Mind Your Business

Mind Y ur Business Ralph Zucker: “Find Your Niche”

By Yitzchok Saftlas

This column features business insights from a recent “Mind Your Business with Yitzchok Saftlas” radio show. The weekly “Mind Your Business” show – broadcasting since 2015 – features interviews with Fortune 500 executives, business leaders and marketing gurus. Prominent guests include: John Sculley, former CEO of Apple and Pepsi; Dick Schulze, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Best Buy; and Beth Comstock, former Vice Chair of GE; among over 400+ senior-level executives and business celebrities. Yitzchok Saftlas, president of Bottom Line Marketing Group, hosts the weekly “Mind Your Business” show, which airs at 10pm every Sunday night on 710 WOR and throughout America on the iHeartRadio Network.

On a recent 77WABC “Mind Your Business” broadcast, Yitzchok Saftlas (YS) spoke with guest Ralph Zucker (RZ), president of Someset Development. Zucker is best known for Bell Works, a 2 million square foot metroburb redeveloped from the former Bell Labs.

YS: Ralph, you’ve been in residential and commercial real estate for many decades. Tell me a little bit more about Somerset Development. How has the business evolved since the very early days compared to where it is today?

RZ: We started out as a suburban sprawl developer. We were doing the typical single family, cul-de-sac, townhouse-style home. But suburban zoning is not exactly helpful for great development. It’s pretty much designed so that the garbage can be picked up and the firetruck can get to your house in case of emergency. But it’s not a human scale plan. So, we worked these first few projects, but it was unsatisfying to me personally. I saw all these great neighborhoods being created, but it didn’t really feel right. I started gravitating toward something I now know is called new urbanism. I would go to places and say, “Why can’t we build places like this?” Places that feel right, the right scale with a little bit more of a pedestrian feel. Walkability is not just the ability to walk. It’s the desire to walk. So, creating better places became something of an obsession.

I was introduced to a book called The New Urbanism by Peter Kats, and I actually reached out to one of the people that he highlights, Andrés Duany, who’s known as a father of new urbanism. I started doing some projects together with Andrés and his team, great urban planners, and that’s where we started.

Let’s go back 10-15 years ago when Bell Works was just an idea inside your brain, and take us through that whole process of bringing it to life.

So, what was then Bell Labs was owned by Alcatel Lucent of Lucent Technology, leftover from the Bell Telephone company. It was designed by Eero Saarinen to create connectivity, not through the telephone, but in personal encounters as well. Think of 6,000 of the greatest minds in the universe, coming together in a 2-million-square-foot building designed to foster connectivity, cross pollinate, and create serendipitous encounters.

But when I walked into the building, after it had been vacated by Lucent, it had fallen into disrepair. On a rainy day, we literally needed a bucket brigade. Most people wrote it off. But as we walked in, because of my new urbanist background and being used to thinking in terms of human scale environments, it struck me that what Saarinen had created was this perfect indoor pedestrian street. There was clutter. but it just struck me intuitively that if we could strip it down to its essence and bring the building back to its bones, we could create a great space. I think I was the only one in the world who thought so.

This is fascinating. That means even with the people you were close with and with your investors, you felt like you were talking to a wall.

People pitied me. They’d pat me on the back and say, “Wow, what a great vision.” And then as soon as I turned around, I could hear their eyeballs rolling inside their head. A lot of people told me recently that they were very concerned that I had embarked on a bridge too far. It was just too crazy. But I think, in a way, sometimes it’s good to be crazy.

I must say that I could not have done this alone. There are moments that I just don’t know how I got to the next step. I was also blessed by being surrounded with great people, who did buy into the vision little by little. For five years, we closed on the 14th amendment to the second contract. For five years, we work diligently, again, with the help of a lot of really good people. And I must say, once the community of Holmdel, Monmouth County, New Jersey, got on board and heard our narrative and believed in what we wanted to do the township, a lot of mayors and county executives put themselves on the line to assist us in creating this.

You’ve obviously surrounded yourself with a great team and know you need to hear out their advice. Yet at the same time, there are points when you’ve instinctively gone with your gut. Perhaps you could share some insights into that.

One story that comes to mind is when we came up with the name Bell Works. It sounds very intuitive and easy once it’s done. But originally, we really sweated a lot on what to call it. We were going to call it Bell Place, and about six months into the process, we’d already advertised Bell Place in various media outlets. So, we hired this company to do the logos, graphics, and branding for Bell Place. One day, this team comes in, but they don’t want to show us the logo or anything yet. They wanted to walk around first. They gave us all lab coats and made us walk around the vacant, former Bell Labs to feel the energy. They spoke about what had happened over here and how this building changed the world. Then we sat around the table, and they unveiled the logo. But it was for Bell Works, not Bell Place. And we all said, “You made a mistake. It’s Bell Place.” And they said, “No, it’s not. It’s Bell Works.” So, we went around the table, and everybody said, “We’re sorry, this, this is Bell Place. We already advertised it as Bell Place. We have to change it.” And I said, “Well, it’s a good thing I vote last, and it’s a good thing that this isn’t a democracy. Because I love the name Bell Works. We’re gonna go with Bell Works.”

That was a gut feeling. I liked it. It takes time to develop an instinct, and every time that I haven’t followed my instinct, I’ve regretted it.

As a CEO, how important is it for a for a business executive to actually be present on site? Especially in your case, where you have businesses in New Jersey, Chicago, and perhaps other places, how important is it to be physically present from time to time?

It’s very important. We currently go out to Bell Works Chicagoland typically once a week.

That being said, I think the most imWe’ve talked about the original Bell Labs and how you changed it to this new name, Bell Works. With the many projects you’re involved with, what do you need to have in mind in terms of consideration of trademarks and branding precautions?

Branding is very important. We learned that very much at Bell Works. That doesn’t just mean a trademark, per se. It’s not just like I have my logo, it’s trademarked, and I’m protected. Bell Works is a methodology. For example, instead of our security people standing with their arms folded, we teach them to stand with their arms at their sides or behind their backs and to give people a smile. The idea of how to communicate

“It just struck me intuitively that if we could strip it down to its essence and bring the building back to its bones, we could create a great space.”

portant thing is to create a culture. When we started with Bell Works, I had a lot of ideas for how I wanted it to be through my intuition, that unique sensibility that might just be my perspective. And it took a while to get my team to understand me intuitively, and I used to feel much more than I needed to micromanage to be on top of things. Today, I give a shout-out to everybody who works with me. I’m able to sit back, take the time to do this interview and know that my team is doing what we want done.

I think the most important thing, almost more than being on site, is being able to communicate and share your vision, your ideas. You know, just before this, I was on a Zoom call with a team of architects out in Chicago that are working on a restaurant for us. I said to them, “We have to stop. We’re going out there next Monday. I want you to come and walk the site with me.” They said, “Ralph, we already walked the site.” I said, “Yes, but you didn’t walk with me. We’re gonna walk together with my design team, with my construction people. I want you to get into my head, into our collective heads. Then we can design it. and how to convey the brand ethos and methodology is important as well. So, you have to imprint that on your people. It’s also important how you protect your brand in terms of the basics (having brand colors, guidelines for the different logo types, etc.). If people will put up a sign in one of our buildings saying, “To access this room, please contact security,” it has to have the right logo type, the right brand, and the right brand colors. It’s so important that everything that goes out on our social media fits the brand and message that we want to convey. My team takes it very much to heart.

Ralph, when it comes to achieving success, perhaps you could share what have been some of the most important tools in your toolbox to help you reach an end goal.

I think it’s passion. It’s putting yourself totally on the line. Whether it’s with investors or tenants, people will invest if they see that you’re passionate, that you’re committed, and that you believe in what you’re doing. You can’t be equivocal. You can’t hedge your bets. You have to be all in. The bigger the idea, the more dedicated you have to be to it.

When I was talking to the CEO of iCIMS, the building wasn’t even finished. And I couldn’t understand how they had the guts to sign a lease with us. It was an eye-opener for me when at the ribbon cutting ceremony, the CEO said, “It’s a big step for us to come here. But you know what? I walked around with Ralph Zucker, and I just thought that I could trust him. He was so passionate and committed, we bet on him.” So, we were able to convey that and land a 350,000-square-foot tenant and friend, everything. So that’s really key.

As we approach the close, what’s one last great tip that you could share with us?

RZ: Differentiate or die. In the real estate business today, it’s the flavor of the month. Now it’s warehousing. Tomorrow, it’s going to be who knows what. A lot of it is just, if this is what everybody else is doing, I’m gonna jump on the bandwagon. And by the way, that’s a great way to do things. It’s typically a safe bet. But it’s also a way to look at yourself in the mirror, or to look at your shareholders, your partners, or investors and say, “Well, I just did what everybody else was doing.” But if you could differentiate yourself, if you could find something that speaks to you and bring that to the marketplace, you can typically find a product, a methodology, a system, a place, something that is undersupplied. And if it’s undersupplied and you can provide it, you will have more demand than you can possibly supply.

That would be my closing remark. Find your niche. Differentiate and stick with it.