What is the True Measure of a Company’s Success?

These days the metrics are pretty screwed up.

As many of you may know the home retail company, Dot & Bo, recently and quite suddenly closed down their operations. They literally wiped out $20 million in funding. The reason given by its CEO was both candid and eye-opening. Dot & Bo ceased operations because its business model failed.

The vision for Dot & Bo was for it to be a media company first, a furniture company second. Unfortunately, hefty supply chain and working capital commitments required for a goods company (which should have been a serious consideration) proved to be its undoing. The company — which at one point had a $60 million valuation — had been in business for little more than two years.

So the flashy idea that was quickly bankrolled by technology investors went down in vivid flames…leaving a trail of burned stakeholders, vendors, and customers in its aftermath.

Now for Something Different

On the other hand, my husband and I launched a residential property management business back in 2007, after conducting in-depth research for well over a year first. We 100% funded the startup ourselves. We started out by managing our own rental properties, which had suffered at the hands of too many irresponsible management firms before.

Thanks to some local real estate contacts, and industry-changing marketing, within a year we had a sizable client base and brand recognition. Within three years the business was paying for itself. We continually reinvested in the business and our own properties thereafter.

Fast forward seven years later, we closed the business. There were a number of reasons for the decision, the most significant of which is that we wanted to move out of state.

However, unlike Dot & Bo, we planned our exit carefully. In fact, it was a two-year process. We prepped our own properties to sell. We informed our clients and vendors so that they could plan accordingly. We informed and worked with our banker to manage a proper close out of all of our accounts. As the chosen final date for the closure approached, we had already handed off detailed digital and hardcopy records to all of our clients. No one was left empty-handed.

The True Measure of Success

Here is the breakdown of what our company accomplished during its seven-year tenure:

• The company closed with a profit.
• We never lost a single client.
• Ours was a highly reputable company.
• As was our mission, we ran our operations responsibly and with integrity.
• With our own leases, we never went to eviction court.
• With inherited leases, we never lost a case in eviction court.
• We never used others’ money to bankroll our operations.
• We never ceded control of our intellectual property, or revenue, to third parties.
• Clients actually begged us to continue managing their properties (the ultimate compliment).

Obviously, property management is neither a new nor flashy business concept. In fact, it is a very challenging business. Profit margins are slim. For those of you in marketing, it’s like managing a trade show, every single day, virtually seven days a week. And yet, we prevailed.

Guess what? No one cares. They should, but they don’t. It doesn’t matter. We know the truth, the true measure of our company’s success.