Letter from the Executive Director for November 2017

October was one of those months where blueprints were drawn but no digging was started.This month we will talk about our new event plans. The discussion will segue into a discussion about how our service contracts work.

It has become clear to us that event management is a specific discipline that is currently underdeveloped. State-wide there are 23 locations where owners and managers meet, but only six of those are in the MassLandlords network, and only four of those are directly managed by us. There is potentially a lot of event work for us to do, but until now, we haven’t been able to do it.

The current team have roughly three years of experience in Worcester, where attendance now averages 86 people per meeting. This learning has led to the creation of two new event series, in Cambridge and Waltham, which are now highly rated by attendees.

Moving forward, we are going to focus more explicitly on events as a primary association goal, rather than as something else we do. Our marketing text will highlight what advantage attendees will gain and our topics will be crafted to meet the educational or cost-saving objectives we know landlords want. We will open new channels to broaden the reach of our content, and will we further staff operations to increase engagement before, during, and after events.

Brent Perry started as our Event Logistics Coordinator, and by replacing me in that role, he has made a remarkable improvement to the consistency and timeliness of our setup and teardown operations. Also I am now free to work the registration desk as needed by location. We plan to repeat this for the registration desks, so that I will be free to emcee as needed. We will develop our repertoire of scalable content, so that eventually I will not be needed to emcee either. This will mean that no event need depend on any key person. If this works, we will have a way to achieve our educational objectives independent of personality or volunteer turn over at all 23 locations across the state.

The MassLandlords service contract has historically been offered to groups who lack digital services, but who carry out their own event process.If our event process has now become scalable, essentially all operational responsibilities might be carried about by MassLandlords, leaving local organizations free to develop the relationships and form the Boards of Advisors that owners need. This is a very hopeful development, and we will certainly keep you posted as we progress toward this new goal.

So that’s our strategy update. We will report on our other objectives as we make progress toward them, as well. Overall, the mission remains: help owners rent their property, and advocate for better laws.

Share this newsletter with a friend, we have a lot to offer.

Sincerely,
Doug Quattrochi
hello@masslandlords.net