Breaking Down Data Silos: Smarter, More Profitable Properties Through Digitization

Introduction to Digitization and Data Ownership

Bill: Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to the Peak Property Performance Podcast. Today you're stuck with me, Bill, maybe Drew will join, having some issues post-Thanksgiving. But today our guest is Jan Heisman with Schneider Electric. Jan, welcome to the show. I'll read your intro in a second. I wanted to say welcome first.

Jan Heisman: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Bill. And thanks for having me.

Bill: The theme today we're going to talk about is digitization, electrification, and data ownership. Hoping you can share some lessons from Europe for our United States commercial real estate listeners because we like to have visitors from across the pond and compare notes. It makes us all better. Today on the Peak Property Performance Podcast, we're joined by someone who lives at the front edge of digital transformation in the built environment, and that is Jan Heisman from Schneider Electric. Over the years, he's advised some of Europe's largest real estate and healthcare portfolios on how to digitize their operations, control their data, and prepare their assets for an electrified future. Today we're going to talk about what U.S. owners can learn from what's already happening across Europe, and that is electrification, grid capacity challenges, which Jan and I have already talked about several times, data integration, and the mindset shift needed to run buildings that are resilient, efficient, and future ready. Again, Jan, welcome to the show.

Jan Heisman: Yeah. Thanks again, Bill. What an introduction. Thanks.

Bill: Well, it was longer than that. I cut it down because I didn't want to lose listeners as we're going through all your accolades. You know, you started your career inside the guts of buildings, like cost engineering and mechanical, VMS work, things like that. How are you advising major real estate portfolios on digitization, and what did that journey teach you about how buildings actually operate on the inside rather than what we say they should do on the inside?

Jan Heisman: Good question. And yeah, it's true. I started my career as a cost engineer within Equinz, that's at the time it was called another name, and I learned everything regarding building management systems, how to renovate them, how to look at new VMS systems. And what that journey taught me is that it's a really important piece of the puzzle within, I would say, the technical system within a building. If you look at the future of a current VMS system, for example, it generates a lot of data that's being used right now to, let's say for CSRD, SFDR, data that is being used for digitization, optimization, for example. So what it taught me that it's really important to look not at one technical part, but look at a complete system, look at functionality, for example, and then look, okay. So don't look at one piece of a system, but look at the complete system. And the VMS architecture is really important. I find it one of, it's the first layer where data regarding energy consumption, mechanical consumption, everything is sometimes being managed, but everything's, it starts with a good architecture in my point of view.

Challenges in Building Management Systems

Bill: A lot of times we don't see that architecture even existing. We see a lot of these systems thrown at a property, whether it's in initial design or retrofit when a building's traded or bought and sold. And you said a lot of data is being used. Do you also, I'm trying not to bait the question, do you also see a lot of data being generated and not used?

Jan Heisman: Yeah, that's, to be honest, I see that more often than, especially within the existing environment. So let's say for example, 50% of the building of, let's say a lot of the buildings that are existing right now are still being, are still going to be used within 50 years. So there's a big opportunity with renovating them, making them more sustainable. And what we often see within those buildings is that there are a lot of silos and that the potential of data, let's say for example, energy data, but what is it say about an air handling unit, for example, or power, the topic we discussed a few minutes before. There is no integration at all. And yeah, to be honest, sometimes I believe if you want to make a building or a portfolio more sustainable, you have to do something on the civil side, but that's not always the case. Sometimes digitization and putting systems together and break a silos, for example, gives you a lot of data, a lot of views to make it more sustainable in our point of view.

Bill: We talk a lot about data silos on the show. We talked a lot about it in the book. That's the whole premise of the book is imagine if you control the digital infrastructure and the data that all of your property systems generated and looked across silos, because we do see BMS data, but if you can cross it with utilities data and maybe occupancy from another system or access controls, then you can start to triangulate or even more to the fourth, fifth, sixth system and see anomalies and correlations that do turn into not just was the word you just said, I'm going on saving money and utilities overall. So to me, sustainability comes to reduced utilities. At the core of that is reduced utilities because it's less wasteful. So we are impacting the environment, but at the core, we're also focusing on making the property more efficient, wasting less and making more money at the same time. So the owner will make more and the environmental benefits, the sustainability and profitability to me go hand in hand. Most of, not most of the time, I very often hear owners say, I can't afford to be sustainable. And we try to make the argument that, yeah, it's at the core. Being sustainable means more profit. It might take some investment at the front. It depends on the situation and the property. So I just wanted to clarify. That's my opinion. It's only Bill's opinion for whatever that's worth. Profitability is one of the goals, but if you, if you look at profitability, if you look at the user experience, they get, we lay out four or five of those and it's definitely one of the key legs of that stool.

Jan Heisman: So when you see what gets stuck the most, when it comes to digital modern, you know, to modernizing digitally, what is it around?

Bill: Do you want, do you want the honest answer? In my, in my opinion, I think profitability in my, in our opinion, profitability, let's say for example, if there is no business case or the business case or the return on investment is too short, people don't often don't choose to do big investments regarding that. But let's say for example, you see a failure decrease and you're in a top spot area and there are no new rental contracts because your buildings are too old or aren't sustainable enough. Then people choose to invest. But to be honest, if you, uh, in the Netherlands, you look at the big cities, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht, yeah, every top building, I think 90% has from a technical perspective is B is good and are really sustainable because people will pay for it. And the renter is, uh, is ready to pay, but there are also big cities where the, um, yeah. So what we, uh, if, if we look at the popular cities, then that's no problem. If we look at the less popular cities, I'm not going to use names because otherwise maybe, uh, maybe, uh, maybe for other people it's popular, but, uh, let's say, um, yeah, it's a big challenge. And then we go to, um, to the investors, we go to the property managers and say from, Hey, this building has label E for example, where A is the most sustainable. And we say, yeah, but it has at least needs to be C and then he or she is going to say, what's, uh, what's the investment going to be? And let's say for example, for a building of 40,000 square meter, yeah, that's going to be at least 1 million. And 1 million is cheap money, uh, I would say, but, uh, office is not that big money, but then they say, okay, but what's the return on investment going to be? Can you guarantee that I'm going to get better renters? Is the, are you going to guarantee that, uh, I can ask more per square meter? No. Oh, so why invest in the first place? And that's, and that's the, and of course you have regulation that says, we're used to that answer going back five to 10 years, but between regulation, there are cities that are mandating. If you don't, if you don't comply, you're going to start having fines of a million or more and the cost of utilities is going higher. Uh, we're reaching some rent caps and they can't just keep going back to the rent base to get this money. So we contend very strongly all the time that technology investments, like you just mentioned, should not be an expense. They should be an asset and you should know the return or not do them, but you should know the return. You have enough case studies. We have enough case studies to show it. If you do this, then that, and maybe you don't have to do a million. Maybe you could do a stair step, do 200,000 a year for five years. May, I don't know. I don't know the system, but you don't have to lump it all in. And we do see certain times that the building is able to refinance things. There are vendors that can finance this as well, but it's not about selling capex. It's about making the building operate better because everybody benefits, you know, sustainable environment, the local community, the tenants and the owner, they all benefit when we make these buildings run better. So I, I agree with you that the biggest hiccup is the ROI. And it's a, it's a very often first thing we get asked is how much is this going to cost me? And the answer is, we have no idea what are your goals and what do you have? We have to figure out what they have.

Jan Heisman: So on the other hand, uh, on the other hand, bill, what we also see is that, uh, especially the current install base or the current portfolios of big investors.

Jan Heisman: So when it's not digital, measurable or future proof, you see a big decrease in value. So that's a very, yeah, that's, and when the value is dropping and you have to do investments or you can make it more digital through a better BMS or a combination of new power solutions, for example, or together with a BMS, we see those questions, especially within the renovation markets growing, growing. We see a huge potential over there, but unfortunately, like I said, a lot of, especially investors also looking at a business case.

Drew: Well, for the listeners out there, BMS doesn't have to be a major forklift upgrade. I mean, traditionally the commercial roof over here, at least I thought that BMS was going to be a massive, I have to do everything all at once and it's not, you can take ahold of just HVAC. You can take ahold of that. Maybe there's air handlers and versus rooftop units and things like that. You can do just lighting, you can do just pieces of it and step down and start to recognize some return. We advocate baby steps to do small wins first, get your team on board and all that.

Jan Heisman: Yeah. And it starts with efficient as well. What do I want to do with my portfolio? What's the status quo at the moment? Where do I want to go and which steps I'm going to take to get there. In the Dutch market, in 2026, we have a new regulation, it's called, in Dutch it's CAX, but in English it's called BOX, Building Automation Control System. And it says that everything above 270 kilowatts, I hope I said it correctly, it needs to have a sort of control system regarding energy consumption. So that's very good.

Drew: What size building would that be, 270 kilowatts, just to help our audience put some arms around it. How many square meters would that be?

Jan Heisman: If it has a simple installation, let's say for example, a cooling system and air, air handling unit, maybe some split units, for example, it needs to have a sort of system to control everything and make sure there's energy efficiency going.

Electrification and Power Consumption Issues

Drew: Okay. Well, that's a nice parlay into electrification, but we're going to shift the conversation here a little bit. And what I think is the coming bottleneck, you know, or it's, it's obvious to a lot of people, but electrification is pushing the limits of our utilities on both sides of the Atlantic. You're seeing it, we're seeing it. So what are you seeing in Europe that US owners should expect over the next few years?

Jan Heisman: Regarding the challenges we face, power consumption and net congestion problems, what we see that a lot of projects are already fixing. What we want, we want to change from fossil fuels, all electric, electric vehicles. We, if you look at big offices, big healthcare facilities, for example, they use a lot of gas to run the installations. Now we want to transform that to an electrical, to an electrical site, but the power that is needed to make those operations possible aren't always there or aren't. And then they say to a real estate owner, for example, in 2036, then you get the needed power from me. Yeah. But the regulation says it needs to go sooner or a renter says, I don't want to be in a building where there are fossil fuels, fossil fuels being, especially when the gas is coming from Russia, for example. So it's, yeah. On the other hand, we want to go all electrical, but there isn't always enough power. So that's, yeah, that's a big challenge we face.

Bill: I'm a big power guy, as you know, having worked at utilities and spent the better part of a decade inside one of the largest utilities in America. And as an engineer, I get it, but to shift to everything electrical, as you say, puts the pressure on generation and transmission instead of distribution. So you can distribute energy as a mechanical engineer, right? You can distribute energy via electrical grid. There's high losses in some of that, especially at the lower voltages, you can distribute energy and gas or in gasoline, natural gas or gasoline. You can just, you could distribute energy by having a rooftop unit. So I think it's a balance of everything and it has to be weighed with political. Like we don't have gas from Russia piped in directly, but I'm sure it comes in in ships. I'm not a supply chain guy in gas, but I do know that LNG is the big, LNG ships go all the time into Savannah, into Louisiana, right into California, all the time, giving that stuff to us. So I don't know where it comes from. I'm not saying it doesn't apply that there are political as well as economic when it comes to generation. And are we going to be able to keep up with it? I don't, I don't know without being able to take on some things like nuclear and really getting more efficient in some of the solar and more efficient means the battery systems because we do lose, we as a utility, I shouldn't say, every utility loses in line loss. That's you walk around outside, you hear the lines buzzing, that's energy being lost. The same thing happens when it transfers through a battery. Energy is not really ever generated. It's just transferred. Like one of Newton's laws, especially from AC to DC, for example, or from DC to AC.

Jan Heisman: Yeah. To make everything electrical, we have other challenges. So just changing to an electric car, it does help the emissions in the car, but we have to think about the emissions at the generation of the power itself too. So I'm hoping that we, as not just as an economy, but as a society look at the overall impact of emissions when we start making these changes. And what do you do with the batteries? Are we thinking about what to do with those at the end? These are all answerable, but in the beginning of anything, somebody grabs a hold of an idea and doesn't think about the other side of it. Like there are communities here that think, that measure electric cars or electrification as getting carbon credits when really they're just pushing the carbon credit somewhere else wherever it's being generated. And we need to look at, well, it's being generated somewhere. How do we generate it more efficiently and transfer it so that we can do electrification and remove the small motors? Because those are the ones with the high emissions. Those are the ones that are less efficient. So it's a much bigger conversation than just switching to an electric car. I'm kind of passionate about it. I don't know the answer, but these are all questions I ask often because I love people's opinion. Teach me.

Drew: And to be honest, I don't know for the market where you are in, but if you look at electrical cars, for example, are they being able for the big markets? Because an electrical car, in my point of view, if you look at it, of course the prices are going down at the moment, especially cars from China. I think the average car is around 40,000 euros. For the average worker who don't have a lease contract, it's a lot of money. So yeah. Do you want to give up your benzine car for your diesel car, your diesel engine car for an electrical car? Well, a lot. Yeah. For the lease. I lease a car. I love to drive in my Tesla. I find it an amazing car, especially the software part. Yeah. I was, yeah. I'm a Tesla guy. I love it.

Jan Heisman: Well, a lot of problem we're seeing with people that buy electric cars here is they bring it home and they don't have, you know, you need a 200 amp panel and there's houses that have 150 or 100 amp panels all across the country. And that's a major expense. So even if you change the panel, is the utility going to change the transformer to keep up with the demand? So we go right back to the electrification and the grid issue. Like yes, you can solve that. Maybe the car is 40,000 euros, but then you're going to have to pay 4,000 euros to change the electrical setup in your house and get the right charger because you can't trickle charge on your car. You know, you have one. I don't, but I have several friends that do and I love them. I think they're great cars. I don't have an electrical charger, but the infrastructure in the Netherlands I can say is really good regarding EV and when you lease a car, I use it for my work. I have to travel a lot. So I have a cart I can use to load my car. So that expense is, yeah, is in the lease amount.

Integrating Systems for Improved Efficiency

Drew: Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's very good. If you don't mind, let's shift back to integrated systems in the building, right? I did want to talk about the power and we could probably have a whole nother show on that sometime. Let's talk about why smart buildings fail without a unified data layer, right? Everybody loves the phrase smart and I'm trying to shift more of the conversation to not smart as much as autonomous. The building is actually not smart. It's only doing if-then loops, right? How much could we program an if-then loop? If this happens, then I do that, you know, infinite is your answer, but you need to have the data to make the decisions on, right? So most systems don't talk to each other inside of these buildings or most data is not even shared. So where do you see integration breakdowns happening the most?

Jan Heisman: What makes the challenges or the possibilities you have the most visible, I think, is especially when you look at, if you look at power, for example, is there enough power, yes or no? Then it's really important to know, okay, let's say, for example, you have 3000 kilowatts available. You have existing systems within your building. How much kilowatt does a system need at what time? So it's really important that there is an integration between the electrical system, the HVAC system. So it needs to talk to each other to depend, okay, there is not enough power yet. These are the critical systems, so those need to stay alive. These systems aren't critical, so maybe we can shut them off or we can do a dynamic load balancing, for example. Then what we see is then it's really important that you use, especially when you apply a data model, for example, an FTD, for example.

Jan Heisman: That you use a data model, let's say, for example, you use Project Haystack or you use Brick. So the codes you give to a data point is really important. And if every system is using different data points and you look at different SaaS solutions and you need to connect through APIs, for example, and every system is using different data models, then you need another system who says, okay, if I get a data point from that system, normally the data is X one zero, then it needs to be zero one X, for example. So that puts a lot of pressure on data scientists because data is no different, but the way it's being coded is different. So not usable always. So you have to do something with the data to make sure it's the same language model. You understand what I'm saying?

Bill: What I hear you describing is a middleware kind of connector need, and we deal with that a lot. I'm not going to plug OpticWise because there's plenty of people and plenty of companies that do it, but we have to do that to normalize and make the data usable. For instance, if we pick Schneider, for instance, specifically, if we get into an older Schneider system, some of the data is structured very old versus some of the newer stuff and we have to transfer the data. It's still good, but it's in a structure that's almost not usable. So we have to do like the zero one six example, we have to change it from, you know, it might be in SQL and that's not usable to put it into a data lake that machine learning can run on. So we do a lot of that work and it is not a small task. It's not rocket science by any means, but it's very tedious. And once it's done and set up, then it's straightforward. It is a little bit arduous in the beginning, but after that, it runs very smoothly. It's almost like a translator for the non-techies out there, you know, it's, you know, everybody uses Google Translate when they travel. It's just like putting a translator in your data and making it usable on the other side when you have a repository of all your data.

Drew: Yeah. Well, if you were advising a mid-market, like medium size, you know, not the monsters, not the little ones, size building owner, commercial real estate owner to take the first step toward integrating without ripping out all their existing systems. We're not talking about a major forklift upgrade. Where would you start? What would you tell them to do first?

Jan Heisman: First, I always would start with them from what's the objective regarding maybe sustainability or what do you want from a functional level and what do you want to, well, what's the status quo, where do you want to go and write that down and then look, okay, what existing systems are being in place right now? What BMS systems are you using? Siemens, Johnson, Honeywell, Prifa. Okay. What systems do you use? Open protocols right now, like BACnet, for example, or Modbus or give it a name, but open protocols. Then, based on the proportion of their portfolio, I would talk to them about a data layer from, okay, which data layer are you using to make sure for your regulation, for example. If you see, for example, they need, let's say for example, measuring energy consumption is really important there to say something about efficiency. Okay. What meters are you using right now? Don't you have any meters? Okay. What can, so then we look at the architecture and what sensors can we provide? Always start from the, okay, what main objections do you have regarding, yeah, like, yeah.

Drew: Do you see any one thing that commonly is a low lift in the beginning? That's a quick win, something simple they can do without adding sensors, without doing any other data. So just like give them a direction to look at, to start with, because you look at the, how is the current BMS system installed right now? Let's say for example, you know, that in the weekends, the office is closed. Do you see in the data or is then the building shut off? Or do you see that the cooling system is being used? Oh, that's strange. Why is it being used? Oh, because the clock timing is not being adjusted to the new situation, for example. So look at the current measurements of the BMS system. That's something we see quite a time.

Jan Heisman: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. If very, a very simple one, lighting is the lighting shut off. Obviously the lighting turned off after closing time. We like to do an audit in the beginning, just to see what you have and you don't have.

Drew: Yeah, exactly. And in doing one of those audits, we found a lighting control system that was installed five or six years before, earlier when the building was built, never activated, never turned on.

Jan Heisman: Oh, wow.

Drew: Yeah. So it was already there. It was wired. It was installed. It just wasn't being used. So we deployed it for them, meaning turned it on, optimized it. They saved almost $70,000 a year in lighting and there's a 200,000 square foot office building and that just came right now. So that lowered the CAMs, it lowered the OPEX. The tenants were happier. I mean, it saved them a lot of money that they were able to pass through some of that to the tenants. The tenants started seeing 30, 40, 50 cents a foot in CAM charges reductions because of something that was sitting there never used. So do look for, look for power, look for BMS installations. I love those stories.

Human Side of Digital Transformation

Bill: So the next shift here, we've talked about power and we've talked about data. Let's talk about the human side of all this, making digital transformation stick because change management is a, you see it as much as I do. It's a big challenge. So you've worked with operators and engineering teams all over Europe, right? What's the human friction you see when a building's tech stack becomes more advanced? When the engineer that's dealing with pliers and wires and moving air all of a sudden sees blinking lights, what challenges come with that?

Jan Heisman: I think the, to be honest, the biggest challenge we see regarding that is their current reference of the, how do you say that? What do they know so far? Let's say, for example, they're used to engineer a lighting system that way. So yeah, I think the status quo is the most important one, but I'm used to engineer a heating system that way, or I'm used, from Schneider, we call that a connected room solution where you have an integration between the electrical system, the HVAC system and the lighting system, but sometimes a big specifier is used. You have an electrical department and you have an HVAC department, but with that solution, you have an integration of them both. So sometimes it means that a little piece of the electrical part is being integrated in the HVAC part, but that's my engineering job. It's not your engineering job. But from an integration standpoint, it's sometimes a better solution for the end user and especially from a functional level. And in the Dutch market, it's really common that, and I don't want to blame specifiers. I don't, I don't want to, but it's, yeah, what we often see is they, the way they use to engineer the technical systems for real estate portfolios, for example, that's sometimes a big challenge. That's also a job you and I have regarding that.

Bill: Okay. Well, I'm going to ask you this next question and I would like for each of us to answer, but I want to go first because you might just steal my answer. What does a digitally mature property team, think property management, engineering on-site staff? What does a digitally mature property team look like compared to a traditional one that has not made the shift to digitization?

Jan Heisman: There's more IT involved. So the big design firms, they have IT consultants, they have data scientists, they have IoT architects, because normally, if you look at the existing buildings, you have what we call ET, electrical, so the electrical part, then you have the HVAC, but now you have ET plus HVAC plus IT, because the IT component is really important. Especially if you want to use data lakes, or you want to use SaaS solutions, or you want to make integrations with a lot of external platforms, then your IT backbone, ITOT needs to be really good. It needs to be safe, cybersecurity safe, it's sort of the same. So that type of knowledge and competence needs to be involved in the engineering phase. So that's, and we, the smaller specifiers, not all, not all smallers, but we often see that they don't have that knowledge in place yet, but they see a shift coming. They see that digitization, and normally, if you look, let's say, for example, 10 years ago, and you look at a new building, you have the construction part, and then you have the installation part. Normally the construction part, so the stones, et cetera, those were the, especially from the CAPEX side, were the biggest part. But now the technical, the technical installation, especially if you look at the maintain and operate phase, had a much bigger influence on the total cost of ownership than just the civil part. So the construction part, so the, yeah, that's, you see, you see a big shift in the complexity of technical systems, and especially from an IT perspective, in my opinion.

Bill: I completely concur and agree with you. I want to make a few clarifications for the listeners though. Traditionally IT has been, oh, my computer doesn't work, my leasing office.

Jan Heisman: My CFO or I call IT or I need a new laptop, I call IT. So relative to operating systems inside of a building, that's not the IT we're talking about. We're talking about a digital architecture that's designed and implemented and then managed. Some companies can manage it themselves, some companies outsource it, but either way, it should be designed and documented instead of just handed off. Now, IT needs their place in operations at a corporate level, but IT at corporate very often can't handle, I said they can't handle it. They're just understaffed or not knowledgeable. They don't have the data scientists and they don't have the understanding of how to integrate a BMS system to the elevator controls, to the access controls and be able to use the data in their own data lake. That's a whole different problem than managing my company's financial system and making sure I'm compliant for my reporting because I'm a REIT. Now, that's a whole different problem than the operation level.

Jan Heisman: So we talk about IT and networks here on the show and in the book as digital infrastructure. The systems, it's the networks and it's the data that comes out of it. So managing the data that's generated out from the digital infrastructure is crucial to success. So I completely agree. It's just a different skillset. And the earlier the CRE owner and operators get that skillset involved, the more benefit it has to the property. Thanks for the clarification. So IT is very necessary, but don't- Yeah, it's really the same. What we also see, and I think that's a big advantage of the development, is normally you see design and build, and then chook, and then you have maintain and operate. But what we now face, and not every design firm does that, but they want involvement in the design, build, maintain, and operate phase, and want to use data to check if the design they made, for example, is it gives the outcome they engineered, right? Let's say a building is Paris-proof, but is it Paris-proof in the operational phase?

Jan Heisman: To be honest, I find that a more important question than, okay, it's being made Paris-proof, okay, but how is it going to be used in the operational phase? And is every year, based on energy consumption, based on other important topics to measure Paris-proof buildings, is it in the operational phase? Oh, it's not, okay. Which buttons we need to press to adjust it? Then you need data, and you need integrated systems, or layers, if it's an example. And yeah, you see, or we see involvement of specifiers from, okay, we need to adjust it, and the contracts are going to be bigger. To be honest, it's also happening because the hours they get to engineers are being smaller sometimes. So the contracts are being bigger, so you have bigger involvement. So the money is more on the OPEX side than on the CAPEX side.

Jan Heisman: Sometimes we see building engineers, or property managers, be leery of going to digitization. Or they don't like it. I don't know if it's because of the change, or because it's an inferred threat to their job. But I'm here just to say, we absolutely need all the property managers, and we need all the building engineers. We just need to add the digital engineers and the digital architects to the mix. It's not going to raise the property's expenses, it's going to lower the property's expenses. It just takes a different strategy. The digital architect, whether they design, implement, or operate and manage, or all of the above, cannot do the building engineer's job. They cannot do the property manager's job. Converse is also true. Like the building engineer, well, I take that back. The building engineer could learn to do how to run the digital infrastructure on-site, but do they have the time, and do they have the training? Is their employer going to give them the time and the training to do it? So that is a management strategy.

Jan Heisman: So we talked about the human side. I'm pretty passionate about all that, because this is just about becoming more efficient, right, all the way around. Jan, we could have this conversation forever, but I appreciate your time. At the end of every show, we do what we call the extra floor. So we take our guests through five questions. This is not a conversation point. It's just so they can understand you. I'll ask questions, and it's just meant to be short answer, gut level, and for everybody listening, Jan doesn't know what we're going to ask him. So these are really going to be responses. And these are not about work. This is about you and the person. So what's a book or a podcast that shaped how you think?

Personal Insights and Career Advice

Jan Heisman: Oh, that's a really good question. Yeah, to be really honest, it's The Science of Selling. That's a book that really changed my mind because it really teaches you the psychological part of selling, and how a decision in somebody's head is being made. And I think if we want to transform to a more digital world or a more decarbonized world, we also have to sell it. And it's, yeah, so it really taught me to sell the idea. And what's also very, yeah, two books, it's also Gap Selling, is a really good book. I really recommend it. Gap Selling, Gap Selling? Yeah, Gap Selling, I expect, yeah. Yeah, and The Challenger Sale. The Challenger Sale, I have read. Yeah, The Challenger Sale. I really love the subject sales. I really love that. Not to make a lot of money, but really to move people forward, to change them, to challenge them on the status quo. And I think, yeah, especially what we're doing right now, it's not happening overnight. So sometimes we have to sell it. Maybe it's for a better future, for more sustainability, maybe for better money sometimes, but it's really important that we sell it.

Bill: As we mentioned, sustainability benefits everybody.

Jan Heisman: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so what's the best piece of career or life advice you've ever received? Be yourself. Yeah, maybe it sounds stupid, but I can imagine in the beginning of my career, I really thought I wasn't behaving myself. I can't explain it in a good way, but the more I was being myself and I was relaxed and starting to listen instead of talking, that changed my career in a very good way. And also I want to help you and don't want to sell you. And if I believe I can't help you, then there's no fit for me and you. And that's okay. That's no problem. I can't help everybody. I want to help everybody where if you have a challenge, I can help you with, there's a fit. I would love to help you. I do everything for you. If there's no fit, no problem. But in the beginning of my career, I found that very difficult because I really want to help everybody. I can't say no, but yeah, it's not possible to help everybody.

Bill: What's a small daily habit or ritual that makes a big difference for you?

Jan Heisman: Training in the morning. I am an early guy. I love to train in the morning. It's good for my mental clarity. Also good for the physical part, of course, but yeah, it's a habit. I will continue the rest of my life.

Bill: I concur. I got to get my hour and a half in in the morning. I get it.

Jan Heisman: Exactly. Now, when you're not working, what do you love to do that recharges you? Playing golf. Ah. Yeah. Now the weather is not that good, but especially in the weekend, playing with friends, doing 18 holes. After the 18 holes, having a good dinner with each other, have a good conversation. Yeah, I really love that. And also from time to time, Bill, being honest, go to a festival with friends.

Bill: Music festival, you mean?

Jan Heisman: Yeah, music festival. EDM, EDM music. Sometimes techno. It's really enjoying life with good friends and family, of course.

Bill: My wife and I do a couple dozen shows a year, live music.

Jan Heisman: Oh, wow.

Bill: We probably go to three or four or five festival days a year, too, where we see multiple shows. So of all kinds, all kinds. It doesn't matter. If it's live music, we'll probably go, so I get it. So Jan, how can our listeners contact you? We will put this in the show notes, but tell them how you'd like them to reach out.

Conclusion and Contact Information

Jan Heisman: They can contact me on my LinkedIn profile. If they search Jan Huisman, Schneider Electric, they find me. But the best way to reach out to me is through LinkedIn. I can give you the URL if you want.

Bill: We put it in the notes. We have it. Yeah. Make sure it's in there. Yeah, so the best way is through LinkedIn or YouTube sometimes. Well, thank you, Jan, and thanks to our listeners, to everybody out there. Please be sure to follow it, to like it, to share it, to subscribe. That helps us further the message. And if you've got any ideas for future shows, we're always open to those as well. So I'll see you on the next episode of Peak Property Performance. Thanks again, Jan.

Jan Heisman: Thanks, Bill, for having me, and enjoy your day.

Bill: Likewise. Have a great holiday.

Jan Heisman: Yeah, you too, man. Bye-bye.

Bill: Thanks. Bye-bye.