It’s been a challenge just to survive lately, but if you’re a property manager you’ve had a few more challenges on top of that.
Level Green surveyed our property manager customers to find out about their top challenges this year.
What hurdles are you facing? What’s got you tearing your hair out?
Here are the survey results, along with thoughts from Adam Smith, Level Green Business Development Manager, whose job is to show property managers how a good landscaping company can ease some of those headaches.
Are you struggling with these challenges, too? We’d love to help make your job easier.
Ranking:
1. Budgeting/Controlling Costs
2. Finding Quality Vendors
3. Finding & Keeping Quality Tenants
4. Time Management/Bandwidth
5. Something Else
Budgeting is all about planning ahead, and COVID made that nearly impossible for property managers, Smith says.
“Would they have access to a revenue stream? How would it be impacted?” he says.
“Commercial real estate didn’t know how they were going to accommodate existing tenants,” Smith says. “They might have had tenants taking up 10,000 square feet, but suddenly, because of working remotely, they might need only 3,000 square feet. What would they do with the extra space? How would this impact cash flow?”
Meanwhile, things like landscaping often had to take a back seat to more pressing issues.
“Many have had to forego any landscaping company partnership — they did it all in house,” Smith says. “Now they need help again from a professional partner. They want to maintain their brand image.”
“We can help them look at key impact areas on their property and help them get the most from every dollar spent,” Smith says. “We can give them a program that incrementally increases their spend, so they can do it gradually.”
Survey Says:
The series of snowstorms that struck the Mid-Atlantic in February is a great example of unexpected maintenance, Smith says.
“Sometimes in commercial real estate you’ve made all the adjustments to scope, then you get hit with weeklong ice and snow, like this year,” he says.
But other landscaping surprises pop up, too, from dead trees to lawn diseases.
“Stick tight to preventive maintenance,” Smith says. It’s cheaper to be proactive with lawn and plant health than to deal with expensive fixes down the road.
Adding a few key landscaping services to your contract can help avoid unpleasant surprise costs:
Answers:
Covid affected landscaping companies, too, Smith said.
“Some smaller landscaping companies didn’t have the ability to stay in business,” he says. “Some larger companies didn’t take enough Covid safety precautions in time and had a substantial portion of their work force out sick. So they couldn’t meet their customers‘ expectations. That responsibility starts at the top, with changes to operating procedures.”
Our stringent Covid safety protocols have ranged from limiting the number of people riding in work trucks together to switching operations managers to remote scheduling, which limits the number of people gathering in the yard at one time.
It means our team is healthy, safe, and ready to tackle our customers’ evolving needs.
Property managers have always had too many spinning plates in the air, but Covid added some bowls, platters, and pitchers to the mix.
“Some had to do all their landscaping in house,” Smith says. “Someone who was never assigned that responsibility before was suddenly in charge of the landscaping.”
Layoffs at some companies means fewer employees to do the same amount of work, he says, “which puts additional responsibilities on others.”
You can breathe easier. We’ll grab that spinning plate called landscaping right out of the air.
No need to worry or wonder if your landscaping company showed up or what they did, because you’ll always be in the know. Our digital property service reports detail exactly what services were performed for you when. Were flower beds weeded? Mulch delivered? Irrigation checked?
Our proactive communication means we answer your questions before you need to ask them.
What does this mean for you? More time to focus on your business and customers. Confidence that your property is impressive and safe. Peace of mind.
“Commercial real estate wants to keep their tenants, but some have gone out of business,” Smith says. “They need to lease that additional space. Tenants are still hard to find.
On the retail side, that’s a huge issue. They need to fill that space quickly.”
“Bringing their property back to market standards, or exceeding market standards, is
important to our clients,” Smith says.
Curb appeal matters.
“We’re attentive, proactive, and available to make recommendations,” Smith says.
A survey is only valuable if it leads to action.
Thanks to the property managers who took time to weigh in, we can better meet their needs.
“This gives us real time information,” Smith says. “We want to understand any shifts in property managers’ thought process, so we can shift and pivot on their behalf and add value that way.”
Let us help.
“We want to know what their business objectives are, what they need in order to be a highly functioning business,” he says. “It’s an operational partnership as opposed to just being a vendor and customer.
“Flexibility and communication are both key,” Smith says. “It’s been an opportunity for us to build great loyalty by helping our customers through this.”
We’d love to continue this conversation.
What do you need to bring your property back to competitive shape?
How can we grab a few of those spinning plates out of the air?
If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers. Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.
Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.
We’d love to hear from you.