We are thrilled to announce that Rentec Direct has achieved an impressive milestone: seven consecutive years on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Company list! This recognition is a testament to our team’s dedication to growth and excellence.
The Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Company list is an annual ranking that evaluates a company’s three-year growth rate. To qualify for the 2023 list, companies must meet specific criteria: they must be based in the United States, privately held, for-profit, and independent. Additionally, they must have generated at least $100,000 in revenue in 2019 and reached a minimum of $2 million in revenue in 2022.
Numerous large companies from metropolitan areas have earned a spot on this prestigious list. However, it remains relatively rare for rural-based businesses, and even more so for rural-based Oregon businesses, especially those with a small team, to make the cut. To put it into perspective, over the last three years, only seven out of 99 Oregon businesses on the list are based in rural Oregon. This year, among the 44 Oregon businesses that made the list, only three are from rural Oregon, and one is Rentec Direct.
This recognition underscores that success can be achieved regardless of whether you are rooted in a rural or urban Oregon community. You don’t necessarily need to go out of state, chase outside investment, or go public to achieve sustained growth. Rentec’s journey exemplifies the power of local commitment and innovation, and we hope that even more Oregon businesses can reach similar milestones in the future.
Below are five strategies that have worked well for us that may be helpful as you manage your rental units and businesses for continued growth:
1. Offer Outstanding Customer Service
A cornerstone of our success has been our unwavering commitment to customer service. We firmly believe that your success is our success, and this customer-centric approach has been instrumental in our growth. We bring this to life in a number of ways, ensuring that you can access information quickly and efficiently. For example, if you contact us during business hours, you’ll receive a response within the day from one of our dedicated account specialists in our Grants Pass headquarters. Our team members had the opportunity to complete a 60-hr property management training offered by the Oregon Real Estate Agency, to ensure that we understand the complex issues our clients face day-to-day. All of our support is handled in-house, thus resulting in speedy, personalized service, and all client feedback is considered when upgrading our software.
2. Become a Trusted Resource
Over the years, we’ve also worked diligently to become a trusted resource for landlords, property managers and tenants. We offer a variety of educational resources, including video tutorials, webinars and blog posts that cover timely real estate news, industry trends, maintenance tips and software updates relevant for property managers and landlords. Providing our clients with on-demand resources to ensure they feel supported has been instrumental in maintaining lasting relationships.
3. Stay Customer Focused
Every decision you make in your business should, in one way or another, benefit your customer. If your decisions are based on what is best for your customer, you are always going to have a happy customer. All too often, companies who accept funding ultimately have to answer to their investors by raising prices, changing terms, or otherwise doing things to make the investors happy rather than the customer happy. Rentec Direct has never taken investment, so we remain laser-focused on always doing what is best for our customer.
4. Invest in Your Employees, Vendors, and Partners
Investing in and recognizing your team, vendors and partners is crucial. These relationships are the foundation of our success, and nurturing them has been a key part of our growth journey. In addition to celebrating employee milestones, we invest in professional development opportunities. For example, a significant number of employees recently completed the Oregon Real Estate Agency’s Oregon Property Management Licensing course. Simple gestures, like spotlighting an employee of the month, hosting networking events for your tenants, or writing a thank-you card to a vendor who went above and beyond after hours can go a long way.
5. Automate Everything You Can
Efficiency is critical in business, and we’ve embraced automation wherever possible. It not only saves time but also allows us to innovate and offer cutting-edge solutions. With Rentec’s software you can create a new listing in a matter of seconds via our AI Listing Generator and publish it across various popular listing websites through our syndication network. Our whole business is built on helping customers save time, and we incorporate that into our day-to-day roles too. By streamlining tasks with technology, we free up valuable time to focus on more strategic initiatives to better serve our clients.
6. Stay True to Your Roots
For Rentec Direct, staying true to our roots has meant remaining deeply connected to our Southern Oregon community. We actively participate in local events, support community initiatives, and always revisit our core values when making decisions about our future. We’ve achieved remarkable growth without any outside investment and with zero debt. This model allows our business to stay hyper-focused on the needs of our clients versus having to cater to investors. While this may seem like an ambitious goal, there are ways for you to achieve it, too.
In closing, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our partners, clients, vendors, and everyone on this incredible journey with Rentec Direct. As we look ahead to the rest of 2023, our commitment remains unwavering – to provide the best rental management software possible. This commitment guides us in everything we do, from developing new features to expanding our footprint and giving back to the Southern Oregon community.
This is an exciting time for Rentec Direct, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds. Thank you for being an integral part of our success story, and here’s to many more years of growth!