Tuesday, February 26, 2013

How to Start a Property Management Business

Property management is a business that is regulated and requires a real estate license in many states. This first step requirement means that the potential buyer of an existing business would need to be qualified to run the business. They would also need to meet the same requirements to start one from the ground up.

One way to get experience in the business is go to work for a large management company and learn the ropes. At the same time you could be completing any educational requirements and prepare for taking the license required to professionally manage properties. Starting a company of your own will take some strong detective work to find a property that is looking for management or looking to replace the current management firm. This will entail a great deal of cold calling and phone work to come up with possible clients.

At the same time you could get a web site built so you will have something to point people to when you are speaking with them on the phone. You would also mention the website in all communications or advertisements. All of this would come after you have decided on a company name and have a phone number and address for your business.

How to Start a Property Management Business

Knowledge and preparation are requirements for success. Whether you buy an existing business or start one up, you will need to gain experience and first hand knowledge of the business from some source. The best way to gain real experience is to work in the business for a year or so for a management company. The requirements in your state should be checked also to see what licenses are needed. There could also be educational requirements that you would have to obtain. A smart person would make sure they have all of these ducks out of the way while working for someone else. The real estate department of your state will be able to give you the information you need to know. There also could be an association of property managers in your area. Both of these sources are a place to start to find the information you need.

Finding property management companies that are for sale The Internet will quickly give you and idea of what is for sale and where they are located. Business brokers are another solid place to find listings of businesses that are currently on the market. You can also get questions answered about the way to buy one of these businesses. One important facet of the businesses for sale is the asking prices. This may be eye opening for you. You might also check out local newspapers and the local real estate association. Lawyers that specialize in real estate transactions may also know of management companies that are looking for a partner or are for sale. Once you have an idea of the capital needed to pursue a purchase you can begin to figure if you can make a deal. If you are going to need help with the money you will have to resolve that common problem also. The business brokers will have a good idea if the listed business is cash only or the current owner would consider terms. This type of information will speed up the process of finding a deal that you may be able to pull off.

Another aspect of property management is the properties handled. Are you going to only deal with large apartment complexes or single-family residences? The type of properties you wish to handle could determine the price of a management company.

Money makes the deal

Money talks when buying a business. The seller is usually anxious to sell and if a real money offer is made, they may bite even if it requires terms to complete. The point here is make an offer and see what the seller responds with. You never know what kind of help you may get from a motivated seller. Other ways to make up a short fall is a loan from the bank, a business lender found on the Internet, a partner and family or friends. Some deals take a great deal of creative financing to pull off. If the existing business has long-term contracts with their clients it may be easier to get a loan from a disinterested third party. The most common way to handle the short fall is to get the seller to take back paper to be paid in full by a set date in the future. Maybe they would remain a silent partner for a short length of time. The answer to this problem is how much you can put down and how long you would need to pay off the balance.

The only way you will ever know if a deal is possible is to make an offer and see what the counter offer looks like. The business broker in a deal can help in the negotiations and in many cases make it happen through their deal making skills.

If you come to a point in any deal that the final terms are too difficult for you to live with, then it is time to take a walk. Knowing when to walk a way in also part of good deal making. The wrong terms could make the deal a failure from the beginning. The last thing any buyer wants is to put a large down payment into a business and then watch it fail. The loss of this money could be the end of any possibility to own your own business. The thought process should go like this, this deal is not possible and there will be another chance down the road. Some times in the heat of negotiation the making the sale happen becomes the end in itself. This should never be the reason to make a bad purchase. This is a serious situation that needs to be well thought out.

Conclusions

Once you have the experience, education and licenses, the ownership of a property management company is possible. You can either start one up or buy an existing firm. The expense of buying one will be much higher than starting one from the ground up. Finding one you can buy will take effort and the willingness to commit a sizeable amount of money. The obvious way to start is through a business broker, as they will have a current list of business for sale. They should have a very good idea of what you will need to pay to buy a property management company Coming up with the money may be a problem for some buyers as the price of an existing successful firm will be higher than a startup. An existing management company's current customers will be a large asset, as they will supply immediate cash flow to the company. So the higher price is offset by the constant cash flow from contracted customers.

If you start a company from scratch, you will need to plan on a significant amount of cold calling, phoning and face-to-face meetings to find customers that need your help. This is a slow start but can be a reasonable way to get into the business

How to Start a Property Management Business
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Nature and Purpose of Project Management

Project management as we know it today has evolved in order to plan, coordinate, and control the complex and diverse activities of modern industrial, commercial, and management change projects.

Clearly, man-made projects are not new; monuments surviving from the earliest civilizations testify to the incredible achievements of our forebears and still evoke our wonder and admiration. Modern projects, for all their technological sophistication, are not necessarily greater in scale than some of those early mammoth works. But economic pressures of the industrialized world, military defense needs, competition between rival companies, and greater regard for the value and well-being (and hence the employment costs) of working people have all led to the development of new ideas and techniques for managing projects.

All projects share one common characteristic - the projection of ideas and activities into new endeavors. The ever-present element of risk and uncertainty means that the events and tasks leading to completion can never be foretold with absolute accuracy. For some very complex or advanced projects even the possibility of successful completion might be in serious doubt.

The Nature and Purpose of Project Management

The purpose of project management is to foresee or predict as many of the dangers and problems as possible and to plan, organize, and control activities so that projects are completed as successfully as possible in spite of all the risks. This process starts before any resource is committed, and must continue until all work is finished. The primary aim of the project manager is for the final result to satisfy the project sponsor or purchaser, within the promised timescale and without using more money and other resources than those that were originally set aside or budgeted.

Much of the development in project management methods took place in the second half of the twentieth century, spurred by impatient project purchasers (who wanted their projects finished quickly so that their investments could be put to profitable use as soon as possible). Competition between nations for supremacy in weapons and defense systems played a significant role in the development of project management techniques, and the process has been accelerated by the widespread availability of powerful, reliable, and cheap computers. Project management is more effective when it makes use of these sophisticated techniques and facilities and, in this sense, is a highly specialized branch of management.

Planning and control must, of course, be exercised over all the activities and resources involved in a project. The project manager therefore needs to understand how all the various participants operate, and to appreciate (at least in outline) their particular skills, working methods, problems, and weaknesses. This demands a fairly wide degree of general experience so that, in this practical sense, project management is akin to general management.

The Nature and Purpose of Project Management
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John Reynolds has been a practicing project manager for nearly 20 years and is the editor of an informational website rating project management software products [http://www.project-management-web.com/]. For more information on project management and project management software, visit Project Management Software Web [http://www.project-management-web.com/].

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

What is Management?

Management is different from leadership but just as important. To understand the nature of management, we need to be clear how it differs from leadership. The first step in answering the question: "What is management?" is to understand the basic tasks of all organizations. Like any other species, an organization needs to take care of its immediate business of survival but it also has to evolve to ensure its fitness to cope with changes in the environment and the actions of competing species.

Management is the function that organizes the execution of today's business. Leadership is the evolutionary mechanism that changes organizations to prosper in tomorrow's world. Whenever a species or individual animal runs into obstacles, variations occur and new forms are selected from those variations. Leadership is a risk taking type of action that explores new frontiers and promotes new ways of behaving. It follows that, in a stable environment, good management is all that is needed to prosper; leadership in this context isn't required.

This portrayal is not the popular one where leadership means being the top dog in a group regardless of what's going on in the environment. Also, management has been cast on the rubbish heap since the late 1970's following the initial wave of Japanese commercial success in the West. We wanted a scapegoat for our failure to compete with the Japanese, and management was fingered for this role. Jack Welsh, Tom Peters and other gurus called for more leadership and an end to management, which they saw as stifling innovation. The reality was that a lack of competition created a complacent attitude AND lackluster management. It was the way management was practiced that was the problem, not anything to do with management as a function. We simply needed to upgrade management for a new reality.

What is Management?

Being hierarchical by nature and inclined to worship heroes, we tend to regard the person in charge of our group as a leader. But complexity demands specialization and executives need to perform multiple roles that depend on the unique demands of their situation. If their main function is to maintain quality, low cost and good customer service while motivating employees to perform to their potential, then they are performing the management function, not showing leadership.

Management is like investment. Managers have resources to invest - their own time and talent as well as human and financial resources. The goal or function of management is to get the best return on those resources by getting things done efficiently. This doesn't entail being mechanical. The manager's style is a contextual issue. With highly skilled and self-motivated knowledge workers, the manager can be very empowering. Where the workforce is less skilled or motivated, the manager may need to monitor output more closely. By saying that management is a function, not a type of person or role, we better account for self-managed work teams where no one is in charge. Managemenet simply makes the best use of all resources even when we manage ourselves. Hence management does not necessarily entail a dictatorial, controlling overseer. Skilled managers know how to coach and motivate diverse employees. Getting things done through people is what they do.

The aim of management is to deliver results cost effectively in line with customer expectations and profitably, in the case of commercial organizations. It is not only leaders who can be inspiring. Inspiring leaders move us to change direction while inspiring managers motivate us to work harder.

Management is a vital function thanks to the complexity of modern organizational life. The need to coordinate the input of so many diverse stakeholders, experts and customers requires enormous patience and highly developed facilitative skills. Excellent managers know how to bring the right people together and, by asking the right questions, draw the best solutions out of them. To facilitate well requires managers to work very closely with all relevant stakeholders.

By contrast, the leader can be a bit of an outsider. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. promoting desegregation on buses to the U.S. government from the sidelines, the leader can induce people to change even with no direct involvement or authority over the people who are needed to take the hoped for action.

Managers don't just keep ongoing operations ticking over. They also manage complex projects like making a modern movie or putting the first man on the moon. Leadership is only required to sell the tickets for the journey or to resell it periodically if resistance develops, but management drives the bus to the destination.

What is Management?
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See http://www.lead2xl.com for more articles like this one. Mitch McCrimmon has over 30 years experience in executive assessment and coaching. His latest book, Burn! 7 Leadership Myths in Ashes, 2006, challenges conventional thinking on leadership.

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Monday, February 4, 2013

Successful Management - 10 Simple People Skills

Getting the best from your people is vital if you are to make the best progress in your business or organization. Much comes from the way you interact personally and here are just ten key actions to take to build great, fulfilling and productive relationships...

This might be a bit of a no-brainer for you.

If you have any role at all in managing people, you need to ensure that you develop great people skills.

Successful Management - 10 Simple People Skills

By building rapport, you will develop ongoing, productive relationships with all of your people, which will give you an enormous return on the efforts you put in.

Here are ten things you can do, all of them easy, which will remarkably change the response you get from your people, the key asset you have in your business or organization:-

Just Have Conversations About anything! Talking to and more importantly, listening to your people regularly and informally is a great asset. It doesn't matter what it's about, Your understanding of them and their trust in you will magnify if you devote priority time to this each and every day. Listen & Show you are Listening Take the time to really listen to each of your people, rather than just tell. If you truly hear, they will respond. Hearing is more - it is about what you do with the stuff you've listened to. And by using your face, your body language, eye contact and what you say (see 3 below), you will go a long way to showing that you are listening closely. Ask Another Question Such a simple tactic. Ask secondary questions about what you've been told. Nothing, but nothing builds rapport and relationships like this. It shows that what they have been telling you is valuable, is interesting and builds their confidence. And you have been there to make that happen. Support Your people need you to help them along the way. With your support, they will flower and grow. Support is what they hear from you - it works both ways. Coach Don't get bogged down with technicalities. Coaching is about helping them see where they want to get to from where they are now. It's about exploring the possibilities - their possibilities, not yours and calling to action. Simple as that. Clear Expectations By ensuring that all your people know exactly what you expect of them, they will tune in to delivering it. Confusion over performance is demoralizing and saps energy. Take the time to be clear. Pay attention In any conversation with your people, take the time to give your full attention. Do your utmost to avoid being interrupted or distracted and truly value them for what they are saying to you - or the message you are giving them. Show an Interest in Them These are real people and if you delve a little, it will show up. Having a real interest in who they are, their hopes and fears, their passions and what's important to them makes a big, big difference to how they perceive you. Get to know the name of their dog, if their dog is their most prized possession! Follow Through During conversations you may offer actions that will be of value to them. Responses to what they have said to you. Make sure that you deliver these. Follow up and report back. Take actions you say you will. If you can't, tell them why. Remember Conversations When you have subsequent conversations, recall something that was said previously and bring it up. This is hugely rewarding for them and lets them know that they said something of value.

Great managers really understand their people and work out ways to get the best out of every one of them.

Maximizing value from the most valuable asset you have in your business.

Your people.

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(c) 2008 Martin Haworth is the author of Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. You can get a sample lesson for free at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com

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