Building A Successful Team

The investment property business can often feel like an individual endeavor, but this could not be farther from the truth. Great investors rely on a trusted team. Set yourself apart from your competition by finding and retaining people who can help you achieve your goals. Here are five tips to build the best team possible.

Personality Matters

While you need to maintain a professional distance from your employees, you must make sure everyone meshes well. It won’t matter how good their technical skills are if they don’t fit with the group. A bad personality fit will end with that employee leaving, or worse, other team members looking for other opportunities. Given the amount of time it takes to find and train a good hire, you do not want to have to repeat this process more than necessary.

Communication Skills are Invaluable

If you read that heading and thought it referred to employees, you are only half right. As the business leader, you also need to clearly communicate with your team. Talk about what you want done, and what you expect from your team. Establish follow-up protocols everyone follows, whether via email with outside vendors or by other means that make sense for your business. Documentation is crucial for smooth process flows.

Empower Your Team

When you surround yourself with good people, you should be able to trust that they know what they are doing. Micromanaging never inspires the best quality work. Give them some room to make decisions and take ownership of their pieces of the process. Be aware of what everyone is working on, but if you maintain a little space, you demonstrate trust with your team, and you allow yourself to get more accomplished.

Be Consistent

The most difficult person to work for is the one who is constantly changing how they react, what they expect, and how they treat others. Even a bad boss who is consistently mean is easier to work for than someone who seems to change personalities with the wind. Don’t be either of these. Maintain an even temper at work and show you can be counted on.

Pay Your People On Time

This last point may seem obvious, but anyone who has been in this business for awhile knows how easy it is to lose track of invoices that are due. Pay promptly and do not haggle after the work has been completed. When it comes to your own staff, no one should ever wonder when they will see their next paycheck.

At the end of the day, everyone wants to take pride in their work. Find good people and keep them wanting to work for you by following these six tips.