Pete Neubig: [00:00:04] Welcome back, everybody to the North Radio podcast. And as promised, I got my my good buddy Joe here from Rent Manager. So Joe, thank you so much for being here today man.

Joe Easton: [00:00:16] Yeah. Really appreciate you having me on.

Pete Neubig: [00:00:18] So. Obviously with the manager, an industry leader in property management software. And long gone are the days of using pencil and paper or a spreadsheet to track your rent roll. But today's software is not your fault. The software. So talk a little bit about the maturation of software in the space. Let's dive into the past, where we were and where we are today, and then what the future is. So let's talk a little bit from a rent manager perspective or from an overall perspective. You know, the invent of software and like where where what problem did it solve. And then where do we go. Where where are we today.

Joe Easton: [00:00:55] Yeah, it's a great question. And, you know, I think we're well positioned to answer that because we've been around for so long. So our software was originally written back in the 80s. And when you think software, you normally don't think the 80s, right? You think like 90s 2000 maybe. And it's really interesting because the, the owner of the company, the gentleman that originally wrote the software, Dave, he talks about one of the first challenges he had was the fact that most of his potential customers didn't even have computers back then, right? So he had to sell them computers along with software. So he was solving all types of interesting challenges back then. But when we really look at and we don't have to go all the way back to the 80s, but we go back ten, 20 years in software, the reality is, is where property management software is really finding its fit was on the accounting side, right? People wanted to make sure their records were in good shape and they wanted to be able to track their residents, their tenants. Right. Those are two of the, I would say, foundational things that most people needed out of software. And the reality is, in many cases, that was about all it did, at least, you know, at a at a high level or in a very robust way. Right? It was it was the accounting piece. Yeah. Your residents are in there, but it couldn't do a lot of the stuff that it does today.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:06] Yeah. Remember when I, when I first started my management firm back in 2011, which is you know, it's really not that long ago, you know, I mean, but all the software at that time was majorly just major accounting software. And then of course, you can maybe, maybe some maintenance. You could, you could have maintenance tickets if you would in there. But, but for overall that that was really that was really it. Right back back back even then.

Joe Easton: [00:02:32] And again, like I said, that isn't really that long ago. When you really look at the big the big picture of where software is today. But as you noted, like maintenance is one of the early things that ended up getting into software because everyone has it. That's a common pain point a lot of people had. And when you think about maintenance, a lot of times you would connect it to the resident or the accounting piece, right? There's costs associated with with the upkeep and the maintenance of properties. So it's really fun to kind of look at all of the different ways that property management software has evolved, and it's all based on those common pain points that that operators have. And so just like little pieces got added here or there, right? So you you started maybe with accounting the residents also. Then you get the maintenance piece in there. Well now you want to communicate with your residents. How do we get some communication tools built in there. Maybe we need some more reporting features in there. You just kind of like started getting like feature by feature until really you ended up with this more robust idea of what property Man software really could be. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:35] And I would say over the last few years, we've seen a lot of proptech companies come in and do some of the things that the management software company was doing, but but they kind of ten-x it. They've enhanced it greatly. Right. Our good friends at property mailed come to, you know, ten and Turner these these guys come to come to mind when when you talk about this. And so from a from a property management software point of view for you is that good news, bad news, I mean for the client what do you what are your thoughts on this and why do you see this happening. And do you see integrating back into the software? I know I asked you about six questions. Sorry.

Joe Easton: [00:04:15] No, but but they all tie together and it's, it's I think it's probably the part that I love about what we do the most. And it's the part I'm most involved in. And really, the comparison I love to give is tying it back to the smartphone. So you think about your smartphone, right? You buy it, you open it up and there's a lot of things already on it. Right. So if we look at like property management software as the smartphone, as the Apple or, or Android phone, there's a lot of things it does. It can make calls, it can do texting. It's got a calculator on it, a calendar. It does a lot of really cool things.

Pete Neubig: [00:04:46] Photos right. Photos.

Joe Easton: [00:04:47] Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly you have all these things that are built in to it right out of the box. But then you have this whole like marketplace. And I would kind of say the proptech world is kind of that marketplace that's out there. And even if the Apple or Android phone does something really well, there's probably an app out there that does it differently or even possibly better. So the way that we often look at like, is it good or is it bad? You know, I think it can be a little bit of both. Sometimes it adds some competitive ness to our industry that I think is really, really healthy. You know, we are accounting software at its core. We do all types of things. People probably can run their entire business on our software if they really wanted to do it the way that we've built it. But if they want to look at different ways of doing it, and I think property model is a great call out, we do maintenance on our software. You can track maintenance, no big deal, but if you want that, I would say that deeper level of being able to automate things and track things and kind of have more analytics around it, you know, that's really not our forte. That's what the property team is really, really great at. So we think it's a good thing because now operators have choice. They really have the choice to do what they want to do and do it the way they want to do it. By using different providers, use our software. Great. We're happy that you use it. But if you would operate slightly different, become more competitive. You've got hundreds of choices out there at this point.

Pete Neubig: [00:06:13] So one of the things that we're that that I'm seeing and you can confirm this is originally when the property melds and tenant turners popped up. I did see a lot of the big companies rent manager, not merely rent manager, but appfolio for sure. But I did see a lot of big companies kind of, you know, close their what we call API, but kind of kind of build a moat around their software and didn't really want to play nice with others. And rent manager if I think I believe this was one of the first ones to kind of open up their API and say, listen, we, we like everybody. We want everybody to play well in our in our sandbox. And so why did you guys make that decision and why do you see other companies now following suit?

Joe Easton: [00:06:57] Yeah, we were I would say one of the first, if not the first. You know, you always hate to claim first because there might be a guy that did it a day or two earlier than you. Um, but no, we were we were 100% open to this idea of working with other providers. And I think there's a lot of reasons. One of them simply is because we know technology is moving faster than our team alone can move. Right? So when you talk about property, technology, different software solutions out there, you experienced it. You know, being around since 2011 with your company, how many more options there are today? Rent manager on its own, if we try to build everything we probably couldn't keep up with it, right? It's just moving way too fast. So I think there's that element. But really historically we've focused on building really customizable, really flexible software. And in our eyes it was really just an extension of that. Right? If we are going to let people operate the way they want to operate, we have to let them use other tools that they want to use. And if we don't, we actually thought that was a risk to us. Meaning if they go out there and they want to use the tenant turner and the property meld and the lead simple and all these other tools out there, and they don't integrate with us, we're like, well, that that's a pain point. We're causing friction where we probably don't need to be causing friction, where if they integrate, our customers are happier. And let's just be honest, they're stickier customers, right? Because all their things talk together and they're really happy when they're all talking together.

Pete Neubig: [00:08:28] Yeah, I would say we're becoming a society where things are so easy to get. Now we're coming to to the point where it's more we want customizable. Right. And I'll give you a great example. I literally just had somebody in my house today that they came to my house, measured me up, and I'm buying clothes like they're a clothier. Right. But this just says like, this just says, I don't want off the rack. It's off the market stuff or off the rack stuff. I want to pick and choose and I want to customize. And now with, with with Rent Manager leading the way, a lot of the softwares are now opening their API. And as a user or as a property management company, I can customize how I want. Like I want rent manager to do my accounting. I want property male to do my maintenance. I want to enter to do my leasing. You know, I want, you know, um, you know, ten reports.com to do my applications or I want rent manager to do it all. So you have all of these all of these options now available. And I think you're right. If if you were going to be friction oriented and not allow that, you're eventually are going to lose clients to the ones that are going to allow that is kind of what I'm thinking. Is that kind of the the thought process behind that?

Joe Easton: [00:09:40] Yeah, 100%. And you talk about that idea of like customizing things and getting custom clothing, and we really do live in a world where things are more accessible. And I'm going to tie it back to the smartphone once again. And I love using this analogy that if I was in a room with 10,000 people, that's a lot of people, and they all pulled out their smartphones, I'm going to tell you, every single one of those smartphones is unique. You know, from the ringtone, whether they have it turned on or off, right? The picture on the lock screen, the apps they have downloaded, the. Yeah, all, all of those little settings and all of the ways that they're using it are unique to that individual person. And I think we live in a world where we all want that, and now we want it for our business, not just for our personal right. We want that personalized experience in our software. And so I'm excited when I see other software companies opening up. I think it's the right move. I think there's a lot of demand for it. We've seen a lot of growth with our integrations program, and while I think, yeah, we probably created a pretty slick program that invites people into joining it, but the reality is there's a lot of it is just the pressure of the industry to do that right. Our customers are saying we want to use these tools, but we need them to be integrated so we can stay efficient.

Pete Neubig: [00:10:53] And when you talk about this and having a community, are you talking about the marketplace that you guys created?

Joe Easton: [00:10:58] Exactly. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. So we have about 160 companies or so that integrate with us at this point. So it's kind of this marketplace opportunity where again, like you go in there, you look at maintenance, you're going to find property there, but you're going to find a few other people too, because property melt in our eyes. Well, they're awesome. We love those those that group over there, they're probably not going to meet the needs of every customer for how every customer wants to do things. So again, it's like going to the App Store on your on your phone. You know, you want to download whatever it might be, social media tools, something like that. It's not one size fits all.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:31] Yeah. So tell me what what do you think? Or if you can what's what's on the on the horizon short term. Because I'm going to talk about AI and I think we'll kind of let's let's kind of sidebar that since it's so huge, so other than AI, which they might not be anything because everything's AI right now, what are some short term, you know, some short term enhancements that you see that the property management, you know, because I consider you guys the Appfolio folios, the property was realpage's. You guys are the hub without you. None, none of these other, you know, the property mills of the world, they just don't work as well. Right. If I had to have, you know. So so you guys are kind of the industry leaders. You guys are leading the technology for the rest of us to kind of like follow behind. So as far as like rent manager and property management software in general, where do you see short term some some changes happening.

Joe Easton: [00:12:24] Yeah, I think there's a lot of things going on right now. And well, I would agree that, like we're kind of that hub, right? Property management software kind of sits in the middle and a lot of things connect into it. We get a lot of energy around all the new property technology, the prop tech that's out there to see kind of what's happening, what's new. And part of the challenge I think everyone is facing is you can't do it, all right. So you have to kind of pick and choose what you're going to do, what you should focus on. You know, I would say short term for us, a lot of it is is really focused on this idea of efficiency and automation, which isn't a new term at all. It's not a new idea. We've been doing automation for a long time, but how do we keep taking that to the next level? How do we automate more pieces of it? How do we get more workflows into our software? How do we really make the the effort that the PM has to put in to run their business easier every single iteration of our software? So I think automation is a big piece of it. And then kind of talk non tech. A big part of what we focus on is actually the support side. We're pretty unique in the fact that we take live calls. I'm here in Cincinnati, Ohio, all of our employees are here. And so we take live calls here in Cincinnati, Ohio to support our customers. And so we're really kind of diving into the service side. How do we service customers and and bigger and better ways. And how do we service maybe their entire business, not just how they interact with our software?

Pete Neubig: [00:13:50] That's amazing. I would say, on your point about automation, you're right. I mean, I hear about automation all the time now. Everybody's looking to figure out how to automate. And you know, when I started I started automating. So just to give you an idea like Lead Simple didn't exist back then. I was trying to use HubSpot and I found a company that that could that could take HubSpot and automate it for some of our processes, which I thought was amazing, very costly, very it's not just expensive, but a lot of it was very time consuming as well. But but it worked. But now the tech is there, right? Like, not just not just the tech meaning like the lead simple of the world, but inside rent manager inside some of these other other folios like you can actually have these workflows inside. So to me that's going to be huge right. Because obviously the more automation that's built in the the more doors we can manage with less people, right? Until you become more profitable. And then all of a sudden that dollar or dollar, $52 per unit that you're paying for, it doesn't matter, right? Because you'd be paying a lot more if you had to bring in more team.

Joe Easton: [00:14:59] Yeah, and there's a lot of challenges around staffing right now retaining top talent, finding new talent, turnover issues. And when you automate a lot of your processes, that actually makes it easier. You can onboard people faster. If there's turnover, you can recover faster. So I think that's really important. And when you really think about like automation, one of the things that it starts to open up is more choice. And the choice actually starts to shift over to the resident side. Right. So if you can automate a lot, you can start letting the resident communicate back to you the way that you want to be or that they want to communicate. Right? So if they want to text or email or phone call, they've got all these options and they all kind of feed together. They all talk to each other and all the data is in one place. So I'll send the resident has all of these options. We've talked about property mount and so forth. There's some residents that want to call up and tell you that their sink is leaking, where other ones want to submit it through an app or a text or whatever. And I think automating things really helps connect the dots on the back end. For the PM to free the resident to have that experience are looking for.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:00] Are you seeing because you you you sparked my mind here? Are you seeing that apps are are getting better for the property management software? Like I remember when I had my app, I was using Proper Aware back in the day, the property where app was just very, very scaled down. Are you seeing more robust apps? Is that happening now or has it happened already? I just missed it.

Joe Easton: [00:16:25] You know, I think it's happening. I think the big challenge with apps is really resonant adoption. I think if you talk to a lot of property managers, they can't really get a lot of their residents and tenants to use them simply because they don't have the need for it. There isn't this immediate need. When you think about like, again, I talked about smartphones a lot. You know, I pick it up all the time because it's doing all the things that I need it to do. When you look at the place that you're staying, well, you need to pay rent, which you may automate that, right? You put that on auto pay so you don't have to log in at all. And if you do, it's once a month to pay and then you've got maintenance requests, things like that, maybe a lease renewal in there. They are getting much, much better. There's a lot more in those apps. But I even know in our side, our general website portal for that residents can log into is still more popular than our app simply because, you know, I don't know, I may pay rent while I'm sitting here at work in front of a computer. I don't need an app for it as much as I would need an app for maybe other things. And and I think as we look, you kind of talked about the future I. As we look into the future, that will hit a tipping point where that'll shift. And I think that's where a lot of these things start to come, come together. And and really, the resonant starts to just adopt the app at a higher level. I think that's really going to turn it and maybe its feature set to maybe we just don't have the right features in our apps quite yet to to see the adoption that people want to want to get out of it.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:48] Agreed. Let's talk about the £800 gorilla. Let's talk about AI. Yeah. I mean, you know, every time you read something or hear something I get I think we're getting closer and closer to Skynet and Arnold Schwarzenegger coming back from the from the future, right. The Terminator. So obviously, if you're not, if you're in prop tech or software in general and you're not in the game, you're going to be you're going to be left behind. So where do you see that? Where I can fit in, you know, in in your software, in rent manager. And then overall just in property management overall, what are what are your thoughts on that.

Joe Easton: [00:18:24] Yeah, I do agree with that sentiment. This idea that you're going to be left behind. The comparison that I've been using is comparing it to the internet back in the 90s. And the internet was really basic and kind of a weird place, and you couldn't trust what you found there. And now everything's internet based and, and there's a point, right, where if you weren't in the internet game, you were left behind. And I think we're right at kind of that pivotal point right now with AI the past decade. You didn't need to be an AI, right? It was early on, early stage, but now we're starting to see the functionality really, really ramp up. We're sitting here recording this on zoom. There's a new thing called AI Companion and Zoom, where it'll listen to what we're talking about and type out notes and send it to you afterwards. It's crazy the things that we can do that are already built in. And I think that's where we'll start seeing things in property management and our software when we we just talked about property mode, I think that's a great example.

Joe Easton: [00:19:17] We can use them. I think AI fits there in the sense that when a maintenance request comes in, I can read it. I can understand the diagnose it, the level of urgency behind it. Do we need, you know, oh, is this a you know, do we need to dispatch somebody immediately or can this wait till tomorrow, maybe even replies to the Resident like, Hey Pete, thanks for letting us know your sink is leaking. It's 3 a.m. no big deal. We'll have somebody out there tomorrow, 9 a.m., and it's already scheduled the tech to go out there, right? I think AI starts coming in and we talked about automation. I think it takes automation. And you said ten x. It could be a thousand X on automation. Because all of a sudden it's doing those decision points that right now we have humans making. And I think we're really close to letting make some of those at least easy decisions. Right. We're still going to have to triage things and so forth. But I think it fits in very well there.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:13] Yeah. And I think from a from a property management perspective, the easy case that I can see is, you know, right now you have these chats on people's websites. Right. And they're very, very robotic. Where you can literally flip that to AI and people on your website will literally think they're talking to a person, right? The way, the way they answer and all that good stuff. So I think that's an easy one. And of course, marketing, right. You can always you can always use AI for, you know, to build out your marketing plan. So there, if you sat down and just if you listen to this and you say, you know what, I just need an hour of think time, I promise you to come up with 10 or 15 ways that I can improve your business, and then you can go out there and I promise you, there's probably 10 or 15 companies for every one of those ways that are already has built in AI of some sort that can help your company 100%.

Joe Easton: [00:21:06] And I would actually say, if you want to come up with 10 or 15 ways that you could use AI in your business right now, including a very specific property management business, you could go use AI and it'll tell you those 10 or 15 things that you could go do. So if you haven't used like a ChatGPT type feature free account, go download or set up an account and log in and just start asking it. Questions about property management, about technology, about anything. It's it's quite impressive what you really can get back out and the conversation you're going to have with AI. And so we're definitely living in the future right now.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:41] Yeah. One of the best cases or use cases that I've seen in some of the Facebook groups and property management groups out there is how to respond to an unhappy resident or unhappy owner, right? I mean, as a property manager, I'm sure there's ways that we can respond. But then you throw that into ChatGPT or something like that, and it comes up with a much more eloquent way to tell somebody to go, you know, bleep themselves. And no, Gail didn't have to use you guys to bleep it I bleep myself. You know one of my it's.

Joe Easton: [00:22:14] It's no it's really interesting because you're absolutely right. And there's a lot of emotions that are involved in property management when you're on the side right. Because you can. Be upset by something or stressed out by something, and by using it kind of takes the emotion out of it. And it'll give you a prompt, right? It'll give you a response to send. And then you go through and you edit it, but at least then you know, okay, this is this is professional. This is the right way to say it. It thought of some things that I wasn't thinking about because I'm really stressed right now. It can be a great tool just for immediate communication.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:48] Now, Joe, what do you say to the people that are listening to this? And they're like, man, I'm still old school, right? The average property manager is about my age. They're in their 50s, right? They're typically a little resistant to a lot of change, a lot of technology. And one of the one of the things I hear at these conferences and just conferences overall is like, we're going to use technology to the point where we're not we're not building those relationships with our tenants and our owners and things of that nature. Um, obviously I'm asking a prop tech guy, but where do you come out on that?

Joe Easton: [00:23:18] Yeah. You know, the human element is really important. And we just talked about using it like to try to figure out a way to respond to an owner or resident. You have to edit that. You have to put the human touch on it because it's not going to be, you know, your style or your voice. I would argue that technology and AI is going to give you more time to do these things. It's going to automate those things that you don't need to be touching the the, you know, the stack of paperwork on your desk. It can get rid of those types of things. So you can actually go and create relationships and spend more time in that, in that space. And whether we're talking about residents or the owners, we're talking about something of great value to these people, the residents, it's their home, these owners. Right? It's their investment for a lot of these people, it's it's their retirement. It's whatever it is for them. It's a it's a big deal. And I think we need to be spending more face time with them. And I truly think technology and AI is going to open that up to do the things that we should be doing, rather than the things that we have to like go do, because they're task oriented.

Pete Neubig: [00:24:15] Preach, brother. You you 100% agree. My, I believe that you know, very similar to what you're saying is with AI and process flows and workflows, you you get your tasking done, right, the tasking gets done. And I'm no longer running a reactive business. It allows my staff to work Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, not, you know, 8 to 8 and on weekends and being stressed out. Right. But what it does is it reduces the amount of time your team needs. Right. So now you can run a proactive you can actually go from a reactive company, which by the way, I don't see too many proactive property management firms out there, I really don't. Even when I was steadfastly trying to make mine a proactive company, it was taken me a long, long time to get there. With the technology being where it's at now, I think it really is the first time that you can get there. And I know I'm not talking about you. Mr.. I have 40 doors and I run everything myself, and I'm super proactive. I'm actually talking about companies that are growing, right? And they're growing and they're they have teams and they're like, you know, I can't be proactive. And now by what I'm what do I mean by proactive is I mean, you can get on the phone and call an owner, not just because they're there. They have an eviction going on. Tenant didn't pay or there's or water heater needs to replace and I need five grand. Right. You can literally call them and say, hey, I want to do a portfolio review. I want to find out, are you looking to buy houses? Do you, you know, and so you can actually talk and listen and build that relationship with your people. So so I actually do go the other way. Right. And I say with automation everything you can actually build better relationships. And I think that's what you were alluding to as well.

Joe Easton: [00:26:02] 100%. And the other side of it is those that are using technology will be more efficient, and they will put market pressure on those that aren't, meaning their level of efficiency. They'll probably be able to be more profitable, you know, at lower rates and things like that. So all of a sudden you may be squeezed a little bit because you're not using technology. So I would always look at that as well. I mean, being old school, you know, I love old school stuff, you know. So there's nothing wrong with it. But let's find ways to use technology to make our businesses stronger and better and last longer too. Right. You know, you mentioned, you know, different generations. You know, I think we're going to have a lot of younger people enter this industry because of the technology that's now available. I think that'll excite them for real estate. And, you know, we can see a little bit of a changing of the guards in the next, you know, ten or so years.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:51] I tend to agree with that statement as well. All right, man, we are going to take a quick break and then we're going to come hit the lightning round. But before we do that, just um do you have if if someone is listening to this and they're on the fence about like, should I embrace the technology? What what would be like, what's the one thing you tell them, like, hey, if you're if you're thinking about, you know, adding tech, what's the first step they should take in your opinion?

Joe Easton: [00:27:18] Yeah. You know, I always think it's really good to go to talk to somebody that's done it. So I know the community I would engage there. I would start asking for referrals of people that are like running their operations with maybe all the tech right now, I'm not saying to go all in and use every, every little piece that they're using, but just pick their brain of like why they're doing it, how they're doing it. I would go engage the community over there. I think that's the right way to do it. I think there's plenty of people over there that are using tech that would be happy to share what they're up to.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:48] Great idea. All right. We're going to take a quick commercial break. We're going to be back with Joe Easton. We put him in a hot seat and we're going to put him in the lightning round. We'll be right back after this. All right. Welcome back everybody. Joe, are you ready for the lightning round?

Joe Easton: [00:28:01] A little nervous, but I'm ready.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:03] Ha. All right. Um, what is one piece of advice you would give someone who's just starting out in the business?

Joe Easton: [00:28:12] Oh, just starting out. I think my advice would be to start out with technology in mind. Think of yourself as a technology company just as much, or maybe more so than a property management company.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:25] What was your first job?

Joe Easton: [00:28:28] Oh, I worked at a toys R us.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:30] They. They don't exist anymore, do they?

Joe Easton: [00:28:32] They do not exist anymore. I think they're trying to make a comeback. They were like an online presence for a while. But. Yeah, they they closed. What'd you do? Well, after I left.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:39] What'd you do for them?

Joe Easton: [00:28:40] I was a teenager, so just stocking shelves and shelves. Running cashier. Yeah. Yep.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:45] Right. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Joe Easton: [00:28:48] I'm. Absolutely.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:51] I thought we were friends. What is your ideal vacation?

Joe Easton: [00:28:55] Ideal vacation is. I love city vacation, so go to a new city I've never been to and just explore. Try the food there. Check out the museums or sports programs that they have going on there, but kind of just exploring a new city.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:08] All right, pretty cool. We explored South Dakota together recently. Right. Uh, we were not really a city, but but but, you know, we hit Mount Rushmore together, so that was fun. That's right.

Joe Easton: [00:29:20] We had a good time.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:21] What is something that most people don't know about you?

Joe Easton: [00:29:25] Uh, something that most people don't know about me. So it's kind of a name thing. So my name is Joe. My full name is Joseph. But my mom wanted to call me Joshua. So my family actually called me Josh, and they still do, like, so my, my childhood name and my family still calls me that. But since my name is Joseph, I go by Joe now.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:46] That's funny. So if somebody starts calling you Josh, I know they've known you for quite some time.

Joe Easton: [00:29:50] They've known me for a long time. Yeah, yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:53] What is one success you've had in life?

Joe Easton: [00:29:57] A success I've had in life. Um, you know, I would say it's overcoming being a very shy child, even a shy teenager. Um, definitely overcome that. Doing things like this, being able to do. Public speaking and so forth. If you would ask me before the age of 25, I would have said, absolutely not. Never, never, never. And was able to overcome that. And I think that's a great success.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:18] Nice. What is a book you're currently reading or one that you've read that's impacted your business or life?

Joe Easton: [00:30:25] Oh, a book that I'm currently reading. Um. And I'm not reading any books right now.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:34] Any business book or any book you've read that's impacted your life at all, or are you more of a cast guy?

Joe Easton: [00:30:39] I'm more of a podcast guy. You know, I listen to a lot of things. I don't listen to a lot of books, but if you're looking.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:45] Well, let's reframe the rule. I'll reframe the question. Give me give me a podcast other than the podcast that somebody should listen to.

Joe Easton: [00:30:54] Well, I'll give you two because he has a layup for you. You have to go listen to my podcast called Beyond Rent. But if you're looking for a very interesting non property management podcast, it's called Freakonomics. And it's what do they call it, the hidden side of everything. They really do like deep dives and like why things are the way they are. A lot of stats, things like that. It's one of those podcasts that makes you think about things differently and kind of opens up your mind. So definitely shoot for that one.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:21] All right. This one, this one always stumps people. What which Disney character or Marvel character do you most associate with?

Joe Easton: [00:31:28] Oh my gosh, that is really, really challenging. Um. Oh, man. Disney or Marvel character that I.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:38] Most associate with. I'll take any kind of comic book character if you want to go DC, if you want to go Batman or Superman.

Joe Easton: [00:31:46] You know, maybe. Maybe I'll go and I will give you Robin. Um. I'm often tired, so, like, the whole, like, sidekick role. I love helping people. I love kind of being the support system for people. I don't need to be in the limelight. I don't need to be the the one giving, um, the stage I like, I do like public speaking and stuff like that at this point, but I don't need that. So always like to helping and supporting. So maybe like a sidekick character, like Robin.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:14] Like it. What do you prefer, dogs or cats?

Joe Easton: [00:32:17] Uh, neither. No pets?

Pete Neubig: [00:32:19] No, neither. That's the first time I've heard that one. Oh, somebody has one or the other. All right, all right. If somebody is compelled to give you a call or reach out to you, what's the best way they can reach out to you? The best way to connect with you?

Joe Easton: [00:32:30] Yeah. With me. Check out LinkedIn. Try to stay pretty active on there. Don't post a lot, but I'm definitely commenting and connecting there. So I'd say LinkedIn is the best place to find me.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:40] Hey, that's just Joe Easton or is it Josh?

Joe Easton: [00:32:43] Good question. It's Joe Easton. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:45] All right. All right. And if you are, if you are not a member of Northam and compelled to want to join Northam, well, first of all, if you're not a member, why aren't you a member? Join. Give them a call at (800) 782-3452 or go to Northam NRP. Org and if you are not ready to automate and you need people to kind of help with some of the challenges, please go to Vpm solutions. Virtual property management solutions. We have over 31,000 remote team members looking to work in the property management and real estate industry. Joe, thanks so much for being here today.

Joe Easton: [00:33:24] Yeah, really appreciate it.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:26] All right everybody, till next time. See you all.