In the early 1990s, Judy Cook found a market niche, stepped into it, and began building.
The niche, connected to the burgeoning northern Nevada real estate market, kept growing, and growing.
Not a bad challenge to have in a onewoman business serving the property management industry.
Through her original business, Reno-based Cook & Company, Ltd., Cook has been providing consulting, training, and marketing services to northern Nevada companies since 1991, she says.
That business spawned a new one,Real Estate Management Services, an offshoot that focuses on the individual property manager.
The business is built around keeping property managers up-to-date, efficient and in the black."I found a need that nobody else was filling," says Cook.
Then, over the years, she developed classes, presentations,manuals, and staff trainings.
Teaching real estate agents to run profitable property management businesses has been a profitable business for her, too, she says.And the niche has grown too unwieldy for just one business.
While Cook continues to build Cook & Company and take on company-wide presentations and trainings, her new business, called R.E.M.S.
for short, is oriented to the individual mentoring them, coaching them, creating custom policy manuals.
And what services do property managers most frequently want from Cook? They want forms and contracts review, she says.
They are focused on the details of the day, and forms are a big part of any real estate day.
But when asked what property managers usually really need, Cook says they need a customer survey.
They need to find out their business strengths and weaknesses and then create targeted marketing strategies.
