IPG Moab Adventure!

Tomorrow morning, the entire IPG team is headed off for a Moab Adventure!

First on the agenda is hiking and rappelling the Medievel Chamber (sounds scary right?). There are two major rappells, one of which is descending a massive arch with a 243' span. Let's hope they are using the trusty carabiners by our friends over at Petzl.

Day two will include a white water rafting trip through Westwater Canyon. Westwater Canyon is a 17 mile long canyon with rapids up to a level IV. This will be my first time white water rafting and I'm not going to lie, I'm a little nervous! Then again with adventure pro, Jeremy Jensen, things are bound to be alright.

I'm looking forward to the trip. It's fun to get out of your element every once in a while! We'll be back on Monday, hopefully in one piece!

The Incredible Gift of Being Present

As many of you know, we just recently returned from a 3 week European holiday.  This is a picture of me and my Father at a restaurant in Athens.  I think my wife took the picture because she had just been giving me crap about checking my emails and working.  I imagine I was involved in commenting to my business partner about a deal that we were struggling to keep on track at the time. (notice the girl behind me…she was from San Jose, CA)

I suppose it is easy enough to tell who is having the better time in the picture???  Needless to say, my dear old Dad does not have a phone that receives e-mails, and is just barely text message compliant.

This trip was different than some of our previous overseas journey’s in that most tourist restaurants now have Wi-Fi for free to entice people to eat there.  The upside of this in combination with my iPhone, was that I did not have to visit one single internet café, as in the past.  Which was always a contentious situation for me and my wife, and I can attest, it is not usually a great spot to hang out. (she did not check a single email the entire 3 weeks)

I know it is not very realistic for most business people to just leave every piece of technology behind when we go on vacation, but it does seem prudent to limit our exposure to our gadgets, and give our time more completely to the people we are traveling with.  The folks at home tend to figure things out one way or another.  And after a week or so you might even stop automatically reaching for the phone every time you get in the car!

Practice presence and have a great summer!

Client Highlight - Reynolds

Last week I had a great time participating in the filming of our new client highlight video with the executives from Reynolds. You might imagine a room of people in shirts and ties from that description… Not every company can film their CFO mountain biking or their chief engineers road biking in the mountains near Park City! This is an amazing group of people who make some incredible wheels for the cycling industry. We love working with people who are passionate about life and their business.

Check out the new video below:

Cool Happenings in Salt Lake City

One of the best parts about living in Salt Lake City is getting to witness the growth of creativity and resourcefulness in what some might call a "little big city". The most recent example of this is a pop-up market in a sleepy area of town recently dubbed The Granary District. Kentlands Initiative, along with local business, and citizens have created an urban market and festival space utilizing old shipping containers along 700 South between 3rd and 4th West. Beginning Saturday June 15th the pop-up market will welcome all as a space for local food, music, and artisan wares.

As a resident of the "granary" area, and lover of Salt Lake City, I am proud of the imagination brewing within our community and look forward to see more projects like Granary Row.

For more info check out www.granaryrow.org 

Is your capital working for you?

After weathering and surviving the Great Recession, many savvy executives are taking a fresh look at a real estate strategy that has been around a very long time: selling some or all of their real estate holdings and leasing all or part of that space back. Should you be considering a sale and leaseback strategy too? Well, it depends, but it is definitely worth exploring. 

Today’s business climate requires business owners to evaluate the use and cost of capital in ways they haven’t had to before. Meanwhile, there is an abundance of capital available in the market to acquire well positioned commercial real estate assets with great tenants at prices as good or better than we have ever seen it. This part of the real estate market is back. And, it’s being fueled by extremely low interest rates and patient equity that is ready to be deployed. Give us a call and we would be glad to help you analyze the pros and cons of a sale and leaseback.