Podcast appearances and mentions of grace property management

Want to grow your property management business by 100+ doors per year without a dedicated BDM? In this crossover episode with Stephen Fox from Upkeep Media, Marc Cunningham shares Grace Property Management's unique approach to growth.    Learn how Grace Property Management leverages executive property managers as independent contractors, focusing on relationships and education rather than traditional sales tactics. Discover the benefits and challenges of this model, including commission structures, closing rates, and managing larger portfolios.    Don't miss this opportunity to explore innovative growth strategies and discover how to scale your property management business effectively without the need for a dedicated sales team. Click to view the Property Management Growth Blueprint Course: https://propertymanagementblueprint.co/    Follow this link for a free property management lead generation analysis from Upkeep Media.   Manage more doors with less stress with LeadSimple!   Rentvine - the property management software you can trust   To find out more about Marc's coaching services click here.   Follow this link to spend 2 days with Marc and learn how to run a property management business   Join Marc's new property management Facebook group This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative.

Fourandhalf's Marie Tepman, Interviewed by Marc Cunningham on the PM Build Property Management Business Podcast Marc Cunningham, from Grace Property Management and PM Build, invited Marie onto his podcast to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in property management marketing. Specifically, the discussion revolved around getting more owner leads for property managers. In […] The post AI's Role in Attracting Owner Leads for Property Managers appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

Want to hear a few of our scathing one-star Google reviews? Marc Cunningham shares real one-star reviews Grace Property Management has received and reveals his strategies for responding effectively.    Marc explains how to remain “unoffendable”, avoid online arguments, maintain professionalism, and why a delayed response is essential. Discover the five essential steps to follow when crafting your response, ensuring you protect your reputation and turn a negative situation into a positive one. For practical advice on handling those dreaded one-star reviews this is the episode for you.   Manage more doors with less stress with LeadSimple!   To find out more about Marc's coaching services click here.   Follow this link to spend 2 days with Marc and learn how to run a property management business   Join Marc's property management Facebook group This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative 2024.  

Aug. 28, 2024 In this insightful episode, Marc Cunningham, President of Grace Property Management & Real Estate and Founder of PM Build, shares his extensive experience and wisdom on the complexities of running a successful property management business. The conversation delves into the critical balance between business growth and maintaining the well-being of your team. Marc discusses the importance of nurturing relationships with clients and employees, recognizing the signs of burnout, and his strategies to foster a positive, productive work environment. He also emphasizes the value of empathy, trust, and continuous learning in overcoming the inevitable challenges of the property management industry. This episode offers valuable lessons for anyone looking to enhance their leadership approach while prioritizing the health and happiness of their team.

Join us as we sit down with Marc Cunningham, President of Grace Property Management. Marc brings a wealth of experience from growing up in the real estate business to managing over a thousand residential and commercial properties in Denver. Hear Marc's fascinating journey, from working in his father's company to becoming a seasoned investor and property manager. We also explore his insights on the current economic climate's impact on property management and rental markets.To learn more about our full-service turnkey operations, check us out online at www.spartaninvest.comConnect with Spartan!Facebook: @spartaninvestInstagram: @spartaninvestTwitter: @spartaninvestConnect with Lindsay!Facebook: @spartanlindsaydavisInstagram: @spartanlindsaydavis

Matthew and Spencer welcome Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management in Denver, CO to the show. This episode is full of candid discussions about the evolving landscape of property management, with honest opinions on challenges, best practices, legislative impacts, content strategies, and investor dynamics. Don't miss this episode and make sure you take notes! =================================== Connect with Matt and Spencer at Evernest: Evernest.co Visit the Podcast Website: Evernest.co/podcasts Email the Show: podcast@evernest.co Today's Guest: Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management =================================== Production House: Flint Stone Media Copyright of Evernest 2024.

Marc Cunningham is a property management consultant and he's also the President of Grace Property Management in Colorado. He's joining The Property Management Show today not only because he's a prominent figure in property management, but also because he's one of the first property management professionals who embraced video marketing. Marc is still promoting video […] The post The Power of Action Versus Perfectionism in Video Marketing appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

Welcome, Closers! Today, I'm interviewing Marc Cunningham, President of Grace Property Management.Marc is a trusted veteran when it comes to all things PM, having started in this industry in 1978 while still in high school.There's no playbook in property management, so take it from a pro and learn the importance of knowing your worth and charging accordingly, the value of transparency, and that at the end of the day we're all making it up as we go."If you're thinking you're going to charge a premium level price, but not provide a premium level service, then you're going to fail" - Marc Cunningham Marc's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-cunningham-0110108/  Grace Property Management: https://www.rentgrace.com/   Simplify sales, streamline operations, grow faster, and scale your business. Learn more about LeadSimple - click here.

Pete Neubig, MPM® RMP®, talks with Liz Cleyman, MPM® RMP®, NARPM 2022 President and BDM extraordinaire with Grace Property Management and Blue Sail Property Management. Pete and Liz discuss all things BDM. If you want to learn how to close more business, listen to Liz give up her trade secrets.

Let's go back to some of the best guest conversations from  last year in the “Best of Brainstorm 2021”, soundbites and highlights from leaders in the property management industry. Topics Covered[3:28] Episode 61 featured Mark Scott of Encore Realty in Bonita, CA and Daniel Rogers of All Seasons LLC in Colorado Springs, sharing their thoughts on moving away from the term "landlord" with a preference for "housing provider".   [6:40] In Episode 51, our guest was Niv Davidovich, of Davidovich Stein Law Group, who gave us an update on eviction law and squatters rights in California.[9:58] One of my fellow NARPM Regional Vice Presidents joined me on  Episode 54, AJ Shepard of Uptown Property Management in Portland, to talk about the ins and outs of real estate syndication.    [11:34] Three guests joined the show on Episode 59, Understanding Section 8 and the Housing Choice Voucher Program: Tyler Craddock, Governmental Affairs Director for NARPM, Patti Robertson of PMI Virginia, and Amanda Han of Cornerstone Properties in Hawaii. [15:18] Episode 53 featured Brad Larsen, of RentWerx San Antonio discussing opportunities that exist for property management companies in this amazing industry. [18:08] Joe Easton from Rent Manager joined us on Episode 52 to talk about Property Management Software, the various players, and where Rent Manager fits into the mix. .[19:54] Episode 60 featured Liz Cleyman of Grace Property Management in Thorton CO, Kellie Tollifson of T-Square Properties in Bothell WA, and Kathleen Richards of PM Made Easy and The Property Management Coach from Santa Cruz, CA. We discussed the importance of taking time away on vacation, and the benefit that results from having that down time. [22:40] Listen up to a clip from Episode 62: Tax Considerations for Real Estate Investors. Richard Hart covered tax related topics, from 1099s to 1031 exchanges. .We can't wait to keep it going in 2022 to bring you more valuable property management content!Connect with BobProperty Management San Diegohttps://www.ncpropertygroup.com/This episode is always available for listening, sharing, or download at Property Management Brainstorm. Subscribe to Property Management Brainstorm on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify,  TunedIn, 

As a landlord or property manager, do you ever feel like you just can't take a break from your property management job? Keeping your eyes on the ball so nothing falls through the cracks at your rental properties can be a never-ending concern. Maintenance requests, property viewings, leases to review and sign, tenant move ins, rent collection. Yikes! Research shows that many small business owners either don't take vacation, or when they do, it's a “working vacation”. On this episode of Property Management Brainstorm, Bob's guests are Kathleen Richards of PM Made Easy and The Property Management Coach in Santa Cruz, CA; Liz Cleyman of Grace Property Management in Thorton, Colorado; and Kellie Tollifson of T-Square Properties in Bothell, WA. Bob and the panel discuss the top five reasons why, even property managers, should take a vacation from their business. They will also share their own personal tips and secrets on planning that occasional escape and how it benefits their companies when they do find time away.  Topics Covered[2:40] Kathleen, Liz, and Kellie introduce themselves, tell us about their companies, and how they spent their most recent vacation.[10:15] Kathleen explains the inspiration behind writing her recent article in Residential Resource magazine about the importance of taking a vacation.[12:50] #1 Brainstorming New Ideas: this may at first seem counter intuitive when trying to get away from it all.[16:12] #2 You've Earned It: it is not selfish to take a vacation, it's a necessity![23:00] #3 Work/Life Balance: getting back in touch with the "why". [30:55] #4 Improve Productivity: achieve a happy, more satisfying life.[34:40] #5 Show Your Team You Trust Them: let your team demonstrate they've got things under control.[40:00] Summary with Kathleen, Liz, and Kellie sharing their closing thoughts and how you can reach them to learn more.Connect with Kathleen Richardshttps://www.thepropertymanagementcoach.com/kathleen@thepropertymanagementcoach.comConnect with Liz Cleymanhttps://www.rentgrace.com/aboutlizcleyman@gmail.comConnect with Kellie Tollifsonhttps://tsquareproperties.net/ktollifson@tsquaremanagement.comConnect with Bob Prestonhttps://www.ncpropertygroup.combob@ncpropertygroup.comThis episode is always available for listening, sharing, or download at Property Management Brainstorm. Subscribe to Property Management Brainstorm on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify,  TunedIn,  iHeart Radio and YouTube.

In today’s episode, learn from our expert, Marc Cunnigham, how you can run your own property management the right way. Marc has massive experience in this type of field as he grew up in the real estate property management world with Grace Property Management and Real Estate, a company that his dad started. As a child, he used to paint houses, mow lawns, and serve notices which gave him a unique perspective into the business side of real estate. Episode Notes: 4 things you need to know to run your own property management successfully  Mistakes most self-managing owners do in Colorado The average rent of properties and the property management fees Turnover costs What an owner’s mindset should be when self-managing their property RESOURCES Grace Property Management and Real Estate ABOUT MARC CUNNINGHAM: Marc holds a degree in Real Estate & Finance and is a national speaker and educator, having taught real estate classes in over 20 states. Marc is regularly featured in national real estate publications, holds multiple designations, does expert witness testimony, and was named the 2018 national property manager of the year by Think Realty.   CONNECT WITH US! To connect with Jason, please email or call him at: Phone: (303) 949-8662 Email: crep@ecospace.com Website: Ecospace  We look forward to hearing from you! Please go to iTunes to leave us a rating and write a review. Each review helps us reach a larger audience with each episode.

In today’s episode, learn from our expert, Marc Cunnigham, how you can run your own property management the right way. Marc has massive experience in this type of field as he grew up in the real estate property management world with Grace Property Management and Real Estate, a company that his dad started. As a child, he used to paint houses, mow lawns, and serve notices which gave him a unique perspective into the business side of real estate. Episode Notes: 4 things you need to know to run your own property management successfully  Mistakes most self-managing owners do in Colorado The average rent of properties and the property management fees Turnover costs What an owner’s mindset should be when self-managing their property RESOURCES Grace Property Management and Real Estate ABOUT MARC CUNNINGHAM: Marc holds a degree in Real Estate & Finance and is a national speaker and educator, having taught real estate classes in over 20 states. Marc is regularly featured in national real estate publications, holds multiple designations, does expert witness testimony, and was named the 2018 national property manager of the year by Think Realty.   CONNECT WITH US! To connect with Jason, please email or call him at: Phone: (303) 949-8662 Email: crep@ecospace.com Website: Ecospace  We look forward to hearing from you! Please go to iTunes to leave us a rating and write a review. Each review helps us reach a larger audience with each episode.

ABOUT LIZ CLEYMANLiz is an Executive Property Manager at Grace Property Management and has been in the industry for over 10 years. She is also the President-elect of NARPM for 2021 and has earned the Master Property Manager designation. She loves working with both investors and tenants and assist them with high energy expert service. In her spare time, she loves spending time with her family, playing golf and exploring the Rocky Mountains. WHAT YOU WILL HEAR[1:09] Her journey in Real estate Industry[3:25] About NARPM and why you should join this organization[5:20] Her Advice to Investors looking to hire property managers[6:50] Her Experience working with NARPM [7:40] What sets NARPM affiliated property managers apart from the others[8:34] What NARPM has done for the business [9:21] Leadership skills learned from real estate experience[11:50] How she deals with different types of Investors[13:22] Advice on Investors on how to be good at relationships[15:20] What held her back from Investing at first and why bridge the gap [20:39] Liz's advice to her 25-year-old self[20:56] First Entrepreneurial Endeavor[21:31] How Formal and Informal training shaped her journey[22:40] Liz's Moby Dick or Opportunity that got away    Key Quotes:[2:29] I love helping people and that's the number one that we do. The most intriguing thing for me is that it's something different every day. It's always something new and exciting, it's a challenge so that's what I love about it as well.[14:35] It's just the wow factor that helps build the connection and trust. You got to have trust with the relationship, especially when you are managing such a big investment with them.[15:39] It's such a great retirement plan to invest in real estate.ABOUT THE COMPANYGrace Property Management and Real Estate help investors manage, lease, buy and sell from single-family homes to retail and office properties. Our purpose is to improve the lives of real estate investors and residents through property management solutions. We help people find stable rental housing that is fair-priced, clean, and safe. ABOUT THE WESTSIDE INVESTORS NETWORK        The Westside Investors Network is your community for investing knowledge for growth. For real estate professionals by real estate professionals. This show is focused on the next step in your career... investing, for those starting with nothing to multifamily syndication.      The Westside Investors Network strives to bring knowledge and education to the real estate professional that is seeking to gain more freedom in their life. The host's AJ and Chris Shepard, are committed to sharing the wealth of knowledge that they have gained throughout the years to allow others the opportunity to learn and grow in their investing.   They own Uptown Properties, a successful Property Management and Brokerage Company. If you are interested in Property Management in the Portland Metro or Bend Metro Areas please visit www.uptownpm.com. If you are interested in investing in multifamily syndication please visit www.uptownsyndication.com.   #investmentproperties #realestaterecap #undercontract #realestatesuperagent #listings #realtors #investor #motivation #brokers #investments #wholesaleproperties #entrepreneurs #thinkandgrowrich #businessopportunity #earnmore #beyourownboss #additionalincome #propertymanagement #rentals #passiveincome #realestate #portlandpropertymanagment #realtor #income4u #portlandrealestate #landlord #landlording #propertymanagementportlandor #portlandor #realestateinvesting #investinginyou #futurefunding #propertymanager #portlandpropertymanagement #NARPM #NARPMSmart #realestateagent #investment #propertyinvestment  #properties #propertyagent #forrent #Leased #RealEstate #REInvesting #Investing #RealEstateInvestor #Realtor #HomeForSale #PropertyForSale #HouseHunting #firsttimehomebuyer #JustListed #RealtorsLife #greatvalue #HomeSearch #turnkeyinvestment #HomeSweetHome #Instahome #development #Listings #justsold #SmartRealtor #RealEstateSales #Sell #Townhomes #MegaHome #realestatetricks #LuxuryLiving #Building #realestateinvesting101 #modelhome #justRealtorthings @lizgulleycleyman @lizcleyman You may contact Liz Cleyman via:  Email: lizcleyman@gmail.comPhone No: 813 770 4149Social media:     ▪ FB: https://www.facebook.com/liz.cleyman     ▪ Instagram: @lizcleymanLinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-cleyman-mpm-rmp-35768b70/Company Website: https://www.rentgrace.com/  CONNECT WITH USFor more information about investing with AJ and Chris: ·       Uptown Syndication | https://www.uptownsyndication.com/·       LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/71673294/admin/ For information on Portland Property Management:·       Uptown Properties | http://www.uptownpm.com·       Youtube | @UptownProperties Westside Investors Network·       Website | https://www.westsideinvestorsnetwork.com/·       Twitter | https://twitter.com/WIN_pdx·       Instagram | @westsideinvestorsnetwork·       LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13949165/·       Facebook | @WestsideInvestorsNetwork·       Youtube | @WestsideInvestorsNetwork   

Every company is interested in increasing income, especially during times of uncertainty. But increasing revenue is no easy task, especially when budgeting doesn’t allow for new services. After 40+ years in the industry, Grace Property Management has learned the hard way how to drive new revenue. Marc Cunningham, owner of Grace Property Management, joins us to share three ways every property manager can generate higher incomes without adding new services. Listen in as he shares his insights and goes Beyond Rent. Learn more about Rent Manager’s industry-leading accounting, reporting, maintenance, and communication features on our website, or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. You can learn more about Marc Cunningham on LinkedIn and his work with Grace Property Management on their website. Visit rentmanager.com/podcast to submit an idea for an upcoming episode of Beyond Rent and discover more about the program

Have a Continual Poof of Clients! You can have a continual pool of clients if you consider working with real estate investors! Their priorities are particular to them and it's important to know how to communicate with them.  Marc will give you strategies and insights you will need to be a success. Marc Cunningham                                                                  President of Grace Property and Management Marc grew up in the real estate world and spent many years pulling weeds, painting walls, showing properties, and collecting rents for Grace Property Management, the company his father founded in 1978. Today, from a platform of managing over 900 rental properties, Grace Management helps people buy, sell, invest, and flip, properties while having fun doing it. Their services also includes collecting rent and issuing evictions. Marc is the President of Grace Property Management & Real Estate, he holds a degree in Real Estate & Finance, has taught CE classes in over 20 states, is regularly featured in national real estate publications and podcasts, holds multiple designations, invests in residential and commercial real estate, and was named the 2018 national property manager of the year by Think Realty. Marc lives in Loveland, CO, where he lives his failed childhood sports dreams through his children. Gift From Marc:  Property Management Startup Checklist Email Marc at marc@rentgrace.com and request the Property Management Business Startup Checklist.  For him to easily spot your request put: Checklist as per Emma's Podcast in the subject title. Don’t forget to subscribe to Real Estate Professionals podcast so that you don’t miss a single episode, and while you’re at it, won’t you take a moment and do me a favor to write a short review and rate our show?  I would greatly appreciate it! To learn more about our previous guests, listen to past episodes, and get to know your host, go to www.RealEstateSuccessMentor.com Real Estate Professionals Network is where we can continue this conversation with other peers and much more!

Property management is hard enough. As your business becomes successful, don’t always say “yes” or “no” to everything. Owners are coming to you to solve a problem. Step into potential opportunities without being pulled in multiple directions. Today, I am talking to Marc Cunningham, President of Grace Property Management, who identifies five characteristics that define successful property management companies.  You’ll Learn... [02:42] Entrepreneurial Footsteps: Marc grew up in real estate property management world working for his dad, who founded Grace Property Management in 1978.  [04:02] Doors in Denver: Grow slow and steady; from 110 to 1,000 doors.  [04:32] Mantra: Follow the opportunity. [07:15] However you define success, companies follow some of these five standards.  [07:56] #1. Filter and Qualify Owners: Don’t take every owner that comes along.  [20:04] #2. Know your numbers to know how well your business is doing.  [31:43] #3. Focus on profit, not door count. People are willing to pay for additional value. [37:20] #4. Have systems and processes in place, and follow them.  [43:50] #5. Recruit, develop, and retain talent.  [52:28] Marc’s Extra: #6. Hold weekly one-on-one meetings with each team member.  [53:15] DoorGrow Extra: #7. Invest consistently in your own development.  [56:27] DoorGrow Extra: #8. Get coaching to help grow your business.  Tweetables The more successful you get, the more opportunities come your way. Cycle of Suck: Taking on bad owners, you get bad properties, tenants, and reputation. You won’t regret firing difficult clients, despite emotional and operational costs. Track metrics regularly because numbers make a difference. Resources Grace Property Management Marc Cunningham's Email Business Health Check-up Form QuickBooks Steve Jobs FilterEasy PetScreening Process Street Basecamp Voxer Google Sheets AppFolio Help Scout Drift Intercom Traction LeadSimple DGS 25: Why Every Property Manager Should Implement Profit First DGS 80: Automating Your Business with Process Street with Vinay Patankar DoorGrown Cold Leads Calculator DoorGrowClub Facebook Group DoorGrowLive DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrow Website Score Quiz Transcript Jason: Welcome DoorGrow hackers to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it, you think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. This guest that we have today is a fantastic gentleman named Marc Cunningham. Marc, you're not a stranger to most people probably listening to the show. Welcome to the show. Marc: Thank you for having me, Jason. Jason: I'm really excited to have you here. It's strange that you haven’t been on here yet. At the beginning of the show, I was like, “Have you been on here? You're like, “No.” I said, “It's long overdue.” Marc: I’ve just been waiting for the invitation. Jason: Okay, well I'm glad we finally got you invited. I’m glad you're here and today's topic is going to be the five characteristics of successful PM companies. Before we get into that, I want you to share a little bit of your background to qualify yourself to the audience, help them understand how you got into property management and what your connection is to these five characteristics of a successful company. Marc: Absolutely. Let me start by asking you a question. What were you doing in 1978 Jason? Jason: 1978? Marc: Yeah. Jason: I was probably pooping in a diaper and drinking breast milk. Marc: Okay. That image there. Jason: I was born in 1977. Marc: Okay, so you’re one. I wasn't much older than that, but in 1978 my dad decided that he was going to quit teaching—he was a middle school teacher—and he was going to follow his entrepreneurial real estate dream. We opened up a real estate property management company Grace Property Management 1978 in Denver. I was employee number one because I was pre child labor, so my dad would have me doing all the things that kids probably shouldn’t do. He would have me showing properties, mowing lawns, collecting rents, and filling out lease, just anything that needed to be done. I grew up in that world, so it really gave me a unique view into real estate, into property management, and just in the business because that's all I knew. That’s all we did. As I got older, I’d take my summers, I’d worked for him in the summers, and again just doing whatever needed done. If I get really lucky, if it gets too hot out, I’d work in the office. When it got over 110 degrees, the deal is I get to come into the office, otherwise I’m mowing lawns. I did that for many, many years. I went to Colorado State University, I studied finance and real estate there, and I was working in Cheyenne, Wyoming doing accounting work there. My dad called me one day and he said, “Hey, I need to hire a property manager, are you interested?” Well Cheyenne Wyoming, with all due respect, isn't the most fun place to live, so I jumped to that opportunity and that was about 20 years ago, 20 some odd years ago. I joined the firm permanently at that point in time. At that time, we were relatively small, I think we had 110–120 doors and we have grown slowly and steadily over the years. Today, we do both residential and commercial. We've got just under a thousand doors that we manage. We do real estate sales, we do property management, we’re investors ourselves—I own some stuff—we flip. Our mantra is follow the opportunity. If there's an opportunity to real estate, we want to look at that, whatever that is. So, that's how we've gotten to where we are today. Jason: I was just down in Vegas speaking to a group of property managers and they were bringing up like, “How do I avoid all this distraction and move the business forward?” What I said to them is opportunity is I've noticed is what kills entrepreneurs. How do you keep following the opportunity at all times but also keeping your focus narrow enough that you're actually moving forward. Marc: That's a great question. That's a really good question and that's hard. It is really hard because we found that the bigger we get, the more successful we get, the more opportunities that are out there. At this point, we're of the belief that you've got to say no to almost everything. I think it was Steve Jobs that said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people are the really successful people say no to just about everything.” Jason: Following the opportunity as a mantra doesn't mean saying yes to every opportunity. Marc: It does not mean saying yes to everything. You need to consider everything. What I don’t like is people say, “No, we don't do that.” For many, many years, for example, we didn't do real estate sales. “Hey, will you help me sell my house?” “No, we don’t do that. We only do property management.” We didn't consider. Well then, one day we thought, “Maybe we should consider it,” and as we considered it, we realized, this is a really good opportunity that we should capitalize on. Where when an owner says, “Gosh, I want to sell my house. Would you guys be interested in buying it?” “No, we don't do that.” Well, stop saying, “No, we don't do that.” At least think about it, consider it, and I think that's the way to step into some potential opportunities. But yes, you have to be cautious or else it will get you pulled to many directions. Jason: Relevant to that, how many of these units are now in your own portfolio, are yours or your company's? Marc: I don't have a real big portfolio. I'm a pretty conservative guy, so I'm a buy-it-pay-it-off kind of guy. I've got 10–12 rental properties in my portfolio. Jason: Let's get into these five characteristics that you feel define a successful company, and you're obviously a successful company. You've helped keep it successful, right? Second generation, so let's get in number one. Marc: Yeah. I don't pretend to be a guru. I can't stand the guys that stand there, beat their chest, and say, “Do it like me, I know what I’m doing.” This is just from our perspective. We worked with a lot of companies and I didn't get this, but I do a lot of PM coaching in business stuff on the side with PM companies helping them get better, basically. We know a lot of PM companies, we've worked a lot of PM companies and there seem to be some standards, some things companies that are successful, however you define success, are going to follow some of these aspects. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list by any means, but it's the way that we gauge ourselves. Jason: This will be cool because I probably come from a very different perspective. You're in the industry, you do this in Denver and I don't have any rental properties. I don't manage. I'm not a property manager. I have largely been this nerdy fly on the wall that's been able to see inside of hundreds of companies. My perspective might be a little bit different, but I'm sure there's some alignment. Let's get into number one. Marc: Number one is successful companies don't take every owner. They don't take every owner that comes along. So you agree with that one? Jason: Totally. If anyone's heard my show, they've heard me talk about the cycle of suck, which is it starts with filtering owners. Like if take in bad owners, you have bad properties. It doesn't matter how amazing they are. If you have bad properties, you have bad tenants. It doesn't matter how much tenant screening you do. If you have bad tenants, you have a bad reputation because you have bad owners and bad tenants. Nobody's happy and this is where I think the entire industry as a whole in aggregate sits right now. It has a bad reputation because they're taking on any owner. Marc: Yeah, I would agree. The concept is this. Any PM company knows that if a tenant, a prospective tenant walks in the door, an applicant comes in and says, “Hey, I want to rent your property,” every property manager is a little bit skeptical. They raise their eyebrow. They say, “Okay, well maybe. I’m going to qualify you.” We know industry-wide that whatever the number is, call it 25%-30%, depending on the market you're in, the 25%-30% of the applicants are not going to make good tenants. Everybody would agree upon that. Well, we really believe that probably that same percentage 25%, 30%, 35% of prospective owner-clients are not going to make good owner-clients. The challenge comes, how do we filter them? Because if it's an applicant to rent a property, we have them fill out a rental application. We go in deep. That's the hardest part of the business is qualifying those folks. So, how do you qualify an owner? That’s where the challenge lies. If you called our office today as a prospective owner-client and you are talking to our new account specialist or one of our PM's, they would have a dock in front of them, a piece of paper, and a lot of this is just basic questionnaires—what's your email address, what’s the property address, tell me about the property—but at the end of that questionnaire, they have four questions. Yes or no questions that they have to check the box on yes or no. They have to discern this information during the conversation with you because it helps us qualify these owners. For example, the first one says, “Is the owner financially stable?” If during this conversation you as my prospective owner say to me, “Hey Marc, if you can’t get this property rented next week, I can’t make my mortgage payment. I've got to get this thing ready quickly.” Well, you're not financially stable, right? That's going to be a no on that box, that's the first question. Jason: “So, are you current on all your house payments?” One of my clients said that was a favorite question they would ask. If they say no, it's instant disqualification. Marc: Absolutely. Then the second question we have to ask ourselves is, is the client emotionally stable? That can be a hard one to discern. I always tell people, “Don't ask them the question verbatim, okay?” It will get you in trouble. Jason: “Are you sane?” Yeah. Marc: Exactly, but we need to be able to discern that information from the conversation. Is this somebody who's going to be stable when things go bad because at some point in time it will. Jason: Right. Sometimes, people will reveal their emotional instability pretty quickly, right? Marc: Yes. I tell my PMs, “Look. Two quick keys. If they cry on the first conversation or if they own more than two cats, they are not emotionally stable. Run away from them.” Jason: Might be a little biased against cat owners. What’s cat owners like? Marc: I know. You just lost half of your audience because of my personal bias. Jason: No, they’re cool. Marc: I am as well. Then the third question we ask is, “Can I control the situation and the client? Are they willing to give me control?” Not in a puppet master, I'm going to be the mean guy, but they have to give me control. They have to be willing to do so. Then question number four is, are they realistic in expectations? Do they think that we should be able to get $2000 a month for property that's only going for $1000? Or do they think that we should call them before we ever spend a dime on maintenance? That's just not realistic. That’s not going to happen. If we can't check the yes box on all four of those, then my PM does not have permission to work with that client. Jason: I love the idea of figuring out if they're willing to relinquish control. That's such a big thing because they're coming to you to solve a problem. I've noticed with clients that they're not willing to be strong enough of a fence for people to push against to elicit trust enough for people to relinquish that control. I think a lot of people will push. They might look like bad owners, they're trying to test the fence, and it's like in dating how girls will crap test the guy. They just want to see if they can handle them or if they're willing to be strong enough. I think a lot of times property managers will try to be nice and maybe don't have enough bite or drive and they’re really looking for somebody they can feel safe with, so they test us. I think clients will test us and then they're willing to relinquish control at times. It’s just something I've noticed during the sales process because I deal with entrepreneurs. They’re driven people and I need the same thing. They need to be willing to relinquish a certain amount of control because I'm asking to do crazy stuff, like fire doors or change your business name. I love that idea, and then are they realistic in their expectations. If somebody says, “Hey, I want to add 500 doors in the next quarter,'' then that's probably not going to be realistic. I want to make sure they're in touch with a reality that I feel I can give them or lead them towards and it's the same with our property management clients. Marc: Yup, and if we set those filters on the front-end, that's just going to make things so much easier on bringing good clients on because our business is hard enough without having difficult owner-clients. I think there’s the second aspect of that is, “Well, gosh. That's great. I wish I would have heard that before I took on Mr. Crazy,” so, what do you do then? I think the other part of that—you alluded to this—is sometimes you do need to let those clients go, and sometimes that's the best thing, because we're talking about what successful companies do. Successful companies realize that, “Hey, if we made a mistake, we brought on a bad client, we need to let that client go, whatever that looks like.” Jason: There's always going to be those mistakes. We cannot always know and perceive every person coming in and know that they are emotionally stable, or that you can control them, or that they will be realistic, but when they start to reveal those colors, we have to be willing to let them go. I've made bad decisions in bringing people in as clients and I have had to let them go. Some of them were just really like verbally abusive to my team. You’d be really amazed at some of the types of people that that can somehow leak through even if you have pretty good qualifications at the beginning. I love what you're getting at here because really anybody that studies sales in any capacity knows that qualifying a prospect is at the outset. It's really mind boggling that people would not qualify their prospects in any regard. Marc: I’m curious. You said you had to let clients go. How have you overcome the internal thought of, “Ooh, but that's money. That's a big chunk.” When do you decide? How do you decide? Is that an internal struggle for you? Jason: Sometimes. There's always a negotiation and it's a balance. It's a balance between the money aspect and the cost with the team. Ultimately, my team I want to keep forever. I want to keep them long-term. If I keep that client on, I’m saying to my team, your feelings don't matter. I don't care about you. That sends a really painful message and I've noticed this in property management companies. People wonder why there's so much turnover with their staff and I think one key reason is because you're allowing your staff, you're forcing your staff to tolerate too much. There are some of these owners that should be let go, and I've said many times to clients, “The hallmark of a seasoned property manager is that they fired some clients.” Some businesses have hundreds of doors and they've never fired a client. I know if they've never fired a client, they have some bad things in their portfolio. There's some pain in there and that's a difficult place to work. They’re not willing to let go of painful situations and there's always going to be painful situations. Marc: Yeah, and I've never talk to a PM who did let a client go who regretted it. Jason: Never. Marc: It's hard, it's scary. We face that. I remember very vividly when we were small and we had 125 doors, maybe. We had a client and had like 12 properties. I remember the guy, could see the guys face. He wasn't a bad guy, but he was just difficult and it had to be his way. He would contact us all the time. He just drove us crazy. We finally decided we needed to let the guy go. Well that was like 10% of our portfolio. That was hard. We thought about it, we don’t know what to do, and even after we did it we thought, “Oh, is that the right decision or not?” But we quickly realized it's like a load that’s been lifted. When you get rid of those people that sucked that time and energy and life out of you, it is a positive thing. Jason: The operational costs, the emotional cost when all of that falls by the wayside. I've never had a client fire something. I had one person fire half their portfolios like one big property. I had one person do that and they were terrified, but they did it. Two things happen almost every time. One, they replace the income really quickly. It always, it creates some vacuum in the universe, I don't know what you want to call it, but they always seem to replace the income really quickly with better doors. That always seems to happen. They just need to trust that's going to happen. The other thing is, is they always say to me, “I can't believe I didn’t do it sooner,” like they wished they had done it sooner. They were so afraid of doing it and then once they do it, they realize it wasn't so bad and they wish they were like, “Why didn't I do this sooner?” Marc: If one of your clients is talking to you and you're saying, “Hey, you need to fire this owner,” how do you recommend they do that like? What should they say? Should they say, “You’re fired”? Jason: You’re interviewing me now. Marc: Yeah. Jason: There's a few ways you can let them go. There are some creative ways. One of the best is just raise the fees. If [...] make it worth, just make it more expensive. Say, “Hey this property is difficult. You're a bit more challenging person to deal with, to be honest. We are willing to keep doing it, but it's going to cost X.” So, you just raise the rate, and if they keep being annoying and you feel like it's still not worth it, you keep raising the rate until they self-select themselves out. That's one easy way. Another way is to just refer them to somebody else, and if you're going to refer you might as well get a nice referral fee out of it. Go to one of your buddies and one man's junk is another man's treasure. I mean they might know how to deal with this type of person. They might be a better personality fit for this type of person than you. Don't just instantly assume that because you can't tolerate them or their difficult for you, that everybody else will. Give them to somebody else and let somebody else have a shot. Marc: I like it. We will rarely fire an owner, but we will as you just suggested bump fees up and up until they decide to fire us. I’d much rather have them fire us and leave on their terms. Jason: Right, they’ll self-select out. Are we complete on number one? Marc: I think so. Number two is successful companies know their numbers. I see this so often with PM companies. We get really good at the logistical side of we know how to lease, we know how to talk to owners, know how to collect rents, but when it comes to the numbers, the financials, we just don't know what we’re doing often times. I really am a big believer in that concept that if you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business. You don't know how well your business is doing. One question I’ll often ask of coaching clients that I work with on that side of things is also, “Okay. Now, if you, Jason own a PM company, at what point in time do you close the books for your company? Let’s say the month of June ends, right? We’re here almost until the end of June. When June closes for you, how quickly will you have your June books closed so that you know how much money your company made in the month of June?” The answers always surprise me. They're all over the board. “Well, I'm currently 90 days behind. I’m trying to catch up,” or, “I'm not much further behind in that,” or, “I might get it towards the end of the following month.” Jason: Yeah, how can they make business decisions if they’re 90 days in the rear-view mirror? Imagine trying to drive a car like that. Marc: Like I said, I've been doing this for many, many years. While we were small. like anybody else, I was everything. I was the janitor, I was the accountant, and I was everything. My favorite day of the month was always the first. Not because we collect rents, but because on the first day of the month, I go online and print out our company bank statements for the last month. I get our paper checkbook out and I’d reconcile. I’d get our ending balance and I enter it all into QuickBooks. I can look at that piece of paper and say, “Hey, how much money did we make last month?” I love that. I would wake up early to do that. I'm weird, I know, but that's how you know how well you're doing, I wouldn’t wait until the second, the third, the fourth, the twentieth, that's crazy. You can do it on the first. So, I'm a big believer in as soon as possible, which in this day and age it can be pretty much immediate. You get your books balanced, you run some numbers, you see how your company is doing it, and you’ve tracked some metrics, some internal metrics for your company to know how you're doing. Jason: I think the challenge is when property managers are holding on to something that's not in their particular wheelhouse or area of genius, but if this isn't your thing, if you're not like Marc and you don't love doing this and this isn’t like what makes you thrilled and excited is to get in your bank statements and numbers, have somebody else get everything ready for you. I've got a profit-first coach and accountant. She meets with me and goes over everything with me. I get not only my perspective, but she says, “This is what it looks like to me, Jason,” so yeah, I think it's usually helpful to do a review every month and look at your numbers. Marc: Yup, and like you just said, most folks aren’t as weird as I am as it comes to that stuff, and that's fine. But you need to find someone weird like me. You need to find someone who can go get excited about running your numbers, make sure they do it, and then you review those and you track a couple key metrics. For example, some of the metrics that we always track, are door counts proportional to owner count? Because that’s a sign of a healthy business. So for example, if your company has 100 doors, if you’ve got 100 owners for those 100 doors, that is the sign of a very healthy business because it means that you don't have any one owner with too much control versus the guy the guy called me a couple of weeks ago and he wanted to know if I was interested in buying his business. I go, “Tell me a little bit about it.” I think he had like 75 doors, “I’ve got 75 doors, I’m here in Denver and interested in selling.” One of the first questions I always ask is how many owner-clients do you have? He had 75 doors and 4. I was like, “You know what? I don’t need to know anything else. I'm not interested.” Why? Because if we took those doors on, that's four owners. That’s a lot of control. Jason: If it’s two of them, then what are you getting? Marc: It's something that you can't control, but you need to track it, that's one of the things you want to track on a regular basis. Another metric we really like to track is the percentage of our overall income that we spend on employees. Because in our industry, that again can just be all over the map on companies. Do you have a number on that that you recommend to your folks on what that number should be? Jason: It varies so wildly especially by market, but I know an owner that has 65% profit margin in his business. Marc: Wow. Jason: I know it's ridiculous. Marc: It’s a good thing I’m sitting down. Jason: I know. He has a couple of hundred doors. It varies so wildly and it depends largely on the type of owners they're taking on, the type of property, because—I’m talking about this in the cycle of suck idea very often—if you take one bad owner or one bad door property, can have 10 times, maybe even 100 times the operational cost as a good door. So, that can vary so wildly. I've had a company come to me that had 500–600 units under management and wasn't making a dime. I said, “How is this possible?” They’re like, “Well, we're doing $3 million a month in real estate,” so there was a brokerage with a cancerous tumor on the side called property management. He had twice as much staff as he needed, no technology in place. Fast forward, he fired half his team, he fired about 200 doors, maybe 300 doors, and it's now a very profitable company. So, it's not all about doors and staffing is always going to be the highest cost. If you can replace even a fraction of that or create some leverage for your team using technology, outsourcing, whatever, those are some big wins financially. A lot of times everyone's looking at, I got to get more revenue in and they're not looking at their expenses. That's why I'm a big fan of the profit-first system which says, “You take out a portion for profit and then what's left over is your expenses.” Most people are like expenses. You’re just revenue minus expenses and then whatever's left over, there's nothing left over typically in that situation. Marc: Absolutely. We have that profit is almost like an expense item that we know we’re going to take out every month and put into a savings account. We've been doing that for a long, long time from that aspect. But yes, I agree 100% with that aspect of what you're saying there. The number that we coach folks around is you don't want to go over 50% of your total revenue to staffing costs regardless of your size. The bigger you get, the more that number's going to probably creep towards that, just because you get more overhead, you get more managers, and you have more red tape, so that's a natural part of that. But if you go over 50%, that's a red alert. Something's wrong from that standpoint, so that an important to track for every company. Jason: Yeah, as a company scale, they're able to create a bit more leverage, but yeah, I could see how when you're really small and you're doing everything, your employee costs are a bit less per door because assuming your free labor or maybe if you work for your dad. Or sometimes it’s a spouse. They’ll have their spouse as their business partner, and you'll see them get to maybe 70-80 units, they’re tapped out, and they can't afford to hire their first person. Nobody's getting paid. That makes sense. All right, I like it. Anything else on number two, knowing the numbers? Marc: The other things I would just add that's worth tracking that I often find companies don't track this well enough is how many doors they’re adding and how many doors they’re losing. It’s always a surprise to me is when you ask them that, they'll say, “Well, I can dig it up, but I don't know.” A lot of the software don't track that. If we’re old school, we’ve got the spreadsheet. Every time we lose a door, we go to our spreadsheet for the year, we put it in, and it's going to keep that auto tracking. Every time we sign a new one up, put those on the spreadsheet so we can pull that up and instantly see, “Okay. As of right now, we've lost X number of doors per year and we've added X number of doors.” So, track that. Don't make that something that you've got to go dig in your software and try to pull a report. That needs to be one of those metrics that you're tracking at least on a monthly basis. Jason: Yeah. It's a pretty difficult situation and it’s a common one where you’ll see somebody adding a door and losing a door just as often. They wonder why they're not getting growth. Sometimes, the problem aren’t getting enough [...], it’s obtaining doors. They could be the type of target audience that they're going after, it could be that they are lacking some awareness around how to retain these clients or whatever it might be, but yeah, that's an important thing I think to pay attention to. Marc: Yeah, and to track the percentage of doors lost. That's all over the map as well. If you can keep your losses on an annual basis in the single digits from a percentage standpoint, that's pretty good. If you can keep it 10% or below on doors that are leaving you every year, you're in the pretty rare group of PMs. Jason: I created something for property managers called our cold leads calculator. One of the things I noticed with a lot of companies—this is more relevant to what I do—a lot of property managers are not paying attention to the amount of money that they're spending on cold lead marketing—pay per click, SCO, APM leads—all these different places at social media marketing, content marketing, that they're paying to generate business. A bulk of where most people get their deals and leads from I find in the industry is often word-of-mouth, so they just group everything together. All their warm leads from word-of-mouth, referrals, other cold lead marketing, and they're not paying attention. When you look at the numbers alone of the cold lead marketing, which everyone can check it out by going to doorgrow.com/coldleads, they can take this little questionnaire and go through it, but it'll help you calculate your cost for cold lead marketing. It also calculates and factors in the time. Time is worth money and it calculates and ask what that time is worth, like what's your hourly wage or whoever is following up on these, how much time does it take to follow up on these, to create a real aggregate or at least close aggregate cost of what one cold lead is costing you. I’ve seen numbers. I just had one come through the other day. One cold lead was costing them $5000. I've seen $11,000, I've seen a $1700 per lead or per acquisition per deal and what I love to ask them when I get them on the phone, I say, “Hey, I saw you fill out this cold lead thing. How long does it take you to recoup $5000 on a contract?” and they’re like, “Well, that's probably three years of free management or two years whatever.” Then their perspective starts to shift and we have to uncouple that. The transparency in numbers helps you make decisions as a business owner. Marc: Yup, and then review them regularly. Don't just leave it your accounts. If you're a successful PM company, you're looking at those numbers because those numbers make a difference. Jason: All right. We’re on to number three. Marc: Number three is a good lead-in as you were just talking about there. Number three will be successful companies focus on profit, not door count. You've already talked about this. This comes up so often in our industry, what's the first question any PM ask another PM? How many doors do you have? What’s your door count? How many doors are you managing? That's the measuring stick and it’s the wrong measuring stick because I know companies that are smaller, they're very profitable, and I know companies that are very large that are not profitable at all. Door count is irrelevant. The profit is what matters. What that means is practically speaking, if you've got 50 doors, I would say, “Before you say I another 50—that's fine—but you know what? Let's maximize the profit of the existing group you have.” That doesn't mean just go out and nickel-and-dime everybody, but it means what other services can you provide? What other things can you put in place to make sure that you're maximizing that income and that’ll have a dual impact in that you're going to increase your income on that 50? Then when you pick up your next 50, now you've already got some structures in place to ensure that they are profitable as well. You've got to focus on the profits, on the revenue streams to be successful. Jason: Absolutely, I don't think there's ever been a property management company that I’ve seen that is not leaving some money on the table. There's always additional services that you can offer, even if it's something little like filter easier petscreening.com. There's always some additional value that you can offer and there's always a way that you can monetize that. People are willing to pay for additional value. Marc: On the flip side of that as well, I think we need to pay attention to those expenses because what the industry right now is more difficult than it has been a long time and folks that have not been in the industry for too long, they’ll recognize this because this is normal to them, but it's a tough industry. This is a tough market to be running a property management company. When things get tough, you've got to be tight on expenses, and it’s too easy not to get tough on expenses. That's one thing we encourage folks, is to go through that profit of loss, line by line, and if there are expense items on there that are not directly relational to income coming in, you have to figure out how to cut them. You have to get rid of those wasteful expenses. That is such a good exercise to sit down and start going through that stuff and say, “Well, gosh, I’ve just been paying for the subscription service every month and I don't even know what it does. I signed up for it two years ago. All right, let's get that cancelled.” Jason: Yeah, and you’re like, “Why am I still on this?” Marc: Exactly. This is beneficial as getting on a new door, is cutting those expenses. Jason: This is why I love having a profit-first coach, because this really is built into the system. Every month is like, “Hey, what about these services you said you're going to cancel and you said you don't need this anymore?” Yes, so I think it's helpful. If you’re not like accounting-minded, I highly recommend you go back and watch my episode with Mike Michalowicz, who is the author of Profit First and check out that episode. I think it was a fantastic episode. Really cool guy, came and spoke at our conference. It covers that system like cutting down expenses, putting profit first, making sure that expenses are fitting within your existing budget and you're still getting a profit. Yeah, makes sense. Marc: What I had to do, I realized that the biggest expense item, the biggest overhead we had was my ego. The thing is that, that I wanted for me, the big desk, the big office, the nice car, and that's something everyone needs to start there because if you drive, especially in the real estate sale side, you go to any real estate sales event and what is the parking lot filled with? A lot of very expensed leased vehicles. I'm not against nice vehicles, but that’s just a suck on the income side of things. Jason: I think there's always this ratio between the amount of money that you’re going to take out of the business, and the amount of money that you're going to leave in to fund towards the growth. If we take out too much too quickly, the business growth is stagnated. I've seen some really aggressive companies put almost all of their money. I’ve seen owners try not to even take a paycheck. They’re really minimizing their take out of the business so that they could fund the growth, because they're delaying gratification for the future. They’re funding and creating a business that is growing and they’re putting their funds and their money towards that.  Sometimes, you have to double down as a business owner and to be willing to take a short-term hit because you want a long-term growth goal. And we can put too much towards growth to where it feels shaky, it feels unsafe. We're not holding anything back. There's no padding there. It really is this balance of how much I’m going to put towards growth be aggressive, how safe am I going to play it, and how stable and slow am I going to be at doing this. There's a balance there. Marc: It is a balance, it’s an absolute balance because you need to leave some in, and you need to be pulling some out every month and putting it into that savings account so that you have opportunities. We’ve purchased several companies over the years and every one of those deals worked because we were able to in essence say, “We can write a check. We’ll write a check today. We’ll get this deal done.” Why? Because we have money put away. That savings account isn't just comforting, it's an opportunity fund for things when they come up in the future. Jason: I like it. All right, is that three? Marc: That's three. Jason: All right, number four. Marc: Number four is successful companies have systems and follow them. They have systems in place and they follow. In a word, system means different things to different people. Some people think, “Well, that's just so I need a good software. What’s the system?” I really believe that probably 75%-80% of what we do on a day-to-day basis in our industry can be systematized, meaning, simply documenting your process, documenting your routine, because it plays out in so many ways. We learned this early on when we were growing and first there were two of us. My dad and I, we both did it all and we hired a third person, and then we all three did it all. Then we hired a fourth person, and by the time we hired that fourth person, we realized that, we can't all do it all. This isn't scalable, we can't all do everything. It works great at two people, it works great at three people, but when we had that number person and Mr. Tenant calls and says, “Hey, I called in with a maintenance request last week and I haven’t heard from anybody.” And I say, “Well do you know who you talked to?” “No, I don't remember.” “Well hold on, let me see if I can figure it out.” “Hey dad, did they talk to you?” “Hey, Bill did they talk to you?” “Sue did they talk to you?” “No.” “Well they talked to one of us, right?” That’s very ineffective. You've got to start specializing in your processes. We realized at that point in time that if we're going to hire someone to be our leasing person, for example, we better have a documented process for them to follow. I mean specific detailed documented. Here's what time you get to the property before showing. You open the door, you turn on the lights. Here's where you stand when they come in. Here's how you greet them, here’s what you say, here’s what you don't say, here's how you process an application. If we do that into our entire business and we break the business down into the smallest components, it simplifies things like nothing else because we’re in a complex business. If you think of a continuum in your mind, a long line going on both directions. On one side of the continuum, you have the words consistency and simplicity. On the other side, the far extreme opposite, you've got the words variation and complexity. You have to ask yourself, where am I on that continuum? We're all different places, but we hopefully will always be moving forward towards consistency and simplicity. I don't think there's a better way of doing that than through documenting your process, your system and then following it, training on it, improving it, upgrading it. It's got to be written, it's got to be documented, and it is a process. Jason: That needs to be used. People document it, they’ll give it to the team member, the team member will look at it at the first few times they do it, and then they're done. I have Process Street on as a guest once. We used Process Street internally, but it forces them to actually use the process on going. It's a checklist that has to be verified and completed. Marc: Yes, checklists are huge. We couldn’t exist without the checklist. Its old school, but it works. We still have paper checklists on some things in our office here that people say, “That wouldn’t work.” I guess just too old school. I say, “Well , we’re pretty successful. It worked for a thousand doors; I can tell you that. Will it work beyond that? I don't know, but it works to get you to a thousand.” Jason: There you go. I've noticed in businesses, I think there’s, at a minimum, probably seven systems that every business eventually has to have in a business. One, they have to have an internal communication system. For me and my team, it’s virtual, so we're using things like Basecamp, Voxer, stuff like that. But there needs to be an internal communication system that isn't just, “Hey Steve, did you do this?” So, internal communication. There needs to be process documentation system. That could just be Google Sheets, Docs, and whatever, or it could be something more complicated or cooler like Process Street or whatever, but there needs to be a process documentation system. There needs to be a billing system, of course. Property managers use maybe AppFolio or Rentec Direct, Buildium, but there needs to be some billing, accounting system. Then there needs to be a support system. A lot of property managers are starting to gravitate towards setting up Help Scout, Intercom, Drift, or one of these, but internally we use Intercom. There needs to be a support system in the business so that you can track tickets and track things. Sometimes, you'll do that through your property management software a bit. I find one system most property management businesses are lacking or missing is a planning system. You're hearing people move towards traction in some of this which I think has some fundamental flaws to be blunt, but it's a great system. It’s better than no system and there's a lot of systems out there for planning, but there needs to be a planning system in the business. Another system that's necessary is a sales CRM. This is different than your existing customer database. This is for prospects. There needs to be a sales CRM in place. A lot of property managers use LeadSimple, for example. If there were one other system you can throw in there probably be a phone system. We need some way to manage this big influx of calls or outbound calls with team members being able to be reached. These are some of the systems that I've paid attention to, that businesses need. Most businesses will have maybe two or three. Marc: Yup, and we preach what we practice as well as preach to make on the systems for individual team members to make them position-specific. We have 20-some odd people our office and every role has a position-specific system manual, so our director of accounting has a director of accounting system manual. I'm the president of the organization. I have a president system manual. Why? Because I need to be replaceable. That's one of the benefits of it. That idea that now we become less dependent upon individuals and no individual can hold us hostage to be like, “They’ve got everything in their head. What are we going to do they leave? We can't lose them.” It's a terrible place to be. We don’t have to worry about that. You're going to lose everybody at some point in time. You’ll either lose them for a good reason or a bad reason, but they need to be replaceable. Now if you have a document, if you have documented their process, then they become replaceable. I'm replaceable. If I get hit by the truck today, it’s alright. Hopefully, the company will take a little hit, hopefully they’ll need me a little bit, but we got a system manual, somebody can step in that role, and already says, “Hey, this is what Marc does.” Just do it and you'll be successful. Jason: I like it. All right, so are we on to five? Marc: Number five, the last one, successful companies recruit and develop talent. We just talked about systems and the concept that systems can make your people replaceable to some extent and they should. However, at the end of the day, the team with the best players usually wins. If you can go out there and if you can figure out how to recruit the best talent and then retain them, that is going to do more for your company than almost anything else out there. If I'm going to brag about something about our company, I’ll brag about that. We get the best people around. We've gotten good at that. It makes it so much easier to do business. I don't work harder than my competitors, I'm not smarter than my competitors, I'm not technologically savvy more than my competitors, but what we do better than a lot of our competitors is we get really good people  Now that’s hard, and it’s hard to get really good people and that's why you got to recruit. It doesn't mean you put an ad on Craig's list and read a bunch of resumes of people that can't get jobs. I mean you go out and you find people that are really good at what they do and you got to get them, you have to recruit them. That's hard because successful people aren’t looking for jobs. They are already successful. If you want to be successful, you got to go out there. I’ll tell a story and I'll give that the short version. We had to hire a leasing person not too long ago. Wwe were hiring, meaning we were just reviewing resumes and I thought this is ridiculous. We can't find anybody good. I better do what I tell myself what I should be doing. I got my car one day and I drove around to a lot of the multi-family class A properties in Denver, and I walked in as a prospect. “Hey, I’m Marc, I’m here. I just want to see what you have available. I’m looking for a buddy of mine to rent a property.” And I was usually met with the, “Okay, well here's a piece of paper. Tell your buddy to give us a call.” I say, “Okay” and left. About the fourth place I came to, I came in and met a gal there behind the front and I said, “Hi, I’m Marc. I’m just looking for a place for a buddy of mine.” She said, “Well, me about your buddy. He’s looking for one bedroom. He’s tall dark and handsome, got a cat, probably crazy,” and she's like, “You know what? I know the perfect unit for your buddy. Do you have a couple minutes? I'd love to just have you tour this property.” “Yeah, sure. Okay.” She tours me through and she's pointing out the feature benefits to offer. She was sharp. Her name is Lindsay. I said, “Lindsay, you are really good at your job. She goes, “I love leasing. I just love it. I love helping people. I love real estate. I love what I do.” I said, “That's great. Coincidently, I happen to run a property management company and we're actually looking to hire a director of leasing for residential real estate. Have you thought about doing residential?” because she’s a multifamily. She was like, “Oh no. I could never leave. I'm not a job hopper. I'm really stable. Stability is a big deal for me once I get somewhere I like to stay.” Now I'm drooling. I got to have her. I said, “Well is there anything you don't like about your job Lindsay? Well we work weekends.” I said, “Oh. That’s too bad. We don’t work weekends.” I said, “Tell you what. Why don't you come into my office sometime? Here’s my card. I'd love to just sit down and have a conversation with you. Who knows? Maybe something comes out of it, maybe something don’t, but I’d love to just connect and see if there's something there for the future.” Well long story short, we got her. We got Lindsay. And we had to go after her, we had to get her because she didn't want to leave. She's been a rock star. She's been amazing. The things that she's helped our company to do, but we would not have found her if we were just hiring. We had to go recruit her, we had to go get her. That's what you have to do in every position in your company. You have to go find stuff. I'm not saying go steal people away from your competitors, but you have to find those people out there that are successful and get them. Once you get them, you have to retain them. You have to train them well, you got to pay them well, which is one of the reasons you need to have good profit because good people aren’t cheap, but that's what's going to lead to a long-term success, and unless you take a step back out of the day-to-day stuff at the end of the day. Jason: Yeah. I think it's important to point out what you're saying is not that people are easily replaceable, that you can pop somebody else in. You're not saying that at all, and I think every business owner knows that if you have a seasoned team member that you've invested in, that you've trained, that you've developed, there's nothing as good as that, like having somebody that's been with you for years. I have team members that has been on my team for maybe six years and he's a rock star. I have a competitive advantage over most companies in that our teams are virtual, so I can source the best talent from anywhere pretty much in the world. But yeah, this can be challenging for property managers that are looking for somebody locally, they're looking for somebody nearby, they’re looking for a particular set of skills may be. But ultimately, if you find somebody good, you want to make sure you retain them and that you keep them happy. You can compare it to a wine, you can compare it to anything, but over time they just get better. If they’re good they get better, if they're not good, they get worse. Marc: That's the other side of the coin. That's where just like we talked about earlier with owners. This is what we started this whole conversation with you get a bad owner, what do you do? You need to let them go. Well if you made a hiring mistake, you need to fix that and correct that as well and let that person go, because we're going to make hirings. We are very good at this, but we make a lot of hiring mistakes. We just do, it drives me crazy. But when we do that, we correct it quickly. We're going to move that person on very quickly when we make that mistake. Why? Because the longer they're sitting there, the longer the right person isn't there. You've got to make that correction when you made a hiring mistake. Jason: I think it's amazing when you bring in a new team member, it changes the entire team. It either changes the entire team for the better or for the worse, especially if that team member that you just brought on is taking off of your plate everything. It changes your role as CEO. It changes your role as an entrepreneur, and it affects everything from you. It's pretty significant and it's important to make sure that they’re the right fit. We we're all going to make hiring mistakes. You have to kiss a few frogs and you have to suck a little bit at hiring in order to find the good people. Marc: It's an art, and a skill set to hire someone in no way translates over to property management. It's not like, “I'm a good property manager. I’ll obviously be good at hiring.” No, there's no correlation there. It's completely different. The other unfortunate thing is, the smaller your company is, the more important it is to make that first good hire. Now we've got 20 people. If we make a bad hire, we got one in 20 then who's bad. They can fly under the radar a little bit, they're not going to stick to the company. If we've got two people and then we make a bad hire for number three, so we never got 33% of our workforce that's a low performer. The smaller you are, the more important it is that you take the time to get the right person in. A lot of it is just time. You've got to slow down the hiring process. These ideas of we had a phone conversation and we interviewed him, it's not enough? Are you kidding me? No, you want to do multiple interviews. Anybody can come across as a positive person on that first interview. You want to have multiple interviews with multiple people. You have to dig, dig, dig on that before you make that job offer. Jason: I think where I've made a lot of mistakes personally in the hiring process is I love to delegate and its delegating too quickly. Some people will micromanage, they’ll control too much, and I think some people will do the opposite. They'll bring somebody on and they won't give them all the training, all the tools, all the support they need to really be the rock star they could have been. I've made both of those mistakes to be transparent. I think onboarding is a really important process to make sure you’re meeting with your new hires on a regular basis daily initially, then backing it up to weekly and so on, so that every day like where are you stuck? What do you need? What are you confused about? Often, they're not going to just volunteer all that information to you. But when you're meeting with them daily, they're going to feel supported, they're going to feel like they're invested in the team. I think onboarding is a really big deal. That's where I made mistakes. Marc: We still do one-on-one meetings every single week with every one of our team members. It doesn't matter how long they've been. I'm a huge believer in that, I guess if you wanted number six, there is number six, right? Have one-on-ones every single week, sitting down with them, even if it’s for 5 or 10 minutes, touch base, see what issues are going. Those have been critical for our people in their success. Jason: We have a bonus, number six. Marc: You got a bonus, number six, because you’re so good. What did I leave out? I’m curious. You talk to a lot of PM companies. What do you think are characteristics of success may be that we didn’t hit on? Jason: I wasn’t even thinking this, I was so into yours. I think all these things are really fantastic. I think if I were to add a seventh here that I think is absolutely critical, so imagine you have an orchard, you’re at the top, and this is like a reservoir of hopefully money and or water or whatever you want to call it. There's outflow, you're paying your team, you're spending money, things like this, and investing your team. I think where most companies are flawed is there's no inflow at the top of the orchard. There's nothing above the entrepreneur feeding into them. I think this is why it's critical. I probably spent at least six figures annually just on coaches and mentors. I have three coaches right now affecting different areas of my business. I think it's that inflow that I'm able to get that allows me to consistently have value to offer to the marketplace and to benefit my clients. It comes out in ways that I don't even expect, like a client will ask me a question or be stuck on something mindset-wise or be challenged with something, and I'm like, “I had that issue and I worked that through with my coach,” or, “I have done that in that training that I had done,” or whatever it might be. I think as entrepreneurs, we need to invest in ourselves if we're expecting other people to invest in us. When you go to prospects or clients and you say, “Hey, invest in me, spend money with my company,” and you aren't willing to invest in yourself or in your company in a similar fashion, I think there's a little lack of integrity. Energetically, something's off. If there were a seventh, I would say that's a big one is make sure that you're investing consistently in your own development, not just your team so that you have something to give. I think that's the inflow. You don't want to be a dead sea, there needs to be in flow and there needs to be outflow and that's where there's life. That's where it’s a healthy business. Marc: For the person that would say, “Hey, that sounds great, but I'm working 70 hours a week. I don't have time to invest in me. I'm just give, give, give.” What would you say to them? Jason: I would say they’re ineffective, they’re inefficient because if we're doing, doing, doing we moved out of the mode of being affected. That means most of our time is tactical instead of strategic. Any business that lacks, the business owner lacks strategic time, the business isn’t growing. There's a direct relationship between the amount of strategic time, planning, looking towards the future, coming up with ideas, or getting trained or learning new things, versus their growth. If all their time is tactical, they're dealing with maintenance, fires, leases, managing their team, emails, phone calls, if all their time is tactical, their business can’t grow. It will stay basically where it is. I think what I do with clients is I start them with a time study and we create time. Everybody is spending time doing stuff that's unnecessary, or low dollar an hour work, or silly, and it's pretty simple to start getting clarity on that first and then that helps them see what they need next. My entire foundation, my company really has been built on time studies. That's where I think fundamentally there's a huge difference between how I would coach operationally a business to run versus something like traction or a rocket fuel or these other systems where they’re saying, “Here's the magic org chart and here's the roles that you have to have.” Ultimately, a business should be built around the entrepreneur and what they actually need. The only way to really see that is to know where your time is going. Marc: Good stuff. Jason: That's my two cents. Marc: I like it. Jason: All right, so that's number eight maybe. I don't know. Marc: It’s number eight. Jason: We’d better stop before we add anymore. Marc: We’d better. I know. You’re making me think of too many things. Jason: Marc, it was really awesome hanging out here with you. This is really fun. You're welcome back anytime. Before we go, how can people get in touch with you if they're curious about some stuff that you offer for property managers or they want to learn more about your business or whatever? Marc: The best way to reach me is through our website which is propertymanagementsystem.org and we got a handful things on there, a lot of video resource things. We've got our system manuals, we talked a little bit about that, our actual system manuals, we offer those. You can download samples of those and we got packages on those. We do ancillary business training, some coaching stuff from that aspect. One thing I'm pretty excited about, we're just putting in place, we actually just put in place and I'm happy to share with any of your folks if they're interested, they can drop me an email. We put a business health checkup form where you answer some questions and it spits out a number to let you do that business health checkup. If anybody is interested in that, drop me an email, go on the website, reach out to me from there, will be happy to send it to them. Jason: Cool. All right, Marc, thanks so much for coming on the DoorGrow Show and excited to see what you do in the future. Marc: Jason, thank you, it was fun. Jason: All right ,so if you are property management entrepreneur and you are struggling, you are feeling challenged in growth, be sure to connect with us over Door Grow. I would be honored to help you out. As I said during this call, I'm a firm believer in getting coached, getting coaches, and even if it's not me, somebody like Marc, there's lots of other [...] there that can coach you. Get somebody that can give you some value, help you grow your business, help you achieve your goals, and figure things out. Until next time, everybody, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.  

I’ve stated many times before that the key to wealth building in real estate is to develop passive income streams. Rental properties are not entirely passive as rentals and rentERS need managing. You can hire a management company but they you have to manage the management company. Sounds like a lot, but if you have an excellent management company it’s like having an excellent contractor - life is SO much easier. You need to know the basics of property management even if you are going to hire it out. And you need to know someone who really knows what they are doing. That brings us to our guest today, Marc Cunningham.  Marc Cunningham grew up in the family property management company his father founded in 1978, Grace Property Management. Marc starting in the “weed pulling” division and moved on to mowing, painting, accounting and leasing. He joined the firm permanently in 1997 and currently serves in the role of President.  Today, from a platform of managing over 900 rental properties with 20 team members, Grace Management helps people buy, sell, invest, flip, collect rent, evict, and have fun doing it! If you are more impressed with initials after a name - Marc is the President of Grace Property Management & Real Estate, holds a degree in Real Estate & Finance, has taught CE classes in over 20 states, has been featured in multiple national real estate publications, hold multiple designations, and was just named the 2018 national property manager of the year by Think Realty. Marc lives in Loveland, CO, where he lives his failed childhood sports dreams through his children.  How to contact us www.RogerBlankenship.com Facebook.com/flippingamericamedia Twitter and Instagram @FlippingAmerica Call our National Comment Line: 404-369-1018, ext 1. Leave your message or your question.  Email your questions to questions@rogerblankenship.com. Please always tell us where you are from. We like to know where the show is being heard. And let us know how you found out about us if you don’t mind.  Announcements: Lunch with me every Wednesday. Baraonda My latest article in Forbes is out. bit.ly/findredeals. The FAN is here! Would you like to invest in the Flipping America projects across the country? Coming soon you will be able to for as little as $100. That’s right, Flipping America is partnering with Ground Floor Funding to create a crowd-funded platform where you can invest in the deals we are doing here. The fund will pay out a 8% preferred rate of return and can go as high as 16%. You can make money with me, the Flipping America Guy.  Flipping America App is in the app store. You can listen to the show, read the show notes, and the entire catalog of shows is now available to you. It’s a free download and there are no upsells or in-app purchases. Free to download, free to listen. Go ahead and give it a try and drop me a line and let me know what you think. Want a quick analytical tool to tell you how strong a potential fix and flip deal is? Download the Property Grade app. You answer 10 simple questions about the property and the app instantly tells you what you can expect to make, your return on investment, your return on cash, and then the program gives the project a letter grade using the proprietary Flipping America Investment Property Grade algorithm.   Guest: Mark Cunningham Four Questions for prospective Property Managers How long have you been in the business? What is your eviction rate? (the lower the better) What is your lease renewal rate? (the higher the better) If I have a change of mind or if our relationship just isn’t working out, how easy is it for me to get out of our contract?   https://www.rentgrace.com/owner-faq News: Six Surprising Data Sources Probably Being Overlooked In Your Multifamily Analysis https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2019/08/27/six-surprising-data-sources-probably-being-overlooked-in-your-multifamily-analysis/ How To Lose And Rebuild A Real Estate Portfolio https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2019/08/26/how-to-lose-and-rebuild-a-real-estate-portfolio/ How Proptech Adoption Across Generations Helps Fuel A Thriving Market https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2019/08/23/how-proptech-adoption-across-generations-helps-fuel-a-thriving-market/ Fannie Mae Predicts Two More Fed Cuts This Year https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2019/08/21/fannie-mae-predicts-two-more-fed-cuts-this-year What Makes a Good Single-Family Rental https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2019/08/27/what-makes-a-good-single-family-rental Your Questions: Send emails to questions@rogerblankenship.com Alisa, Hammond, IN “Thanks for all you are doing to promote integrity and values in the real estate investing space. I’ve seen so many so-called “investors” who are horrible people doing terrible things and taking advantage of the less-informed. I want to know how to avoid hiring another dishonest contractor.  Kendra, Milwaukee, WI, “I live and work in the downtown area but I grew up in Sheboygan, which is just about an hour’s drive away. I want to flip properties up there, but how would you recommend I get started? I would only be able to go check on things once a week. Is it even doable? Comment Line calls and Questions Call 404-369-1018, press 1 and leave your message! Motivational Thoughts for the day   “Don’t Let Yesterday Take Up Too Much Of Today.” – Will Rogers  

Marc Cunningham, with Grace Property Management, joins Abhi and he brings a wealth of knowledge to the table about long-term investing and how we should be looking at our investment as “centuries long.” Abhi wants to know about being “over-leveraged” and how it can have a negative impact on your investments. Marc gives his personal philosophy on borrowing and how he handles paying off his investment properties and what he has learned over the years. If you have been thinking about hiring a property management company, Marc has the ins and outs for you. It might not be for everyone but he wants to break down the costs and explains the benefits of hiring one. He gives important advice for those interested in hiring a property management company and you don’t want to miss what he has to say! To learn more about Marc and Grace Property Management visit RentGrace.com.  

Marc Cunningham and Daniel Preshaw of Grace Property Management and Real Estate are the guests on today's show to kick off a new series in the podcast: A quarterly update about the Denver rental market from a property managers perspective. We discussed: Downtown class A newbuilds are accepting Section 8 tenants to fill vacancies. Buying new build single-family homes in the high 300's that rent for $2,200 to $2,400. Investment opportunities in North Thorton and Broomfield (and Amazon's new fulfillment center.) PayRange - A new mobile phone payment system to replace coin-operated laundry facilities. Amenify - A service that allows landlords to provide amenities - from dog walking to laundry to fitness classes. How a 5% maintenance reserve rate caused a public investment company to miss its earnings... Enjoy the show! Let us know if you want to grab coffee and talk real estate opportunities: https://www.denverinvestmentrealestate.com/consult  

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! As property managers, we know the ins and outs of the rental industry. In fact, we’re so familiar with it that sometimes it’s helpful to step back and look at things from the tenants’ point of view instead. These people are likely moving from one rental property to another. They’re dealing with all the hassle of moving, which is exhausting whether it’s across the country or just across town. They’re also dealing with a heavy onslaught of expenses: renting a moving van, hiring people to help, paying rent and a deposit on a new place, and much more. When your tenants are already overwhelmed with too much to do and lots of money going out the door, the last thing they want to deal with is setting up the utilities at the new place. This can be doubly true if the utility companies require large deposits, as some do. Going back to our side of things as property managers, we also don’t want to constantly field calls from tenants about which companies they should use, whether they can install a satellite in the roof, and how to set up a security system. Fortunately, there’s an amazing company that makes things easier for property managers and tenants alike. My guest today is Wes Owens from Citizen Home Solutions, a concierge service for utilities. Wes will explain what his company does, and why it’s a win-win-win for tenants, his company, and the property managers alike. Best of all, he offers a commission that’s a quarterly share of 20% if you use the promo code “Brad” when you sign up! Right now, Citizen Home Solutions operates in Texas and 13 other states. Don’t worry if you’re outside of their current coverage range, though! They’re happy to expand to new locations, and the process of setting up somewhere new generally takes a week or less.   Here’s where you can find Wes: Citizen Home Solutions wowens@citizenhomesolutions.com (214) 493-2010 Wes Owens on LinkedIn   Show Notes [02:56] - Wes gives us an intro to himself and his company, explaining what Citizen Home Solutions does. Brad then points out some of the reasons for why setting up utilities is a difficult part of moving for tenants. [03:54] - Wes walks us through the process of how his company works in more detail. He also addresses the topic of deposits in recommending providers to tenants. [06:33] - Brad gives listeners the background on his use of Wes’ group, which goes back about two years. [07:13] - The management company gets a quarterly commission for every service that makes Wes’ company money. In other words, Citizen Home Solutions shares their commission with the property management companies that use them. [08:46] - Implementation is very easy, Wes explains, and walks us through the five-minute process involved in getting things set up. [10:25] - Citizen Home Solutions is currently all over Texas and in thirteen other states, but they can get up and running in a new location within about a week. [13:57] - Does Wes have any good examples of specific discounts? [15:25] - Wes elaborates on the satellites he mentioned previously. They refuse to allow satellites on the roof, instead putting them on pole mounts in the back yard. [17:23] - Wes moves on to talking about security systems. The system he uses is wireless and doesn’t damage the property, he explains. [19:16] - Brad returns to the point that Wes can get his service set up in a new area in a week or less. [21:44] - We learn more about how Brad has implemented Wes’ service into the backend of the system. [23:40] - Wes talks about reviews. Lots of places ask their customers or clients to go to Google to review their company. Instead of making the customer do this work, Wes uses BirdEye. [26:27] - BirdEye flags your reviews, Wes explains, and allows you to respond when you get a review below the limit you chose. [27:42] - How can someone get started with Wes’ company, or get in touch with him? His phone number is (214) 493-2010 and his email address is wowens@citizenhomesolutions.com. [29:49] - Wes talks about the promo he’s currently offering for listeners! If you get in touch with him soon using the promo code “Brad,” you’ll get 20% back, which is higher than their norm.   Links and Resources: Citizen Home Solutions wowens@citizenhomesolutions.com (214) 493-2010 Wes Owens on LinkedIn BirdEye

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! Today’s special guest comes all the way from Australia! Ben White is the director of Leading Property Managers Association, or LPMA. He’ll talk a lot about that association, as well as its US expansion efforts, in our conversation today! We’ll also discuss their accounting standard project, which coincides with some of our efforts to standardize accounting practices within the industry. If you’ve listened to the show, you’ve already heard me talk about the PM Grow Summit, which is one of my favorite conferences. Another of my absolute favorites is the conference put on by LPMA, which goes above and beyond almost anything else you’ll see here. If you want to experience it for yourself, believe me, it’s well worth the flight to Australia or New Zealand. In fact, Ben has even sweetened the deal by waiving the conference fee for property managers or property management company owners who are listening to the show. In addition to talking about LPMA and its conferences, Ben will offer some fantastic insight into the industry. As we discuss in the episode, despite (or maybe because of) some striking and fascinating differences between the American and Australian markets, we can learn a lot from each other. Ben points out, for example, that your biggest competitor is no longer the best agency in your marketplace. Instead, your biggest competitor (and the one you need to fear) is the worst property management company, because the bad companies are dragging down the industry as a whole. To learn more about this, and other great tips and insights into the industry, tune into this episode! Here’s where you can find Ben: ben@lpma.com lpma.com Show Notes [04:05] - Ben gives us a quick intro to who he is and how he got involved in property management. [06:48] - For listeners who are wondering, Brad talks about why it’s worth listening to Ben even though he’s from Australia, which is a different market. [08:31] - Ben explains that the infatuation with real estate is greater than that in the United States, in that many more people own investment properties. [11:45] - We learn about Ben’s books, which he wrote after having been lucky enough to have visited well over a thousand property management companies. [16:10] - Ben offers a synopsis of what he’s doing during this visit to the United States. He then discusses his affiliate program. [20:09] - Brad takes a moment to rave about the many available resources on Ben’s site. [22:09] - We hear about one of Brad’s recent changes, which was switching to Seacoast Bank. [24:20] - Ben expands on the idea that staff churn can create a negative impact that lasts for years. He walks us through the four possible scenarios that can happen when a property manager leaves. [29:47] - In Australia, there’s a trend to not give property management staff personalized email addresses, because there’s so much staff turnover. [33:29] - Brad clarifies that Australian property managers charge weekly instead of monthly. [35:39] - Ben talks about how the LPMA conferences are run, and offers a discount for listeners who want to come to one of these conferences in the future. [38:12] - LPMA originally had two brands, both of which are now part of LPMA, Ben explains. [41:36] - Ben expands on the formula he’s been working on coming up with to produce potential valuations for companies. [43:46] - You can’t just value a property management company based on its income, Ben explains. [46:16] - Ben shares a story about one of the first days that he was in property management. He and Brad then dig into specific numbers and percentages within the property management industry. [50:08] - Brad points out that prioritization shouldn’t be overlooked, because it lets you know exactly where you should be focusing. [53:08] - Ben talks about trying to develop a membership base for the LPMA in America. [56:05] - Brad takes a moment to talk about how he and his company use LeadSimple to manage their workflow. [57:24] - There are three kinds of core property management systems, Ben explains. [59:33] - Where can people get in touch with Ben if they want to learn more or stay in touch? Links and Resources: ben@lpma.com lpma.com Numbers Game by Ben White Seacoast Bank Xero

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! Before we dive into this week’s episode, I want to take a moment to talk about the recent NARPM National Convention that took place in Orlando, Florida in October 2017. This episode was actually recorded there, and the event is still fresh in my mind. Overall, my family and I had a great time! The weather was fantastic, as were Disney World and golfing! The conference itself was good too, but a few things bothered me there. As a result, I plan to offer a bit more commentary on the state of the property management and the trade organizations around it in future episodes of this podcast. I want you to be aware of what’s going on so you can make a fully informed decision on how you want to proceed with booking (or not booking) some of these conferences. This week’s episode features the brilliant Allison DiSarro from Seacoast Commerce Bank. After hearing what she could offer, we’ve decided to switch banks. Our current bank isn’t bad by any means, and we weren’t necessarily looking for a new banking solution, but what Seacoast offers is so phenomenal that we just couldn’t resist switching. If you’re familiar with this podcast, you know that we tend to speak to people in the property management industry. This interview goes a bit further outside those lines, but is absolutely relevant to all property managers, even those in the four states where Seacoast doesn’t operate. Allison specializes in property management banking, and in this episode I’ll ask her all sorts of questions about banking as it relates specifically to property management. Tune in to learn more!   Here’s where you can find Allison: adisarro@sccombank.com (619) 988-6708 Seacoast Commerce Bank   Show Notes [03:45] - Allison introduces herself briefly. Brad then explains why he has a banker on a property management mastermind. [04:42] - We hear what Allison does, which is specializing in property management trust accounts. [06:42] - Brad points out that what Allison has been explaining is kind of scary because a lot of us just assume we’re in trust accounts even when they may not actually apply. [09:04] - In response to Allison mentioning that they don’t have a physical presence in certain states that they operate in, Brad takes a moment to talk about electronic banking. [11:38] - Allison talks about debit and credit card solutions. She also explains that they do ATM fee reimbursements since they don’t have an abundance of ATMs. [14:24] - Brad digs into how Allison convinced him to switch to Seacoast Commerce Bank. [16:57] - Allison explains more about how their system works for property managers. She then comes up with a specific scenario to explain what she means. [21:54] - Brad steps in to use his company as an example to show the benefits of Seacoast. [22:58] - Allison continues to explain Seacoast’s benefits, using the example of AppFolio to illustrate their system. [26:05] - How does Allison help clients with the pain of switching over to different software? [29:54] - Brad points out that lots of people want to switch softwares at the end of the year to minimize hassle with sending out 1099s. [31:51] - Do people need to split trust accounts when they reach over the $250,000 secured by the FDIC? [35:25] - Allison lists some of the states that they can’t work in for various reasons, including Florida, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah. [37:47] - Seacoast Commerce Bank is planning to go more national than they already are pretty soon, Allison explains. [41:26] - Brad talks about managing HOAs and its impact on the banking industry. Allison then explores HOAs in more depth. [44:55] - Allison talks about safer and less safe ways of paying and conducting transactions. [46:19] - How can listeners get in touch with Allison? She offers her email address and work number: adisarro@sccombank.com and (619) 988-6708. Links and Resources: adisarro@sccombank.com (619) 988-6708 Seacoast Commerce Bank AppFolio Buildium Propertyware Rent Manager Yardi

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! Today, I have the honor of being joined by the remarkable and knowledgeable Tom Sedlack. Tom is a longstanding NARPM member and instructor teaching cash flow analysis. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to take his class, and found it incredibly valuable. If you want to experience his knowledge firsthand too, don’t miss out on his upcoming speech in Orlando at the NARPM National Convention! In this episode, we’ll mostly talk about a separate business model that you may want to consider for your management company: HOA management. As Tom explains, he and his wife manage 20 HOA associations with a total of over 1,000 HOA doors. These are spread across two areas: the Twin Cities and Kansas City. (And yes, Tom will also touch on how he handles running a company in two locations.) Throughout our conversation, we explore the details of HOA management. We’ll talk, for example, about how it’s different from standard property management, how Tom got started in working with HOAs, and what the process is for winning HOA clients. Tom also offers fantastic insight into the details of running this part of his company with recommendations about software, checklists, and much more.   Here’s where you can find Tom: 33rd Company @33rdCompany on Twitter 33rd Company on YouTube @33rdCompanyMN on Facebook Tom Sedlack on LinkedIn   Show Notes [02:37] - Tom starts things off by introducing himself, talking about his background, and explaining how he and his wife got into property management. [04:12] - Is Tom running his two offices from a central location, or do they operate independently? [05:24] - Tom discusses how he and his wife broke into the property management market in Kansas City after already having a business in the Twin Cities. [08:03] - Tom explains that they knew they needed 40 to 50 doors in the Kansas City area to break even. [09:57] - We hear about the software that Tom uses specifically for HOA management, and whether it’s different from general property management software. [12:34] - Did Tom join a trade organization specifically for HOA management? [15:59] - Tom discusses who is doing the actual in-office work of handling the HOA management side of the company. [16:53] - What are some of the unique challenges in managing HOAs as opposed to single-family homes? [18:16] - We hear about Tom’s company is getting leads, which Brad points out is step one. Tom then talks about whether he has a long-term goal in terms of door count. [20:50] - Tom talks about the next step of the process, which involves talking to the HOA board members. [24:33] - Tom discusses the challenges of getting people to switch from a developer’s default management system to his company. [27:57] - We learn that Tom uses an incredibly detailed onboarding checklist to ensure they don’t miss anything. [29:27] - Does Tom have any leads on where to get a checklist and a draft management agreement? [31:19] - Tom talks us through some information about the profit potential for HOA management. [34:08] - Tom’s company uses both flat-fee and percentage-based pricing, but it’s usually a fixed price based on the number of doors. [34:54] - Brad requests a story about a case in which Tom walked into a bad situation and turned it around. [37:20] - The average size of his HOA clients is around 50 doors, and so about 20 clients make up the 1000 HOA doors that Tom’s company manages. [40:03] - What are the best techniques Tom has found to help agents learn about cash-flow analysis? [42:09] - Tom talks about how he breaks down and illustrates numbers to his investors. [46:46] - Brad and Tom discuss the fact that property managers are pretty much recession-proof. [47:15] - What’s the coolest thing Tom has implemented in the past six to 12 months? [49:15] - Tom shares where listeners can find him and learn more about what he does. Links and Resources: 33rd Company @33rdCompany on Twitter 33rd Company on YouTube @33rdCompanyMN on Facebook Tom Sedlack on LinkedIn LeadSimple Fourandahalf PM Grow Summit NARPM Grace Property Management PropertyBoss Rent ManagerCaliber Seacoast Bank

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! One question many of us struggle with regularly is that of service animals. For example, can a pit bull qualify as an assistance animal even though it may be considered dangerous? Can a twelve-foot python be an emotional support animal? What about a chicken, or a pig? Is it a reasonable accommodation to allow a blind tenant to keep a horse on the property if that is his or her primary mode of transportation? Robert Brown, a local San Antonio attorney licensed here in Texas, joins me on the show today to talk about all this and much more. Before we go any further, let me just take a moment for a quick disclaimer: nothing in this episode should be considered legal advice. But it gives you a starting point for your research and decisions, and conversation points to touch on with your own attorney. If you’ve ever wondered about questions related to reasonable accommodations for disabilities, service or emotional support animals, or how the process of having a claim filed against you works, tune into this episode. Robert is an expert whose services we use, so I can vouch for his ability to provide value-packed, insightful information!   Here’s where you can find Robert: Robert Brown Law Firm Office phone: 210-782-9111   Show Notes [02:51] - Robert introduces himself. He explains what he does and that he specializes in representing landlords. [04:05] - Brad asks Robert to define what a service animal is, then talks about an incident in which he couldn’t get a straight answer. [06:28] - Robert explains that people with service animals may ask for either reasonable accommodation or reasonable modification. He clarifies what the difference is. [08:27] - What scams are Robert seeing from tenants these days, and how can property managers protect themselves from these scams? Robert answers, then talks about how and when to ask for substantiation of a disability. [13:38] - Robert discusses determining whether a request for modification is or is not “reasonable,” offering a colleague’s case as an example. [16:25] - Robert’s suggestion is to have a dialogue about accommodations in writing instead of orally if possible. [18:00] - We hear Robert’s recommendations on how to push back when you suspect someone’s requests might not be reasonable or justified. [21:01] - Robert responds to an example of Brad’s about someone bringing in a giant snake and claiming it’s their emotional support animal. [22:28] - Cats are one of the better emotional support animals, Robert explains. Pot-bellied pigs and chickens are other examples of possible emotional support animals. [26:41] - Robert talks about the steps of having a claim filed against you, and the options for what to do if your tenant files a discrimination lawsuit. [29:50] - What kind of insurance covers these sorts of issues? [32:20] - After a short break, we come back to discuss options for what to do when there’s a case against you. [34:00] - Brad brings up his first-ever fair housing claim, which occurred a few months ago. Robert talks about how he would work through a case and make a response. [39:50] - Is there a no-brainer documentation situation in which Robert would always approve a service animal? [42:15] - Brad jokes that one should never rent to attorneys or realtors. He then brings up a recent case of a new attorney applying and suggesting lease changes. [45:04] - Robert shares a story of his own about applying for a place to live when he was in law school. [47:03] - Robert talks about the ability to post negative reviews, which he explains isn’t the same as defamation. He then talks about how the law in question applies to landlords, tenants, and property managers. [49:45] - What is Robert’s advice for what you should do if you get a bad review online? He and Brad discuss options, and point out that it’s vital to manage your online reviews in today’s world. [56:18] - How can listeners reach Robert?   Links and Resources: Robert Brown Law Firm Robert’s office phone: 210-782-9111 LeadSimple Fourandahalf PM Grow Summit NARPM The Profitable Property Management Podcast with Jordan Muela Property Management Podcast with Alex Osenenko Grace Property Management

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re are also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! Today’s show is also sponsored by Virtually Incredible who provides tenant screening services, call center services, and video production services to property managers. You can visit them at VirtuallyIncredible.com. With hurricane season in full swing, I have a very timely interview for you. Today, I am talking to Pete Neubig and Steven Rozenberg from Empire Industries out of Houston. This interview is golden with lots of lessons learned on how to handle natural disasters. These lessons can apply to any property management company no matter where you are, and what natural disasters you may face. Pete and Steve have both been on the show before and are old veterans when it comes to podcasting and talking about property management. They also feel as a company they have come out stronger. Today, they share how they managed 700 homes in the aftermath of Harvey. They share how they needed to act fast and be strategic with solving multiple problems. Then they share how they broke things down and created actionable items for each team member. They share how they prepared the lines of communication in advance by creating one-way channels that could be used even during the storm and then organized their people into teams and groups to accomplish everything. They also remained helpful to everyone and shared communication through their channels while always remembering to put people first. They share their philosophies and strategic actions along with lessons learned through this catastrophic event. Here’s where you can find Pete and Steve: Empire Industries Steve Rozenberg on LinkedIn Empire Industries on Twitter Empire Industries on Facebook Show Notes [02:31] Pete and Steve kick things off sharing how Houston is still hurting, but Empire as a company has grown through the experience. [04:12] Pete shares how they managed to stay on top of things by having a plan and a great team. [04:57] Empire manages 700 homes in the Houston area. That's 700 families and 700 potential owners. [05:52] Steve shares how taking action and coming up with a strategic plan helped them to respond and break things down into actionable steps. [08:35] They let owners and residents know how to get updates through their portal and Facebook to create a one-way line of communication. [10:20] The first thing they did was make sure everyone on the team was okay, then they took stock of available resources. [11:03] Everyone at the company was assigned an emergency job. They used conferences calls twice a day to create an action plan. They assigned project managers to attend the calls to cut down on communication time. [13:29] They used a spreadsheet to keep track of each property. They walked their vacant units to make sure they were rent ready because of the Houston housing shortage. [16:08] Steve utilized social media for communication. They wanted to let the owners know that their properties were alright. He did a Facebook Live video every day. [17:30] Steve shared all of the information he found out from FEMA and other agencies and then became a one-stop shop for tenants, landlords, and everyone. They combined forces and became a social media point of contact. [19:52] They also created a Hurricane Harvey landing page on their website that answers all kinds of emergency and hurricane questions. [20:54] They also filmed a public service announcement to help people find information and properties. [21:48] Using a voice over IP phone system. These phones aren't down like a flooded landline would be. [23:25] What happens when a home gets flooded out. If the house is uninhabitable, the tenant can break the lease. [24:31] They made a company policy that residents who have lost everything get their security deposit back. [25:06] How property management is a people business at the end of the day. [26:11] Helping tenants by getting repairs done right away. [26:38] Using Facebook groups for communication with owners and tenants. [27:30] Creating expectations to eliminate too many phone calls. [28:29] It's important to create the job roles in advance before emergencies happen. Also, have a list of emergency vendors and contractors. [29:31] Treat people well, value relationships, and be calm, structured and organized. [30:17] Trusting your current vendors instead of onboarding new people who come into town for the disaster. [30:57] They have had about 350 homes that have reported issues. [32:32] They had a vendor who waded through water to light a pilot light and didn't charge for it. They also found a new house for a family that lost everything and they donated things to help the family. [35:12] The best thing a property manager can do for the community is doing their job. [36:28] How Pete ended up adopting a dog with a broken leg. [37:54] They waived late fees this month and think their new leases will make up for lost rent from people who have damaged homes. They have estimated to collect about 90% of rent this month. [40:33] Pete shares a story about a homeowner and a tenant who lost everything. The owner didn't have a lot of compassion and is no longer a client. [42:48] Problems that happen when owners bypass the property managers, and how it's better to worry about people, not property. Links and Resources: Jean Storms Property Management Manual Google Hangouts Uber Conference Facebook Live Google Calendar Citizen Home Solutions NARPM

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! I know a lot of you have been curious about automating lock boxes and the tenant viewing process, so I’ve brought on some experts to talk about the subjects! Joining me today are James Barrett and Calvin Davis from Tenant Turner, a company I use myself and have been very satisfied with. James is the Head of Business Development at Tenant Turner, while Calvin is the Sales Director. In our conversation today, James and Calvin will explain in detail what Tenant Turner does, how it can function in your business by providing solutions for some of the unaccompanied showing techniques you may want to use, and how they can save (and make) you money. If you’re convinced after listening to them, sign up for their services using the promo code “Brad” to get a goodie package! James and Calvin will also talk in depth about providing self-access for prospective tenants, automating some scheduling activities, the nitty gritty of using automated lock boxes for viewings, and much more. This is a value-packed episode that will answer lots of questions and provide insight into the future of tenant showings, so listen in!   Here’s where you can find James and Calvin: tenantturner.com Calvin Davis on LinkedIn James Barrett on LinkedIn @TenantTurner on Twitter   Show Notes [02:24] - James and Calvin start the episode off by introducing themselves. [03:16] - We hear the short version of what Tenant Turner can do for someone, and how it can save time. [03:54] - Brad steps in to share his experiences, trials, and tribulations with various vendors he has worked with. He then mentions how he ended up with Tenant Turner. [06:54] - We learn more about how the Tenant Turner process can work in any market, and that one of the company’s advantages is that it has in-house developers. [08:47] - Brad shares the story of how Tenant Turner worked with him to meet his needs regarding pets. [10:10] - Every market is a little bit different, but there are themes. Some markets that you might expect to be very different are in fact similar. [11:12] - One of the huge benefits of Tenant Turner is repurposing the people you’ve hired, and automating more tasks to let employees accomplish more. [12:36] - Brad spends some time digging into why these sorts of processes can save time and money for property managers. [14:54] - What are some best practices tied into the things that Brad, James, and Calvin have been talking about? As part of the answer, we hear about the leasing line being an integrated component. [16:26] - There are two critical things that help Tenant Turner and VirtuallyinCredible work together so well. [17:15] - We learn about Tenant Turner’s impressive hours, which are a great selling point. [19:19] - James and Calvin have been happy with the advanced marketing platform from FreeRentalSite. [20:25] - We hear about the various ways available to let people into a property. [21:22] - Brad brings up the process involved in a potential tenant viewing a home, and brings up the question of whether to get ID before allowing tenants to self-access the property. [23:33] - Brad offers James and Calvin some feedback from his biggest investor, who mentioned that he would like to see a credit card being charged but refunded to the applicant after they leave feedback. [25:38] - We move onto the next portion of the lifecycle of the leasing process, with the topic of lock-box best practices. [26:23] - Tenant Turner needs to be used as an electronic handshake for a prospective applicant to meet an agent. [28:49] - As a leasing agent, Brad would recommend getting in touch by text, email or phone before driving across town to meet a potential tenant. [30:13] - We return to the topic of lock boxes, and hear James and Calvin’s thoughts on Codebox. [31:52] - Calvin talks about how Tenant Turner and Codebox have worked to build solutions together. [33:01] - Are there any other similar lock box solutions out there? [34:12] - We move onto wireless and Bluetooth options. Brad thinks that this will become increasingly prevalent. He, James, and Calvin then talk about their predictions for when this will become the norm. [36:53] - Do James and Calvin see this changing technology as more of a disruptor or an aide within the industry? [39:57] - Calvin suggests that the best way to get in touch is to go to tenantturner.com. For the promo version, go to www.tenantturner.com/brad! [40:47] - James talks about the benefits of ordering code boxes directly from Tenant Turner.   Links and Resources: tenantturner.com Calvin Davis on LinkedIn James Barrett on LinkedIn @TenantTurner on Twitter LeadSimple Fourandahalf PM Grow Summit Grace Property Management VirtuallyinCredible FreeRentalSite Zillow Trulia Apartments.com Codebox

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket! We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! I have a particularly remarkable guest on the show for you today. Greg Doering is the Regional Vice President for NARPM in the Central Region, which has 10 chapters across more than a dozen states. He’s also the owner and founder of GDAA Property Management, located in the North Austin (specifically Round Rock) area. Since Greg has been a NARPM member for around a decade, he knew the ins and outs of the organization even before he became Regional Vice President. If you’ve listened to this show before, you’ve probably heard about NARPM at least in passing, but this episode is your opportunity to learn about the remarkable organization in depth from this long-time member who has ascended its ranks! Greg will talk about some of the ways to get involved with the leadership of NARPM, including sharing his own story. He also describes the benefits that can come from helping to lead NARPM (which is a volunteer rather than a paid position). Some of these benefits, as he’ll point out, aren’t limited to the organization’s leadership. With that said, we don’t only talk about NARPM. Greg describes what it’s like to work with his brother Jeff, who joined the company recently. We clear up some misconceptions about virtual assistants. Greg describes some of the changes and innovations that he’s seen in the property management industry, and finishes things off with an inspirational message about why change is a good thing.   Here’s where you can find Greg: GDAA Property Management Greg Doering on LinkedIn   Show Notes [02:57] - Greg starts things off by introducing himself and telling listeners a bit about what he does. [03:45] - Brad explains some of the reasons that he invited Greg onto the show. [04:36] - Right now, the biggest challenge that Greg is facing with his company is staffing. He describes some of the specific difficulties. [06:04] - What have Greg’s plans for growth been this year? He answers, then discusses how the company has transitioned into one in which people have specific tasks and roles, instead of doing everything. [09:58] - Greg describes the single most important lesson that he learned during his company’s growth and transition period. [11:01] - Brad takes a moment to make sure listeners understand the acronyms that Greg has been using. [12:24] - What advice would Greg give someone working their way up through the ranks of NARPM? [14:02] - Greg discusses how the auditing system works after you’ve submitted your packet and checklist. [15:59] - What are some of the innovations that Greg has seen, or done himself, in the last six months or so? [17:17] - Brad steps in to clarify some common misconceptions about virtual assistants. [18:47] - Greg discusses the dynamic involved with his brother, Jeff, recently entering the business. [21:12] - The reality of working with his brother is that they still enjoy each other’s company despite seeing each other at work and many weekends, Greg explains. [22:46] - Greg talks us through his ascent through the ranks of NARPM, of which he’s been a member for around a decade. [24:29] - Greg goes into more depth about the process of becoming a regional leader in NARPM. [25:53] - We learn what Greg’s current role in NARPM entails, and how long the term lasts. [27:05] - Greg discusses what he envisions as where he’s going and what he hopes to do by the end of his two-year term. He and Brad then talk about the rapid changes in the industry over the last few years. [30:00] - Last year, Greg had less than 20% of the inventory condition forms returned, he reveals. [31:08] - What are the benefits of being involved in the leadership of NARPM, since it’s a volunteer position? [33:30] - Greg reveals that NARPM’s major events are about to go through some big changes, and offers some insight into the types of changes to expect. [35:35] - The majority of the vendors that Greg uses regularly have all come from the NARPM trade show. [36:14] - The industry is getting ready to change, Greg explains, and he’s excited because change creates opportunity.   Links and Resources: GDAA Property Management Greg Doering on LinkedIn LeadSimple Fourandahalf PM Grow Summit NARPM CRMC RMP NARPM National Conference Broker/Owner Conference Tony Robbins Robert Kiyosaki

Today’s show is sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket!   We’re also sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”!   On the show today, I’m joined by Angela Gonzales and Erin Landis from Moxie Property Management out of Fort Worth (near the Dallas, Texas area). Erin and Angela started the company just a couple years ago, so it’s still in its infancy time-wise, but they’ve already accomplished some remarkable things. As they put it, the company actually operates in dog years!   One of the reasons I wanted to have Angela and Erin on the show is that they’re doing some different things that you might not have seen in other property management companies. They don’t hesitate to think outside the box, as you’ll hear in our conversation today. For example, part of Moxie involves doing consulting work for other companies and helping them manage their properties, meaning that they’re far more than just a strict property management company.   In addition to talking about their consulting services and how they seamlessly blend these with their own property management, Erin and Angela discuss topics such as how they’ve grown their company so quickly, how they got started, why they realized they don’t need a third partner, their roles in NARPM, and the tools they use to stay in communication with each other, their clients, and their tenants.   Here’s where you can find Angela and Erin: Moxie Property Management Angela Gonzales on the Greater Fort Worth Association of REALTORS Angela Gonzales on LinkedIn Angela Gonzales on Facebook Erin Landis on Facebook Erin Landis on LinkedIn Moxie Property Management on Facebook   Show Notes   [02:36] - Erin and Angela start things off by introducing themselves. [03:06] - We hear about how Moxie has grown so large in such a relatively short time, with Angela explaining how she and Erin met and got started.[06:52] - What were some of the challenges that Erin and Angela came upon when they decided to step out and doing everything themselves? [08:06] - Erin is doing some coaching for AppFolio soon, partly because she has been using the software since 2009. Angela then talks about how difficult the business would be to run without Erin on the financial side. [10:03] - Brad shifts to a tangent about something he learned on the NARPM listserv about full-month accounting. He, Angela, and Erin then discuss how this type of accounting works along with its pros and cons. [14:16] - Angela discusses the consulting side of the business. [16:15] - The places we’ve been hearing about are in outlier areas, we learn, with Angela describing what they do as a “if you build it, they will come” scenario. [17:26] - We take a deeper dive into the consultancy side of Moxie, learning what exactly that entails and how that side functions. [19:40] - Angela and Erin use Evernote, we learn. It’s also helpful for communicating with their clients. [20:27] - We hear about the division of labor at Moxie. [22:45] - Part of hiring really great people is that they have ambition above the position they’re hired at. [24:04] - Erin explains more about the details of how their consultancy works, and the ways in which it was like entering into a marriage. [25:51] - Brad dives into the topic of the service items offered by Moxie. We hear about what it takes to add a consulting aspect to your property management business. [27:35] - Erin points out that a big part of what they do is cleaning up old accounting, which is something they could take nationwide. [30:04] - A lot of what Erin does is just auditing what a company has done up until now, she explains. [31:21] - Brad is developing an annual business health report. [34:19] - It’s not so much that good members of NARPM are perfect so much as that many others do lots of things wrong, Brad points out. [35:52] - If Angela and Erin could do everything all over again with Moxie, what would they do differently the second time around? [39:08] - Erin is the treasurer of the greater Fort Worth area NARPM branch, and Angela is working with the organization on the state level. Erin and Angela then discuss work-life balance and the experience of having careers as women. [42:32] - While Angela’s son is a teenager now, Erin’s family is younger. She describes what it’s like to work from home under these circumstances. [44:30] - Brad talks about his “good idea fairy” concept, then shares a cool concept he has recently implemented with listeners. [46:49] - Moxie has been using Rently for almost two years now, and have been finding that it results in better tenants overall. [49:24] - We learn that Brad got rid of his dropbox when he moved to the new office. [50:09] - Erin talks about how one of their older residents (who is over 80 years old) took some extra coaching to make electronic payments instead of dropping off a money order or other paper payment. [52:01] - Brad discusses the role of virtual assistants and how it’s changing in the industry as time goes on. [52:49] - Do Angela and Erin have any other “good idea fairies” that they want to share with the audience? [54:56] - Moxie’s application fees are nonrefundable, but they are transferrable to other properties, we learn. [56:38] - The mortgage industry took in 36% fewer applications for mortgages this year than last year, Brad reveals. This means that more people are going to be renting.   Links and Resources:   Moxie Property Management Angela Gonzales on the Greater Fort Worth Association of REALTORS Angela Gonzales on LinkedIn Angela Gonzales on Facebook Erin Landis on Facebook Erin Landis on LinkedIn Moxie Property Management on Facebook LeadSimple Fourandahalf PM Grow Summit AppFolio NARPM Evernote Basecamp SharePoint Bob Walters Leading Property Managers of Australia Tenant Turner Rently

Today’s show is sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! We’re also sponsored by LeadSimple and Fourandahalf. Together, they’ve come up with one of the best conferences for property managers, called the PM Grow Summit. This event is laser-focused on growth strategies and brings together some remarkable thought leaders from around the country. I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed all around -- and that was just their first year! The next conference will be in San Diego in 2018, and I’ve already booked my spot. Go to pmgrowsummit.com to learn more, and enter promo code “Brad” to get a $100 discount on your ticket!   That description of the upcoming conference is a perfect introduction to today’s two guests, Alex Osenenko and Jordan Muela. Together, they represent the two companies coming together to put on the summit, with Alex coming from Fourandahalf and Jordan coming from Lead Simple.   Of course we’ll talk about the summit in depth, with Alex and Jordan going over some of the remarkable speakers who will be attending, talking about the venue, and explaining why the weather alone should be a persuasive reason to attend!   Before that, though, we talk about many other topics relevant to anyone in the property management industry. We start off with a discussion of LeadSimple and its value for property managers in terms of efficiency, then cover various recent and upcoming trends within the industry. We address fee maximization and discuss the fact that customers are increasingly happy to do their showings themselves. Tune in for all this and much more with these two influencers in the property management world!   Here’s where you can find Alex and Jordan: Alex Osenenko on LinkedIn Alex Osenenko at Fourandahalf Alex Osenenko on Facebook @PMGrowSummit on Twitter Jordan Muela on LinkedIn @ManageMyProperT on Twitter   Show Notes   [02:56] - Alex gives us a quick intro to who he is and what he does. [05:23] - Brad chimes in to tell a quick story about his first attempts to implement LeadSimple, and his return to it later. [06:02] - Jordan tells us about who he is and what he does, explaining that he’s the CEO of LeadSimple. [06:59] - One of the things that Brad likes about LeadSimple is that it prompts you with a list, allowing his staff to work straight off that list every day. [09:36] - We hear a reminder that the consumer has different criteria than we have as experts in the property management industry. We also get advice on what to do once someone requests the analysis that Brad has just been talking about. [12:41] - Brad explains that the part of his website that talks about free market estimates shows the graphic that people are going to get, which improves his capture rate. [15:30] - We learn about how inbound call tracking and texting can function within the process that Brad, Alex, and Jordan have been talking about. [16:52] - Brad shifts us to different trends, bringing up the topic of fee maximization. [18:07] - Alex has been thinking a lot about fee maximization lately, he reveals, and shares his thoughts and perspective on the topic. [19:49] - How does Brad set his pricing? He answers, and then offers a tip to listeners about using a flat-fee, tiered pricing system instead of percentages. [21:33] - Brad steers Alex and Jordan to talk about the conditioning of customer expectations in terms of not needing to talk to anybody and have privacy.[25:33] - Does Brad know offhand how many states what he’s been describing about co-brokering is relevant for? [26:32] - Alex points out that the one-star reviews that every property manager gets are from tenants who never got a showing. [28:00] - Brad admits that a lot of property managers, including himself sometimes, are very hesitant to implement things. [30:38] - You’re often competing against the status quo, Jordan explains. [32:17] - Brad transitions to talking about PM Grow Summit, offering Alex the opportunity to explain why this is such a valuable event and resource for property managers. [36:07] - We hear about Brad’s personal experience at last year’s PM Grow Summit, in terms of both having a great time and making valuable connections with people he still speaks with today. [37:30] - Alex and Jordan spend a huge amount of time vetting and interviewing potential speakers for the summit. [39:06] - We hear more about the personal development aspect of the summit. [41:46] - The venue for the summit is the US Grant Hotel in sunny San Diego, which should be a pleasant relief in terms of temperature in January! [43:40] - We learn about the impressive caliber of speakers who will be present at the summit, with Alex and Jordan listing a few of the most noteworthy speakers and talking about their qualifications and areas of expertise. [53:13] - Where can listeners learn more about the PM Grow Summit? At pmgrowsummit.com for the upcoming event, or at 2017.pmgrowsummit.com for last year’s event.   Links and Resources: Alex Osenenko on LinkedIn Alex Osenenko at Fourandahalf Alex Osenenko on Facebook @PMGrowSummit on Twitter Jordan Muela on LinkedIn @ManageMyProperT on Twitter LeadSimple Fourandahalf PM Grow Summit ShowMojo NARPM Tony Robbins Robert Kiyosaki US Grant Hotel PM Grow Summit 2017

Today’s show is sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! My guest on this episode is the remarkable Dave Borden, who was nice enough to come to town and go over some information on marketing for property managers. He’s so full of information and great advice, though, that we decided to split the episode into two parts! This is part 2 of 2; part 1 aired last week. This part is all about online best practices and industry trends. Dave and I dig deeply into how to do well online. We discuss what kind of domain name is ideal, as well as when you should (and, just as importantly, when you shouldn’t) use redirects to bring customers to your site. We also talk about content, with Dave giving great information on the minimum number of words you should have on certain pages and offering some suggestions for where to get ideas for what to write about. Dave and I then move on to talking about the sometimes complicated relationship between property managers and owners. We discuss ways to handle the question of who’s in charge of deciding when to fix things and how much to spend on them. We also talk quite a bit about pricing models and attracting the right owners. If you haven’t heard about Dave’s own product, Rent Screener. This is an absolutely invaluable tool for property managers, and I highly recommend you try it out if you aren’t already using it! Best of all, Dave is generously offering a 10% discount to listeners of this podcast. Tune in to learn how to get your discount!   Here’s where you can find Dave: Kohva.com David Borden on LinkedIn propertymanagerwebsites.com dave@kohva.com   Show Notes [02:24] - Dave begins by talking about domain names, explaining that many people don’t take certain important things into account when choosing one. [04:31] - We hear some words of caution for people who are already doing well with an existing URL but are considering switching to a new domain. [05:59] - Should you buy multiple other exact match domains and redirect them to your main domain? Dave says no, and explains why. [08:16] - Brad brings up a story that Dave told him yesterday, so Dave recounts the story for the audience. He then draws out the lesson from this to explain how to best appear in search results. [10:08] - Brad talks about diluting your brand, offering an example to illustrate what he means. Dave then offers his own advice on the topic. [12:40] - We learn about windshield time, with Brad explaining how he reduces the need for his employees to drive across town to work for a couple minutes. [14:03] - Dave talks about content, revealing the magic number of words to have on your property management page. [17:12] - Brad suggests becoming a full-disclosure company on your site, then brings up the pricing model that he uses. He and Dave then discuss this before Dave returns to talking about ranking well in Google by having at least 2,500 words of content on their landing page. [21:20] - Every conversation you have with an owner could be a blog post, Dave points out. [22:00] - Brad points out that there’s a larger mindset in society that people want to have all their information upfront, tying this into his pricing system. He and Dave then talk about how your pricing brings in the type of owner you want. [26:16] - Brad’s multiple property owner agreement is a great way to encourage people to buy another investment property Dave then points out that you may also be able to get a commission for helping them to buy this additional home. [29:03] - Dave brings up something he’s seen property managers deal with: the question of who’s in charge (the property manager or the owner). [32:02] - Brad brings up a side story that happened recently, then he and Dave further discuss the issue of making fixes to the property and when to consult the owner first. [35:04] - Dave talks about his tenant screening product, which is called Rent Screener [38:02] - Transunion has made a commitment to the tenant screening industry, Dave explains, then talks more about Transunion’s process and how to use its scores in screening tenants. [40:44] - Brad is now pushing into an unaccompanied vacant home showing situation. Dave then elaborates on what Brad has been saying about this topic, explaining how much time it can save. [45:47] - Dave talks about how to reach him and how to get a 10% discount on anything you order through his company. [47:25] - Dave takes a moment to rave about how great his team is, and to emphasize how much he cares about doing right by his customers.   Links and Resources: Kohva.com David Borden on LinkedIn propertymanagerwebsites.com dave@kohva.com Rent Screener Exact match domain 301 redirect

Today’s show is sponsored by Marc Cunningham of Grace Property Management. Marc has created some amazing products for property management companies, which we can say firsthand as we’ve implemented his systems here. Visit their website and try out their products! To get a 10% discount on any of Marc’s products, use the promo code “Brad”! My guest on this episode is the remarkable Dave Borden, who was nice enough to come to town and go over some information on marketing for property managers. He’s so full of information and great advice, though, that we decided to split the episode into two parts! This is part 1 of 2; part 2 will be available next week. This part is all about the must-haves of online marketing for property managers and property management companies. This is absolutely Dave’s area of expertise, as his company services a thousand management companies nationwide, covering a total of 300,000 to 400,000 units. His skill at what he does is revealed by his company’s strikingly low cancellation rate; they’ve only had 30 companies stop using their services.  In this part of our conversation, Dave spends some time discussing the broad strokes of a successful marketing strategy, including the various steps to take depending on what your goals are. For example, he recommends starting with a great website. If that doesn’t get you where you want to be, you can move on to a social media strategy. If that, too, doesn’t achieve enough success, the next step is a content marketing strategy with videos. As you may have inferred from this, Dave is a proponent of taking a measured approach. This is reflected throughout the conversation in his deliberate, specific insight and advice. In short, if you’re interested in learning how to go about marketing online the right way, tune in to this episode and the one coming next week!   Here’s where you can find Dave: Kohva.com David Borden on LinkedIn   Show Notes [02:24] - Dave introduces himself briefly, explaining why he’s on the show. He then explains what his company does. [05:00] - Brad explains where today’s conversation with Dave stems from. Dave then talks about the first question he asks companies who want to work with him, and talks about the importance of a good website. [08:42] - We learn about the importance of being able to capture a lead in a pay-per-click campaign. Dave then lists a few places where you can create a website for free. [10:42] - Dave lists the three elements that go into SEO: relevance, usage data, and domain authority. [13:09] - Dave returns to the topic of establishing a goal, explaining how this relates to SEO and specifically usage data. [16:09] - Brad takes a moment to dig into what Dave has been saying about video, emphasizing how important (and powerful) a video strategy can be. [17:58] - We learn about using Facebook for marketing purposes as a property management company. This is part of the basic social media strategy that Dave recommends, and he walks listeners through some best practices for using Facebook successfully. [21:56] - Brad draws out what Dave said a moment ago about putting homes on Facebook, and Dave points out that this advice is only good if you’re interactive with it. [23:42] - You can buy likes on Facebook, Dave explains, or boost a post. Brad shares his own experience with doing this. [25:48] - Dave reiterates that he’s here because Brad is the poster child for property management marketing. [26:35] - We hear more about Dave’s advance marketing platform. [28:26] - Brad adds his two cents, recommending the automated rental analysis Dave has been talking about to anyone (except people in his local area!). He explains more about how it works. [30:14] - Dave talks us through the three parts of his process. [33:13] - Brad and Dave talk about the possible discrepancies in automatic estimates, and why these can potentially be good things. [34:34] - We hear the difference in number of properties that Brad signed up last year compared to this year, now that he’s using the product that Dave has been talking about. [37:50] - Dave begins to offer some advice on the marketing strategy with video, then shifts to talking about companies that are successful. He then talks about the automated system in more depth. [40:45] - We come back to the topic of videos, with Brad talking about the advanced marketing platform widget. [41:46] - Dave discusses having a content strategy. [42:36] - Brad offers a thought for videos involving having them automatically transcribed for viewers on Facebook with the sound off. He and Dave then discuss various strategies for videos and marketing. [45:08] - Brad uses a service called Virtually Incredible; he explains here what they do for him. Dave then raves about the company. [48:12] - If someone watches your home listing video all the way through, it gives you a lot of SEO credit for the view. [49:49] - What you need to do depends on your goals and your market, Dave explains. This means your strategy will be very different depending on those two factors.   Links and Resources: Kohva.com David Borden on LinkedIn NARPM Wix GoDaddy Google Plus Fiverr Four and a Half LeadSimple Virtually Incredible Todd Breen