July 21, 2021 • 36 mins
In this week's awesome episode we welcome back Justin Ellis from Wolfnest Property Management. Long-time listeners of the podcast will be familiar with Justin and he comes back to give an update on his massive Podio Property Management system and how it is working within his company.
If you're in Property Management this is a must-listen episode as Justin takes us through some of the core Property Management processes that are now being Supercharged (!) by Podio. But even if you're not in Property Management it's a great example of how processes can be implemented and automated, tracked and verified within Podio.
We also talk about some of the unexpected benefits that Justin and Wolfnest get from Podio and how, now that his team is starting to really fly inside the platform, they are all coming up with new ideas of how Podio can do an even greater job at saving them time (and money).
Show Links:
Check out Wolfnest Property Management: https://wolfnest.com/
View this podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAcABkWXopg
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Narrator (00:00):
Welcome to powered by podio automation is everything.
supercharge your business withpodio. Get ready for another
episode of supercharged withJordan Samuel Fleming, your
weekly dive into the awesomeimpact workflow and automation
you can have on your businesswhen it's powered by podio. Join
(00:22):
us each week as we learn fromthe top podio partners in the
world as we investigate systemintegrations and add ons and
hear from real business ownerswho have implemented podio into
their business. Now, join yourhost Jordan Samuel Fleming, CEO
of game changers for this week'sepisode.
Jordan Fleming (00:44):
Hey, everybody, its Jordan Samuel Fleming
Chairman, not CEO anymore, thathonour has gone to my great
friend aircraft, but chairman ofgame changers and host of
supercharge. This week, I amfantastically glad to be joined
by a returning champion, JustinEllis from wolf nest property
(01:07):
management now, you'll seeJustin on the podcast a couple
times. And one of the reasons isthey've got such an involved
large system that we've beenworking with them on for years
and years and years. And thispodcast really focuses now that
it's up running and they'reusing it in their business, it
looks at some of the keyproperty management processes
that every property managementcompany has to go through. And
(01:29):
how the new podio ecosystem hasreally engaged with the company
has done a massive job atdistilling everything into one
system and saved an enormousamount of time, it's a really
fun conversation around theactual kind of where the rubber
meets the road of how a goodpodio system and how, you know,
(01:51):
a flexible podio system can comeinto a very process based
business, and really change thegame for the business in every
little way. fun conversationwith Justin, it always is. And
it's great to listen to thedifferent kinds of impacts, it
maybe weren't always as expectedas some of the others, you know,
(02:12):
we design systems, sometimesthinking, well, it's gonna do
this, and it's gonna have animpact here. And there are
always these sort of collateralimpacts that we get as well. And
it's really fun to hear aboutthem. Of course, Justin also,
you know, as a smartphonecustomer compared to his ring
central account, he saved a lotof money, and it's fully
(02:33):
integrated to a CRM, and wetalked a bit about that. But
really, if you're in propertymanagement, or if your business
is heavily processed, driven,this is a really great episode
to find out a bit about theawesome impacts pull you can
really have when you start torun those processes, and have
the system drive these thingsand bring data together. So have
(02:56):
a listen to Justin, I catch himback up on how his new system is
really, really, really takinghold in the company. Let's have
a listen. And All right, soyou're a returning champion. To
the podcast, you're returningchampion. So in terms of where
(03:20):
we are now we've you're in yoursystem, you're in your system,
you're using your system, you'regetting things moving, moving,
moving. What is the next, likeour discussion now I wanted to
focus on a couple things, maybeprocesses that you're having,
too on property management, andhow your new podio system is
(03:43):
affecting them? What sort ofthings insights can you give us?
Justin Ellis (03:47):
Absolutely, yeah.
So I mean, as far as where we'reat, we are officially using the
system, we have transitionedover a majority of our
operations to it. There's stilla few kind of smaller pieces
that we're still rolling out.
But by and large, our main ourmain operations are running
inside the system. And so we areincredibly excited about that.
(04:09):
And the efficiencies that we'vegained in kind of converting
from what we were doing, whichwas kind of, you know, multiple
different platforms kind ofpiecemeal together so that we
could kind of have a cohesiveprocess. And now over to podio,
where everything just kind offlows. I mean, we're gaining, I
mean lots of employee timesbeing saved. We like tasks are
(04:32):
basically getting completed.
from a management perspective,were able to make sure that
things were done in boxes werechecked. So it's been a
fantastic process so far, andhonestly, I think one of them
that just kind of jumps out tome off the top of my head is the
rental application process. Soessentially, from the time when
someone submits an applicationuntil when they're fully into
(04:53):
the system and attendant, that'sprobably been one of the biggest
ones.
Jordan Fleming (04:58):
So where it's a lot faster Seven wants to move
into one of your properties.
Now, my understanding theproperty magic market matching
sort of industry, the workflowsare relatively advanced compared
to anyone who's not in theindustry, but it's nothing
compared to yours. But that isquite, there's a lot of steps.
And there's a lot of things thathappened. What was like, What
(05:19):
did were you doing before? Andwhat is the real change as it is
now, because I think that's agood example of a real life,
because that is a process everyproperty management company is
gonna do, and they're probablyall gonna hate.
Justin Ellis (05:34):
You're absolutely right. I mean, you actually
nailed it on the head by saying,there's just a lot of steps to
it. And what we were doingbefore is, all of those steps
were wrapped up in differentsystems, different software's
things like that. So just tokind of give you an example,
before a prospective tenantwould basically go to our
website, they could find theavailable listings there, we use
(05:57):
something called show Mojo. Sothat would essentially kind of
handle the showing process. Now,we still use show Mojo. But once
they get to the point where theyare submitting a rental
application, they would go toour website, they would do that
online. So a lot of themanagement software's have a
native rental applicationworkflow in there, we weren't
(06:18):
using it for cost reasons. So wehad a separate third party
company. So they would submittheir application that would
come in, we would then have totake that information and put it
manually into property where andthen we could kind of get the
the actual workflow started inthere, then we were essentially
using a combination of differentkind of CRM systems to do the
(06:41):
automated follow up on thatperson if they weren't kind of
moving to the next step in theprocess. But basically, it was
all managed, you know, verymanually, very labour intensive,
sure, we had email templates andthings like that. But by and
large, they were having to kindof craft large sections of each
one of those emails before theycould send it out. So that
(07:01):
process was happening, then atthe time, we're ready to send
the lease, we were usingDocuSign. For that, you know,
solid process works well, butthat would go out, we would get
that sign would come back in, wewould then have to create a
ticket inside our system to sendover to accounting to kind of do
all the processing, we wouldhave to create another ticket
that would go to a differentteam that would kind of process
(07:24):
the move in as far as makingsure the property was ready. And
all of our, you know, eyes weredotted, and T's were crossed.
And that whole process as youcan see, that's multiple
different teams, you know, partof that is because we are
departmentalized rather than aportfolio structure. But you
have a lot of different movingpieces in a lot of different
areas. And they were allcontrolled by a human being
(07:44):
right who human beings makemistakes, they could say, Oops,
I forgot to send that over oryou know, there's just too many
areas where something could slipthrough the cracks. And so now
what we have is we use that sameapplication portal where they
essentially come in but thedifferences is now in the email
(08:04):
actually gets scraped and it'sactually puts it directly into
podio. And once it's in thepodio app, we can simply select
the status for what's going onit sends out the correct
information at the correct time.
Once they have provided all theinformation then we send the
payment information for them tosubmit the the actual security
deposit then once that's done,we go through the approval
process which creates a lot oftasks for my team to perform.
(08:26):
But again all of its managed inone place we can see basically
you know where each and everyapplication is at the minute one
application gets approvedautomatically basically notifies
all the other applicants thatthat property is no longer
available that was a highlymanual process for my team
before and once we have thatapproved applicant then the
(08:47):
system automatically generates aright signature document which
is you know very similar to thethe actual DocuSign lease that
goes out it sends it out themoment that document is signed
the system automatically createsitems and apps for accounting
and for move in and then basedon you know various tasks
getting completed it will movethrough those stages
automatically so now my teamdoesn't have to manage the
(09:10):
workflow right they just performthe tasks the system manages the
workflow and pushes everythingon to the next area. So as far
as efficiency gains, I mean wehave saved hours and hours of
you know labour just in that oneprocess alone by kind of
streamlining
Jordan Fleming (09:27):
well and in your busy period because I bet like
you almost every propertymanagement company I know has a
busy period and some of themhave different busy periods and
others like you know heavyUniversity towns or college
towns will have certain busyperiods versus others maybe but
when you guys go to a massivebusy period, which I know you
(09:47):
guys do, then you might likejust like ballpark me ballpark.
Um, how many applications wouldyou have to process When the
shit hits the fan, and you guysare cooking with gas.
Justin Ellis (10:05):
Absolutely. So we're actually in that season
now, right? For us, that isalways spring and summer. So I'm
blessed
Jordan Fleming (10:11):
to have you here because you're
Justin Ellis (10:12):
exactly. That's the time when everybody wants to
move. And so because of that,you know, we do kind of
structure our leases to end inthat window, well, that creates
high volume during a very shortperiod of time. So we may have
100 properties on the market,and we may be getting 30 to 60
rental applications a day thatare basically coming in on
(10:33):
those. And so before, I mean, wehad a team a are leasing
manager, and to full time VA iswho would basically be
processing those rentalapplications before. Now with
them automatically importing inand basically click click, click
for all the next steps to goout. I mean, we're probably
saving about 45 minutes ofprocessing time per rental
(10:54):
application that comes in, andnow we've got one person
handling it, and they've alsotaken on additional
responsibilities, because theyjust simply, you know, it's not
taking up their full calendar oftime.
Jordan Fleming (11:05):
That's unbelievable. Yeah, that's,
that's, that's not that's,that's unbelievable, and what,
uh, and you also you mentioned,you know, like, part of the
property management process thatfrom when I've been involved
with it, and I've been involvedrelatively, you know, with
(11:27):
relative depth is the processesare almost always Hurry up and
wait processes, where you It'snever a linear process, not many
businesses just have an easylinear fucking process that just
doesn't interrupt and goes fromA to Zed and no problems. But
But property management isacutely, it seems to be one,
(11:48):
which is acutely affected byprocesses that get to points and
then pause, because somethingneat, like a tenant needs to
give a deposit or, you know, thedeposit needs to be paid, or the
landlord needs to do this orthat, you know, and this is a
really disjointed kind ofprocess, where you are, how have
you had to balance automationwith manual process in a system?
(12:14):
Because you can't 100% automatethings?
Justin Ellis (12:17):
You can't you right? And to be perfectly
honest, nor would you want toautomate every single thing you
do. I mean, you definitely wantto automate as much as you can.
But there is a certain momentwhere a personal touch can make
a huge difference in a process.
So is it to kind of answer yourquestion. I mean, me personally,
the big thing on it is prettymuch every process does run
(12:38):
fairly linear, as far as youknow, step one, step two, step
three, but where you have a lotof issues is you're right, there
are a lot of touch points wherea manual person needs to step
in, is did this person meet yourrental application criteria? Yes
or no? And a lot of those typesof situations create variables.
So say, for example, on on thatissue right there, right? You
(12:59):
have a person who applies, andmaybe they're declined, or maybe
they are approved, but they havea credit issue, maybe they have
a different issue, maybe it's akind of financial issue. And so
we would remedy these situationsin different ways, right. So for
example, use case number one, ifmaybe it's a credit issue, we
(13:21):
would usually look to add acosigner as well, if it is a
money issue, we would usuallylook to do a larger security
deposit. And so in thesesituations, podio has allowed us
to basically do a one click toaccount for each one of those
variables, they come in, theyget to a certain stage, do they
go down path a do they go downpath B. And so one of the things
my team's done a really good jobof over over the last couple of
(13:44):
years is identifying what thosevariables are and what should
happen in that situation. Sothat when each application
reaches that point, you justsend them down the right path.
Jordan Fleming (13:56):
Nice, I thought it's a really, that's a really
interesting process. And one, Imean, particularly when you're
talking about the scale of 100properties with 30 applications
coming in a day, not just onthat property, maybe but I mean,
you know, you when you'retalking about that many
applications, the volume youguys have to deal with is
(14:19):
insane. And I guess I'm justcuriosity for that process. In
particular, what would you say?
Would it be the workflowautomation that podio is doing?
Or the fact that everything's inone system? Which is the or is
that basically like which kids
Justin Ellis (14:38):
ask me to pick my favourite child, right? Like, it
just doesn't work that way. Imean, each one of them is a
beautiful part of it. You know,I mean, the ability to automate
things and you know, seamlesslymove it from one stage to the
next is extremely important. ButI think what almost is equally
as important, if not more, isthe fact that my team doesn't
(15:01):
have to bounce around, you know,we don't have to do one thing
over here, you know, before itwas just an endless series of
workarounds, right? Oh, we'vegot to do this. But this system
has this limitation. So we'vegot to make this adjustment. And
I felt like half of our workflowwas compensating for the fact
that, you know, systems didn'ttalk to each other, or, you
(15:21):
know, certain software's had hadkind of various limitations. And
so I don't think I can pick afavourite between the two. I
think, you know, when kind ofpaired up together, that's what
makes the whole thing home.
Jordan Fleming (15:33):
Stop. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just going to
interrupt this amazing podcastfor a couple of seconds. I know
if you're a regular listener.
You've heard me talk about thegame changers supercharged
masterclass series, and I'vealready had a number of people
give their details in with theform and contact me saying when
can we get involved? Well, lifehas happened, moving house, lots
(15:54):
of things going on. And althoughI promised to get up the first
modules in June, it is going tobe the end of July now July
2021. But I am super excitedabout it. This absolutely free
masterclass series is going togo through a bunch of great
modules, the fundamentals ofpodio, the fundamentals of great
(16:14):
podio design, great ways ofusing globey flow and extending
podio. It is distillation ofusing use of my team, myself
included, of designing podio.
It's our attempt at bringingtogether some best in class
principles of pod design. It'sreally an exciting proposition.
(16:38):
I can't wait to launch it, it iscoming soon. Go over to www.we
are game changers.com. Go to themaster class sending your
details we'll let you know assoon as the first modules were
up. I guarantee the firstmodules are going up and to July
2021. Now, back to this awesomepodcast. No, that that is very,
(16:59):
very, very fair. Okay, you know,you said you had another one or
you had another element that wasinteresting. What's your point?
Justin Ellis (17:07):
Honestly, I think the sales process has been
another one. That's pretty, youknow, solid for us. And prior to
this, we had a CRM system,right, which is this is where
we'd capture the leads. And thisis where we would run them down
their various funnels until theywere basically ready to sign up.
At the time they were ready tosign up, we would basically move
(17:30):
them over to our onboardingteam, who would then send out
the contracts via DocuSign.
Again, which again, manualprocess different system, once
those contracts would come back,then we would send a another
kind of questionnaire out viaDocuSign, where we would get
information about the property,we would get information about
the unit and Hoa, if there isone, just kind of all the
(17:51):
information that we need tobasically do our job, then at
that point, we would schedule atechnician to kind of go buy the
property and do what we call arent ready assessment, just kind
of determine what the needs looklike for that property. Is it
occupied? Is it vacant, whichkind of path does it basically
go down there. And so thatprocess worked. You know,
(18:11):
fortunately, the sales sidewasn't too high volume, we were
at, you know, maybe 10, to uh,to I would say maybe 20 units a
month would come in. Sodefinitely not as high as the
other one. But the problem thatwe ended up with is that process
just wasn't smooth. It involvesa lot of different people, and
it just didn't work. Now, whatwe have is the sales process
(18:33):
kind of goes through verysimilarly. But it is done inside
podio with the same concept ofyou know, stages, oh, this
person's at this point, thisperson is at that point. But
then the minute we get toonboarding, we're doing
everything via web forms, right?
So we send out the webform, weget all of their questions
answered, that informationautomatically come straight into
(18:54):
our system, we're not having topull it out of DocuSign. And
basically manually put it inthere. And the way that we
designed to inside podio,there's a property and then
there's a unit, right, so theyfill out the property
questionnaire that has a lot ofinformation about you know, the
building, specifically, thegrounds of its sprinklers, that
kind of stuff. And then we go toa unit questionnaire that
(19:15):
actually has the specifics aboutthe rentable space, you know,
the square footage, Bed, Bath,the actual property, you know,
things that people use in there,the stove, the fridge, all of
that. So that information allkind of comes in now, no one's
having to manually enteranything. And the triggers are
all done by what someone else isdoing now. So before, you know
(19:36):
the the owner would fill outtheir DocuSign packet
information, send it over to us,we would then have to Okay,
great. Let's put it in thesystem. Well, now the minute
they do that, it's already inthe system and the system knows
to move it to the next stage. Sono one's having to look at it.
It's just flowing. And so itjust helps speed things up. The
process works a lot faster thanit did before. And I think we're
(19:58):
collecting information betterProbably better information. And
there's no accuracy issues asfar as you know, someone
manually putting informationinto a system versus the textus
basically copying milk?
Jordan Fleming (20:10):
Has there been any just out of curiosity? Is
there been any pushback at all?
From the end user? The the likethat they don't, you know, cuz
obviously, I guess chances are,if they're submitting a new unit
to them, to you, they wouldn'thave known the old way anyway.
So it's like not that they haveanything to compare to. But has
there been any like, Oh, this isreally confusing, or this is
(20:31):
really difficult, out ofcuriosity, and maybe there has
been because you never know.
Justin Ellis (20:37):
No, actually, I mean, you know, any existing
clients who are then bringing ona new property, and it was going
through the new system have allraved about how much simpler how
much cleaner the process is, Imean, I think the only time
you'll ever get pushback, andthis I would kind of say is
universal across the board iswhen you're dealing with a non
(20:57):
tech savvy client. Typically,they're they're on the older
side, they're used to paper, youknow, those types of situations.
But that's the nice thing is thesystem is set up to where we can
manually skip past these pointsif we basically end up there. So
all in all, I mean, people likeit, it's smoother, my team likes
(21:17):
it, the clients like it, he justworks better. Nice,
Jordan Fleming (21:21):
nice, I think it's really, I really was, I
really was interested to hearabout some specific processes
from you, that you're using,because I think any property
manager is going to recognisethese processes is very, very,
you know, and probably from allthe property managers I've
spoken to, and I was goingthrough a lot of them. These are
huge, you know, owneronboarding, pain in the ass
(21:43):
property, onboarding, pain inthe ass application pain in the
ass. And then the next one wouldbe renewals, I guess. Right.
Right. The next in the next lineof succession, which I guess
we're will be tackling at somepoint soon. If not, if we
haven't already
Justin Ellis (21:58):
get work orders as well. You know, there's always
the the the key propertymanagement pain points. And you
know, most of the processes runpretty similar, if I'm being
honest. And I think that kind ofuniversal approach to kind of
breaking it down to stages, andthen finding out what were those
kind of variable points are, ithelps the team as far as Okay,
(22:21):
well, yeah, this runs verysimilar to how this other
process runs. But I think if Iwere to say one of the biggest
kind of unexpected games that Ihave seen, since rolling out the
system is that it's reallyopened up my team's eyes to
problem solving to solutionsbased creative solutions to
(22:41):
problems,
Jordan Fleming (22:42):
because they can have a system exactly they can
input.
Justin Ellis (22:46):
Well, and it's very easy for them to identify
bottlenecks, right. At thispoint, in the process, we're
noticing we're getting a lot ofthese questions, oh, well, let's
deliver this piece ofinformation at this stage of the
process, rather than over here.
And those questions go away. Soit's kind of you know, I do
really appreciate the way thatit has opened their eyes and
kind of turn them into the typeof people who who like to
(23:08):
tinker, right, how can we takean existing process that works
and make it just a little bitbetter.
Jordan Fleming (23:16):
And that's it, you know, that really is
interesting to me, because myexperience of property managers
on the whole, and this is not auniversal, and it's certainly
not a slur. But on the whole,most of them have been very,
like, you've either got a reallyanal process that's written out
(23:37):
to the reader, you know, youknow, to the ridiculous point
where it's like, I'm going todocument my processes to the
point of, you've got to read warand peace to do to do a property
on board or something. Or youget a cut a system or company
(23:59):
where they all they've beenthere. Maybe they've been
working there for a while.
They've had the same staff for awhile. So there's a lot of Oh,
Lord knows how to do that. Youknow, Lord knows how to do that
one or Oh, Matthew, yeah.
Matthew, that that? Oh, yeah. Wejust added to Matthew, Matthew
knows how to do what fuckinghappens if Matthew dies. Yeah,
um, and and I think it's veryinteresting, because none of
(24:23):
them ever. It's for those whohave documented their processes.
If it's the warm peace model, oreven just mainly, it tends to be
like Moses handing the tabletout on high and that the team
just you're like, oh, okay, thisis, you know, this is how, okay,
well, this is how I can do it.
And the fact that you've spurredyour team to maybe be able to
(24:45):
put the hand up and be like,this, this we can fix this. If
we just said this week earlier.
Justin Ellis (24:55):
You know what, you're you're absolutely right.
Um, I do appreciate that. Partof it and you know, because the
more they think that way, that'swhat's going to lead to
improvement. But in a weird way,what I almost liked the most
about our system is that ittakes away all of the different
ways that they might use to havedone something. And by that, I
(25:18):
mean, you know, there's alwaysthe opportunity at EA in a
manual process to go off script.
And maybe there's a good reasonfor going off script. But
oftentimes, it's not a goodreason for going off script. And
anytime you do somethingdifferently, it's going to cause
problems down the road. So thatis the one thing that I love
about podio is every singleapplication runs in the exact
same way, there's only a coupleof different variable points,
(25:42):
there's only a couple ofdifferent options that happen.
And you get a nice consistentworkflow across the board, and
you almost eliminate the team'sability to go off script. Now,
if they look at it, and theyidentify a point where, hey,
there's another variable, well,great, you know, that's easily
something we can we canbasically put in there, but it
helps me keep them runningwithin a kind of narrow
(26:03):
framework, which I thinkeliminates the possibility of a
lot of errors.
Jordan Fleming (26:09):
And, and the other thing I wanted to pick up
on there, and where I wouldassume that the podio the way
that your system is now and theway podio manages processes. You
said something earlier where,you know, people would have to,
you know, manually send emailsor you know, the man Listen up
(26:30):
and tell people that the rentalunits no longer available. But
the other thing I noticed is forthose people who you know, maybe
they use process street, andthis isn't a David process
street at all. But they were youthey should they did outline
their process. And they evenpotentially, were in a place
where they would duplicate thatprocess for every unit, right?
(26:54):
Oh, unit 302 is now goingthrough this process, we're
going to build this one. Andthis is the unit 302 version of
this process, it's stillrequired a lot, even in just in
process Street, it required youto go through the list of all
the ones that were open, tofigure out where they all were
and what to do next. And, to me,I always used to class that as
(27:20):
passive workflow, because you'reessentially having to go find
your workflow into and if you'vegot 400 units, and 30 of them
are up for rent, having tohaving passive workflow means
you are literally having to goright through to this stage.
(27:41):
Okay, that means I've got to dothis. Whereas with podio, and
the way you've designed yourprocesses, the processes get
activated, they become activeprocesses, and the system sort
of shoves it in your face. We'rehere now. Yep,
Justin Ellis (27:55):
you're absolutely right. And that is a great
point. Because you know, inproperty management, there is
kind of the tendency to want toknow where everything's at. But
to be fair, my you know, someonein my maintenance department
doesn't really care whereeverything's at, all they care
about is what work orders, theyneed to address today, what
stage those work orders are inand what they need to get done
(28:19):
by the actual end of business.
So I do agree with you in thesense that we've taken the tasks
and we've kind of pushed themdown to a level where anyone on
my team can basically walk in,and they can see exactly what
they have to do that day, everysingle thing on. And so what
they work on quite consistentlyis their task list, sure that
they might go to the actualrental applications app and see
(28:42):
how many they have on a certainproperty from from time to time.
But by and large, the systemtells them what they have to do,
their day is completelystructured. And I would say
designed based on what thesystem is telling them to do. So
oftentimes, they're not havingto manage processes, they're
just managing their dailyworkload. And that I think, is a
much more efficient way to doit. It's clear expectations for
(29:05):
management on down, hey, this isexactly what you need to be
working on today. They knowwhat's expected, and it just
flows cleaner and better.
Jordan Fleming (29:15):
And it's such a difference between, like I, I
will I will talk about activeversus passive workflow until I
die, I'm sure. Because I just Ireally believe, where you have a
process written down, and yourefer to it, you are always
having, you're always in theback foot, having to find
(29:36):
information and when you have aprocess built in a way that it
activates onto something, andand drives it. It doesn't
suddenly say you don't have youknow, it doesn't mean you can't
look at the big picture or youcan't, you know, hey, let's look
at everything that's coming upnext month, or whatever, you can
still do that. But that abilityto just not to not have to go
(29:59):
okay? I've got a, you know, I'vegot I'm a property manager, and
I've got 150 of them in myportfolio I'm looking after, I
know that this one was at thisstage and no, and then you and
everyone I saw there was like,breaking point of around 350 to
400 units, where the propertymanagers would just lose their
fucking minds. And because theywere just either they were you
(30:20):
had too many property managers,in which case you didn't make
making any money, or you had toofew and your property managers
were going, you know, you likeyou need to give them to set it
up or something. So,
Justin Ellis (30:32):
everything's gonna fire right. I, I absolutely hear
you there. And you know, what,when I kind of talk about podio,
and the way things work, I alsolove the fact that we make
things easier by only givingthem the information that like
they need to know. So say, forexample, on a work order that
basically comes in the systembefore this work order would
(30:54):
come in, someone would need togo and look okay, great. Here's
the tenant. So let's let themknow. Okay, great, we got your
work order, hey, here's thetroubleshooting steps for this.
Okay, wait, we need to talk tothe owner on this one about a
approval. So let's go ahead andfind that owners information,
send it out over here, in podio.
When a work order comes into oursystem, I can see the property,
the unit, the owner, the tenant,I can see the vendor that we've
(31:17):
got assigned to it, I can seeexactly what stage it's in. So
now if I have a question, right,let's say there's a fire on my
plate, where an owner is called,and they're pissed off about
something, and they wantinformation and they want it
now, before that conversationalways ended the same way. Let
me get with my maintenance team.
(31:37):
And I'll get back to you. Now,my team can simply go in there,
and they can tell them exactlywhere things are at, they can
tell them exactly what the lastupdate was. They can tell them
what the status is how thingsare changing what the situation
is. And so people on our ownerrelations team can communicate
better information because theycan visually see what's going on
(31:58):
in the maintenance department orthe leasing department or any
other department and justprovide good clean information.
So it's just one of the otherthings I love about it. If you
can't tell there's not, there'snot much I don't like, you know,
I would say now compared to theway things were.
Jordan Fleming (32:15):
Excellent. Well, I thought it would be really
interesting now that you guysare in the thick of it. And, you
know, obviously your system isone that's still being worked,
like we're still adding newthings, we've got new elements
coming in and awesome thingsand, and all that but it also is
being used in anger now. And andthat's to me, that's the key
because then it's it becomesless of a well, we hope it will
(32:37):
do. And more of well, this iswhat it's doing so far. And
we're even just at the beginningof how much it can do even
better.
Justin Ellis (32:47):
You know what, and that's I'm actually glad you
brought that up. Because thatwas one of the things I was
going to mention is one of theother kind of what I would call
unintended benefits of of havingmy team start to problem solve
is how quickly we can buildsolutions for problems. So say,
for example, I live in a part ofthe US that is currently
experiencing a significantdrought. So this year more so
(33:09):
than other years in the pastdead yards have been causing us
problems. Well, how do we wantto handle that it's not really
an issue that my team has had toaddress on any large scale prior
to this year. Well, we built apodio app, we imported some data
in there. And now we haveworkflows for how we're going to
handle this new thing that cameup. And we went from having no
(33:30):
kind of specific structuredprocess for this because it
would kind of come up randomlybefore to now we have an entire
app with the workflow withpeople who are basically
responsible for it. And we builtit in in like two days. So it's
just like, once the team getsused to podio and how things can
work. It's very easy to add onand solve new problems that
(33:53):
basically come up with podio.
Jordan Fleming (33:55):
And did you guys build that all yourself? Or was
it a collaboration between usand you didn't do anything in
it, we may not have done it,
Justin Ellis (34:02):
there's there's a couple of things that we have
done entirely on our own becausethe apps don't necessarily
require any what I would callautomation. We're not trying to
trigger anything, we're nottrying to send out a comms
template or a task template.
We're just trying to managesomething you know that we might
have been managing on aspreadsheet before. But now we
can put it in podio we can havethe information that we want,
and it just works well. Nice,nice.
Jordan Fleming (34:25):
Well, that's fantastic. I think it's really
really interesting. As always, Iwill drop a link to the company.
So if you are looking if you'vegot a house to rent to rent out
or a flat apartment to rent outin Utah, Salt Lake City, right.
Yeah, that's correct. Salt LakeCity, then I will willfulness
(34:46):
property management, I will popthe link in the in the blog and
in the notes of the podcast.
Justin is always a pleasure tosee you Always a pleasure to
chat to you. And reallyinteresting now that you're
actually using it To see theresults, even at the early
stages, where you know, there'sa there's still more to go. It
will be phenomenal to see in ayear just how much more this is
(35:10):
developed and how much more thishas changed.
Justin Ellis (35:14):
Oh, you and I agree completely. I mean, we are
just scratching the surface. Myteam has literally been working
in podio for about three monthsnow. And where we were three
months ago to where we are todayis been a game changer for let's
call it lack of a better termfor branding
Jordan Fleming (35:29):
purposes for contractually obliged bladder.
Justin Ellis (35:34):
Exactly. Um, but you know, I mean, we're excited
for everything we're adding andyou know, where we'll be by, but
by the actual end of the year, Ithink is going to be light years
beyond where we are now. So I'mexcited. Thanks for all the help
with it. All right. Well, thank
Jordan Fleming (35:48):
you so much, everyone, please like you know,
subscribe, like, share, do allthe things you're supposed to
do. And thank you, Justin, I'llspeak to you soon.
Narrator (35:58):
Thanks for having me.
You've been listening tosupercharged with Jordan Samuel
Fleming. Subscribe today oniTunes, Google Play or Spotify
for your weekly dive into howyou can supercharge your
business by making it powered bypodio. Be sure to check out our
website we are game changers.comwhere you can learn more and
(36:18):
arrange a 30 minute call withJordan daleview understand how
podio supercharges you
Welcome to powered by podio automation is everything.
supercharge your business withpodio. Get ready for another
episode of supercharged withJordan Samuel Fleming, your
weekly dive into the awesomeimpact workflow and automation
you can have on your businesswhen it's powered by podio. Join
(00:22):
us each week as we learn fromthe top podio partners in the
world as we investigate systemintegrations and add ons and
hear from real business ownerswho have implemented podio into
their business. Now, join yourhost Jordan Samuel Fleming, CEO
of game changers for this week'sepisode.
Jordan Fleming (00:44):
Hey, everybody, its Jordan Samuel Fleming
Chairman, not CEO anymore, thathonour has gone to my great
friend aircraft, but chairman ofgame changers and host of
supercharge. This week, I amfantastically glad to be joined
by a returning champion, JustinEllis from wolf nest property
(01:07):
management now, you'll seeJustin on the podcast a couple
times. And one of the reasons isthey've got such an involved
large system that we've beenworking with them on for years
and years and years. And thispodcast really focuses now that
it's up running and they'reusing it in their business, it
looks at some of the keyproperty management processes
that every property managementcompany has to go through. And
(01:29):
how the new podio ecosystem hasreally engaged with the company
has done a massive job atdistilling everything into one
system and saved an enormousamount of time, it's a really
fun conversation around theactual kind of where the rubber
meets the road of how a goodpodio system and how, you know,
(01:51):
a flexible podio system can comeinto a very process based
business, and really change thegame for the business in every
little way. fun conversationwith Justin, it always is. And
it's great to listen to thedifferent kinds of impacts, it
maybe weren't always as expectedas some of the others, you know,
(02:12):
we design systems, sometimesthinking, well, it's gonna do
this, and it's gonna have animpact here. And there are
always these sort of collateralimpacts that we get as well. And
it's really fun to hear aboutthem. Of course, Justin also,
you know, as a smartphonecustomer compared to his ring
central account, he saved a lotof money, and it's fully
(02:33):
integrated to a CRM, and wetalked a bit about that. But
really, if you're in propertymanagement, or if your business
is heavily processed, driven,this is a really great episode
to find out a bit about theawesome impacts pull you can
really have when you start torun those processes, and have
the system drive these thingsand bring data together. So have
(02:56):
a listen to Justin, I catch himback up on how his new system is
really, really, really takinghold in the company. Let's have
a listen. And All right, soyou're a returning champion. To
the podcast, you're returningchampion. So in terms of where
(03:20):
we are now we've you're in yoursystem, you're in your system,
you're using your system, you'regetting things moving, moving,
moving. What is the next, likeour discussion now I wanted to
focus on a couple things, maybeprocesses that you're having,
too on property management, andhow your new podio system is
(03:43):
affecting them? What sort ofthings insights can you give us?
Justin Ellis (03:47):
Absolutely, yeah.
So I mean, as far as where we'reat, we are officially using the
system, we have transitionedover a majority of our
operations to it. There's stilla few kind of smaller pieces
that we're still rolling out.
But by and large, our main ourmain operations are running
inside the system. And so we areincredibly excited about that.
(04:09):
And the efficiencies that we'vegained in kind of converting
from what we were doing, whichwas kind of, you know, multiple
different platforms kind ofpiecemeal together so that we
could kind of have a cohesiveprocess. And now over to podio,
where everything just kind offlows. I mean, we're gaining, I
mean lots of employee timesbeing saved. We like tasks are
(04:32):
basically getting completed.
from a management perspective,were able to make sure that
things were done in boxes werechecked. So it's been a
fantastic process so far, andhonestly, I think one of them
that just kind of jumps out tome off the top of my head is the
rental application process. Soessentially, from the time when
someone submits an applicationuntil when they're fully into
(04:53):
the system and attendant, that'sprobably been one of the biggest
ones.
Jordan Fleming (04:58):
So where it's a lot faster Seven wants to move
into one of your properties.
Now, my understanding theproperty magic market matching
sort of industry, the workflowsare relatively advanced compared
to anyone who's not in theindustry, but it's nothing
compared to yours. But that isquite, there's a lot of steps.
And there's a lot of things thathappened. What was like, What
(05:19):
did were you doing before? Andwhat is the real change as it is
now, because I think that's agood example of a real life,
because that is a process everyproperty management company is
gonna do, and they're probablyall gonna hate.
Justin Ellis (05:34):
You're absolutely right. I mean, you actually
nailed it on the head by saying,there's just a lot of steps to
it. And what we were doingbefore is, all of those steps
were wrapped up in differentsystems, different software's
things like that. So just tokind of give you an example,
before a prospective tenantwould basically go to our
website, they could find theavailable listings there, we use
(05:57):
something called show Mojo. Sothat would essentially kind of
handle the showing process. Now,we still use show Mojo. But once
they get to the point where theyare submitting a rental
application, they would go toour website, they would do that
online. So a lot of themanagement software's have a
native rental applicationworkflow in there, we weren't
(06:18):
using it for cost reasons. So wehad a separate third party
company. So they would submittheir application that would
come in, we would then have totake that information and put it
manually into property where andthen we could kind of get the
the actual workflow started inthere, then we were essentially
using a combination of differentkind of CRM systems to do the
(06:41):
automated follow up on thatperson if they weren't kind of
moving to the next step in theprocess. But basically, it was
all managed, you know, verymanually, very labour intensive,
sure, we had email templates andthings like that. But by and
large, they were having to kindof craft large sections of each
one of those emails before theycould send it out. So that
(07:01):
process was happening, then atthe time, we're ready to send
the lease, we were usingDocuSign. For that, you know,
solid process works well, butthat would go out, we would get
that sign would come back in, wewould then have to create a
ticket inside our system to sendover to accounting to kind of do
all the processing, we wouldhave to create another ticket
that would go to a differentteam that would kind of process
(07:24):
the move in as far as makingsure the property was ready. And
all of our, you know, eyes weredotted, and T's were crossed.
And that whole process as youcan see, that's multiple
different teams, you know, partof that is because we are
departmentalized rather than aportfolio structure. But you
have a lot of different movingpieces in a lot of different
areas. And they were allcontrolled by a human being
(07:44):
right who human beings makemistakes, they could say, Oops,
I forgot to send that over oryou know, there's just too many
areas where something could slipthrough the cracks. And so now
what we have is we use that sameapplication portal where they
essentially come in but thedifferences is now in the email
(08:04):
actually gets scraped and it'sactually puts it directly into
podio. And once it's in thepodio app, we can simply select
the status for what's going onit sends out the correct
information at the correct time.
Once they have provided all theinformation then we send the
payment information for them tosubmit the the actual security
deposit then once that's done,we go through the approval
process which creates a lot oftasks for my team to perform.
(08:26):
But again all of its managed inone place we can see basically
you know where each and everyapplication is at the minute one
application gets approvedautomatically basically notifies
all the other applicants thatthat property is no longer
available that was a highlymanual process for my team
before and once we have thatapproved applicant then the
(08:47):
system automatically generates aright signature document which
is you know very similar to thethe actual DocuSign lease that
goes out it sends it out themoment that document is signed
the system automatically createsitems and apps for accounting
and for move in and then basedon you know various tasks
getting completed it will movethrough those stages
automatically so now my teamdoesn't have to manage the
(09:10):
workflow right they just performthe tasks the system manages the
workflow and pushes everythingon to the next area. So as far
as efficiency gains, I mean wehave saved hours and hours of
you know labour just in that oneprocess alone by kind of
streamlining
Jordan Fleming (09:27):
well and in your busy period because I bet like
you almost every propertymanagement company I know has a
busy period and some of themhave different busy periods and
others like you know heavyUniversity towns or college
towns will have certain busyperiods versus others maybe but
when you guys go to a massivebusy period, which I know you
(09:47):
guys do, then you might likejust like ballpark me ballpark.
Um, how many applications wouldyou have to process When the
shit hits the fan, and you guysare cooking with gas.
Justin Ellis (10:05):
Absolutely. So we're actually in that season
now, right? For us, that isalways spring and summer. So I'm
blessed
Jordan Fleming (10:11):
to have you here because you're
Justin Ellis (10:12):
exactly. That's the time when everybody wants to
move. And so because of that,you know, we do kind of
structure our leases to end inthat window, well, that creates
high volume during a very shortperiod of time. So we may have
100 properties on the market,and we may be getting 30 to 60
rental applications a day thatare basically coming in on
(10:33):
those. And so before, I mean, wehad a team a are leasing
manager, and to full time VA iswho would basically be
processing those rentalapplications before. Now with
them automatically importing inand basically click click, click
for all the next steps to goout. I mean, we're probably
saving about 45 minutes ofprocessing time per rental
(10:54):
application that comes in, andnow we've got one person
handling it, and they've alsotaken on additional
responsibilities, because theyjust simply, you know, it's not
taking up their full calendar oftime.
Jordan Fleming (11:05):
That's unbelievable. Yeah, that's,
that's, that's not that's,that's unbelievable, and what,
uh, and you also you mentioned,you know, like, part of the
property management process thatfrom when I've been involved
with it, and I've been involvedrelatively, you know, with
(11:27):
relative depth is the processesare almost always Hurry up and
wait processes, where you It'snever a linear process, not many
businesses just have an easylinear fucking process that just
doesn't interrupt and goes fromA to Zed and no problems. But
But property management isacutely, it seems to be one,
(11:48):
which is acutely affected byprocesses that get to points and
then pause, because somethingneat, like a tenant needs to
give a deposit or, you know, thedeposit needs to be paid, or the
landlord needs to do this orthat, you know, and this is a
really disjointed kind ofprocess, where you are, how have
you had to balance automationwith manual process in a system?
(12:14):
Because you can't 100% automatethings?
Justin Ellis (12:17):
You can't you right? And to be perfectly
honest, nor would you want toautomate every single thing you
do. I mean, you definitely wantto automate as much as you can.
But there is a certain momentwhere a personal touch can make
a huge difference in a process.
So is it to kind of answer yourquestion. I mean, me personally,
the big thing on it is prettymuch every process does run
(12:38):
fairly linear, as far as youknow, step one, step two, step
three, but where you have a lotof issues is you're right, there
are a lot of touch points wherea manual person needs to step
in, is did this person meet yourrental application criteria? Yes
or no? And a lot of those typesof situations create variables.
So say, for example, on on thatissue right there, right? You
(12:59):
have a person who applies, andmaybe they're declined, or maybe
they are approved, but they havea credit issue, maybe they have
a different issue, maybe it's akind of financial issue. And so
we would remedy these situationsin different ways, right. So for
example, use case number one, ifmaybe it's a credit issue, we
(13:21):
would usually look to add acosigner as well, if it is a
money issue, we would usuallylook to do a larger security
deposit. And so in thesesituations, podio has allowed us
to basically do a one click toaccount for each one of those
variables, they come in, theyget to a certain stage, do they
go down path a do they go downpath B. And so one of the things
my team's done a really good jobof over over the last couple of
(13:44):
years is identifying what thosevariables are and what should
happen in that situation. Sothat when each application
reaches that point, you justsend them down the right path.
Jordan Fleming (13:56):
Nice, I thought it's a really, that's a really
interesting process. And one, Imean, particularly when you're
talking about the scale of 100properties with 30 applications
coming in a day, not just onthat property, maybe but I mean,
you know, you when you'retalking about that many
applications, the volume youguys have to deal with is
(14:19):
insane. And I guess I'm justcuriosity for that process. In
particular, what would you say?
Would it be the workflowautomation that podio is doing?
Or the fact that everything's inone system? Which is the or is
that basically like which kids
Justin Ellis (14:38):
ask me to pick my favourite child, right? Like, it
just doesn't work that way. Imean, each one of them is a
beautiful part of it. You know,I mean, the ability to automate
things and you know, seamlesslymove it from one stage to the
next is extremely important. ButI think what almost is equally
as important, if not more, isthe fact that my team doesn't
(15:01):
have to bounce around, you know,we don't have to do one thing
over here, you know, before itwas just an endless series of
workarounds, right? Oh, we'vegot to do this. But this system
has this limitation. So we'vegot to make this adjustment. And
I felt like half of our workflowwas compensating for the fact
that, you know, systems didn'ttalk to each other, or, you
(15:21):
know, certain software's had hadkind of various limitations. And
so I don't think I can pick afavourite between the two. I
think, you know, when kind ofpaired up together, that's what
makes the whole thing home.
Jordan Fleming (15:33):
Stop. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just going to
interrupt this amazing podcastfor a couple of seconds. I know
if you're a regular listener.
You've heard me talk about thegame changers supercharged
masterclass series, and I'vealready had a number of people
give their details in with theform and contact me saying when
can we get involved? Well, lifehas happened, moving house, lots
(15:54):
of things going on. And althoughI promised to get up the first
modules in June, it is going tobe the end of July now July
2021. But I am super excitedabout it. This absolutely free
masterclass series is going togo through a bunch of great
modules, the fundamentals ofpodio, the fundamentals of great
(16:14):
podio design, great ways ofusing globey flow and extending
podio. It is distillation ofusing use of my team, myself
included, of designing podio.
It's our attempt at bringingtogether some best in class
principles of pod design. It'sreally an exciting proposition.
(16:38):
I can't wait to launch it, it iscoming soon. Go over to www.we
are game changers.com. Go to themaster class sending your
details we'll let you know assoon as the first modules were
up. I guarantee the firstmodules are going up and to July
2021. Now, back to this awesomepodcast. No, that that is very,
(16:59):
very, very fair. Okay, you know,you said you had another one or
you had another element that wasinteresting. What's your point?
Justin Ellis (17:07):
Honestly, I think the sales process has been
another one. That's pretty, youknow, solid for us. And prior to
this, we had a CRM system,right, which is this is where
we'd capture the leads. And thisis where we would run them down
their various funnels until theywere basically ready to sign up.
At the time they were ready tosign up, we would basically move
(17:30):
them over to our onboardingteam, who would then send out
the contracts via DocuSign.
Again, which again, manualprocess different system, once
those contracts would come back,then we would send a another
kind of questionnaire out viaDocuSign, where we would get
information about the property,we would get information about
the unit and Hoa, if there isone, just kind of all the
(17:51):
information that we need tobasically do our job, then at
that point, we would schedule atechnician to kind of go buy the
property and do what we call arent ready assessment, just kind
of determine what the needs looklike for that property. Is it
occupied? Is it vacant, whichkind of path does it basically
go down there. And so thatprocess worked. You know,
(18:11):
fortunately, the sales sidewasn't too high volume, we were
at, you know, maybe 10, to uh,to I would say maybe 20 units a
month would come in. Sodefinitely not as high as the
other one. But the problem thatwe ended up with is that process
just wasn't smooth. It involvesa lot of different people, and
it just didn't work. Now, whatwe have is the sales process
(18:33):
kind of goes through verysimilarly. But it is done inside
podio with the same concept ofyou know, stages, oh, this
person's at this point, thisperson is at that point. But
then the minute we get toonboarding, we're doing
everything via web forms, right?
So we send out the webform, weget all of their questions
answered, that informationautomatically come straight into
(18:54):
our system, we're not having topull it out of DocuSign. And
basically manually put it inthere. And the way that we
designed to inside podio,there's a property and then
there's a unit, right, so theyfill out the property
questionnaire that has a lot ofinformation about you know, the
building, specifically, thegrounds of its sprinklers, that
kind of stuff. And then we go toa unit questionnaire that
(19:15):
actually has the specifics aboutthe rentable space, you know,
the square footage, Bed, Bath,the actual property, you know,
things that people use in there,the stove, the fridge, all of
that. So that information allkind of comes in now, no one's
having to manually enteranything. And the triggers are
all done by what someone else isdoing now. So before, you know
(19:36):
the the owner would fill outtheir DocuSign packet
information, send it over to us,we would then have to Okay,
great. Let's put it in thesystem. Well, now the minute
they do that, it's already inthe system and the system knows
to move it to the next stage. Sono one's having to look at it.
It's just flowing. And so itjust helps speed things up. The
process works a lot faster thanit did before. And I think we're
(19:58):
collecting information betterProbably better information. And
there's no accuracy issues asfar as you know, someone
manually putting informationinto a system versus the textus
basically copying milk?
Jordan Fleming (20:10):
Has there been any just out of curiosity? Is
there been any pushback at all?
From the end user? The the likethat they don't, you know, cuz
obviously, I guess chances are,if they're submitting a new unit
to them, to you, they wouldn'thave known the old way anyway.
So it's like not that they haveanything to compare to. But has
there been any like, Oh, this isreally confusing, or this is
(20:31):
really difficult, out ofcuriosity, and maybe there has
been because you never know.
Justin Ellis (20:37):
No, actually, I mean, you know, any existing
clients who are then bringing ona new property, and it was going
through the new system have allraved about how much simpler how
much cleaner the process is, Imean, I think the only time
you'll ever get pushback, andthis I would kind of say is
universal across the board iswhen you're dealing with a non
(20:57):
tech savvy client. Typically,they're they're on the older
side, they're used to paper, youknow, those types of situations.
But that's the nice thing is thesystem is set up to where we can
manually skip past these pointsif we basically end up there. So
all in all, I mean, people likeit, it's smoother, my team likes
(21:17):
it, the clients like it, he justworks better. Nice,
Jordan Fleming (21:21):
nice, I think it's really, I really was, I
really was interested to hearabout some specific processes
from you, that you're using,because I think any property
manager is going to recognisethese processes is very, very,
you know, and probably from allthe property managers I've
spoken to, and I was goingthrough a lot of them. These are
huge, you know, owneronboarding, pain in the ass
(21:43):
property, onboarding, pain inthe ass application pain in the
ass. And then the next one wouldbe renewals, I guess. Right.
Right. The next in the next lineof succession, which I guess
we're will be tackling at somepoint soon. If not, if we
haven't already
Justin Ellis (21:58):
get work orders as well. You know, there's always
the the the key propertymanagement pain points. And you
know, most of the processes runpretty similar, if I'm being
honest. And I think that kind ofuniversal approach to kind of
breaking it down to stages, andthen finding out what were those
kind of variable points are, ithelps the team as far as Okay,
(22:21):
well, yeah, this runs verysimilar to how this other
process runs. But I think if Iwere to say one of the biggest
kind of unexpected games that Ihave seen, since rolling out the
system is that it's reallyopened up my team's eyes to
problem solving to solutionsbased creative solutions to
(22:41):
problems,
Jordan Fleming (22:42):
because they can have a system exactly they can
input.
Justin Ellis (22:46):
Well, and it's very easy for them to identify
bottlenecks, right. At thispoint, in the process, we're
noticing we're getting a lot ofthese questions, oh, well, let's
deliver this piece ofinformation at this stage of the
process, rather than over here.
And those questions go away. Soit's kind of you know, I do
really appreciate the way thatit has opened their eyes and
kind of turn them into the typeof people who who like to
(23:08):
tinker, right, how can we takean existing process that works
and make it just a little bitbetter.
Jordan Fleming (23:16):
And that's it, you know, that really is
interesting to me, because myexperience of property managers
on the whole, and this is not auniversal, and it's certainly
not a slur. But on the whole,most of them have been very,
like, you've either got a reallyanal process that's written out
(23:37):
to the reader, you know, youknow, to the ridiculous point
where it's like, I'm going todocument my processes to the
point of, you've got to read warand peace to do to do a property
on board or something. Or youget a cut a system or company
(23:59):
where they all they've beenthere. Maybe they've been
working there for a while.
They've had the same staff for awhile. So there's a lot of Oh,
Lord knows how to do that. Youknow, Lord knows how to do that
one or Oh, Matthew, yeah.
Matthew, that that? Oh, yeah. Wejust added to Matthew, Matthew
knows how to do what fuckinghappens if Matthew dies. Yeah,
um, and and I think it's veryinteresting, because none of
(24:23):
them ever. It's for those whohave documented their processes.
If it's the warm peace model, oreven just mainly, it tends to be
like Moses handing the tabletout on high and that the team
just you're like, oh, okay, thisis, you know, this is how, okay,
well, this is how I can do it.
And the fact that you've spurredyour team to maybe be able to
(24:45):
put the hand up and be like,this, this we can fix this. If
we just said this week earlier.
Justin Ellis (24:55):
You know what, you're you're absolutely right.
Um, I do appreciate that. Partof it and you know, because the
more they think that way, that'swhat's going to lead to
improvement. But in a weird way,what I almost liked the most
about our system is that ittakes away all of the different
ways that they might use to havedone something. And by that, I
(25:18):
mean, you know, there's alwaysthe opportunity at EA in a
manual process to go off script.
And maybe there's a good reasonfor going off script. But
oftentimes, it's not a goodreason for going off script. And
anytime you do somethingdifferently, it's going to cause
problems down the road. So thatis the one thing that I love
about podio is every singleapplication runs in the exact
same way, there's only a coupleof different variable points,
(25:42):
there's only a couple ofdifferent options that happen.
And you get a nice consistentworkflow across the board, and
you almost eliminate the team'sability to go off script. Now,
if they look at it, and theyidentify a point where, hey,
there's another variable, well,great, you know, that's easily
something we can we canbasically put in there, but it
helps me keep them runningwithin a kind of narrow
(26:03):
framework, which I thinkeliminates the possibility of a
lot of errors.
Jordan Fleming (26:09):
And, and the other thing I wanted to pick up
on there, and where I wouldassume that the podio the way
that your system is now and theway podio manages processes. You
said something earlier where,you know, people would have to,
you know, manually send emailsor you know, the man Listen up
(26:30):
and tell people that the rentalunits no longer available. But
the other thing I noticed is forthose people who you know, maybe
they use process street, andthis isn't a David process
street at all. But they were youthey should they did outline
their process. And they evenpotentially, were in a place
where they would duplicate thatprocess for every unit, right?
(26:54):
Oh, unit 302 is now goingthrough this process, we're
going to build this one. Andthis is the unit 302 version of
this process, it's stillrequired a lot, even in just in
process Street, it required youto go through the list of all
the ones that were open, tofigure out where they all were
and what to do next. And, to me,I always used to class that as
(27:20):
passive workflow, because you'reessentially having to go find
your workflow into and if you'vegot 400 units, and 30 of them
are up for rent, having tohaving passive workflow means
you are literally having to goright through to this stage.
(27:41):
Okay, that means I've got to dothis. Whereas with podio, and
the way you've designed yourprocesses, the processes get
activated, they become activeprocesses, and the system sort
of shoves it in your face. We'rehere now. Yep,
Justin Ellis (27:55):
you're absolutely right. And that is a great
point. Because you know, inproperty management, there is
kind of the tendency to want toknow where everything's at. But
to be fair, my you know, someonein my maintenance department
doesn't really care whereeverything's at, all they care
about is what work orders, theyneed to address today, what
stage those work orders are inand what they need to get done
(28:19):
by the actual end of business.
So I do agree with you in thesense that we've taken the tasks
and we've kind of pushed themdown to a level where anyone on
my team can basically walk in,and they can see exactly what
they have to do that day, everysingle thing on. And so what
they work on quite consistentlyis their task list, sure that
they might go to the actualrental applications app and see
(28:42):
how many they have on a certainproperty from from time to time.
But by and large, the systemtells them what they have to do,
their day is completelystructured. And I would say
designed based on what thesystem is telling them to do. So
oftentimes, they're not havingto manage processes, they're
just managing their dailyworkload. And that I think, is a
much more efficient way to doit. It's clear expectations for
(29:05):
management on down, hey, this isexactly what you need to be
working on today. They knowwhat's expected, and it just
flows cleaner and better.
Jordan Fleming (29:15):
And it's such a difference between, like I, I
will I will talk about activeversus passive workflow until I
die, I'm sure. Because I just Ireally believe, where you have a
process written down, and yourefer to it, you are always
having, you're always in theback foot, having to find
(29:36):
information and when you have aprocess built in a way that it
activates onto something, andand drives it. It doesn't
suddenly say you don't have youknow, it doesn't mean you can't
look at the big picture or youcan't, you know, hey, let's look
at everything that's coming upnext month, or whatever, you can
still do that. But that abilityto just not to not have to go
(29:59):
okay? I've got a, you know, I'vegot I'm a property manager, and
I've got 150 of them in myportfolio I'm looking after, I
know that this one was at thisstage and no, and then you and
everyone I saw there was like,breaking point of around 350 to
400 units, where the propertymanagers would just lose their
fucking minds. And because theywere just either they were you
(30:20):
had too many property managers,in which case you didn't make
making any money, or you had toofew and your property managers
were going, you know, you likeyou need to give them to set it
up or something. So,
Justin Ellis (30:32):
everything's gonna fire right. I, I absolutely hear
you there. And you know, what,when I kind of talk about podio,
and the way things work, I alsolove the fact that we make
things easier by only givingthem the information that like
they need to know. So say, forexample, on a work order that
basically comes in the systembefore this work order would
(30:54):
come in, someone would need togo and look okay, great. Here's
the tenant. So let's let themknow. Okay, great, we got your
work order, hey, here's thetroubleshooting steps for this.
Okay, wait, we need to talk tothe owner on this one about a
approval. So let's go ahead andfind that owners information,
send it out over here, in podio.
When a work order comes into oursystem, I can see the property,
the unit, the owner, the tenant,I can see the vendor that we've
(31:17):
got assigned to it, I can seeexactly what stage it's in. So
now if I have a question, right,let's say there's a fire on my
plate, where an owner is called,and they're pissed off about
something, and they wantinformation and they want it
now, before that conversationalways ended the same way. Let
me get with my maintenance team.
(31:37):
And I'll get back to you. Now,my team can simply go in there,
and they can tell them exactlywhere things are at, they can
tell them exactly what the lastupdate was. They can tell them
what the status is how thingsare changing what the situation
is. And so people on our ownerrelations team can communicate
better information because theycan visually see what's going on
(31:58):
in the maintenance department orthe leasing department or any
other department and justprovide good clean information.
So it's just one of the otherthings I love about it. If you
can't tell there's not, there'snot much I don't like, you know,
I would say now compared to theway things were.
Jordan Fleming (32:15):
Excellent. Well, I thought it would be really
interesting now that you guysare in the thick of it. And, you
know, obviously your system isone that's still being worked,
like we're still adding newthings, we've got new elements
coming in and awesome thingsand, and all that but it also is
being used in anger now. And andthat's to me, that's the key
because then it's it becomesless of a well, we hope it will
(32:37):
do. And more of well, this iswhat it's doing so far. And
we're even just at the beginningof how much it can do even
better.
Justin Ellis (32:47):
You know what, and that's I'm actually glad you
brought that up. Because thatwas one of the things I was
going to mention is one of theother kind of what I would call
unintended benefits of of havingmy team start to problem solve
is how quickly we can buildsolutions for problems. So say,
for example, I live in a part ofthe US that is currently
experiencing a significantdrought. So this year more so
(33:09):
than other years in the pastdead yards have been causing us
problems. Well, how do we wantto handle that it's not really
an issue that my team has had toaddress on any large scale prior
to this year. Well, we built apodio app, we imported some data
in there. And now we haveworkflows for how we're going to
handle this new thing that cameup. And we went from having no
(33:30):
kind of specific structuredprocess for this because it
would kind of come up randomlybefore to now we have an entire
app with the workflow withpeople who are basically
responsible for it. And we builtit in in like two days. So it's
just like, once the team getsused to podio and how things can
work. It's very easy to add onand solve new problems that
(33:53):
basically come up with podio.
Jordan Fleming (33:55):
And did you guys build that all yourself? Or was
it a collaboration between usand you didn't do anything in
it, we may not have done it,
Justin Ellis (34:02):
there's there's a couple of things that we have
done entirely on our own becausethe apps don't necessarily
require any what I would callautomation. We're not trying to
trigger anything, we're nottrying to send out a comms
template or a task template.
We're just trying to managesomething you know that we might
have been managing on aspreadsheet before. But now we
can put it in podio we can havethe information that we want,
and it just works well. Nice,nice.
Jordan Fleming (34:25):
Well, that's fantastic. I think it's really
really interesting. As always, Iwill drop a link to the company.
So if you are looking if you'vegot a house to rent to rent out
or a flat apartment to rent outin Utah, Salt Lake City, right.
Yeah, that's correct. Salt LakeCity, then I will willfulness
(34:46):
property management, I will popthe link in the in the blog and
in the notes of the podcast.
Justin is always a pleasure tosee you Always a pleasure to
chat to you. And reallyinteresting now that you're
actually using it To see theresults, even at the early
stages, where you know, there'sa there's still more to go. It
will be phenomenal to see in ayear just how much more this is
(35:10):
developed and how much more thishas changed.
Justin Ellis (35:14):
Oh, you and I agree completely. I mean, we are
just scratching the surface. Myteam has literally been working
in podio for about three monthsnow. And where we were three
months ago to where we are todayis been a game changer for let's
call it lack of a better termfor branding
Jordan Fleming (35:29):
purposes for contractually obliged bladder.
Justin Ellis (35:34):
Exactly. Um, but you know, I mean, we're excited
for everything we're adding andyou know, where we'll be by, but
by the actual end of the year, Ithink is going to be light years
beyond where we are now. So I'mexcited. Thanks for all the help
with it. All right. Well, thank
Jordan Fleming (35:48):
you so much, everyone, please like you know,
subscribe, like, share, do allthe things you're supposed to
do. And thank you, Justin, I'llspeak to you soon.
Narrator (35:58):
Thanks for having me.
You've been listening tosupercharged with Jordan Samuel
Fleming. Subscribe today oniTunes, Google Play or Spotify
for your weekly dive into howyou can supercharge your
business by making it powered bypodio. Be sure to check out our
website we are game changers.comwhere you can learn more and
(36:18):
arrange a 30 minute call withJordan daleview understand how
podio supercharges you
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