Another month, another newsletter.

About two months ago, I started planning my LinkedIn newsletter. I used the strategy template that I got from my LinkedIn coaching program @evyrgreen. Joe and Dr. Tami are also the ones who encouraged me, as well as all their students, to start a newsletter, so thank you!

At the time, if you had asked me how many subscribers I expected to get, I would have probably said a couple of hundred. I thought to myself, who wants to read about the problems that coop shareholders and condo owners, their board members, operators, and professionals face and hear my solutions to help solve those?

Turns out, you’re all A??M??A??Z??I??N??G!!! I am extremely lucky to have you in my life and am super excited to tell you that I got over 1,500 subscribers in just the first few weeks!

Granted, some of my subscribers are third degree connections from remote parts of the world who I assume have very little interest in increasing property values in NYC ??

This month, I sat down with Sherri Philips, a first-time coop owner in NYC who is considering volunteering for the board in her building. Over the years, several of Sherri’s neighbors have asked her to volunteer to the board. I’m not surprised, because Sherri is a bubbly New Yorker with a southern accent and an all-around wonderful human who I am lucky to call my friend.

By profession, Sherri is the co-owner of Deutsch Photography together with her husband Brett Deutsch. I initially met Sherri and Brett networking many years ago.

As a sidenote: They took my recent series of headshots and action photos. If you follow me here on LinkedIn, you might have seen many of their fantastic photos. There are even more on our website, check them out here!?

Sherri’s coop is a 40-unit self-managed building in Manhattan. Built in 1910, many of the building’s systems are old and need attention. As a conscientious and responsible person, Sherri had many questions that I assume that many coop and condo owners can relate to.

Most of Sherri’s questions were related to that she does not want to volunteer unless she feels confident that she will be a contributor and make a positive impact on her coop.

?? What are the responsibilities of a coop board?

?? The board’s responsibility is to make decisions on the behalf of its shareholders and your neighbors. Many decisions are difficult to make because they often cost money. Those costs are passed on to the shareholders as part of their maintenance fees or assessments.

?? How often do the board meet?

?? Boards typically meet monthly. We always encourage our clients to make decisions via email in between their monthly meetings and add it to their next monthly agenda and minutes. If you think about it, a business owner makes decisions instantaneously and often, moving their business forward. Wait until i.e. May 15 is inefficient and is in a way like procrastinating, not something an healthy well-run organization embraces.

?? How does a new member make herself most useful and effective?

?? My recommendation is always to educate yourself on how buildings are run. That does not mean that you need to learn every aspect of operating the building. Like everything else, learn the topics that interest you or that you are passionate about. If the elevator is out of service often, you’re probably more passionate about fixing it if you’re on the top floor than you are if you live on the second floor. The same goes for if you have a passion for our environment and want your building to eliminate fossil fuels and electrifying the building.

?? How do I match my strengths to the responsibilities?

Ask yourself, what do you enjoy doing in your personal or professional life? If that is something that your coop needs, spearhead it! You already know and enjoy it, the board and coop will benefit from your expertise, that’s a win-win for everyone. We often see that boards do not use tools that they use in their professional lives, like cloud storage of building’s records or communications tools with shareholders and board members.

?? How do I say no? I am afraid that everything will land on me. For instance, they might want me to plan events. I ?????????????? ?planning events.

?? The beauty of volunteering is that it’s exactly that, a volunteer position. If you don’t want to plan a party, don’t! If nobody on the board want to plan the party, send out a note to shareholders asking them to volunteer. If they don’t volunteer either, there will be no party, as simple as that.

?? We have a long list of building upgrades that need to be addressed

?? Make a list in a Google sheet, assign each item to a board member to research. Only assign the items that someone truly cares about, or it won’t get done. Sounds too overwhelming? Our project management services help boards develop a masterplan, prioritize, finance and oversee projects from start to finish.

?? Our budget is very small.

?? You’re not alone, most buildings’ budgets are too small for the maintenance that they need. There are many financing options available for capital projects and especially for energy efficiency upgrades. Assessments are a very useful tool for capital projects. They increase the cost basis when you sell the apartment and should be itemized by your CPA, by year, in your annual audited financial statements.

?? Can you elaborate on self-managed vs property managed and do you think that our building should hire a property manager?

?? For a self-managed building, the board and super does what the property manager otherwise handles. The major items are bookkeeping, recordkeeping, and taking complaints from shareholders. Since your board and super are used to handle complaints, we recommend that you continue to self-manage your building.

I hope these real-life Q&As help all you coop shareholders and condo owners get clarity on whether you should volunteer to your board. If not, reach out to me. You can send me a direct message here on LinkedIn as I check my DMs 2x per day.

If you missed my inaugural newsletter, here's the link. You can subscribe to my monthly mid-month newsletter by clicking on the actual newsletter and hit the subscribe button.

We wrote an article with the TOP 5 NYC BUILDING CODES, check it out here

We just released an article on changing your building's exterior engineer called "Is your FISP Engineer Putting up a fa?ade? Read it here

My goal this year is to be on 24 podcasts. Here's the link to one that I did with @leighbrown.

You know how the news tells us that NYC landlords are awful? I did a poll and it turns out that most people LOVE or at least do not HATE their landlords, check out the poll results here

Thank you for being brilliant and for reading my newsletter!

Please give this post a like and let me know what you think in the comments.

#business #consulting #nycrealestate #tinasdesk