Beyond Rent: Exploring Property Management
00:17:06 · Nik Boone, S1
I gotta learn how to run a business, I gotta learn how to manage a property, I gotta learn how to have employees. Like, had to learn everything, and it was not without the bumps and bruises. [00:17:20] S1: But a lot of times that's the best way to learn. And thanks for, again, for the transparency on that because, again, people talk about the number of units all the time, and you're saying you gotta get over 600 units if you want any bit of margin in your own personal life and margin in the profitability of the business as well. So kind of listening to your story, it was multiple years, like you said, before you started to turn the corner. As you were building that business, how did you look... You mentioned, like, systems. Like, how are you looking at systems and processes and maybe even technology a little bit in those early days? Were you always building for scale so you were ready, or was it an afterthought after you hit 600 plus stores?
00:18:02 · Nik Boone
[00:18:02] S2: No. I was always... My... The only goal I had, it wasn't money, it wasn't, you know, goal was to have the schedule that I wanted and the stress free aspects of running a business. And that was always the goal. I didn't have an employee account, I didn't have a profitability account. At this point, more money doesn't change what I do day to day. I come in here, I love it. Whether we have a great month or a mid month or whatever, it's I'm in here every day doing what I love. I have the best job in the world in my eyes because it's what I get to do and it's what I get to... But I'm not dealing with tenant maintenance issues, I'm not dealing with complaint, you know, I'm not dealing with any of that anymore. All of that's taken care of on the back end and I'm strictly like, you know, PR for the company, marketing, systems, like I'm constantly fixing systems big into AI right now. Like we're integrating, a bunch of AI into a lot of the software that we do and systems that we have. So that's... My full goal right now is just strictly like efficiencies, systems, tracking things, like big into metrics right now, KPIs, stuff like that.
00:19:19 · S1
[00:19:19] S1: Yeah, that's really the fun side where you get to start, tweaking the business and refining the business. I think we would be doing a disservice if we didn't talk about the AI, portion a little bit. Where are you seeing, I guess, the the biggest movement in your business when it comes to AI? Like, where are you plugging in? Is it more on the back end of operations, administration, things like that? Is it resident facing, owner facing?
00:19:46 · Nik Boone
[00:19:46] S2: It is all over. I have people using it to type emails when they're angry and make it nicer. I have people using it for marketing. We have, a full marketing department that that's what they use for, like creating some flyers or badges or... I mean, it and the other thing too is like, I've even used to be fully transparent there's all these metrics that like, you know, private equity people look at. It's not your net income, it's how is your expense ratio versus your current ratio and they look at all this stuff. I have no idea what they're talking about. I'll upload my balance sheet and P and L and say like, Hey, Like, how are we looking compared to other companies? You know, and it'll tell me like, Oh, watch this, look for this, this is a little bit higher. Stuff like that. And it's, I mean, it's decent. Gives me things that I should change that I have no interest You know, it thinks that I have too many people employed, my payroll is too high, but I made the choice to pay people great and hire more so that if it got busy we were fully staffed instead of, you know, people at 90 to 95% capacity all day, every day. And, you know, like that's... It gave me the recommendation, but I said, you know, thanks for that, but I'm not changing it.
00:21:10 · S1
[00:21:10] S1: So AI is not always right, and AI doesn't always understand your goals and your strategies. Like you said, if you're looking to maximize profitability and things like that, you're gonna make totally different decisions compared to someone else. So... And that's not your goal. Right? You've already stated that your goals are a little bit different from that. So, no, I think there's plenty of places for AI to fit and to really be helpful. And... But like you said, the... Its ability to analyze things and bring information into your world that you wouldn't otherwise be aware of. Like you said, you know, some people understand kind of the the financial side and, you know, evaluating a business with expense ratios and things like that. That's not something someone's had experience with. All of a sudden, they can really catch up pretty fast and have a good level of insight, enough insight to know where they sit and get some recommendations.
00:22:04 · Nik Boone, S1
[00:22:04] S2: Yeah. No. That's, you know, for me using it, that's what I use it for. My staff uses it for a totally different thing. I mean, we use it like for basic emails or like we have it writing code for making things faster and easier. And our metrics are like, I'm hammering metrics right now. So if a tenant gives a notice, how long is it taking us to advertise it? How long is the work taking? When are we moving a tenant in? Like, and these are things that we can tell owners too. It's, you know, real number of how long it takes. And so that, to me, it's worth its weight in gold. I'm not just guessing. And then if we see these numbers creeping up, it's like, Hey, we need to... Like, this is a problem. [00:22:45] S1: That's right. Well, and the use of AI and access to data is so much better than it's ever been, right? So those KPIs typically are produced easier. They're accessible. You can update them. In the past, let's be honest, by the time you pulled the data, analyzed the data, put it into whatever spreadsheet that you were using, you were so worn out by the process that you didn't even wanna take any action on the results, and you just kinda moved on to the next fire at that point. [00:23:12] S2: Yep. Yep. No. Totally agree.