January Chapter Spotlight: Minnesota Chapter

When speaking of our NARPM Minnesota Chapter, I often refer to us as “small, but mighty.” Our membership is consistently right around 25 Members and like many other small Chapters, retention and growth are our biggest challenges.

We are fortunate to have a core group of our founding Members still active today, which for me has proven to be invaluable. The Minnesota Chapter incorporated in late 2010, but actually started meeting about 18 months prior, to ensure there was enough stability and interest to complete the process.

I accepted the President-Elect position, having had very limited NARPM involvement. I encourage other Members who may be on the sidelines to jump in and not be afraid of taking on a new role. What I discovered is that we are a group of professionals who want everyone to succeed, so my initial fears of being set out on my own to survive were quickly put to rest.

Between local seasoned Members and support from NARPM^® National, I found that there was always someone willing to point me in the right direction. I came away from 2016 Leadership Training with a multitude of leadership tools and ideas that boosted my confidence in moving forward.

One of the first ideas we put in motion was choosing a more formal venue at a local country club and serving a hot breakfast for our meetings. We began promoting our breakfast meetings, coupled with valuable speakers, and had a number of successful events there. Eventually, cost became an issue and we switched to meeting in conference facilities of our Members’ companies, but I believe the benefit of spending that money early in the year helped build momentum that continued when we started rotating locations.

In Minnesota, rental licensing requirements vary greatly from city to city throughout our metro area, so one event we have had great success with on an ongoing basis is what we call our City Inspector panel meeting. We invite inspectors from a wide variety of cities to participate in a question-and-answer session with attending Members. Each panelist gives us an overview of their requirements and, most beneficially, gives us advance notice of anything new we should be expecting in the near future.

Having hosted this panel for a few years running, it has become a tradition that inspectors, Property Managers, and maintenance employees look forward to attending. Our open forum approach with the inspectors has really humanized our relationships with them and, we feel, shows our professionalism and desire to do the right thing in our industry. By promoting the NARPM^® approach, we separate ourselves from other non-compliant landlords.

Last February, we were proud to have sufficient interest to sponsor an education course with Vickie Gaskill, MPM^® RMP^®, leading us through Advanced Risk Management. We have submitted our 2018 course request and look forward to being among the Chapters meeting the goal of hosting at least one continuing education course per year.

In our Minnesota climate, we have fewer tenants moving in and out once summer ends, so we tend to ramp up our Chapter activities during the fall months, knowing that Property Managers have a bit more free time to devote to NARPM^®. In September, we hosted NARPM^® Northwest Regional Vice President Kellie Tollifson, MPM^® RMP^®. Kellie gave an inspiring presentation entitled, “Call a Time Out – Five Steps to Successfully Referee the Barrage of Demands from Clients, Tenants & Vendors.” We are lucky to have such talented NARPM^® Members available to share their knowledge, and we are grateful to Kellie for time spent with us.

Early on, we planned and budgeted to end the year on a high note, so in November, Marc Cunningham, MPM^® RMP^®, President and Director of Operations for Grace Management in Denver, Colorado was the speaker at our final meeting of 2017. We served brunch to 30 Members and guests, our highest attendance of the year; and Marc provided great insight on growing team culture through company culture and leadership. He challenged all of us to ask ourselves consistently, “What would a great leader do in this situation?”

Like all good things, our Chapter continues to evolve, change, and adapt to meet the needs of our Members. We are in the planning stages for 2018, and in addition to growing our membership, we hope to involve more vendors, recruit additional volunteers, and continue to do our part to promote the NARPM^® values that create our foundation.

Current editions of the award-winning Residential Resources magazine is sent eleven times a year to members. Join NARPM to receive all of the benefits of membership and receive current editions.

Residential Resources: January 2018 Issue: Volume 29, Number 1