Beyond Rent: Exploring Property Management
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.
00:23:12 · Nik Boone, S1
[00:23:12] S2: Yep. Yep. No. Totally agree. [00:23:14] S1: So when you had mentioned earlier that you've built a really strong business there, but, you know, most of your residents, most of your owners are big fans of Ascend and what you're doing, but not everybody. Right? But to really build a business long term and to continue to grow, reputation really is important. How have you viewed reputation in your local market, and how have you maintained that? What are the things that you're doing to ensure that Ascend has a good image, out in in the market?
00:23:47 · Nik Boone
[00:23:47] S2: Yeah. I mean, we invest a lot into, feedback. So not only Google reviews, but like, BBB and, you know, Facebook or all this other stuff. I'm big on like nonprofits. I sit on the Chamber of Commerce Board, Mercy Hospital Board here locally, Rotary and College Foundations, and like, just kind of spread across all of Bakersfield and Kern County. And so just kind of, you know, I'm at the point now where I get to like give my time back or give my, you know, give resources back and kind of help people that either need business advice or just practical advice or financial help or like just all these other things. And so, a few things we're doing is, we're going to have a day where we go and we fix elderly veteran houses, cause we have integrated in house maintenance, and so, our trucks and cars roll up over town. So we're gonna have a day where, you know, we wanna fix their smoke detector or things that they just can't do because they're elderly but is a habitability issue that have no affiliation with Ascend. We sponsor two to five families of tenants every year for Christmas. We do like turkey giveaways and you know, we do all sorts of stuff to help the community that I credit as giving me everything. So it's something that I'm now saying, Hey, they've given me everything, it's time to get back and do that.