Retention in the Face of Acquisition – Part 2



We’re back on The Property Management Show with Kathleen Richards. In Part I, she shared her story about buying and selling a property management business, and how she introduced herself to her new employees and clients.

We ended the chat talking about toxic owners and how to deal with them while acquiring a business.

Property Management and Customer Service

Giving bad owners permission to leave is helpful when you acquire a new business. And, if you don’t call people out on their bad behavior, you’re telling them you are okay with it.

Don’t do that.

Make sure you can distinguish the bad owners from those who simply need a new strategy.

In her first six months of taking over the business, Kathleen had to fire a couple of owners that were not working out. Overall, she was committed to being proactive with people and letting them know that she was there to help.

One owner had extremely high expectations. Kathleen is fine with high expectations, but what she didn’t like was his habit of bringing up every mistake that had ever been made with his properties. These are problems that pre-dated Kathleen, but he hammered away at them anyway.

Kathleen told him that she represented a fresh start. She suggested that they tour all of his properties together. They did that, and then they sat down over lunch and discussed what he wanted to do with each property. It was a meeting of the minds.

It delivered a great outcome. Everything was reviewed together and they agreed on a course of action. Moving forward, he agreed to let Kathleen do her work without bringing up past mistakes where everything went wrong.

It was about discussing what could be done together, and the relationship improved dramatically from there. This owner became a favorite client and a dear friend.

Setting expectations is an important part of the acquisition process. Tell the owners who you are and what they’re getting with you. They need to know how you operate.

Communicating with Your Employees While Acquiring a Property Management Business

Be positive when meeting with employees. Invest in the time it will take to sit down and talk to them. You don’t want to give superficial assurances that everything will be okay. This is new for you, and you’re excited. But, the employees you’re meeting with are likely scared.

Connect with employees by asking a lot of questions.

Listen to what they’re saying.

Get them to understand that you need each other.

Seek their advice.

Ask for ideas.

Find out what their career plans are. There may be room for pay increases. Discuss a performance plan. Show them that you’re looking to work with people who are excited to be contributing to the company. When you come into a new team from a place of compassion, you’ll earn their trust.

Employees leaving is not usually the problem.

The problem is that they’re stuck in how they’ve always done things. “That’s not how we do it” is commonly heard, and there’s often resistance to some of the change that’s coming.

Getting employee buy-in will matter. Performance growth plans will matter.

Find out how to work with your employees. With remote working, you might find out that someone is starting to care for a parent. Why not see if they can work from home for some hours? If you’re willing to work with your people, you’ll see they are bringing a lot to the table.

What can you bring to that table?

Have a meeting of the minds.

When you’re talking to your employees as a new owner, ask more. Tell less.