Unfiltered by PropertyManagement.com
00:00:00 · Thomas Perfect, Dylan Scroggins
[00:00:00] S0: What can I do today to make sure that my business is still healthy in three to five years? Right? And it's the people who are like, I should get on that AI train. I should get on that SEO train. I should start my blogs. I should do these things. Well, you just gotta start putting one one foot in front of the other, and you just gotta start doing it. [00:00:31] S1: Welcome to Unfiltered, the official podcast of propertymanagement.com. I'm your host, Dylan Scroggins. Joined from the West Coast, mister Tommy Perfect, CEO, Uplift PropertyManagement out of San Diego, California. Tommy, how are [00:00:46] S0: you? I'm super super good. Happy to be on here with you and chat some property management stuff. [00:00:52] S1: Always. Always. Well, it was great meeting you even if in passing it, a New Orleans broker owner. Have you recovered from the muggy humid air of the Gulf Coast? [00:01:03] S0: I mean, New Orleans was definitely a different experience. But, I feel like every time I leave San Diego, I gotta I gotta recover when I'm back here and and back to the the normal bliss that we live in here in San Diego. [00:01:15] S1: Yeah. Was that your first time to New Orleans? [00:01:18] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It was. It was it was a total different vibe than what I'm used to. [00:01:23] S1: Yeah. Yeah. What did you think of New Orleans? Because San Diego is, like, a very clean version of New Orleans. Like, they're at the same latitude level, but New Orleans is a totally different place. What what were your thoughts?
00:01:23 · Dylan Scroggins, Thomas Perfect
[00:01:23] S1: Yeah. Yeah. What did you think of New Orleans? Because San Diego is, like, a very clean version of New Orleans. Like, they're at the same latitude level, but New Orleans is a totally different place. What what were your thoughts? [00:01:35] S0: Yeah. I mean, definitely humidity is a lot more there, but, it was just, you know, it was pretty lively. You know, San Diego, if you're not, like, downtown at the gas lamp, it's just kinda a quiet quiet place, which is is beautiful to me. But, yeah, it seemed like everybody felt the rhythm and, you know, it was just a whole cultural experience there in in New Orleans. I loved that aspect of it. [00:01:59] S1: Yeah. It's an interesting place. I grew up about two, two and a half hours from there. So I was a saints fan growing up when they were terrible. But, yeah, it is a... I love talking to people when it's their first time because, like, the food, the culture, the smell, like, everything is different down [00:02:14] S0: there. Yeah. Were you able to go to that Superdome party that we hosted? [00:02:18] S1: Yeah. It was awesome. Gotcha. [00:02:19] S0: Can you feel well on the on the on the field there? [00:02:22] S1: I should have, but I was wearing my boots, and I kinda just, like, missed the window to do it. But, yeah, I I missed out. Brutal. [00:02:29] S0: Brutal. Brutal.
00:02:29 · Thomas Perfect, Dylan Scroggins
[00:02:29] S0: Brutal. Brutal. [00:02:30] S1: Well, I'm not gonna press you on this, but you are also the Chairman of Broker Owner twenty twenty seven. We are not gonna do any news drops here, but it'll be really fun to hear some of your insight later in the conversation about the industry as a whole. But I really wanna start with Uplift, right? So give us a quick intro for those who are coming in fresh, who have never, you know, been out to Cali or never met you. Give us a quick intro of just how you got started in PM and then just a quick snapshot of the current size and state of Uplift PropertyManagement.
00:03:05 · Thomas Perfect, Dylan Scroggins
[00:03:05] S0: Yeah. So I kinda got started at the, entry level rank in property management. A now business partner hired me on back early twenty fifteen, a little over eleven years ago now. And I was doing all of the maintenance, triage and coordination and all of the bookkeeping and accounting for both the corporate books and the, the trust accounting, all that through AppFolio. And we had about 75 units under management. Then we had this other old lady doing our leasing stuff for us and that was about it. We were working in this little trailer. It was like repurposed, Sheriff's Substation that my boss at that point had purchased, and it was just this rinky dank little office that we had had thrown together. Fast forward, I, you know, now we have over over a thousand units under management and we just keep growing. I own half the company and and operate all of that as the CEO, and it's been a whirlwind ride of, you know, really delegating and elevating to the max. You know? I started out as that maintenance coordinator role. And, essentially, we built the company, everything got built underneath me. [00:04:13] S1: We're gonna camp out here for a little bit. I'm super intrigued. So you said that was 2015 when you joined the trailer and started building. Right? [00:04:21] S0: Yep. [00:04:22] S1: What was the door count when you came on? [00:04:24] S0: About 75 units.
00:04:24 · Thomas Perfect, Dylan Scroggins
[00:04:24] S0: About 75 units. [00:04:25] S1: Alright. So I'm doing some math here. About ten years, little ten plus years, seventy five to a thousand, basically join as a little bit of everything, wearing a lot of hats, and now, you know, national kind of influence with NARPM. That's a really cool story. Right? So at seventy five Doors, walk us through... What I'm getting at is I really wanna hear that story from hire to When you joined, did you know anything about property management? How did you get recruited or hired? What was the connection to even get in the door? [00:04:56] S0: Yeah. So I I mean, really, I got offered this job because I was trying to get out on the church basketball email list, And I'm [00:05:03] S1: a hook. Tell me more.
00:05:03 · Dylan Scroggins, Thomas Perfect
[00:05:03] S1: a hook. Tell me more. [00:05:05] S0: I'm six three, but I cannot shoot a basket. I'll probably make it with my feet better. Definitely a soccer player as opposed to a basketball player. But, yeah, I was working at Chase Bank. I had been home from my... I'd served a two year church mission in Bogota, Colombia. And this this guy from church was sent out this basketball email list about playing some church ball. And I just didn't wanna be on the list anymore. And I was like, hey, can I get off of it? And he actually said, Tommy, I actually wanna reach out to you. I have this job opportunity. And at that point, I was, you know, nine months home from my mission. I was gonna get married in about three months after that. And I was working for Chase Bank, and I was only getting, like, thirty hours a week as a teller. And he, you know, he's like, okay. Well, I'll I'll get this $13 an hour position in a little trailer for this little startup, and we'll we'll see how it goes. And, the whole goal was... When I was hired was let's build an empire together, and let's let's let's do this. So he knew who I was based on some of the commitments that I've made in my life, you know, with with church and some hardships through there and whatnot. He he saw that he could trust me and. I definitely feel like I fulfilled that trust.