Beyond Rent: Exploring Property Management
00:30:46 · S1, Nik Boone
[00:30:46] S1: Yeah. The grass is not always greener. Right? And and and I love that you changed that approach because I do think that's the right approach. Right? Treat people well all the way through the experience. And and I'm sure a lot of it was just bandwidth. Right? If you're gonna focus efforts, you're gonna focus on the growth side, not on the cancellation side. [00:31:01] S2: Right. [00:31:01] S1: But see that return business, I'm sure, is very encouraging to you and your team as you continue to try to grow and scale that business. And it is... It goes back to that reputation piece and and why all of that's important. But, yeah, people talk about retention a lot in this industry, and and I and I do think a lot of it is tied to just how investment properties work. Because you're absolutely right. You could sit down with somebody and say, you know, you shouldn't sell because it is continuing to grow in value every year, but I'm also bringing you this level of profitability, you know, this cash flow. But at the end of the day, if they if they really wanna cash out or whatever life situation is in front of them, yeah, what are you gonna do about it? So treat them well, wish them, thank them for their business, and and move on to the next one.
00:31:48 · Nik Boone, S1
[00:31:48] S2: Yeah, and part of the retention we try to do is when they exit well, we try to be the next person's property manager. And so we do everything we can to keep, not the client, but keep the building, keep the asset, even if it's, you know, a four unit or a duplex or something. On the smaller scale, we're still like the level of service there. And you're absolutely right, it was a bandwidth thing. It wasn't like, you know, Hey, we don't want to help them because we hate them. It's like we have a current owner that's unhappy and needs a resolution and an outgoing owner that's unhappy and needs a resolution. Our time is going to the current owner, you know? It's where they're out the door, but now we have the enough staff that that's that's changed, and that's all good. So [00:32:33] S1: Yeah. No. That's great. The one thing that we really haven't talked about... We talked about it a little bit, kinda hit on it, was this idea of technology and how it's played a role in your success. It's one of the things I'm more passionate about myself. So help me understand your view on technology. We talked to AI, which I view as part of technology, but it's a little bit different. What are some of the other ways that you've used technology through your history to continue to see growth?
00:33:01 · Nik Boone
[00:33:01] S2: Yeah, we're really big on tech. So day one, we've never done, paper applications. We don't, we really don't print anything. If somebody requests a list of rentals, we direct them to the website. We have a clean, easy website. Like it's all, again going back to the simple, it is all a simple, like, go to this link. Here is everything you could filter by ZIP code, by bedrooms, by... This is going be better than me just handing you a paper list. And so we've always done that. We've always pushed people online. In terms of technology, nothing essentially is printed. Everything we do is, either through like a flow. I know, like, you guys integrate with LeadSimple, so they're they're big into, like, flows and CRNs and, you know, tracking leads that come in. And, we get a lot of like guest cards for, like Zillow and, you know, inquiries. And we have all the whole flows for even that. It's all automated and, and again, it's just top notch. As soon as somebody shows an interest, we're telling them what they need to qualify: Here's a link to our website. Here's more information on the property. Like, it's all pushing out to them instantly. And I think that gives us a really big edge, And we couldn't do it before. We didn't have the bandwidth. We didn't have a full time marketing department. We didn't have, you know, all this stuff. So now, again, we get to keep improving these systems and make these adjustments and changes and even, you know, like deposits, when deposits come in, everything they sign is on an iPad up front. Checking keys out on an iPad, like it's all fully integrated with... If I need to look at anything, I can get on a computer and look at it. I don't need to do that. And even in the early days, I went back to it and I said, we were getting a lot of, you know, missed information or, you know, person up front has all the information up here, which is great, but when that person's out, the system collapses. And so I saw it happen time and time again, and the other thing I said was, If the building burns down, we're not going to have any information. Like, we need to have everything visible, transparent. We can see where they're at in the process, where the whole property is in the process. Everything is fully automated, online, and transparent.
00:35:27 · Nik Boone, S1
And the transparency was the biggest reason for the technology, but big, big advocates for technology. [00:35:34] S1: Yeah. I completely agree. And what, again, maybe a mistake some people make in this industry is they scale through people. And obviously, we need people, but you can't scale through people. You really need the technology piece to really scale. And starting early on when, like you said, you didn't really have a choice. You didn't have the bandwidth. You didn't have the people. So technology had to step in and automate and take care of all the things that normally a person would be doing was really the only way for you to survive. And the fact that you started there, I think, is really one of the main things that have, you know, led to your continued success because you just keep scaling. Right? Keep growing, add people slowly, add technology faster, and, you see a lot of, a lot of success that way in our industry. [00:36:21] S2: Yeah. And I, I've done a few other podcasts and I've had people reach out. And one of the most notable ones, I've said it a few times, hopefully he doesn't watch every podcast I do, they still use pagers to do like maintenance things and calls, I'm like, Step one, change that. Stop faxing anything if you are. Let's get to... Not even 2026, 2010s would be. Know. [00:36:51] S1: That'd nice. Right? I didn't know pagers still existed. I'll be honest. I didn't think that was still a thing. [00:36:56] S2: I know. It's crazy.
00:36:56 · Nik Boone, S1
[00:36:56] S2: I know. It's crazy. [00:36:58] S1: So I guess there's a few people out there still paying the bills on those and keeping those those services alive, but I I did not know that. But but that is a good point. In in our industry, we do see a lot of slow to adopt technology companies because if it wasn't broken, they didn't fix it. But we are at a point now where companies are moving faster and faster because technology is better, AI is coming alongside existing technology, and, the speed of business continues to get faster and faster. [00:37:27] S2: Yeah. And I think the other, benefit I had is I came in super young, even still at 34. Like, I'm not what you would picture as a property manager. You picture an older guy that's been doing it for thirty years, you know, like that's, that's in your head what a property manager is. And so like, they don't change systems. Paper applications have worked for twenty five years. Why am I going to change everything? You know? So it's, I think I had that benefit too where I came in and I was like, No, we're fully automating it. Like, as much as we can, we're doing it. [00:38:02] S1: Yep. [00:38:02] S2: And we've looked at some and some automations were like, No, this needs a human. Like, we need somebody to have eyes on this. And so I do what makes sense and not just automate for the sake of automate.
00:38:02 · Nik Boone, S1
[00:38:02] S2: And we've looked at some and some automations were like, No, this needs a human. Like, we need somebody to have eyes on this. And so I do what makes sense and not just automate for the sake of automate. [00:38:14] S1: Yeah. A term I keep hearing over and over again is technology is great, but you need a human in the loop is this new new concept. Let AI do its thing, but you have to have a human touching things and monitoring things to make sure things don't go too far off the rails in in any one direction or the other. So... Well, Nik, as we kinda turn the corner on the end of the the episode here, any last thoughts on advice for scaling, growing a business, being successful? And then I also want to make sure I give you an opportunity to talk more about Ascend and how people can reach out and learn more about what you're up to.