Yes, for the fifth time and the last three years in a row, AZREIA was recognized as the #1 REIA in the country! At the annual National Real Estate Investors Association Leadership Conference, June 26 – 29, 2010, in Bellview, Washington, AZREIA was presented the overall Award of Excellence recognizing your association as the best in the country. We are the first organization to ever receive the award five-times. No other organization has earned this award more than twice. We have won this very prestigious award every year in which we were eligible. And no, success doesn’t get old.
I only believe in doing things one way. If you can’t be the best, then you do everything you can to become the best. Since I “retired” from corporate life, my time has become my own and thus it has become more important. If time is important, then it must be used on worthwhile things. Therefore, if it is worthwhile, it should be done to the best of one’s capabilities, or why do it.
It is one thing to apply this standard to yourself. It is another to get it to “stick” across an organization, even a small one. The staff, including me, at AZREIA aren’t perfect, no one is. But, they do try very hard to deliver the best service possible keeping within our standards of ethics. Overall, AZREIA and its staff do a very good job. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have the best and most highly recognized and awarded association in the country, in the history of National REIA, across all eight very important measured areas:
Professional Education
- Government Affairs
- Community Service
- Membership Development
- Print Communication
- Electronic Communication
- Conference & Trade Show
- Budget & Finance
There is another way we use to determine how AZREIA “stacks up” to other REIA groups around the country. One anecdotal way is from unsolicited direct comments from members of other REIAs. I usually receive one or two of these every month as we have investors visiting Arizona all the time and coming to the AZREIA meeting. They are usually amazed at three things:
- The high level of professionalism in how we run AZREIA.
- The amount of valuable information we provide.
- The Market Update specifics we share and the value of the data.
Also, other REIAs have sent their leaders and staff to AZREIA to observe our meetings and how we run the day-to-day operation. We had a visitor during our July meeting from California. She had visited several local groups in California, but had not seen anything like what we do at AZREIA. Also, when we have guest speakers either national or those that do a lot of speaking, almost to a person they comment on how professional we are compared to other locations.
As the years have gone by I have become more involved in National REIA. I have volunteered my time as I believe strongly in giving back to the industry and because AZREIA has many positive ideas to share with other REIAs that may not operate at the same level as AZREIA. As a member of the board of National REIA, I recently helped to restructure the organization into a chapter based association. This is important as it will bring standards to REIAs across the country helping improve the experience each member receives regardless of which chapter they belong to. Providing exceptional benefits to members is a core offering for any REIA. This new structure also significantly improves the relationship with important vendors like The Home Depot and Sherwin Williams.
While this article is meant to bring your attention to how AZREIA is rated and perceived throughout our industry, not everything is always rosy. We are proud of our accomplishments and the recognition we have received, but much is still to be done. The future of AZREIA is bright with the continued support of our members. I trust we will continue to deliver to your expectation and continue to be the best at what we do.