NARPM: Covering Your Business Assets

 

 

 

 

 

 

NARPM* Convention 2015 Workshop: Covering Your Business Assets

Speaker: John R. Bradford III (Park Avenue Properties LLC)

At the 2015 NARPM Convention, Mr. Bradford discussed how to protect your growing business by utilizing financial, human resource, insurance, and legal best practices. We have included our notes from the workshop.

• Words of wisdom: Your firm equals your fault. You need to own your mistakes.

PR & Communication: 

• Society demands authenticity
• Don’t over script
• Focus on what you can control
• You need a dedicated company spokesman
• Call people back:
  • Slydial- allows your call to go directly to voicemail and you can send one voicemail to multiple people
• Email is a necessary evil: You are always on the record; it is often misunderstood
• Careless tweets can sink fleets
• Have a social media presence but with discipline
• When you have accomplished the mission, share the story

Human Resources:

• Have an excellent staff from bottom to the top
• Are your employees in the right role?
• Read Jim Collins’ Good to Great
• Loosing a key employee is disruptive; you need a retention bonus to help with this
• Create a non-compete agreement (if lawful)
• Implement  employment best practices: Have an Action plan, update employee  manuals, create a suggestion box
• Benefits matter and make a difference:  Health, retirement, paid vacation

Legal:

• Corporate council is an expensive investment.  You can keep it in house or  outsourced.
• Contract review and execution: Use for company and vendor contracts
• Mergers and acquisitions: You need litigation and mitigation which acts as a threat neutralizer and as a credibility builder
• Insurance:  Lawsuit defense often exceeds $100,000
• Insurance claims have increased due to HUD and consumer interest groups
• Courts often hold property managers accountable
• General liability: do you have the right coverage?
• Workers compensation: Does it cover your independent contractors?
• Errors and omissions insurance: Property management vs General Brokerage

Financial:

• Trust account reconciliation
• Oversight and controls: Third party oversight by a CPA
• Use Segregation of accounts
• Estate planning/Life Insurance
• Have a business exit plan
• Learn the difference between intentional and unintentional
• Stay up-to-date on financials
• Capital is cheap
• Payoff expensive debt
• Cash or access to it is king

Technology:

• What is a hactivist?
• 563 Million Leaks reported since 2005
• Look into having a corporate IT
• PC security and maintenance: You need Virus protection, Centralized and remote access 24/7
• There is cyber liability: It is not a threat but a promise. Liability is real. Implement a Data Breach policy.

Take the 5k challange:

• Commit to commit
• Take $5,000 (or you choose the amount) and invest it in something meaningful for your firm
• Research it. Benchmark it. Inspect it. Measure it.
• Share the impact and results
• Enjoy the fruits of your talents

Political:

• VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE – Your voice matters

* National Association of Residential Property Managers (narpm.org)