Ray Hespen, who is a frequent flier on The Property Management Show, joined us again to discuss maintenance metrics and how measurement improves resident satisfaction and owner NOI. The last time he was on the podcast, in late 2023, his team was just beginning to establish this concept of maintenance analytics. He was investigating what it would look like if property managers looked at maintenance from a data-driven standpoint. He was beginning to collect all the necessary data. It’s been more than a year now, and we brought him back to talk about what he’s seen since then. The Evolution of Data-Driven Maintenance If you get good measurements, you never lose. Property management has been in this black hole of information and according to Ray, that’s because we relied so much on having exceptional people run our business. It’s a super-high trust game. But, you can’t move what you can’t measure. So in order to scale, Ray and his team at Property Meld released a product that’s the best industry representation of the real world. Insights and Insights Pro are basically ways to understand your own property management business against a ladder of maintenance excellence. It’s a deep diving into: Vendor efficiency Technician efficiency Coordinator efficiency Benchmarking Finances You know what the performance actually is instead of trusting someone’s gut. Ray says it’s been surprising to see how the market has wrestled with some of this. There are some components of the data that people don’t like. They’d rather not look. Then, there are some customers where the metrics are so good, but they still want to get better. Essentially, providing access to all of this data and insights has opened Pandora’s Box. There’s no going back. It’s possible to measure leading and lagging indicators. And now, it’s possible to consider how to move those numbers. Knowing they exist is one thing. Using them to improve performance is what comes next. Geographical Insights in Maintenance Performance The most interesting data gathered from maintenance requests and responses is geographical. Ray says what’s most important in the information that’s been gathered is that property managers can see their performance against geographical regions and areas. It’s clear to see that property management companies in the southern states, which have warmer summers, have a high speed of repairs and increasing maintenance costs in May. So, it would be unfair to compare yourself to a property management company in Minnesota that does not have air conditioning repair costs until July or August. The geographical impact to maintenance in weather regions is important. Property managers don’t want to think they’re killing it or falling behind when the data is geographical. That’s what Ray calls a “big a-ha.” Customer Satisfaction and Its Impact on Retention Customer satisfaction has become a much-discussed part of property management, and that covers the satisfaction of residents and owners. It’s important to remember that resident satisfaction also affects owner satisfaction. Technically, property managers have multiple customers, but there’s also a hierarchy. Would you rather lose 50 percent of your owners or 50 percent of your tenants? Exactly. So, the hierarchy starts at the investor. Property managers do not have a business if they don’t have an investor customer. But, if property managers can make the resident happy, it’s much easier to hang onto those investor clients. So, one of the indicators of investor satisfaction is resident retention. One of the reasons that tenants leave is that they hate the maintenance. In the macro environment today, no one wants a rental on the market. Avoiding that as much as possible is important. Also, maintenance costs are growing 8 percent year over year. No one wants to turn a property when maintenance costs are higher and rents are holding or even compressing. When you’re driving investor retention, a property manager needs to look at resident retention and annual maintenance spend per unit. That’s what matters: resident experience and maintenance costs. It’s more than just wanting to be better with maintenance. Property managers can drill down from every point in the ladder of maintenance excellence. Identify the problem so you can improve it. A resident satisfaction issue might be approval speed. If it’s taking too long to get the repairs approved, you need to get into those details instead of running after different things. Don’t do work that doesn’t have an impact. Measuring things allows you to look at problems more critically. There’s a lot to be said for gut instinct, but once you start using data, you have to be methodical. Perhaps you’ve heard the W. Edwards Deming quote: “In God we trust but all others must bring data.” Following your gut is important, especially if you’ve been in this business a long time. It’s probably not wrong. A lot of data has been gathered and processes created around operator gut instinct. But, your gut should lead you to a deeper investigation. Gather more information to validate it. Key Takeaways from the Benchmark Report Ray’s team recently released a benchmark report. The Monthly Meld is released month over month and year over year to highlight the trends that have been detected. Here are some of the key takeaways and general trends: Everyone cares about residents staying in their rentals, more so than before. This has driven a focus on speed of repairs and an emphasis on satisfaction. We have to sort through the concept that maintenance costs are still going up. Cumulatively, on properties, they are. BUT, the average cost of a single repair has gone down for the first time in a while. That means total maintenance spend is going up but the ticket prices are going down. This indicates people are doing more repairs, but each of those repairs has a lower cost. Owners are investing in preventative programs. Property managers are trying to save their investors from sticker shock. There’s a higher frequency but lower costs. We’re seeing still a larger uptick of operators doing internal technician work. They’re bringing maintenance in-house. That internalizes and integrates processes, and it also controls cost of the market. You’ll find in that report that vendor invoices went down one or two percent. Internal technician repairs went down 15 percent. So, the in-house teams are being used for profitability and to control costs. Property managers and owners have reported it’s been difficult over the last year or two to get trade people into properties. There has not been enough supply for the maintenance demand. But, hiring technicians is harder than finding vendors. The same talent pool is being hired by property managers and service providers. The high-lever view is this: vendors are still constrained. There are great professional vendors out there, and Property Meld has a product that connects these providers. Property managers can get onto the app and check for availability by zip code. Annual Cost of Repairs per Owner: The Magic Number On his previous appearance, Ray said that the magic number is 12 percent of rents collected. Staying near that magic number means that a property manager will retain that owner client. If maintenance costs are higher than 12 percent of collected rent, the threat of churn begins to grow. Is that still true? With rents not rising but maintenance costs going up, is the 12 percent rule still accurate? Ray says that analysis has not been re-evaluated because everything has been so dynamic and the data set needed is so large. He knows that investors will stick around if residents are happy, and now he knows that maintenance behavior impacts that. Tenant satisfaction with maintenance is about the details. If you have a lot of plumbing issues, will that change renewals versus electrical issues? Does it matter if most repairs are within three months of move-in versus six months? The goal is to avoid whatever leads to dissatisfaction. Imagine telling an investor that you can change lease length based on what gets done maintenance-wise, and then being able to show how much more it earns them. Your investor client will love that. Ray intends to will go back and determine whether the 12 percent is still the right benchmark. Trends in Repair Costs and Customer Satisfaction The benchmarking report shows that in many cases, even where the median invoice amount was higher, customer satisfaction still went up for owners and residents. Higher costs may not mean lower satisfaction. It’s undoubtedly true that the emphasis on resident experience is the largest focal point right now. Trying to control costs is essential, but there’s a zero tolerance for bad experiences. That reflects the market. In 2022, a property manager could rent a home sight unseen. Now, rentals are on the market for 44 days. Few things are trending down with resident satisfaction because property managers and paying attention and emphatic about that experience. Leading and lagging indicators that get the most attention include: Speed of repairs Resident satisfaction Vendor health score Annual maintenance spends Understanding Triage in Property Maintenance Property Meld recently acquired Mezo. Ray calls it one of the most impressive AI intake and triaging assistants he’s seen. Mezo has a bot called Max, and Max is the world’s friendliest tech. It asks residents questions. It provides empathy. It gets all the necessary information about a maintenance requests and it prevents emergencies. Follow an engineer’s thinking on why this acquisition is so important: Mezo’s unique selling proposition is that they figured out how to automate maintenance triage. Triage has not come up as often as the other leading and lagging indicators. But, getting triage right has a big impact on speed of repairs, satisfaction, and vendor health scores. It impacts resident happiness. It gives the proper work to the proper vendors. When a property manager triages well, you’re saving money and sending technicians who are right for the job. Property maintenance isn’t just about remediating a problem. It’s about getting the right information to the technicians so they know what they’re working with and how to respond. It’s about preventing an emergency, and there are a lot of downstream benefits. Maintenance operations is not about making repairs. It’s about how well you can complete that repair, and how much better you can make the experience for your resident. That’s the part of the job that’s really important. When everything aligns, annual maintenance spend per unit goes down. Property managers have the scoreboard now. There should be: Faster response times Better scheduling Single trip repairs Lower cost repairs That’s what intake and triage does. Submitting a maintenance request with this program is remarkably easy. It’s intuitive and interesting. Everyone has experienced a bad chatbot, but this experience with Max and Mezo is a great experience. The Role of AI in Property Management and Maintenance AI has become popular, and a lot of companies are slapping AI onto their product and doing a bad job with it. That’s lazy, and an untrained chatbot loaded with zero knowledge is only going to make an experience worse. It’s not an improvement of anything. AI is not magic. People either get too excited about AI or they have already decided to hate it because of a bad experience. Ray says the effective use of AI is all in application. Amazing things can be done, but only if you’re willing to map it to do what you want it to do. AI should help the scoreboard change. The cost of a wrong decision can be catastrophic. One plumbing issue that does not get caught as an emergency can be a disaster. Property managers can afford to make bad decisions in some cases, but not with maintenance. Eventually, the bad AI tools will be obsolete. The good ones will improve. Be intentional with the technology you’re implementing. The goal is not to implement AI. AI is the tool. It’s a how not a why. Data-Driven Decisions in Property Management In recent years, there’s been a move in the property management industry to become more data conscious and to make data-driven decisions. But it’s easy to get lost in those numbers. The benchmarks do not have to be taken as absolutes. It’s meant to be blended and applicable to local markets. Ultimately, the goal is to affect your net operating income. If you can get to a predicable NOI, you’ve done something good with the data. You’re understanding how your market performs on returns. And, money follows the returns. When it comes to NOI, we’ll soon all be on the same scorecard. Ray believes we’re not far off from being a very transactional business in terms of delivering great returns while providing housing services. Where money goes, opportunity and wealth are created. When money jumps into the industry, wealth is created, and while there are some unknowns, running after better NOI today will mean you’re ahead. Focus on your customer’s NOI. That needs to be your north star. When you’re delivering better returns to investors, you cannot lose. Find more information from Ray by checking out Propertymeld.com and Mezo.io. And if you have any questions about your property management marketing, contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY NameThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 90343 The post Residential Property Maintenance Metrics and Improving NOI (with Ray Hespen) appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

Fourandhalf’s Marie Tepman, Interviewed by Marc Cunningham on the PM Build Property Management Business Podcast Marc Cunningham, from Grace Property Management and PM Build, invited Marie onto his podcast to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in property management marketing. Specifically, the discussion revolved around getting more owner leads for property managers. In an environment where budgets are shrinking and a lot of property managers are still unsure about AI, this discussion provides some clarity. Here’s what was discussed. Property Management Marketing and Gaining Owner Leads One of the biggest challenges all property management companies deal with is bringing new owner client leads into the company. How do you drive more leads into your company? The big catchphrase now is AI. Should property management companies use AI? How can these tools be used? It’s a big umbrella in property management marketing, but first, let’s talk about the simple fact of how to get more owner leads. What’s the big picture? Leads are online. So, property management companies need a good presence online. This starts with a website. And while some companies build business through referrals, online marketing is the next step. To really get started attracting owner leads to your property management company, you need a website and you need content. Marc remembers saying “no thanks” to a company that tried to sell them on a website in the early 1990s. He though as long as he had his Yellow Pages ad, he’d be fine. Things have changed. A property management company’s website and content serve reputation. Reputation is important because you want people to vouch for you. Before buying a product or service, consumers are going to look at reviews. They’re going to want to see how many stars are on your Google rating. If you don’t have any testimonials or reviews, people might think that’s suss (suspicious, for the over-45 crowd). If a prospective owner finds your website but no one online is talking about you, there may be hesitation. You have to show that you’re trustworthy. After you have established your website and your reputation, you need content. Content and Property Management Marketing for Owner Leads The literal meaning of content is anything with words on your website. At Fourandhalf, we’re more interested in quality content. When someone who has just inherited a home needs help renting that home out, they’re not going to go online and search for a property management company. A lot of them might not even know that property management is a service that’s provided professionally. Instead, they’re going to go online and search how to find a tenant or how much rent to charge. Property management content is not selling your business. It’s not telling anyone how long you’ve been in business, and it’s not bragging about how great you are. It’s showing prospective owners that you can be trusted. It’s showing value. Any company can say they’re great. It doesn’t mean anything to your prospect. They have a problem and they want to solve it. When you’re a problem solver, you’re providing quality content. The hero of the story is the always the customer. When you show up to offer solutions, you want to make it obvious to the owner that this is why your service can help. That allows the owner to remain the hero. As the property management expert, you’re the helper getting them what they need. Don’t be the hero. Be the helper. That’s a big concept that needs to be adopted when it comes to content. Serve, don’t show off. When an owner clicks on the how-to content, they’ll find it helpful. It’s educational. So, when they get to the end of what they’ve read or watched, they’ll see who provided the content. Trust is established. Should You Just Use AI to Create Content? Maybe property managers don’t have time to create content. Is this where AI can be helpful? Can you ask AI to write a blog on how to collect rent and then throw it on your website? You can. And this is why generative AI is so deceptively awesome. When Marie first discovered ChatGPT and what it did, she feared the end of marketing had arrived. It seemed like original content would no longer be necessary. But, the more she dug into what this tool is, the more she realized its limitations as well as its uses. The technology goes to its library of what’s already been written. If you want to use content that’s completely AI-created, you’ll end up with just an okay blog. But, we are no longer in the year 2000. Having a website is not special because everyone has one. Creating content is also not special; more and more property managers are doing it. So, if you want to put your property management company’s name on a machine-generated blog that lacks originality and authenticity, you can. But don’t expect great results. If you want to do better than a mediocre blog that could have been written by anyone, the human touch is still required. How to Use AI as a Marketing Tool Use AI as a sounding board or a starting off point. In trying to write content, people fail to realize it’s not about the words on the page or how many times property management was mentioned. It’s about placing the seed of an idea in your reader. Remember that people are looking for solutions. An AI-generated blog may provide information, but it does not provide any credibility. You want to make an impression with quality, professional content. When you add the personal stories and your own expertise to the writing, you gain trust and credibility. AI tools cannot give you the credibility or the authenticity. They can give you words. AI can be used when you feel like you’ve run out of ideas or when you’re not sure how to cover a topic in a new way. As a property manager, maybe you’ve written about rent control a hundred times and you just don’t know what a new angle might be. Put your thoughts into AI and see what you get. It won’t be a blog, but it may be a phrase or a sentence that sets something off in your mind and sends you down the path towards new content around a subject you know well. AI can help you get to your own ideas faster. When Marie tells the generative system that she’s looking for a fresh idea around a topic, she shares all the ideas she has. It suggests a lot of things, and 95 percent is not usable. It’s up to her, as the human, to find that grain of inspiration. Sometimes it’s a full idea that she’s able to pull out. Sometimes it’s just a phrase. Here’s an example Marie shared: When she was scheduled to speak at NARPM National 2023, she wanted to talk about marketing and attracting owner leads. It’s a tried and true topic that she had discussed many times, and she didn’t want to bore an audience who had likely heard her speak about this before. She had a post-it note on her desk that she’d had for years which reads: It doesn’t matter how good you are, because if you don’t get discovered, no one will ever know you existed in the first place. She put that into ChatGPT as part of a bunch of other ideas she also fed to the system. It suggested, somewhere, talking about how property managers start off invisible. Marie leaned into that, and many edits later, she had a talk that started with the phrase: “From Invisible to Irresistible.” She didn’t let AI write her speech. And she might have come up with that title on her own eventually. But, this is a good example of how AI can be a useful tool but not an author. Think of it as a collaborator and a companion. Think of it as a tool. Just like any tool, you have to know how to use it. Keeping Content Personal If you’re not doing any content creation, and you’re happy just to have a website and that’s all you want to do, then AI can create posts for your site. But recognize that it’s not going to be the best quality. It’s not going to be personal. Most importantly: it won’t give you the owner leads you want. AI is not scary, and it sets a very low bar. It takes what everyone else thinks and puts it out there. Your job when marketing for owner leads is to decide how can you be different? You can give your professional opinion in original, high-quality content. AI won’t give an opinion. It can’t because it’s not a property manager. AI cannot bring wisdom to the table. It cannot compete with professionalism or offer professional opinions. Property managers need to remember that. Your content is your professional opinion. Google’s Thoughts on AI and SEO Another big question Marie gets a lot is whether using AI will provide an edge SEO-wise. The answer is no. Google’s algorithm updates all the time, and it basically says that their algorithm prioritizes helpful content and useful, authentic content. Their stance on AI is that they don’t care. Let’s think of it like a cake. If you’re asked to bring a cake to a potluck, maybe you’ll spend a full day making everything from scratch. Or, maybe you’ll buy a cake from a store. When you show up to the potluck, people will be very excited about the homemade cake. They might judge the store-bought cake. But it really comes down to taste. How does the cake taste? Google doesn’t care if it’s homemade or store-bought. They care if it tastes good. If you’re a property manager thinking about marketing for owner leads, maybe you’ll find a middle ground. You’ll buy a cake mix from the store but then add your own flavors and personal touches to that mix, creating an original cake that tastes great. Don’t focus on the how. Focus on the what. Action Items for Property Managers If you’re not doing any content, here’s what you should do tomorrow: Go through emails and online chats and see what owners are asking. What questions do they ask and what problems do they have? Make a list. With that list of topics, start thinking about whether you have personal stories and professional opinions related to these topics. Create content providing solutions to that list of questions and problems. Should you make a video or write a blog? Ideally, both. At Fourandhalf, we help property managers create content and we think video is more powerful because when people see you, there’s extra credibility. They feel like they know you. Positive associations are established. If video is a bridge too far, start with a written blog. When marketing and content of any kind is not for you, Fourandhalf can help. We will collaborate with you to create original, organic content. We encourage property managers to share those unique and authentic original stories with us, and we’ll get them out there. It’s more than throwing money at a marketing budget. Some effort is required so the content is specific to your company. You don’t have to be a content creator. You just have to be you: a professional property manager with good information to share. Marie remembers working with one property management company that hired an actor to get their content videos out. They weren’t fooling anyone. It was clearly not a property manager, and that hurts trust. You don’t have to be perfect on video. You just have to be authentic. People will relate. Thanks to Marc Cunningham and his engaging podcast for having Marie on to discuss owner leads and AI. At Fourandhalf, we don’t shy away from AI. We help property managers succeed, so if you have any questions about property management marketing, content, and finding more owner leads, contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY EmailThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 26974 The post AI’s Role in Attracting Owner Leads for Property Managers appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

 Can vendor bidding solutions like RoDevia Brigham’s Proposabid create more transparency and detect fraud? That’s where we left off during Part 1 of this discussion on The Property Management Show. Let’s pick up the conversation about how the bidding process is broken, and how property managers can avoid wasting time and money. Here’s Part 2. How has Proposabid Contributed to Fraud Detection? When RoDevia was talking with her partner, they discussed how a lot of vendors would inflate pricing or maybe there would be work that was needed but didn’t really have to be done in the particular way that a vendor believed, or at a higher price point. There are a couple of specific cases that she was able to detect, and she cautions owners and property managers that things like this could be happening without them knowing about it: On-site staff may claim that work is necessary, or they’ll be billing you for work that may not be completed or required. If you’re an owner in Arizona with properties in Tennessee, you may not know that what you’re being told isn’t true. If your manager is overstretched and has 76 different properties to manage, she may not know that 34 doors need to be replaced in a specific way at one property. There could also be a conflict of interest or some self-dealing going on. Staff or property managers may use companies they own. In San Francisco, we had a cleaning company that got a $15,000 per month contract at one property for 150 doors. It was on-site staff that was registered and had an EIN. Family members worked at this company, and they managed to claim contracts across other properties for almost $500,000 over three years without the owner knowing. There was no bidding process at all. If you have a third party that doesn’t have a dog in the fight and can source bids for you in timely fashion and has comparables for you, the process is fully transparent. Proposabid also posts their bids online so other vendors can compare. Any number of issues can crop up when a company is just assigning someone to source bids who isn’t qualified to do it or is too busy to give it the necessary attention. Challenges for Property Managers in Analyzing and Comparing Bids Let’s say a property manager does manage to get some bids. Now it’s time to analyze and compare them. What are some of the challenges and issues would a company face at that point in time? First, RoDevia would be wondering if you have enough bids. When you do, you have to ask if the bids have expired to the point where they’re no longer viable. One of the main things she has noticed is that property managers won’t necessarily know what the vendor does not offer. For example, there was a hazmat fentanyl situation at a property, and the building had to be closed down. Police were involved. To get bids for the cleaning, you also have to think about what the vendors are not offering in those bids. Proposabid needed to analyze that particular piece. What all five vendors didn’t offer was to post drug testing. Can you post it once it’s clean? Also, what about repairs and renovations after the cleaning. It might be necessary to tear into a wall. Asbestos and lead testing might be necessary depending on what’s found when you do open up the wall. Always consider whether you know what you need beyond the bids themselves. This is the most challenging part. Another challenge can be the number of hands in the pot. If you have a board or an HOA, there could be some extra time needed. One HOA client had three good bids, but they wanted more. That’s fine, but the three best bids are still going to be the three best bids. So, who is making the decision? Can you get in touch with the right people at the right time? The person receiving the bid probably cannot sign off on the awarding of that bid. Often, staff does not know what they’re looking at or what the next move is. Another example: RoDevia had a client with seven roofs. Four had allegedly been replaced and three more needed to be replaced. But as she gathered the bids from roofers, all of them pointed out that one of the four actually had not been replaced by the original vendor. Because of her RFP process, all the vendors bidding went out to have a look, and they all reported that four roofs actually needed replacing, not three. So, is there a lawsuit with the previous vendor, and how do we prove this? It’s proven with the bids. Multiple roofers confirmed it. So now the owner has to decide whether to pay for three roofs or four. The challenges are everywhere. What you want is someone who will strive to get you in line to make the next decision and help you narrow down the options so you can make educated decisions. Property Managers or Owners: Who Is Making Decisions? Even after good bids have been gathered and all of the information makes sense, someone has to make a decision. Marie asked RoDevia in her experience, who should bear the brunt of making the decision? Each relationship is different, and in the property management world, it can play out any way. The property manager is representing the property and has the authority as outlined in their operating agreement. Many owners want their manager to handle it for the purposes of efficiency and expertise. They’re just not there and they just don’t know. And, if the property manager has relationships established and the expertise that’s needed, it’s an easy call. But, there are a lot of owners who want to make the final decision, especially if it is financially impactful. So in this case, a property manager would gather bids and present them. The owner gives the final approval. In a mom-and-dad situation or with independent owners, it’s whoever has the resources and the bandwidth to make the decision. It’s also how did the vendor make them feel. That gut feel aspect along with the warranty and the expertise and quality assurance and safety record and insurance all counts. Bidding and Documentation Documentation is always your friend, so document the bidding process. The problem is that over the last few years, RoDevia has noticed that documentation is all over the place. It’s in emails. It’s in a text. It’s in a voicemail. There’s no real solid database where all parties will go to find the same information, and that’s something Proposabid has built in for clients. Here’s how Proposabid works at a high level: They get to the property and do an intake. They create an RFP. That RFP is marketed out to their vendors. They gather those bids and aggregate them. Those bids are submitted to the property and the property makes a decision. The process is completed in 15 business days or less. This works for a $15,000 bid or a $3.5 million bid. It covers office remodels, concrete, and whatever needs to be done. Looking to the Future for Property Management and Vendor Bidding What do you need to know about future trends? RoDevia shares lessons from the field: Cash for Bids. This is starting to happen more and more, and it will be devastating for property management companies. Vendors are looking for cash deposits and payments up front to secure the bid. Those payments can be several thousands of dollars. And that’s just to get the bid. Some of these things have to do with reduced risk of nonpayment. (It’s highly recommended to pay your vendors on time). This will probably not become a gold standard. Some vendors may adopt it, but overall it shouldn’t be normalized because of client pushback. Rising Costs. When projects are delayed or bids are incomplete, costs rise, and that is a huge burden on the budget. More so than it was five years ago. For commercial buildings, the average increase is 5 to 8 percent per year on labor expenses and materials. There are also continued supply chain challenges. For multifamily buildings, that rate of increase is 6 to 10 percent annually. Inflation pressure is outrageous. A project costing $90,000 four years ago would be $124,000 now. Get your properties in order. Get your bids organized. One big recommendation RoDevia has is to be honest with your vendors. This will protect your reputation. When you’re sourcing your bids, be honest if you’re just shopping for bids. We always let our vendors know when we’re just budgeting only. A client may simply need some numbers. So you’ll just get the quote not the full breakdown. If you just go fishing and then never award bids, your reputation is damaged. Mitigate around that and be honest about your intentions once you do have bids. Each estimate costs about a hundred dollars an hour, so most vendors will give a bid even if they know they won’t necessarily win the award. They know up front that they might not get any work from it, but there’s still a bid in place that may be honored later. It actually lowers costs for the client. If any of our listeners want to learn more about the bidding process or what to look out for, visit Proposabid.com. And if you have property management marketing or reputation questions, contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY CommentsThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 7890 The post PART 2: Why the Vendor Bidding Process Is Broken (and What It’s Costing Property Managers) appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

It’s been a long time since we put out an episode of The Property Management Show and today we’re excited to talk with RoDevia Brigham, the founder and CEO of Proposabid. The vendor bidding process is an entire industry on its own, and this is a topic we have not covered before on the podcast. Introducing RoDevia and Proposabid Proposabid does bids and estimations for properties and repairs across US. Their niche client base is property management companies, real estate investors, and mom-and-pop investors. They work with people who do not know how to go about sourcing bids for work. The idea for this company came from a shower moment. RoDevia’s background is in computer science and IT, specifically cyber security. She has an approach to her work that follows an “if this, then that” process. She’s always thinking about how to automate things. While in the shower, she asked her partner an important question: What could she automate if she could automate anything in her day as a property manager? The answer was: bidding. She said if she could just get good bids that reflected apples for apples, and those bids came in on time, and vendors would pick up the phone and submit things relevant to the work that needs to be done, then she could submit those to her property owners who could make financially responsible decisions. That, she said, would be great. RoDevia took all of that seriously, knowing it was an everyday problem for her partner’s clients. Four years later, Proposabid is doing the work that needs to be done. Property Management’s Vendor Bidding Problem The vendor bidding process in property management is essentially broken RoDevia believes. While it seems like most property managers know their vendors and have good relationships in place, why would bidding be necessary at all? RoDevia and her company focus on projects that need three bids, minimum. The process at a high level looks like this: A property manager has to contact the three companies Three different prices are submitted Proposals have to be gathered The lowest bidder is selected But in that process, there are some key items that a property management company’s staff might not be familiar with or cannot do. The phone calls and the emails go back and forth. Then, there’s the hurry up and wait while those bids come in. This can be immediate, but usually it takes a couple of weeks. Sometimes, you won’t get the bids in at all. When those do bids come in, you have to compare them: Are they apples for apples? Do they come with the right warranty? Are they offering considerations or concessions? Is scope of work correct for the price? Are the vendors even qualified? Are they in a database for licensing and insurance? Then, you may need to make corrections to the bid, and that could include going back to the phone calls and the emails. Bids are re-submitted and reconsidered. Once you have something everyone agrees on, a property manager will go ahead and submit those bids to your property owner or the landlord, and together you might decide on the vendor. That process alone can take a couple of weeks or months or in some cases, it may not even get done. Someone has to be responsible for this process. It could be a director or an asset manager or an office manager. Maybe you have in-house maintenance folks who are taking all of these bids and working on the information. This can add up to 10 hours a week, which might cost 400 to 520 hours per year. All of that labor comes with no guarantee that those bids are even getting done, and those are hours that can be utilized elsewhere in your business. Financially, the costs of a broken bidding process can be $30,000 to $40,000 lost purely on bid management. When you’re considering the roofers, the asphalt, the mold remediation, building codes, and things like that, you have to consider how the vendor bidding process looks across multiple owners. Property management staff is busy collecting rent and going to court and dealing with residents. They may not have the time to deal with this process across all the properties you manage. Standardization is necessary but not always present when it comes to RFPs and bidding. If you don’t have a consistent and standard Request for Proposal (RFP), how do you attract the right vendors? You need to understand project requirements and have direct comparables, otherwise staff will have trouble closing on those bids. There’s also the problem of limited reach. Vendors may not be responding to calls or emails, and time is wasted. Owners might find themselves facing fines and penalties because inspections and permits are expiring. You might choose the first bid that comes along out of desperation, which might not be the right one. There’s sometimes a lack of transparency. If you don’t have the right vendors in place and the right RFPs in place, you don’t have the transparency you need. You’re getting the only bids that you can and that’s not the best thing to do. Proposabid has two clients: the vendors and the property owners. The business is run anticipating what they each need. That’s the part that’s broken, RoDevia says. Taking responsibility off the plates of the property managers and handing it over to a third party who can take the time to make this process work is the way to fix it. This is all they do at Proposabid; her team can allocate time and resources to some of the most important aspects of property management. Project Management for the Bidding Process The bidding process requires a lot of project management and knowledge. Bidding happens for bigger ticket items. Maintenance coordinators within a property management company may be in charge of communicating with vendors over day-to-day preventative maintenance and immediate repairs that are needed at a rental property. Larger projects are anything that requires three bids or more. These might be insurance claims or capital improvements. They’re often projects that will cost between $50,000 and several millions of dollars. If you have to lay asphalt or concrete or you need a new roof or you’re installing adjustable arms for your parking garage, you need to source out those bids. Property managers may have on-site staff that can do the sourcing, but it’s going to depend on the property and the project. RoDevia offered a couple of statistics that show why time can be wasted and inefficiencies can be present in this part of the property management process. Thirty (30) percent of vendors will actually submit a proposal when asked. Why is it that when properties are calling vendors, they’re not responsive? Part of it has to do with there not being an RFP, or the RFP is too vague. If a vendor has no information to work with, they’re not going to submit bids. It may be resource constraints, and vendors don’t have time to respond to those bids. Or, they’re focused on other bids that have a higher dollar amount, or are found in better neighborhoods. Vendors also tend not to submit to properties with a poor reputation. Let’s say you had a roofing project you needed done two years ago and you sourced and collected bids but never awarded anyone a contract. Four years later you’re re-asking for bids from these same folks, but they’re not going to trust that you’re actually going to award a bid. There’s a lack of trust. Some bids may vary by as much as 150 percent. How can this be? It may have to do with contractor overhead, or it could be the market conditions or the bidding strategy. Insurance costs are going up, for example. There’s office space and labor to pay for. If a contractor has high administrative costs, their bid can be 30 to 50 percent higher than others. When we talk about market conditions impacting the bidding process, there might be a scarcity of materials and labor shortages. There’s inflation. Bidding is also seasonal. A roofing bid in Wisconsin during November will be much lower than it might be in the spring. Bidding strategies depend on the company. Larger and established firms may have a 20 to 40 percent buffer while smaller and newer companies might be more competitive. The Importance of the RFP and Scope of Work Marie thought she had a roof issue, but it turned out to be a mold issue. Looking for roofers took time, and there were drastically different bids from two roofers. The mold problem had to be addressed immediately, so by working with Proposabid, seven or eight bids came in within a few days. There was a discrepancy with pricing. With RoDevia’s help, Marie could create a matrix to compare how much each company was actually charging for the inspection and all the add-ons and testing fees. After reviewing the matrix, it turned out that the vendor who seemed most expensive was actually cheaper because the quote was all-inclusive. There was time and effort requirement for one home. For a property manager sourcing bids for an apartment complex, it can be difficult to understand what you’re looking at when you have all these bids with up to a 150 percent variance in pricing. How do you choose? RoDevia says it depends on who is spending the money and what that person values. The RFP is the dog whistle that gets the clear information to attract the right vendors. Maybe the client values expertise. Or certifications. Communication might be most important when choosing a vendor. Customer service. By sourcing at least five to seven bids, there’s a better chance of finding a vendor that will provide what’s needed and valued. It requires the right RFP. A strong RFP and the sequential cadence on contacting vendors and giving them what they need will make a big difference. Maybe it’s floor plans or drawings or blueprints or recommendations from state or city. When you receive those bids, take your top four bids with the good pricing, the right warranties, appropriate itemization, and an understanding of what they do and won’t do. It depends on what does the client value. If they’re just looking for lowest price, then it’s more about who is spending the money and what the end result is. Are you looking for long term quality over immediate need? Are you choosing based on aesthetic or for longevity? The RFP is the request for work. The scope of work is how that work gets done. With Marie’s mold example, Proposabid created an RFP based on the intake that was done and from the test results. That’s how the scope of work was created. The vendors knew what was needed and could respond to the RFP. The scope of work has to be rock solid, and property management companies don’t always have the resources to come up with a detailed and specific scope of work. The necessary components in a Scope of Work include: Executive Summary Project requirements Timeline and milestones Budget and cost constraints Evaluation criteria Submission instructions What is the time frame and date line? Vendor qualifications and experience Legal compliance requirements You need to provide information on how to contact you, and you need to explain the Q and A protocols. At Proposabid, the RFP is created with clarity. Apple to apple comparisons are made. Evaluation is easier because there are clearly defined project goals and expectations. This reduces misunderstandings. Think of the RFP as a Handshake The RFP builds trust. It’s Iike a handshake. When a vendor receives the RFP, thy can say no right away. Or they can ask for more information. Maybe they’ll want to do a site visit. You’ll attract the right vendor with higher quality bids. An RFP can also provide a foundation for the properties when team members move to another department or new team members come on board. So instead of starting all over, you can pull the RFP when someone new comes on. There’s a paper trail and extra transparency. Some of the repercussions for skipping an RFP might be: Misalignment with expectations between vendors and owners Increased project delays Difficulty comparing bids Damaged relationships with vendors because of lack of structure RoDevia said a good RFP helps with fraud detection, too. Wait, did RoDevia say “Fraud”? Stay tuned for Part 2 where we continue this discussion. We’ll also talk about common issues with collecting and analyzing vendor bids, as well as future trends to watch out for. Make sure you’re subscribed to our YT channel or the FAH newsletter to not miss the next episode! First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY NameThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 20550 The post PART 1: Why the Vendor Bidding Process Is Broken (and What It’s Costing Property Managers) appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

Welcome back to The Property Management Show. On today’s episode, we’re talking to an expert on mergers and acquisitions, who has specific experience in property management. We’re talking to Scott Duke, of OpnRoad. He’s talking about the things that make a difference in the sale of a property management company. Your buyer and your profit will depend a lot on your contracts, your efficiency, and your team. Introducing Scott Duke Scott and his wife bought and ran a property management company in Revenstoke, Canada. They grew their company for seven years and then sold it for 10 times the amount of what they bought it for. The company was sold to Western Trust, a private equity company out of Utah. Before that, he worked at a property management company in Ontario. He has experience working with three-person companies and those that have a staff of 25. His story of buying and selling that Canadian property management company is a bit of a cautionary tale. When they bought the company, there were 30 properties under management. Out of those 30 properties, only six had proper contracts with the owners. It wasn’t a sellable asset when they took it over. But, what they really wanted to buy were the brand and the website, and otherwise it felt like they were starting from scratch. It was not a massive acquisition. Scott realized that he thought property management meant taking care of people’s properties, but really, he was managing finances. It’s a cash in – cash out business model, and he had to make sure his owners had the money they needed for their mortgage payments. One specific event triggered his desire to sell that company. It was Christmas Day in 2016 or 2017, and he was under a trailer, defrosting pipes so the family living there could have water on Christmas. That’s when he realized he didn’t want to own the company anymore. When the owner is under a trailer with frozen pipes, you know that the company relies too heavily on that owner. So, he spent three years making it an acquirable asset. Scott wanted the company to be something that someone would want to buy. The starting point? Making the business less dependent on Scott. Making a Property Management Company Less Owner-Dependent Scott says it’s all mindset. At OpnRoad, Scott and his team sell businesses. They work within all industries, but a lot of businesses they sell are property management companies. They all have to get to a certain size before they can be sold. So, he’s talking about owner dependency all the time. How do you remove yourself from that dependency? Scott says you will be trapped in your business until the business cracks through the million or two million revenue mark. Until that point, there’s just not enough cash in the business to pay to replace yourself. You are buying your time and you’re buying your freedom. You want to focus on yourself as a business owner, not a business operator. A lot of owners get hung up on the idea that no one can do what they do as well as they do it. Scott tells entrepreneurs to embrace that. It’s true. But, it won’t be that way forever. The person you hire isn’t going to be as good as you on Day One. The training and the investment into that person makes them as good as you. His slogan is this: Every Day a Step Away. You’re getting a further step away from operating your business every single day. How to Avoid Hiring Bad Apples A lot of business owners worry about investing time and training into someone who may not work out. Having hired across 11 companies with a total of more than 200 staff, Scott understands that bad apples do get into the bunch once in a while. He has a specific model: Be a good leader: Make yourself better. The people you attract to your company will be 70 percent as good as you are. Humans only want to work with people who are further along than them and achieving more. They want to grow to your level. So, to get good people, you need to be a better person. Invest in your education. Become a leader locally through volunteer work. Grow personally and develop professionally. Have a good marketing package: You want to attract good people to your business. You’re posting a job into a competitive labor market. Stand out with marketing materials that will attract better people to your job and your company. Otherwise, you’re recruiting from other companies to find good talent. Retain those good people: You want to keep your best employees by having consistent operations and good training within your business. You want a solid and positive company culture full of people who are happy to be there. All of this stuff is hard, he cautions. But, the drudgery for the rest of your life is worse. How do you avoid the employees you don’t want to work with? Scott has two ideas: Run them through psychometric testing. You can use different models like PSIU or Myers Briggs. This will ensure you have the right person for the job. If you’ve never done this type of testing before, go into that rabbit hole. You need to know personality traits. The type of person who excels at bookkeeping is different from the person who excels at leasing and showings. And, a lot of people don’t know themselves. Test to find out what they don’t know. Get them to do some work before you formally hire them. Offer trial work, for which they will be paid, and see how they do before you make an official offer. When you get the A player, your life changes. So does your company. What Property Management Owners Need to Know about Selling Scott says the most important thing you can remember if you want to sell your company is that you’re selling contracts. You’re selling future cash flow streams that come through contractual agreements. If your contracts aren’t in good shape, you don’t have a saleable company. Contract quality matters. Recently, a sale was delayed by over 4 months because a property management company’s contracts were outdated, expired, or not even signed. Term and contract length is the value of your business. You need a good staff. You need a good reputation. But, your buyers will look at your contracts before they make an offer. Scott also reminds company owners that you cannot sell to someone smaller than you. That won’t maximize your value. When you’re selling to a company that’s bigger, they’re probably more sophisticated and organized. If you don’t have everything in place, those companies won’t want to acquire you. What about the team? Buyers are acquiring teams of people as well as contracts. This is especially important now, when finding good talent is so difficult. Good operators of companies are hard to find. People will buy companies just to get management teams and technicians. But, here’s the truth: company buyers are only going to care about bringing on the good team members. They probably already have good team. They won’t want your mediocre people. Efficiency is important, too. When your profit margin is above average, you’ll earn above average on the sale. You’re showing that you’re more efficient and your buyer will know that they get to keep more of the money that the company makes. That’s attractive. Is technology the answer to efficiency? Technology is a big part of the efficiency bullet, especially when you’re looking at your profit and loss statement. Most property management companies can see that people are their biggest expenditure. Property management is a service business, and humans are delivering that service. So, while technology can help you be more efficient and profitable, you need to have people in place who can leverage that technology. Otherwise, you’re just spending money on new software and systems and it’s not improving anything. If your people aren’t being as efficient as they should be, they need to be trained better. Scott put everything on iPads so the team could take photos and notes and keep everything in the same place. Leases were digitized. He has nine people running a business that should require 20 employees. This is possible because they’re more efficient and they know how to use technology. Preparing to Sell Your Property Management Business: Your Timeline Once deciding to sell a business, an owner can sometimes just check out, feeling done with it all. But, it should be the other way around. If you decide to sell and you want to maximize the value of your company, put in the work. Scott says it depends on the timeline, and also acknowledges that most people don’t want to do the work. Property management companies are in high demand right now. So even if your business isn’t in the best shape, you’ll be able to sell it. Clean up your contracts and get the financials in order, and you can sell. If you’re planning to sell within a year, just get the basics taken care of. If you’re planning to sell in three to five years, it’s worth the effort to build that business into something even better. Then, sell it for more. You’ll make more money now, and as your business begins to work better, you’ll have more free time. You can really move the dial if you have a few years to work on this. A million dollar company can increase their valuation by $200,000. If you’re a five million dollar company, expect to move that dial by $1.5 million or even $2 million. A 10 million dollar company might move the dial by $5 million. Exit Strategies: Who Will Buy You? Scott has a guide that breaks down who the likely buyers are for your company. He offers earnings thresholds as an easy way to understand what’s possible. If you’ve got $250,000 in earnings, you’re probably selling to an individual owner/operator. If you have earnings that hit $500,000 to $1 million, you could sell to private equity firms as well as strategic buyers. Anything over $2 million in earnings, and you can sell to anyone. You unlock different buyer classes as your company grows. These buyers are not that different under the hood, but the way you earn money will be a bit different. A strategic buyer will hold your company for the long term. They’ll pay cash and some terms for the acquisition. Private equity firms are strategic. They’ll pay a bit more because they know they’re going to ultimately sell your company for more. You’ll get cash from them at the sale, and you may get a bit more later, when the private equity buyer sells the entire fund, which includes your company. There are claw backs and contingencies when it comes to how many contracts the new company keeps. Scott reversed that, and actually got paid more by bringing in more contracts after the sale. This is not something everyone is willing to do, he cautioned, but since he had more free time, he was able to get out there and hustle up more business for the property management portfolio he had just sold. Scott’s big pieces of advice as we conclude this interview are: Remove owner dependence and decide on the next strategic hire. Systemize and organize your business. If you haven’t implemented tech yet, do it now, and here’s a tip: look at companies that are five times bigger than you. What kind of software do they use? You should use that too, because those are the companies that will ultimately buy you, and if you make tech integration easier on them, they’ll pay you more. Keep your contracts up to date. Cultivate a good team. Check out OpnRoad and their approach to mergers and acquisitions. If you have any questions about Scott and what we’ve discussed, please contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY EmailThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 41626 The post Preparing Your Property Management Company for a Profitable Sale with Scott Duke of OpnRoad appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

 Amy Harrison is a sales and marketing copywriter from the U.K. and an expert in storytelling. After hearing her speak at a marketing conference and finding the information invaluable, we invited her onto The Property Management Show to talk about the evolution of marketing content and copywriting and how AI can help with persuasive copy, as long as you’re finessing the message with the information that only you have. Amy Harrison’s Background Amy thought she wanted to be a screenwriter for film and television, but quickly burned out at a young age and decided to pursue other things for a while. Then, she found her way back to writing and began working for a private investment firm that bought and sold online businesses. She describes it as flipping businesses, and that’s what brought her back into content writing and copywriting. When she discovered the psychology around sales copywriting, she knew she wanted to help businesses tell stories and build credibility. Amy says that her training as a screenwriter helped with her sales copywriting because it’s always important to write for the reader. If someone does not want to keep reading, you’ve lost them. You need to make sure they’ll read beyond the headline. Tracking the Evolution of Sales and Marketing Copywriting Amy remembers the early days of copywriting, when everything was very SEO-driven and it seemed like her job was to cram every page full of keywords. The idea was to reach people and to provide as much information as possible. It was more of a transactional exchange. People found there were better ways to have a sales conversation, and the content improved. Businesses have realized that not all content needs to sound like sales and marketing content. There’s a lot more awareness of what marketing and copywriting can do. The struggle, though, has not evolved much. Amy says that large companies with million dollar marketing budgets have the same desire as the freelance photographer with no marketing budget: to sell themselves and to stand out. The process has evolved, but the problem sales copywriters are trying to solve is the same. Umbrella Terms versus Storytelling with Copy and Content How is it done well? While trying to talk about what makes them different, a lot of companies will end up sounding like every other business. They’ll use generic words, and they’ll try to talk about everything they do all at once. Amy calls those umbrella terms, and she advises companies to be bold and to expand their comfort zones outside of those same words and phrases that are always used. The fear factor will sometime set in. You want to stand apart from your competition, but do you really want to be different? Storytelling can be powerful, but it’s harder to write a story than it is to create a list of benefits. You have to earn the right to get someone’s attention. How do you do that? Amy asks us to think about it from the first piece of content – whether it’s a headline or the first few seconds of your video or the introduction in your email. Speak directly to the person you’re trying to reach. Think of yourself in a crowded room at a party. You’ll hear lots of conversations, and you’re not tuned into any of them. But if you hear your name, that will immediately get your attention. You cannot call your customers by their name in your content, but you can work harder to make the content more relevant. You want them to feel like you’re talking directly to them. Think about how to write the conversation that your customer is having in their mind right now. What are they thinking about in that moment as they approach your blog or your email? Here are a couple of examples: If you’re trying to attract a client who is moving, your headline might be “Should You Sell Or Rent Your Home?” It’s not a dramatic title, but it is a title that will speak directly to someone who is trying to answer that very question for themselves. You’re sparking an awareness that they need you. If you’re trying to attract people who are displeased with their current management company, your headline might be “Does Your Heart Sink When Your Property Manager Calls You?” Someone out there does experience that feeling when their manager calls. They’re going to read your blog. Think about audience when you begin to tell your story. Are they new to renting out homes? Are they very frustrated? What’s already on their mind? Get their attention and pull them along. This is like calling their name out in a crowd. A story is only boring when it’s irrelevant, so think about what’s pressing and relevant to the people you’re trying to reach. You can also use symptoms of the problem. What are some warning lights that your audience can see? You can suggest that there’s a problem they might not be aware of yet, and your copywriting can indicate that the problem is bigger than they think. That will get their attention, too. Your prospective clients might not know what the problem is, but they’ll recognize the symptoms. A good headline might be: “Is Poor Maintenance Making You Liable?” Artificial Intelligence and Copywriting When asked about AI, Amy says it’s a fantastic tool that’s interesting. It can save time and spit out generic content. It cannot reach your audience like a person who understands the audience can. AI can help people go from zero content to some content. But, when you read something generated by AI, there’s always that feeling that it’s not quite right. What it lacks is personal nuance. AI will not help you write exceptional copy. And, it’s not thinking about your customer. Think about how quickly you can recognize tone in a customer’s email. Your response has to have the context that matches that tone. As humans, we can do that in a second. All that nuance and understanding of psychology and how to apply it does not exist with AI. You know your customer, your brand, your style, and your tone. Your content should sound like that. AI is a good tool for getting started, but it’s similar to those umbrella terms. You’re not going to get anything original, and you’re not going to stand out if you use it on its own. There’s a rhythm to human language that’s different from that of AI-generated language. Amy says it sounds to her like a 15-year-old is trying to write something formal and impressive. Usually try to get AI to simplify things. If I had spent 10 minutes to simplify myself, better email. Use AI to save time by gathering notes into a summary. But, when you’re building your messaging, don’t sacrifice that personal nuance that only you know. You need to hear the language that is used. The summary that AI provides is often a good starting point. It’s better than looking at a blank page. If you can go ahead and rewrite what’s been provided, you can publish something that’s original and well-crafted. You need your own brain in order to complete good copy. You can ask AI to give you 10 benefits of property management. Some of it won’t be quite right. Some of it won’t be applicable. But, you can build off of that into something that’s a meaningful message for a potential client. Writing Persuasive Copy without Over-Selling Amy reminds us that you can have quality content even if your purpose is not to persuade. Sometimes, content is just entertaining. It’s simply informational. The goal of persuasive content is to help someone feel, think, and ultimately do something. There’s an output you want. Every piece of content we put out has to be quality, and it can also help to persuade. Answering a question is not necessarily persuasive copywriting, but it can give a customer confidence in you, which ultimately leads to them hiring you. You don’t have to convince someone to do something in every piece of content. But, you do want all of your messaging to reinforce that you can be trusted. This will help them feel more at ease with you. Always be driven by your customer’s needs. And don’t be too sales-driven. Think of yourself at a party. When someone talks about themselves for a full hour, do you want to talk to them again? Probably not. When someone asks you a few questions about yourself and then drops a recommendation or two, do you want to talk to them again? Probably yes. You can have the same effect in marketing and content. Whether you’re writing an email or FAQs, you need to ask what your customer needs to know in this moment in time. What do they need? If they’re about to sign a management contract, they need transparency and confidence. AI can’t provide that. This comes from the research. From talking to customers. Companies that are brave enough to actively seek feedback will have better growth. Their marketing will sound different and speak to those customers. This comes from listening. Amy reads the freeform text from customer surveys and reviews and she lifts actual words from those reviews when she’s writing copy for customers. Those are huge insights. Amy calls it looking under rocks, and she said AI will always miss those golden moments and major message points. This makes the difference in your marketing. Reaching Multiple Audiences with Content Property managers are using their messaging to reach multiple audiences, and Amy says that the best way to reach those unique groups of customers is to keep things simple. When they arrive on the home page of your website, make sure they know which adventure to choose. Then, create different content for each different need. The pain points will be different. The goals will be different. Someone renting out their first home will need different stories than someone growing a portfolio. Think about it like this: If this person was standing in front of you, how would you speak? You’d be more reassuring with the first-time landlord. You’d be prepared with facts and figures for an investor with a growing portfolio. Show that your company has range. Then, offer the specifics. Provide stories that are relevant to each customer. This takes extra work. But, the harder you work to give your customers what they need, the better your results. If you have any questions for Amy or you’d like some additional advice on how to improve your content marketing and sales copywriting, contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY NameThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 57372 The post Persuasive Copywriting in the Age of AI appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

PJ Clay, Director of Client and Partner Services at Rental Beast, discusses how Rental Beast acts as the rental MLS, providing technology to MLS associations. They focus on integrating rental listings and offer a productivity suite for property managers. Rental Beast gives members access to 12 million active listings in the U.S. and Canada, aiming to reach 100 percent of the market.

Two guests are joining The Property Management Show today, and they are Scott Brady and Garrett Brady from Progressive Property Management in southern California. Scott has been on the show before, and tends to talk about forward-looking topics that involve challenging the status quo. Garrett is his son, and a big part of the company’s future. The topic today is legacy planning, which can be rather difficult for property management companies. Scott and Garrett are sharing their journey and where they are. Progressive Property Management Then and Now Scott has a story that’s similar to many property management company owners. He began as a real estate agent and had a brokerage business. The recession arrived in 2010, and he wanted to be prepared for the next recession. So, he started Progressive Property Management in 2012. It became incorporated in 2015. The company grew organically through marketing and relationships. Over the last 12 years, they’ve grown to about 1,000 doors under management. Garrett joined the residential side in 2018. The business model is unique. It’s a virtual company that hires real estate agents to be property managers. Three years ago, they began an association management department, and now manage around 130 associations with about 7,000 owners, total. They use the same business model; people are hired to be off-site property managers for these communities. The team at Progressive takes care of all back office operations. About three years ago, Scott was diagnosed with cancer, and he realized the company was not prepared to be sold or handed off. Decisions were made, and a choice had to be made: did Scott want to prepare the company to be sold, did he want to hire someone to run it while he lived off the cash flow, or did he want someone in the family to take it over? He’s made a decision, and he and Garrett have been busy structuring their legacy plan over the last three years. Garrett says the company – and the entire industry – was old school in 2018. There wasn’t a lot of technology, and everything was very regional. He’s been able to see the industry move from the stone ages to embracing modern technology. It’s a more appealing industry to join. So while it was a family business that he was happy to join, he now sees the value of real estate and how it interacts with so many other business sectors. Legacy Planning: Starting the Discussion The diagnosis spurred the discussion around legacy planning. Scott hired a consultant outside of the property management industry and the first thing he recommended was to have Garrett go to graduate school. This did not make sense at first, but it was pretty transformative. He earned his position with his education and his experience, not because of nepotism. The next step was to invite Garrett to earn some controlling interest in the company. Every year that he’s worked for the company, he’s earned 2.5 percent ownership in that company. By now, he’s up to 15 percent. The idea was to have Scott maintain the controlling interest, but to give Garrett a path towards more ownership. Garrett has skills that Scott doesn’t have, and they both recognize that. Scott excels at sales and marketing while Garrett is all operations. Scott said he knew the future was in the company’s operations. With 130 associations under management, they need good systems. Garrett does all the hiring of remote team members and he trains them, too. The company now has 13 remote team members and 13 full-time employees. The future isn’t expanding full-time payroll, but in hiring remote contractors. Understanding his own skill set allowed Scott to bring Garrett in, and together they sit down and look for the next opportunities while ensuring everything is running properly. Marc Cunningham mentioned to Garrett that he had to do a buy-in for his ownership in the family business, and so it made sense to Garrett that he would buy ownership over time with his time and with his commitment to the business. He says he gets more value out of learning how to run a business, deal with staff, and handle operations and corporate accounting. He’s happy to have that security for the long term, especially as the business grows. It’s never a good idea to arbitrarily give ownership of your property management business to someone just because they’re family. Garrett is qualified, and that’s important. Scott says he’s the most qualified person to run the residential side of the business and manage the remote team members. He’s learning more about the association management side, and will eventually be comfortably with full ownership of the company. Finding the Fit with Legacy Planning It’s a perfect fit, with Scott on top of the sales and marketing and Garrett taking care of the operations. That doesn’t mean that Garrett isn’t prepared for marketing the business. As a high school student and as an undergraduate, he took care of the direct mail for his father’s company and for other real estate businesses and brokers. He’s also looking at other potential income streams. Maintenance, for example, is a big passion for Garrett. He’s looking towards the future and thinking about a point in which the company can introduce their own maintenance service. Garrett knew that to create value, he had to do what his father could not do or would not do. He and Scott complement each other, and that’s what makes them successful. Identifying Opportunities While Planning Ahead Both Scott and Garrett see opportunities not in hiring people but in bringing on remote workers. Most property managers don’t see community associations with 8 to 20 owners as being a huge profit center. Progressive Property Management has found a way to do it. Scott says that residential management is touch-and-go right now. No one is buying investment properties and there have been only a few sales. Association management is where new opportunities and potential earnings can be found. Garrett appreciates that his father is willing to focus on long term goals. They’re saying within the company goes like this: Everyone has to be on the bus. Everyone has to be in the right seat on the bus. The bus needs to be going in the right direction. Garrett sees Scott as sometimes driving the bus at 100 mph. His job is to pick up the pieces that are sometimes flying off at such a high speed, and put them into place. One of Scott’s favorite sayings is that the best times in business are when you’re uncomfortable. If you’re uncomfortable, it means you’re growing. Balancing Growth with Core Values Both Scott and Garrett have some big ideas about ancillary companies, additional income streams, and creating new departments. How to balance innovation with the success of current operations? It comes down to the team, Garrett says. Team members are paid well. Team members get the flexibility to do their jobs. Management is very hands-off. Bad clients who take up too much time and bring in too much liability have been weeded out of the company’s portfolio. As they progress and grow, it all seems to works out. They’re comfortable with slow growth, and that’s important considering their business model is not traditional. Scott believes in managing processes rather than people. Formal and Informal Legacy Planning It’s one thing to bring the person who will take over into the company and put them on a payroll and give them a position. But, how do you document the plan for succession? For Progressive Property Management, there’s an informal and a formal plan in place. The formal plan includes Garrett’s 2.5 percent ownership every year. That’s well-documented. Informally, there have been many discussions about how things are meant to happen. If something terrible happened to Scott today, Garrett would be prepared to keep things moving the way they planned. Nothing is in writing, but everyone understands what will happen. Garrett won’t have controlling interest for a while, but he’s naturally progressing in making more decisions. He says looking at things objectively helps. They know they’re not the only ones in this position. A lot of property management companies are wondering what will happen to their businesses. The choices are to have a good process or deal with a messy situation. No one is going to last forever. Innovation and Property Management Garrett is looking forward to eventually not only exploring maintenance services but also commercial real estate. You might have heard the adage that commercial real estate a dollar business. Residential management is the dime business. And, association management is a penny business. It’s okay to collect the pennies and dimes while everyone else is going after the dollars. Scott says he’s always saddened by the industry and how little innovation there is. People follow the herd, and the herd moves towards residential management only. Legacy Plan Challenges Not a lot of challenges have popped up, but Scott and Garrett do believe in complete transparency. Everyone knows that Garrett will take over. There’s no doubt about the company’s future, and the team members recognize that Garrett is good at what he does. They also know he’s dedicated. The company still has an emergency line that’s kept in-house. This is where they shine, according to Scott, and so they don’t outsource it. Garrett still has that phone on the weekends. He’ll take an average of five or six calls every day about water leaks and other emergencies. That shows his dedication and everyone knows he has that phone. Garrett says he appreciates being able to spend time with his father while working and growing the business. That’s a perk that’s hard to quantify and it’s not an opportunity that most people get. Scott acknowledges that he has always hated having business partners. But, he doesn’t mind now. Both he and Garrett know when to step in and when to step out. Family can be emotional, but Scott and Garrett are both on the same page and in the right seats on their bus. Scott has always been a proponent of not selling even with attractive offers out there, and he has some advice for property managers who are in a family business and thinking about their next steps: Don’t just hand it off. That’s a good way to drive your business into the ground. Make sure you’re handing it off to a family member who has bought into the business with their time and their labor, and make sure they’re qualified to run the company. Garrett adds his own advice: have patience. Recognize what’s been put into the business and pay your dues just like you would in any other business. Have patience and know your value. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed with Scott and Garrett, contact us at Fourandhalf. If you’d like to hear more about what Scott and Garrett Brady are working on, or if you’re interested in some of their other business pursuits, get in touch with them at Progressive Property Management. 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Marc Cunningham is a property management consultant and he’s also the President of Grace Property Management in Colorado. He’s joining The Property Management Show today not only because he’s a prominent figure in property management, but also because he’s one of the first property management professionals who embraced video marketing. Marc is still promoting video marketing, and he believes it’s the most effective way to bring new business into your company. A Bit of Background: Marc Cunningham When Marc started his property management career as a child going to the office with his dad, things were incredibly different. It was the 1970s and buying their first copy machine was the most technology they had. The phone with an answering machine was fancy. Ledger cards were used to manually record when rent was collected, and checks were written to owners once a month. His father recognized that technology was a great tool, and they not only got a computer before anyone else, but they also even hired a programmer out of California to write a custom property management program for them. In the property management industry, there’s a big scare every couple of years. The narrative goes, if you don’t do X, you’ll be left behind. Right now, it’s AI. If you’re not using AI, you’ll be left behind. Marc says this is not always true. Provide good customer service to owners and tenants, and you’ll be okay even without the latest tool. You won’t wake up one day and be left behind. It’s the shiny thing syndrome. If there’s something that everyone seems to be doing, you feel like you should be doing it, too. It’s easy to chase the next big thing because everybody is talking about how cool it is. Marc doesn’t chase the newest thing. Technology is something to leverage in order to improve your property management business. After graduating from college with a degree in finance and real estate, Marc worked in the industry but not for his father. This helped him when it was time to go to work for his father. He brought a different perspective and a different set of skills to the family business. He always tells people in a family business to send the young people out to work outside of the business for a few years. It generates better ideas and higher level thinking. Marc arrived at his father’s company with more of a business mindset. His father was very good at property management, and Marc found he was very good at business management. Pioneering Video and Property Management Marketing Marc is one of the first property management professionals to begin marketing his company with video. He still believes this is the best marketing tool for property managers. Here’s how it happened. He was at a conference, and on the way home from that conference, he began thinking about how much time he spent talking to potential owner clients. They all ask the same questions and he found himself having the same conversation over and over again. Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if, instead of answering those common questions over and over again, he could put those answers in a video and have it on his website. Then, potential owner clients could watch the video and decide if they wanted to know more. Marc thought that if a video could save him multiple five-minute conversations, it would really add up to getting some serious time back. He’s action-oriented and he doesn’t over-think. So, when he got home, he had his then-11-year-old son stand on his desk with an iPhone and take a video of Marc talking about common property management expenses. It was a three-minute video that included no script, no special lighting, and no microphone. The point was not quality. The point was to get it done. This has worked better than any other marketing, Marc says, because prospective owner clients will call, and they’ve already seen the videos. That puts them at about a 7 out of 10 in terms of likelihood that they’ll come on board as a client. Those owners feel like they already know Marc and the company. Marc says he’s not afraid to tell people to use video more because he knows they won’t do it. His competitors don’t. The reason this works for Marc, he says, is because he’s not a perfectionist. The Power of Action vs. Perfection If you believe in the power of action, you’ll get the videos done, and you’ll let the results fall where they may. Video marketing has been successful by keeping the acquisition costs for each client down. There’s no need to spend a lot on marketing when you have a YouTube channel full of great video content. The video version of Marc is available 24/7, and that means that the real life Marc has time to focus on other parts of his business. One video could be equal to 20 conversations he didn’t have to have in real life. Even if the video results in zero leads, he didn’t have to have all those chats with people who would not hire his company anyway. The willingness to make videos creates a filter. No property manager is designed to serve every owner. The training Marc does with his property managers internally is called We Don’t Sell. When a lead comes in, he doesn’t want the goal to be closing the lead. The goal is to get to know the prospect and to decide if they’re a good client to do business with. There’s no starting with a sales mentality. Videos will: Attract new potential clients. Filter out the clients you may not want to work with anyway. Answer common questions. Video also snowballs for marketing and SEO purposes. The more times those videos get watched; the more Google promotes the videos. When they’re promoted, they’re watched more. And on and on. Remember that this is a public space. You don’t have to make perfect videos, but you also don’t want to insult anyone. Marc made a video called “Five Things to Never Say to Your Tenant.” He’s not an anti-tenant property manager, but he must have said something in that video to upset someone, because it went viral in tenant groups and he started getting really hateful messages and comments. So, he took that video down. It’s a fine line to walk. You want to be cautious, but you also want your personality to show through. A video won’t be as effective if it’s scripted. If you want to do some bullet points for yourself before you talk on camera, do it. But don’t read a script or generate something from your computer. Talk the way you’d talk to a client. It can be intimidating, but it’s effective. It’s effective, but people don’t do it. Most property managers don’t use this effective and untapped marketing tool because they’re too obsessed with making the perfect video and they can’t, or because it’s easier to run ads and pay Google. What Makes a Video Educational? Marc has two distinct categories of video. One is educational and one is an FAQ that outlines how he does things. They’re separate. Under the educational content umbrella is the content marketing that appeals to both prospective owner clients and current owners. It works to market for new business and retain current business. Here’s a soft rule he says to remember: When you make a video, decide if you can show it to both audiences – the prospective clients and the current clients. If the answer is ever no, then it’s not providing enough education. When you have this rule in mind, you’ll keep your video from being too sales-focused. You won’t say “call us for a free consultation” because why would say that to current owners? When you can say yes, it applies to both current and prospective clients because you’re talking about tenant screening or maintenance costs, then you know it’s an educational video. Marc believes content matters. His videos won’t be about how great his company is or how many degrees he has. Nobody cares. He maintained one massive email group of all current clients, all previous clients, and all prospective clients. Anyone who has ever provided an email address is in the group. It doesn’t matter if they’re working with a competitor or self-managing or if they’ve been with the company for years. These videos educate everyone. People want to be educated. They’re not going to call you because of your great technology. They’re going to call you because you posted a video with some information on a new law that matters to them. Marc doesn’t invest a lot of time in making videos. He began doing two videos a month and he’d record them both at the same time, and they’d end up being seven or eight minutes each. It’s not a production. There’s a simple backdrop. There are some good lights. There’s a tripod and a microphone. There’s usually one take. If he stumbles over a word, he reps going. It does not have to be perfect, and that’s why it doesn’t take too long. Slight imperfections keep the video conversational. If you can pretend you’re recording for a potential client, you’ll have an easy time talking to them. Now, there’s only one a month that needs to be recorded because quite a library has been created. One hour every month is the time investment that’s required, and the video keeps working as soon as you put it out there. Marc says this is the only true evergreen marketing there is. Blogs and videos go on websites. They get shared on social media. Videos are converted to blogs, but Marc says the video should come first. When someone reads a blog, they don’t necessary get a sense of who you are. Video shows them. And it doesn’t take much time if you’re not a perfectionist. Sometimes, people will give up too fast. They’ll hate their hair. They’ll hate their voice. They’ll want to re-record over and over again. Marc says get over that. You’re not auditioning for Hollywood. You’re trying to attract a new client, and it gets easier the more you do it. Advice to Property Managers Not Loving the Video Marketing Idea Marc has some advice for when you’re making your video, and he even has some advice if you’re not feeling like you want to make videos at all. Be more energetic in your video than you think you need to be. There’s something about video that sucks the life out of people. You don’t want to be boring. As you’re recording, be a bit more animated than you normally would be. Deliver more energy than you think you need to. It might feel goofy while you’re doing it, but it will come across on video the way you want it to. If you’re worried you don’t have time to make videos? That’s not the point. If you want to have more time in your business, you need to do this kind of marketing to get there. Success comes when you follow the steps to success. You can’t wait to be successful before you start showing your stuff. Marc reminds all of us that he began video marketing with a wall, an iPhone, and an 11-year-old. If you want to save yourself time on marketing, there’s no better way to do it. As a property management business consultant, Marc stresses the importance of video as a marketing tool, and he has another secret weapon that he’s surprised most companies don’t realize is so important. That’s having a photo of yourself or your company or your team on your website. It’s a big fail if you’re not featured on your site. People want to SEE who they’re doing business with. Get your picture on your site and let people know who you are. The mantra for Marc is to be professional yet friendly. Those are the boundaries. You know where you fall. Maybe you trend more towards professional or more towards friendly. Bring yourself back to balance. Another piece of advice: With content, whether it’s a blog or a video or a Q&A on your website, make sure you’re answering the questions that your potential clients have. You’re attracting investors and accidental landlords. Answer questions from both types of owners. The accidental landlords aren’t thinking about themselves as investors. They lived in the house they’re about to rent out. They want to know who will be there and if they’ll take good care of the home. They’ll have questions about screening. Investors will have money questions. They’ll want to know what they’re spending on maintenance and how quickly you’re filling vacancies. Answer those questions in your content. Find out what people are asking right now. What conversations are you having with current and prospective owners? What keeps coming up? Your potential clients are making decisions based on emotions. If you’re not marketing yourself this way, with video, then you’re only competition on price. People don’t choose your company because of your price. They choose your company because they know what you’re doing. You cannot expect them to turn over the keys to their greatest asset without knowing who you are. Find Marc at PMBuild.com, which is their property management education website. You can also visit RentGrace.com, which is his property management website. Check out his videos and see how it’s done. Marc’s parting words? Get it done. Get it out there. We appreciate Marc Cunningham coming onto the show. If you have any questions about video marketing or if you need help with this part of your business, please contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY CommentsThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 28811 The post The Power of Action Versus Perfectionism in Video Marketing appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.

Welcome back to The Property Management Show. In our previous episode, we spoke with SEO and marketing guru Rand Fishkin about the shifting tides in digital marketing and the sources of influence that are important today. On the second part of our podcast with this guest, we’re talking about money keywords, vanity metrics, and generative AI. We’re also talking about how to make those immeasurable marketing channels a little bit more measurable. Here’s Part Two of our interview. Money Keywords: Where Everyone Wants to Rank Every business or industry has a set of money keywords that represents where and for what everyone in that industry wants to rank. That’s the bottom of the funnel. If you’re ranking high for property management and your city, you know that people searching for you are very close to choosing a property management company. That’s a good lead. But, why go to the battlefield and fight with every other management company that wants the same keywords? There are other marketing strategies that can be leveraged. Remember the blue ocean strategy. Go for those keywords that others aren’t paying attention to. Then, you won’t have to fight as hard and you’ll still draw in traffic from relevant searches. It makes sense. However, people are so drawn to that battlefield. Rand says this is how entrepreneurs are socialized and trained. It’s a cultural battle that’s hard to overcome. To really improve website traffic and gain more leads, results, and profitability, you can rank for more than property management plus geography. When everyone else is chasing one thing, you can beat them all by doing something that none of them are doing. Vanity Metrics: Measuring Lift vs. Attribution Are you getting more subscribers and followers or engagement and not necessarily conversion? In 2017, there was an article in the Harvard Business Review that talked about the actual value of a Facebook like for a business. Marketing researchers did a study to figure out whether it really contributes to a business in any meaningful way. They found that a Facebook like doesn’t necessarily reflect a change in consumer behavior or an increase in spending. Consumers who like a brand on social media, specifically Facebook, are simply expressing a pre-existing preference. If they see the brand, they like it. They were going to buy from you anyway, so of course they’ll like you on Facebook. It’s much harder to convince someone who has never heard of you to like your page and then buy from you. Rand points out that hidden in that study is that the measurement can be used to find out how many people are predisposed to buying from you, and who they are. The Facebook like did not influence 300 new people to buy from you if they weren’t already planning to buy from you. So, it’s a vanity metric. It does not change behavior. But, it helps you measure. By knowing that 300 new people liked your Facebook page in a month, you can measure the size of the pool of people who may buy from you. This can be useful in a campaign. You can measure what you’re doing that’s having a positive or negative impact. Measure those likes if you want a campaign that grows your brand’s likeability, awareness, and trust. Getting a Facebook like won’t get you more buyers. But, doing things that will encourage more buyers will result in a lift on social media. That’s notable. This makes an otherwise unmeasurable marketing investment more measurable. You can measure lift. If you see that traffic went up and conversion went up and the Facebook likes went up, that campaign worked, and you know that similar investments on other networks might be worth the effort. Or, when what you did last month did not work well, you’ll know to try something else. That’s where the value comes from. Instead of disproving the value of the metric, that study suggests there’s a lot of value. If you’re focused on ranking number one on Google, that’s a problem because you want that metric to go up at all cost. But, if you instead treat the metric as a way to measure the effect of what you’re doing, that’s going to give you some value. Branded Search Volume on Google Rand suggests that branded search volume is the better place for small businesses to focus right now. Instead of Hayward Property Management, he suggests working hard to rank for Marie and Brittany Property Management. When people are looking for your brand name, it means you are doing something right in terms of brand reach. More people are looking not for a generic term, but for you in particular. Rand says he’d take one new searcher for his brand name over a hundred searches for the generic keyword combo. That’s the bottom of the funnel and the closest you’ll get to conversion. If he searches for a Google Pixel Phone 6, that’s more valuable to the brand than a search for best new android phone 2024. One of those search terms suggests that the buyer has already made their decision. He knows what he’s looking for. That’s the most valuable kind of marketing you can do. Get people to know, like, trust, prefer your brand over others. Be present in the places they pay attention with a message that resonates with them at the right time. That’s not going to be property management Orlando, Florida. Remember: Measuring is different from attribution. Attribution is what caused this person to convert. Rand believes that it’s nearly impossible to know what causes a person to convert and buy, and that’s why he doesn’t worry too much about attribution. He returns to his basic message: Be present in the right place with the right message at the right time. To know if you’re doing that, you can look at your vanity metrics and look for the lift that should come before the rising conversions arrive. Follow, Don’t Lead: Marketing’s Future and Generative AI Rand believes that marketing is a field in which you should follow crowds and not try to lead them. What he means by that is until your audience is present and having relevant conversations in a place, you don’t need to try and reach them in that place. Why spend time there if your audience isn’t there? In 2010, everyone thought they had to have a mobile app. They didn’t Most companies are just fine with a mobile-friendly website. The same thing happened more recently with NFTs and blockchain. Marketers were sure they had to be using blockchain somehow but they couldn’t explain why. Does it make your customers happier or give them a better experience? If not, you don’t need it. Now, we’re looking at the ease with which anyone can use generative AI. Generative AI can solve some problems. If you have a database of 100,000 rental properties all over the country and you want to classify them quickly, you might want to hand-classify 100 of them, and then have ChapGPT do the rest of it based on your rules. But, why would that be on your website? We all know that when it comes to content, generative AI is the very bottom of the floor. It’s the worst content out there. Some humans can produce worse things, but anyone can make generative AI content for no money, so it’s the worst you can have. Your goal, when it comes to content, must be to ensure everything you produce is better than that. What’s wonderful for people who invest in marketing is that the more people who make their content with generative AI, the easier it for everyone who doesn’t to stand out. When you’re relying on generative AI to craft your message, you’re essentially taking yourself out of the game. You’ll be outranked and out-marketed. You’ll be the crappy competition that no one has to worry about. Using generative AI for programming assistance or to understand a concept makes sense. It can tell you what words are likely to come after other words on the internet. It can analyze data. But, to write copy that you would expect someone to read while considering a new property management company? No. AI looks for tokens coming after other tokens. It does that predictively. What they told you is what their suggestions told them, and it’s essentially a spicy auto complete. It will never be unique, and the whole point of marketing your company is to be unique. And that is all we have for our Part Two episode of the Property Management Show with Rand Fishkin. If you aren’t already a subscriber, please become one and give us a like. If you have any questions, go ahead and contact us at Fourandhalf. First Name(Required)Last Name(Required)Email(Required) Phone(Required)Company NameComments or QuestionsThis field is hidden when viewing the formDate MM slash DD slash YYYY EmailThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 43733 The post Shifting Tides in Digital Marketing with Rand Fishkin Part 2 appeared first on Fourandhalf Marketing Agency for Property Managers.