Posted By John P. Palen, CEO & Founder of Allied Executives
It may seem that real estate is no longer the best investment or asset due to depreciating values in recent years. But in reality, the buyers' market is prompting more people to add real estate to their portfolios and holding it for future returns. Real estate offers tax advantages and is available to anyone as an investment. Plus, it can be passed on to the next generation.
Investors currently fall into two camps: intentional and accidental. In either case, real estate is a smart decision if the overall business plan and the risk involved in investing are thoroughly understood.
"The real estate industry is prime for investors now," says Jennifer Olson Spadine, owner of Guardian Property Management and Services, LLC in New Brighton. "You can buy homes cheaply and it's easy to find renters to cash low it now. When home values increase again, there will be nice equity to profit from upon sale."
Aside from experienced real estate investors who began purchasing foreclosed properties in 2010, there are also accidental owners who decide to rent out a home rather than try to sell it in a depressed market. Services such as Spadine's can assist the owner in locating and qualifying renters, collecting rent and maintaining the property.
Additionally, Spadine states that compliance with real estate rules and regulations as well as having a clear understanding of complex landlord statutes is imperative in order to protect owners from risks that could jeopardize their real estate or personal assets.
"Real estate is not a passive investment. You need to treat it as a business," she says.
Spadine knows this from the experience of purchasing her real estate business in 2004, then experiencing a complete loss of income in 2009. She had to reinvent Guardian with a new business plan, employees who could transition to a real estate brokerage and management model built upon strict accountability. Last year, the business reported $1.1 million in revenue.
Spadine's clients own or rent properties in the Twin Cities metro area and down the I-94 corridor through Monticello, Albertville and St. Cloud. Properties range from modest to luxury single-family homes to condos, and from market-rate, multi-family housing units to affordable housing. They also provide commercial real estate maintenance and services.
Real estate is a consideration for investors, but the holding period for real estate is traditionally much longer than we saw during the flip frenzy in the early 2000's. Currently, there are plenty of renters to fill properties, and as economic times change, renters will become more qualified to purchase, prices will increase, and we will see more flipping.
Successful investors are buying right - paying below current market value and minimizing risk with low debt-to-equity ratio. There is still a forecast of continued foreclosures. Location and condition are critical for resale value whenever the tide eventually turns. The bottom line is, real estate is still a good investment for those with a solid plan and the intention of building long-term, not short-term, wealth.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Trust before change featuring John Groves with Groves WorkReady, Inc. written January 2015 by John P. Palen for Minnesota Business Magazine
Posted By John P. Palen, CEO & Founder of Allied Executives
John Groves establishes trust before trying to make changes to a company culture.
Every day, companies lose money and productivity due to lost time from injured employees. Their cultures are historically designed to wait until someone files a claim upon being injured, but this often leads to higher costs and increased lost work time.
John Groves set out to change the way companies think about preventing injury. To that end, in 2007 he founded Groves WorkReady. The idea was to help companies keep employees health with early intervention, ergonomics, and best-practice training. Before his startup could gain traction, however, he would have to figure out how best to change widely held beliefs about health and fight entrenched ways of dealing with injury.
As many entrepreneurs do, Groves envisioned a better way to provide services. A physical therapist who owned three clinics in the Twin Cities area, he had grown frustrated with insurance reimbursement affecting outcomes and control over his business. He knew that a basic education in body mechanics and individual fitness could often prevent injury, rather than leaving companies and workers managing severe symptoms after the fact.
"I became excited about a business focused on keeping people healthy and helping to avoid injuries," he says. "That's the way it should be. But in my opinion, our health care system is still too focused on how to pay for it instead of how to avoid injury, and that's not right."
He founded Groves WorkReady in 2007 to change the way workers deal with pain and injury. His first step was to approach industries that have high concentrations of employees who historically suffer from musculoskeletal injuries. In most companies in the industries he picked, when people got injured, they were sent to the doctor and taken out of work for a period of time. Groves wanted to get to the issue before it became an injury, helping employers avoid the hassle and costs associated with recovery.
The biggest battle, he found, was establishing the trust that enables change. Employees had lots of assumptions about work, injury and insurance rather than facts. "We have to affect change in the culture at our client sites," says Groves. "Change is hard for anyone, so we really have to train the employees to think differently about their aches and pains. That’s not an easy thing to do."
Having someone from WorkReady onsite with the client company, it turns out, proved to be key. A physical therapist, occupational therapist or an athletic trainer is placed at each site on a weekly basis.
The interaction between those individuals and employees at the client company are crucial to limit risky behaviors and to have the opportunity to resolve potential injuries early on. Eventually, the employees learned they could interact with someone about an issue before it escalated to a serious situation.
"We discovered that in most scenarios, injury can be prevented by working with the symptoms earlier and engaging with employees at the time they identify a symptom or potential injury," says Groves. "We attack the root cause before it leads to a claim or loss."
Groves' proactive approach is one many business owners can appreciate. It empowers people to direct change rather than expecting change from a business mandate. Putting the right people on site built trusting relationships within the company, fostered education and provided early intervention.
With a typical client, Groves says there are generally about 2,000 preventative interactions with their employees per year – all on a pre-loss or pre-claim basis. "People don't believe me when I tell them, but I can prove that we provide at least a 50 percent reduction in workers compensation claims a year," he says.
Groves' willingness to take on widely held cultural assumptions about work-related injuries creates an all-around win for his business, for employers and employees engaged in workplace wellness.
Tips
John Groves establishes trust before trying to make changes to a company culture.
Every day, companies lose money and productivity due to lost time from injured employees. Their cultures are historically designed to wait until someone files a claim upon being injured, but this often leads to higher costs and increased lost work time.
John Groves set out to change the way companies think about preventing injury. To that end, in 2007 he founded Groves WorkReady. The idea was to help companies keep employees health with early intervention, ergonomics, and best-practice training. Before his startup could gain traction, however, he would have to figure out how best to change widely held beliefs about health and fight entrenched ways of dealing with injury.
As many entrepreneurs do, Groves envisioned a better way to provide services. A physical therapist who owned three clinics in the Twin Cities area, he had grown frustrated with insurance reimbursement affecting outcomes and control over his business. He knew that a basic education in body mechanics and individual fitness could often prevent injury, rather than leaving companies and workers managing severe symptoms after the fact.
"I became excited about a business focused on keeping people healthy and helping to avoid injuries," he says. "That's the way it should be. But in my opinion, our health care system is still too focused on how to pay for it instead of how to avoid injury, and that's not right."
He founded Groves WorkReady in 2007 to change the way workers deal with pain and injury. His first step was to approach industries that have high concentrations of employees who historically suffer from musculoskeletal injuries. In most companies in the industries he picked, when people got injured, they were sent to the doctor and taken out of work for a period of time. Groves wanted to get to the issue before it became an injury, helping employers avoid the hassle and costs associated with recovery.
The biggest battle, he found, was establishing the trust that enables change. Employees had lots of assumptions about work, injury and insurance rather than facts. "We have to affect change in the culture at our client sites," says Groves. "Change is hard for anyone, so we really have to train the employees to think differently about their aches and pains. That’s not an easy thing to do."
Having someone from WorkReady onsite with the client company, it turns out, proved to be key. A physical therapist, occupational therapist or an athletic trainer is placed at each site on a weekly basis.
The interaction between those individuals and employees at the client company are crucial to limit risky behaviors and to have the opportunity to resolve potential injuries early on. Eventually, the employees learned they could interact with someone about an issue before it escalated to a serious situation.
"We discovered that in most scenarios, injury can be prevented by working with the symptoms earlier and engaging with employees at the time they identify a symptom or potential injury," says Groves. "We attack the root cause before it leads to a claim or loss."
Groves' proactive approach is one many business owners can appreciate. It empowers people to direct change rather than expecting change from a business mandate. Putting the right people on site built trusting relationships within the company, fostered education and provided early intervention.
With a typical client, Groves says there are generally about 2,000 preventative interactions with their employees per year – all on a pre-loss or pre-claim basis. "People don't believe me when I tell them, but I can prove that we provide at least a 50 percent reduction in workers compensation claims a year," he says.
Groves' willingness to take on widely held cultural assumptions about work-related injuries creates an all-around win for his business, for employers and employees engaged in workplace wellness.
Tips
- Focus on the root cause of an escalating corporate expense like workplace injuries.
- Develop a culture approach to improving the problem by engaging employees in solutions.
- Institute best practices - with expert support - for safety and injury prevention that are achievable for everyone.
- Celebrate small changes to shift the company culture in a healthier direction.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Strong Corporate Intelligence Always Wins featuring Paul Jaeb with Heartland Investigative Group written May 2012 by John P. Palen for Minnesota Business Magazine
Posted
By John P. Palen, CEO & Founder of Allied Executives
One
of the first rules in business: know your strengths. Another rule: Know your
weaknesses. Large companies have entire departments and personnel dedicated to
corporate intelligence, threats and weak links. But for small and mid-sized
businesses, it’s been harder to access this valuable information. The people who do this work tend to keep a
low profile. Since 1991, one
Minnesota-based company has done just that, and built a multi-million-dollar business.
Heartland
Investigative Group has touched just about every high profile case, story and
deal in the Twin Cities. As a private investigator turned entrepreneur, CEO
Paul Jaeb, 47, says that a company focused on rooting out and preventing the
seven deadly sins in business is a round-the-clock mission. "People are often
in crisis and need our help now," Jaeb says.
Just
as importantly, Heartland has capitalized on the great need for businesses to
proactively manage their threats and opportunities. Performing more than
100,000 background checks, the company also provides competitive intelligence,
due diligence, executive consultation, research and analysis. All of this comes
into play before companies make a critical hire, acquire another company,
consider a partnership or enter an investment.
For
large companies, Heartland augments internal corporate intelligence by gaining
inside information as a neutral third party.
Even for small and mid-sized companies it’s essential to understand the
value of corporate intelligence.
Heartland has discovered things like unauthorized manufacturing of a
client’s goods as well as the true financials, assets and culture of a
potential acquisition target.
One
Heartland client called to report that its products were being manufactured in
China. Heartland was hired to find out
who and where. Another client wanted to
investigate acquisition targets for details such as hours of operation, dock
and parking lot traffic, raw materials quantities coming in, lines of
production, shifts, etc… This
information allowed their client to calculate the actual output compared to the
information that was given.
In
certain circumstances, Heartland also provides and trains security personnel.
In
2002, Heartland acquired its biggest local competitor and in 2006 made a
strategic acquisition in Denver, making it one of the largest corporate,
financial and legal intelligence providers in the US. Paul speaks nationally as an expert in the
industry and is the former director of the National Association of Legal
Investigators.
While
some people still believe in and promote the power of a firm handshake, history
is painting a new and dangerous story. Jaeb
is a symbol of the balance between privacy and public good, trust and betrayal.
For business owners, success still appears to flow from knowing the truth and
their own strengths and weaknesses - and then leveraging this information to
make sound business decisions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)