"You cut your overhead, you go out and get business that other companies would like to have, and you keep checking your pulse of your customers," Hefner says. "We've simply got to cut out what we don't need. It's not unrealistic to think we can get 10% to 15% efficiencies here."

Hefner is quick to add the knife can cut too deep. "What we won't do is what some in corporate America did--cut overhead while taking our eye off the top line," he says, adding that corporations realized they had cut too much when revenues began falling off.

Despite his company's healthy 12.3% increase in funds from operations in 2000, Duke-Weeks has seen business slow in the early weeks of 2001. "There's no doubt there's been a slowdown in the velocity in the build-to-suit transactions," Hefner says. "The good news is the slowdown is off the frantic pace of '98 and '99. Transactions are still taking place, but at a slower pace." However, a slowdown could mean acquisition opportunities, Hefner notes.