Property Manager – Are You Valuable?

Well it seems from the number of calls and emails I’ve received that I am not alone or perhaps the only one admitting to some kind of freakish paranoia when I notice those funny looks I get when I say, always with a smile and happy tone, “I’m in Property Management”. 

Ok…Ok, I think you all know by now that we are not two headed monsters or aliens from out of space or as some have said to me…”What planet to you come from?”. Always with a giggle and a smile I admit that it may seem weird that anyone would want to work as a property manager and not the so called ludicrous…oops I mean lucrative world of property sales, but unless you are passionate about any work that you do it is after all to anyone else just a job and not a career. So no more weird looks, alright. It’s time to take property management seriously…very seriously. 

I say this not just to agency owners, sales consultants or administrators but also to property managers. Did you start off in property management because it just fell into your lap or because it seemed like a good thing at the time or even perhaps because you had dealt with a property manager and thought you could do a far better job standing on your ear. Or even the best one I hear when I interview is “well, I want to be a property manager cause I love people and property”. Man oh man, there is a bit more to it than loving people and property, trust me. 

To be a property manager first of all you need to have goals that drive and push you through those tough challenging days. Goals and vision give you the strength you need to keep smiling, stay focused, cope and not quit and feel sorry for yourself at the first hint of a lurking challenge. Tell me any worthwhile career that doesn’t have challenges and tough rotten days that make you want to quit. They just ain’t there. Every job has challenges and we need challenges to build, develop and grow both personally and professionally. 

Billy Ocean and Boyzone sang ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’ not ‘when the going gets tough, it’s time to go’. What do you do when you have those tough days and in actual fact how many times do you have those tough days? Do you focus on the tough days or focus on the days when you feel elated and excited. If you focus on the tough days, then they will seem like you have more tough days than fantastic days. They will in your own mind, outnumber the exciting and great moments. 

Are you in property management for the right reasons? Do you value yourself and what you do? If the answer is no, not really then how do you expect your clients, boss and fellow workers to value you?  

Are you ready to take the turn off Easy Street now and enter the 21^st Century Highway? Are you up to speed? Once you get on the highway if you stall your mauled, so what is it that you think we have to do as an industry and personally to create and build our value?

~ by PropertyManagementBabble on September 9, 2007.