How To

The Power of 1% in Property Management

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We’ve been providing professional property management as Home Rental Services since 1989. You can imagine how much technology has changed over the decades. We started out in a world of paper files and filing cabinets, and today we are “in the cloud”. We’re able to work from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection. But how did we get here?

The power of 1%

We’ve gotten here by continually improving. This may sound cliché, but it’s true. That’s not a marketing phrase for us. Our internal systems and processes have always been designed to improve with input from our customers and our team members. The idea behind the power of 1% is that you can make amazing progress if you improve a bunch of small things for the better. And the sum of all those changes adds up to BIG improvement over time.

Here’s an example of improving by 1%

We have weekly staff meetings to talk about what is working and what needs work.

One of our team members might bring up the fact that we have a form with fields on it that haven’t been used in a while, but they’re required to put something in those fields before they can save the form. After discussing, we may realize that the way we do things might have changed. Or laws may have changed, and those fields are no longer needed. The decision is made to remove those fields and someone is assigned to make the changes. This will save minutes every week and hours over the course of the year. That small change is a good example of improving something by 1%. This concept applies to everything we do in our business.

The question to ask every week…

What is the thing you do multiple times a week that takes the longest to complete?

Often, the answer to this question is something that you can probably improve by 1% with a little effort.

Maybe you need to create standardized email signatures that answer common questions from your clients. This can drastically improve your efficiency by not typing the same response to people multiple times a week.

You might realize that getting signed copies of contracts takes too much back and forth and slows everything down. Adopting a system like DocuSign or EchoSign can solve that problem. Even better, that kind of solution will give you additional benefits like tracking, automatic email reminders to sign, delivery of the completed contract in PDF form to all parties that signed and more.

Are you using the power of 1% in your life/business?

We’ve learned over the years that the hardest part of improving is making the time to focus on improving.

Building a process into your business to review systems would be a great first step towards experiencing the cumulative power of small changes. You can apply this in your personal life as well. Maybe a Saturday morning recap of the week while drinking coffee in your PJs will help you realize small changes you could make in the future. All it takes is making the time to focus on improving. Good luck!