Have owned our park (about 100 spaces) for a couple of years and it came with the current manager who has just given notice. The manager is very good at many things, and then not so good at others. Still, the previous owner had the manager in place (who was provided free home, lot rent, phone, utilities, gasoline for vehicle, credit card, etc – plus a monthly and other compensation too such as commissions on sales and other perks) and we kept them and, although costly, the relationship was working fairly well. Now, with this change, we would like to move to the “Greeter” style of manager, realizing that having a greeter will require me to do more in running the day-to-day activities of the park. I know about looking within the park for people who keep their homes and cars neat and clean, and routinely keep their accounts paid and on time. What else to look for in a potential greeter?
And, how to make the change? Should I just contact possible candidates and tell them they would make a good greeter/manager and see if they are interested? Or send a notice to all residents asking people interested in the position to contact me? Or?
Any and all suggestions/ideas on this will be most appreciated.
Also, what are the possible duties of a greeter? Duties must be quite varied depending on the owner’s proximity, abilities, time availability, etc. What are other owners doing in this regard?
I started this thread a couple of weeks ago with the hope that some of the experienced owners would provide some input. So far, no response.
Basically, looking for suggestions on how to find and hire a greeter, as well as the range of possibilities of their duties. Most likely, for our park, we need someone functioning somewhere between a full blown manager and the simple, scaled down greeter type.
To date, have looked within the park and nobody has surfaced yet as the perfect potential greeter. Still looking inside park and have a couple of maybe possibilities yet may have to bring someone in from the outside.
Would appreciate any comments or ideas you may have on this issue.
Sorry I did not see this post sooner - I was out of town. Before you send a letter to the general park population, I’d focus on your key targets which, as you described, are the folks with the nicer homes, cars and yards. It normally does not take a lot of salesmanship to convince someone who is already living in the park to live there for free in exchange for a small amount of time per day. You will learn a lot by just talking to applicants over the phone, such as their life story and if they have a job that entails real management ability. One of our favorite greeters has a day job as the teller at a bank. Those kind of jobs imply that somebody else trusts them, and gives you more confidence. Our favorite interview question is “where do you think the park needs improvement?” What you want to hear is “we need to clean up a the tree limbs on a few lots, and put roundup on some pads” and not “we need an olympic sized swimming pool and a gun show pavilion”. Basically, someone who sees things the same way that you do.
The duties of the greeter are, as you suggest, varied based on what the park needs. In some parks, we only need the greeter to report problems and post notices on doors. In parks with park-owned homes, showing homes and filling out paperwork would be added to the job.
Thank you Frank. Your suggested type of questions to potential greeters and the ideal type of replies to those questions are really helpful. Also, finding someone with a day job seems like a good idea too. Your comments are much appreciated and will help me significantly.
Can you elaborate the duties of this “greeter”? Besides reporting problems and posting notices on a door, what other items should a greeter do in a land lease community?
There is no limitation to what a greeter can do, based on their ability level. But they are never a full-time employee (often having a full-time day job) and so the list cannot be long. Picking up litter, advising of problems, reading water meters and posting notices are common duties. But they may also include showing and renting houses, appearing at evictions – anything that fits their schedule and they have the ability to properly perform. They would never do accounting, or paying bills – but none of our highest paid managers to those either.
If you make a list of what you want the Greeter to do, you will be able to judge which are reasonable requests based on what you’re paying and what their skill set is, and those that you should do yourself.