You Need to be More Loyal
There is a real problem in the industry about lack of loyalty to vendors
At times, I have been called a “fan boy” (or “fanboi” for the Gen Zers) of various property management industry vendors. I’ve earned this reputation because I will vigorously defend some of the industry’s best vendors on social media when they are unfairly attacked. Frankly, I’m proud of this label. We need more loyalty to our best vendors.
Vendors Make This Industry Work
For those who weren’t in the industry prior to the “PropTech” boom of the last few years, you can’t even begin to imagine how different the industry was 15, or even just 10 years ago. It was a world of paper inspection forms, taking cash at the office for rent, spending almost your entire day on the phone with maintenance vendors or chasing down rent, etc. Frankly, it was miserable. There was a good reason that PM was the “red headed stepchild” of the real estate world: it was painful and laborious work.
All of that started to change with software like LeadSimple and Property Meld. Innovative minds entered the space and started making our lives a lot easier. For a price, of course, but frankly, it was a very reasonable price. We no longer needed to spend our day on the phone coordinating maintenance. It was now done automatically by Meld. We didn’t need to take software that wasn’t designed for us to track leads, we now had LeadSimple to keep it all organized and it was specifically designed with property managers in mind.
Over the following years (it’s been about 10 years now since these softwares started to appear on the scene), more and more solutions were created to make our lives easier and to make our companies more profitable and efficient. Some of them (like LeadSimple) were bootstrapped and never took any big VC or private equity money. That is obviously a VERY difficult path to take, and an entrepreneur like Jordan Muela deserves a lot of credit for pulling that off. Others went the other route and took millions of dollars in VC money, which presented its own challenges for them in trying to satisfy both investors and customers. Either way, these vendors have done amazing things for us as an industry, and they never get enough credit for it.
Online Review Culture is Toxic
Instead of getting a pat on the back for their service to the industry and radically improving our work lives, all too often we instead see attacks on these vendors on social media. And really, we should all know better, because we’ve all been the recipient of negative Google and Yelp reviews that frustrate the hell out of us.
I always say that online review culture is essentially legalized extortion. The average person who goes on Google and writes “I wOUlD gIve tHEm zEro stARS iF I cOulD!!!!11!!1!!!” is not looking to educate the public. No, they’re looking to accomplish one of two things:
They know they are the unreasonable party in what they’ve demanded of your business (for example, a tenant who doesn’t want to pay the rent that they owe), but because they have no legal avenues to get what they want, they’re instead going to try to get revenge by harming you publicly; or
They’re trying to extract money from you in the form of some sort of concession, and they think that publicly attacking you and giving you a negative review is how they can force your hand to give them what they want.
So, my view is that we need more regulation in this space. But aside from that, what I really want to comment on here is that property managers are doing the exact same thing when they attack vendors on social media platforms. Usually they’re looking for #2 above, but sometimes it’s #1. I’ve even heard PMs admit to this, and more sadly, some vendors are so beaten down that they’ll actually preemptively offer money to PMs who are unhappy with their service just to get them not to trash them publicly.
Folks, this is not the way that we should behave as professionals. Just as it’s wrong for a tenant to try to extort concessions from you with a bad Google review, it’s wrong for you to try to extort concessions from an industry vendor with an attack on them on Facebook. We are allowing ourselves to become no better than the people we complain about on Google reviews. We need to look in the mirror as an industry and recognize this.
How Should Vendor Disputes be Handled?
Some of you who are prone to going on Facebook to take out your frustrations on a vendor are probably now asking “so if we can’t do that, what should we do when we’re unhappy with a vendor?” Well, I shouldn’t have to explain this to an adult professional, but what you should do is talk to the vendor first. The number of times I see someone attack a vendor and then admit that they never even tried to address it directly with the vendor is mind boggling to me. I know we live in a new age of no social interaction, particularly post-Covid, but normal human interaction is sometimes the path to solutions! Not every problem can be solved with an app or a social media post.
If that doesn’t work, then social media and online reviews are still not the proper venue. Use the legal system if you have an actual contract dispute, or simply cancel the service and move on to another vendor. If someone comes along and asks you how your experience was with a vendor, be honest, but don’t go out of your way to trash them unprompted. All this behavior does is create an “us verses them” atmosphere in the industry between PMs and vendors, and that’s the last thing that we need.
Let’s Talk About Loyalty
Setting aside vendor disputes, let’s talk about loyalty to the vendors that we use. This is one of the biggest pet peeves I have with my fellow property managers. All too often, PMs are willing to jump ship from one vendor to another over a minor pricing difference. “Vendor X charges me $7 for filter delivery, but this brand new Vendor Y will do it for $6 instead.” That’s great, a whole dollar! I’m sure you’re rolling in the dough now! Never mind that Vendor Y hasn’t been an active member in NARPM for the past 10 years, hasn’t sponsored all of your local chapter and national events all those years, literally stole the ideas and marketing of the original vendor, and didn’t pioneer the product/service in the industry with all of the money, sweat, and risks that went along with it. Nah, screw them, save the dollar! Frankly, if that’s how you behave towards our industry vendors, I hope your owner clients do the same to you and leave to save 0.5% on their management fee.
We need to start thinking of these vendors as our industry PARTNERS, not just someone we buy a product or service from, because that’s how most of them behave. Every conference you attend? Yeah, you paid $500 for your registration, but 90% of that conference is being paid for by the vendors, not you. You couldn’t have that conference without them. That local chapter NARPM luncheon you attend and get great opportunities for learning and networking? That’s all because a couple of vendors were willing to sponsor it. The industry benchmarks we all have now for financials? Yup, all provided by an industry vendor who went above and beyond. That chapter Christmas party you just attended? Yep, paid for by vendors. They are investing in YOU and YOUR industry. Show them a little bit of loyalty. They’re worth the extra dollar.