Property Management Success
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.
00:23:49 · Stephen Glover
And I was willing to lose money on any mistake that we made and consider it tuition. I took ownership every time we made a mistake, it never cost the landlord anything. We still have that as a principle today, is we take ownership of everything that we do and we make it right before we make any excuses. And so that word got out and we started developing relationships in real estate. Then other investors started talking about us, then referral partners started talking about us, and then brokers and agents wanted us to work with their clients so they could buy more properties. And so it started bit like a complete like it took about eight months, 10 months, but it was like an avalanche of leads just came over the following years from that. And so uh you you hear it called like the word of mouth flywheel. We were we'd never done advertising or marketing or anything outside of a website, and so this flywheel was spinning so fast that we could be very selective about what we wanted to take. And in being selective, we literally would get phone calls and messages and emails and whatever to say, hey Stephen, I know you're very selective about what you pick up. I have these eight single-family houses. They might not be in good enough condition for your team. Are you willing to look at them? And if so, I would like to come to you for management. So they were not vetting now, not everyone, but a large amount of people were not vetting Peak. They already wanted Peak. They were wondering if Peak would accept them and their properties. And so we had that going for a number of years. And then once you hit around a thousand units, it's you need to feed the team, you can relax a little bit, but we still maintain a very high uh standard of relationship that we take under management, and our team appreciates that.
00:25:32 · Tony Cline
[00:25:32] S0: You mentioned that you you have a very quick response, you're very responsive, you take accountability. As you grow, I understand on the on the business development side, bringing doors in, that it can be it can be easy to sort of describe what you're gonna work with, what kind of properties you're gonna work with, what types of owners. But then once they're inside the company, once they've become a client, we have to teach everybody on the operations side that this is our level of responsiveness, this is how we communicate, this is where we take accountability. How did you grow with with you you've got team members and you mentioned over 40, I think you said 42, 43? Somewhere in there. Um if if you are at that size, how are you communicating your standards, your vision, your your policies? Like what does it look like to be able to get an entire team like that? And you mentioned you want to have them be more autonomous to be able to make those decisions. So you know, I always look at when I hire somebody, I want them to have the the authority to own the outcome. So the ownership of the outcome, the authority to make the decisions, and the autonomy to operate in absence of waiting for somebody else. At your size, that is that has got to be something that you've either lucked into, cultured into, trained into. How did you get to the point where people on the operation side are upholding the standards and the expectations that we set when we bring people through the sales process?
00:27:11 · Stephen Glover
[00:27:11] S1: Yeah, I I would say there's a lot of luck in what's happened with this company. Uh, tons of luck, but this is not one of them. You don't get lucky with good culture, you don't get lucky with good hires. Um, that is extremely intentional. Um, and it is something that you work on every single day. Every interaction that you have with an employee, you're either gaining relationship capital and leadership capital with them, or you're losing it. Whether you're saying good morning or, you know, good afternoon, or hope you had a good day, or just talking about their family or their, you know, something that they're dealing with, you as a business owner, you're either gaining relationship capital or you're losing it. You're either gaining leadership capital or losing it. And so every single interaction, you better be gaining relationship capital and gaining leadership capital. And if you could do that, people will want to work with you and want to be a part of your team. And if people want to be a part of your team, they're gonna be part of the culture and part of the values that you uphold. Now, as far as like getting that information across the whole team constantly, we obviously have like quarterly team meetings, we have weekly team meetings, we have we have meetings embedded where this is described and this is applauded and examples are called out and things like that. Um we have or 4.8 on Google with 1300, 1400 reviews. Um, and so we uh call those out frequently and reward that five-star service. We have KPIs that we monitor weekly that are self-reported by the individual that show that we're less than two hours response time or less than two hours to a solution via email across the company, company wide on our email systems, um, and then our our phone answer rates and everything like that. And so it's a it's a number of different things. It's a lot of uh acknowledgement, it's a lot of um encouragement, it's a lot of empowering the team and giving them, making sure you can hire enough people to be responsive. Because if you if you're understaffed, you can't get mad at your team for not being responsive. So there's a lot of things that you can do as a leader to make this. We have core value signs about responsiveness and communication uh all over the office. We have it in meeting um agendas and things like that. It is, it's everywhere.
00:29:25 · Stephen Glover
And so the company knows that we do not um, we are very forgiving uh and we pay a lot of tuition uh when we need to, and we're okay with that because it makes us stronger and helps us grow. But we're not forgiving when it comes to uh not following our core values, which are immediate responsiveness, top-notch communication, prioritizing relationships, and owning the outcome.
00:29:47 · Tony Cline
[00:29:47] S0: I truly believe that most people will rise or fall to your level of expectation. And so if you have high expectations, most people, given the opportunity, will rise to those. And the ones that can't, you you're able to screen them out because you do have those high expectations. One of the things that we talk about a lot in my company and with the companies that I coach is the that championship mindset, the championship formula. And we we often say, would this happen or would this be tolerated on a championship team? And if the answer is no, then it shouldn't happen here, it shouldn't be tolerated here. And by having those high standards, not everybody is going to be able to meet those. But it's it's necessary to find out which ones can and which ones can't so that you can help train up the ones that can so that they can meet our expectations and so that we can help move the people who can't meet those expectations off. Because I've seen companies where somebody will be in a position for longer than they should have been and they are not performing. And when the business owner finally makes the decision to make a change, help that person move on and find another opportunity, the rest of the team comes and says thank you. And and what we've realized is that when if you have ten people on your team and one of them is not performing, you can't be thinking about, oh geez, I can't I can't fire that person because they have this responsibility, or it's too close to Christmas, or I'm gonna give them another shot. You can't look at the one, you have to look at the other nine. And the other nine are looking to see are you holding those standards that you've set? And if you're not, then eventually they're going to stop performing and achieving those high standards because again, people will rise or fall to your level of expectation, and they know even though you set those ex standards, you're not expected to hit them.