Peter Lohmann's Podcast
00:21:42 · Matt Luke, Peter Lohmann
[00:21:42] S1: There is one other tool that they provide that is is very neat and they have a great dashboard as well too to see all of the the details behind the phone calls. They do also escalate emergency maintenance. So if someone calls at 03:00 in the morning with an issue, it will call and text me to let me know. And then on my text, can simply say, this is an emergency, no, it's not, or decline. If I say, it's an emergency, then it's gonna expect me to handle it. If it declines, then it will just put it back into PropertyMeld to handle the next day or at the next time I'm available. Or if I decline it, it will then start reaching out to a phone tree of other vendors. So it's gonna start calling all of those vendors until someone accepts the work order, and then it will go into PropertyMeld and assign that work order to the person who accepts it. It hits the end of the tree in that in... The AI has hit in a Haven, then we'll just start back at the top and then alert me that none of the vendors took the work order. [00:22:47] S0: Okay. So between leasing and maintenance phone calls, I mean, that's gotta be at least half of the incoming calls at a property management company, and these are these are off your plate. And I'm already getting a sense of how you're able to do this with no employees. Of course, LeadSimple being a big part of that as well, and we were early to that also, and it does save a ton of time. Mhmm. Let's explore some of the other areas of the business. How about when a current owner calls in with a question or emails a question?
00:22:47 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:22:47] S0: Okay. So between leasing and maintenance phone calls, I mean, that's gotta be at least half of the incoming calls at a property management company, and these are these are off your plate. And I'm already getting a sense of how you're able to do this with no employees. Of course, LeadSimple being a big part of that as well, and we were early to that also, and it does save a ton of time. Mhmm. Let's explore some of the other areas of the business. How about when a current owner calls in with a question or emails a question? [00:23:18] S1: Mhmm. So I do field those questions. I do have a knowledge base for the owners as well too so that they can access those questions and answers most of them. I also like to respond to those emails the best possible. So I will actually access that knowledge base and then copy and paste the email to the owner. So again, before I answer any question in email, I have zero one off emails basically. I go to the knowledge base, create the answer first, put it in the knowledge base, and then use that as my template to send back to the whoever's emailing me. [00:23:57] S0: And surely, there's an AI right now, maybe fixer.ai is one I've heard of, that could draft these emails for you using your knowledge base, and then you would basically just be able to give it a review and click send. [00:24:09] S1: Yes. So I also have that set up. I use Marblism. [00:24:13] S0: Okay.
00:24:13 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:24:13] S0: Okay. [00:24:13] S1: So it's an AI agent for each individual staff member, so myself. So if I get an email, then it will go into the knowledge base, pull the answer, and then throw that email into a draft email Beautiful. Can send. [00:24:26] S0: Yeah. Oh, so good. So good. Oh, man. I... I'm really excited to get this episode out for people to hear because this is cool. And what I love... Like, you're at a perfect size and age of business to be doing this stuff. So your company is just a few years old. You've got no employees. You've got 360 doors. So you are able to get in and tinker and set stuff up and try things and break things and fix things, and the... Like, you can just move so quickly. And I remember being about that way. Now it's so much harder once you're bigger and you have a big team and you have all these properties and all these clients, and there's all this just legacy stuff and procedures. So I haven't yet cracked the code on how to remain agile the way you're able to be once the company gets bigger, but I love what you're doing. And if I was three years old with 300 doors, I'd be doing the exact same thing. I think it's totally the right way to go. And you're... Happen to be at a really fun moment in the industry where AI is just coming in just... It's like a bull in a China shop to all the old ways of doing things.
00:25:35 · Matt Luke, Peter Lohmann
[00:25:35] S1: Mhmm. I've been exploring more with AI just even in the last month. So another example of how we use it is with Marblism. When I get a phone call to my direct my direct line, I first have that AI receptionist take the call and says, Matt's not available right now, but I'm here to help. What can I do for you? And it will dive into the knowledge base again, try to answer best it can. If it can't answer, then it says, hey, let me get this information and we'll follow-up with an email as soon as possible. So that AI agent then gets that person's email address and then drafts an email off that phone call and puts it in my outbox ready to be sent. [00:26:19] S0: Very cool. I haven't heard of that marbleism. [00:26:21] S1: Mhmm. And, again, I'm sure there's lots of different tools to use, but that just happens to be one I started using. [00:26:28] S0: Got it. Alright. Moving around the rest of the business. Talk to me about accounting, trust accounting, and your corporate accounting. [00:26:36] S1: Mhmm. So another one of the tools that we're using, not every tool is a piece of software. Some of it is outsourced vendors. [00:26:44] S0: Sure. [00:26:44] S1: We use APM help Yep. For accounting. And specifically, I use them for their daily bank recs. [00:26:51] S0: Yeah. We do too.
00:26:51 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:26:51] S0: Yeah. We do too. [00:26:51] S1: So I get... I don't use the full accounting suite, but I do get the daily email if there's any one off deposits or any... Anything that needs some attention so that we can... I can quickly get that changed in the AppFolio. That has been huge. It's a stress relief. So I use them for the daily bank rec, and then I also set up an e... Meeting with them one time a month just to go through the reconciling side of things, make sure everything's looking great. And then we go through the financial diagnostics as well too, just to make sure those are all on point and there's no major issues. So that's how I use APM help. The rest of the steps, I've really boiled down to clicking buttons for the bookkeeping side. So we do some things that, again, may break the mold a little bit, but we don't take any payments other than online. That's the only option. We do use the payslip option through AppFolio. Yep. It's for tenants that wanna pay with a money order or cash that can take it to Walgreens, Walmart. [00:27:52] S0: Yep.
00:27:52 · Peter Lohmann, Matt Luke
[00:27:52] S0: Yep. [00:27:53] S1: And then... So again, I broke down pretty much all the bookkeeping steps into just clicking buttons and checking off the steps as as the progress goes through AppFolio. And so I'm able to not have a bookkeeper on the team because I'm able to click those steps. One other thing that I haven't brought up is that my daughter is a virtual assistant for me. She... And she spends about an hour a day when she's available, when she needs extra spending money at college. So so some of the steps that I I spend an hour or two a day on actually end up to her Mhmm. If she needs some extra money [00:28:33] S0: Got it. At college. [00:28:34] S1: So I let her handle those steps, or I'll do them if she's not available. [00:28:37] S0: That's great. And is APM help doing your corporate accounting as well? [00:28:42] S1: Not the corporate accounting side. So for the corporate accounting, we do use QuickBooks, and I do have a bookkeeping company that handles that. [00:28:51] S0: Okay. Very good. Alright. That makes sense. How about processing rental applications?