Double Your Output with AI in 2026 Workshop: The Multiplier Framework for CRE

On January 15, over 700 commercial real estate professionals joined me live (nearly 1,400 registered) to learn a simple idea:

Any CRE professional, regardless of technical skill or AI knowledge, can multiply their output.

Not by working longer hours. Not by hiring a bigger team. But by taking a disciplined, systematic approach to the work that sits between you and your results, then using AI and automation to collapse the time required.

If you missed the live session, or want to go deeper, this post gives you:

• The full 90‑minute workshop replay
• A clear walkthrough of the five‑step Multiplier Framework
• A link to the Multiplier Framework app, a free tool we built to help you apply this
• Pointers to AI.Edge and CRE Agents if you want to learn more and build custom solutions

Watch the 90‑Minute Workshop Replay

Note: Click here and then scroll about halfway down the page to find the slides used in the workshop

Why Most CRE Professionals Are Still “Stuck in 2023”

We ran a poll during the workshop. Over 70 percent of attendees said they use AI only occasionally and without any systemized approach.

Most are in a 2023 ChatGPT mindset:

• Use AI Chat as a smarter search engine
• Ask it to draft an email or memo here and there
• Get burned once or twice by hallucinations
• Then more or less stop pushing forward

Meanwhile, the technology has quietly leaped ahead in the last 6 months. It can now:

• Monitor inboxes
• Parse offering memorandums
• Trigger workflows
• Move data between systems
• Draft and redraft analysis as information changes

In other words, it can start to do work, not just answer questions.

During my career I have used versions of this framework to:

• Reach out to roughly 5 times as many prospective clients as a young broker
• Cut IC prep time by roughly 75 percent as an underwriting associate
• Double margins in my current business
• Help a team of 2 produce work equivalent to a team of 20 at Stablewood

The hard part is not the implementation. The hard part is finding the multipliers! Once you know what you need, implementation is usually easier than people think.

The Deeper Why: Time Is Our Most Valuable Asset

As we get older, something interesting happens. The value of a dollar goes down in our personal calculus. The value of time goes up.

In the workshop, I shared the story of John, a 90‑year‑old farmer. He owned incredibly valuable land. Developers tried for years to buy it. At one point he said, “I might have one good year left. I do not want to spend that year negotiating a sale.”

At that point, more money did not matter. More time did.

I am past midlife now. I feel that shift personally. The real promise of AI in CRE is not just more fees, higher carry, or a bigger bonus. It is the ability to unlock time at scale in a way no previous technology has.

That is what the Multiplier Framework is designed to do.

The Five‑Step Multiplier Framework

Step 1: Audit Your Work

Most of us think in deliverables, not tasks.

• Deliverables: “Quarterly report,” “acquisition model,” “IC memo,” “LOI”
• Tasks: “Download OM,” “pull rent roll,” “extract unit mix,” “update assumptions,” “paste charts into PowerPoint”

When you say, “I build a financial model,” that is a deliverable. The real work is the 20 to 50 micro tasks inside that deliverable.

What to do

• For the next 6 weeks, take a simple daily inventory:
  • What deliverables did you work on today?
  • For each, what tasks did you perform?

You can do this in a notebook, Excel, Notion, or directly inside the Multiplier Framework app. The goal is to see your job as a collection of repeatable tasks, not just big, amorphous outputs.

Step 2: Quantify the Impact

Next, you quantify the impact of automating or partially automating each task.

Think in three types of value:

1. Hours saved
2. Revenue impact (fees, promote, commissions)
3. Expense reduction (salary, overhead, opportunity cost)

Examples:

• If an analyst earns 50 per hour and spends 50 hours per month on a recurring process, that is 2,500 per month. Cutting it in half saves 1,250 per month.
• If closing a deal generates 100,000 in fees, and a task meaningfully improves your hit rate or cycle time, you can allocate part of that value to the underlying work.

This step matters for everyone:

• Principals focus on revenue generation and cost reduction
• Employees and analysts improve bonuses, annual reviews, job security, and market value
• Students become far more competitive if they can show they know how to multiply output, not just complete work

Inside the app, you can assign a value and frequency to each deliverable, then let the math roll up to show where the biggest multipliers are.

Step 3: Identify Solutions

Once you have a prioritized list of tasks, you brainstorm solutions.

Important point: Solutions are not always technology first.

In order:

1. Make requirements less dumb
   • Ask, “Do we actually need this?” or “Does it need to be this complex?”
2. Delete
   • Many recurring tasks exist because “we have always done it this way.”
3. Delegate
   • To teammates, offshore support, vendors, or specialized services.
4. Automate
   • Only after you have simplified and trimmed.

On tools, quality problems usually come from:

• Using the wrong tool for the job
• Not understanding what the tool needs from you to perform reliably

In the Multiplier Framework app, we built a database of third‑party AI tools, plus a growing catalog of potential CRE Agents skills and custom solution patterns, so you can browse ideas instead of starting with a blank page.

Step 4: Prioritize

Now you rank by two variables:

1. Impact: How valuable would it be to improve or automate this task?
2. Feasibility: How easy is it to implement?

You do not need a fancy scoring algorithm. A simple ranked list is fine:

• High impact, easy to implement
• High impact, harder to implement
• Lower impact, easy
• Lower impact, hard

Start with the highest impact, easiest to implement. That is how you avoid overwhelm and the “I do not know where to start” problem.

Step 5: Execute and Iterate

Finally, you pick one task and execute.

Think in three phases:

1. Implement
   • Sign up for the tool, wire up the integration, or set up the new process.
2. Iterate
   • Test, learn, refine. Expect bugs. Expect edge cases. This is normal.
3. Automate
   • Once it works reliably, treat it as “done” and move on.

A few mindset points:

• Do not let perfect be the enemy of good.
• What you want on day one is incremental help, then you layer on improvements.
• Once Task 1 is in the “iterate” phase, introduce Task 2. Over time you create an assembly line of improvements.

You climb a mountain one step at a time. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. This is no different.

The Framework in Action: A Real‑World Example

During the workshop, I walked through an example with Michael Belasco of Firm Ridge, an outdoor hospitality investment and development firm.

The problem

• They were missing deals by responding too slowly
• Michael estimated they lost four perfect deals last year because they were late
• Current process: about 2 hours per deal to run an initial fit check
• Roughly 25 deals reviewed to get 5 worth pursuing
• That is about 50 hours per month on initial screening

The solution path

1. First priority: Build a notification engine
   • Route all inbound leads to a single email
   • Trigger a Slack notification the moment a new deal arrives
2. Next iteration: Add basic pre‑screening
   • Filter by property type, location radius, price range, simple rules
3. Future state: A qualifying engine
   • Automatically scores quality
   • Surfaces top deals
   • Eventually drafts simple LOIs or at least LOI skeletons

Five years ago, this would have required:

• A developer
• Custom code
• Ongoing maintenance

Today, a non‑technical principal can stand this up in half an hour between meetings using tools like Replit, n8n, Zapier, or even the agent‑builder tools inside ChatGPT.

That is the Multiplier Framework at work. Clear problem, quantified impact, simple solution, and a realistic first step.

The Multiplier Framework App

To make this easier, we built a free app that walks you through the framework.

• You can access it here: https://multiplier.adventuresincre.ai/

A few important notes:

• It was built by non‑technical real estate people
• It has bugs
• Just like our early A.CRE models, it will improve through hundreds of small iterations over time

What the app does

It starts with a “Roadmap”, where you define what you are working on, for example: “Inbound Lead to LOI, Q1 2026.” Creating that roadmap involves the five steps of the framework:

1. Audit
   • Add your deliverables and tasks.
   • Let AI suggest additional tasks you may be missing.
2. Quantify
   • Assign revenue or savings values and frequencies.
   • See where the big multipliers sit in your work.
3. Identify
   • Browse a database of third‑party AI tools.
   • See patterns for custom solutions and CRE Agents skills (more coming).
4. Prioritize
   • Rank tasks by impact score or drag them into your own order.
5. Execute
   • Use a simple Kanban view to move tasks from Manual → Implementing → Iterating → Automated.
6. Dashboard
   • Track your multiplier effect, hours saved, and time reduction over time.

My vision is that one day, in a job interview, the hiring manager asks:

“What is your multiplier effect, and how did you create it?”

This app is a starting point to help you answer that question.

Learn, Build, and Connect with AI.Edge and CRE Agents

During the workshop, we also asked about the biggest obstacles holding people back from using AI more effectively in CRE.

Top challenges:

• 46 percent: “I do not know where to start.”
• 43 percent: “I do not trust the output.”
• 42 percent: “I have a skill gap.”

AI.Edge exists to close that gap.

• AI training for CRE: Programs designed specifically for acquisitions, development, asset management, and brokerage
• Community: A place to share ideas, prompts, wins, and failures with peers
• Tools: Access to things like the Multiplier Framework app and future resources
• You can learn more here: https://aiedge.ac

If you are a firm that wants hands‑on help mapping processes, choosing where to start, and actually building solutions, our team at CRE Agents focuses on that work every day.

• Learn more at https://creagents.com

Your 2026 Challenge

My own output today is at least four times what it was before 2023. Given where the technology is, I believe doubling your output in 2026 is a reasonable goal for almost everyone reading this.

This is not rocket science. It is discipline plus a framework.

Here is your challenge:

1. Map your process
   • Use a notebook, a spreadsheet, or the Multiplier Framework app.
2. Pick one task
   • Highest impact, easiest to automate or improve.
3. Do it
   • Implement a simple solution. Expect it to be imperfect.
4. Then do the second, and the third
   • One task at a time. One small win at a time.

Do not let perfect be the enemy of good. The tech is there. No one is stopping you.

Let us make 2026 the year you multiply your output and start treating your time as your most valuable asset.