Property Management Success
00:16:42 · Stephen Glover, S2
[00:16:42] S1: Yeah, a couple things. Like I've had people take pay cuts to come work here because they believed in the vision. So I get in and it always returned well in their favor. Like the idea was always, hey, look, this is what I have now, this is what I can offer. But when we get to the stage, if you believe in the vision and you support the company, we will get to the stage. And when that happens, this is what will happen. And it's happened every single time, right? Um, another aspect of that is if you're an owner and you believe that you're the best on the team, why are you proud of that? [00:17:11] S2: Yeah.
00:17:11 · S2, Stephen Glover
[00:17:11] S2: Yeah. [00:17:12] S1: Like what what what are you building? Like that it's something that's never going to be better than you or bigger than you. Like it's just something to me, that is such a backwards way of thinking. Um I would prefer if everyone on my team were smarter than me and could could tell me what to do. And and the thing is, is like I it's just that's just how I operate. I think naturally, like, there's no, I don't need to be the best. It's not an ego thing for me. I'm okay if I'm wrong. I want to listen to my team. I want their feedback. I want them to take ownership. I want them to make decisions. When they make bad decisions, we we talk about what happened. There's no like reduce it from your pay or anything. Like, I want them to keep making decisions, whether it's good or bad, because no decision means that I have to make the decisions. And so I like my team needs to operate. I want to empower them to operate. I'm just so far removed from uh needing to be the best or the most knowledgeable or like stand my ground during anything. Again, like I want to be sure I control the culture, the vision, uh, the values of the company and make sure that stays in alignment with what we wanted to create. And if that's there, the team can put the processes and build the systems and build the company and make the hires or perform the terminations to get the right people in the right seats that are in line with the values and the culture and the vision of the company.
00:18:29 · Tony Cline, S2
[00:18:29] S0: Yeah, perfect. I always say that the business owner owns the vision, where we're going. You know, we're being being really clear about that. I I use it as a filter. People are either going to be excited about where we're going and they're going to get on board and they're going to put their efforts towards it, or they're going to be like, this guy is kooky. He's, you know, he's he's way out there. I'm not, I don't want to be a part of that, which is great. I mean, we want to filter those people out. We don't want to drag them along. We want to get those people out. And so the the vision and where we're going really belongs to the entrepreneur. Then what I call the the rule book, which is, you know, if you and I both bought an NFL team, we would the rules of how you win the game are already predefined. But we didn't do that. We we have property management companies. And so with that, we get to decide what winning looks like at our company. And so those are the policies of what we do and why we do it. And I still think that as the business owner, you belong, you, you own those policies. [00:19:28] S2: Right. [00:19:28] S0: But what you mentioned was the process, the how we go about doing it. That should belong to the team. Here's here's our goals, here's our expectations, here's the requirements. And then as a business owner, get out of the way and and let them put together the process of how to adhere to or uphold those policies.
00:19:28 · Tony Cline, Stephen Glover
[00:19:28] S0: But what you mentioned was the process, the how we go about doing it. That should belong to the team. Here's here's our goals, here's our expectations, here's the requirements. And then as a business owner, get out of the way and and let them put together the process of how to adhere to or uphold those policies. [00:19:46] S1: Yeah, exactly. And as a business owner, we also look out for our team, right? We got to listen to that feedback. Um, we have terminated clients, large clients before based on team's feedback. Um, and we've turned on over 4,000 units. In our growth to 1300, we've turned down over 4,000 units in the past number of years to make sure that these are good relationships to get in business with, good assets to manage, and that our team would be happy and proud of managing them. So you you also are taking a proactive role in your team's success in making those decisions as well.
00:20:20 · Tony Cline
[00:20:20] S0: Take me through that. I wanted to go in a different direction. I wanted I wanted to search uh the conversation we had and and talk about when you got to the point where you had to increase your your revenue in order to be able to make some of these changes because it wasn't a philosophy issue that you had or a methodology, it was a financial issue. So I want to come back to that. But you you mentioned something where um you know you you need to support the team and but you also wanted to grow. And you turned down over 4,000 units on your way to 1,300. Yep. Share with us what that looks like because there are people that are listening to this that would are are drooling over the fact that you even had 4,000 units to turn down. And and so take us through that process of how did you do that? Was it on the front end? Was it the you guys had really strict criteria for the types of properties or the types of owners, or was it a gut feel? Like how did we get to that point where we felt confident that we weren't turning down business, we were turning away properties or owners that weren't true opportunity, because I think that's a key differentiation.
00:21:35 · Stephen Glover
[00:21:35] S1: Yeah, there's the it's this is loaded, like there's there's a lot that goes into this. One clear um one thing that I would like to make clear is we also manage small multifamily. Okay. So when I say 400 units, that might have been a 50 unit property or something like that in that mix too. So it's still a substantial unit count uh that we could have picked up under management, but um it's not just single family homes. I want to be clear about that. We don't manage anything bigger than I think 66 units. So we don't do any like monsters or anything like that. Um, but to be clear, it's not that's not all single family, just to be fair to anyone listening. Um, but it it was uh I stopped counting about a year ago. It was 4,000. Um and and so what what that looked like, it was really um relationship-based. And it would be just during there was no strict criteria. I didn't want to put like too tight of a I I we needed that like human feel to the relationship because we very much are a community-based company. And so the idea was is it a good relationship for us? And so there's some obvious no-go's, like, like, hey, you're not allowed to lease to this ethnicity. Yeah, clearly not happening, right? Um, or other ones that like you go tour the property and there's a tree branch growing through the window, which is a true story, and you're saying, hey, we got to get this branch out of the window, and they'll say, no, we'll do it on renewal. Like, no go. Like, we're not doing that. So some of those are in the mix, but the idea was we had so many people coming to us to manage their property that we turned down 4,000 units. Now, um, we do, we are in a good market. I mean, we're in Richmond. It's not a, it's not a huge market, but it's really good for real estate. It's a good, it's a good, good market. There's some very successful property management companies here that we compete with. Um, but I I think really how this generated was our reputation and our relationships. And so when we started this company, it was we are gonna be different than any other property management company by way of our values, our ethics, our responsiveness, our communication, uh, and prioritizing relationships. And so the word got out pretty quickly that we were extremely responsive. We communicated very well, and we prioritized relationships. We did what we say we were gonna do.