News from the Chicago Chapter

Three Key Takeaways: IREM 2018 Midwest Regional Meeting Recap

By Angela Aeschliman, CPM®, CCIM
The Missner Group
Immediate Past President, IREM Chicago Executive Council

I was fortunate to be able to attend the IREM 2018 Regional meetings this year in Indianapolis with many of our Region’s leaders and our IREM Chicago Headquarters staff.  As intended, this was a gathering of groups and people to share ideas on the similar focus within their areas.  We all have vast ideas on how to achieve our own chapter and personal leadership goals; in the time we spent with each other at the Regional meetings, we were able to explore and hear how other leaders have successfully rolled out events and mentored up and comers; and, we even visited a race track and competed with one another (what a blast, but scary).

Here are three key takeaways from my participation in Indianapolis.

Branding

Throughout the conference we were asked to reimagine the new IREM brand, the cool colors of the logo, the energy of the marketing campaign and the overall reinvigoration to the association, its members, our Leadership and at the smaller simpler level, us individually.

We were asked how the new IREM should look, function, feel, engage and excite our current members, new members and other real estate associations in general.  Throughout the multiple days, many ideas surfaced on how IREM can be and do more for us at any and all levels of our professional careers.  For me this is an awesome time, as I have been involved with IREM just over a decade.  I have seen it grow and expand organically, now with dedicated intention. 

What do you stand for?

As part of the full commitment IREM has to our members, new members and real estate as a profession,  all of the Headquarters staff stood at different times to tell us what they stood for; they also shared the impact of their personal mission and how that will propel the brand.  It was amazing to hear in a few sentences the infectious positivity and reality.  This made me think a lot about what I would have had to say; and I challenge each of you to think through this question for yourselves.

What I stand for

I stand for honesty: I do what I say I will do, I stand by those that support me personally and professionally, I stand for family in every aspect, I stand for global stewardship, I stand for personal growth and I stand for helping others get to the next step with the smallest to largest things.