The property management industry as an economic force is often overlooked and property managers are not given enough credit for what we do.
I’d like to change that.
We have one of the hardest jobs out there and I want to help make every property manager better in some way, and help them to see their full potential as a Doorpreneur.
A Doorpreneur, if you are new to the terminology, is a word I invented to describe entrepreneurs who take their property management business and add one or more service companies such as landscaping, cleaning, maintenance or sales and successfully grows beyond the rent roll. In the process, they move from one client base (property owners) to a dramatically larger client base (the general public).
Tough business needs a thick skin
Property management is a tough business that requires a serious degree of determination to get it done right. You have to have pretty thick skin to not take it personally when either tenants or property owners don’t appreciate what you are doing.
It is a grinding, merciless routine with an incredible amount of details to be remembered and acted upon. It is a process heavy industry, with so many things that have to be done each month, and the next month, they all have to be done again.
If there are unresolved issues from the previous month (and there always are), they have to be folded into the new month. The never-ending stress wears most people down. No wonder why the average amount of time anybody lasts in property management is 18 months.
The Potential of the PM industry is not always visible
Because of all these components, the property management industry has long been seen as less than what it really is and has the potential to become.
It is viewed as the armpit of the real estate industry. It is depicted as a career of endlessly doing maintenance and collecting rent and getting leases signed. I heard something the other day to made me so angry.
“The 3 T’s of Property Management: Tenants, trouble and toilets”
How is this supposed to help us wake up every day and look forward to going to work?
Through the proper viewpoint, property management can be the foundation of a business empire.
It is the route through which you can become a Doorpreneur, a serial entrepreneur who grows a business ecosystem from a base of property management.
Look at the potential of tapping into new markets
When you move past your initial group of clients (property owners) and tap into that larger pool of people who need the specialized services you offer (the general public), you can be a game-changer in your industry.
Becoming a Doorpreneur is not about managing properties and then creating businesses just to make money on everything else. Instead, it requires you to have built something special within the management framework.
It all becomes a game of trust and transparency. If you have done right for your investors on the property management side of things, they will be open to discussing other ways for you to provide services to them because you have already shown that you can meet their needs.
There is no more solid foundation to gain the trust of others and to be able to explore expanding opportunities than by running a professional property management business!
I have evolved my initial business into separate enterprises that cover landscaping and snow removal, maintenance and cleaning, for example.
When you look at property management not through the eyes of the world, but through your eyes as an entrepreneur, its image changes. And when the images changes in you, inevitably it changes in the eyes of people who communicate with you.
And if everyone begins to see the amazing potential of this remarkable business, that is how we will change the image of an industry!
The Art and Science of Property Management
For the first 5 years of building my management company, I was working on the science of the business. I was all about doing all of the things I was supposed to be doing. I was increasing my door count and building my name and brand awareness.
I’ve called these my door-chasing years
The day to day operations of a management company is complex with a lot of moving parts. You have NO choice but to me scientific in your approach. Certain things need to be done at certain times, precision and timeliness are critical.
The day everything changed for me was when I finally started to look at my business from an artistic perspective. Even as a true blood entrepreneur, I was still very operations driven even though I was selling my but off.
I was growing my rent roll at a rapid pace however I had that feeling inside where you know something is still missing. I knew I could get new doors. This was no longer a question, rather a fact. The doors were paying the bills and providing us with some success however my true mission was still eluding me.
To change the way that people saw property management
At this point in my career, success meant more than just door count. It was about building a platform where property management was center stage. It was the catalyst to building an empire, an ecosystem of service brands that focused on property care.
This is where the art came into play. I had to get creative in the businesses that I chose and how they were brought into the fold. How to incubate a new service offering within your current portfolio so that you could gain experience and the trust from your owner base.
Once I perfected this craft, the image that we portrayed to the general public was no longer that of simply property management, we were now viewed as true entrepreneurs.
Smart, Visionary and Calculated
These were the new terms that replace the dreaded 3 T’s – Tenants, trouble, and toilets!
THIS IS HOW YOU CHANGE AN INDUSTRY!
One management company at a time.