Telling the Story of Your Development Through a Well-Crafted Vision with Ashley Stiles – Ep. 39

About the Guest

Another great episode is coming your way. I am thrilled to share this next conversation with all of you. Ashley is the CEO of Tribe Development located in Colorado. The foundation of her career was built in the design world as a landscape architect, with a focus on luxury resort projects. It is there that she learned from the best, about the importance of delivering positive and memorable customer experiences-to stand out from the competition and drive loyalty. For over a decade now, she has been focused on exceeding customers’ expectations in commercial development, in what we now refer to as experiential development.

Tribe Development is a comprehensive real estate consulting and development firm born out of the desire to develop better spaces and experiences for everyone. Tribe’s goal is to expand the lens of development beyond a singular experience, and approach projects more holistically. They believe that by telling the stories of the community through well-crafted vision, and promotion of strong brands the outcome will be greater engagement and the creation of project ambassadors, netting greater financial outcomes as well as increased opportunities around recruitment and retention.

In this episode, we are going to discuss how they begin the initial design process at Tribe Development, the importance of branding your developments, as well as common roadblocks that people face when starting out in development. There is loads of great information in this episode and I greatly appreciated Ashley for taking the time out of her busy schedule to discuss this topic of branding in real estate development.

As always, if you have enjoyed the show, please subscribe to the show and share with your friends. There will be more exciting conversations on the shows to come.

Main Take-Away’s From This Show

This episode was up there with one of my favorites to record. Ashley is very open and candid when discussing her not-traditional experience jumping into real estate development as well as her observations of the industry as a whole. There were several great talking points that Ashley shared throughout the discussion, so it is hard to just pick three for my main take-away’s this week. The following main topics of the show come from a deep understanding in the real estate development process that Ashley possesses.

When branding a project or development, it’s extremely important to bring in all of the stakeholders involved in the project to really prepare a “vision” for the project.
Once a brand is developed for a project, you can weigh all of your decisions against that brand or vision. This makes decisions much easier.
Branding is more than a logo.

As always, I will dig into each of these “take-away’s” every week on the blog. So, without further a due, here we go!

When branding a project or development, it’s extremely important to bring in all of the stakeholders involved in the project to really prepare a “vision” for the project.

The process of building the vision for Ashley’s various projects was fascinating. While the initial design charrette only lasted one day, the process of building the brand was carefully crafted over three months. The process begins by determining how this potential project will be reflected by the end-user. Then from there, they build an avatar of the project. If this project was a person, how would it act, feel, say, drive, etc… Once these initial ideas are flushed out, the branding team then goes to work on trying to bring the brand to life while constantly receiving feedback from the shareholders.

It’s absolutely crucial to have the shareholders involved in this process in order to really craft this vision. Their team brings in members of the public, the owners, design team members, and various other groups that all have a stake in the project. They all bounce thoughts and ideas off of each other while bringing the brand to life. All of this input is invaluable when this vision is in its infant stage.

The various shareholders bring diverse backgrounds into the mix, which help to shore up various parts of the vision that could be lacking in the beginning stages. The members of the public in surrounding areas can bring site-specific input on the needs and the wants of the surrounding communities. The design team can provide input on the feasibility of such thoughts and designs. The ownership team has the knowledge of the financial implications and market sector analysis that is important to the projects success. As you can see, having a great mix of shareholders present when crafting this vision can lead to a much more successful brand strategy.

Once a brand is developed for a project, you can weigh all of your decisions against that brand or vision. This makes decisions much easier.

This next main point is a game-changer. It is almost too simple, but profound. When you have a vision established for a project, it makes the design decisions of the project much easier. In this initial phase of branding, the team flushes out the “non-negotiables” or “untouchables”. These are the items that he brand/project cannot go without.

This helps the design team understand what items are truly important to the project and what things can either be value-engineered or omitted entirely. This allows you to weigh all of your decisions going forward in the project. Let’s say a non-negotiable on your project is white marble flooring in some areas of the project. Now you understand that this will cost X.XX dollars so now you have the total minus the X.XX dollars allotted for the marble flooring to play with of the remaining budget. This is a powerful tool to help manage the proforma and budget going into the project.

This allows you to effectively design the project while managing the projects budget and still obtaining the items that will give your project a unique edge in defining the brand and identity of the project. All of this is flushed out in the initial phase of branding which is why this step is incredibly crucial to the project moving forward.

Branding is more than a logo.

Branding is more than a logo, or a color palette, or even a script. Branding is how the project interacts with its surroundings and with the people that occupy it. Branding is a persona that the development ultimately takes on.

One way or another, your project will take on character traits of its own, whether or not they are intended. This is why it is so important to be intentional with the branding of your development. You should want your development to speak in a way that compliments your vision for that project, not detract from it.

Ashley mentioned that she did a lot of work for the Four Seasons when working as a designer. It was here that she began to understand the importance of branding. When you are at a Four Seasons resort, you know it. Everything is perfectly curated to make you, the guest, feel like a VIP in a luxury resort. It goes above just the logo, the color schemes, and the Egyptian Cotton robes. Its how the people greet you, it’s the landscaping, its the specific tile they use in the bathrooms. As mentioned, branding is much more than a logo, its how the project interacts with its surroundings and with the people that occupy it.

As you can see from the take-aways above, this podcast episode was full of amazing information on making it in real estate development and absolutely provides actionable steps you can take on your next real estate development project. As always, if you have enjoyed the content and the show, please subscribe to the show below and share with your friends! We’ll have many more great discussions on the shows to come.

To Learn More About Ashley Stiles and Tribe Development Company, Check out the Following Websites:

For more on Creating Great Spaces on your next Real Estate Development Deal, check out Episode 017 with Ari Rastegar to give you a Leg Up on this Creation process.

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