2 minute read

Happy International Women’s Day: Toot Toot!

to promoting the advantages of onsite management, we suck!

By Kelley Rigby, Managing Director, Lett s Rebuild

The women that truly want to see us succeed and us them, the ones that will lift you up to let your light shine bright, even if it is brighter than theirs, no ego, no judgement just application for one another and the lives we are creating. To those women and all the others in between I would like to wish you a very Happy International Women’s Day for 2023. Shall we continue to be each other’s cheerleaders, support network and shoulders when needed… I just love you!

Okay, okay, time to get into the nitt y gritt y of this month’s article. A saying that is embedded in me from my real estate days is, “you can’t sell a secret”. I feel this saying is extremely fi tt ing for where our industry is sitt ing right now. It is rare that I am critical of our community but when it comes

As a whole, I do believe we are gett ing at better at communicating the value of a resident manager and learning to toot our own horns, but we have a long way to go. Talking with many of you on this subject the response is normally, “Kelley we just get in and do the job, we don’t need the accolades” which is so humbling. To be honest it’s such a beautiful sentiment but it’s time to start tooting those horns and loudly. Now without gett ing into the politics of it all, some others out there are certainly not being secretive about their feelings towards our industry and their interpretation of what we do. I cannot help but think if we did a better job of promoting ourselves to our owners, telling them about all the extras, the above and beyond, would they still have the same opinion of us?

The positive to all of this, is that it has certainly given our industry a litt le bit of a nudge to ensure we start promoting our business model and its worth. How to you do that you ask?

If you don’t already, start creating a monthly or quarterly newsletter, in this newsletter I want you to make sure there is a section dedicated to the advantages of you. Even better, do it as a video so they get to see you and the passion you have for their community. Reach out to the owners in your scheme and simply ask them if they would like you to send them some information about living in a managed community and what your role entails. This way you are able to manage expectations and then in turn exceed them. Promote yourself and the value you bring as often as you can, this will ensure that if your position is ever questioned, the community you have educated and worked with, will know there is no one better than you to run their scheme. And remember, it takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile according to “Mr Google”. Life is too short, so let’s smile more.