LandlordMax Mac Version Coming Very Soon
As I’ve already mentioned before, we’re working on a Mac version of LandlordMax. The good news is that it’s almost ready. It’s also why I haven’t been posting much lately, I’ve just been way too consumed trying to complete and release the Mac version. It’s amazing how many little details there are when supporting another operating system. I plan on eventually posting about some of the issues we encountered between Mac and Windows.
To give you a quick update, the Mac version is looking really good. The only issue we’re aware of that’s left has to do with backing up and restoring database file between the Mac and Windows versions. This is an example of some of the weird operating system differences that we’ve had to resolve.
In any case, we’re extremely close to releasing it. I know I told some people I expected it to be available by now, but the LandlordMax Mac version will be released any day now.
It’s very exciting!
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LandlordMax Customer Testimonials
Because I’ve been so busy working on the latest version of LandlordMax (version 6.05), and the upcoming Mac version (possibly as soon as this week), I just haven’t had the time to publish any of the customer testimonials we received. So rather than just mention one specific testimonial at a time like I’ve often done in the past, I’m going to share with you a few of the best ones we received over the last little bit.
“I don’t know how you could have made a great program any better, but no matter if I have to renew it or not [actually, upgrading is optional], I have to have it. All the pluses look so great on a resume for a landlord management job. One of my owners said “If had a program like you use, I wouldn’t need you” I was kind enough to tell him the name, but he said “I couldn’t ever handle the tenants as great as you do and my building never looked so great. I feel so comfortable know you have everything under control. The reports are just an added plus to your service”.”
Daniel Bonnell
I just love this testimonial. Not only is the property manager letting us know how much he’s benefiting from LandlordMax but so is his client!!
“Thank You! I will be informing other landlords of this great product. More importantly because of the great customer service that was provided to me.”
Thanks again, Marcel Willis.
Although we pride ourselves on being the easiest property management software in the market, if you read our success stories and testimonials page you’ll find we also get a lot of praise for our support (customer service). I can’t tell you how important this is for me personally. When we compare ourselves with our bigger competitors I’m still amazed that some charge up to $100-$300 an hour for support when we offer it for free. I don’t believe you should make a profit on your customer service because if you do, that’s a conflict of interest. At $100-$300 an hour, it can be pretty easy to let the customer struggle with the shortcomings of your software rather than fix them because you make more money that way. It’s definitely not the way I want to do business. I want my motivations to be aligned with my customers!
“It has helped us immensely with keeping track of our apt. buildings/tenants. Thank you for offering the product at a reasonable price!”
“The most distinguishing feature, which really sold me, is that that we can input an unlimited number of apartment buildings and tenants — many similar software programs have a limit of 10 or 20 buildings.”
Rhonda – United Property Management Services
Thank you Rhonda. This also points out another of my pet peeves. I don’t believe software should be priced based on the amount of data you enter. I can’t imagine paying for Microsoft Word based on the number of documents I write. Pay for a DVD player based on the number of movies I”ll play. It just doesn’t make sense. If you buy the software, you should be able to enter in as much data as you want. Of course everyone has to have their license (DVD player), but they shouldn’t be limited on how much data they can enter in it (number of units).
“I’ve come to love your software. It’s fun to work with and easy to use.”
Linda Elliott
A nice and simple testimonial to finish up. So if you don’t already have LandlordMax the Easiest Property Management Software on the market today, you definitely want to check it out now.
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LandlordMax Sale 1 Day Left!!
Just a friendly reminder to let you know that LandlordMax Property Management Software is still on sale for $147 until tomorrow (June 30, 2009). As of July 1st, the price will be $189. So if you haven’t already taken advantage of this discount over the month of June, don’t forget to do it now before the sale is over!
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LandlordMax Version 6.05a Has Just Been Released
Just minutes ago we released the latest version of LandlordMax Property Management Software version 6.05a.
This release is mainly a patch release, although we did manage to include one new feature (database compression). For further details on the specifics I’ll refer you to our online release notes, specifically the release notes for version 6.05a (near the bottom of the page).
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LandlordMax Revenues Update
As I’ve done in the past, I’m going to share with you today the latest sales metrics of my company LandlordMax. And just like in my post in June 2008, we’re still heading in the right direction! Below is our Monthly Revenues Graph, as well as our 12-Month Trailing Average Revenues Graph. I find that only showing the monthly graph isn’t enough, the trailing average gives you the all important trend.
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As the graphs clearly show, our sales are definitely increasing. A nice looking hockey stick graph! We’ve been lucky in that the recession has barely affected us.
The only thing that’s odd in the graph is the slowing growth line in 12-Month Trailing Average Sales Graph in the last little bit (the bottom graph). This is because for the last 2-3 months I started to leak the news that a new major version was going to be released any day now. As you’d expect, the news of a new version coming out any day affected our sales (some people decided to hold off purchasing the software until the new version was released, even if we offer up to a year of upgrades with your license). But as you can see from before, we expect the graph to jump right back up, and it’s already starting to do so.
Although the graph’s data isn’t up to today, I can tell you we expect June to be our biggest month yet based on the increased sales we’ve already seen since we released the latest version just 2 weeks ago! It’s always a bit difficult to predict because there’s a delay from when we release a new version to when sales jump up because of the free 30-day trial we offer.
For those of you who might have missed it, back in early 2008 I posted a geographical map with all the cities in US where LandlordMax was purchased during 2007 which you can find below. The thing to note is that this is data from almost 2 years ago (it represents our sales from 2007, today that map would be significantly more populated), and all the nodes represent 1 OR MORE sales (1, 10, 100, 1000, etc. sales in a city are marked with just one node)
As well, if you’re interested I had posted in the past or sales metrics by day of week as well as by day of month. What’s interesting is that our sales level double on weekdays compared to weekends. I suspect this is because about half our customers are individual real estate investors and half are property management companies, banks, universities, etc., which are mainly open on weekdays. Although it seems intuitive in retrospect, it took me a bit to figure out.
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LandlordMax Testimonial
This week, after helping K. Nusbaum, he sent us the following comment regarding LandlordMax:
“Thank you so much for your prompt attention to my problem. You have proven exactly why we stay with your company and will recommend you to anyone! “
To which I asked him if we could use his comment for our testimonial page on LandlordMax. He replied yes, and went even further and added:
“We started LandlordMax back in Aug of 07 and within a month fell in love with the software. I utilized the program to run a 64 unit complex and it did great. In Feb 09 I started running another property with 140 units and now use the updated version (Ver6.05) to run both properties. I recommend the software to anyone in property management. Not only is the software great but the customer service is top of the line. No matter what my problem or question has been LandlordMax has been attentive and prompt to handle it. I have not had many problems thankfully though!”
Thank you for the glowing testimonial! It’s very appreciated.
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LandlordMax Version 6.05 is Now Available!
Great news! We just released the latest major version of LandlordMax (version 6.05) a few minutes ago! If you’re a LandlordMax’er, you definitely want to check it out. Be one of the first people to install it on your computer. There’s a lot of new and powerful features in this release!
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LandlordMax Major Release Coming This Week!
This is one of those posts I’m not sure how to approach, especially being this tired when I’m writing it. You see I was fully expecting to release the latest major release of LandlordMax tonight, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Although we don’t have official release dates, we’ve slowly and quietly being letting people know that a release was coming, most likely over the weekend. Again, unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.
The good news is that the new version of LandlordMax is ready to go. It’s actually been ready for almost a full week now. The only thing holding us back is the website, it’s not entirely ready. We’re still working on the release notes, and the user manual definitely needs more work. At the very least I don’t want to release the latest version without a strong News and Newsworthy page like the last release. Although I really hate it, I can accept it if the user manual is trailing behind by a bit. It’s not the end of the world. But we absolutely need a page showcasing the latest features, otherwise it could potentially be confusing to our users. I’d rather give them a good heads up of what’s new, and how some of the new features may affect them (for example a new feature called Advance Notices will have an impact on their existing Scheduled Entries).
That being said, instead of pushing through tonight to the wee hours of the morning, I believe we need a rest (plus we have a key person downtrodden with a bad cold – not me – fingers crossed). I myself have only slept a few hours for the last 4-5 nights, so I’m pretty exhausted. I’m actually hoping this post makes sense when I read it later after I’ve had some rest.
So what I’m going to do instead is take a small breather, and let everyone get some rest before we go live with the new version. We need it! But more importantly, I think it’s important that we avoid making any mistakes releasing a new version of the software. And the best time to make mistakes is when you’re overtired. It’s also the time when people have a tendency to push stuff through that’s of lower quality just to get it over with. That’s not a position I want to be in. I believe the wait will be worth it. I want to avoid making any stupid mistakes. And a few days is not going to hurt anyone. It’s worth the cost.
Although I really don’t like to promise an official release date, I suspect we’ll be releasing mid-week this week.
Thank you for your patience and I look forward to posting when LandlordMax is released!!
PS: Please note that you don’t have to wait for the new version to come out to buy LandlordMax, as part of your license you’re entitled to all releases that come out for up to a year. This includes major upgrades!
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How to Get the Best Possible Technical Support
It’s early Tuesday morning and you’re just entering your trusted car mechanic’s garage because last night your car was really acting up on your way home from work. You don’t know exactly what’s going on, but there’s no doubt that something is really wrong. The mechanic greets you with a smile and asks you what he can do for you to which you reply “my car is broken”.
What do you think happens next? Is this enough information for the car mechanic to help you?
No, not even close. Firstly, what do you mean by it’s broken? Does the car start? Is the windshield broken? Does the car make any noises? Does it rattle? And so on.
Basically the mechanic will first try to get a basic assessment of what’s going on. Saying the car is broken just isn’t enough. It’s much too generic with too many possible meanings. The mechanic needs to know more.
The exact same is true with software technical support. If you truly want to maximize the effectiveness of the help you’ll get from the support department, give them as MUCH RELEVANT information as you can.
For the car mechanic, you could say something like the car makes a loud rattle, but only when I turn. And this only happens if I’m going at least 30 mph or more. I’ve also noticed that it’s coming from the back left section of the car. I just started last night, I hadn’t heard anything before.
When it comes to support, a surprising number of people seem to just say things like “the software is broken”, “it no longer works”, “I can’t use it”, “it won’t let me close”, “it won’t let me enter my data”. All of these are too vague and to do any real troubleshooting with unless there’s more information to give it a context.
For example what does it’s broken mean? Does the software start up? Are you getting an error message? If so what is the error message? Is it a report that’s not generating the results you’d expect? Are you not able to perform a specific task? The list of possibilities are endless.
And please don’t take this post as me complaining about our customers, because it’s not at all about that. I really do appreciate all of our customers. What I’m trying to give here are some tips to help everyone (me included) to get the best support experience possible. And this isn’t just with us, but with every company out there. Not just software, but with anyone you’re trying to get help from. The more context you can give the better your results will be.
Imagine going to the doctors and just saying you don’t feel well. What does that mean? Do you have a headache? Do you have a stomach ache? Are you bleeding profusely (well you would hope that one would be obvious)? Did you bruise something? The list of possibilities are endless. You have to give your doctor some context so that they can help you.
The same is true with technical support. The more context you can give the better your results will be. I know we always appreciate it when people give us more details. And more importantly, it lets us respond immediately without having to send a request for more details. Adding relevant details and context is a win-win scenario for everyone.
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General Update
As you may have noticed, my blog posting frequency has significantly dropped this month. This is because I’m working very hard on the upcoming major upgrade of LandlordMax. We were expecting to release earlier this year, but had to postpone it a bit. Well the release is now imminent. It’s going to be available very soon!
And this is why I’ve been a bit a behind in posting. I also plan on finishing the book publishing series, but it’s going to have to take a bit of a backburner for the release of LandlordMax. I had several request for the two missing parts, so rest assured they’re coming.
With all that said, I’m very excited about the upcoming release of LandlordMax. It’s been too long since our last release, something that’s not going to happen again. It’s not that we weren’t active, actually some of the patches could almost be considered new versions in of themselves! But it’s been too long since the main version number has increased. You can expect to see that happen very shortly.
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