] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:41] Marshall Saviers: And, um, uh, so we'll keep, we'll keep growing, but it'll be much more methodical.
[00:51:45] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:51:46] Marshall Saviers: Uh, and it'll be more senior hires, um, to help grow that. That's what we've been doing lately. We just hired a head of facilities up here, another very senior property manager here from Walmart. And then trying to grow the, the younger, uh, generation organically.
[00:51:59] Nick Beyer: [00:52:00] Yeah.
[00:52:00] Marshall Saviers: Instead of hire somebody that might have been in a different job and just comes in, you know, frankly behind the curve. We'd rather, um, uh, you're mentioning Alec and Herschel earlier. Both those were they, they both started out basically Right. You know,
[00:52:14] Nick Beyer: right after
[00:52:14] Marshall Saviers: school or shortly thereafter. Might had a little career in between, but growing, growing, uh, males and females that way, uh, versus trying to hire mm-hmm.
Uh, we, because then we can, we can really exude, they can exude the culture and, um, and do it the right way and do it our way.
[00:52:31] Nick Beyer: That's
[00:52:31] Marshall Saviers: good. Yep.
[00:52:32] Nick Beyer: Talk about some of the landmark deals over your 20 years. Doesn't even have to just be deals you've done, but deals that this firm's done that you, I mean, just come to mind as a crazy story or how it got put together.
I mean, I'm sure you have a bunch, but maybe some of the ones that come top of mind.
[00:52:49] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. Uh, let's think about this. I mean. Um, I'm trying to think of some, some funnier stories from the Wild, wild West Days or the early 2000 tens. I've kind of blocked all that stuff outta my memory. [00:53:00] Um, you know, just going around here, uh, like we did, uh, I worked on for a couple years, the Transplace Uber Freight Building, which was a, to have somebody put a regional headquarters here was a really cool thing to work on.
Worked through the state incentive part of that, you know, traditionally here there hasn't been a lot of incentives given, so that was a learning process and a neat project. We're gonna, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna make this a, I can't remember how many people, four or 500 people if you're working here.
That'd be, that'd be really, really neat. Uh, we were talking before, just top of mind because I just got outta there, but working with the u University of Arkansas and all the real estate, um, just because as I'm getting in my mid forties here, I, everything I'm thinking about is how can I, how can I impact the community?
How can I impact those around me? How can I help? How can I help?
[00:53:46] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:46] Marshall Saviers: And, um, I've been trying to, um, you know, impart that on, you know, younger people, but, but there is a shift that you go through of not being so much about the money and more about how can you help.
[00:53:56] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:57] Marshall Saviers: And, um, so I, I start thinking about things like that.
Not [00:54:00] like the biggest deals or making the most money. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's more like how, you know, because using the U of a example, like that's gonna be something that's just that, that the university needs. And we feel like we have this unique skill set to do to help.
[00:54:11] Nick Beyer: Hmm.
[00:54:12] Marshall Saviers: Um, and then, this is a weird, not exactly what you're asking, but I've been super involved with the Northwest Arkansas Council.
I've been on the board for 10 years. I've been chairman for a couple years. I'm vice chair right now. And the, and going through and helping from there from a, just a regional impact perspective, that's been extremely rewarding too.
[00:54:29] Nick Beyer: Mm. Yeah. That's cool. Talk a little bit more about this area. So you hit on Yeah.
Hunt Ventures in 20 16, 17, when that, you talked a little bit about, you said. John L's, the executioner. Oh, no doubt. You know, of, of j B's vision. Like mm-hmm. What, what was, 'cause I, I, I know we grew up here, we know the vision, but like for people who didn't grow up here or maybe can see it, can see the vision come into life, but don't, haven't actually heard, like, tell, tell people about
[00:54:56] Marshall Saviers: that.
Yeah. Tom would do a better job with this story, but, but you know, the story [00:55:00] that, that he and Mrs Ha always tell is, uh, you know, he had this vision for this 350 acres that we sit on a day that it would be this, which, who the heck Yeah. Has that at the time, but who also, who the heck draws intermodal on a napkin as an idea?
Like it was just a, he was an amazing guy, uh, just very ahead of his time. And they tell the story about sitting in, there was only one office building here and it was up, up to the north here, just called Parkway Tower. And they were sitting with um, I think it was Bill Dillard and he was saying, Hey, I want the mall to go over here.
And Bill Dillard said, you're not thinking big enough. And he said he just almost fell outta his chair. 'cause he's never been accused of that. So that's when the mall ended up going on the other side of the interstate. Mm-hmm. All this ended up being office. So there's all these great stories of, uh, you know, I didn't get to see a lot of that, uh, because I wasn't, I wasn't around JB Hunt almost at all.
Um, but I got to hear, I've been, and still hear a lot of stories from, from Mrs. Hunt. I mean, she's incredible. She's 93 years old and still very, very sharp.
[00:55:57] Nick Beyer: Mm. And,
[00:55:58] Marshall Saviers: uh, been a unbelievable [00:56:00] partner, not just because of her status, um, but because she's just a incredible lady.
[00:56:05] Nick Beyer: Mm.
[00:56:05] Marshall Saviers: Uh, and, uh, the wisdom that she has there and what she's, she's seen every, she's seen it, she's done it.
Um, but she also doesn't do it in a way. Um, she'll let you talk first and then she'll impart her wisdom. She's, she's a listener.
[00:56:18] Nick Beyer: Mm.
[00:56:18] Marshall Saviers: And so there's a lot of, you know, you learn a lot from somebody like that. Um, but yeah, the, the evolution of this area is just incredible and how it's become the downtown in northwest Arkansas, um, which is pretty incredible that it just sprung up out of Cal Pasture.
Um, but it, it, it, there's no doubt that it is now. And, you know, we're working with office tenants now. They're just like this, if they're of any size, um, this is where they want to be. Mm-hmm. For all kinds of reasons, amenities, middle, more middle of the market, et cetera. Um, so that's, that's really, really neat to see how it's evolved and, and then the, the level of building keeps evolving too, and keeps the quality keeps growing as well.
And the rents keep, keep growing too. And they have to because of the construction costs. Yeah. [00:57:00]
[00:57:00] Cameron Clark: Yeah. When, uh, when, uh, office tenants, reps are doing deals at other places and come here and shock sticker shocked.
[00:57:07] Marshall Saviers: There's a lot of education that goes on. Yeah. First they think they can just, you know, if there's some New York broker, they think you just push you around.
'cause they're, you know, they're used to the market, the office market being a bloodbath wherever they do stuff. And you're, well, we're at 4% vacancy. I mean, if you guys need to go look somewhere else, go for it. Good luck. And, and they, they, they think you're, you know, full of it. And then they come back kind of hat in hand and they're like, all right, well I guess we gotta talk to you.
It's pretty incredible. Yeah. But to think that the building we're sitting in was in 2006, right around the time we were one of the first leases in here. Yeah. 2016 ish. And then the building next door to the north, you know, 17, 18, and then all these buildings being built during the pandemic and afterwards.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then the building, like the World Trade Center, building all that to the north being built during the Great Recession, just amazing. It just has never stopped. And that's a testament to Mrs. Hunt and Tom and the team that just, they just keep plowing ahead
[00:57:58] Cameron Clark: and it's leased up. It just continues.[00:58:00]
Right now it's
[00:58:00] Marshall Saviers: all nine. She's 96% leased. Geez. Uh, and the new building that, the visionary, that's 200,000 feet. Um, I don't know the exact percentages, but it'll, it'll be, I mean, just because of demand in the market, by the time it's completed, it'll be leased up. It'll be, it'll be pretty leased up. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:58:15] Nick Beyer: It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. The, the picture Paul Galling posted a while back on LinkedIn of just this area 10 years ago and now. Yeah. And I was in high school. I used to work at Pinnacle and I get off. Oh wow. I get off the highway, it was just pasture and they put that neighborhood Walmart up and that was like a big deal.
And then I remember when this building started being built,
[00:58:34] Marshall Saviers: this was, yeah, this was a big deal when this one came, came on. And you asked earlier another thing that I'm, um, just on the office side that I'm. Proud of was being part of the original team on the Ledger in Bentonville. And that was a really cool process.
Uh, and a good story. Um, it was,
[00:58:50] Nick Beyer: tell that story because I don't know how many people are familiar with, so if everybody knows the
[00:58:53] Marshall Saviers: Ledger, it is the one with the ramps going up at downtown Bentonville, I was contacted by WeWork. WeWork, [00:59:00] as most people know, uh, had a skyrocket, uh, and then a total flame out.
Um, but at the time they were blowing and going Yeah. And they reached out to me just being the prominent 10 rep guy in the area and said, Hey, we, we need a 200,000 foot space in Bentonville. I was like, good luck. I mean, we don't have those around here. Yeah, right. So is Bentonville
[00:59:19] Nick Beyer: Plaza the only thing?
There was nothing. I
[00:59:21] Marshall Saviers: mean, but it was, you know, mostly full. Sure. So we had to quickly pivot to build a suit. And my good friend and partner, um, Josh Kyles had a site where the Ledger now sits, which is the old Bentonville City Hospital in Bentonville. It was became a nursing home and. Um, and I knew that, that he was thinking about an office building there because of the, it's between the downtown square and the new, where the new home office had just been announced.
So we quickly said, okay, uh, we gotta figure this out on this site. So Josh and I, I, I transitioned from, because what had ended up happening is they, they were gonna be, um, operating it, uh, and basically have a management agreement on the building. Yeah. Well, as a broker, that means I don't wanna [01:00:00] get any money.
Yeah. I'm out because there's no lease. Yeah. Right. So I pivoted and Josh has, you know, I have been partners for a long, long time and, and best buds. So I pivoted over the, the landlord side, which WeWork was great with, and became a partner of his on the building. And the, the process there to figure out that building was amazing.
WeWork was a total, uh, it was a mess. Um, but they had really talented people. And we'd go up to New York and sit outside Adam Newman's office in his conference room and sketch out this building, which was a whole crazy story in itself. And all the things you hear about 'em, they're all, they're all true. Uh, and uh, and start conceiving this building.
And they had some really talented artists, some of which we still use today. Uh, and they showed us this building that had ramps going all the way around it. And we're like, what in the heck if I was about how does this happen? I mean, we're, you know, yeah. Um, but we started it, uh, right before the pandemic, which was something I started
[01:00:57] Nick Beyer: it.
You broke ground. Y'all are going vertical broke ground started to go [01:01:00] up. Yeah.
[01:01:00] Marshall Saviers: Office market stops. We're thinking, what the heck are we doing here? But not only office, Microsoft WeWork, you know, is gone. Exploded. Yeah. Gone. Yeah. Yeah. And so we were like, okay, so we gotta figure this out on our own. And so, you know, you're trying to run pro performance on this thing.
It's not, it doesn't, anybody that's been in the building, it doesn't operate like a traditional office building. Yeah. So to put together pro performance on it were impossible. Uh, so we finally, like, the light bulb went off, we're like, oh, this is actually like a hotel. The way it operates. There's a front house, back of house.
Yeah. Heavily staffed. Um, so once we started figuring that out, we could figure out how to, how to perform it. We were still, we didn't know what to do for rents. You can imagine not a cheap building to build. We thought, wow. At the time, highest rent in the market was probably in the mid thirties, a foot, which would've been some one of these buildings.
Mm-hmm. Um, and we're like, okay, let's see if we can get 42 50. And, uh, we started getting that, and now we just ended up leasing basically the last base in the building at close to 60 bucks a foot.
[01:01:59] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:01:59] Marshall Saviers: So [01:02:00] it's been a real cool success story. We, our natural capital office is in that building, so that, that building just is a, a traditional deal is the most rewarding to me.
Just kind of persevering through it, doing it with a really good friend and partner, having it succeed. Yeah. Uh, was, it's been a, it's been a, it was a neat ride and
[01:02:16] Nick Beyer: probably feeling like it was dead in the water at one point.
[01:02:19] Marshall Saviers: Yeah, that's, I mean, that's right. And then just being community minded, like it is, it's what the architect said about the building is this building is for the community.
Mm-hmm. Massive impact. Right. So it has, and always get this mixed up, but instead of, you know, when you go in an office building, it's always closed off, so it keeps the outside from coming in. He wanted the, he wanted the inside coming out.
[01:02:38] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Right.
[01:02:38] Marshall Saviers: So he wanted it so to open up to the community instead of close off the community.
[01:02:42] Cameron Clark: It worked. I mean, there's so many people that just walk the building every day and so Cool to see Yeah. Work out in and then grab a coffee.
[01:02:47] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah. So cool to see. Yeah.
[01:02:48] Cameron Clark: It's, it's such a cool building.
[01:02:50] Marshall Saviers: Yep. Thanks.
[01:02:51] Cameron Clark: Yeah. So, um, you kind of talked about where Sage is at now. I mean, give, give us one more kind of like Okay.[01:03:00]
Total number of employees now, either revenue or, or amount of, like you said, square, square foot managed. Give, give us, give us more of like Yeah. We're, where is the business now? Yeah.
[01:03:09] Marshall Saviers: We're 65 people, plus or minus right now. Mm-hmm. And it that'll, you know, deviate we're, we're bouncing between 60 and 70 depending on the time, but, but edge inching closer to 70 people.
Mm-hmm. Um, we're having a, we're gonna end up having a good year this year. We're, um, we've been fortunate to beat budget pretty much every year, but this year's gonna be, uh, the best year we've had since that 20 kind of craziness of 22, maybe part of 23 as well. Mm-hmm. And what's,
[01:03:33] Cameron Clark: what's been the big driver for that?
I think
[01:03:35] Marshall Saviers: it's a lot of the young
[01:03:36] Cameron Clark: people we were talking about earlier.
[01:03:37] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. They're just, they're just really finding their stride. Um, and then you obviously have the, the, the business that I do and that, that Tom does, um, which is always just kind of maintains and there and consistent.
But watching them step up and really start to succeed in their late twenties, early thirties has been, has been awesome to see you see somebody like, uh, Johnny Galloway, who's [01:04:00] 29 and just really doing well. Mm-hmm. So cool. So cool to see. And so we have, we have plenty of examples like that
[01:04:05] Cameron Clark: mm-hmm.
[01:04:05] Marshall Saviers: Uh, along the way that, that, um, and, and that's what's gonna, that's what's gonna keep us, you know, going up the growth curve.
It's not what I can do.
[01:04:12] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:04:13] Marshall Saviers: So, um, so yeah, that's, that's it. And then we've gotten better on the property management processes. So we're picking up property management business. If somebody needs something professionally managed, you know, there's only a couple firms here that can do it. And we're the only one that, that are based here.
[01:04:25] Nick Beyer: Mm. Yeah. One of the things I was thinking about, you said earlier, you said it like five years from now, 10 years from now, you think institution, more institutional capitals coming here. Yep. What do you like, talk a little bit more about that. What does that mean for someone who's listening, you know, how, how will that impact the commercial real estate market
[01:04:42] Marshall Saviers: and it, yeah.
There's good and bad. It means there'll be more available capital if you wanna do a deal, it's great. It'll come with more strings attached. It'll be less, uh, what, what I talked about on the natural capital side. It'll be less, um, personal, it'll be less relationship based. Um, but you'll be able to scale projects a lot quicker.
[01:05:00] Mm-hmm. Right. Um, and, and until that happens, you know, it'll, it'll still be, you know, it, we kind of gotten, got out of the good old boy network and we're somewhere in between good old boy network and institutional now. Sure. Uh, uh, which I really like because just being a relationship guy, but it'll, it'll, the area will feel, I don't know if sterile iss the right word, but it won't, you won't be like, oh, okay, well Cameron did that project over there.
Whatever. There'll still be plenty of opportunities for, for us collectively. Um, but it'll be, it'll, it'll feel different and, and less personal.
[01:05:31] Nick Beyer: And you're, and y'all are doing, Sage is doing what to prepare for that.
[01:05:35] Marshall Saviers: Uh, we have to make sure that we report. Like, uh, like they're used to. Yeah. Where react, like they used to, like they're used to, I mean, they're tougher.
[01:05:45] Nick Beyer: Yeah. Right. It's
[01:05:45] Marshall Saviers: a lot different than your buddy that gives you a building to manage. Right. And we can't take, we, you know, can't take that for granted, but their processes are a lot more rigid.
[01:05:54] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[01:05:54] Marshall Saviers: Right. And they're gonna expect a lot outta you. Mm-hmm. Uh, and so that, that comes with processes and people, [01:06:00] so that's what, that's what we're gearing up for.
[01:06:02] Cameron Clark: Yeah. That's huge.
[01:06:03] Marshall Saviers: Yep.
[01:06:04] Cameron Clark: Well, kind of a few questions here. Wrapping us up. Sure. Um, you know, for, for those who are listening to this, who are like, thinking about entrepreneurship, who are in a business, building a business, why build a business in northwest Arkansas?
[01:06:18] Marshall Saviers: Yeah. Um, one, it's a great place to live.
That's the first thing I thought about. You know, I've got, my kids are, uh, 13 and 11 and it's been an incredible place to raise a family.
[01:06:26] Nick Beyer: Hmm.
[01:06:26] Marshall Saviers: Um, I'm an outdoors guy. I mentioned fly fishing earlier. Yeah. Like being, having the outdoor activities is incredible. Um, uh, and you know, so you, you combine that with the corporate culture here.
And it makes it, it makes it pretty special. And, you know, getting back to the Northwest Arkansas council side, having people like Mrs. Hunt, Walton family and the Tyson family, the Simmons family that just want to give back to this area. Yeah. Uh, is truly unique. It's something that is a, we're in this magic window here, uh, of where, you know, everybody's kind of rowing in the same direction.
Yep. [01:07:00] At some point, that'll change. It'll get too big, it'll become less, it'll become more detached from the, the roots of what, where you guys grew up with. Um, it's not a bad thing, it's just the evolution of a market, but when we get close to a million people, it won't feel like it feels right now. Mm-hmm.
Uh, there'll be plenty of opportunities, but for right now, that's, I, I think highly biased, but you can come in and really make an impact Yeah. On an area, an outsize impact on an area. Uh, versus if you're moving to Dallas, I mean, you're just, you're, you know, you're a, a small fish. Yeah. Right. And you can't make that impact.
Um, and it is really just more at that point, it's just more about the money and, and, and the impact. Yeah.
[01:07:36] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Um, well, talking about impact, how do you define success?
[01:07:42] Marshall Saviers: Um, if you would asked me that in my thirties, I would've said it has something to do with money or, uh, title. Um, now it's, it has to do with, you know, uh, I really like the word legacy because I think that I, we were talking about that I had a, I was speaking a leadership deal on Friday and the leg, I feel [01:08:00] like the legacy is the legacy of Sage, not me.
Um, but I do want to be able to leave something that was better than when it, when I found it, you know, so whatever that means. Um, so I'm just getting more and more involved on boards. I'm gonna be Chair Washington Regional next year. That's gonna be a big
[01:08:15] Cameron Clark: Oh, wow. Congrats. Big
[01:08:16] Marshall Saviers: job. Well, yeah, it's just, but I'm gonna live in Fayetteville.
It's the hospital in Fayetteville, right? Mm-hmm. It's the right thing to do. Yeah. And so like it, I'm just saying that because it's, that's the kind of sage is going great. I'm heavily involved. I'm gonna always be heavily involved. Uh, uh, but. What are the other areas that I can help the community out? Um, so, but what that means for me, I, I don't know.
I don't really think about that. I'm just like, okay, I can help over here. I can't help over here, so I'm gonna jump in. Wow. Yeah.
[01:08:42] Nick Beyer: Well, cool. One of the things we do at the end of every episode, Marshalls, we just talk about what we learn from the guests, what we think our listeners will learn. Yeah. Um, just people in the community, you're gonna learn when they hear this.
And I think, I think one of the first things I learned, and I was struggling with a word to really capture it, but the, the [01:09:00] name of the company, Sage. Yeah. It, it was started, you know, you talked about like wisdom from older people and I feel like the way the board's set up, the way it was set up from the beginning Yep.
Like there has been a lot of hands that have touched this. No doubt even who aren't in this office right now. No doubt. And I think it's very unique to some, almost, I'm just trying to think of the bus, the 28 businesses now that we've talked to, founders that we've talked to. Um, that's pretty unique. Yeah.
And so I think there's just something there that we can all learn. Like there's, there's a deep desire in our heart to own something, be control it. And IJI just think what you have built, what y'all have built collectively is very different. Um,
[01:09:42] Marshall Saviers: yeah. And thanks. I appreciate that. It life's too, what I've come to Life's too short.
You know? It's more fun to do it with people. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And not feel like you're having to do it yourself. Um, and I've been so, you know, blessed to have those great mentors mm-hmm. And wisdom along the way. But yeah, thank you for saying that. You know, I've used Sage a lot as a, um, [01:10:00] if you think about it, like a farm team in baseball, there's a lot of people, you know, used TJ Loefflers, an example who's left Sage, but he not really left Sage.
Like he's, yeah, he's gone, but he still really cares about the company. We're still really, really close. Mm-hmm. Uh, our families are still really close. We're going through life together. He's on the board like so we're gonna, and then, you know, that, that ripple effect helps him and helps our company. But I'm not doing it for that reason.
I'm just doing this 'cause it's the right thing to do. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So that's the first thing I, thanks. Think that's
[01:10:25] Nick Beyer: just super, super unique. I think the second piece that goes hand in hand with this, but this, this word being a partner, what does that really mean? Yeah. I think that word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I think how you captured it here is being a partner means, how can I serve you?
That's it. And that, that's any of the 60 team members you have sitting in a desk out there, you're being a partner to them by saying, how can I serve you? And I think if you own a business, if you're building a business, if you work in a business, if you take that mindset, a partnership mindset, it will, it will breed fruit for you.
That's so [01:11:00]
[01:11:00] Marshall Saviers: tha thank you for saying that. Um, how I've distilled the message in the last couple years, so to our team is, and they, they're probably tired of hearing me say this, but it's just how I, what I believe is there's, there's two things that I've Great on. Do you serve your fellow employee and do you serve our clients?
If you do those two things, those are my, that's my only two criteria. Mm-hmm. If you do those two things, you're not only gonna have a job here, you're gonna get, you're gonna succeed and get promoted. Yeah. I just, if you could simplify it like that. I think, and again, I said this early on, we're a service company.
This shouldn't be that complicated. Yeah. Yeah. So
[01:11:28] Nick Beyer: serve others. So good. So good. Um, and then that brings me to my last point, which is your others focused. And I think you, you captured it well at the end of our conversation when Cameron's asking you about what success looks like, you're focused on things in our community that, you know, we have a kid, we're going to Washington Regional.
Right. Right. Like, and, and that's, that's what I think has made this area, we both grew up here. That is what has made this area so special. You're exactly right. You talk about John L. Hunt, my dad got buried at the [01:12:00] cemetery. Oh, wow. And e every, every year she does a memorial service. No way. She goes to it and it's like, it's incredible.
All the money in the world. Right? Doesn't matter to her. That's not, that's not what she's about. That's not, that's not what she's about. No. And those are the people that built Northwest Arkansas. No doubt. When I think about those people and the impact they have in here, it's not about the dollar signs.
It's not about it. It's truly, they're very value centric and so they're focused on others. So yeah, will said, I just loved, I loved that you capture that in your message, and I think if you're a business owner, if you're growing a business. You've gotta be focused on other people. Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah.
So Marshall, thanks for your time. Thanks so much. How can people learn more about Sage? Sage partners.com, get on the website and love to talk to you. Cool. Sweet.
[01:12:43] Cameron Clark: Thanks so much, Marshall. All right, thanks y'all. Thank you for listening to this episode of NWA Founders, where we sit down with founders, owners, and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas.
For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at nwa founders@gmail.com. Lastly, [01:13:00] if you enjoyed this episode, then please consider leaving a rating, a review, and sending it to someone who you think would benefit from it. We'll see you in the next episode.