June 5, 2015, 5:52 PM
On today’s episode, we discuss a few ways to win your next Homeowner Association (HOA) proposal. Over 40 million households in the U.S are part of an HOA, and they tend to be less of a headache to deal with than apartment communities, so this is an extremely valuable vertical to go after if you want to grow your business in the security industry.
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Communicate To The Various Interests
Whereas an apartment community might have a single property manager that is concerned with the whole picture, an HOA has both a management company and a number of board members, each of which will have their own interests and priorities.
“Some of them will be in charge of parking, some of them will be in charge of events, or maybe managing the clubhouse; they’re all going to have different roles,” I tell Chris. “Highlighting a really solid communication tool, like Silvertrac, that will deliver the issues of interest to each of those board member will be really significant in winning that contract.”
HOA board members tend to have a thankless job. Many of them are volunteers, and the only feedback they tend to get from community members are complaints. Showing them how your team can address specific issues in documented ways will help win a lot of people over.
It’s important to communicate with all the board members and the management company because you don’t know what the internal politics of the HOA look like. Demonstrate that you can help not just with security, but also with issues such as maintenance and parking.
Develop A Partnership
Property managers sit in on every board meeting, and they understand the interests and needs of the various board members. If possible, before the bid is even secured, communicate with the property manager. Approach the conversation as a partnership between your company and theirs to address the needs of the board members.
Creating this partnership with the manger has two main benefits. They can give you insight into how to tailor your bid to meet the interests of board members, and they can vouch for you behind closed doors during meetings. If you can show the manager that you’ll take headaches off their plate, they’re going to want to bring you in not just on this HOA, but on others that they manage.
“They are really overloaded,” says Chris, “so anything you can do to provide them the reports that they need for their executive session at the end of the month… is game changing.”
Using Silvertrac software, you can easily demonstrate to the management company how easy it will be to get them the necessary reports when they need them. Showing them these tools can be an important point of differentiation.
Silvertrac’s online portal also facilitates partnerships with community residents. They can submit security, maintenance, or parking issues, as well as make requests for things such as guest passes. This ensures speedy communication of issues to the necessary parties, reducing the workload and stress for the property manager.
If you can show the property manager and the board members how you’ll reduce their workload and stress, they’ll immediately take notice. Trying to compete on price is a recipe for losing money in this business, so differentiate yourself by providing an extra level of service instead.
To anyone out there, current customer or not, with an upcoming HOA proposal, feel free to contact us, and we’ll show you a demo of how our software can deliver value and help you knock your proposal out of the park.
