Peter Lohmann's Podcast
00:28:20 · Bri Leichliter
[00:28:20] S0: What we ended up doing was I stayed on from... It's built into my purchase contract that I have to be available for so many months, and that happened to be through at the end of the year. And we were just on joint communication for a lot of things. So when we made the announcement, it's like, hey. I'm not going anywhere for the time being while we transition. And I... If anybody had, you know, issues, I was talking them through that. We were getting on a call with the buyer. You have a joint call, you know, handling situations like that that came up. I will say one of the things that I structured in my contract that made made that make sense is I am still planning on doing brokerage sales. So as I sold my business, I sold the PM division. I could have kept my brokerage open to do to do sales only. I decided to not do that and went to another small brokerage, but just for, like, a rebranding purpose and a variety of other things. But I did, in my sales contract, retain my... Or the purchase of the business. I did negotiate to retain my clients as sales clients for a period of time. So what that allows me to do is I still have a continuous touch point with my... With a lot of my clients that transitioned. Still have that relationship with them. If they are having an issue, they are telling me, and I'm able to direct it to the buyer and say, hey. We have a problem just in case you weren't aware. And then, you know, we're kind of working through that. And I think that has dramatically helped. I think we would have had a lot more people that maybe didn't want to transition. But in terms of people who said, no. I'm not transitioning, we had one. And it wasn't because of the transition, they had some other issues, but one kind of pretty much right away that fell off in December. The transitional units that we had that I I call them transitional units that had properties for sale, we did have, you know, a couple of sales that were already in the works. It had nothing to do with the sale of the PM side. And, really, from people who have off boarded since we closed in October, we had one off board and change managers, and anything else that is off boarded has been because they sold our property. So it's not been a... I'm I'm super unhappy with services, and I'm leaving. So, you know, we're in March. Obviously, things can happen. I don't know.
00:30:56 · Bri Leichliter, Peter Lohmann, S2
But I'm still have great relationships with my clients. And, you know, if there's an issue, we're still... I'm still kind of feeding that over to the buyer. So I think that really depends on how your deal is structured on, you know, how close you wanna stay to it and try to assist with, you know, mitigating that churn. [00:31:18] S1: Today's podcast is sponsored by appgentic.ai. Ever feel like your best people spend half their day just routing calls? It's time to give every caller the service they deserve without interrupting your team's flow. Appgentic.ai can take care of this for you. Let's give them a call. [00:31:31] S2: Thanks for calling RL Property Management. This call is being recorded. This is Alex, your AI receptionist. How can I help you? [00:31:37] S1: Hey, Alex. I have a maintenance emergency. My guest bedroom light fixture isn't working. I need you to send someone ASAP. [00:31:45] S2: I'm sorry you're dealing with that. A light fixture or bulb not working is considered a nonemergency. We can still get this taken care of promptly. Would you like me to take the maintenance request over the phone now, or would you prefer I text you the link so you can submit it through the maintenance portal? [00:32:00] S1: I don't wanna mess with the link. Let's just do it over the phone. [00:32:03] S2: No problem. Can you please describe what's happening with the light fixture, like whether it's flickering, not turning on at all, or if you've noticed any burning smell or sparks?
00:32:03 · S2, Peter Lohmann
[00:32:03] S2: No problem. Can you please describe what's happening with the light fixture, like whether it's flickering, not turning on at all, or if you've noticed any burning smell or sparks? [00:32:11] S1: It just doesn't turn on at all like it was working yesterday. And now when I turn it on, there's no light coming out from it. [00:32:17] S2: Got it. Thank you. So it just stopped working entirely overnight with no flickering smell or sparks. That's helpful to know. Could you please confirm the property address where this issue is happening? [00:32:25] S1: 123 Main Street. [00:32:27] S2: Thank you. So that's 123 Main Street. Correct? [00:32:29] S1: That's correct. [00:32:31] S2: Perfect. I'll note that. Lastly, do you know if this is a ceiling fixture or a lamp plugged into an outlet? [00:32:36] S1: It's a ceiling fixture. [00:32:37] S2: Got it. Thank you. I've logged your maintenance request for the ceiling light fixture not working at 123 Main Street. The maintenance team will review it and schedule service soon. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
00:32:37 · S2, Peter Lohmann
[00:32:37] S2: Got it. Thank you. I've logged your maintenance request for the ceiling light fixture not working at 123 Main Street. The maintenance team will review it and schedule service soon. Is there anything else I can help you with today? [00:32:48] S1: That's all. Thank you. And that's it. Appgentic dot AI's AI receptionist deescalates tense moments and guides callers to resolution while your team focuses on executing. Stop the interruptions and see how it works. Book your demo today at appgentic.ai. Well, that sounds like a great outcome. I've done a couple acquisitions of portfolios and... Locally here in Columbus, and we've experienced pretty high churn when we, you know... For both of those. You know, I'd have to go back and do some analysis to figure out why, but sounds like you had a really good outcome. What made you decide you wanted to sell? I think this is of a high interest to a lot of people is people, you know, we all go through a stressful season or a stressful week, and we just think, you know what? I'm done. This is insane. You know, the employee problems, the owners, the tenants, I'm getting sued. Like, I can't sleep. This isn't... You know, my wife's telling me or my my spouse is telling me that, you know, you're you're... This is crazy. You're stressed out all the time. You're you're not present. And a lot of people have thought, yeah, I should get out. And then some people do and some people don't. So I'm curious from someone who has, what played into this decision?
00:34:02 · Bri Leichliter, Peter Lohmann
[00:34:02] S0: So mine was mostly monetary. Like I said earlier, I knew... I always knew I was gonna sell this thing. So, you know, it wasn't a business that was passed down to me that my family did. I had no, you know, emotional ties in that way where I'm, like, letting go of a legacy. I think that would be extremely difficult to come to that decision. But I was really at the point in the size of my business and the things that I wanted to change that I either needed to hire in that really expensive leadership role, which then I would have to take... You know? I don't have any business debt. I should preface with that. So we ran our business with no debt. We had revolving... Some revolving credit cards for maintenance that we've paid off every week, but outside of that, no business debt. So I'm strictly looking at numbers going, if I had to hire this next hire, which is inevitable I'm gonna have to do if I wanna work my way out of the business, that would cost me x. And I'd either have to go into debt to do it, or I would need to take a pay cut or, you know, lean out my other staff to be able to to do it. Yep. And at that point, I was like, or that is now my sign that maybe I should test the market and see what happens. So my worst case scenario was I hire a leadership position. My best case scenario was I I find a buyer and, you know, I'm doing what I said I was gonna do. [00:35:40] S1: So the pros would call out your BATNA, your best alternative to negotiated agreement, which is [00:35:44] S0: like, hey. [00:35:45] S1: I'll just keep running the business. No big deal.
00:35:45 · Peter Lohmann, Bri Leichliter
[00:35:45] S1: I'll just keep running the business. No big deal. [00:35:47] S0: Yeah. Right. Worst case scenario, I'll keep making money. I mean Yeah. You know? So it was low risk for me. Anyway, I I looked at it. [00:35:56] S1: Okay. Well, yeah, that that makes sense. And I think you came into this pretty clear eyed. And I I I know that about you. You're pretty, you know, rational in how you think things through. And you're like, hey. I I started this business to sell it, and I'm at a point where I'm either going to have to make some major reinvestments into the business and sort of... I think of it as, like, a fork in the road. It's like, you could take the one fork, and it's a long road, and there's not gonna be another rest stop for a 100 miles. Or it's like, this is actually my exit ramp right now. [00:36:30] S0: Right. [00:36:30] S1: And so you made the decision like, hey, now's the right time for me. And in retrospect, I know it's only been a few months, but feels like that was the right decision for you. Any regrets? Or... [00:36:41] S0: No regrets. Okay. No. [00:36:45] S1: Nope. And and the the day to day experience of owning and running this business for you, and this is different for everybody, different for every business, how would you characterize that? Was it fun, easy, hard, stressful, scary? Like, how how did it feel on a day to day basis in, the six months after the sale? Yeah. Before.