As seen originally in the Colorado Real Estate Journal – Property Management Quarterly – July 2023 

The team includes a lot of individuals and organizations. This series to date has focused on the external team of vendors, owners, and service providers. For most of us, there is another team that is integral in making our daily life work like a finely tuned machine. This area can be one of the hardest and most important. This team may be made up of some direct reports, some colleagues, and even your supervisor. This team is your office teammates. It may be the accounting and administrative professionals you work with; or it could be the assistant property  manager you have on your team; and it is also your supervisor. This team is one with very different dynamics than all the other teams we have discussed. This team is usually other employees of the company you work for. Your boss is on this team, your direct reports are on this team and your colleagues are on this team. This is the home team, or your work team. This is usually where you are deepest in terms of time, personality and sometimes frustration. It is also one of the teams you play an outsized role of leader in. You make a difference, in all your teams – this one is typically a bit more personal. Sometimes it is easier, sometimes not so much.

Focused. As we have seen, life is full of focus and, in the world of property management, focus is essential and very difficult. One of the most important teams that we work with is our internal team at our company. With this team, you may know more about birthdays, relatives and other personal issues than you really wanted to know about, but you do. Keeping a focus on the right things to discuss and things to skip are easy to get confused with. These relationships can become very personal, which can be good and create an atmosphere of trust, but also can create a smog of fear and misunderstanding. There is nothing more focused than the home team, and nothing that takes more effort or produces more rewards.

Inclusive. Playing favorites is a no-win game. While we may like certain personalities, and some people perform better than others, this is your chance to rise to your challenge as a leader. Everyone on your team at the office needs to see you as the leader you are, with or without the title. Your focus and encouragement of each of the  individuals on the team is an important part of growing your team and getting results. You cannot play favorites, and you must be inclusive of everyone. You will find with time that each of these individuals requires a different type of focus or relationship. Not everyone will want to sit with you at lunch or bring you coffee each day. Each of your teammates is an individual, and just like you, they expect to be treated like an individual. This includes your supervisor, your direct reports, and those with a similar job or title. They all expect to be treated with respect and as an individual, just like you do.

Strategic. Looking at the issues of today with the goals of tomorrow in mind will keep your focus a strategic one. While the frustrations of problems that need to be solved now are vitally important, they must be solved with care, diligence and compassion. At the same time, it may also be time to think about the issue and determine if it has a need for long-term change. Maybe this is the time to evaluate a policy, process or even a team member. These items help us see what is important to all and to develop a game plan that fits the whole team. The focus always must be on the current situation and its needs, without forgetting about tomorrow and how you will plan for longer-term needs and issues, they both work together. A focus on the future makes today and tomorrow a better place to be.

Dynamic. The need to be ready for change is imperative. We all like to get comfortable in our skin and make life simple and focused, with our personal needs met. The reality is we have so many different personalities and mindsets we work with, we must have a process to look at all that is coming at us and make strategic long-term decisions. Short-term anger and frustration do not solve problems or build a team. The building of your team comes with a willingness to listen and act. Both skills are necessary. What is the real issue at hand, and what possible range of solutions are there? Once we have reviewed the real issues, the future becomes clearer, and we can make decisions and take action that can make the team a team

Colorado Real Estate Journal July 2023 Edition

www.crej.com

As seen originally in the Colorado Real Estate Journal – April 19, 2023 

Service providers are the lifeblood of property management. Property managers are not so much doers as they are leaders. The service provider is the doer, and we want the best we can get. Yes, price is an issue, but quality is at the top of the list. This becomes the biggest focus of your relationship with your service providers. Are you able to achieve the highest level of service at a great price with timely results? It may seem like a dream in today’s market, but it is the expectation of every property manager about every service provider hired. Your relationship here is foundational to your success. It is not about becoming best friends; it is about becoming trusted colleagues. While a service provider may not work for you like an employee, you need to know him or her like a brother or sister. Strengths and weaknesses need to be well understood and communicated to allow service providers to be at their peak to achieve
the desired performance. 

Focused. Service providers are probably some of your most frequently dialed calls. Your relationship must be hyperfocused. You
need to know a lot, but it is the basics that are important in this relationship. The contract spells out all the work to be performed.
It also gives terms of pricing, timing and payment schedule. It will most likely have some focus on quality expectations. This can all be spelled out on paper. The rubber hits the road when you find out if the tenants are satisfied, not just you. Ensuring satisfactory work is
done in a quality manner at the times expected becomes the bigger task. Your tenants will be certain to have input on this area, even if you don’t ask! Contracts are very important, but the relationship you have provides for the final level of service you receive. Quality,
service and pricing are sometimes called the three essentials of customer service. You are the guardian of this happening with your property.

Inclusive. The service provider must have a special place in your life. A close relationship, but not too close. A lunch date on an occasional basis is great. Box seats to all the best events might be pushing your relationship a bit too far. Your goal is to ensure that the needs of your owner and your tenants are well understood by your service provider. Each owner has different goals, and each tenant has different needs and issues. Service providers working with several owners need to understand the expectation of each individual owner and tenant. Professionalism becomes the biggest part of this relationship. While some jobs we must have done are down and dirty, grimy services, service professionals must know how to behave knowing the customer is the most important person. Your team of
service providers needs to be at the same level of professionalism as your team members. They are part of your team and need to be treated as professionals. If for some reason they are not professionals, maybe they should not be part of your team.

Strategic. Each service provider has one specific task to accomplish: great customer service. And yes, providers must cut the grass, fix the HVAC system, clean the office, and do dozens of other major tasks that you have hired them to accomplish. To ensure your tenants and owners are happy, they must be great at providing the best customer service in the industry. Communication becomes one of the most important tools with your service provider. Since you have many tenants and owners, and they have many clients, and the service levels and expectations vary between these numerous parties, communication is a priority. It is acceptable to double your communication on a complex or important task. A call followed up with a text or email may be just the way to avoid miscommunication. The service contract itself needs a full review and focus of your attention, not something that is signed as you are rushing out the door for a lunch date. Your job is to be sure that they know what your tenants, owner and you expect. You help them see the big picture and then follow up on the details to ensure that the tasks are accomplished, and the customer, your tenants and your owner are pleased with the results. It is a balancing act that never gets easier, but relies on your ability to communicate with your service providers in
a way that sees them as valuable partners.

Dynamic. Your job as a property manager is not to glance at a prefilled contract, sign it and go on to the next one. Your job is much more important than that. You need to understand what the services you are buying for your owner really are. You do not have to
be an HVAC expert to procure the services of a contractor. You do have to have a basic understanding of your building or have a team or engineer or expert that keeps you up to date. It is also not your job to be an attorney. If needed, you should feel comfortable hiring
an attorney to review contracts. This may save you a bigger issue later in the relationship. The use of a good attorney can be important. Small details or a short paragraph can bind you to something you were not aware of. Contracts with new vendors need a bit more attention to ensure you know the terms and conditions, as well as payment terms and the full extent of liabilities. Read before you sign!

Colorado Real Estate Journal April 2023 Edition

www.crej.com

As seen originally in the Colorado Real Estate Journal – Property Management Quarterly – January 2023 

This may be the area you spend the most time, but it’s also the area where you can give the worst impression to one of your most valuable commodities, your owner’s income stream. Are you the nasty property manager who does nothing but enforce rules and never really listens to your client, the tenant? Or are you focused on ensuring that tenant satisfaction is at the top of the scale, so your owner will have the best cash flow in town? Your owner will never be satisfied unless he has satisfied, prosperous and rent-paying tenants. Tenants are both a priority and at times a pain in the neck (or other places). At the same time, the rent they pay pays your management fee and ultimately your paycheck. Yes, they are important, and each one of them has his own special personality.

Focused. Focused property managers really do know their tenants, not just as lease agreements or numbers on the rent roll. They understand the businesses they are in and what makes them tick. How did COVID affect their business? Is it a family business or a big, giant corporation? Who are the real decision-makers, and who gives input to the decision-makers? Do you know what will make it successful as a tenant? Is it all about your rent collections, or can you see your tenant’s needs and work to help her see how the rules fit her needs? Knowing your tenant is about knowing her business and her lease, and her as a person. You need to be someone who can understand and learn the overall needs and issues from a broad and diverse perspective. Gaining this knowledge takes time. Time with the tenant, time reading and researching, and time asking questions. Questions are the best way to be a focused property manager. The more you ask, the more you know. Start your list of questions and bring it to the conversation with each of your tenants.

Inclusive. Who is your favorite tenant? I would expect for most property managers, the easier question to answer is who your most frustrating tenant is. Our job as property managers is to ensure that all our tenants feel they are part of the property team. Each tenant will have his own expectations of what that means. Your job is to ensure that each individual tenant knows that he has a place at the table and his input as well as his needs are just as important as each of the other tenants. This at times becomes a real balancing act. That 1,000-square-foot tenant needs to feel just as appreciated as the 10,000-sf tenant. The one with his name on the building may pay a bigger rent check, at the same time, it is important that every tenant gets superior customer service. Being inclusive with all of your tenants can seem hard at times, but the rewards are satisfied tenants, lower turnover and a happier landlord.

Strategic. Part of your job with your tenant is to know where she is headed. Is the tenant growing or shrinking? Is she having financial problems, or is she doing great? This also means you need to know about the industry she is in. Are you keeping up with the economic activity of the local market, of her industry, and of the regional and national markets? These are vitally important to your tenant. Information about industries can be part of your daily diet on your reading list. Local, regional and national publications give you what you need to know about individual industries, the economy as a whole and other factors that impact your tenants. Your reading list should not be a short one, and don’t forget to include the Colorado Real Estate Journal! While you do not need to know the ins and outs of all aspects of their business, you do need to know how their industry and their specific business is doing. Your owners know, and you should as well.

Dynamic. Relationships with your tenants should be ongoing and varied. Are you only talking to them when the rent is late? You need to know how their individual businesses are performing. The better you know them as individuals and businesspeople, the better you will be able to meet their needs. It is this focus on the tenants and their businesses that will allow you to focus on what is the right thing to do when decisions get tough. You will have all the facts because you have explored all the issues. Tenants do not have to be your best friends, but you should know how their businesses are performing. Interact with them in various ways. Emails and texts are great, but sometimes it is time to pick up the phone and have a conversation. A personal visit, lunch or a cup of coffee with your tenants is a great way to really understand them and their organizations. You need to get to know their needs and issues to be proactive in your relationship with your owner’s tenants. The better you know your tenants, the better your relationship with your owner will be.

Property Management Quarterly January 2023 Edition

www.crej.com

As seen originally in the Colorado Real Estate Journal – December 2022 

As a property manager in the commercial real estate arena, your owner is one of the (if not the) most important persons you work with. As we will see in this series of articles, while seemingly the most important, your success working with and for this individual, the owner, is highly dependent on the other four relationships you must be focused on. As we look at the qualities and skills needed to be  successful as a property manager, there are five areas that each work together in a synergistic way to make you successful. Let’s jump in and see what that means day by day. 

Focused. Everyone talks about focus, but few people make it a priority. How can you be focused on your owner? This should always be top of mind. It starts with knowing your owner, and the best way to know your owner is to always be asking questions of your owner – not in a fast-paced bullet approach, but a relationship approach. When you first meet an owner, what questions are you asking? Are you
asking about the building, or about him and who he is as a person, and what is important to him in life? As you begin to understand and
know him as a person and investor, you will soon understand how and why he makes decisions about his property, about money and
about the type of service contractors you employ. Focused property managers are always asking their owners questions, and then they stop and listen. The more you ask, the more you will know, and the details of property decisions will become almost unnecessary to ask, as you will have the answer already because of these prior conversations and relationship building. You know the answer because
you know your owner. What are the questions you will ask your owner today? Make sure they are focused on the owner, her goals and then the property.

Inclusive. What does your owner want and need to know about or be involved with? It is important as a property manager to know what your owner wants to know and discuss with you, and when he or she expects you to just do it. The only way you will be able to gain trust goes back to being focused. Are you having conversations that get to issues and solutions, or are you just making small talk and not really getting to know your owner? One of your top goals with your owner is to understand what decisions she wants to make and
what decisions she want you to make. The only way to get there is to always be asking questions that allow you to hear what her views
on issues are. The initial question is not: Will you approve this $5,000 HVAC unit replacement? The discussion you had a long time ago was a discussion about preventive maintenance and the age of the units on their building, as well as the current availability of new versus old equipment. You know if the owner is planning a sale of the property in the next six months – from this and other conversations, your recommendation of what the owner should do is already known. It is known because you know what she believes and what her goals are for the property. Your priority is to understand the owner’s core expectations while at the same time giving the best overview of the current situation with all the facts available and all the input available from all the sources. You are the information funnel that is getting accurate information to your owner, balanced with your expectations and recommendations. 

Strategic. Many owners assume their property managers are going to be focused on the day-to-day responsibilities and solving  problems. They do not always consider their property managers as strategic because their property manager has always acted as a day-to-day problem solver. Problem-solving is an important skill and one we use every day, but strategic thinking is a skill that brings you to the level of trusted partner with your owner. Rather than just solving the problem, show your owner what they need to be thinking about in a strategic fashion, and bring them the information and recommendations to make those decisions. One of the best times and places to do this is in your annual budget planning. Think long term and long-term savings, and show your owner what is
in your budget as a discussion item to show you how you can increase the value of the building and save them money in the
long run. Moving from day-today thinking to strategic thinking gives your owner the best value and the highest level of respect for you.

Dynamic. Property managers are individuals with a variety of skills. They must deal with individuals and companies at many different levels and may at times get put into the “just do this” spot when in fact they should be the ones bringing new ideas to the table. You need to feel comfortable with your owner in this type of discussion, not just answer the question with a statement. You need to know your owner well enough to have discussions that are between the two of you, not statements from one to the other. It is not only acceptable to have an opinion, but you should also be able to verbalize and defend your position as a person of knowledge and experience. You are the expert; that is why you have been hired. Do not be embarrassed to make decisions and answer questions with a sense of authority, but do not flaunt the authorities you have either. Real confidence is usually dressed in humility. 

Colorado Real Estate Journal December 2022 Edition

www.crej.com