April 28, 2025 • 41 mins
Pete Neubig takes us on a captivating journey through his remarkable career transformation, from IT professional to property management entrepreneur and back to tech innovator. After 25 years in information technology, Pete's life took an unexpected turn at age 41 when he found himself managing 31 properties and three apartment complexes without the proper systems in place. This necessity birthed Empire Industries Property Management, which he eventually grew to manage nearly 1,000 single-family homes across three Texas markets before selling in 2019.
The entrepreneurial challenges Pete encountered revealed a fundamental problem in service-based businesses: the precarious balance between staffing costs and profitability. "People become your number one expense," he explains, creating a stressful cycle where companies must continuously grow to maintain profit margins while overburdening existing staff. His breakthrough came when he discovered that hiring qualified international remote team members could dramatically reduce payroll costs—from 56% to 34% of revenue—while actually improving service quality.
This revelation sparked the creation of VPM Solutions, a marketplace connecting property management and real estate companies with remote talent across 150+ countries. Pete offers listeners a masterclass in building effective remote teams, sharing frameworks for everything from initial hiring to ongoing management. His approach balances structure with autonomy through clear job descriptions, personality assessments, key performance indicators, and consistent check-ins that focus on solutions rather than micromanagement.
Perhaps most valuable is Pete's candid reflection on selling his business—a process that left him financially secure but surprisingly unhappy. "I had more money than I ever had, making more money than I ever had, and I was the unhappiest I ever was," he reveals. His advice for entrepreneurs considering an exit: know precisely what you'll do next, negotiate for cash upfront even if it means a lower valuation, and recognize when you're "unemployable" as an entrepreneur at heart. For businesses struggling with staffing costs or seeking to scale efficiently, Pete's proven remote workforce model offers a compelling solution that might just transform your operation.
www.vpmsolutions.com
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with
Curveball, If you believe youcan achieve.
Welcome to the Living the Dreamwith Curveball Podcast, a show
where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
(00:24):
Where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
Today, I am joined by podcasthost and real estate expert,
Pete Newbig.
Pete is the CEO and co-founderof VPM Solutions, an online
platform that connects the realestate industry with team
members virtually.
He has won awards and he hassold companies.
(00:46):
He's very successful in what hedoes, so we're going to be
talking to him and everythingthat he's up to.
So, Pete, thank you so much forjoining me.
Curtis, thanks so much forhaving me Appreciate you.
Why don't you start off bytelling the listeners a little
bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Sure, okay, well, I'm originally from New York City,
from the Bronx.
Why don't you start off bytelling the listeners a little
bit about yourself?
Sure, okay, well, I'moriginally from New York City,
from the Bronx.
I moved to Houston, texas, as ayoung adult I am no longer a
young adult, curtis, now I am anolder adult, in my 50s, and I
moved to Houston.
I said I was going to live herefor one year and I was back in
1995 and I'm still here.
(01:25):
So I, like Texas, I likeHouston, took a job opportunity
here.
I didn't start myentrepreneurial journey until I
was 41, where I started aproperty management company.
I was in IT before that forlike 25 years and moved into,
(01:46):
went into a completely differentfield in property management.
And the reason I started myproperty management firm was
because I was buying properties.
I was an investor and mypartner, steve Rosenberg, and I
bought about 31 properties inabout 18 months.
I had all single family.
I had also purchased inpartnerships three apartment
(02:06):
complexes, and so I had lots ofproperty and did not know how to
manage them.
So I realized oh man, I betterstart managing these properties
correctly, because I wasn'tcollecting rent.
Maintenance was atrocious.
All the challenges that happenwhen you don't manage properties
.
So we started a managementcompany.
The anticipation was that wewould just have the management
(02:28):
company for our properties andsomewhere along the way we
started doing what's calledthird-party managing or managing
investment properties for otherpeople, and that was actually
profitable.
So we ended up building thatbusiness.
I quit my full-time job inDecember of 2012.
And I started at that point afull-time Empire Industries
(02:52):
property management and we ranthat property management firm
until October 2019.
So about eight years and wesold it.
We were in three markets Dallas, houston and Fort Worth and we
were at about 984 single familyhomes managing for over 600
investors.
(03:12):
And we sold that business, tooka job with Mind Management who
purchased us and as I wasworking there, I started
building what became VPMSolutions, and I have three
partners in VPM Solutions.
I'm the co-founder and CEO andit's kind of like a full circle.
(03:33):
I was in IT, went into a bunchof real estate, became a broker,
a realtor, investor, propertymanagement, and now I'm back in
IT and I own a company that is aplatform or a marketplace that
connects property management andreal estate companies with
remote team members or virtualassistants in 150 plus countries
(03:57):
and that's about 30 years andabout six minutes there, Curtis.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, you definitely have an impressive career.
So kind of tell the listeners alittle bit more about VPM.
What does this company do?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so in service-based companies like
property management or even likeyour general contractor or
anybody that contractor or youknow anybody that's listened to
this that that may own a companythat is dependent on people,
right, people become your numberone expense and what happens is
(04:36):
like the company doesn't reallymake a lot of profit margin, so
the company has to keep growingto to be able to afford, to be
able to get profit right.
And then what happens is yourteam gets stressed because you
keep growing the company andthen you have to hire more
people, and then you wereprofitable.
When you're profitable, you'restressing your people out, and
(05:00):
when you hire people, you're notprofitable, and it's this like
seesaw that goes back and forth.
And so back in about 2016, Irealized that there are jobs out
there that just do not requirea lot of experience and a lot of
unique skill sets.
These are kind of like yourstartup jobs.
(05:23):
But I couldn't afford hiringpeople in the us, especially
with employer taxes and and thesalary that people required and
the people that would take theposition I found like even
though, like I found, I waspaying, you know, a higher rate
than I really, than what the jobrole could afford, and I was
(05:45):
also getting people who just sawthe job as a J-O-B, not as a
career, people who hadchallenges outside the company
and would bring it into thecompany.
Maybe their car would breakdown or they had some challenges
family issues that they wouldbring into the business.
And what we've found is if wecan hire people for a fraction
(06:08):
of the cost but still have youknow, they're bilingual, they're
highly educated, they aregetting even though they're
getting less money here thatwe're paying, they're making
more money than they ever madein their life or they're making
really good money compared towhere they live in.
You get people that have adifferent mindset.
They don't see it as a J-O-B,they see it as a career, and so
(06:31):
you get highly competent peoplefor these kind of lower skilled
jobs and then you can hire moreof them.
So anytime you have a companythat requires lots of people
because there's lots of tasks,obviously the lots of tasks,
obviously, the more people youcan hire, the more tasks can get
done.
And that was a concept that Ihad when I said let me create,
(06:54):
when I hired the remote teammembers, more people and my
salary went down from 56% ofrevenue to 34%.
(07:16):
So a huge change which allowedthe company to run profitably,
allowed me to pay my people inthe US more and allowed me to
give bonuses, healthcare, lotsof other perks.
And so when I was thinking aboutbuilding VPM, I was thinking
how can I help otherservice-based companies,
(07:37):
especially the propertymanagement industry?
And so that's where themarketplace was born, and with
VPM, we have about 40,000candidates or people looking for
work, and if you're a companyin the US, you can create a free
profile.
You can search all thosecandidates.
(07:59):
You can then invite them to ajob.
You can post a job.
We have an algorithm that willconnect, that will match people
on the platform to your job.
You can then interview them andthen hire them through our
platform, all for free.
The way we make money is, onceyou hire them, they enter time
(08:21):
on the platform and you pay themthrough our platform.
So we have time cards and wehave reporting, we have training
and, of course, we have thedatabase of candidates.
So we feel like we're kind ofall in one.
You can source, train onboard,manage and pay all in one spot.
And the way we make money is wecharge the candidate, or, in
(08:44):
this case, the virtual assistanta percentage.
It's called a platform fee.
We charge 10.
So if you hire somebody at 10bucks an hour, they're going to
bring home nine and vpn willtake in one dollar and we're
seeing huge success with that.
People are reducing theirpayroll costs.
They're able to hire multiplepeople.
We're seeing people get out ofpoverty in these second and
(09:06):
third world countries and we'reseeing companies have a much
higher profit margin.
So pretty exciting stuff,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
And what I was going to ask?
What are some best practicetips for somebody who's in your
industry?
You know service-based, wantingto source, train and onboard.
You know remote people.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, so that's a great question.
There's so much in that.
One simple question, right?
Like?
So the first thing really isyou know, are you ready for a
remote team member?
Like, you need to know whatthat job role is, because the
biggest fear that people havewith hiring remote is I'm not
sure what they can do and how doI know they're working.
Those are kind of the two bigones.
(09:50):
So the first thing is how doyou know what they can do?
Well, just do a time study andif you have a bunch of items
that you're doing on a daily,weekly, monthly basis that you
don't like to do, you literallycan just create a job
description from those objects.
The other thing you can do isif you're a bigger company and
(10:10):
you have different processes,you can say you know what, I
want to hire somebody to handlethis process.
So, for example, in propertymanagement, we have like a lease
renewal process.
So I hired somebody to handlejust the lease renewals with the
annual inspections, and theycan own that process.
Once you have a really goodunderstanding of what you want
(10:31):
that job role to be, now youknow exactly.
Okay, that's kind of like therules of the game.
Right?
Those are the instructions tothe seat.
Next thing is okay, I want tomake sure I hire the right
person in my organization.
So what are your core values?
If you do not have core values,your company does have them.
(10:52):
They're just maybe not the onesthat you want, right?
So core values have to start atthe top and get pushed down, so
you can't allow your team tocreate your core values.
For example, if you have acompany and everybody comes in
late, well, your core value isthat you could come in late.
That's just like that ends upbecoming a value right, and a
lot of people they'll createcore values and they'll put them
(11:14):
on a nice little poster boardand put it on the wall to talk
about it one time, never to beheard from again.
You have to live those corevalues.
If you are creating core valuesand you don't really resonate
with those values and you're theowner of the company or you're
a top, you know a C-sweeter inthe company.
They're never going to getpushed down.
You have to live those corevalues.
They have to be you.
(11:34):
So once you know your corevalues, now you know the type of
person that you're looking for.
Your organization this iswhether they are going to be in
an office next to you or they'regoing to be in a state, one
state, two states over, or ifthey're going to be 12,000 miles
away in the Philippines.
You need to know the type ofperson you're looking for.
Then, with the job description,you need to know what they're
(11:55):
supposed to do.
But, more importantly, theyneed to know what they're
supposed to do.
That's why the job descriptionis so important what they're
supposed to do, that's why thejob description is so important.
Then every job description inyour organization should have a
personality profile attached toit, and what I mean by that?
There's a lot of personalityassessment programs out there.
(12:17):
Predictive Index is probablythe most famous one.
I'm a big fan of DISC D-I-S-C,and personality profile tells me
this is the type of person thatwill be the best fit for this
role.
So think of like the person,like the core values, is a
ticket to get on the boat right.
To get on this boat, you needto have these core values.
You need to be this type ofperson.
(12:38):
This is the person I want to bein the foxhole with.
This is the person that we'regoing to go to war with.
Okay, then I need to put theright person in the right seat.
Well, how do I know what's theright seat?
I need instructions for theseat.
That's your job description,now I know.
Okay, now in this seat, I need,you know, let's say, I need the
(13:02):
real skinny guy in the frontyelling row, row, row.
Well, that's going to be adifferent guy than in the back,
the big guy that's going to be,that's going to be the anchor to
the, to the rowing of the boat.
So who's the right person?
Well, that's the personalityprofile comes in.
So now I have the instructionsto the seat, the job description
.
I have the personality profile,which is going to be your DISC
(13:22):
assessment.
So now I know the type ofperson, the personality profile
and the job description.
The last thing I need to knowis how they're going to row, and
those are key performanceindicators.
So every job role in yourorganization should have key
performance indicators, and ifyou have like 14, that's too
many.
The less is more.
(13:42):
Approach should have one tothree KPIs, more than three, and
then most likely you need tosplit that job role.
In my organization today, a VPM, no one has more than three
KPIs.
If we can get it down to one.
It's one KPI.
And now the KPI is like yourscorecard, right?
(14:03):
So every like we all went toschool, my sister loved getting
her scorecard or her report cardbecause it was good.
I didn't like getting mine thatoften, but I knew where I stood
.
People like to have an ideawhere they stand and the key
performance indicator allowsthem to, you know, to try to
achieve those goals.
And then there's a bunch ofrules on how to set up the KPI,
(14:27):
how often to look at it and allthat good stuff.
But once I have that, now Ihave a very good understanding
of what I'm looking for in aperson.
Now, the only difference betweenhiring local and hiring remote
is when you hire remote, youhave to look at their computer,
their internet speed and theirworkspace, and so those are only
(14:48):
three different things.
So when we hire a remote, weactually have a scorecard.
We have a 10-point scorecardand we score things like
responsiveness, computer andinternet speed, and and
appearance and office.
Those are a few things that welook at.
We also look at skill education, english proficiency.
(15:11):
That's the other one you haveto look at is English
proficiency, because you arehiring people where English is
their second language in mostcases.
But other than that, everythingelse is very similar.
And then the next question isokay, so now, pete, I hire this
person.
Well, how do I train them Right?
(15:33):
So they have the jobdescription and how do I train
them?
And we find it actually easierto train through Zoom and then
record the training.
And so what we do is and I'mnot saying this is the best way,
curtis, this is a way and it'sprobably it's worked for us for
quite a while.
But what we do is, anytime youhire somebody new, we spend a
(15:56):
lot of time with them up frontEvery day, hour at least minimum
, if not more.
We train them through Zoom andwe'll record it.
And then they have to watch theZoom and build their own user
manual.
And the way we do, even if wehave our own, we have a user
manual or a process manual wewant them to build their own,
(16:18):
because I made a mistake earlyon where I built like 110 page
maintenance manual and not onlydid anybody not read it, but
they didn't even know how tolike how to search through it
when questions came up.
So with these videos we trainthem.
You learn by listening,watching, writing down and then
(16:38):
kind of training, regurgitatingright and letting us know.
So what we do is we have thevideo, they then they, they
listen, then they have to watchthe video, then they have to
write it down in a, in a youknow, in a process manual and
then they have to basicallyteach you the next day.
So when you have to teach right, where they say the best way to
learn something is is actuallyteach it, and so we do that.
(17:01):
Most job roles take between twoto four weeks to train.
Some of them take a little bitlonger, but usually within four
weeks, usually you can let themmove on to the next level and we
always say the first, you know,60 days everything gets
escalated.
You kind of work in conjunctionwith you and then over time,
(17:24):
less and less get escalated tothe point where it's only like
10% get escalated.
And so you kind of you redirectthem when they ask a question
like hey, how do I?
You know, hey, how do I do this?
Well, how would you do this?
What do you think the answer is?
So instead of answering like,instead of becoming a superhero,
getting in case ofsuperhero-itis and answering
every question, you redirect andask them well, what do you
(17:47):
think?
How would you do this?
And so that's your trainingpiece.
And I know that's not easy, Iget that, you know.
But once you do this the firsttime, then you have your
training database, then you havesomebody else that can actually
train.
So when you have to hire thenext person, the person you
(18:08):
trained can train them and orthey can go to those videos.
And if you do the videos andyou put them on YouTube and um
on, you know, you, you make them, um, private versus public, and
tag them, right, they, they canuse that.
And so that's how you train.
And then the next piece is howdo you manage them?
Right, and people are worried.
They'll say Pete, I'm worriedthat you know, this $6 an hour
(18:29):
guy that I hired is going tosteal time and he's going to go
to the bathroom for two hoursand he's going to leave early or
whatever it is.
Meanwhile they got a guy intheir office next to him, makes
a hundred thousand dollars ayear, comes in late, takes two
smoke breaks, takes a long lunch, leaves early, and they don't
(18:49):
care about that.
That guy's stealing so muchtime but you don't care about
that.
But you care about the $6 anhour guy that's going to the
restroom for an hour.
So there's three ways to managepeople when remote.
You can manage them throughmicromanagement, you can manage
(19:09):
them through abdication, or youcan manage them through
delegation, and so the first way, the micromanagement, is
basically write everything downthat you do.
I'm going to use the softwareto screen capture you.
I want you on video all day.
No one wants to be micromanagedand it's a great way to burn
somebody out really quick.
(19:30):
Plus, do you actually have allthat time to micromanage
somebody Like you?
Hire them to do the work, letthem do the work.
The opposite side of thatspectrum is you have somebody
that abdicates, and what I meanby that is they hire somebody
and they say oh man, I've beenso busy, here's all the stuff
that I do that you need to donow.
(19:51):
And then they don't give themany direction, they don't train
them, they don't check in andthey pat themselves on the back
saying man, I'm not amicromanager, yeah, but you're
not a manager at all, you're notmanaging them.
And what happens there is youdon't know what they're supposed
to do.
They don't know what they'resupposed to do.
They've never been trained.
(20:12):
They get frustrated, you getfrustrated and then you say this
doesn't work.
Or worse, they leave and saythat guy's crazy, that doesn't
work and they go find anotherjob.
And then the one in the middleis the delegation or the
management.
The way I manage is I look.
The first thing I'd look for isavailability.
So we create policy in ourorganization to make sure that
(20:37):
we create policy Like if I Slackyou or text you, you have 20
minutes to Slack me back, or 30minutes, I think it is.
If I email you, you have 20minutes to slack me back, or 30
minutes, I think it is.
If I email you, you email backin two hours.
If I call you to call back in30 minutes.
So we create policy because thefirst line of defense when
somebody is remote isavailability, all the available.
If they're not answering emails, phone calls, text messages,
(21:05):
then most likely they're notworking.
That's just kind of commonsense.
The second way we look at thisand we manage is when you have a
meeting, you're on camera andyou are in your home office.
We're not taking meetings fromthe beach or from, you know,
starbucks.
You're in your home office andyou are and you're on camera and
(21:27):
you're dressed appropriately.
So that's the next thing.
The next thing is I look atescalations, internal and
external.
Am I getting escalations fromclients stating that you're not,
you're not available, right,different availability, internal
versus external.
Or am I getting escalationsfrom people internally saying,
(21:52):
man, every time I ask so-and-soto do work, they don't do the
work right?
So I'm looking at availabilityand I'm looking at escalations.
And then the last piece is KPIs.
If somebody is hitting theirKPIs and they're available and
I'm not getting escalations, myopinion is I don't care if
they're working 40 hours, 60hours or 20 hours.
(22:13):
I pay straight 40 in most casesand if you can do your job in
30 hours, I'll pay you for 40,especially if you're hitting
your KPIs and you're availableand there's no escalations and
the work's getting done.
It doesn't matter to me, butthat's the way we do it and the
way we manage it is.
We have a weekly meeting Now ona small team, you might meet
(22:37):
your.
You know, if you have anexecutive assistant, for example
, and you hire somebody in, likeCosta Rica, you're probably
going to meet with them everyday, maybe multiple times a day,
and that's great.
But you should have one day aweek, a specific hour at a time
where it is a specific agenda,because when you talk to
somebody every day, it's justkind of like, you know,
(22:58):
task-based, or I need thisquestion answered or I need this
thing done.
What we do is we have a, wehave an agenda.
We meet the same time each week, so the same day, the same time
each week, and we we go through.
We start off with a feel goodso tell me something good about
your personal or business.
Then we go through a KPI review.
(23:18):
Are we hitting our numbers?
If not, is it?
Does it need to go on achallenge list or is it?
You know, like I was out lastweek, so of course we didn't hit
our KPI.
That makes sense, you know.
So if there's a reason and it'snot a challenge, then we just
move forward.
Then we look at tasks from thelast week.
(23:39):
Did you do the tasks that weredone?
If not, do they have to go on achallenge list?
And then we get to thechallenge list and those first
few, those first things, arejust five minutes each In a
challenge list.
As the business owner andmanager, you're asking the
question what can I do to makeyour life easier?
Right, so our jobs as businessowners and managers are just
(24:03):
really to get the tools and thetraining to our team and then
get out of the way.
So what can I do to make yourlife easier?
What can I do so that you hityour kpis?
What can I do right?
And then the biggest thing is Idon't like people every day
slacking me, like if they havean escalation or challenge
(24:26):
emailing me or slacking me orcall me every day.
What I do is tell them put on achallenges list and it will go
over next week, unless it's likeDEF, con five, right, then
we'll talk about it.
But what happens is 80% of thosechallenges that they put on
during the week, they've they'vefigured out a solution, which
means that, okay, so now they'refiguring out the solution, so
(24:49):
you don't have it's like you'renot the bottleneck, they figured
it out.
And the 20% now that's atraining opportunity or it's
something that you need to do,like maybe they don't have
rights to get access tosomething.
You have to give them rights togive them access, and they just
couldn't do that until they gotwith you.
But it also might just be likethey need an answer on a
question and you could turnaround and say well, if I got
(25:12):
hit by a bus or if I won thelotto, I like that one better,
but if I won the lotto, whatwould you do, um, if I wasn't
around?
And a lot of times you know itmight not be the right thing,
but you get them thinking andthen you can kind of, you know,
um, lead them to a certainanswer.
So by having these weeklystructured uh meetings allows
(25:36):
you to keep that managementright.
You're looking at the kpi,you're solving any challenges.
Imagine if you could solve onechallenge a week.
That's 52 challenges a year.
That's a pretty good year.
The last thing we do is we askwhat is your stress level on a
scale of one to 10?
If the stress level is a 10plus, 10 plus, 10 plus, then
(25:56):
that's a red flag, because itcould be either A you have the
wrong person in the organization.
It could be B you have theright person in the organization
, but they're in the wrong seat.
It could be C they're the wrongperson in the organization and
they're not in the right seat.
Or it could be like it'sseasonal, like in property
(26:19):
management in the summer,leasing is really, really
chaotic and it's you know youdon't really hit your KPIs right
, and so it could be seasonalit's just a stressful time or it
just could be you're just notthe right person.
Or it could be like you don'thave the right KPIs and they're
(26:40):
stressed out because they're notin the KPIs person.
Or it could be like you don'thave the right KPIs and they're
stressed out because they're notin the KPIs.
But I promise you, if somebodyis a 10 plus multiple weeks in a
row, that is a good indicatorthat either A they're not a good
fit or B they're looking toleave because what you're asking
them to do doesn't align withtheir personality, and they get
stressed out pretty easily.
So those are kind of the thingsthat people ask a lot about.
(27:03):
Like, you know, how do I findthem?
You can find them on VPN.
How do I pay them?
You can pay them through VPN.
How do I hire them?
We went through that.
How do I train them?
We went through that.
How do I manage them?
And I went through that.
So that was a long-windedanswer to your original question
, but your question could havebeen answered in so many
(27:26):
different ways.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, I completely understand.
So real quick, give people whoare looking to sell a business
the best practice tips onpreparing before and after the
sale.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay, that's a great question.
So, when you're looking to sellyour business, one of the
things that I wish I would havedone because we sold it pretty
quick but one of the things thatyou really want to do is you
want to get your financialsclean.
You need clean financials.
If your balance sheet is messedup or your P&L doesn't look
(28:01):
right.
If your balance sheet is messedup or your P&L doesn't look
right, that's going to hurt.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is you have toknow how your business gets
sold.
Is it sold on EBITDA?
Is it sold on times revenue?
What are the ways that peopleare going to look at your
(28:25):
business?
And then you want to try tosolve any challenges.
It's like selling an old house.
Right?
If you have a house and youknow that the foundation is
messed up, you know people aregoing to ask for a discount
because the foundation is messedup.
So you fix the foundation soyou can get top dollar.
What are the holes or what'sbroken in your organization that
you can solve?
(28:45):
And a lot of times, if yourbusiness is dependent on you,
then a lot of times that's not asellable business.
So one of the reasons why wewere able to sell at a higher
valuation is that we hadprocesses and people in place
and the business wasn'tcontingent on me or my business
(29:06):
partner.
The other thing that we did iswe did not take a lot of money
out of the business.
We invested a lot of money backin for growth.
So we built, we did not.
What's the right way to saythis?
I didn't kill the golden goose,I guess.
(29:26):
I just kept investing moremoney.
And when you grow, a lot oftimes growth takes investment
and which means that you have todelay gratification in the form
of getting paid.
So I didn't pay myself verymuch money for all those years
because we kept building thebusiness, building the business,
building the business, and thenwe were able to sell.
(29:48):
Now the bigger question youasked is how do you prepare
yourself after the sale?
And this is really interestingbecause there's like economics
to it, right.
So you have to prepare yourself.
Like when you sell, what areyou going to do to, uh, to
mitigate taxes?
And there's a bunch of stuffthere and I'm sure you can get
some CPAs on and talk about that.
But what was really more moremeaningful to me is the mindset,
(30:12):
curtis, when I sold my business, I had over a million dollars
in my bank account.
For the first time ever, I wasgetting paid more money than I
ever got paid because I stayedon with the company and I took a
job with them and I was theunhappiest I've ever been in my
life.
So I want you to think aboutthat.
(30:34):
I had more money than I everhad, making more money than I
ever had, and I was theunhappiest I ever was.
And it is true like moneydoesn't buy you happiness.
It helps, and it is true likemoney doesn't buy you happiness
Helps, don't get me wrong, butit doesn't buy you happiness.
And what happened was when wesold I did not know what my next
move was.
My business partner he knewwhat his next move was and we
(30:57):
sold.
He started a business coachingprogram and he was happy as all
get up.
Because I didn't know what Iwas going to do and because we
sold at what we sold at, Ididn't have enough money to
retire.
I could have retired for a year, but then I would have had to
start doing something else andmaybe even like finding a job,
and so I ended up just takingthe path of least resistance and
(31:19):
I took the job for the companythat bought us and because I
didn't know what I was going todo.
So, if you're looking at maybeselling your business,
understand and know what is thenext thing you're going to do,
because I didn't know.
I took the job and I wasdepressed for about a year and a
half, and it's so, so funnythat I became undepressed, if
(31:43):
you will, curtis, when Irealized I'm going to start
building VPM and I startedbuilding VPM in 2020, but I
didn't get out.
It didn't come out until 2021of June, which is when I left
the company that purchased me,and I realized pretty early on
that I was unemployable.
I'm not a good employee anymore, I'm a better business owner
(32:06):
and I'm an employee now, and so,yeah, so knowing what you're
going to do next and having aplan, and so if I could do it
all over again, I'll kind ofgive you a peep behind the
curtain If I could do it allover again.
Number one is financially.
As far as the sales price, Igot a very fair deal when I sold
(32:27):
my company, so there was nonegotiation to be had, and it
was, honestly, it was a prettygood deal.
The second thing I would havedone, though, is we took the
money out over three years, sowe got 60% the day we sold, and
then we got what is it?
20% year two, 20% year three,and year two was a clawback year
(32:47):
, and then year three was notMeaning like if they lost
clients while we were operating.
The first year they would takemoney back from the 20% that
they owed us, and then the lastyear was nothing no clawback and
then I took 20% of the sale instock.
Well, if I could do it all overagain, I would take all cash
(33:11):
upfront, no stock and I wouldtake less money to get my money
on day one.
So let's say they wanted to payyou a million bucks, but if you
want all your money on day one,they're going to pay you
$950,000.
I'll take the $950,000 all daylong and move on, and I would
not have taken a job with them.
I would have had an idea ofwhat I was going to do next.
(33:33):
I would have got the funds, andI would have started investing
in that next venture time andmoney.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
So, hopefully, I answered your question.
Oh yeah, that absolutelyanswered my question, and we got
about 10 or so minutes left, soso tell us about any upcoming
projects that you're working onthat listeners need to be aware
of.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of focus.
So I talked to lots of businessowners.
Matter of fact, I talked to, uh, one of my I own a small
percentage of a maintenancecompany, uh, and I was talking
to the ceo there yesterday andall of a sudden he's talking
about building like a wholeproperty management software and
(34:17):
uh.
So I had to talk to him aboutfocus.
And so I'm a big of focus,meaning like I only do one thing
at a time and I know that makesme pretty boring, but I want to
be really.
I want to be the best at onething versus average at many
things.
So when you say what's the nextthing I'm working on, it's,
it's just VPN.
I'm like, literally I, I, I eat, breathe and think and dream of
(34:42):
VPM and we're coming out with acouple of cool things inside of
VPM.
But I've had numerous peoplecome to me and look, curtis, you
know this like as a successfulpodcast like yourself, as you
get more successful in life, youhave more opportunities and
those opportunities can reallypull you away from what your
(35:05):
core is right, what you'resupposed to be doing in life.
I'm supposed to be building VPM.
That's what I'm supposed to bedoing now, this is the season
that I'm in, but I haveopportunities all the time and
they ask me like, oh, you, wecan do this and we can do that,
and you know we could.
Uh, whatever it is.
And, um, I've been offered CEOof excuse me, of property
(35:26):
management firms.
I've been offered to.
You know, people want to pay mefor coaching, consulting.
Um, you know, people want to,you know, start another business
with me and uh, all of thatit's like Nope, I just want to.
I have a vision of what Ibelieve VPM looks like.
I also have the vision ofAugust.
I have a vision of what Ibelieve VPM looks like.
I also have a vision of whatthat looks like on the software
(35:47):
side.
I have a vision of what thatlooks like as far as an
organizational structure side,and I have a vision of what that
looks like as far as annualrecurring revenue valuation and
what the exit looks like.
And I have a kind of a yearplan there.
And if you don't have a vision,it's hard to.
(36:07):
If you don't have a vision ofwhere you're going, it's hard to
get there, it's hard to get thestep to get there.
So, to answer your question, vpmis building a couple of cool
things right now.
We're building a where wecharge a platform fee to the
contractor and we're building apiece where the company could
take on a percentage of that feeif they like.
(36:31):
So I'm really excited aboutthat.
We're adding to our LMStraining, our learning
management system training.
I actually got two or threecourses that I'm reviewing.
Just got off the phone with afew other people that they want
to add courses and then we justkicked off a recruiting.
(36:51):
So the VPM platform is built asa do-it-yourself.
We then created a white gloveservice where it's a do-it it
with you and we don't charge forthat, and we just kicked off a
do it for you service called ourgold glove, and with the gold
glove there's a fee for thatit's $1,500, but we do all the
(37:13):
work and what we're realizing is, man, there's a lot of, there's
a lot of inefficienciesthroughout that process, and so
we're starting to buildefficiencies in our gold glove
process.
That will then um, once we getit tested and and and um and
true, you know, tested andproven, we'll then move that
over to our do it for you andour do it yourself, uh service.
(37:37):
So like we're going to havelike a self interview uh, for
everybody we're going to have.
We're going to have a better,better searching.
We're going to have aself-interview for everybody.
We're going to have bettersearching.
We're going to have templatesbuilt in where you can message a
bunch of candidates all at onetime.
You can build your owntemplates.
So that's all the stuff that'scoming down the pipeline.
So we're pretty excited becausewe do believe that we have one
(37:58):
of the better recruiting systemsout there platforms and we just
keep adding to it and justgoing deeper.
And that's what happens whenyou stay focused, you can go
much deeper in your craft.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
What, though?
How'd you contact them sopeople can keep up with
everything that you're up to?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
So the best way to get mebelieve it, I'm on all the
socials but I don't really runmy socials.
So the best way to reach out toI'm on all the socials but I
don't really run my socials, sothe best way to reach out to me
is my is old school email, Itold you occurs when we first
started.
I'm in my 50s now.
Um, I'm a big, I'm a big soul,I'm a big email guy still.
So it's pete at vpmsolutionscom.
(38:38):
Or you can just go tovpmsolutions dot com and check
out our site and you can createa profile for free and browse
around.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
OK, well, close this out with some final thoughts.
Maybe, if that was something Iforgot to talk about that you
would like to touch on any finalthoughts you have for the
listeners.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Man Curtis, you had me.
I talked about a lot of stuff,man.
I did the vision thing, which Idon't normally talk about.
So I would just say this OK, iftalked about a lot of stuff,
man, I did the vision thing,which I don't normally talk
about.
So I would just say this okay,if you are a business owner and
you are looking to reduce, youknow costs and there are jobs
out there that do not need to be, you know local, not need to be
(39:21):
you know local think aboutusing remote team.
It will any.
Anytime I've asked, I've toldanybody about the remote team
and they've done it.
They come back and say, man, Ishould have done that sooner, so
that that would be the, thatwould be the, the, the parting
shot, since I since I do own amarketplace- All right.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Ladies and gentlemen, vpmsolutionscom, please be sure
to check out everything thatpeeps up to follow.
Share this episode to as manybusiness owners that can benefit
from services as possible.
Jump on your favorite podcastapp, check out the show, leave
us a review, share it around.
For more information on theLiving the Dream with Curveball
(40:03):
podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
Thank you for listening andsupporting the show, pete.
Thank you for all that you andyour company are doing, and
thank you for joining me.
Thanks for having me, curtis.
For more information on theLiving the Dream with Curveball
podcast.
For more information on theLiving the Dream with Curveball
podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
(40:26):
Until next time, keep livingthe dream.
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with
Curveball, If you believe youcan achieve.
Welcome to the Living the Dreamwith Curveball Podcast, a show
where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
(00:24):
Where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
Today, I am joined by podcasthost and real estate expert,
Pete Newbig.
Pete is the CEO and co-founderof VPM Solutions, an online
platform that connects the realestate industry with team
members virtually.
He has won awards and he hassold companies.
(00:46):
He's very successful in what hedoes, so we're going to be
talking to him and everythingthat he's up to.
So, Pete, thank you so much forjoining me.
Curtis, thanks so much forhaving me Appreciate you.
Why don't you start off bytelling the listeners a little
bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Sure, okay, well, I'm originally from New York City,
from the Bronx.
Why don't you start off bytelling the listeners a little
bit about yourself?
Sure, okay, well, I'moriginally from New York City,
from the Bronx.
I moved to Houston, texas, as ayoung adult I am no longer a
young adult, curtis, now I am anolder adult, in my 50s, and I
moved to Houston.
I said I was going to live herefor one year and I was back in
1995 and I'm still here.
(01:25):
So I, like Texas, I likeHouston, took a job opportunity
here.
I didn't start myentrepreneurial journey until I
was 41, where I started aproperty management company.
I was in IT before that forlike 25 years and moved into,
(01:46):
went into a completely differentfield in property management.
And the reason I started myproperty management firm was
because I was buying properties.
I was an investor and mypartner, steve Rosenberg, and I
bought about 31 properties inabout 18 months.
I had all single family.
I had also purchased inpartnerships three apartment
(02:06):
complexes, and so I had lots ofproperty and did not know how to
manage them.
So I realized oh man, I betterstart managing these properties
correctly, because I wasn'tcollecting rent.
Maintenance was atrocious.
All the challenges that happenwhen you don't manage properties
.
So we started a managementcompany.
The anticipation was that wewould just have the management
(02:28):
company for our properties andsomewhere along the way we
started doing what's calledthird-party managing or managing
investment properties for otherpeople, and that was actually
profitable.
So we ended up building thatbusiness.
I quit my full-time job inDecember of 2012.
And I started at that point afull-time Empire Industries
(02:52):
property management and we ranthat property management firm
until October 2019.
So about eight years and wesold it.
We were in three markets Dallas, houston and Fort Worth and we
were at about 984 single familyhomes managing for over 600
investors.
(03:12):
And we sold that business, tooka job with Mind Management who
purchased us and as I wasworking there, I started
building what became VPMSolutions, and I have three
partners in VPM Solutions.
I'm the co-founder and CEO andit's kind of like a full circle.
(03:33):
I was in IT, went into a bunchof real estate, became a broker,
a realtor, investor, propertymanagement, and now I'm back in
IT and I own a company that is aplatform or a marketplace that
connects property management andreal estate companies with
remote team members or virtualassistants in 150 plus countries
(03:57):
and that's about 30 years andabout six minutes there, Curtis.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, you definitely have an impressive career.
So kind of tell the listeners alittle bit more about VPM.
What does this company do?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so in service-based companies like
property management or even likeyour general contractor or
anybody that contractor or youknow anybody that's listened to
this that that may own a companythat is dependent on people,
right, people become your numberone expense and what happens is
(04:36):
like the company doesn't reallymake a lot of profit margin, so
the company has to keep growingto to be able to afford, to be
able to get profit right.
And then what happens is yourteam gets stressed because you
keep growing the company andthen you have to hire more
people, and then you wereprofitable.
When you're profitable, you'restressing your people out, and
(05:00):
when you hire people, you're notprofitable, and it's this like
seesaw that goes back and forth.
And so back in about 2016, Irealized that there are jobs out
there that just do not requirea lot of experience and a lot of
unique skill sets.
These are kind of like yourstartup jobs.
(05:23):
But I couldn't afford hiringpeople in the us, especially
with employer taxes and and thesalary that people required and
the people that would take theposition I found like even
though, like I found, I waspaying, you know, a higher rate
than I really, than what the jobrole could afford, and I was
(05:45):
also getting people who just sawthe job as a J-O-B, not as a
career, people who hadchallenges outside the company
and would bring it into thecompany.
Maybe their car would breakdown or they had some challenges
family issues that they wouldbring into the business.
And what we've found is if wecan hire people for a fraction
(06:08):
of the cost but still have youknow, they're bilingual, they're
highly educated, they aregetting even though they're
getting less money here thatwe're paying, they're making
more money than they ever madein their life or they're making
really good money compared towhere they live in.
You get people that have adifferent mindset.
They don't see it as a J-O-B,they see it as a career, and so
(06:31):
you get highly competent peoplefor these kind of lower skilled
jobs and then you can hire moreof them.
So anytime you have a companythat requires lots of people
because there's lots of tasks,obviously the lots of tasks,
obviously, the more people youcan hire, the more tasks can get
done.
And that was a concept that Ihad when I said let me create,
(06:54):
when I hired the remote teammembers, more people and my
salary went down from 56% ofrevenue to 34%.
(07:16):
So a huge change which allowedthe company to run profitably,
allowed me to pay my people inthe US more and allowed me to
give bonuses, healthcare, lotsof other perks.
And so when I was thinking aboutbuilding VPM, I was thinking
how can I help otherservice-based companies,
(07:37):
especially the propertymanagement industry?
And so that's where themarketplace was born, and with
VPM, we have about 40,000candidates or people looking for
work, and if you're a companyin the US, you can create a free
profile.
You can search all thosecandidates.
(07:59):
You can then invite them to ajob.
You can post a job.
We have an algorithm that willconnect, that will match people
on the platform to your job.
You can then interview them andthen hire them through our
platform, all for free.
The way we make money is, onceyou hire them, they enter time
(08:21):
on the platform and you pay themthrough our platform.
So we have time cards and wehave reporting, we have training
and, of course, we have thedatabase of candidates.
So we feel like we're kind ofall in one.
You can source, train onboard,manage and pay all in one spot.
And the way we make money is wecharge the candidate, or, in
(08:44):
this case, the virtual assistanta percentage.
It's called a platform fee.
We charge 10.
So if you hire somebody at 10bucks an hour, they're going to
bring home nine and vpn willtake in one dollar and we're
seeing huge success with that.
People are reducing theirpayroll costs.
They're able to hire multiplepeople.
We're seeing people get out ofpoverty in these second and
(09:06):
third world countries and we'reseeing companies have a much
higher profit margin.
So pretty exciting stuff,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
And what I was going to ask?
What are some best practicetips for somebody who's in your
industry?
You know service-based, wantingto source, train and onboard.
You know remote people.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, so that's a great question.
There's so much in that.
One simple question, right?
Like?
So the first thing really isyou know, are you ready for a
remote team member?
Like, you need to know whatthat job role is, because the
biggest fear that people havewith hiring remote is I'm not
sure what they can do and how doI know they're working.
Those are kind of the two bigones.
(09:50):
So the first thing is how doyou know what they can do?
Well, just do a time study andif you have a bunch of items
that you're doing on a daily,weekly, monthly basis that you
don't like to do, you literallycan just create a job
description from those objects.
The other thing you can do isif you're a bigger company and
(10:10):
you have different processes,you can say you know what, I
want to hire somebody to handlethis process.
So, for example, in propertymanagement, we have like a lease
renewal process.
So I hired somebody to handlejust the lease renewals with the
annual inspections, and theycan own that process.
Once you have a really goodunderstanding of what you want
(10:31):
that job role to be, now youknow exactly.
Okay, that's kind of like therules of the game.
Right?
Those are the instructions tothe seat.
Next thing is okay, I want tomake sure I hire the right
person in my organization.
So what are your core values?
If you do not have core values,your company does have them.
(10:52):
They're just maybe not the onesthat you want, right?
So core values have to start atthe top and get pushed down, so
you can't allow your team tocreate your core values.
For example, if you have acompany and everybody comes in
late, well, your core value isthat you could come in late.
That's just like that ends upbecoming a value right, and a
lot of people they'll createcore values and they'll put them
(11:14):
on a nice little poster boardand put it on the wall to talk
about it one time, never to beheard from again.
You have to live those corevalues.
If you are creating core valuesand you don't really resonate
with those values and you're theowner of the company or you're
a top, you know a C-sweeter inthe company.
They're never going to getpushed down.
You have to live those corevalues.
They have to be you.
(11:34):
So once you know your corevalues, now you know the type of
person that you're looking for.
Your organization this iswhether they are going to be in
an office next to you or they'regoing to be in a state, one
state, two states over, or ifthey're going to be 12,000 miles
away in the Philippines.
You need to know the type ofperson you're looking for.
Then, with the job description,you need to know what they're
(11:55):
supposed to do.
But, more importantly, theyneed to know what they're
supposed to do.
That's why the job descriptionis so important what they're
supposed to do, that's why thejob description is so important.
Then every job description inyour organization should have a
personality profile attached toit, and what I mean by that?
There's a lot of personalityassessment programs out there.
(12:17):
Predictive Index is probablythe most famous one.
I'm a big fan of DISC D-I-S-C,and personality profile tells me
this is the type of person thatwill be the best fit for this
role.
So think of like the person,like the core values, is a
ticket to get on the boat right.
To get on this boat, you needto have these core values.
You need to be this type ofperson.
(12:38):
This is the person I want to bein the foxhole with.
This is the person that we'regoing to go to war with.
Okay, then I need to put theright person in the right seat.
Well, how do I know what's theright seat?
I need instructions for theseat.
That's your job description,now I know.
Okay, now in this seat, I need,you know, let's say, I need the
(13:02):
real skinny guy in the frontyelling row, row, row.
Well, that's going to be adifferent guy than in the back,
the big guy that's going to be,that's going to be the anchor to
the, to the rowing of the boat.
So who's the right person?
Well, that's the personalityprofile comes in.
So now I have the instructionsto the seat, the job description
.
I have the personality profile,which is going to be your DISC
(13:22):
assessment.
So now I know the type ofperson, the personality profile
and the job description.
The last thing I need to knowis how they're going to row, and
those are key performanceindicators.
So every job role in yourorganization should have key
performance indicators, and ifyou have like 14, that's too
many.
The less is more.
(13:42):
Approach should have one tothree KPIs, more than three, and
then most likely you need tosplit that job role.
In my organization today, a VPM, no one has more than three
KPIs.
If we can get it down to one.
It's one KPI.
And now the KPI is like yourscorecard, right?
(14:03):
So every like we all went toschool, my sister loved getting
her scorecard or her report cardbecause it was good.
I didn't like getting mine thatoften, but I knew where I stood
.
People like to have an ideawhere they stand and the key
performance indicator allowsthem to, you know, to try to
achieve those goals.
And then there's a bunch ofrules on how to set up the KPI,
(14:27):
how often to look at it and allthat good stuff.
But once I have that, now Ihave a very good understanding
of what I'm looking for in aperson.
Now, the only difference betweenhiring local and hiring remote
is when you hire remote, youhave to look at their computer,
their internet speed and theirworkspace, and so those are only
(14:48):
three different things.
So when we hire a remote, weactually have a scorecard.
We have a 10-point scorecardand we score things like
responsiveness, computer andinternet speed, and and
appearance and office.
Those are a few things that welook at.
We also look at skill education, english proficiency.
(15:11):
That's the other one you haveto look at is English
proficiency, because you arehiring people where English is
their second language in mostcases.
But other than that, everythingelse is very similar.
And then the next question isokay, so now, pete, I hire this
person.
Well, how do I train them Right?
(15:33):
So they have the jobdescription and how do I train
them?
And we find it actually easierto train through Zoom and then
record the training.
And so what we do is and I'mnot saying this is the best way,
curtis, this is a way and it'sprobably it's worked for us for
quite a while.
But what we do is, anytime youhire somebody new, we spend a
(15:56):
lot of time with them up frontEvery day, hour at least minimum
, if not more.
We train them through Zoom andwe'll record it.
And then they have to watch theZoom and build their own user
manual.
And the way we do, even if wehave our own, we have a user
manual or a process manual wewant them to build their own,
(16:18):
because I made a mistake earlyon where I built like 110 page
maintenance manual and not onlydid anybody not read it, but
they didn't even know how tolike how to search through it
when questions came up.
So with these videos we trainthem.
You learn by listening,watching, writing down and then
(16:38):
kind of training, regurgitatingright and letting us know.
So what we do is we have thevideo, they then they, they
listen, then they have to watchthe video, then they have to
write it down in a, in a youknow, in a process manual and
then they have to basicallyteach you the next day.
So when you have to teach right, where they say the best way to
learn something is is actuallyteach it, and so we do that.
(17:01):
Most job roles take between twoto four weeks to train.
Some of them take a little bitlonger, but usually within four
weeks, usually you can let themmove on to the next level and we
always say the first, you know,60 days everything gets
escalated.
You kind of work in conjunctionwith you and then over time,
(17:24):
less and less get escalated tothe point where it's only like
10% get escalated.
And so you kind of you redirectthem when they ask a question
like hey, how do I?
You know, hey, how do I do this?
Well, how would you do this?
What do you think the answer is?
So instead of answering like,instead of becoming a superhero,
getting in case ofsuperhero-itis and answering
every question, you redirect andask them well, what do you
(17:47):
think?
How would you do this?
And so that's your trainingpiece.
And I know that's not easy, Iget that, you know.
But once you do this the firsttime, then you have your
training database, then you havesomebody else that can actually
train.
So when you have to hire thenext person, the person you
(18:08):
trained can train them and orthey can go to those videos.
And if you do the videos andyou put them on YouTube and um
on, you know, you, you make them, um, private versus public, and
tag them, right, they, they canuse that.
And so that's how you train.
And then the next piece is howdo you manage them?
Right, and people are worried.
They'll say Pete, I'm worriedthat you know, this $6 an hour
(18:29):
guy that I hired is going tosteal time and he's going to go
to the bathroom for two hoursand he's going to leave early or
whatever it is.
Meanwhile they got a guy intheir office next to him, makes
a hundred thousand dollars ayear, comes in late, takes two
smoke breaks, takes a long lunch, leaves early, and they don't
(18:49):
care about that.
That guy's stealing so muchtime but you don't care about
that.
But you care about the $6 anhour guy that's going to the
restroom for an hour.
So there's three ways to managepeople when remote.
You can manage them throughmicromanagement, you can manage
(19:09):
them through abdication, or youcan manage them through
delegation, and so the first way, the micromanagement, is
basically write everything downthat you do.
I'm going to use the softwareto screen capture you.
I want you on video all day.
No one wants to be micromanagedand it's a great way to burn
somebody out really quick.
(19:30):
Plus, do you actually have allthat time to micromanage
somebody Like you?
Hire them to do the work, letthem do the work.
The opposite side of thatspectrum is you have somebody
that abdicates, and what I meanby that is they hire somebody
and they say oh man, I've beenso busy, here's all the stuff
that I do that you need to donow.
(19:51):
And then they don't give themany direction, they don't train
them, they don't check in andthey pat themselves on the back
saying man, I'm not amicromanager, yeah, but you're
not a manager at all, you're notmanaging them.
And what happens there is youdon't know what they're supposed
to do.
They don't know what they'resupposed to do.
They've never been trained.
(20:12):
They get frustrated, you getfrustrated and then you say this
doesn't work.
Or worse, they leave and saythat guy's crazy, that doesn't
work and they go find anotherjob.
And then the one in the middleis the delegation or the
management.
The way I manage is I look.
The first thing I'd look for isavailability.
So we create policy in ourorganization to make sure that
(20:37):
we create policy Like if I Slackyou or text you, you have 20
minutes to Slack me back, or 30minutes, I think it is.
If I email you, you have 20minutes to slack me back, or 30
minutes, I think it is.
If I email you, you email backin two hours.
If I call you to call back in30 minutes.
So we create policy because thefirst line of defense when
somebody is remote isavailability, all the available.
If they're not answering emails, phone calls, text messages,
(21:05):
then most likely they're notworking.
That's just kind of commonsense.
The second way we look at thisand we manage is when you have a
meeting, you're on camera andyou are in your home office.
We're not taking meetings fromthe beach or from, you know,
starbucks.
You're in your home office andyou are and you're on camera and
(21:27):
you're dressed appropriately.
So that's the next thing.
The next thing is I look atescalations, internal and
external.
Am I getting escalations fromclients stating that you're not,
you're not available, right,different availability, internal
versus external.
Or am I getting escalationsfrom people internally saying,
(21:52):
man, every time I ask so-and-soto do work, they don't do the
work right?
So I'm looking at availabilityand I'm looking at escalations.
And then the last piece is KPIs.
If somebody is hitting theirKPIs and they're available and
I'm not getting escalations, myopinion is I don't care if
they're working 40 hours, 60hours or 20 hours.
(22:13):
I pay straight 40 in most casesand if you can do your job in
30 hours, I'll pay you for 40,especially if you're hitting
your KPIs and you're availableand there's no escalations and
the work's getting done.
It doesn't matter to me, butthat's the way we do it and the
way we manage it is.
We have a weekly meeting Now ona small team, you might meet
(22:37):
your.
You know, if you have anexecutive assistant, for example
, and you hire somebody in, likeCosta Rica, you're probably
going to meet with them everyday, maybe multiple times a day,
and that's great.
But you should have one day aweek, a specific hour at a time
where it is a specific agenda,because when you talk to
somebody every day, it's justkind of like, you know,
(22:58):
task-based, or I need thisquestion answered or I need this
thing done.
What we do is we have a, wehave an agenda.
We meet the same time each week, so the same day, the same time
each week, and we we go through.
We start off with a feel goodso tell me something good about
your personal or business.
Then we go through a KPI review.
(23:18):
Are we hitting our numbers?
If not, is it?
Does it need to go on achallenge list or is it?
You know, like I was out lastweek, so of course we didn't hit
our KPI.
That makes sense, you know.
So if there's a reason and it'snot a challenge, then we just
move forward.
Then we look at tasks from thelast week.
(23:39):
Did you do the tasks that weredone?
If not, do they have to go on achallenge list?
And then we get to thechallenge list and those first
few, those first things, arejust five minutes each In a
challenge list.
As the business owner andmanager, you're asking the
question what can I do to makeyour life easier?
Right, so our jobs as businessowners and managers are just
(24:03):
really to get the tools and thetraining to our team and then
get out of the way.
So what can I do to make yourlife easier?
What can I do so that you hityour kpis?
What can I do right?
And then the biggest thing is Idon't like people every day
slacking me, like if they havean escalation or challenge
(24:26):
emailing me or slacking me orcall me every day.
What I do is tell them put on achallenges list and it will go
over next week, unless it's likeDEF, con five, right, then
we'll talk about it.
But what happens is 80% of thosechallenges that they put on
during the week, they've they'vefigured out a solution, which
means that, okay, so now they'refiguring out the solution, so
(24:49):
you don't have it's like you'renot the bottleneck, they figured
it out.
And the 20% now that's atraining opportunity or it's
something that you need to do,like maybe they don't have
rights to get access tosomething.
You have to give them rights togive them access, and they just
couldn't do that until they gotwith you.
But it also might just be likethey need an answer on a
question and you could turnaround and say well, if I got
(25:12):
hit by a bus or if I won thelotto, I like that one better,
but if I won the lotto, whatwould you do, um, if I wasn't
around?
And a lot of times you know itmight not be the right thing,
but you get them thinking andthen you can kind of, you know,
um, lead them to a certainanswer.
So by having these weeklystructured uh meetings allows
(25:36):
you to keep that managementright.
You're looking at the kpi,you're solving any challenges.
Imagine if you could solve onechallenge a week.
That's 52 challenges a year.
That's a pretty good year.
The last thing we do is we askwhat is your stress level on a
scale of one to 10?
If the stress level is a 10plus, 10 plus, 10 plus, then
(25:56):
that's a red flag, because itcould be either A you have the
wrong person in the organization.
It could be B you have theright person in the organization
, but they're in the wrong seat.
It could be C they're the wrongperson in the organization and
they're not in the right seat.
Or it could be like it'sseasonal, like in property
(26:19):
management in the summer,leasing is really, really
chaotic and it's you know youdon't really hit your KPIs right
, and so it could be seasonalit's just a stressful time or it
just could be you're just notthe right person.
Or it could be like you don'thave the right KPIs and they're
(26:40):
stressed out because they're notin the KPIs person.
Or it could be like you don'thave the right KPIs and they're
stressed out because they're notin the KPIs.
But I promise you, if somebodyis a 10 plus multiple weeks in a
row, that is a good indicatorthat either A they're not a good
fit or B they're looking toleave because what you're asking
them to do doesn't align withtheir personality, and they get
stressed out pretty easily.
So those are kind of the thingsthat people ask a lot about.
(27:03):
Like, you know, how do I findthem?
You can find them on VPN.
How do I pay them?
You can pay them through VPN.
How do I hire them?
We went through that.
How do I train them?
We went through that.
How do I manage them?
And I went through that.
So that was a long-windedanswer to your original question
, but your question could havebeen answered in so many
(27:26):
different ways.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, I completely understand.
So real quick, give people whoare looking to sell a business
the best practice tips onpreparing before and after the
sale.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay, that's a great question.
So, when you're looking to sellyour business, one of the
things that I wish I would havedone because we sold it pretty
quick but one of the things thatyou really want to do is you
want to get your financialsclean.
You need clean financials.
If your balance sheet is messedup or your P&L doesn't look
(28:01):
right.
If your balance sheet is messedup or your P&L doesn't look
right, that's going to hurt.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is you have toknow how your business gets
sold.
Is it sold on EBITDA?
Is it sold on times revenue?
What are the ways that peopleare going to look at your
(28:25):
business?
And then you want to try tosolve any challenges.
It's like selling an old house.
Right?
If you have a house and youknow that the foundation is
messed up, you know people aregoing to ask for a discount
because the foundation is messedup.
So you fix the foundation soyou can get top dollar.
What are the holes or what'sbroken in your organization that
you can solve?
(28:45):
And a lot of times, if yourbusiness is dependent on you,
then a lot of times that's not asellable business.
So one of the reasons why wewere able to sell at a higher
valuation is that we hadprocesses and people in place
and the business wasn'tcontingent on me or my business
(29:06):
partner.
The other thing that we did iswe did not take a lot of money
out of the business.
We invested a lot of money backin for growth.
So we built, we did not.
What's the right way to saythis?
I didn't kill the golden goose,I guess.
(29:26):
I just kept investing moremoney.
And when you grow, a lot oftimes growth takes investment
and which means that you have todelay gratification in the form
of getting paid.
So I didn't pay myself verymuch money for all those years
because we kept building thebusiness, building the business,
building the business, and thenwe were able to sell.
(29:48):
Now the bigger question youasked is how do you prepare
yourself after the sale?
And this is really interestingbecause there's like economics
to it, right.
So you have to prepare yourself.
Like when you sell, what areyou going to do to, uh, to
mitigate taxes?
And there's a bunch of stuffthere and I'm sure you can get
some CPAs on and talk about that.
But what was really more moremeaningful to me is the mindset,
(30:12):
curtis, when I sold my business, I had over a million dollars
in my bank account.
For the first time ever, I wasgetting paid more money than I
ever got paid because I stayedon with the company and I took a
job with them and I was theunhappiest I've ever been in my
life.
So I want you to think aboutthat.
(30:34):
I had more money than I everhad, making more money than I
ever had, and I was theunhappiest I ever was.
And it is true like moneydoesn't buy you happiness.
It helps, and it is true likemoney doesn't buy you happiness
Helps, don't get me wrong, butit doesn't buy you happiness.
And what happened was when wesold I did not know what my next
move was.
My business partner he knewwhat his next move was and we
(30:57):
sold.
He started a business coachingprogram and he was happy as all
get up.
Because I didn't know what Iwas going to do and because we
sold at what we sold at, Ididn't have enough money to
retire.
I could have retired for a year, but then I would have had to
start doing something else andmaybe even like finding a job,
and so I ended up just takingthe path of least resistance and
(31:19):
I took the job for the companythat bought us and because I
didn't know what I was going todo.
So, if you're looking at maybeselling your business,
understand and know what is thenext thing you're going to do,
because I didn't know.
I took the job and I wasdepressed for about a year and a
half, and it's so, so funnythat I became undepressed, if
(31:43):
you will, curtis, when Irealized I'm going to start
building VPM and I startedbuilding VPM in 2020, but I
didn't get out.
It didn't come out until 2021of June, which is when I left
the company that purchased me,and I realized pretty early on
that I was unemployable.
I'm not a good employee anymore, I'm a better business owner
(32:06):
and I'm an employee now, and so,yeah, so knowing what you're
going to do next and having aplan, and so if I could do it
all over again, I'll kind ofgive you a peep behind the
curtain If I could do it allover again.
Number one is financially.
As far as the sales price, Igot a very fair deal when I sold
(32:27):
my company, so there was nonegotiation to be had, and it
was, honestly, it was a prettygood deal.
The second thing I would havedone, though, is we took the
money out over three years, sowe got 60% the day we sold, and
then we got what is it?
20% year two, 20% year three,and year two was a clawback year
(32:47):
, and then year three was notMeaning like if they lost
clients while we were operating.
The first year they would takemoney back from the 20% that
they owed us, and then the lastyear was nothing no clawback and
then I took 20% of the sale instock.
Well, if I could do it all overagain, I would take all cash
(33:11):
upfront, no stock and I wouldtake less money to get my money
on day one.
So let's say they wanted to payyou a million bucks, but if you
want all your money on day one,they're going to pay you
$950,000.
I'll take the $950,000 all daylong and move on, and I would
not have taken a job with them.
I would have had an idea ofwhat I was going to do next.
(33:33):
I would have got the funds, andI would have started investing
in that next venture time andmoney.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
So, hopefully, I answered your question.
Oh yeah, that absolutelyanswered my question, and we got
about 10 or so minutes left, soso tell us about any upcoming
projects that you're working onthat listeners need to be aware
of.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of focus.
So I talked to lots of businessowners.
Matter of fact, I talked to, uh, one of my I own a small
percentage of a maintenancecompany, uh, and I was talking
to the ceo there yesterday andall of a sudden he's talking
about building like a wholeproperty management software and
(34:17):
uh.
So I had to talk to him aboutfocus.
And so I'm a big of focus,meaning like I only do one thing
at a time and I know that makesme pretty boring, but I want to
be really.
I want to be the best at onething versus average at many
things.
So when you say what's the nextthing I'm working on, it's,
it's just VPN.
I'm like, literally I, I, I eat, breathe and think and dream of
(34:42):
VPM and we're coming out with acouple of cool things inside of
VPM.
But I've had numerous peoplecome to me and look, curtis, you
know this like as a successfulpodcast like yourself, as you
get more successful in life, youhave more opportunities and
those opportunities can reallypull you away from what your
(35:05):
core is right, what you'resupposed to be doing in life.
I'm supposed to be building VPM.
That's what I'm supposed to bedoing now, this is the season
that I'm in, but I haveopportunities all the time and
they ask me like, oh, you, wecan do this and we can do that,
and you know we could.
Uh, whatever it is.
And, um, I've been offered CEOof excuse me, of property
(35:26):
management firms.
I've been offered to.
You know, people want to pay mefor coaching, consulting.
Um, you know, people want to,you know, start another business
with me and uh, all of thatit's like Nope, I just want to.
I have a vision of what Ibelieve VPM looks like.
I also have the vision ofAugust.
I have a vision of what Ibelieve VPM looks like.
I also have a vision of whatthat looks like on the software
(35:47):
side.
I have a vision of what thatlooks like as far as an
organizational structure side,and I have a vision of what that
looks like as far as annualrecurring revenue valuation and
what the exit looks like.
And I have a kind of a yearplan there.
And if you don't have a vision,it's hard to.
(36:07):
If you don't have a vision ofwhere you're going, it's hard to
get there, it's hard to get thestep to get there.
So, to answer your question, vpmis building a couple of cool
things right now.
We're building a where wecharge a platform fee to the
contractor and we're building apiece where the company could
take on a percentage of that feeif they like.
(36:31):
So I'm really excited aboutthat.
We're adding to our LMStraining, our learning
management system training.
I actually got two or threecourses that I'm reviewing.
Just got off the phone with afew other people that they want
to add courses and then we justkicked off a recruiting.
(36:51):
So the VPM platform is built asa do-it-yourself.
We then created a white gloveservice where it's a do-it it
with you and we don't charge forthat, and we just kicked off a
do it for you service called ourgold glove, and with the gold
glove there's a fee for thatit's $1,500, but we do all the
(37:13):
work and what we're realizing is, man, there's a lot of, there's
a lot of inefficienciesthroughout that process, and so
we're starting to buildefficiencies in our gold glove
process.
That will then um, once we getit tested and and and um and
true, you know, tested andproven, we'll then move that
over to our do it for you andour do it yourself, uh service.
(37:37):
So like we're going to havelike a self interview uh, for
everybody we're going to have.
We're going to have a better,better searching.
We're going to have aself-interview for everybody.
We're going to have bettersearching.
We're going to have templatesbuilt in where you can message a
bunch of candidates all at onetime.
You can build your owntemplates.
So that's all the stuff that'scoming down the pipeline.
So we're pretty excited becausewe do believe that we have one
(37:58):
of the better recruiting systemsout there platforms and we just
keep adding to it and justgoing deeper.
And that's what happens whenyou stay focused, you can go
much deeper in your craft.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
What, though?
How'd you contact them sopeople can keep up with
everything that you're up to?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
So the best way to get mebelieve it, I'm on all the
socials but I don't really runmy socials.
So the best way to reach out toI'm on all the socials but I
don't really run my socials, sothe best way to reach out to me
is my is old school email, Itold you occurs when we first
started.
I'm in my 50s now.
Um, I'm a big, I'm a big soul,I'm a big email guy still.
So it's pete at vpmsolutionscom.
(38:38):
Or you can just go tovpmsolutions dot com and check
out our site and you can createa profile for free and browse
around.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
OK, well, close this out with some final thoughts.
Maybe, if that was something Iforgot to talk about that you
would like to touch on any finalthoughts you have for the
listeners.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Man Curtis, you had me.
I talked about a lot of stuff,man.
I did the vision thing, which Idon't normally talk about.
So I would just say this OK, iftalked about a lot of stuff,
man, I did the vision thing,which I don't normally talk
about.
So I would just say this okay,if you are a business owner and
you are looking to reduce, youknow costs and there are jobs
out there that do not need to be, you know local, not need to be
(39:21):
you know local think aboutusing remote team.
It will any.
Anytime I've asked, I've toldanybody about the remote team
and they've done it.
They come back and say, man, Ishould have done that sooner, so
that that would be the, thatwould be the, the, the parting
shot, since I since I do own amarketplace- All right.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Ladies and gentlemen, vpmsolutionscom, please be sure
to check out everything thatpeeps up to follow.
Share this episode to as manybusiness owners that can benefit
from services as possible.
Jump on your favorite podcastapp, check out the show, leave
us a review, share it around.
For more information on theLiving the Dream with Curveball
(40:03):
podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
Thank you for listening andsupporting the show, pete.
Thank you for all that you andyour company are doing, and
thank you for joining me.
Thanks for having me, curtis.
For more information on theLiving the Dream with Curveball
podcast.
For more information on theLiving the Dream with Curveball
podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
(40:26):
Until next time, keep livingthe dream.
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