Bottlenecks to Property Management Profitability: Focusing on the Wrong Activities

The latest series on The Property Management Show podcast is going to focus on the bottlenecks that keep property managers from becoming profitable, growing and increasing their productivity. To kick off this series, we have invited Kasey McDonald to talk to us about the activities a business owner needs to focus on to start or grow a property management business. Kasey is the director of the Property Management Training Academy, and she’s been in the real estate industry for 20 years, focused on property management. She began her own property management company where she organically grew the business to 227 doors in three years. Now, she’s doing what she really loves – focusing on the education and knowledge side of the industry. Her job is to help businesses be better businesses, especially if they don’t understand property management as well as they should. The discussion of the day? Removing the bottlenecks that inhibit your growth. Why Are There so Many Bottlenecks to Property Management Profitability? It’s easy to focus on the wrong activity for your market. It’s easy to misunderstand the activities that are involved in generating leads and building a sales pipeline. Before you can grow, you have to understand where you are and what’s happening in your market. There are probably 50 things you can do to grow your business in your particular market. To be effective, narrow that down to the five best things, and focus on those. It’s important to commit to a growth activity and to be consistent. A common bottleneck to property management profitability is giving something a try for a short period of time and then stopping if you don’t get immediate results. Some activities in prospecting and sales will take a lot longer. Be consistent for a long period of time. If it feels like something isn’t working, keep going. All of a sudden, the flood gates will open up and you’ll wonder why. The “why” is that you stuck with it, and you didn’t give up a month earlier. Focusing on the wrong things while you plan and build your business is common. If you know how to avoid this mistake, you’ll have a more productive time growing. Look at Your Foundation: What Works and What Doesn’t? Your foundation is your systems and your processes. Here are some good questions to ask about your foundation: * What have you been doing to grow? * What results have you had? * What do you need to do to get the results you want? Maybe you’re making calls to prospects in your database, but you’re only making those calls once a week. To achieve what you want, you might need to increase the amount of time that you spend on that activity. You can’t do the calls once a week and then push the activity to the side when you decide it’s not working. Break it down and decide how frequently you should make these calls, how many calls you should make, and who those calls should reach. When you invest in the activity, you will get the results you want. Those results may not be immediate, however. Property management profitability takes time and consistency. In Kasey’s practice, she helps owners identify what’s not working. Usually, the problem is lack of effort. Formula for Growth: Consistency Be consistent with your time and your activities. Block out the time you need in your calendar to complete your tasks, and always leave room for growth activities. You don’t want to be multi-tasking while you try to grow. You don’t want your attention pulled towards several things at once. Any property manager who says “I’m too busy” to focus on growth is simply making bad choices about how their time is spent.