When the owner-CEO of a regional homebuilding powerhouse opens the hood and talks about what’s in there, what’s placing are two issues. One is a Peter Drucker mantra, “you’ll be able to solely handle what you’ll be able to measure.”
The opposite, amidst a whirlwind of buzzwords, truisms, and abstractions, is an utter absence of jargon, placing in its readability, honesty, and rigor.
Hear, for a second, to 1 such regional homebuilding enterprise enterprise chief.
“In my expertise, if a builder doesn’t have real-time info, they can not handle their enterprise,” our owner-CEO tells us. “It’s a must to have a benchmark to guage your choices to see what’s working.”
Buzzword-free, no abstractions. No mumbo-jumbo. No phony ring to it.
“You have to try this on the metropolis stage—not macro—for accounting,” he goes on, “No actual change will be carried out should you should not have the proper reviews to measure every dwelling.”
Measure every dwelling.
Our homebuilding firm’s government particulars the “primary” weekly, month-to-month, and quarterly reviews, and the reporting framework works as a result of it strips out jargon, avoids noise, and focuses on the info that reveals whether or not the corporate is constructing nicely, promoting nicely, and taking good care of prospects. Each metric has a exact definition, a transparent proprietor, and a direct hyperlink to on-the-ground actions.
What he describes—nearly off-handedly—is one thing deeper. It’s the ground-level operationalization of information self-discipline, a shift taking form amongst homebuilders and builders throughout the nation. Not in speak tracks. Not in tech decks. Not in AI convention classes.
However within the day by day execution of enterprise operations, those that have realized the exhausting manner that, in risky markets, clear, constant, easy knowledge is commonly the one factor stopping unforced errors, blown closings, busted budgets, missed underwriting assumptions, sad prospects, expensive rework, and tightening capital.
It has develop into probably the most consequential strikes ahead in homebuilding in 2025.
Throughout the trade, builders and neighborhood builders are reaching the identical conclusion from completely different angles: knowledge self-discipline is not only a software program mission. It’s a administration system. And people transferring most rapidly are those who current it in easy language reasonably than in technical jargon.
That is precisely the purpose John Cecilian, Jr. emphasizes in his work with builders and builders nationwide. Cecilian’s recommendation to executives displays the homebuilding CEO’s instincts: no self-discipline, no outcomes; no readability, no enchancment.
[Hit the “play” arrow below to catch our short TBD Player one-to-one conversation with Cecilian Partners co-founder and CEO John Cecilian, Jr.]
As Cecilian places it:
“To get probably the most out of information, this four-letter phrase that I discuss on a regular basis, it’s not about something horny. It’s self-discipline.”
As an alternative of conceptual abstractions about “digital transformation,” Cecilian zeros in on what disciplined operators really do—what they observe, how they observe it, and who’s accountable.
He describes the builders and builders who superior farthest in 2025 as those who handled the constructing life cycle as a steady chain of selections, every requiring its personal proof base. Not a scattershot strategy. Not a “silver bullet.” Not an idle hope that software program alone would save the day.
These operators share one sample: they know precisely which knowledge issues, the place it ought to reside, and the way it flows throughout land, gross sales, development, and guarantee. They usually use that self-discipline to compete.
Cecilian, for instance, highlights Hillwood Communities and Beazer Houses as two companies demonstrating this self-discipline.
“You’ll be able to see it with Hillwood Communities in Dallas. You’ll be able to see it with Beazer Houses out of Atlanta,” he says. “This concept of actually investing in each stage of the cycle, making an effort to grasp what engagement seems to be like, how knowledge is being collected, making certain that knowledge is structured and usable to make higher and extra knowledgeable choices.”
Hillwood’s personal president, Fred Balda, in dialog with The Builder’s Day by day, lately underscored this level in observe reasonably than principle. Hillwood doesn’t chase noise or hypotheticals. It measures circumstances on the bottom—market by market, sponsor by sponsor—earlier than making any capital funding resolution.
Balda states plainly:
“We consistently are on the market benchmarking completely different markets, completely different sponsors, and that is one other solution to do the identical.”
He views this not as an train in analytics vogue. Moderately, this rigor is a core operate of danger administration and long-term worth creation.
Builders and builders usually assume “knowledge technique” means a tech stack overhaul. Cecilian pushes again exhausting on this. Software program alone doesn’t create self-discipline. Leaders do.
His place to begin is sort of startling in its simplicity:
“Consider it or not, and as a technologist myself, I do suppose it’s grabbing your proverbial pocket book or authorized pad and placing pen to paper. What are the outcomes you, as a builder or developer, are attempting to realize?”
From there, the self-discipline takes form: understanding the precise workflows, the precise programs already in use, the precise handoffs between individuals, and the precise gaps between choices and the info that helps them.
This matches completely with the builder-CEO’s plainspoken readability. You don’t begin with a system; you begin with defining the work. You don’t begin with AI; you begin with clear reviews. You don’t begin with expertise; you begin with the benchmarks the workforce agrees to handle.
And also you don’t change what you’ll be able to’t see.
Cecilian emphasizes that knowledge integrity—the day by day behavior of getting into constant, structured info—is the place many, if not most, homebuilders fall down. He sees the results up shut.
As he places it:
“What you don’t wish to have occur is that this notion of rubbish in, rubbish out. It’s not that anymore. It’s actually about deciding cross-departmentally…what does that appear to be throughout these stakeholders within the agency? After which how are they managing and measuring themselves day by day to that?”
That is the quiet revolution occurring contained in the best-run builders and builders: completely different departments—land acquisition, improvement, gross sales, advertising and marketing, operations, guarantee—getting aligned not round expertise however round definitions.
- What counts as a begin?
- What counts as a completed dwelling?
- What counts as a prepared lot?
- What counts as an orientation-ready home?
- What triggers a variance buy order?
- When does a lead develop into a prospect?
- When does a prospect develop into a sale?
When the definitions are clear, the info is clear. And when the info is clear, administration turns into actual.
That is what the weekly–month-to-month–quarterly reporting mannequin gives the regional builder-CEO. It’s not an analytics philosophy; it’s a easy, shared scoreboard. Variances, days beneath development, high quality checks, guarantee calls, conversion ratios, cost-to-budget, money circulation, house-level revenue, guarantee anomalies, product-level gross sales traits—every thing rooted in real-time accuracy, not narratives or impressions.
Cecilian observes the identical sample among the many high performers he advises.
“You wish to be sure you’re getting probably the most out of the funding in your software program, and that inside that it’s capable of speak to 1 one other,” he says. “Nothing is worse than investing in software program…and people items don’t match collectively.”
In 2025, the race is not who has probably the most programs—however who has the fewest blind spots. The companies gaining floor are those who see the cycle earlier and regulate quicker.
For this reason Cecilian’s insights on AI are so grounded. He isn’t promoting magic. He’s warning leaders to keep away from self-inflicted wounds.
As he places it:
“AI used as a sidecar by completely different departments…undoubtedly modifications the best way wherein we work with out query. It creates web new efficiencies. It creates insights of what you are promoting in a manner that in any other case you wouldn’t have.”
However the precondition is knowledge self-discipline. With out structured inputs, AI turns into noise.
His different main warning is one many builders want to listen to:
“The place individuals get excited…is that they begin to use completely different sorts of AI tooling, and rapidly, they think about themselves a software program developer or an engineer.”
If the trade realized something from the final cycle, it’s that shortcuts finally floor as liabilities.
The actual progress is on the bottom: clear reviews, easy language, aligned programs, shared definitions, and leaders who talk with out jargon.
Cecilian even drills down into language itself. AI, he notes, responds finest when the inputs are clear—all the way down to the sentence stage. As he places it:
“The nerdy secret in AI…is the simplicity of language. Builder web sites are very colourful and really flowery. They’re not primary. After I say primary, I’m speaking like Dr. Seuss—really quite simple language.”
With a nod again to Peter Drucker, he famous that good administration isn’t solely a numbers recreation. As he and Dr. Seuss would possibly agree, quantitative measures are solely a essential path to the true objective: understanding.
