When it comes to managing real estate investments, you cannot truly survive all on your own. Networking and building relationships are as much a part of it as ensuring that your products or services sell.
For example, take how you manage your investor relations; the deals you strike with them are never truly done. The moment an investor says ‘YES’ to your offering does not mean it’s the end of your business arrangement. In fact, you will need them in your future real estate investments, both as returning investors and as networking partners. If everything goes as planned, you’ll be connected with other investors for other potential projects in the near future.
So, other than financial backing, investors can offer unparalleled business and investment insights — based on their experiences — and resources that can help you ensure that your brand name, and your firm’s reputation in the industry are on the right track.
How Can We Define the Financial Relationship Between GPs and LPs?
With real estate investments, the financial relationship between General Partners (GPs) and Limited Partners (LPs) is vital for success.
As a general rule, your investors are first, and foremost, here to make high yields on their invested funds. It means, the baseline of your relationship is financially based, and therefore can be categorized as a financial relationship. Every dollar invested in your portfolio from your investors pocket needs to be calculated, planned and presented to them with full transparency. Where financials talk, be financially oriented, and make sure that your investors are always in the loop. It’s your responsibility to invest the committed capital in the right deals, manage the portfolio of investments, and aim to complete the investments with a sizable return of capital.
Keeping that financial relationship baseline in mind can be a great motivator for investors to trust you and for them to want to reinvest in another deal or recommend you to their investor network.
The Importance of Building a Healthy Financial Relationship with Your Investors
Building — and maintaining — a healthy financial relationship with your investors is very important. It’s also similar to the principles that govern Customer Relationship Management (CRM) but with a slightly different, albeit more from a finance manager’s perspective.
Having a healthy financial relationship with your investors is important, and it could mean several things for your real estate firm. Not only will you have access to continuous funding and capital, especially if your financial goals are achieved, but you will also have access to a network of people who are in the same industry as your investors. With the right balance, having a mutually beneficial relationship with your investors means one thing — your investors will feel more confident in your abilities, and they will be more willing to invest in your future real estate investments.
In terms of accelerating the growth of your real estate investment firm, having a healthy relationship with your investors means that you can expand your niche or tap into additional ventures that can result in a potential increase in your investments. Happier investors mean more funding and capital; more capital means more properties, which will eventually lead to a higher return on investments.
Do’s and Don’ts in Maintaining Healthy Financial Relationships – Powered by an investment management software
Maintaining a healthy financial relationship with your investors is not rocket science, but it does need your personal touch, expertise in the industry and a Capital relationships management software (CRM) to consolidate it all together.
Do’s:
- Be very clear and transparent with your investors.
- Show them the financial behavior of their investments and make sure it’s available for them at all times.
- Provide proper documentation and reporting in a secure manner.
- Initiate investor meetups and make sure to update them on every underlying asset, for better or for worse.
- Win the long game, build trust and align expectations at every step of the way, they will appreciate it.
The Don’ts are the obvious opposites. Your investors are the ones taking the risk on you, and you being mindful of that, and establishing that financial relationship baseline can really help you achieve sustainable growth for your firm, both in capital raised and successful investment completed.
Both of you need to be on the same page, and this goes beyond sharing a vision for the firm. Find the time to discuss concrete plans, ongoing portfolio updates, and potential exit plans. You will be saving yourselves from potential disappointment and frustration once you’ve set these expectations right.
Creating Healthy financial relationships with an investment management software Starts Here
A real estate investment management software will really help you create healthy financial relationships with your investors and has three important aspects to it: data, transparency, and efficiency. The data collected and consolidated in one software tells you everything you need to know about your investors and your assets. It goes above and beyond the daily activities that you can ‘see’ in your real estate firm’s business operations. Transparency implies your willingness to share this data with your investors. The more they know about the direction you’re going, the more confident they will be to keep working with you. Efficiency means executing the right actions that correspond to whatever the data tells you.
Let’s say you’ve always been comfortable with using a spreadsheet for a lot of things. You use it for reporting, document sharing, and even when it comes to accessing investment information, different waterfalls and investor classes. This process is very manual, and will eventually result in scattered data from different silos that is hard to manage and can ruin any financial relationship building with your investors in the 21st century, where innovation wins the race. Imagine using a software that lets you manage everything, from investor communications, to reports, documents, assets and other financial metrics, different waterfalls and investor classes, for you and for your investors. Using a real estate investment management software means you are leveraging the power of data and making the most out of your time, while providing that baseline confidence and healthier financial relationships with your investors.
To learn more about how to leverage the power of data you can download and read our free Ebook on how to “Grow your AUM with digital transformation.”
With a comprehensive investment management platform you will be able to save A LOT of time on manual tasks, create speed and efficiency within your business, reduce friction points with your investors, financial managers, and assets. Financial relationships are very much like human interactions. They are the base of communication in an environment of real estate investments where money is at risk. It’s your MUST HAVE baseline.
If you want to start efficiently creating healthy investor relations, you can start by exploring our investor management software, including our advanced investor CRM. You can book a demo with Agora to find out how we can accelerate your growth and help you build trust with your investors.