Knowledge and detail

Some property managers really do not have the attention to detail and extensive knowledge that commercial and retail property management requires. This is a common problem in the industry where property managers have been sourced from residential property management with little or no training for the new commercial and retail properties they are being asked to manage.

If they do not have the required knowledge for the tasks that they undertake, they then should be trained (and fast). There is a major difference between working on residential property and then moving the same person to take over and manage commercial or retail property.

Losing the landlords trust

When the landlord is getting to the point of not returning your calls and not taking your recommendations, you have in effect lost their trust. They may tolerate your poor management style for the immediate future but it is quite likely they will move property managers soon.

The situation can be reversed, and it will take effort and focus to do so. Understanding the landlord is part of the process to fix the problem.

So what is property management all about?

Successful property management is not just a matter of controlling tenants and cash flow; it is mainly about strategy and forward looking control processes that improve the landlord’s property for the longer term. The landlord’s targets should be respected and pursued.

To achieve this goal, know what you are doing and have reasonable knowledge about the industry, the tenants, and the property type. Local knowledge is essential here.

These are some of the critical factors that every property manager should totally understand and control as part of the services they provide to the landlord:

Lease implementation and administration for the tenancies throughout the property is foundational to services you have provided. This will include the types and levels of rental that achieve the returns that the landlord requires. Add to this the methods of leasing in the current market, the lease incentives, and the terms and conditions of a competitive market lease package.

The vacant tenancy marketing should occur to all local businesses so that any vacancy downtime is minimised. If any lease expiry is identified early, the vacancy downtime can be minimised.

The income optimisation of the property asset is achieved through your efficient management of rent reviews, lease negotiations, rental adjustments, and the timely processing of all rental matters.

Maintenance processes are to be controlled and budgeted; this is associated with good property performance including the obligations that stem from essential safety measures, risk management, environmental, and heritage. This includes the management of maintenance contracts and tendering where appropriate to achieve cost efficiencies with all your selected contractors in balance with correct levels of maintenance needed in the property.

Lifecycle management is a special skill. It includes the impact of property maintenance on the current occupants, machinery maintenance including the older plant and machinery, refurbishment and renovation strategies to maintain the physical appearance of the property, and the optimisation of rental given the quality of the property presentation.

Monitoring of the comparable properties in the local area will have to occur. This is so they have minimal impact and disruption on your tenancy mix, leasing strategies, and income stability.

Management of not just the leases, but of the tenancy mix should occur in balance with the property business plan. This is so any relationships between the tenants can be shaped to improve the performance of the property. This is highly relative to retail tenants and shopping centres. The surrounding demographics of the community and businesses will need to be considered here as part of the process.

Communication with the tenants in a comprehensive and detailed way will improve both the property performance and the property income. Good tenant communication allows you to minimise any difficulties of occupancy and potential future vacancies.

A sound and detailed knowledge of legislation, rules, and all regulations that impact the property from an occupancy perspective is required of the property manager. Compliance with all of these factors will keep the property functional as an investment.

Detailed reporting to the landlord should occur so they are kept appraised of all property strategies and events. This will include all budgets, forecasts, tenancy mix, and lease strategies.

As a property manager you should be comfortable with technology and the concepts that involve technology in building operations and performance.
These are some of the major factors involved in professional commercial and retail property management. Failure to provide these services will jeopardise the relationships that you have as a property manager with the landlord that you represent.

You could say that the person to provide these services will need to be intelligent, articulate, confident, knowledgeable, and accurate in their job role; you would be correct. Good commercial and retail property managers are special people.

Product creation in Internet marketing is getting stiffer and stiffer nowadays owing to tough competition between Internet-based businesses. Putting up a new product requires plenty of brainpower and finances along with an ability to take risk. With that, even if you have the product well-set already, you have to position it strategically in the Internet landscape for others to notice. You should get the interest of Web users and turn them to actual customers. Aside from the usual physical products, many different products that thrive well on Internet marketing include E-books, membership sites, and video lectures.

The long and difficult process of product creation begins with ideas. They are easy to get – compared to the effort that comes with analyzing the market for that idea. Before the idea turns to a product, businesses often spend money, even amounting to millions of dollars, to ensure the success of the new product that emerges from an idea. Businesses undertake many types of market research and surveys before releasing their products to the public. Now, you may think that because your business is small, you can’t afford research or you don’t have to do research; you can and you should. The Internet allows you to disseminate materials needed for your market study to many people at once without your having to spend a cent.

It is a common maxim in business: Look at your destination first before mapping out your journey. So what are the goals you intend to accomplish with your product creation ventures? The everyday travails of your business may make you forget the end in sight. On the other hand, prepare to entertain new developments that come to your mind in your product creation. Your conception of a product may have started this way, but a few tweaks here and there along with some market research results and it ends up another way. Take it as the result of a creative process, not as a failure to reach your goal. After all, your product creation activities are intertwined with a long-term goal that you should strive to sustain at your utmost: profit generation. So if your less profitable initial idea evolves to a more profitable product, be thankful!

With your product made up already, start doing some aggressive Internet marketing. A product purchase typically comes after more than five times a customer is exposed to an informative call-to-buy message. Thus it is important to get the contact details, like the e-mail address, of potential customers who are on the brink of a sale. Use the results of your market research to determine the demographics to which you should concentrate your marketing efforts.

With consistent product creation, you can make an inventory of your products that you can market in due time. Just keep making products – the moment you succeed in making and marketing a product, customers are surely wanting more from you, so give it to them. Keep them on your side through constant product creation.

Marketing includes matters such as pricing and packaging of the product and creation of demand by advertising and sales campaigns. There are other options, of course, like product creation, resale rights marketing, joint ventures and the likes, but they are merely secondary to the above.

If you take the freelance route, it is important to ensure that all rights to profit from the final product, or any materials produced in its making, remain yours. Bookkeeping, physical product creation or delivery of goods can be done better with specialized help. Determining the purpose of the product is vital in niche product creation.

Implementation of Methodology – The choice of implementation of Six Sigma methodology depends on whether development is required on existing processes (DMAIC) or on new process/product design creation (DMADV). Determining what you really want to sell, something that you can be relaxed selling is the first step at the creation of a niche product. With the technological advancements in the hosting industry, from automated control panels and scripts that simplify creation of accounts; to complete turnkey solutions, there is no excessive need to worry about spending time on the actual product sold to the customer.

For instance, you should be prepared to either perform yourself or to subcontract the completion of the following tasks:- Product idea research (are there any existing products or patents already existing for this idea)- Product specification document training (what it will do, how it will look, how will it be powered, and how the user will interface with it)- Marketing study (what it will be named, who would buy this, how much would they pay, how will we get customers to purchase the product)- Schematic or electronic circuit design process- Creation of a bill of material or BOM and an approved vendor’s list or AVL for each component in the design, preferably with multiple sources identified, with a BOM and AVL for each assembly level in the product- Printed circuit board layout design process (single sided board, double sided board, or multilayer board; size of the PCB; board material)- Mechanical packaging design with user interfaces (displays, buttons, switches, key. This removes all product creation costs from your budget as a marketer.

No other database of affiliate programs offers such a possibility for profit on either the affiliate side or the product creation site. Your chosen niche should allow for the creation of more than one product or service.

There are several marketing strategies that are necessary in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site – Email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers – Effective use of auto responders (generate automatic email messages) – Online Newsletter – Online Form / Survey to capture your prospect’s email address – Electronic Product Delivery (if you sold a digital product) – Advertisement (Ad) Tracking – Back End Sales – Affiliate program etc.