Featured Community Member, May 2023
The LenovoPRO Community is pleased to spotlight Laura McDonald, co-owner of McDonald Appraisal and community member since July of '22, as May's featured member. Laura is a very talented, seasoned, and thoughtful professional. Her insightful and wise presence adds so much to the LenovoPRO Community. Keep reading to see why we are so thankful to have Laura McDonald in the Community.
About Laura McDonald
My professional journey has totally been led by my husband. He worked as a firefighter, which was a 24 hour on, 24 hour off, 24 hour on and 5 days off schedule, giving him time to operate a business. We started with a small seamless gutter business which was a lot of fun. We needed very little in the way of tech to operate. I got my MOUS certification and used a desktop for record keeping, charts, and bookkeeping chores. After a few years he wanted to change to something less physical and met a commercial appraiser who wanted someone in his office to do residential appraising.
After a couple of years, my husband moved to commercial appraising and then right of way work and has loved it. I trained in residential and was the designated tech expert. This mostly consisted of figuring out what to do when something vanished or there were error messages or other disasters that kept us from doing any report writing. I figured I might as well take it seriously and started doing IT professional classes in things like networks, security, and a lot of IT helpdesk classes. If the computer is down you can’t work and that really affects our bottom line. Having good equipment and knowing what to do when there is an issue is life or death in our business.
Day-to-day Operations
Every day is different. I might be on the phone collecting information all day and sending emails. I might be out looking at property and taking photos. Sometimes we need to meet with landowners. I really love the variety. My husband does most of the report writing and I do everything else. It is a pretty good division of labor.
Q & A
How long have you been a part of LenovoPRO and what is your favorite Lenovo product?
I have been with the Lenovo Pro program for at least a year but I have been using Lenovo products a very long time. My favorite product is my very first, a tablet I bought just for playing with, an electronic “toy”. I hauled it everywhere and let family and friends borrow it and it was just tough as nails. I bought it from TigerDirect, which is no longer in business under that name, and had compared the price and features with a wide range of others. I had no previous experience with the brand but was impressed that the next work laptop I purchased was Lenovo.
How has using your Lenovo equipment helped you accomplish things in your personal or professional life?
Lenovo makes a very durable product. This is extremely important because any laptop I or my husband use gets hauled around, shaken, carried and jostled a lot. If something goes wrong and one is down, we have to find a quick fix and this doesn’t always happen in an office setting. Lenovo makes things you can depend on. That keeps us working!
What do you enjoy most about the LenovoPRO Community?
I got interested in the community looking for deals and entering the giveaways and stayed for the people. It is a fun way to connect with other professionals in other fields and I really like reading other points of view and hearing about different products and software others are using.
What is one of the greatest professional successes you've experience thus far?
Probably the most successful thing we have done is just stay in business. There was a major correction in the real estate market from 2007-2009 due to mortgage fraud and business was very slow. It could happen again for sure and it is our sole income now.
What is one of the greatest professional challenges you've experience thus far?
My greatest challenge is staying flexible, changes to both hardware and software come frequently and changes in the appraisal field are regular, as well. Plus real estate is never stable, always market driven.
What is one piece that you got along your professional journey that helped you?
The best advice was if you feel this is for you, don’t quit. Keep working at it. I really love managing the tech part of things and letting my husband do most of the analysis and writing. I like figuring out a computer glitch and he loves doing things with numbers and values. I enjoy researching new software and comparing products we can use.
What is one piece of advice you would give others?
The best advice I can give is to do continuing education in your field. Keep current with your tech, it makes you more efficient and profitable. It does take time but it really pays off in the long run. Be a life long learner and it will have great benefits for your career and business.
Get a behind-the-scenes view of a day in the life of a real, married small business owner with May’s featured member Laura here!
Connect with Laura
Thank you for being such a valued part of the community, Laura and congratulations on being May's Featured Community Member!
Do you have any questions for Laura about her journey, interests or advice?
Leave your questions and comments below!