$250,000 in debt at 1,000 doors and no profit: How I recovered, sold and started a new business - with Pete Neubig

Send us a text

Pete Neubig, former co-founder of Empire Industries and current CEO of VPM Solutions, shares his transformative journey from property management company owner to helping businesses connect with virtual teams across 120+ countries.

• Building a property management company with evolving vision from owning 500 homes to third-party management
• Navigating partnership challenges when visions diverged
• Selling a business despite initially not wanting to sell
• Struggling with post-sale career satisfaction despite financial success
• Creating effective hiring processes based on core values alignment
• Using personality profiling (DISC) to match candidates to roles
• Defining clear KPIs (maximum of 3 per role) for team accountability
• Building company culture through consistent reinforcement of core values
• Developing well-defined positions with clear responsibilities
• Avoiding the "superhero syndrome" by empowering team decision-making

If you're looking to connect with virtual team members for your property management business, visit VPM Solutions where you can find qualified candidates across the globe.

Join fellow property management entrepreneurs and 6 expert coaches in a small, private high level event at a mansion style venue with a private chef and personally selected attendees to maximize the value you receive while at the event.
Join the waitlist for additional information here: https://ONYXwaitlist.com 

Save the dates! July 13th - 16th, 2025

visit pmsuccess.com for more value packed property management related information or to hire Tony as your property management coach.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Property Management Success
Podcast, where we interviewleaders in the industry to
uncover the secrets toprofitability, efficiency and
achieving true freedom, whetherit's your time, money or
lifestyle.
I'm your host, tony Klein, andI'm here to help you build a
wildly successful propertymanagement business.
Let's get to it.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Property Management

(00:25):
Success Podcast.
Today, I'm joined by PeteNewbig.
Pete is the former co-founderof Empire Industries Realty and
Property Management, based inHouston, texas.
He has sold that company andwe're going to dig into that a
little bit, but currently Peteis the co-founder and CEO of VPM

(00:45):
Solutions.
Vpm Solutions is an onlineplatform that connects the real
estate industry with virtualteam members across the globe.
Pete, good friend of mine,welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Tony, thanks so much for having me on man.
I'm looking forward to this one.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, absolutely, I am too.
So, uh, yeah, so I want to jumpright into an experience that
you had that was very similar tomine.
You grew a business and you andyour partner and we can talk a
little bit about partnershipsand what works there and what
doesn't but you guys grew yourproperty management company to

(01:21):
the point where you wereattractive to a buyer and you
eventually sold that and exited,and I want to talk a little bit
about that.
So there's so many topics thatI think is going to be great
info for our audience.
But first of all, I just wantto welcome you and, yeah, I'm
just happy to have my friend onthe show here.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thanks for having me.
And I don't even know if youknow all the details on the sale
and all that stuff.
So I'm pretty open.
Anybody's talked to me about it.
I'm pretty open about it, solet's discuss.
So the intent originally and Iknow you do this with your
coaching clients and stuff it'slike what's your vision, when do
you want to go?

(02:03):
You do this with your coachingclients and stuff.
It's like what's your vision,when do you want to go?
And our vision when we firststarted Empire, we didn't expect
a third-party management.
I know I'm going way back and Iapologize for this, but we no,
I want it.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, let's get into the beginning here.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Our vision was to own 500 homes and we were going to
manage our own homes.
That's kind of where we wereinvestors.
We didn't do third-partymanagement, and what happened
was we bought all the wronghomes, like Class C-, d+, d
homes and we ended up buying somany really quickly.
We bought like 31 in less thana two-year time frame and all of
a sudden it's like, oh, we needto get a make-ready done, we

(02:38):
need to get this one leased, wehave to evict these 14 people.
This huge, major issue is goingon and we this is like back in
2009, 10 timeframe.
So the internet wasn't what itwas today.
We really didn't find a lot ofsingle family management

(03:00):
companies here in Houstonthrough the internet, so we
decided we're just going tobuild a better mouth shop and
create our own.
And what happened was fastforward a year later and we were
managing third parties.
Steve Rosenberg was my businesspartner and he would just like
tell investors oh, we can helpyou, we solved all challenges,

(03:20):
we can help you solve yours.
And we were third partypartymanaging and what we found out
at the end of, at the end of2011, was that we realized that
we made money third-partymanaging.
We lost money on the housesbecause we bought the wrong
houses.
And so we're like ah, like, aha, bfo moment, a blend, a
blinding flash of the obvious.
We should do more third-partymanagement and that's how we

(03:44):
started so.
So then the vision changed.
We went to our first NARPMevent and we heard somebody say
yeah, once I got to 300 units Iwas profitable.
So that became our new vision.
Right, like we didn't sit downand like, draw it out, like, oh,
like that's great, like we wantto be profitable.
That's our new vision.

(04:04):
Once we matured a little bit asa company, then our vision
became we wanted to get to, youknow, a thousand units in
Houston.
And then eventually whathappened was Steve's vision
changed from my vision.
That was the kind of the beginof the end of the partnership.
Steve wanted to be kind of likemine.
He wanted to be in 20,000 unitsacross the country, and we

(04:28):
brought in a third party namedBrad Sugars.
You guys should Google him.
He's an amazing person.
He owns a company called ActionCoach International.
So he owns the franchise forbusiness coaches, and our
business coach, doug Winney,connected us with Brad and we
were the first action coachclient where Brad actually

(04:48):
invested.
He ended up partnering with usand getting 10% of the company
Once that happened.
Now we're supercharged and wewent into other markets, even
though we were not doing verywell in Houston.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So, Pete, I want to let me interrupt you just for a
second.
Let's get some clarity aroundthis.
So you, you started with thisvision to grow your own
portfolio.
Then you said okay, I'm goingto do my own property management
company and what we're going todo locally.
And then you were growing tothe point where you thought okay
, well, let's, let's actuallytake this on a little bit bigger

(05:23):
scale.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
How big were you when you brought in your consultant?
Yeah, we were probably at thattime.
We were probably around 600 to700 units, All single family.
We didn't do any multifamily,we didn't do any HOA stuff.
So everything was one to foursingle family homes.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
And then one other thing I just want to point out.
It was something that you saidwas you went to a conference and
somebody told you when they gotto 300 doors they would be
profitable.
And that, to me, it'sinteresting because there's a
plateau around that 300 markwhere you really have to change
your business model from zero to100, zero to 200.
You can kind of get away withrunning things a little bit
loose.
You're the guy in charge,you're doing everything and it

(06:12):
almost is.
What I see is there's a placewhere you become less profitable
at that plateau and some peoplehit it at 200.
Some people hit it at 350 orsomething like that.
But, um, it's interesting thatyou guys didn't see the
profitability upfront and youthought, okay, well, if we could
just grow to that 300, get somesize, that that's where the

(06:36):
profit would come from.
Did you guys take into accountthe team that you'd have to
build?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, we can.
That's a whole other like wecan go into a whole other story
on that, Tony, because thatbrings into what our structure
was when we first started, towhen we got to the 300, to when
we got to a thousand units.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Okay, so let's circle back around to that then,
because I'm really interested,but I want to hear the story
about.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, I think the moral of this story.
The moral of this story is thatpartnerships are great when
everybody has an alignment andvision and then when, when the
alignment and vision is not thesame, partnerships become
difficult.
And so with with this newpartner, this 10% partner, Brad
sugars, now we're really tryingto supercharge the business.

(07:18):
And you know this, Tony ifyou're growing your business,
chances are you're not veryprofitable, right, You're
investing.
If you're doing your business,chances are you're not very
profitable.
If you're doing it right,you're investing a bunch of
money back into the business.
I had quit my job in December of2012.
Now, let's call it like 15, 16.
I'm not paying myself very much.

(07:40):
The business isn't making anymoney.
We're always stressed out.
Now we're trying to grow intoDallas and Fort Worth and Austin
.
We're trying to go in all thesemarkets, and so, finally, I'm
like I don't know if I want todo this anymore.
Meanwhile, Steve wants to gothe other way and he wanted to
actually go outside of Texas,which just scared me, Because

(08:01):
I'm like I'm a broker in Texas,I'm not a broker in Oklahoma,
and I don't know if that, youknow, it just added so much more
that we need to do.
And so what ended up happeningwas we ended up running the
business so poorly that inDecember of 2018, we were out of
money.
So think about this, Tony wehad over 800 units at the time.

(08:24):
I think we're actually over athousand at the time.
We ended up 800 units at thetime.
I think we're actually over1,000 at the time.
We ended up trimming, but wehad, I think, close to 1,000
units at the time and we're notmaking any money.
Matter of fact, not only are wenot making money, our credit
line is almost maxed out to thetune of $250,000.
So, for those of you doing math, that means I'm minus $250,000.
I own a firm and I'm negative$250,000 at 900 units.

(08:46):
So when you hear this thing atNARPMORSE, you can grow yourself
right out of profitability.
Completely true.
So I end up another whole otherstory, but I end up
restructuring the business and Iend up kind of moving Steve to
ownership level and I got himout of the business, which is a

(09:07):
good thing and a bad thing.
The good thing was that Iquickly within six months, by
June of 2019, we paid off thecredit line.
So that told me that mybusiness made over half a
million dollars if we ran itcorrectly.
The way I did that was I gotrid of a lot of team, we were
bloated and I also got rid of.
We were spending about $20,000a month in marketing.

(09:29):
I brought that down to about$2,000 a month and we had the
same amount of opportunities andwe were closing the same amount
of deals.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
We were not investing wisely.
What do you think on the trim?
So you trimmed $18,000 off yourmarketing.
Was it that you'd alreadyestablished some momentum there?
Or was it that you guys werejust because I've done this
myself?
There was a point in my careerwhere I wanted to be rich but I

(09:56):
also wanted to be famous and Iwas spending money to be famous,
and what I mean by that was Iwas putting out more marketing
material than was necessary todrive the amount of leads that I
wanted to create, and it justbecame.
Somebody would approach me witha marketing method and I would
just sign up for it and never doanything with it.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, we had a ton of that.
So, you know, we signed up forstuff and then, like, it was
like a checkbox thing, Like, oh,we did this, like well, did you
do anything with it?
Well, we signed up for it andwe sent out an email or
something like, yeah, like, or,this was the best.
So I had a marketing managerand his name was kevin.
And I come to kevin one day andkevin was really he, he, um, he

(10:39):
worked closely with steve,never worked closely with me.
So when I started taking over,he was very nervous because I
have a different managementstyle than Steve.
And so I went to him and I saidhey, let me ask you this we're
running a commercial in Dallas.
How much is that costing us?
Well, I don't know.
All right, well, can you findout?

(11:01):
So he comes back.
It's like I don't know, like athousand dollars a month.
I go how many leads are wegetting from that?
He goes well, can you find out?
So he comes back.
It's like I don't know, like$1,000 a month.
I go how many leads are wegetting from that?
He goes well, I don't know.
I said cancel that commercialtoday.
He goes, we're on the contract.
I go, I don't care, you'recanceling that commercial today.
So that was kind of you know.
I mean, what's the big termgoing on right now?
Waste and abuse happening.

(11:22):
And I found this over and overagain to the tune of like, oh my
goodness, like we literally,like I said, you know, to the
tune of about $18,000 a month.
We had marketing specialiststhat work for us.
Their job was to go out todifferent events.
Well, I found out that they hada company credit card and they
were basically living off ourcompany credit card and so once

(11:45):
I canceled the credit cards,they both quit Shocker, right,
because they were literallyliving on our credit card.
So that's the stuff that Ifound.
That was just running rampantand that's why our lead flow
went from about 130 leads downto about 100 leads.
So we lost about 30% of leadsor right around there, but our
opportunity stayed around thesame.
And we were about 30% of leadsor right around there, but our
opportunity stayed around thesame and we were still closing

(12:07):
around 30 doors a month.
So basically nothing reallychanged when, I did that, but
anyway.
So when I moved Steve out of thebusiness, we were able to run a
much more efficient business.
But now whether Steve was upsetor whether I really don't know,
but Steve all of a suddendecided that he wanted to sell

(12:32):
Empire.
And we ended up gettingapproached by a couple of firms,
mine being one of them, andoriginally I kind of pushed back
.
But now here's what happenswhen you are a partner with your
good buddy that you've beenfriends with for 15 years.
You started all these differentbusinesses together.
Steve and I flipped housestogether.

(12:53):
We owned houses together.
We owned apartments together.
We owned Empire together.
We had done a lot together andhe wasn't just an investor buddy
, he was a friend.
We'd vacation together.
He was a friend of mine and hewas adamant that he wanted to
sell.
I did not want to sell.

(13:14):
I didn't want to sell.
But my options were either A Ibasically force him not to sell,
right, or he sells his portionand that would hurt our
relationship and I just didn'tthink that that was the right
way to go.
Or B I find out I buy him out.

(13:35):
The problem with buying him outwas that because we had run the
business so poorly remember.
I just told you I was negative250 the year before.
No bank was going to loan me.
The money Balance sheet lookedterrible.
So then the third option was Igo find somebody to buy him out,
and I just didn't want anotherpartner.
I'm like you know what, if I'mgoing to do this, I'm just going
to exit.

(13:55):
What's the worst that happens?
The worst that happens is I geta bunch of money in my pocket.
I get a job with the company,with mine, I get a job with the
company with mind and uh, and Iroll, for you know, and I just
you know, I just I'm in, I'm ingreat shape, right, I get a big
salary and I have a bunch ofmoney in my pocket.
What I didn't realize at thetime, though, tony, because I
really didn't know what to donext Like Steve already had his

(14:15):
plan.
Like when we exited, he startedhis coaching business and he
was rolling.
He was happier a clam.
I did not really want to workfor mine, but it was a path of
least resistance.
So I took the job and I quicklyrealized that I did not quote
unquote move the needle.

(14:36):
I was not anybody whose opinionmattered.
I ended up being a glor.
I was the Eastern Region VicePresident of Operations, and
really what that meant was I wasup being a glory.
I was the Eastern region vicepresident of operations, and
really what that meant was I wasa senior property manager doing
things that I had given up onfrom empire a long time ago,
like taking.
Like the biggest thing I reallyhated in the in the in property

(14:58):
management, was takingescalations.
People were unhappy, just justnever.
It's not my bag, it's not mypersonality profile, and so for
me personally, here I am amillion bucks in the bank,
150,000 plus dollars coming in ayear in salary, and it was the
most unhappiest I've ever beenin my life.
And so I made it 18 months.

(15:21):
I don't know how.
Matter of fact, I think theyactually wanted to get rid of me
six months before they actuallydid.
My boss was trying to keep me,but I ended up exiting, and the
month I exited I ended up goinglive with the first version of
VPM, and that's how that workedout.
So the moral of that story is,if you're not really sure what
it is you want to do, I highlyrecommend, before you exit, to

(15:44):
figure that out and whether it'shey I you want to do.
I highly recommend, before youexit, to figure that out.
And whether it's hey, I justwant to live on a beach, I want
to live in a van down by theriver, whatever it is, you just
need to know what that nextchapter of your life is, because
when you don't have a plan, itreally can affect you
emotionally and mentally.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
That is.
That's such a key part to beingan entrepreneur and and I'm
sure people who aren'tentrepreneurs also suffer with
this.
But I I've done some research.
You know, with my long distanceruns and and things that I do,
I put out these big goals thatI'm going to hit and I do the
same thing in business.
But I've done some research andsome study with people that

(16:24):
make it to the Super Bowl andyou would think, okay, these
young kids all their lives havebeen working towards playing in
the Super Bowl.
They go through you know littleleague, then they go through
high school, college, they makeit to the pros, they wind up
being on a team that gets intothe Super Bowl and you could

(16:44):
understand how the people thatgets into the Super Bowl and you
could understand how the peoplethat get into the Super Bowl
and lose could suffer somedepression because they had
their shot and they missed it.
But what a lot of people don'trealize is there's a similar
level of depression for thepeople that get into the Super
Bowl and they win.
They make it Because all theirlives they've had this one goal

(17:07):
that they've been workingtowards.
And then they accomplish it andthey don't know what's next and,
most statistically, if you wereon a team that won this year,
you're not going back, and Iknow that's changing a little
bit.
We've had more teams gettingback into the Super Bowl, but
just because the team got backdoesn't mean that each one of

(17:29):
those players gets back.
And so one of the things thatthrough those studies I've
looked at just really leaninginto not what's my next goal,
but what's the goal after that Ihave to have something that's
pulling me through, almost likethe.
My current goal that I'mworking towards is the
checkpoint on the way to thenext one, and then, once I hit

(17:50):
this one, I'm putting out thatone after that, because your
story is not uncommon.
In the property managementspace, in the entrepreneur space
and I think it's something thatdoesn't get talked a lot about
there's people that are outthere trying to sell businesses
or thinking that they've made itwhen they sell it.
But then, yeah, what do you donext?

Speaker 2 (18:13):
It really was something that I knew was going
to be a challenge and justdidn't realize how big of a
challenge it was going to be,and it made me a bad team member
honestly.
A bad team member honestly,like mine, did not get the best
of of Pete Newbig, and that'sthat's that's on.
That's a direct reflection ofme, you know.
And then I didn't give him thebest, and you know.

(18:36):
But I'm happier now than I havebeen.
And I think also, you know,tony, I'm over 50 now, and I
think when you hit your early50s, you start thinking about
legacy.
You start thinking about allright, what can I do for others?
Where do I leave my littlefingerprint on the universe?

(18:58):
And when you sell a business,it's like, okay, well, shoot,
what do I do next?
And so I personally think owninga property management firm is
one of the greatest businessesyou can do, and I feel that way
because I really believe you'retaking somebody's biggest asset,

(19:21):
an investment property.
In many cases not all, but inmany cases it's actually worth
more than what they have intheir retirement account.
And so we are responsible fortheir retirement, we're
responsible for leaving theirkids a legacy, and really
responsible for their assets.

(19:41):
And then I look at the otherway.
When we have residents and wegive them a home to live in,
we're responsible for that home.
We're providing, hopefully, aloving home, we're providing
shelter and a home.
So I just don't think there'smuch better you can do in a
business other than helpingbusinesses reduce their expenses

(20:07):
and find people jobs so theycan change their lives.
So VPM is like to me, like theequivalent of what we do in
property management.
So I still think we add a lotof value, so I get a lot of that
.
And also we also hire peopleand you have, you know, at
Empire, 35 people.
They paid their bills becausewe, we had a business.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I want to dive into what you guys do at VPM, because
I think it's a really importantpart of running property
management businesses andthrough the framework that we
have, which we we call it thechampionship formula, with our
coaching, and two of those corecomponents that we work through
out of the seven are making sureyou have the right positions

(20:51):
detailed out, or your roles andresponsibilities.
And then, once we've identifiedthe positions that we need on
the team and I don't just mean,oh, we need a property manager,
we need a maintenancecoordinator, but really getting
clear on what the expectationsare of that role, the KPIs
around that role, getting reallyclear on that Then we need to
go out and make sure, just likein a championship team, we're

(21:14):
not just filling the positionbut we're bringing in the very
best that's going to contributeto the success of the overall
team.
And I know that since you leftEmpire and went full in on VPM
Solutions, I know those are twocategories of the property
management space that you'veleaned really heavy into and I'd

(21:35):
love to get your insightsaround making sure we have the
right person doing the rightroles and responsibilities.
And so tell us a little bitabout how VPM operates and how
you go about helping propertymanagement companies do what I
just described.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, so VPM is basically a marketplace that
connects the property managementindustry with remote team
members in 120 plus countries.
That's kind of what we do, butwe do.
We have a recruiting servicethat really helps, and then we
also have specific trainingcourses on the platform where

(22:14):
remote team members can takethose courses, they can test out
, they can pass a test and get acertification.
We also have just industry,like you know, resources.
So we have job descriptions andKPIs and all sorts of stuff out
there.
But let's talk a little bitabout, like, the hiring process,
and I know you and I havetalked about this on a podcast

(22:35):
or two and we've talked aboutthis in the green room and I was
at Lead Simple last Decemberspeaking about this and I asked
everybody to stand up and I said, if you do not have now,
remember these are processpeople.
Lead Simple is a processautomation tool.
I said if you do not have ahiring process, sit down.
There was about 100 people inthe room and about three stood

(22:59):
up.
3% of the people who believe inprocesses had a process for
hiring.
Now, if you think about it, tony, property management is a
service-based business.
We are only good as our people.
And if you do not have a hiringprocess for your people, the
chances of getting good people,the right people, the right team

(23:21):
as you talk about it, achampionship team gets reduced
big time.
And so some of the things thatwe do, especially if you use our
Gold Glove service, is we help.
You know, we use our hiringprocess for the property
management company, but I alsoteach this, and our White Glove

(23:42):
service is free and we kind ofgive you the blueprint for a
hiring process that you canbuild to help get those right
people, the right people in theright seats.
So what does that actually mean?
Well, you touched on it, right.
Your culture, your core valuesor your characteristics, right?
What are the three topcharacteristics for your high
performers on your team?
If I could, if I'm looking, Isay man, tony's been with me for

(24:10):
three years and, man, I wish Ican clone Tony.
What's the characteristics thatTony has?
And also Ann, ann has thosesame characteristics.
What are the characteristicsthat Tony and Ann have?
And how do I duplicate those?
And we, we've been gettingcoached by a man named Mark
Murphy.
He wrote a book called Hiringfor Attitude and what he found
in his research was 89% ofpeople fail because of attitude.
11% of fail because of skill.

(24:33):
So you can have the guy rightwho's got the skill, but if he
doesn't have the right attitude,he's not the right fit in the
culture, he doesn't deserve aticket on the boat, so to speak.
So, understanding what your corevalues are as a company, or
even if you're an individual,what are your individual core
values?
Who is the person that you wantin the foxhole with you?

(24:56):
Who's the person that gets aticket on the boat?
So that's your core values, andMark created these 15 attitudes
that you can basically look atand then we can build questions
that you basically can look atand then we can build questions
based on which attitudes youcheck.
So, even if you don't have corevalues, we can help you develop
your characteristics.
Super simple you read the thing, you pick three of them, you

(25:16):
send it to us and we can createinterview questions based on
those core values.
And then we know the way theyanswer are they a high performer
or a low performer, based onthose core values.
So somebody, tony, who may begreat for PM success, may not be
a good fit for VPM, dependingon how we run our businesses.

(25:36):
The biggest challenge though.
So core values is a bigchallenge, but the biggest
challenge I've seen is you hitit on the head.
People I'll give you.
This is typical.
Hey, pete, I want a remote teammember.
Great, tony, what are you goingto do?
I don't know, but I've beentold by so-and-so and so-and-so
that I should have a remote teammember.

(25:57):
Just because they're cheaper,right, and it's labor, doesn't
mean that you should have aremote team member, especially
if you don't know what they'resupposed to do.
So when you have a jobdescription that says answer
phones, all other dutiesassigned by manager, you don't
know what they're supposed to do.
So how would they know whatthey're supposed to do?
That is a recipe for disaster.

(26:19):
The more detailed you can geton what they're supposed to do,
then that.
I call that the instructions tothe seat right.
So the core values is theticket on the boat and then you
need to get in the right seat,but the instructions are as the
job description, and then how doyou know if they're in the
right seat?
Is with personality profile.
I'm a big disc guy.
I know there's predictive indexand there's tons out there.

(26:41):
I like this.
It's easy, I understand it andit's worked for me for 20 years,
so I kind of go with that.
So now, core values.
You know the right person inthe organization, right person
on the boat.
Your set of instructions, yourdisc profile gets you on the
right seat.
And then how do we make sure werow in the right direction?
Okay, three KPIs, like you said.

(27:02):
So every job role in yourorganization should have a
maximum of three KPIs.
If you have like 11 or 14 ofthem, like I did when I first
started the business, if the oldmantra is everything is
important, nothing is important,so yeah, you might have more,
that you want a KPI, but what'sthe three that you're working on
?
And once you have one of thosedown, pat, bring another one in

(27:24):
and you can change them, you canswitch them out, but you should
really have a maximum of threeKPIs per role and everybody in
your company should have a KPI.
And I can even go one stepfurther, tony.
I believe that if they exceedthe KPI, there should be a bonus
structure in place.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
So I want to ask you because I have this conversation
with people when I first startworking with them they will talk
about their KPIs and so we'llsay, you know if some of them
don't have KPIs, some of themhave KPIs but they don't put it
in like a scorecard or these arethe expectations, but we're not

(28:03):
really measuring it.
And so what is your thoughtsand opinions on tracking KPIs
that we're not hitting?
Because I see a lot ofcompanies come in when I start
working with them and they havethose three, four or 15 KPIs in
your case, per person, kpis inyour case per person, and yet

(28:31):
they're just tracking.
And it's creating this cultureof mediocrity where, yeah, we
don't hit our KPIs, you know,but only 40% of the time are we
hitting, or 60% of the time, andthen we're just like, yeah, we
missed it, okay, on to the nextone, yeah, we missed that, and
then on it.
To me it feels it ties back tothat culture that by tracking

(28:51):
KPIs and not hitting them, youare in reinforcing a culture of
mediocrity.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
A hundred percent.
And the thing with KPIs is,first of all, okay, you know, do
we have the right KPI?
Are we measuring the rightthing?
Somebody came to me one timeand they had, I don't know it
was like 15 or 20 KPIs formaintenance.
And I'm like, well, I havethree KPIs for maintenance, like
what are you trying toaccomplish?

(29:19):
And then KPI that.
So just a quick example right,so you could KPI when a ticket
comes in, how quickly does itget responded to?
That could be a KPI, right.
How quickly does it getdispatched?
How quickly does the vendortake it?
How quickly does it getresponded to?
How quickly?
You know you can do the KPI ofwhat's the percentage of tickets

(29:44):
that get completed within acertain timeframe?
Right, and so everything elsehas to be done before the ticket
is completed.
And including for us, forEmpire, it was before, after
photos and an invoice, and so wecouldn't close tickets until we
had an invoice.
Well, what did that do?

(30:05):
That made us make sure that wegot the invoices we had.
We had a problem where vendorswouldn't invoices for 90 days or
a year.
Now we got invoices within thesame week Huge.
But here's the thing.
Now I got a bonus because ofthose KPIs.
Once they got exceeded, theygot bonused.
But because I hired based on mycore values, I never had to

(30:29):
worry that they're going tocircumvent the process and the
policies to hit the KPI.
So that's the first thing.
So now I only have two or threeKPIs.
I know all the stuff that needsto get done, and then, of
course, you create reporting,trust and verify.
The other big issue is you know,tony, they grab a KPI out of
the air, right?
Okay?
So I'll give you an example.
At Empire, I wanted to so badhave a KPI on turn days, but I

(30:56):
never had the start date and theend date in a database.
How can I get that right?
So I would literally just say,hey, I have a KPI for turn days.
It can't be measured, or itmight take me 48 hours to come
up with a measurement and then,like you know so it's got to be
easily on a report that you canthen put into a scorecard.
Now, if you're not hitting yourKPI, I think there's only a few

(31:19):
reasons why you're not hittingthe KPI.
The number one potential reasonis that the KPI is just way too
out there, right?
Like Tony, I want to lose 20pounds in the next week.
It's not going to happen, right?
So the KPI has to be achievable.
If the KPI is so far out there,nobody is going to try and get

(31:41):
there.
They're going to try to getthere for a couple weeks, maybe
even a month, and then it'sgoing to fall off because it's
not even possible.
So I'll give you an exampleLease renewals was something
that we lacked.
We lacked with, and I think wehad about 30% of all residents
on a lease renewal on a lease.
Well, we wanted to get to 90%,but I bring in a new girl.

(32:02):
I do not make that KPI from 30%to 90%.
What I did is I made it at 34%,then it was 40%, then it was
42%.
So you can move the goalpost,but it has to be achievable.
At the end of it she was at 96%, we stopped it at 92% and we
gave her a bonus when she hitover 92% and she was doing it
fantastic.
So if you don't have the rightKPI, if it's not even close to

(32:24):
being achievable, that's goingto bring you down to that
mediocrity that you talked about.
The next reason that you miss aKPI just could be a valid reason
.
It could be that it'ssummertime and there's so much
work.
We're just not able to hit theKPI Valid.
There's solutions we could putinto there, but it might be
valid.
It could also be that Tony wason vacation last week.

(32:45):
Why didn't he just KPI right?
And then the third thing couldbe you just have a personnel
problem, right.
You might have the right person.
They might be in the wrong seator you have the wrong person.
Now, any one of those youshould be able to ask your team
what can we do as a team thatwill help us achieve our KPIs?
You see what I did there.

(33:06):
Normally, what people ask whydid you, tony, not hit your KPI?
And now Tony is a victim and hegoes to blame, excuse and
denial and he is not thinking ofsolutions, he's thinking of
excuses.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
When I say Tony, defensive mode 100%.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
What can we do, right ?
So now I'm on the same side ofthe table with you.
What can we do?
Or what can I do as the ownerof the company, as your boss,
your manager, whatever it is?
What can I do to help youachieve your KPI?
And now we become victors andwe take ownership,
accountability, responsibility,and we think towards solutions.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
So it's funny because I actually also have three
reasons why we don't hit a KPI.
So here's mine.
They're slightly different, butit brings us to the same place.
So, for me, when a company isnot hitting a KPI, it's either a
system problem, meaning I havenot provided the team member
with the proper tools to be ableto do what I'm asking them to

(34:03):
do, or I've given them too muchwork, there's something wrong
with the system that I'vecreated.
So it's either a system problemor it's a training problem,
meaning I've given them theright tools but I have not
effectively trained them on howto use them.
And the third area is aperformance problem, and the

(34:25):
reason why I like that is, asthe business owner, I get to own
two thirds of the solution,right, yeah?
So I get to say, if we're nothitting a KPI, have I given them
the right solution, have Igiven them the right system?
And if they say yes, then great, we can move on to okay, have

(34:48):
you been properly trained?
If they say no, then we breakdown to what do I need to do for
my teammate to help themachieve the KPI that we've asked
them for?
And if they say yes, they'vegot the right system.
Then we ask them if they'vebeen properly trained, is there
anything that we need to helpthem learn to understand better?
And if they say, yes, I've beenproperly trained, well, now

(35:11):
they we've put them in aposition where you know we've
given them an opportunity.
What's that?

Speaker 2 (35:17):
You have to look in the mirror now.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, we've given them the opportunity to
give us feedback on how to helpthem do their job better.
But at the end of the day, ifit's not a system problem and
it's not a training problem,then it's a performance problem.
And now I can look for what aremy solutions in moving those
people into a different seat oroff the boat, as you say, but by

(35:39):
addressing those first twoareas first.
It gives them the opportunityto open up and share a
legitimate reason why we mightnot be hitting that KPI, and I
think that's my job as thebusiness owners, to make sure my
team is.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
I'll tell you one mistake I made early on and tell
me if you actually have donethis.
You have a person they're notperforming and you change the
process for them or you change apolicy for them and I used to
do that early on.
Today, I'm like, nope, if I'mnot changing anything for you,

(36:13):
this is what is supposed to bedone.
And next thing you know it'slike oh yeah, you're literally
changing everything and you'remessing other people's roles up
because you're taking stuff fromthis person and putting it to
them all because at the end, youknow what has to be done.
They're not in the right seat.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
So I'll take it a little bit different approach.
So I always say the and I'mgoing to give some definitions
here, just so people are clear.
So there's a difference betweena policy and a process.
So the policy is what we do andwhy we do it, and the process
incorporates the proceduralsteps, the step-by-step actions

(36:48):
that we take.
So, as the business owner, I'mgoing to own the policies.
I get to say that and I callthe policies the rule book.
Those are the rules under whichwe play the game of property
management in order to win.
That defines success.
The process I will give peoplesome leeway to give me feedback
on adjusting the process toaccompany or to accomplish the

(37:12):
outcome that we're trying toaccomplish, as long as it still
upholds the policy.
I don't let the team memberschange policy, but I will let
them give me information on.
You know, I haven't been in thefront lines of going out and
doing leasing and leasing upproperties or being the showing
agent for years and so and mostbusiness owners haven't either,

(37:35):
and so if I'm looking in mybrain or in their brain, they're
thinking of the way it workedthree or four years ago when
they were in that position.
And you hire somebody.
New technology comes along.
You know HOAs change theirrules.
Like, I want to give my peoplethe ability to give me input and
that's why we always address isit a system problem?

(37:55):
Like is there something we canchange about the system first,
then we can talk about thetraining and then go back into
the performance?
But I agree with you partiallythat policy shouldn't be changed
.
Where I disagree slightly is Iwant them to have the ability to
help me and give me input onthe individual procedural steps

(38:19):
that we should take to make thisfunction be as efficient and as
effective as possible.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
No, I'm in agreement, a hundred percent.
Um, policies owned by me.
You can't change it, processyou.
You can definitely change theprocess, um, because you are
like you said, you're sitting inthat seat, you're doing it.
Um, I want to be, I want to beknown about what you're changing
so that I make sure, cause alot of people know their process
but they don't know how itaffects the rest of the company.

(38:46):
So I just want to be notified.
I'm like yep, that makes sense,go ahead and do it and move
forward.
And I love when people changethe process.
I love it, even if it doesn'twork.
Tony, I love it.
You know why.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
They're taking ownership of it.
Taking ownership and once youhave somebody in your team takes
ownership of something you gotthem.
They're a high performer, yeah,okay, I want to go back to
something.
I love the KPI conversation.
We could spend two days talkingabout KPIs.
I want to circle back tosomething that you said about
the hiring for the attitude, theculture.

(39:20):
One of the things that I leanreally big into and it's
something that you've alreadymentioned is I talk about
bringing the cult into theculture.
If you were to start a cult,which essentially people work
for your company, for thepaycheck, but there also has to
be something else.
There has to be some reason whythey're connected to your

(39:41):
business, because, especiallywith remote team members, if
they can work for you remotely,they can work for anybody
remotely as long as their skillset lines up.
So what keeps them in yourcompany?
What keeps them working at theclients that hire through VPM?
What do you think companiesneed to do more of and where do
you think they're missing anddropping the ball with bringing

(40:05):
people in as part of that hiringprocess?

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah.
So first of all, getting theright person, right for your
culture and your core values.
Let's say you do that Well, nowhow do you keep them engaged
and how do you keep that corevalues, or how do you push that
core values down all the time?
I think that a lot of people,when they hire a remote team
member, they hire a VA, and it'sless and less.

(40:30):
But there is still a smallamount of people that just hire
a VA and they don't see theremote team member as a remote
team member.
They don't see them as part ofthe team.
They just see them as kind oflike hired help.
It's the wrong way to do it.
Now the majority of peopledon't do that anymore.
I think back 10 years ago thatwas kind of like hired help.
It's the wrong way to do it.
Now the majority of peopledon't do that anymore.
I think back 10 years ago thatwas kind of the thought process.
Now you hear remote team membermore and more.

(40:52):
So people are getting away fromthat.
What I see, Tony, a lot of timespeople will hire somebody,
they'll spend a little bit oftime with them and then they'll
only talk to them once a week orwhatever and uh, and I think
that every time you're in frontof people as a business leader,

(41:14):
you should be talking to themabout your core values.
I really believe that I'm a bigfan of it.
So we have a monthly meeting.
Every month we have a companymeeting.
Everybody's on it, includingremote team members, and the
first portion of that meeting wealways go over our core values
and I'll call people out andI'll ask them what their core
value, what our core values are,what does it mean to them?
Can they point to somebody elsein the company?

(41:36):
That's embodied one of our corevalues.
So keeping that letting peopleknow about the core values and
keep pushing it down from thetop down will get people to
understand what core values are.
So if somebody is not living bythose core values, they're
going to exit themselves out orthe team is going to push them
out.
We also do a daily huddle and inthat daily huddle, the majority

(42:01):
of the like we look at we callthem taps, two by fours in Mack
trucks.
What's a tap is a potentialproblem.
That's tapping you on theshoulder, the two by four.
You tapped on a shoulder, youdidn't do anything about it.
You turn around and smash youin a two by four and then you
still do nothing about it.
Then the Mack truck runs youover, right.
So that's kind of like thelevels of problems.
So our daily huddle is reallygeared for two things One,

(42:22):
identify taps and solve them,and two, to build our core value
in our culture, to keep pushingthat down.
The reason why, when you hirethrough VPM, one of the values
of hiring through VPM is thatthey're a direct hired
contractor working directly foryour business, Meaning they do

(42:44):
not work for VPM in any way.
All they are is they just getpaid through our platform.
So that means they workdirectly for you, the business
owner.
So you get to push your corevalues down If they work for me
and they work for you.
Well, now, he who has twobosses has none.
So what if the core values areconflicting?

(43:05):
Who do they answer to?
So, having a direct hire, youhave more control of your
environment, your core values,to push down to them.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
I just don't think people think enough about it to
really make it top of mind.
I think something else that'sreally important.
You mentioned the daily huddle.
You mentioned having theall-hands meeting.
I position it a little bit likethis If you hire somebody to be
a part of your team and thenyou have a local team and that
local team is communicating allday long, it's kind of like if

(43:38):
you were invited to watch aseries, everybody's talking
about a series, so, whether it'sYellowstone or whatever,
somebody's watching this seriesand you only get to peek into
the series for three to sevenminutes an episode.
You have no clue what's going on.
And so the only window into ourcompany that our remote team

(43:59):
members have they're livinghalfway across the globe the
only the only window into ourcompany is when we open up a
screen and we're communicatingdirectly with them, and so we
need to figure out how can wehave that window open as much as
possible, how can we createcliff notes of the episodes or
summaries of it?

(44:19):
How can we and one of thethings that you do that you've
really leaned on, which I love,is the core values, the company
mission and the company vision,because, in absence of any other
information.
Those things create a filter bywhich I can make decisions as
the remote team member and I canfeel fairly confident that if

(44:42):
I'm following our core values,I'm following our company
mission, I'm following ourcompany vision.
I understand some of thepolicies, that if I'm making a
decision on something, that I'mgoing to get support from the
company because I'm doing thingsin alignment with the main
drivers of the organization.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
The core values is an invisible manager that helps
guide people to make thedecisions that they, that they
need to make for the company.
So, without those core values,sometimes they don't make the
decisions, or they make thewrong decision, or they just
wait for you, as the boss, tomake the decision.
And so it really is important.
Um, I know, like you know, itsounds kind of hocus pocus, like

(45:26):
, oh, core values, but it reallyis important and it really does
get people to do the rightthing based on your values.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
When I first start working with clients, I tell
them I'm in the entrepreneurextraction business and my job
is to extract them, as theentrepreneur, out of the
day-to-day operations of thebusiness.
And you can't do that withoutgiving the rest of your team a
single source of truth or oneplace to go to be able to have

(45:59):
that framework to make decisions, the same way you would make
decisions without coming to youto get the answer.
So if you don't want them to becoming to you to get the answer
, we have to give them aframework in where can they go
to get that answer themselves?
And then how do they makedecisions?
And I you're right, I think.

(46:19):
For me, when I first heard ofcore values, it was kind of like
either an exercise that you sataround a boardroom and around a
table and you put together thispackage and you threw it in the
drawer, or it was like a posteryou put on the wall, never to
be seen again, right?
Yeah, yeah or yeah.
You walk by the poster everyday for 60 days, have no idea

(46:41):
what it says, because nobodyreally reinforced it.
It's really just a code to liveby, to have the people in your
team live by, and I think itstrengthens the bond in the team
because we can call each otherout of.
Hey, was that in alignment withright?
It gives us a framework thatwe're all moving in the same
direction because of these corevalues.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
And I think you, as the owner, a business leader,
have to live by the core values.
Even if you have them and thenyou make decisions that are not
in alignment with your corevalues.
You need to change your corevalues or you need to change
your decision.
I'm trying to think of one offthe top of my head, but you know

(47:24):
, our core values at Empire waslike do the right thing always.
And so even if the client orthe resident didn't know about
something and we knew about it,we would make it right and let
them know about it, whether it'sgiving them a refund or
whatever it was.
And if you don't make thosedecisions, then what is the core
value?
Do it doesn't stand the test ofit doesn't stand the test right

(47:47):
, like the test was.
You know, what do you do whenno one's looking right?
Well, if you have these corevalues, that's what's guide you
when no one's looking.
So you have to live by thosecore values.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Okay, as we, as we we're running short on time, I
really want to get into anothertopic, so hopefully you can help
me condense this.
But we, I want to help peoplethat are looking to hire
somebody to add to the team.
I mentioned that those two corecomponents of our championship
formula, which is defining theposition and then hiring that

(48:20):
right person.
We've talked about how to hirethem based on some of the core
values and incredible insightinto these two areas.
How would somebody go from hey,I'm overwhelmed, I'm overloaded
, I have too much to do.
Or I had somebody that wasworking for me and they just

(48:42):
quit?
Like, how do I peel offresponsibility and make this
person successful that I hire?
And or how do I replacesomebody that, just through
attrition, they move on for goodor bad reasons?
Where do we go to make peoplesuccessful in engaging with a
service like yours?

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah.
So I've come up with two waysand love to hear you because you
probably have a third or fourthway, but it kind of depends on
how big the company is, right.
So if you're a solopreneur andyou're doing everything and
you're starting to getoverwhelmed, you hit those 75 to
100 units or whatever it is,and you're getting overwhelmed,

(49:24):
you need to really do a timestudy and write down all the
things that you're doing andwrite all the stuff that's the
low level, low enjoyment, thestuff you don't like to do.
And most times, all the stuffyou don't like to do are
basically around the same typeof personality profile.
And just because you don't likethem doesn't mean that
everybody in the world doesn'tlike to do them.

(49:44):
There's somebody who loves todo those things, and so that's
an easy way to then build a jobdescription and then find
somebody to do those things.
Alternatively, if you're alittle bit bigger and you're
running hybrid or departmental,you can say, okay, departmental,
you can take that process.
So instead of thinking of aremote team member that can take

(50:04):
pieces of a process right, oh,in this piece we can send to the
remote team member you canactually hire a remote team
member to own the process.
So, for example, at Empire Ihad a lease renewal specialist.
That was a job role for ourcompany that was virtual team

(50:25):
member.
The more defined you can get arole like departmental.
What I have found, tony, iseasier to understand the KPI for
that role.
It's easier to understand theKPI for that role.
It's easier to understand thedisk profile for that role.
It's easier to really create ajob description for the role.
If you're in that tweener stageand you have somebody who's an
assistant and maybe they'reoverwhelmed, I would have them

(50:46):
do the time study, what do theylike to do, what do they don't
like to do, and then you canbuild a job description based on
what they don't like to do,what do they don't like to do,
and then you can build a jobdescription based on what they
don't like to do.
Or you can say, okay, well, Ihave one assistant and they're
doing these three things.
Well, now I want to offloadthese other three things and

(51:08):
maybe it's not one process butmaybe it's two or three
processes that you can give tosomebody, because at 100 units,
how many lease renewals orcollections or tenant recalls do
you have?
You can build those If you tryto give somebody everything that
you're doing and they becomethe property manager.
I have found that that is arecipe for failure.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah, I think one of the things that is important
with that time study and this isI'm leaning on the time study
but what we normally do is wecreate just what we call an
accountability chart and it'sjust the things that need to get
done throughout the business.
I have some clients that gosuper deep and detailed, some
that keep it more high level,but we fill this out and we

(51:49):
write down all of theresponsibilities.
I have a tool that we use and,um, there's a spreadsheet and
some automation and stuff thathappens with it, but essentially
we document everything thatneeds to happen and then we
assign that to a role.
We never assign it to a person,because when you start
assigning responsibilities to aperson, you're like well, you
know, I have my aunt, Karen,working for me and she's not

(52:12):
really good with technology, soI can't have her do that.
It changes what's possible, andso it's really about assigning
responsibilities to roles andthen assigning the right people
to those roles to cover thoseresponsibilities.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Well said.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of havingsome type of org chart or
accountability chart for whatthe company looks like today.
And if you are a single memberperson that's doing everything,
that doesn't mean you have onebox.
It still means you have to haveall these different boxes and
guess what?
Your name goes in every box,right, right.

(52:50):
And then what I like to do,tony, is I don't know if you've
done this in the past I identifythe next five positions that I
want to hire.
So I have this accountabilitychart of what the company looks
like today, and then I shadefive boxes per pink and as we
get, as we grab revenue, as wegrow, those are the positions I
hire next.
And then I have one that whatdoes it look like when a

(53:12):
company's done?
That one's a fun one, but it'smore just a thought exercise of
how big you want to be, and isthat in alignment with your
vision?

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Sure, okay.
So we've designed the positions, we've figured out the roles
and responsibilities, we'vecreated our future, we've
figured out the next five hireswe're going to do.
I think this is where I seepeople get stuck, or this is
where I've heard of people getstuck.
Okay, I, I know what I want,and which is more than what some

(53:44):
people do.
Some people just say I needhelp, but but if we've gone
through the accountability chartor we've done the time study,
we say, okay, I know what wewant.
I don't know how to find thatright person.
And you mentioned using DISC.
So how do I know what DISCprofiles I should hire?
For a business developmentperson?
For a maintenance person,accounting, because I don't have

(54:08):
.
You know, if I'm a businessowner that is never hired for
this position before, or I'vehired and it's just business
owner that is never hired forthis position before, or I've
hired and it's just I've hired.
My last three hires for thisposition have not worked out and
I want to change things.
How do I go about implementingthis DISC tool or some

(54:28):
personality assessment tool?

Speaker 2 (54:29):
to be successful with it.
Well, I think the first thingyou have to do is, if you don't
have a coach, find a coach, anda coach will help you learn, get
through that Right, but youhave to learn one of them.
You have to select one and gowith it.
Like I said, I'm a disc guy.
I don't know anything aboutpredictive index.
I don't know anything about red, green, blue or any.
I don't know anything about anyof those.
All I know is DISC.

(54:51):
That's all I know.
I've been trained in it andI've been using it for going on
20 years now.
Okay, so the first thing is youhave to understand personality
profile.
Whichever one you select, youhave to understand it and if you
don't hire a coach, the coachwill be able to kind of guide
you through it.
The second thing and this isthe important thing that I

(55:11):
learned and I wasn't doing as afirst, every job description you
build out, you can create allthese little bullet points for
that job and then you can thenput in what type of personality
profile for each one of thosebullet points.
What I found is, if you have ajob that's got I'll just use
DISC as an example it's got fiveDs, five Is five Ss and five

(55:32):
C's.
It's probably not a reallywell-defined job.
You probably have to move somesome jobs and split the role.
Most jobs are going to be,especially in property
management, are going to be C'sright In this profile.
And so once you understand whatthis profile is, then when you
create the job role, you'llit'll be like oh, this is a CS,

(55:52):
this is a, you know, a CI, thisis an SC based on, based on the
job role.
Then at that point it prettybecomes pretty simple.
You have anybody who applies,take a disc test, or or the
person I profile test.
And here's the thing Um, ifthey don't match up, I don't
hire them.
Unless there's always a,there's always like a.
What is it?
The?

(56:12):
Uh, every rule has a exception,the exception Right.
So if, um, if somebody has beenan accountant for 20 years or a
bookkeeper for 20 years andthey test out as a I, which is
the opposite of C, which is theopposite of what a bookkeeper
should be, I'm going to be, I'mgoing to still be, I'm still
going to say you know what?
Maybe I should interview thisperson because they've obviously

(56:33):
learned to become a C whenthey're doing the accounting
thing.
So if you have a lot ofexperience I'm willing to go
over that.
But typically I don't look atexperience Most jobs in property
management I actually don'twant any experience.
I want the right person, corevalues, and I want the right

(56:53):
personality.
We are not sending people toMars.
We are doing maintenancecoordination, lease coordination
, executive assistant, all thesethings I can train you and I
want to train the new dog thenew tricks.
I don't want to try to train anold dog the new tricks and I'll
find a lot of people like well,I want somebody with experience
in maintenance coordinationthat lives in the Philippines,

(57:15):
that I'm like.
First of all, it's going to bereally hard to find that and,
second of all, every time I'vehired somebody with experience,
I ended up getting rid of thembecause they have a certain way
that they want to do it and theydon't want to do it my way, and
typically my way is the rightway.
Just kidding, tony.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
It is the right way at your business, right?
I mean, that's the thing youcan have somebody that brings in
something that is a really goodprocess.
But because it doesn't fit withand it doesn't align with
everything else that yourbusiness does, you know, it
could be really good as astandalone piece, but it's not
the right fit for your businessbecause you do everything else

(57:55):
in a different way, so it's thewrong piece for this puzzle.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, Just also finishing up on the this thing
or the personality profile.
It's actually one more step inthe interview process before I
interview somebody.
One of the challenges that I'veseen, Tony, is that people post
a job and the next thing youknow they get a hundred
applicants because it's easy toapply.
And now I got to, I got tointerview a hundred people and I
don't have time for that.
Well, what we do instead is weput an application out there and

(58:25):
then, if you apply, great, youneed to take a disc.
If you don't take it, you getweeded out.
The ones who do take it great.
Now you have to take thecertification exam.
If you don't take thecertification exam, you weed it
out.
If you take the certificationexam, you go to next.
Then you have to take aself-interview.
Don't take the self-interview,you weed it out.
You take the self-interview,Now interview it and if
everything looks good, the discmatches the self-inter

(58:47):
certification, you pass it.
Now you get an interview.
I don't want to interview 500people or 100 people, I want to
interview five people and getthe right one.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Okay, I've got to know this.
So first of all, about how manypeople are on your platform
right now.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Right around 40,000.
Okay, so we got 40,000 peoplethat at some point have either
applied, been hired or arecurrently.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Those are people who've created profiles looking
for work.
Yeah, right, okay.
So what is your opinion on thespeed to hire?
So, meaning, I put out, I wentout, I created a job description
, I've posted that I'm hiringfor this position.
Does the speed at which we hiremake a difference and, if so,

(59:45):
should we hire faster or slowerto get the right fit?

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Okay.
So that's like a trap questionhere, because we're always
taught hire slow, fire, fast,right, and I believe that you
can hire faster so we can hirewithin two weeks for most most
jobs.
Because, if so, think about itif I cast a big net 40,000
people and I put a job postingout there, I'm going to get a

(01:00:11):
hundred people to apply.
I put a job posting out there,I'm going to get 100 people to
apply Day one, right, boom.
Now I message them and I say,okay, hey, everybody here, you,
100 people.
I need to take DISC.
50 people take DISC.
Out of those 50, 25 are theright person I profile.
Now those 25 people, I tellthem to take a course.
15 take the course.
Right Now.
I got 15 out of 25.

(01:00:32):
Now I tell them do an interview.
Five take the interview.
Right.
But they've.
I've passed them on the disc,I've passed them on the course,
I passed them on the interview.
Boom.
If you can do all that and andI truly believe the rate at
which somebody responds soresponsiveness is one of our 10
point scoring systems that wehave and if you don't respond or
you respond 24 hours is good,right, right, cause people do

(01:00:54):
have jobs and they have lives.
But if it takes three, fourdays to respond while you're
looking for a job, you getyou're, you're, you're out of,
you're out of the uh, theequation.
So if you do it right, you canliterally have somebody within
two weeks if they go through allthe all the process.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Well, I think that's so, that's good, that that's in
alignment with what I wasthinking, because, yeah, I've
heard the whole.
You know, hire slow fire, fast.
But I think in the market wherepeople are looking for a job,
if you do get 30, if peoplearen't doing it the way you're
doing it and they just put outhey, I have a job opening and I

(01:01:32):
get 100 responses, have a jobopening and I get a hundred
responses, and now I'm trying tofigure out how to go through
those.
Well, if you wait and it takesyou a month to respond to people
and get back the good ones aregone, so the only ones that are
left are the ones that didn'tget selected by somebody else
that was looking for a job.
So, instead of instead oflooking at the top 10% of the

(01:01:54):
options that you have, you'releft with the bottom 50% and
trying to navigate through those.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I think the hire slow in my mind, tony, doesn't mean
how long it takes you to hire.
I think the hire slow to memeans how many obstacles you're
going to put in front ofsomebody before you hire them
right obstacles you're going toput in front of somebody before
you hire them right.
So in our hiring process, right, I'm looking at your resume,
but once you apply right,because you have a resume on

(01:02:20):
file, I'm looking at, I'm havingyou get tested by taking
certifications.
I'm having you see if you're agood fit for the role through
the personality exam.
I'm having you see if you're agood fit for my company by
giving you a self-interviewbased on our characteristics.
So I'm doing all of these steps.
I'm just doing them quicker toget people through the pipeline

(01:02:42):
quicker, versus like doing itlike you know, like I think Dave
Ramsey he was like I take Itake them out to dinner with
their wife.
Yeah, okay, if you're hiring aCEO, maybe, but if you're hiring
somebody to do leach renewalsin philippines, like I'm not
gonna fly, yeah, all right, pete, I know we could.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
We could continue this conversation for several
more hours.
I uh, I always enjoy connectingwith you, but let's kind of
wrap it up.
What is there that I shouldhave asked you about?
You've got a long, rich historyin the property management
space.
You've now leaned into richhistory in the property
management space.
You've now leaned into helpingpeople grow their businesses by
bringing on the right people inthe right roles.

(01:03:21):
I love that because that youknow your, your team, is your
only true asset, because withoutyour team, everything else
falls apart.
So you know what?
What should I have touched onthat we didn't, or anything top
of mind that you want to closeout with?

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Yeah, one little thing is when you're the
business owner, stop being thesuperhero.
A lot of us have a case ofsuperhero-itis and you touched
on this a little bit, tony, andit made me think of it something
.
And then I we kind of got intoa different deal.
But if you have a line outsideyour door every day waiting for
people to have you makedecisions on stuff, um, you are

(01:04:00):
going to be stressful, you'regoing to have a stressful job,
you're going to be stressed andno one's going to do anything
until you make a move.
So don't pull your shirt off andhave the red S underneath and
be the superhero.
Shirt off and have the red Sunderneath and be the superhero.
Allow your team to make thedecisions and if they and if
they escalate, then redirect.
So don't answer, even if youknow the answer.

(01:04:22):
Try not to give them the answer.
Ask questions to have them comeup with the answer.
And what will happen over time?
Less and less escalations, lessand less questions to you, more
free time for you.
So that's one thing I would add.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
I love it.
I love it.
I always say that every timeyou solve a problem for your
team, you weaken your team.
Oh, I'm stealing that.
I love it.
All right, you can have it.
But no, it's true, right.
Every time they come to us,we're creating muscle memory
that we're going to solve theirproblem for them, versus like

(01:04:55):
what you said, which is to justask questions.
What does our policy say forthat?
Get them to find the answer andthen you can confirm whether
that's so.
I don't say stop giving them aplace to get the answer we need
to provide the answer in someway but stop answering questions
when they come to you directlyto solve the problem.

(01:05:17):
Build their confidence byhaving them tell you what the
answer should be and then, aslong as it's close, you can
build on that and send them ontheir way where they feel more
confident, where they have tocome to you less and less.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Yep, build a culture where they come with you with a
question and a possible solution.
It could be a cockamamiesolution, but at least they
thought of something.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Perfect, all right.
Pete, I know we're going to seeeach other down at the broker
owner in Colorado Springs, but,more importantly, we're going to
see each other in the GrandCanyon when we are hiking rim to
rim, and I just want to takeyour temperature on that.
How are you feeling about that?

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I am super excited.
I'm looking forward to thechallenge and to the
relationship building that Iknow is going to come from some
of the great people that aregoing to be there.
So I've been walking every dayabout eight miles a day, lifting
five days a week, and I'mgetting ready to increase my
walks on the weekends to startbuilding some of that mileage.

(01:06:18):
And then you told me I got toput a.
I got to wear a vest, not avest, but like a pack.
So I'm going to go get thatthis weekend and I'm going to
start that process.
So you're my mentor for this,tony, whether you know it or not
.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Perfect, perfect.
All right, pete, thanks forhopping on.
Thanks for sharing your insightand your wisdom with our
audience.
It's always great to connectand we'll chat soon.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Thanks for having me on, tony.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
Talk soon.
Thanks for tuning in to theproperty management success
podcast.
We'll be back with anothervalue packed episode to help you
level up your propertymanagement game.
If you've got somethingvaluable out of today's episode,
please share it with a friendor colleague, and don't forget
to subscribe and leave a reviewso you never miss out on future
insights and strategies andtactics.
Until next time.

(01:07:01):
Here's to your success.