Having an online presence and participating in social media as an industry resource is critical to accessing the unique deliverables of our work. Not to mention, social media is one of the best sources of getting jobs, resourcing resume services, and accessing online testimonials. So how can our industry peacefully co-exist with the chaos of social media?

Although most seasoned estate managers have the skillset and experience to perform a broad range of services, including almost every aspect of luxury home management and care, they can’t do all these jobs effectively simultaneously. They might have the skillset, but they need the right resources to make magic happen.

Typically, private service professionals are required to sign NDAs before entering into any discussion specific to a homeowner – and many are required to sign before their first interview. Although this privacy agreement is a reasonable request, let’s take a moment to look at the actual cost of this best-business practice.

The wild west nature of the domestic staffing industry often blurs the line of ethical compensation. Classifying your household staff as salaried employees can seem like a win-win relationship at first; however, this can snowball into a situation with a damaging outcome.

Yes, we all understand that employing a household team affords a certain level of service. Even so, there are certain boundaries that these often unspoken service expectations cross. Some principals abuse the privilege related to household pet care, and it starts by merely stating that it's in your job description.

Keeping your staff happy can be tough with the demands of working on an estate. We walk you through the early warning signs of unhappy staff and how you can fix and prevent this from happening.

Find out the 3 people you need to reach out to immediately, and the questions to ask that will fortify your knowledge to build a proactive, no-fail mechanical maintenance policy for your property.

Estate landscape maintenance is often overlooked, especially when the home needs full-time attention. Here are the top 4 items to check if you are responsible for an estate landscape:

As a Director of Residence, Chief of Staff or multi-property Estate Manager, many of you know how hard it is to control what goes on in your own schedule, let alone meet with and train new staff – not to mention create a global world-class team.

Many of my clients in Napa, Ojai and Rancho Santa Fe, CA are all well-aware of the fire risks that they deal with each year during fire season, have an emergency plan in-place and are prepared to evacuate when needed. However, many of you who manage luxury properties in areas never deemed high-risk before now need to educate yourselves for this type of emergency preparation.

For the past week my kitchen has been converted into a print shop – messy with all of the pieces of producing a 3-ring binder landscape manual for a garden that I first designed 20 years ago. Since the majority of my work has evolved into creating digital systems, this has been a nice shift from my normal computer-focused daily routine.

How to train our staff to be successful in this unique work environment.

I haven’t told many people this, but I was fired TWICE in estate manager roles. OUCH!

If you’re a housekeeper who wants to shine like a diamond in this industry (and up your game), take note!

8 Pro tips to help estate managers complete it this year.

You never have more negotiating power in this relationship than you do in the interview process.

You don't need to be a passive participant.

Here are my lessons learned from a recent full-household inventory client experience.

Here are my go-to tech devices and software for doing business from Ethiopia to Tulsa, OK and parts in between.

It’s easy to burn out in our profession. Here’s how to stay sane.