A Podcast | Jay Hartley

Pete Neubig: [00:00:13] Welcome back everybody. Like I promised, I have Jay Hartley here. And Jay is another one of those diamonds in the rough. A lot of people don't know you, Jay, but I know you. I've been. Because you're in the Dallas area, and I was the VP, and I saw what an incredible property management firm that you own, that you that you ran and were a minority shareholder, had lots of units. We're going to talk about that. And if I remember, didn't you also have a maintenance division?

Jay Hartley: [00:00:41] So I've run two companies in the 20 years, 22 years now that I've been at it. The first one, we had a maintenance division, um, ran that did that operation. Uh, the second company that I partnered on, we did third party maintenance. Uh, so we didn't have, you know, whether it be good or bad, right? Um, you know, decided to go a different route on the second one.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:04] So let's talk about your the last firm you had recently, just you recently sold a couple years ago, and now you're starting a new firm, Surge Property Management, which I want to talk about as well.

Jay Hartley: [00:01:14] Sure.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:14] Talk to me about, you know, why you sold, um. What? You you know why you didn't buy your partner out? Because you and I have very similar stories, and I'll be more than happy to kind of reshare my story, but let's let's kind of hear that story about how long were you guys in business for and then what what started what prompted the whole idea of selling?

Jay Hartley: [00:01:34] Yeah, yeah. Well, um, so I left the the first operation six years ago, uh, and then came over to this new opportunity, um, and it was, uh, it was a great shop, was running pretty well. Uh, there was an opportunity for me to become part owner of it. It would be a minority owner. So partnered with a guy named Steve And.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:58] Sounds familiar. That was my partner's name.

Jay Hartley: [00:01:59] Yeah. Um. Different. Steve, though. Um, so we, uh, we we partnered up, uh, the whole plan was to build it as big as we could, um, you know, along the way, um, of building business, doing the right things, taking good care of our clients. Um, he had several other real estate, uh, companies that he owned. And a lot of those were, we called them the family of companies. Right. There was a real estate brokerage. There was a commercial brokerage, that kind of stuff. So they all kind of fed each other, uh, whether it be a current client deciding to move from single family to multifamily or into commercial or all of that kind of stuff.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:39] So and if I recall, you guys, well, if I recall, you guys were over a thousand units, right?

Jay Hartley: [00:02:45] Yeah, a thousand residential units. Uh, it was a mix we had about, uh, I want to say three 5360 small boutique, Multifamily and then the rest were all single family. Um, single dudes try squads and we.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:01] Yeah.

Jay Hartley: [00:03:01] We did have a small component of, uh, boutique multifamily. Um, you know, 70 units or less kind of scenario.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:08] So total unit count was around. Was it...

Jay Hartley: [00:03:12] Right under 1100.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:14] Right under 1100. And you guys were just in the Dallas metroplex area, is that correct?

Jay Hartley: [00:03:18] We were. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:19] Yeah. You didn't.. so I guess the first question I'll ask is, while you guys were building, what was the original vision, and was that kind of the reason of the downfall or of the I call, the downfall? It's not really a downfall.

Jay Hartley: [00:03:31] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:32] I'm sure you...

Jay Hartley: [00:03:32] Steve had, um, Steve had really, um, had had really. Well, he had been in business for 20 years. So when I came in, it was right at 20 years. Excuse me. And he didn't really want to run the operation. It wasn't his forte. He's big into the commercial space, So he needed somebody to really take over the operation and build it from there. So the plan was that we were just going to continue to grow, um, uh, foster relationships with our clients and then take that opportunity to provide great customer service and build it from there. So kind of organic growth in conjunction with us still continuing to look for other opportunities to buy small portfolios or other companies. We did that a couple of times. Local operations, always staying in the DFW metroplex. So the plan was to to build that from there. And Steve was, you know, kind of the behind the scenes. He was the broker of record, even though I'm a broker. Uh, he it was his business. So he was a broker of record and the majority owner. So, you know, roughly five years.

Pete Neubig: [00:04:43] Did you, did you buy in right from the beginning or did you buy in over time when you when you partnered with Steve?

Jay Hartley: [00:04:49] So a little, I guess we can get into this. So Steve and I had a great relationship. We knew each other really well. There was an opportunity for, uh, ownership, but he was going to give me the ownership. So there was a vesting period. So rather than coming in with cash, um.

Pete Neubig: [00:05:09] Sweat equity.

Jay Hartley: [00:05:10] Yeah. Sweat equity. So it took me five years to build up the sweat equity at the end of that five years was which was just a year ago now, uh, there was the, uh, the vesting period had ended, so we had vested. But Steve also decided that he wanted to potentially look at exiting. So you had mentioned, you know, hey, why didn't you buy it? I really wanted to. I was excited about Steve's exit, and that company was, uh, potentially going to become mine, and I was going to have the ability to run it my way without anybody's oversight and everything else, whether that be good or bad, we'll never know. Uh, so there was that opportunity, so I had a value in mind. Then we went out and had it evaluated independently, and then we went to broker owner and met with a few of the companies, some of the big boys that were interested in buying. And so they all did their due diligence. There was roughly about five in total. They all did their due diligence. And then the offers started to come in. The determination that I had made of what I felt it was worth and what they determined, what they were willing to pay for it. There was a significant delta, so it was going to make it really difficult for me to acquire from Steve with that new pricing. So...

Pete Neubig: [00:06:31] Yeah, it was going to be it was going to be a huge it was going to be a huge deficit. Uh, there's going to be basically a huge deficit on on you. Right. You have to borrow a lot of money.

Jay Hartley: [00:06:41] Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:06:42] Got it. Um, so, uh, just curious when you, when you guys sold, did. The vesting period didn't accelerate like I would have thought, uh, the vesting period would accelerate. He would have got you all paid out, like.

Jay Hartley: [00:06:56] So we didn't, uh, we sold right as right as my vesting period was at 100%, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:07:01] Got it. Okay. So it made it easy. Yeah. Right.

Jay Hartley: [00:07:04] And then the purchaser offered me an opportunity to stay on and said, hey, we'd love you to continue doing what you're doing. Uh, stay on, run the operation. So they made it pretty attractive. So I agreed to do that. Um, yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:07:18] That's great for a short. That's great for a short, short term, but short time. But I think you started getting the itch or started feeling like, hey, I should have been an owner. I could be an owner. I could be my own, my own boss, so to speak. And so that's where surge came in, right? Surge came.

Jay Hartley: [00:07:36] Yeah, exactly. Well, you, when you run it for somebody else, you're building their dream, right? And you want the opportunity to build your own dream. So my dream has always been to to be an owner operator, and I want to have the ability to provide all those key components to good service that I know that we need. Not everybody shares in that vision, and I don't fault them for that if it's their operation. But if it's my operation, I know my KPIs and I know my bullet points are going to be, you know, at the forefront. So good customer service, taking great care of clients, educating the clients to make sure they know exactly what needs to be done, um, how to increase their ROI, uh, helping other property managers grow their business. So education is going to be a huge piece and has been a huge piece of Surge.

Pete Neubig: [00:08:35] So you go from some, you know, a PM firm with a disparate portfolio, some boutique multifamily, some. Some single family. Um, 1100 units. Uh, then you go to a bigger company right where it's like, I don't know, 15,000, 20,000 units. And now you go to Surge where did you start? With zero units. Like what? Like tell me. Tell me about that.

Jay Hartley: [00:09:00] So I have I have 30 that I've started with.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:04] Okay.

Jay Hartley: [00:09:04] So, uh, I'm in the process of negotiating a purchase of some portfolio. And then I'm also talking with a couple of operators that are here, local that may be looking at a merger. Um, not 100% sure. I don't want to, to shoot anything down. But first and foremost, it's going to be developing Surge. And I don't have to be the biggest one of the one of the things that's taught me over the 20 years that I've been doing this is, yes, I could manage thousands of units at one time and have huge staff and everything else. But when you get those economies of scale, yes, you make more profit. But, you know, the service goes down. It never fails. Every time the customer service goes down. And one of the big things, one of my big passions is helping clients, helping customers, helping employees with a lot of that education piece that I love to bring to the forefront. So I love helping them. When you get so big, you can't do that. And I've gone from, you know, 30 employees and having big offices and everything else to realize that that's not as important. And there is so many opportunities now to continue to provide that good customer service. Still build a good portfolio, right? I want to get around 200, 300 doors. Um, you know, but I'm going to do it a heck of a lot different this time, making sure that the true local talent that I have to have is the right people on the bus. And then the rest of it, I'm, you know, I'm going to use tech. I'm going to be heavy in tech. And then also remote team members or VAs are going to be a big piece of that because they can spend the time catering to the clients and taking care of every need and being available when, when I need them, and they're much more cost effective. So luckily I know a guy in that space, so I'm going to be hitting him up.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:03] There is so much to unpack. I'm trying to take notes as you were speaking. So first thing I have to ask you is what are the core values of Surge?

Jay Hartley: [00:11:13] Education is going to be the biggest one. We've kind of already touched on that.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:17] Education. Yeah.

Jay Hartley: [00:11:19] Yeah. Education for clients. But then also for the the key members of our team. So I want to help build up property managers. I don't necessarily need them to be well seasoned, but they've got to have a little bit of experience to come on board. Um, and the model that I've set up is going to be very attractive for the team members to benefit in the company, so we can kind of touch on that in a minute. But, um, so the key metrics are going to be education and great customer service. So those are the two main components that I'm focusing.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:52] Got it. So one of our core values of VPM is provide customers with a Wow experience. Right.

Jay Hartley: [00:11:57] That's great. I love that!

Pete Neubig: [00:11:58] And so I actually had somebody say wow the other day to me. And I'm like, fuck yeah. Oh excuse me Gail sorry about that. I said, yeah, I got something to say. Wow. Experience. Um, you can steal that one.

Jay Hartley: [00:12:07] I'm taking notes too, so I'm not going to steal that verbatim, but, uh, yeah, I love that.

Pete Neubig: [00:12:12] Now, you talked about that. Maybe you you're looking at purchasing, uh, you know, some some folks, uh, a couple of small firms. How do you go about just just real high level. How are you going about evaluating it, like, because, you know, um, are you doing, like, a management contract? Are you doing a per per revenue? Like, what are you what's your secret sauce?

Jay Hartley: [00:12:33] First thing I mean, nobody ever advertises their companies for sale, right? So you never know. You don't want to scare your tenants. You don't want to scare your clients. So you never really advertise that your company is for sale. So you got to put the word out that you're interested, and then they start calling. So, you know, here a couple weeks ago, I put the word out that I was interested in acquiring portfolios or other companies and had several calls. Several people were curious and and go from there. So there's a couple of different ways to do it. You know, you can do, um, you know, based off the revenue that it generates on management fees. Um, and then you can do a, you know, 1X1, 1.5X, 2X something along those lines depending on what they want. Um, one of the things I've learned over the years of acquiring companies and portfolios is it's really difficult to buy or to buy the company itself, or I should say, not difficult. It's there's a lot of liability in buying the company.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:34] Yeah you want to buy the contract, right? Yup.

Jay Hartley: [00:13:37] Yup. And you get their liabilities.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:38] Got it.

Jay Hartley: [00:13:39] So when you're buying contracts, you don't get the liabilities that go along with that.

Pete Neubig: [00:13:43] So yeah, that's a story for another day. Actually I sold when I sold I sold the contracts. And then I got sued a year and a half later right under the two year kind of deal. No insurance. That's a whole story for another day. So. So, okay, so you're you're looking at purchasing potentially on what revenue, whatever makes sense are you going to use. Are you going to use cash or do you have financing. Do you have like a line of credit. Like how do you or do you do owner financing?

Jay Hartley: [00:14:10] A couple of different opportunities there depending on the size, right. Um, you know, cash would be lovely because then they don't have any debt. But I mean, how do you know, how do you justify the outlay of all that cash putting it to work? You know, how long is it going to take you to recoup that? So I'd love leverage, uh, big proponent and big educator on leverage using leverage other people's money, OPM. Uh, the other opportunity is I've got a couple of investors that have really hit me up wanting to go big or go fast, go big and go fast. So they've offered some, uh, creative solutions, some, some money, uh, to be able to do that. So if I come up with the right opportunity, it's just trying to figure out how all those pieces fit together and which way works best, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:14:56] Yeah, I'll just, you know, caution you on getting investors...

Jay Hartley: [00:15:02] Please.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:02] Because you talked about, you know, you had talked about earlier about how you want to do it your way.

Jay Hartley: [00:15:09] Yup.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:09] You have your bullet points, you have your vision. Well, all of a sudden the investor gets, you know, they get a board seat or they become an advisory board or they've given you a bunch of money. Um, it's not just your vision anymore.

Jay Hartley: [00:15:22] True.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:22] And so finding the right partner along with the right money is very paramount in growing it. And...

Jay Hartley: [00:15:28] That's great advice, man. Thank you.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:31] Yeah. So you're starting back from scratch. I gotta ask you, um, one of the things that I'm like, I'm not involved in in Texas, Lone Star Property Management. And there's a reason why I'm not involved there, because I'm focused on on VPM. But the other reason is, I don't know, Jay, mentally, if I'd have been able to start over again, like, I really don't know if I could go from a thousand single family properties in three markets down to 23.

Jay Hartley: [00:15:59] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:15:59] So how do you handle that mindset? Like, I guess for you it's yours like that. That's a big difference. 100%. Like so tell me a little bit about that.

Jay Hartley: [00:16:07] So I just recently left my last company, um, about a month ago now. And when that happened, I had to really I had a gut check. Right. What are you. What am I going to do? Do I go out and run someone else's business? Um, got a lot of job offers, which was fantastic. Had several interviews. Um, and you know, along with that came job offers. But is that truly where my passion was? Because when you run someone else's company, you're running their business, you're building their dream, you're building.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:42] Their net worth.

Jay Hartley: [00:16:42] Someone else's profit. You know, um, you know, I've been well compensated for doing that. But, you know, ultimately, you know, I'm in my 50s, you know, you can tell no hair. Uh, I'm a second gen property manager, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:16:57] Actually, I feel like I'm looking in the mirror. I got glasses, bald hair, good looking.

Jay Hartley: [00:17:00] Yeah, yeah, well, I got a little fuzz. Not much. I hadn't shaved today, so, uh. But my mom got me started in this business. You're, you know what, 22, 23 years ago now? Um, I don't know if that necessarily makes me crazy or really dedicated, but one way or another, you know, I wanted to build my dream, my vision, um, and provide that, that level of service that I knew I was capable of. And it makes it, to be honest with you, I'm really looking forward to it because it makes it easier to train one way the first time, rather than trying to retrain people that have done it for years. So I've had, you know, rookie property managers that have been easy to train and some just won't fall in the line. And then I've had well seasoned property managers that could adjust and could make that transition, but some couldn't. So I think training them my way the first time is going to be a much easier...

Pete Neubig: [00:18:04] Man it's it's all unicorns and rainbows over there at Surge Property Management.

Jay Hartley: [00:18:08] Yup.

Pete Neubig: [00:18:08] So all right, I'm going to get deep down here like you were used to having a whole staff. Right. You were the CEO of a big company, 30, 40 people working for you. You had all these connections already. You had maintenance. You have to build everything from, you know, and now you get to leverage your relationships. And I get that. But what are some of the what are some of the things you're like, I can't believe I'm doing this. Like what are some of the like you have to wear all the like most most of the hats now, right? I mean, what what's your staff look like today? Obviously you're going to grow into that. But give me a funny story. Something like you, you did recently, like I'd never done this before. I haven't done this in years.

Jay Hartley: [00:18:41] All right. So, you know, I told you I've done this for, you know, 20 plus years now. And when I started in the beginning, it was, you know, I was mowing yards and sweeping out dead bugs and, you know, checking on vacancies and, uh, then moved up to showing and all that kind of stuff. I haven't shown a rental property in probably 10 to 12 years. So, you know, I get a call on one of my units the other day, and, you know, it's me right now. I'm gearing up.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:11] You're a head cook and bottle washer.

Jay Hartley: [00:19:13] What's that?

Pete Neubig: [00:19:14] You're the head cook and bottle washer.

Jay Hartley: [00:19:15] I am. I'm the head honcho and the janitor at the same time. So, um, but, yeah, I go to show. And, you know, I've always preached to managers, you know, how long has it been since we've, we've done, uh, occupied, uh, escorted showings. Right? We've all transitioned to, uh, escorted showings and, you know, with those companies and that kind of stuff. Um, and I'm getting that all set up, but, uh, I had a client call or prospective tenant resident call and said, hey, I want to see this house. I'm like, yeah, sure. I'll be happy to show it to you. Take me about half an hour to get there. Uh, you know, ultimately, we ended up scheduling an appointment for the next the following day. And I've always preached to my managers, okay, when you're going to go meet somebody, call them prior to and confirm the appointment. I did. And I get there and, you know, they're not there. So I wait, you know, I'm courteous. Send them a message like, hey, you know, are you coming? They're like, oh yeah, we're running late. And I'm just sitting there thinking, I'm like, wow, you know, no respect for someone's time. I'm sitting there ultimately waiting 30, 35 minutes for them to get there. And yeah, you know, you go from being a little bit irritated and a little bit miffed to as soon as they show up, they're like, hey, how you doing? How great to meet you. Let's walk in, let's see this property and you go into the sales pitch. Right. Of showing them all around and all that kind of stuff. And then after it was all said and done, you know, I'm sitting there thinking I'm like, man, that's been 15 years since I've shown a rental property to a prospective resident.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:46] So God bless you, brother.

Jay Hartley: [00:20:47] I had to sit in the truck for a minute and contemplate. I'm like, this is truly what I want to do, and I'm dedicated, so I'm doing it.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:55] God bless you, brother. God bless you. I, uh, I'm not saying it's beneath me, but I will not show a property ever again.

Jay Hartley: [00:21:03] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:03] I just did not like it. I hated that part of the job. But if I was starting from scratch by myself with no investment, you know. No, like I would have to do it. And, uh. So, yeah, I mean, I do stuff at VPM that I'm like, oh, man. Like, you know, I'm a CEO and I'm also the guy who cleans up after the sales guy. You know what I mean?

Jay Hartley: [00:21:24] Yup.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:24] So I get that. So. So tell me, what are some of the other challenges you have of obviously wearing multiple hats? How about like, growth? Like, you know, with the 30 properties. Property management now is more ruthless. And it is more and more people getting into it. And it's a very difficult um, you can't get to page one. Like I think your company was on page one of in Dallas or Dallas property management. Weren't you guys like on page one of Google?

Jay Hartley: [00:21:51] Oh, yeah. Yeah. High rankings.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:52] So what did some of the challenges? How do you how do you overcome those?

Jay Hartley: [00:21:55] I Had a business development department all of those kind of things. So when you shift and you're doing it on your own, you know, it's the, it's the it's the scale determining how you scale and then also determining how you staff up for that scalability. Right. You you get the cart before the horse to make sure you've got the cart ready, or do you make sure you've got the horse and then get the cart for the horse to pull so you know, which way do you.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:23] Which side do you. Do you fall on? On that.

Jay Hartley: [00:22:26] So I am doing a lot of the things myself right now, but I'm quickly realizing that staffing is important. So, you know, the, the follow ups and those kind of things are currently in my wheelhouse that I'm doing. But I want to make sure that I've got the right, the right person doing that. So right now I'm interviewing potential candidates for that role. Uh, it's going to be a remote position, I'm sure. Uh, it's kind of where I'm leaning, uh, and making sure that they have the ability to communicate with residents and everything else. But then it also goes to the tech. A lot of the tech that we use does a lot of the things that, you know, the follow up and...

Pete Neubig: [00:23:13] Yeah, for, for years I, I was, I was on the fence. I was on the side of the fence where I am going to hire for growth.

Jay Hartley: [00:23:22] Smart.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:23] Right? And, uh, it is until it doesn't become smart because you just hire for growth and you're always hiring for growth. And then the growth either doesn't come or you hire the wrong people. You don't get rid of them. Um, and so what we found was we had bloat, right. So we kept hiring for growth and then we had bloat. With VPM, I'm actually very, very conscious of, "do I hire for growth?" Um, and it's a fine line and if you can afford it, you hire for growth, but you have to manage it is what I found. And at Empire we didn't manage it and it got away from us. And next thing you know, I'm like, why do I have an IT guy? Like, we got 30 people working for us, like, and and what happened was our payroll was like 56% of our expenses, which if you, if you look at any if you read any business book, it should be 30 to 34%.

Jay Hartley: [00:24:16] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:24:17] Even for service based companies. Um, so now the way I look at it is, okay, let's hire the right person. Let's hire before we need. Let's hire before we need them. But not like months before we need them or not like, oh, we think we're going to grow.

Jay Hartley: [00:24:32] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:24:32] So like I had now I have to have like a forecast. So it's I just run the business, you know look business doesn't get easier. You get better. That's really what it comes down to. And I'm just getting better. I'm just getting a little better at it. Uh, and I think you hit the nail on the head, though, training and having the right person in the right seat. If you know, you have to have those job descriptions written out, very detailed, so that you know what they're supposed to do so that they know what they're supposed to do, and then you have to have some training in place, and then you have to have your KPIs, which you've mentioned numerous times on there. So let me ask you this. Um, your, your your portfolio based you're running your, your whole business by yourself.

Jay Hartley: [00:25:13] Mhmm.

Pete Neubig: [00:25:15] What's the first position that you're looking at. At hiring. What uh what is that position. Uh, you I think you mentioned it, but I totally blanked out.

Jay Hartley: [00:25:22] Yeah. So it's going to be office staff, uh, accounting related, most likely. Or have a piece of that accounting, that, uh, tech...

Pete Neubig: [00:25:31] Why not growth?

Jay Hartley: [00:25:32] ...doesn't cover. So...

Pete Neubig: [00:25:33] Why not a BDM?

Jay Hartley: [00:25:34] Because I can handle the the the field work, if you will. I can go check vacant properties. I mean, 30 doors, right? That's easy to do.

Pete Neubig: [00:25:45] So let me ask you this. Are you more sales focused? Like, are you is that why you're not hiring somebody to grow? Like, that's your job. That's a hat you want to continue wearing. And you're not a high detail person. You don't like the accounting piece.

Jay Hartley: [00:26:03] So. Yeah, that's exactly it.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:06] Got it.

Jay Hartley: [00:26:06] I mean, in a nutshell. Yeah. I'm I'm the big picture guy. I'm the. I'm not the nuts and bolts. Uh...

Pete Neubig: [00:26:14] Well heck!

Jay Hartley: [00:26:15] Sure, I've got the nuts and bolts. I've got some support staff behind me now that has kind of helped with that. And then I have my software company that has developed our, you know, developing our website. Hadn't launched our website just yet. It'll be up hopefully by the end of the month. So, you know, those kind of pieces are are important to make sure I've got in place and then bringing the right people on the bus. Uh, the other key component to that is making sure, you know, you mentioned that fine line, trying to make sure you've got the right people, but you also don't want to wait so long that you're desperately trying to hire somebody because then.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:57] Yeah, now you're behind the eight ball.

Jay Hartley: [00:26:58] You take your best candidate of what, what's available instead of really finding the best candidate overall.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:04] Good point, good point. Yeah. You speak Visionary. Like when I'm talking to you, like I'm like, that's a visionary. He's talking about partnerships. He's talking about investors. He's talking about buying companies. When you talk to me, I talk about job descriptions and process flows, right.

Jay Hartley: [00:27:21] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:21] So for me, when I started Empire, if I didn't have my business partner Steve, um, I would have had to hire a BDM or a marketing person. Right.

Jay Hartley: [00:27:29] Got it.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:29] So, um, yeah. So but instead we hired an accounting person. So that was our first hire too, by the way. The accounting person. Yeah. Because like, like I'm not a number. I'm detailed, but I'm not a super numbers guy. Yeah. And so I love what you said I, you know what you're good at then get the stuff that you're not good at, create a job description and find somebody who's going to be really good at it, who likes to do it.

Jay Hartley: [00:27:52] Find the right people. You got to know your strengths. And that's one thing. Over the years that I've been able to clearly identify is my strengths are, you know, talking to clients, talking to customers, talking to residents, solving problems. Work in big pictures, coming up with great ideas. You know, how many times have we all gone to a broker owner conference and come back with just these incredible ideas? But I'm not the one to sit down at a desk and get into the minutia to necessarily figure out exactly how to make that work.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:24] That's when you bring me in.

Jay Hartley: [00:28:24] People to help me with the minutia.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:27] And that's when you bring me in.

Jay Hartley: [00:28:28] There you go.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:28] That's the stuff, right? Yeah, I call it the, in Empire I call it the implementation specialist. And I wore that hat until the that was the very last hat I took off. And when I became CEO.

Jay Hartley: [00:28:40] I'm borrowing that, by the way.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:41] Oh, you can use it. You can use that one. I'm sure there's better titles than that, but that's, uh, that I know, you know, you know what I ended up I ended up using my sales manager, became the guy. He actually had the ability. So I didn't have to hire somebody outside. Just a matter of fact, I just interviewed Bryan Jenkins, who created PM Builder Implementers or PM Implementers, and they literally come in and they will implement stuff like they're not coaches, they're consultants and they'll implement stuff for your business.

Jay Hartley: [00:29:12] Nice.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:12] So pretty cool. So yeah, that's I think that was a really cool spin. I'm finding it really interesting. More and more of us are selling or more people that I know. Anyway, in my circle is selling guys like you and Bryan. And I'm surprised, like you didn't you didn't go into coaching like everybody, like everybody else did. And, uh.

Jay Hartley: [00:29:32] You know, I probably could have, you know, but I already have that opportunity to coach. But I'm coaching my clients. And over the years, I've done the seminar circuits. Uh, there's several podcasts that I've been on, regular guests. Uh, there is the coaching aspect of it, but I want to be able to do it and build business off of that. I don't necessarily just want a coach. I'm a deal hunter. I love the deal flow and I love the opportunity to put deals together. So I love it when I can educate a client on the potential opportunity to buy, you know, a row of duplexes or, you know, a small multi-family or and do that value add or, you know, figure out what the best use of their components that they have.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:26] So would it be...

Jay Hartley: [00:30:28] So that could be leverage, cash or credit or whatever it is. So if I can educate somebody to be able to pull all those components together and, and maybe put, you know, a couple of different clients together for the right opportunities, but be able to coach them up and do that and put that deal together. That's the ideal, you know, scenario for me.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:49] So it would be safe to say that your target market would be an investor versus an accidental landlord.

Jay Hartley: [00:30:56] Yes.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:56] And would you start are you going to start an investment club in Dallas? I know there's a couple out there already, but you can start a small one.

Jay Hartley: [00:31:02] You know, I'm a member of so many here. Uh, I don't know if I'm necessarily going to start one of my own. I think if the education piece takes off, I do think that would be the logical next step. You know.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:14] It's a great lead flow.

Jay Hartley: [00:31:15] Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:17] It really is.

Jay Hartley: [00:31:17] It's not a bad idea. I mean, you're giving me some nuggets here.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:21] Well, you know, man, I actually created the Empire Investment Club that we were going to. We rolled it out. We started doing it. We were getting like, 30 people to come to our, like, free seminar type stuff. And, um, I kind of modeled it after Lifestyles Unlimited, which is a big real estate group here in Houston and Dallas and Atlanta. And, um, we were starting to get a little bit of traction, and then we sold. And so I, you know, because like you, I love the art of the deal as far as buying an investment property. And people love buying investment properties, that's kind of like dating. What they hate doing is managing, which is like kind of like being married. You know, they hate managing the property. So I think they always I always felt that they went hand in hand. And then you build the education piece to it, then you buy it, then you have the real estate piece, you buy it and then you manage it. And if you buy the property for them, you can offer them, you know, free management for a year.

Jay Hartley: [00:32:16] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:16] What does it matter, you know? So I always thought it was...

Jay Hartley: [00:32:19] It's like the build to rent one of the, one of the opportunities I'm looking at right now is I've got some good friends that are in the construction business. They're home builders, so. And they want to, you know, grow bigger. And so just kind of, you know, chatting with them, you know, saying, hey, if you could build some rental properties, what does that look like? You know, for from a cost perspective. And then, you know, my brain just starts noodling on the fact that, hey, I've got tons of investors that want to buy brand new homes, but they don't want to go out to some of these communities where they're building, you know, these brand new properties and paying a premium. So if I could figure out how to get that down to a reasonable cost perspective, give the builder an opportunity to make some money. Give the client an opportunity to buy a good deal, give me the opportunity to put the deal together and then lease out a brand new house to a to a new resident that's going to live there for a couple of years. You know, that sounds like a perfect scenario as well.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:21] A Quadro, quad win, not a triple win. Quad win.

Jay Hartley: [00:33:25] Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:26] So what is next? Like so you have a long list of stuff that you're going to build Surge. By the way I uh I love the logo.

Jay Hartley: [00:33:34] Thank you.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:34] So uh, Surge Property Management, they don't have a website yet, but they have a logo, which is pretty, pretty awesome. Um. So bright. Uh, we're up against the clock here, but just tell me what's, like, what's the next. You know what? In the next six months, what do you what's the focus?

Jay Hartley: [00:33:49] So the focus is building up small amount of business and getting the right people on the bus in terms of the team. So I'm putting the team together right now, uh, to make sure that I've got the components in place to be able to then go bigger and better and putting together that education component. So the plan on our website will be that it'll have, uh, education component, you know, probably do, you know, a weekly video, something along those lines with some nuggets. And then, you know, I kind of like your idea. I don't know, we might we might throw in a meeting, you know, a meet up, uh, for investors that want to learn and see where that goes.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:31] I love it.

Jay Hartley: [00:34:32] But in terms of surge, I'm not going gangbusters to be the biggest. I just want to be the best, provide the best customer service, and, uh, provide good education to my clients and my residents as well. I plan to send out a resident newsletter as well as an owner newsletter. So I want to put all those pieces in place. So as we do grow, it's going to be more of an organic growth unless we buy a company to bring in. But it's going to the plan is to be more of an organic growth and kind of build from there. But I'll already have those pieces in place so that we can grow and not feel the pinch, I hope.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:09] I have no doubt that you'll get there and you'll hit your vision. And then what's going to happen is the visionary in you is going to be like, well, that's fun. 300. We're rocking and rolling. It's perfect. It's we have the greatest customer service. What's next? We're going to go build this thing to a thousand. I just see it. I'm just saying. But we'll see what happens.

Jay Hartley: [00:35:26] I've done it twice now, so.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:28] We might as well do it. Third time's a charm.

Jay Hartley: [00:35:31] Do you have to be the biggest to be the best, though, you know, uh. Or do you have to, uh, you know, be...

Pete Neubig: [00:35:38] You know what's funny? I'll say this before we hit commercial break, but.

Jay Hartley: [00:35:41] Yup.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:42] The main reason why my business partner Steve and I ended up selling the business is because the vision kind of changed. My vision was always, let's get to a thousand single family properties in Houston and be the best property manager company, and I felt we were getting there. Steve, my business partner, he wanted to be basically like Mynd. He wanted to be across the nation. We were in like, I think we were in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston. He wanted to break into Austin and I'm like, man, we're not even running a good shop in Houston and we're doing all these other markets. I'm with you. I feel that you can still run 12, 1500 units and you can still be a bad ass PM firm. That's what I believe. You did say something that that resonated with me. Like as you grow, it gets tougher to build, to keep those relationships. It gets tougher for you as the business owner to keep them, but your team actually gets. I think it gets easier as you get bigger, and that's another story for another day, my friend.

Jay Hartley: [00:36:37] Yeah, yeah, I agree that one of the biggest things for my team is going to be making sure that the the managers are on some sort of a rev share, so they benefit in the company being the best. Um, so yeah, that's going to be a component.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:52] I love that, uh, that right there, that little nugget, if you're listening to this like that got snuck in there. If you are starting a business or you're struggling with your business, like having a rev share program, building it the right way, um, will basically stabilize your business and help you grow the business. So that alone was worth the listen, RJ, we're going to take a quick, quick commercial break and I'm going to come back for the lightning round.

Jay Hartley: [00:37:17] Okay.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:17] Ask you a series of questions. Just fire off some answers. All right. We'll be right back after this.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:28] All right. Welcome back everybody. Jay Hartley, you are on the hot seat in the lightning round. Are you ready?

Jay Hartley: [00:37:33] Yay!

Pete Neubig: [00:37:34] All right. What PM software do you use?

Jay Hartley: [00:37:38] So, uh, Rentvine.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:40] Rentvine. What, uh, organizational structure. Right now, you're a single person. So I'm going to say portfolio based?

Jay Hartley: [00:37:47] Yes, Portfolio.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:48] Um, do you use virtual assistants?

Jay Hartley: [00:37:52] Yes.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:53] Do you have BDMs?

Jay Hartley: [00:37:55] No.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:56] What is one piece...

Jay Hartley: [00:37:57] Oh, if you count me, yes.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:58] Yeah. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Yeah. No, we don't count you on this in this question. What is one piece of advice you'd give someone just starting out in the PM business?

Jay Hartley: [00:38:08] Focus on customer service and listening to your clients. Uh, the other big takeaway that I've always had is don't accept the wrong clients. You know, in your gut when you're talking to them, if they're going to be the right client or not and decline the business if they're not the right fit.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:25] Wise words. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Jay Hartley: [00:38:28] No.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:30] Uh, your go to fast food restaurant when? If you don't eat it very often. But when you do, what's the craving here? What's the fast food joint?

Jay Hartley: [00:38:37] Chick fil-A is my go to.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:39] That's a good one. All right. What was your first job?

Jay Hartley: [00:38:43] I was the cleanup boy at a doughnut shop.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:47] That had to be fun.

Jay Hartley: [00:38:49] No.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:50] What is your ideal vacation?

Jay Hartley: [00:38:54] Uh, on the beach with my wife, sipping pina coladas.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:58] Love it. What is something most people don't know about you?

Jay Hartley: [00:39:03] Uh, well, if they watched the video, they'll realize I'm a Lego collector. So most people don't realize that I do that. I'm a huge Lego fanatic and collect Lego.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:14] What is one book you're currently reading or one that you've read that has impacted your business or life?

Jay Hartley: [00:39:20] So I love reading. Um, the one thing is probably one of the one of my most recent eye openers for me. But then there's also the little purple book with, uh, Robert Kiyosaki, Rich dad, Poor Dad. That got me started in investing, but that was years ago.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:38] And the other one is, uh, Gary Keller. Right. The One Thing?

Jay Hartley: [00:39:41] Yup. Gary Keller, The One Thing.

Pete Neubig: [00:39:42] Uh, that that book is really good, especially if you're visionaries. It's, uh. It's good. Um, what is one challenge you're currently facing in your business?

Jay Hartley: [00:39:54] The cart before the horse or the horse before the cart. So I'm navigating that right now. Bringing on the right people or searching for the right people to bring on so that I can grow.

Pete Neubig: [00:40:06] What do you prefer, dogs or cats?

Jay Hartley: [00:40:08] Dogs.

Pete Neubig: [00:40:09] Dogs. If somebody has heard this podcast, and maybe they're in Dallas and they have a PM firm that they're looking to maybe sell, or they just want to pick your brain or they want to partner with you. What's the best way to get in touch with you?

Jay Hartley: [00:40:20] Uh, cell phone is going to be the best. Um, you want me to give it out on there?

Pete Neubig: [00:40:25] That's your. That's your call, brother. Hey, I ain't answering that cell phone.

Jay Hartley: [00:40:29] Yeah. If any. Uh, if anybody's listening to this and they want to give me a call, my cell phone number is (817) 308-1309. Just respect the hours, is all I ask.

Pete Neubig: [00:40:40] And, uh, what about an email? Is there an email for you?

Jay Hartley: [00:40:42] So the letter J Hartley, h a r t l e y at s u r g e dash p m.com. jhartley@surge-pm.com.

Pete Neubig: [00:40:52] Awesome. And if you're listening to this and you are not a NARPM member, why not join up now? Go to narpm.org or give them a call at (800) 782-3452. And if you want to be cool like Jay and have virtual assistants, go to vpmsolutions.com. It's free for you to use. It's free to create a job. It's free to find somebody. You hire them. They're direct hire. You pay them through our platform. The VA pays us. We have free training. I think we just put Rentvine training on there, and we just put Property Meld training on the platform and they can take a course, they can take a test, they get certified and they become a VPM certified in Rentvine or Property Meld or one or the other certifications that we have. Jay, thanks for being here.

Jay Hartley: [00:41:42] Can I talk on that real quick. Pete, do you mind?

Pete Neubig: [00:41:44] I will as soon as, uh, I will as soon as we end this deal. Jay I'll tell you all about it.

Jay Hartley: [00:41:50] Well, no, no, I've got a plug. Two things. One, is NARPM has been influential in my professional career. So anybody that's not a NARPM member, you have got to look into that and join. So you've got to do that. And then virtual assistants is absolutely the best way to go. So just a couple of little plugs there. Uh, if you want to learn more about either of those happy to talk to them. But NARPM has been influential and remote team members or VAs are going to be the lifesaver of many businesses.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:23] Changes your business. Uh, both of them change your business. NARPM changes your business, and VAs change your business in completely different ways.

Jay Hartley: [00:42:32] Oh yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:32] Jay, thank you so much for being here, buddy.

Jay Hartley: [00:42:33] Hey, I loved it. Thank you.

Pete Neubig: [00:42:35] See you.