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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil sits down with Michael Needleman, founder of Exceedia Group, to discuss how businesses—particularly in real estate—can improve cash flow and profitability through effective expense and spend management. Michael explains the importance of benchmarking expenses, avoiding operational complacency, and closely scrutinizing spending to uncover cost-saving opportunities. The conversation also explores AI’s growing role in business operations, long-term real estate investment strategies, and why continuous improvement and transparency are essential for sustained financial success.
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MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (00:00)
what I will say is it’s not just the areas that I think are critical. What I think is more just as critical is how does affect the bottom line.So from an NOI basis, it’s critical because we can help improve that from a free cash flow standpoint, we can help improve that we can help improve your overall cash cycle as well. So all the things that are critical for owners, operators of companies, the benefit is not only seeing, you know, improvement and lower expenses, but all the things that you look
at on your company’s dashboard are going to be positively influenced by spend management.
Michelle Kesil (02:19)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Michael Needleman, who is the founder of Exceedia Group, helping operators improve their cash flow. So, excited to have you here today, Michael.MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN
Thank you so much for having me on, Michelle. I look forward to our conversation.Michelle Kesil
Definitely, think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching helping reduce operating expenses. So let’s dive in. First off, for those who are not yet familiar with you and your work, can you share what your main focus is?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN
Yes, Exceedia Group is a B2B consulting company that helps companies increase their cash flow. And we do this…⁓ on a dual mandate. So we help ongoing businesses maximize their cash flow and we help organizations that are looking for exit or looking to sell a part of their business and help maximize how they do this. What we do is we benchmark all the prices of expenses by vendor, by SKU, we review the contracts and we come back with a treasure map of opportunities for companies to lower
their expenses. What’s fascinating is in real estate, I would make a big wager that this is not one of the first things that people talk about. Probably not what they talk about at all. And yet it’s ⁓ critical from the standpoint of delivering and helping organizations, especially in real estate, or I should say especially in all businesses, key operating metrics that they look at, they live by. ⁓
And that’s how they’re measured. we help operators, owners, and companies improve those metrics.
Michelle Kesil
Awesome. And are you operating in a specific market or is this service nationwide?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN
We’re based in New York. We have done a number of different industries. In real estate, we have found specifically when we’ve engaged with organizations that may not be what I would call real estate focused, but own property. And when we find that, we have gone in and helped people out.In addition, we’ve worked specifically for some operating companies that are totally devoted towards real estate and have helped them from an operational standpoint, some here in the city and some elsewhere. Doesn’t matter whether or not you are in a regulated state, meaning from a power standpoint or not, we work in all 50 states and have done some work in Canada as well.
Michelle Kesil
Awesome. And how did you come up with Exceedia?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN
I was doing this on my own for a number of years and in 2023 I wanted to try to scale the business for a couple of reasons. One, I had a goal to be able to help more organizations. Two, was I really thought thatwhat I was doing as an individual with my partners could be duplicated and replicated across a number of different areas. And three,
I really wanted to this time have an opportunity to be able to give back. So one of our mission statements is that we give 5 % of our profits back to four charities important to me and my family and or to important charities, of people that we work with. So we want to be able to give back. And that was something that I really thought about. And we created the company in December, kind of launched it in
March of last year.
Michelle Kesil
Awesome. And as you work with people and really go over their expenses and their spending, what are some of the most common mistakes that you find?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN
I don’t know whether or not I’d use the word mistakes. What I think we found is…organizations sometimes they get into what I would call a programmable way of operating. So they’ve done something last year, we’re going to do the same thing again this year and we’re kind of comfortable with that. And what we think is critical as far as the expense side of the ledger is that you benchmark because
the majority of companies and I don’t want to put a percentage on it but I know it’s extremely high. They don’t benchmark their overall expenses and what we do is we benchmark every expense by vendor and then we come back on a national basis, on a regional basis and on a local basis and we show price comparisons. Now service is included and we have to understand that there are some things that can be changed
relatively quickly and the savings is almost immediate and then there’s other things that do take time and possibly some you know corporate involvement that take a little longer but those two can show improvement of operating expenses so I guess what I would say is that I don’t think that what we do is
I will say, pardon me, I think that what we do is critical, but what I think companies do is they get comfortable in how they’ve done things and they are not, I don’t want to say open, but they don’t really look at what are we missing? What can we improve on? So that’s where we can come in and work with them on improving their metrics.
Michelle Kesil
Yeah, absolutely. Do you have some examples of ways that you help people improve?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN
So in, I’m not gonna go through all of them, but what I will share with you is real estate has what I would call possibly, let’s call it 10 large expense categories. And some of those are very easily you know described, but things like,utility and energy. And that’s probably 10 to 25 percent of operating expenses for most real estate companies. Property operations and maintenance, whether or not that’s janitorial, HVA service, landscaping, snow removal. You could have security, repairs and maintenance,
MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (09:35)
what I will say is it’s not just the areas that I think are critical. What I think is more just as critical is how does affect the bottom line.So from an NOI basis, it’s critical because we can help improve that from a free cash flow standpoint, we can help improve that we can help improve your overall cash cycle as well. So all the things that are critical for owners, operators of companies, the benefit is not only seeing, you know, improvement and lower expenses, but all the things that you look
at on your company’s dashboard are going to be positively influenced by spend management.
And I think that’s the tie in that kind of makes us a little different. And ⁓ coming from a background of, I don’t want to say Wall Street, but I was on there for quite some time. It really kind of brought a new light to how spend management is viewed. It’s critical to save money. ⁓
Again, that’s imperative to do that. But it also affects every metric that people look at. And most likely, if they’re a public operating company or a large company, that’s how they’re paid on certain metrics. And if we can help improve those metrics while we are also showing greater improvements in free cash flow, that’s mona. That’s heaven for operators, owners,
as well as anybody who owns real estate.
Michelle Kesil (11:49)
Yeah, absolutely. Most of the audience here are investors. Do you have maybe some specific or tangible advice for the investors that are looking to save?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (12:01)
if they’re investing in operating on their own, where they are actually owners of real estate, make sure that you look at your expenses critically. And,there should be no sacred cows in expenses. And in my humble assessment, every expense needs to be looked at critically. Now if it’s an investment, it’s something else. We’re talking two different things. But if on the expense side, you should review these things and demand to understand whether or not you’re getting the best pricing.
Michelle Kesil (12:38)
And how can someone demand to understand that?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (12:42)
Well, they can do it on their own, where they can take time and call other vendors, have an understanding of what’s involved, and or they can, depending upon the size of their business, they can use outside people. They can have their accounting group, if they are large enough to have an accounting department, they can have their accounting department start that process.We believe very strongly that the old 80-20 rule, you get 80 % of your results from focusing on 20 % of one area where you can maximize your efficiency, you can accelerate your growth, etc. And everything else
not should be outsourced, but thought that it could be outsourced from the standpoint of helping you focus on what you’re really good at. And, you know, that’s why we, our niche is on the expense side. That’s what our forte is. And we live, we die by it, we breathe it, and we believe in it. So operators can either do it on their own, and it is a function of time, it is a function of diligence, it’s a function of desire.
to you know have the greatest profitability that you can have as an individual. And if you’re investing in organizations, make sure that they have a diligent operation. And to work, we have a great referral network.
So if you know people in the business that you believe can benefit from what we do, please reach out to us. We will gladly, as I said, we have a great referral program and we help businesses of all sizes and shapes.
Michelle Kesil (15:11)
Awesome. And what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next in your business?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (15:20)
We are trying to implement what I guess on the front page of every newspaper, well I shouldn’t say newspaper because there’s not that many anymore. So if you go online and see the news, there’s lots of things that are covered but everything’s focused around AI. How’s it implemented? How can you use it? How can it make it better?And we have started the process of working with a developer to create a product that allows us to be able to work with smaller operators. Because in business, we all want to make profits. That’s capitalism. And we want to do this and make a fair profit just as much as we want to add
great value and we think that we’re providing unbelievable value so with
the development of a process that we are well on our way to having a full program, we’re going to be able to work with all sizes of operators and one, make a profit that’s comfortable for us without or providing even more value with the AI implementation and program that we’re developing. And it’s going to touch not only investors, operators, but also organizations that are looking to either sell
and or buy and it can be a wonderful tool for accounting people as well. So that’s what we’re excited about and we’ll see how that all plays out but we’re excited about that.
Michelle Kesil (16:55)
Yeah, amazing. That’s so cool that you’re able to implement these new tools.MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (17:00)
Yes, we’re looking forward to it.Michelle Kesil (17:04)
What are maybe some advice that you could offer for those that are just starting out in their investing journey and are you know wanting to make sure that they’re improving their cash flow in the most you know positive way for them?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (17:20)
I think that if you’re dealing with real estate, let’s be critically important.if you’re dealing with real estate that you have in mind, one the rationale that this is a longer term opportunity where it has to kind of grow. It’s almost like when you’re planting new trees, right? You plant a new tree, a group of trees, and it takes, you know, six, eight, 10 years to create the…
forest that you can either, you know, cut them or whatever you’re going to do with them for that opportunity. So real estate is a longer term investment. And with that in mind,
treat it that way. And when you have things that take a lot of time, you have to nurture them. You have to prune them. You have to continually, you know, improve upon them or they die. And everyone says real estate is the greatest investment it is, if you’re doing the right thing for that particular product, whatever it is, if it’s a home, if it’s an apartment building, if it’s duplex, a quadplex, if it’s a commercial building,
If it’s a warehouse, you you need to keep it up. You need to monitor what it looks like, the curb appeal, et cetera. And lastly, watch your expenses. Look at all your expenses the way that you would your budget. If you are a keen budget person, lots of people aren’t, but if you like really watch your dollars and cents, that’s what we do. So if you do that, I think that’s the greatest thing of all.
that you can do for yourself, can do for your company, can do for your family, etc.
Michelle Kesil (19:04)
Absolutely. And how does your company work with people? Is it like a service or like a one time thing?MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (19:10)
SoExceedia Group works the following way. We are paid for that benchmark. In other words, we will come in, we will review your expenses, we will review your contracts, and then we will provide you a treasure map.
And if you, the company owner, or the company itself, would like to implement all of these opportunities, you can do that. We’re paid for that service. And that service fee is dependent upon the overall revenues. So we have a tiered system, the larger revenue base. ⁓
a more of a fee structure is based off the expense of dollar amount. And if you’d like us to implement and or work with you on
all of those opportunities, we will do that. And we will put the RFPs out, we will line up all the people to make sure exactly what we’re getting. We will make sure on the service side of the equation that if you want deliveries on Thursdays and Fridays, you’ll get it on Thursday and Fridays. We will see how much training is involved. If there is a larger process in terms of that category, where we will ask for more training dollars from the vendor so that we can
assist you in training your own people. So however you want us to be working with you and a partner, we will do that.
Michelle Kesil (20:44)
Awesome. Thank you for sharing.MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (20:47)
Thank you. And I guess I’d be remiss of three things. Please reach out to me. You can look online on exceediagroup.com. No, not, sorry, there is no dot com. It’s just exceedia.group. You can go to Michael Needleman. You can call me, which is the easiest way, at 917-913-Michelle Kesil (20:49)
So yeah, go ahead.MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (21:15)
1123. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on, we’re on LinkedIn, not I’m on, but we’re on LinkedIn. We’re on Twitter. We’re on YouTube. And we’d love to be able to have a conversation with you or anyone regarding a company that you might know or your own company regarding your expenses.Michelle Kesil (21:38)
Perfect. Appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.MICHAEL NEEDLEMAN (21:43)
Thank you so much, Michelle. Thank you for your time and I greatly appreciate being on your podcast.Michelle Kesil (21:48)
Pleasure. And for those tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Michael who are building real businesses and we will see you on the next episode.
