Peter Lohmann's Podcast
00:10:11 · Adam Willis, Peter Lohmann
[00:10:11] S0: Yes. And that is that is an... I mean, yes, holistically. The... I mean, the problem is, like, you have... You know, LeadSimple does this incredibly well. You have PMS or point solutions that are doing this and that. And then all of a sudden, you're like, my team is now communicating in four different tools. We run departmental. We're gonna debate that, you know, in January. Mhmm. But, like, they don't wanna use each other's tools. My accounting people don't wanna go into property mail, and my property mail maintenance coordinators don't wanna go into the showings tool. [00:10:45] S1: Mhmm. [00:10:46] S0: And so I'm like, how how do I fix this for my team members? And I need it chronologically because I gotta go to court over it next month. Right? So it's like, I get to build it the way I want, and that's so fun. [00:10:57] S1: That is really fun. That's cool. That... It's great that you have Mark to help with that. Okay. Along the same lines, how about... How are you handling shared inbox slash ticketing? I know that you were a big Help Scout guy or maybe you still are. What is your... How does your current thinking fit into this whole paradigm of, like, do we have people who get assigned to emails? Is Is it a ticketing system? Do you have multiple owners? Do you have multiple inboxes?
00:11:24 · Adam Willis
[00:11:24] S0: Yeah. We're... We have reduced it down to just two inboxes. I think it's for rent to handle the situation where a prospect, an applicant communicates with that inbox. After the lease is signed, they get shifted to support at Nestwell. So that's the prospective tenant to the tenant journey, and then they just are all living inside support@Nestwell.com. Please don't spam it. All of our homeowners, they go from an onboarding at Nestwell. They hang out there for ninety days post property management agreement signed where they're kind of corralled and, you know, VIPs, new owners, and treated as such. After that, they get, you know, put into the the pasture of support at Nestwell, and it's one tool. We did have separate emails for tenants and homeowners through the life cycle. That wasn't working because we're inside HelpScout, and that was the... That's the platform we're currently on is you're switching between two inboxes versus one inbox that category... Or stores the homeowners and tenants' contact information as well as vendors. So we've distilled it down. The way that's managed is we'll receive, I'm gonna say, 300 queries a day. Each department, again, where you departmental, will assign someone who's kind of keeps eyes on that inbox, and they will come in. A lot of it is conditionally logic, shuffled out to the right person or the best person for the job to answer that solution. If it's not, you know, from nine to ten, it's Peter. From ten to eleven, Adam is kinda on call and sending those conversations out to the right parties, And each department has one of those people. Just like we're doing with phone calls, we have a team member who's assigned to manage phone calls from nine to eleven. They live answer, and they get it to the right person who can provide a resolution for the customer.
00:13:15 · Peter Lohmann, Adam Willis
[00:13:15] S1: Okay. Got it. And when your when your team is sending emails through Help Scout, do they sign their name, or do they sign their department, or do they just sign, you know, Nestwell support? [00:13:26] S0: No. It's who they are. I mean, we... We're still humans, and we have liaisons as well that are like, I'm... That person is VIP, and they are assigned to a certain party. Maybe that relationship's tenuous. But, yeah, their signature would just be like a normal email out of Gmail. You know, here's my name, my title, my role. Sometimes it'll show their rank, whether you're an individual contributor leader. [00:13:53] S1: Don't you then have owners who are like, oh, I I wanna talk to Cynthia about this? [00:13:58] S0: Yeah. Cynthia's great. We all love Cynthia. We all make a concerted effort to be more like Cynthia. So so, yeah, you you get that a little bit, but I think the... What the bigger question is, like, how do we create a really fantastic experience like Cynthia has done? [00:14:14] S1: You do it with a pod hybrid structure is is actually how you do that. [00:14:19] S0: I can't wait to.
00:14:20 · Peter Lohmann
[00:14:20] S1: Alright. So for for those who don't know, Adam and I are set to debate this very topic, so we're not gonna get into it today. At the PM Systems Conference in January. Fantastic conference. I've been many years in a row. I'm going back again. So if you wanna catch us debate what's the best org structure for a PM company, departmental, pod, etcetera, we will save all that for then. Today's episode is sponsored by Enterprise Bank and Trust. If you run a property management company, you already know that trust account banking can get complicated fast. Compliance rules, software integrations, vendor payments, it's a slog. That's why many property managers across the country partner with Enterprise Bank and Trust. They build a banking program specifically for our industry. Here's one feature that I think is especially interesting. Instead of paying traditional interest on your trust accounts, which many states actually don't allow, Enterprise offers a competitive earnings credit rate program. In plain English, you earn credits that can be used to offset bank fees and even pay for third party expenses like property management software, bookkeeping services, consulting, Crane, and more. That's a pretty meaningful benefit if you are already paying for those tools, but it's not just about the credits. Enterprise also has a dedicated team that specializes in property management trust accounts. They'll help you open and structure these accounts correctly, stay compliant, and integrate with the software that you're already using. They also offer lending solutions if you need financing for acquisitions, growth, or other opportunities in your business. Bottom line, enterprise understands property management. If you wanna learn more or connect with their team, go to enterprisebank.com/property-management or just click the link in the show notes. Thanks again to Enterprise Bank for sponsoring this week's episode. Okay. Great to get an update on those things. I know we have a bunch of really fun stuff. I wanna I wanna keep going so we get through these topics. Let's talk about real estate brokerage. So I do not operate a real estate brokerage in house. Never have. We refer, you know, refer leads, so to speak, or property owners who wanna buy or sell to some partners that we have referral agreements set up with. Do you have in house brokerage?
00:16:30 · Adam Willis, Peter Lohmann
[00:16:30] S0: Yeah. We always have since 1980. Yep. [00:16:33] S1: Since 1980? How old are you? [00:16:37] S0: I know... Family owned and operated, baby. [00:16:39] S1: I don't know I didn't know that. [00:16:40] S0: I don't know why [00:16:41] S1: I I didn't know that. [00:16:42] S0: Yeah. It's been it's been small. I mean, it it was... Before I took over, it was really, like, 80 doors or a 100 doors or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So so we've always kinda sold real estate. The adages like property management was get on pace. The grand slam was doing a real estate transaction. [00:16:57] S1: Do you still believe that? Do still believe that?
00:16:57 · Peter Lohmann, Adam Willis
[00:16:57] S1: Do you still believe that? Do still believe that? [00:17:01] S0: I mean, we're getting a lot of doubles and triples in property management these days. Right? Like, it is our bread and butter. The revenue and margins are to where we can do a lot of really cool stuff, like be very intentional about building a real estate brokerage. I know some of my best friends and people in masterminds with me have intentionally gone away from real estate brokerages, and I'm leaning into it. We were lucky enough to find a high powered executive that was disenchanted with a huge household name, worldwide brand in the real estate world, and he's like, I wanna come back and make a boutique play and work with, you know, 30 to 50 real estate agents and help them. And so... Yeah. Yeah. We... I... I'm skating towards real estate brokerage to... It's kinda like the hub and spoke. Right? Like, the hub will always be property management, being really great at doing real estate, being really good at doing commercial, or whatever, you know, the hubs are, and just making it a who issue. So we have a really fantastic who that's beating that drum and actively recruiting real estate agents. [00:18:01] S1: Nice. And how many agents are you up to now? [00:18:04] S0: Three full time, and they all do really, really well. I mean, they make a ton of money.