Peter Lohmann's Podcast
00:36:45 · Peter Lohmann, Bri Leichliter
[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. [00:37:07] S0: Before I sold. Yeah. I would say... I mean, obviously, I was still on the day to day. So, yes, there's natural stressors there. The other thing that I kinda wanna circle back to that leads to this question, to the answer to this question, is I didn't lose my first client at all from Churn until the end of twenty twenty four. So I had... [00:37:34] S1: Wow.
00:37:35 · Bri Leichliter
[00:37:35] S0: So... Yeah. I know. So then in 2025, I started seeing more natural churn, you know. Welcome to the party. Some people leaving because, yeah, some people leaving because they wanna change management companies. A lot of people selling. A lot of people getting out of the business. So, you know, when I first started thinking about it, it was kind of the slow season. Then things picked up, and you just are in the thick of it, and you're just doing what you need to do to get through it. And I'm a continuous improvement type of person. So, you know, of course, like, every five minutes, I'm thinking, oh, I could I could make x y z change. But the x y z change required me to not be working in the business to be able to execute that change. And so that goes back to, like, the chicken or the egg. Do I get out of it, or do I bring in this person that can take over for me in a lot of ways so I can do, you know, more work on the business? And that's a very real milestone point in any property management company when you're building it. Right? There's a point where you have to stop being the doer and have everybody else be the doer. And then there's a point where you have to not manage those people, and someone else has to start managing those people. So I do think that it was it was stressful only because I was still in the day to day. I wasn't stressed out about the... Like, some normal business stuff that I think a lot of small business owners, maybe not property management company owners, but a lot of small business owners stress about. I wasn't stressed about revenue and cash flow and all those things. I was never stressed about those, but that was largely in part because I had no business debt. So my money coming out every month was... And I'm the... Probably one of the cheapest person, people on the planet.
00:39:26 · Peter Lohmann, Bri Leichliter
[00:39:26] S1: I [00:39:26] S0: think you're aware I think you're aware of that. So, you know, scrutinizing what I'm spending money on and just cutting out the waste continuously, you know, I wasn't stressed from a financial perspective at any given point. So my main stressors, and I think probably what most property management companies experience is your your people. Dealing with people in any regard, whether that's your clients, your... If you're still dealing with tenant BS and lawsuits and all of that, and your staffing. You know, to me, the... I think the people part is the hardest part of the property management business in any small business, really. So that was kind of my biggest stressor. You know, I knew we probably needed to have some more people, but then I was thinking, well, if I'm gonna sell in the next couple of months, I'm not I'm not bringing in head count at this point because I don't know what would happen. So, you know, I was kind of going back and forth mentally with the people part of it for quite a while. And then as part of the sale, and this is something that everybody should think about if you are thinking about selling, you know, the people aspect is a huge one. Does this... Is the buyer taking all of your staff? Are they taking none of your stuff? You know? So that really at at the end of the, you know, tour closing and then, of course, at the transition point, that was a huge stressor for me was having to handle, you know, the people part of it from a staffing perspective and doing it with integrity.
00:41:03 · Peter Lohmann, S2
[00:41:03] S1: Yeah. That... That's certainly a big consideration I know for a lot of PM business owners is the staff. Right? What's gonna happen with my staff? And I think that actually holds up a lot of folks from selling because they're worried Mhmm. About what's gonna happen to the team. Some of the large acquisition groups are sort of infamous for clearing house after a purchase deal. I know there's one or two others that kinda take the opposite position. They're like, no. In fact, if you don't have a great team in place with a great leader, we don't even wanna buy your business because we're not gonna run it. You're gonna continue to run it or your team's gonna continue to run it. So there are different options out there. I want people to be aware of that. But Yeah. I I certainly agree with you that the most stressful part of business, whether it's operations or during a sale, is is the people. How do we deal with [00:41:53] S2: Mhmm. [00:41:53] S1: All of these humans and their families and their careers, and it's a lot of pressure. Mhmm. So what did it feel like, I guess... I mean, your deal was a little different in that you didn't have that, like, one day where you sign the docs, and then an hour later, the big wire hit. Like, that's... Like, everyone wants to know what that feels like. But tell me a little bit about the feelings you experienced when you did sign the closing docs, when that first wire did hit, and just what was that like?
00:41:53 · Peter Lohmann, Bri Leichliter
[00:41:53] S1: All of these humans and their families and their careers, and it's a lot of pressure. Mhmm. So what did it feel like, I guess... I mean, your deal was a little different in that you didn't have that, like, one day where you sign the docs, and then an hour later, the big wire hit. Like, that's... Like, everyone wants to know what that feels like. But tell me a little bit about the feelings you experienced when you did sign the closing docs, when that first wire did hit, and just what was that like? [00:42:23] S0: Yeah. So when I signed the closing docs, I had no, like, immediate relief or anything of of that sort because I knew I still had a ton of work to do. So I was very realistic in my... What my role is going to be and how much work I had ahead of me. So there was no, like, instant relief. I know there was no instant relief. Like, oh, this is worse actually. It did feel worse for [00:42:51] S1: a in charge.
00:42:53 · Bri Leichliter
[00:42:53] S0: I know. It did feel worse for a second. But... Yeah. So I didn't really feel that relief after... So we have really... If you think we had the closing date, then we have the transition date. And then I had to close out books for the year with... We used OJO bookkeeping for our trust accounting. So, you know, transitioning ledgers, making sure we zeroed out everything because our trust account didn't transfer. So it changed to the buyer's trust account, which you should expect to happen. So as as I started... As I really started to see my day to day workload decrease is when I started to feel something different. I would say not until January. My first wire was January 5. And, you know, it is gratifying seeing it hit your account. Right? But also in parallel to that, I also had a serious workload reduction in that same month. And that's really when I felt, like, some relief that I could... As much as I wanted to take time off, I think we all were realistic that that was not going to happen for me. So, you know, I was immediately into the the next thing, and I transitioned my brokerage sales in November. So I closed down my official brokerage after the new buyer take... Took on the property management services. I closed down my brokerage and joined another small brokerage and got my broker's license in Kentucky all in the last two months of last year while we were finishing up the transition. So I had a lot of of stuff in motion anyway. And then all of that was kind of done, and I was in a new normal in January. And that's when I really started to feel some relief and, like, feel like I had time to do things that I wanted to do. And it's it's progressively, you know, continued on that path, and I don't do things I don't wanna do at this point. So that part is nice.