A Podcast | Thomas Perfect

Pete Neubig: [00:00:03] Welcome back everybody. As promised, I got Tommy Perfect here with Uplift Property Management out of San Diego. Tommy, thank you so much for, uh, for joining us today.

Tommy Perfect: [00:00:14] No, it's awesome to be here. Happy to talk property management. I'm always happy to talk shop.

Pete Neubig: [00:00:19] So you're in California, and we know that California is kind of a different country altogether. Uh, especially, like, different from Texas. But we also know that there's a lot of legislation that happens in California. And then it kind of pushes eastbound. So tell me kind of your ideas or your thoughts on the more legislation that's coming in, if it's good, bad and different for for your business, for property management, and then how can we how property managers can we deal with this moving forward?

Tommy Perfect: [00:00:49] Yeah. So I mean, obviously most of the legislation that comes down is really, you know, Anti-landlord. Right. And so that's really the, the property owner. And and as property managers we assume that role of landlord. But we don't really assume the financial risk of being the landlord. So when we get into California, you know, rent control laws just cause evictions and you know how to, you know, get to pay these relocation fees. And then, you know, every municipality can enact their own laws. So like, for example, San Diego has the San Diego Tenant Protection Ordinance and that essentially there's a couple of things in it. But the main thing is it doubles the relocation reimbursement that you have to give a tenant. If you don't have a just cause, you know, a no fault eviction, right? Um, so it just makes it a little bit more expensive to be. So give.

Pete Neubig: [00:01:43] An example. I'm sorry. Just give an example of a no fault eviction like so. Let's say I'm the property owner and I and the the lease is ending. And I don't want to renew the lease with that person because maybe they're a dirty tenant or just I just want to get they pay late or whatever it is, and I just want to loose ends, you know? End of June. And I don't want to renew it.

Tommy Perfect: [00:02:00] So when their lease is ending, you know, essentially what from my understanding, and obviously I'm not an attorney, but, you know, the ending of a contract used to be, you know, something that you could just say, oh, the contract's up. We're just not going to renew. Right. That's the end of our relationship. We agreed to be here for a year, and we're just done. We don't want to renew. Well, now you have to have a cause for asking someone to leave, essentially. And this is only on those, you know, multifamily units. So two plus units on a property where an owner doesn't live in one of the two if it's a duplex. So single family homes, single condos, these are all exempt from these rules, which is fine. And that's what we like to focus on. But we still do a significant portion of multifamily that falls under these tenant protection ordinances. And so for example, just cause would be like, you know, they're paying late repeatedly. You serve them a three day notice to cure, and they continue to pay late. And you say, okay, because you're not doing that, we're going to ask you to leave, right? Or if they're committing waste on the property, like damaging it, or if they have delinquent rent. Those are all just causes on a no fault, you know, a no fault eviction is when you say, oh, I want to, you know, you're severely under market rent. You want to move these tenants out. Build, you know, redo the unit remodel and increase the rents a lot. You have to pay relocation expense when that happens, right? You can't just ask the tenant to leave, you know, as long as it was in the habitable condition, you know, even if even.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:24] If the lease is up. Even if the lease is up. Yeah.

Tommy Perfect: [00:03:28] Well, from my understanding, what I've been recommended to do to make sure that I'm not going to get sued because going against these tenant protection ordinances, you know, some people think, oh, you can do cash for keys kind of thing. You know, give them pay. Pay them to leave. Right. Well, now, if you don't pay them, at least with that relocation cost is and you go around some of their rights that are on there, there's, you know, criminal punishments that could be attached to that. And that's just not something I'm willing to risk as a as a broker. So it's.

Pete Neubig: [00:03:57] Uh. Now as more as.

Tommy Perfect: [00:03:59] Interesting.

Pete Neubig: [00:04:00] As more legislation happens. Are you seeing more investors giving property managers the properties? Because it's always been the what is it? The 80, 20, 80% of properties are self-managed, 20% are managed. And in Australia. Oh, it's 80% that are third party managed. And they obviously have a lot more legislation. Are you seeing that or are you seeing people just sell and get out of being investors. And so it's actually affecting the company your business. What do you got? What are you seeing personally.

Tommy Perfect: [00:04:30] Yeah. So I mean there's a lot of factors that go into why a real estate investor may move their property or reinvest or, you know, choose to use a property manager. So one, we have a lot of people that are selling. Honestly, most of the people who are selling aren't even part of these, you know, rent control legislations. They're the ones that own that condo. They decide to sell it. They own that single family home. You know, they inherited that house. You know, a few years ago. And now they just say, hey, we're ready to cash out. And they want to, you know, part ways with being a landlord because they hear all these things are difficult in, in California. But really a lot of them don't even apply to them. So on that side, we're seeing people sell and get out of it, but we also are seeing more people come to a property manager on the multifamily side where you see those serial investors going. Um, most of them are just holding Pat because interest rates are keeping their prices down at this point. And the market has kind of plateaued here in San Diego. So people aren't seeing the huge returns on, you know, fix and flips of multifamilies anymore. And the syndication groups have slowed down. So you see the movement on the real estate market slowing. But on the property management side, we've been getting more leads than ever because California is making it so hard for somebody on their own to do it that they really need to hire us. It's becoming more of a necessity. And that's been, you know, eye opening for me. When I started in property management, you know, almost ten years ago. I thought it was for those rich people who just didn't want to deal with their problem. And now I see it. It's a necessity. Like, I think you would be stupid not to use a property manager to save you money and save you headache and liability, because sooner or later you're going to get sued by a tenant. And if you don't have somebody who understands exactly what's going on, you're going to get taken for a ride.

Pete Neubig: [00:06:27] Yeah, I think in one aspect, it makes our jobs a little bit more difficult. Right. Because you have to stay on top of the legislation and there's a lot more red tape and there's some paperwork and it's harder to get people out or harder to increase. It's harder to do our job. But the, the, the the positive side of it is it's harder for the landlords as well. And so that they want to go ahead and say, you know what, I'd rather go ahead and give you Mr.. You know, um, property manager, um, Mr.. Professional property manager. I want to give you the this this, these, you know, these challenges. So I think it's like so.

Tommy Perfect: [00:07:06] The cream will rise to the top. You know, it always does. And, you know, we we love being part of that top. You know, I'm part of the I'm the, you know, incoming president for for this coming year starting next month with our San Diego chapter and just talking to other property managers that show up to those meetings and care about learning. You know, we just had Tracy Merrill with Kimball Saint John come in and do a whole educational seminar for us and legislative update. Really, the things that come into play are just make our lives a little harder and they cost more money to our landlords, and that's essentially what the state is doing. And, you know, I see it as redistribution of wealth, and I think that's wrong. I think we should be able to work for our own wealth and not have the government redistribute it, but not to get political. Um, so it makes us a necessity. So it's job security for us.

Pete Neubig: [00:07:59] Is it causing your expenses to go up, though, because of the more red tape? Are you seeing that we have to hire more people and and you know. And can you increase your pricing? Like is your pricing going up because. Because of the expenses as well.

Tommy Perfect: [00:08:14] Yeah. I mean obviously there's a trickle down effect in economics, right. So the prices go up. Rents are going to go up. Right. You know, if everything costs the landlord more they're going to have to turn around and make their money back. And and when you try to take, you know, take a cut of all the landlords at the same time, then all the landlords at the same time, you know, will look at that market and raise their rents. Right. You know, it's not collusion because they're not talking to each other, but you're watching the market and you do what the market is bearing. And we're seeing it cooling right now, but we're heading into leasing season in the summer in San Diego. Everybody wants to be here. Things start moving and we love that. So I don't see it as a big issue increasing my costs. You know my managers are efficient. We focus on making sure we have our tech stack and our operations going seamlessly, and we just build into our processes, making sure that we're compliant with the legislation that comes out.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:10] Having processes, automation, good people, paying remote team members. It's all part of it to keep your costs down and to make sure that you don't get tripped up when something does does change. So let's let's pivot real quick because you just rebranded recently, um, to uplift property management. So tell us why you, you rebranded and then kind of like tell talk to us about that process and, uh, how easy it was. Yeah. I'm kidding.

Tommy Perfect: [00:09:42] Sucked. It sucked? Absolutely. Uh. I don't recommend it unless you have a real reason to. And for us, we were formerly Jensen Properties San Diego, Inc.. That's still our business. You know, identity, you know, our corporate thing. And uplift property management is a DBA. But, um, we started EOS about, I don't know, seven years ago now, 6 or 7 years ago. And we went through our core values and made our mission statement. And our mission statement for years has been to uplift people, properties and communities. And that was something that gets me out of bed. I love getting to select who gets to live in my community and be a contributor in my town, in my city, in whatever we want to find good people, to be contributors, right? So we uplift, you know, giving people a chance, making the properties better, you know, increasing their values and valuations and then overall increase of the community and giving back to the community. So we rebranded to our name to match our mission, and that really has resonated with our staff. It's resonated with our clients and it's resonated with anybody who knew us before in the industry as as Jensen Properties and, uh, you know, matching your mission, I think is key on what we do. And, and I've loved being able to embody that and tell people I'm uplift property management every day. We do get some negative reviews or people that want to make snide comments about, uh, that that rent increase isn't so uplifting, but, you know, it's uplifting to, to a property and to a property owner and, you know, in turn can be uplifting to a community as well. So we went through that process. It cost a lot of money. We took a huge hit on our SEO and our leads were had dried up for, I don't know, probably a good 4 or 5 months while we had to rebuild back a lot of that SEO content and traction with Google. And that's where we get most of our leads from, referrals and SEO and SEO leads to realtor referrals. So it really slowed down. But once we've done that, you know, we've got everything really in line and we're seeing more leads coming in than we ever have before. And really this like last month here and this is, you know, usually a little bit of a slower time for property management. But we've been, you know, picking up ten doors a week right now. And it's been going like crazy.

Pete Neubig: [00:12:09] You know, one of the things I always talk about is core values. So when I speak on the on the circuit, I talk a lot about core values. And I always get people to stand up and I say, do you have core values? And some people will sit down. Does your team know your core values? More people sit down and I'm like, do your clients and potential customers know your core values? And everybody sits down? And this is a really great, unique case of your customers and your clients. Both your residents and your owners and potential clients all know your core values through through your marketing and through your mission statement and actually through your name. So well done on that. Really good. And has people have you seen people? You closing people because of the mission and the and the core values that that uplift embodies?

Tommy Perfect: [00:12:54] Yeah. I mean. Honestly, one of the things that really drives us is, is uplifting the community, right? So, for example, just yesterday we went out to our local girls fastpitch softball league, and we painted six dugouts for them, and we just went in and bought all the paint materials. I took my staff out, all paid on the on the clock, and we just did community service and we try to get that done every quarter. Right. And my business, you know, I find people that are volunteering in the community that are contributors and those are the people who I want on my team. So I find employees by being active in the community and, you know, people who do what they say they're going to do. You know, our core values are that we get things done. We're solution focused communicators and that we're committed to continuous improvement. And those kind of people are going to uplift people, properties and communities. So that's who I find. And those are the people who who love working with us. So being in the community, I get tons of leads from people who see what we're doing, and they see what changes we make in our communities. And, you know, for example, I was coaching a soccer game a few months back, and we sponsored the team, right? We have a we have a percentage of our revenue that we allocate to charitable contributions automatically through our budget. And part of that is sponsoring soccer teams. So of course, we sponsor my kid's team. Right. And a parent from the other coach saw how I acted in coaching kids, and she came up and had a six plex that she wanted us to manage. She said, are you guys uplift property management? Yeah, that's me. And I ended up signing a client. Just because you're being a good person and caring about more than just the bottom line. It's caring about what you do and who you are and what you're building.

Pete Neubig: [00:14:36] I think that's I never even thought about that as a as a way to attract team members other than, you know, posting it on a job board, like what your core values are, but just living those core values, you're able to find team members, which is which is unique.

Tommy Perfect: [00:14:53] And when you find team members. That have them. They want to be there too, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:14:57] Right. Yeah. If you don't have those core values, you're going to get you're going to get spit out. The team is not going to accept that. They're not gonna accept somebody that doesn't have those those same core values as the company, for sure. Um, so talk a little bit more about the rebranding process though. So like, okay, we see the why behind it and the why has got to be big enough. So if somebody else is sitting there because I know, like a lot of us get into it from the real estate side of things. Right. And then you have companies like, you know, Neubig Realty and now it's Neubig Realty and Property Management. It's like, man, I don't really want my name attached to the proper management because it may not be sellable or there's just maybe a different reason, right? Um, I know my buddy Brad Larson. He used to have Larson Property Management, and then he moved over to Rent Works. So. So the Y's got to be big enough because it costs money and time, I'm guessing. Did you hire anybody to to help you with the rebranding? Um, you know, even if even at the local level, like, so kind of talk through that process.

Tommy Perfect: [00:15:56] So we hired someone who was going to be like, I was like $20,000 for this contract to hire a rebrand specialist. And he was a guy we knew from a corporate, like a corporate alliance type thing, you know, where CEOs get together. And my business partner knew him for years, and he he does rebrands and that's all he does. And for us, we started out, we wanted to think of the name. We picked our name that we wanted it to be. And we we took it to this guy and said, here's what we want. Help us rebrand this. And it was a total flop, you know. It was horrible. You know, for us, we started out with what was the name going to be? It has to be big enough to move the needle for our clients and for our business. And the URL has to be available, the domain. We've got to be able to get a domain that makes sense, right. Because our domain was Jensen Properties SD. Com. And that was the end of all our emails. We were trying to spell Jensen all the time trying to say properties plural. And then there's SD. So there's two S's in a row. It's just a nightmare all the time. So now we have uplift PM and it's very simple. Easy to say. We could do a radio ad and people will get it right. So we we have that in place. And we took this guy and they wanted to try to rewrite our whole core values. And we've been running on iOS for a few years already. We knew what our core values were. We had our mission statement, we knew what our story was. We just needed somebody to really design us a logo and get us a brand strategy put together.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:23] Yeah.

Tommy Perfect: [00:17:25] It was horrible.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:26] You could use somebody from Fiverr to do that. So this guy was not in line with what you what you were trying to do. If he's trying to change your core values. Yeah.

Tommy Perfect: [00:17:33] Yeah. And you know. I love the guy. We ended up using the logo that he designed for us because it just it beat out, you know, any of the other ones we pulled from Fiverr. We we paid out, you know, an agreement on his on the contract that we signed with them. And we ended up just going through and doing it ourselves. It was more about updating our website and all of our content. We have an employee intranet where we keep all our policies and procedures. And I still find, you know, it's been almost two years since we rebranded now, and I still find Jensen Properties in certain documents. And I'm like, oh my goodness, we got to get through this.

Pete Neubig: [00:18:08] So, I. Mean, you had to change your leases. You had to change your pmas. Right? Your lease renewals, all those documents. Um, and then obviously the website. When, when did you realize, oh, crap, SEO is kind of tied into the website and all that stuff. Like, did you know about this ahead of time or did you guys kind of get blindsided by it?

Tommy Perfect: [00:18:30] Yeah, we have an SEO consultant that new and they help us manage our Google Google business profiles and making sure that we can switch things over. But at the same point, you have a huge disruption in the continuity of your timeline as a as a business. And Google ranks that timeline of history that you have. So you kind of like have a schism right there and you kind of got to start fresh. And it was really, really hard. But it also made us focus on all of our lead gen activity and how we wanted to make that happen. My sales and marketing director is amazing at making sure we get there, but we still like he takes, you know, SEO classes online, making sure that we're up to date on exactly what Google is doing so that we can stay ahead of the pack.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:21] So you mentioned lots of different jobs job positions there. So, um, without getting too much into the weeds, I know some people are kind of weird about this, but can you tell me how many units or around how many units you guys manage? And then tell me a little bit about your your org structure, because it seems like not many people listening to this have an SEO specialist on staff, right?

Tommy Perfect: [00:19:46] Yeah. So I mean, our SEO consultant is he's hired out. He was a recommendation from a friend of mine that, you know, owns a carpet cleaning business that's really successful here in San Diego. Um, and we went with him and it's been doing it's been doing great for us. We've been doing that for a few years before the rebrand also. Um, but org chart wise, I do, you know, have my leadership team, you know, it's me. I'm the SEO and I have my director of ops, my director of sales and marketing and my office controller. Those are my leadership team. And then we have a portfolio based system. So I've got three going on for portfolio supervisors. Each of them have a remote team member as an assistant, and they handle the property management activities of a portfolio. Somewhere between 150 to 200 doors is our is our sweet spot that we found is without them getting overworked. Um, and then we have, you know, we have about 400 units that are large multifamily. So they have on site resident managers that are, that are there, that work full time and essentially handle their property as if it were a portfolio on their own.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:53] Yeah. And I think, you know, if you're listening to this and you're like, man, I really want to give back to my community. And I wanted to have, you know, a percentage of revenue go to charity. You know, I'll never forget when I was when I was at my, my church, um, the, the, the preacher was like, look, if you want to tithe 10%, that's great. He goes, but honestly, you got to be able to make money first and then the tithing comes after, right? I got like be able to survive and then you can tithe. And so if you're listening to this, I would say get profitable first and then take a percentage of that profit and then tithe back to the community for sure.

Tommy Perfect: [00:21:27] Yeah. You know, you know, I'm a I'm a proud member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And I pay my 10% tithing. But the business money is the business money. It's what comes to me personally I tithe on. That's where the profit is generated. So. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: [00:21:42] And I would think you take the same kind of concept. Right. If the business wants to give back to charitable contributions, I'm just saying here, just make sure the business is profitable and maybe even have, like, a little rainy day fund before you start giving, you know, start giving to, uh.

Tommy Perfect: [00:21:56] Believe me, I'm not spending 10% of revenue on charitable contributions out of the business. So it's it's more of those things that come in, and I can't say no to that. You know, ten year old kid that's asking me to sponsor their sports team. Yeah. Or, uh, that person that just needs a little bit of help.

Pete Neubig: [00:22:14] So you mentioned that you use virtual team members, and obviously everybody listening to this knows that I own a VA company. But when we were in the green room talking, you said you found a pretty cool tool called Bonusly. Um, can you tell the can you tell the audience a little bit about Bonusly and what it's doing for you and your remote team members?

Tommy Perfect: [00:22:32] Yeah, and Bonusly for all of my staff, not just remote team members. Um, but it does give me a way that I can essentially send them little gifts or incentivize them. So it's a platform where you can recognize, so you just give points and each point is worth like $0.10 or something. So and everybody gets an allotment of points that they can share. So it's peer to peer um recognition and public recognition. And I think that almost more important than the money is public recognition among your, among your peers. Right. You did a good job. You got through that client call. That was really tough. You onboarded, you know, six units into your portfolio. Here's an extra, you know, 25 bucks, but also a huge shout out in front of everybody that you're awesome at your job, right? And it gives them a chance. And the cool thing is we tie it to our core values. So those recognitions are tied to a hashtag. You know, we get things done or hashtag solution focused communicator. And like you tie it there and you can see what people are getting rewarded for based on the core values.

Pete Neubig: [00:23:38] I love that man. I'm a big fan of what is it a praise in public redirect and private. And we do something similar. But I love the hashtag on the core value. I'm going to I may steal that from you. We we use slack and we have a slack channel and it's called VPM internal. And it's, you know, just an internal slack channel. And we use that only for good news. So when somebody, you know, somebody gets, oh, I just got a job posted, I got a job filled or I just fixed this bug, whatever it is. Like we put that in there and it's amazing how how the energy and how all the people feel, because all they've seen is this good news. Because, you know, normally, especially in property management. Normally it's just bad news channels, right? Everything's a bad news channel.

Tommy Perfect: [00:24:28] So yeah. So I mean, for me. Like for example, Bonusly like I, I don't have very much communication with my remote team members. There's two layers of management between me and the remote team member position. So oftentimes I feel like I neglect them as as part of my team. Right. So on Friday, I just said, hey, I'm going to give out, you know, 500 bonus points to the first person to hop on this call and 400 to the next person, and so on down while my, you know, six remote team members were hopping on and they loved it and they got the chance to sit with me for, you know, 45 minutes, we just chit chatted about what was working, what was not working, how their lives were, you know, one of them I had never even met in person. She'd been working for me for like 2 or 3 months, and I'm like, I never even, like, seen your face yet. So bonus gave me a great opportunity to incentivize them on an impromptu quick hey, hop on.

Pete Neubig: [00:25:21] I think it's a great, uh, it's a great way, and it seems to be streamlined, and it seems to be relatively cheap to be able to incentivize a team. And it's not all about the money, right? The team is, like you said, getting praised in public. Uh, or, you know, just getting little gifts here. And there is really a great way to keep that that culture. Right. Especially when they're especially more and more people going remote. And it's a great way. So I may I may steal bonus from you as well. And um, and.

Tommy Perfect: [00:25:51] As a business owner, you only get billed for what they redeem, right? So if people aren't redeeming their points for the gift cards, you only get billed when they're redeeming you. And then there's like a per user monthly fee, but it's very cheap. It's actually really a really nice way of doing it. Plus, your remote staff around the world, um, they can grab, you know, gift cards, they're going to be applicable to them and, you know, right. Some of them aren't. So you got to be careful when, you know, I had one of my remote team members in Mexico got something for like, I don't remember Abercrombie and Fitch or something, and it was only US based gift cards, so he couldn't use it. So he's going to send it to his parents that live in the United States. And it's like, okay, well, sorry, dude, read the fine print on on what you're getting.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:37] All right. I love it though, man. It's because you're it sounds like you're a very good culture builder and, you know, and you say, oh, I don't you know, I have two layers of management, my remote team. It's not your job to to to manage the remote team. Right. You have you have team members that manage the remote team. But it is your job to build that culture, that it goes all the way down to the remote team members. And I think, you know, just from hearing you today, you do an amazing job of that. And using tools like bonus Lee to to help build that culture, like the slack channels, like praising in public. Um, you know, like, you know, doing going out and doing those those, you know, community service, uh, ideas and literally, I think the biggest, the most important thing you're doing is you're hiring people that embody those core values. And I would say that's probably the number one reason why people stick around is because they embody those core values.

Tommy Perfect: [00:27:32] Yeah. Love it. We you know, EOS, it has that spot on on how to how to find the right people for the right seat.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:40] Yep. So tell us just a little bit about EOS. We've got a few more minutes here before we hit the commercial break. So what made you decide to go EOS and how does it how has it impacted your company? And what would you tell somebody if they were on the fence about getting EOS? Well, I'm not going to make this an EOS commercial, but I mean, you're you've done a great job of of building a business through EOS. So let's, let's, let's hit it.

Tommy Perfect: [00:28:01] EOS has been one of the hardest things to implement, but one of the most necessary things for us. It gives us a way to work on the business instead of in the business. Right? And actually taking your mindset and thinking that is is huge, right? So there's a lot of jargon that EOS puts in there. You know, you've got your your quarterly rocks, your L10 meetings every week with your leadership team. You've got your scorecards, you know, KPIs, you know all these things and you know your.

Pete Neubig: [00:28:30] Accountability chart, right?

Tommy Perfect: [00:28:32] Yeah, your accountability chart. You got your delegate and elevate, you know, all these things to help you build your business in a way it gives you a roadmap. Now implementers are outrageously expensive if you ask me. And so that's the not commercial for EOS implementers. But we did self implement and we actually have uh, we did that for about four years. And then we actually hired somebody outside, just a regular business coach that comes to our quarterlies and our annuals to just keep us on track. And so we gave him our outline of what we want to do. And essentially we we taught him how we want him to be our implementer. And it allows me and my business partner, instead of trying to run this meeting in an open way, to be able to actually contribute with the team.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:20] And for those of you who are listening that aren't that don't know EOS, it's from a book called traction. Gino Wickman is the writer. Yeah, I noticed that. You got you got that you got get a grip. I'm seeing all the all the EOS books. And so I highly recommend reading the book. And if you can self implement, go for it. And we did it at Empire. We self implemented I self implemented a VPN. I'm sure I've implemented maybe 75% successful versus like if I hadn't implemented it probably would have been like more like 100%. But you're right, they're not they're not cheap. And I love the idea that you had is have your business coach and have like basically they're a they're an accountability partner to you, right? You're accountable. You're accountable to the partner.

Tommy Perfect: [00:30:02] I think you can be a part of masterminds. You know, I go to your chapter, have a mastermind. I guarantee people at your local chapter are doing EOS and and know what's working and what's not working, or, you know, Profit Coach has a lot of stuff or go to conferences.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:16] The challenge that I had with the challenge I have with EOS was like, I knew some of the challenges, deep rooted challenges, but I didn't fix them. Like example would be like, I knew I had some bad players when I was at Empire and I knew I needed to get rid of bad players. But you make excuses because you don't want to get rid of them. Um, or I knew that we were spending too much in marketing and not investing. Right. There's a difference. Um, and because my business partner was the one who was running that, having that difficult conversation. So I try to save money elsewhere. And so, like, if you're going to implement this thing yourself, you gotta, you gotta you gotta have the, the, the nuts to, to face those really difficult.

Tommy Perfect: [00:31:02] And to be open and honest, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:31:04] Yeah.

Tommy Perfect: [00:31:05] Open and honest with your team and with yourself. With yourself. I had a very similar situation where I had, you know, one staff we were open and honest with, like the company finances, with the leadership team. And he got really upset and he ended up, you know, creating this derision among himself because he thought we should be doing something different with the profit than what we were doing. And at that point, I wasn't even an equity partner. I was just, you know, running the show. Um, but we lost an awesome employee. He still works freelance for me on certain tasks that I want him to do. You know, in another case, I had one of my best friends from high school. I grew up. I've known the guy since I was four, and he was on my team, and he was my office director, and he just wasn't embodying the core values anymore. He did when he was getting promoted through from a property manager, a leasing assistant, you know, up to a director of ops, and it turned out that he just stopped embodying them and had this shift. But EOS highlighted those shifts and gave us kind of a framework to work through it. Was it hard to get through that and fire? You know, my best. One of my best friends. Yeah, absolutely. It's always going to be hard. But was my business better off for it tenfold?

Pete Neubig: [00:32:21] That's the one thing that was our mantra. It's like, um, what's best for the business? Not what's best for the business partner. Not what's best for Pete, not what's best for the team member. It's what's what is best for the business. And if you can, you know, say that and deliver on that. Easier said than done, because sometimes you make decisions that really is not best for the business. But it's like best for your best friend, right? You can't you. Yeah. My guess is you probably kept them along around a little too long. Absolutely. Before you made that decision. Yeah, I.

Tommy Perfect: [00:32:56] I think that happens to everybody.You see the guy? He's got potential. He's got it. He knows, you know, he knows what it is, and he just doesn't do it.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:04] Yeah.

Tommy Perfect: [00:33:05] He can only drag him along so far.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:06] Do you think there was part of that of the Peter Principle where you promoted to the point of inability, or did he actually just change his core values and just not embody the core values anymore? Because normally you don't change your values. You normally you just can't do the position and then you get stressed because you just it's not natural, because you maybe promoted to the point where you probably should have been promoted to.

Tommy Perfect: [00:33:30] Uh, this one definitely had some huge personal shifts in his life and some, some personal things that had contributed to, uh, declining performance at work.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:42] Got it.

Tommy Perfect: [00:33:43] Um, and therefore, you know, part of that was declining ability to embody the core values while at work, right?

Pete Neubig: [00:33:51] Yeah.

Tommy Perfect: [00:33:51] Um, so there's definitely a shift there. And, you know, I still see the guy every every Thursday night we have game night and I see him and we're friends. It's great.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:01] That's good. But you did a good job of letting him go. Uh, you did, because there's a there's a, you know, there's a great there's a style to letting somebody go and still being friendly, right? So. So it took him.

Tommy Perfect: [00:34:15] It took a while. We we, you know, he was a guy who was, you know, at my house for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year with my family. Right. And, you know.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:25] It had to be a that had to be a very, very difficult conversation. Man, I do not envy you.

Tommy Perfect: [00:34:30] It was it was hard. But, you know, it took him a couple months to to come back around and and be open to talking with me and, and he's, you know, when, when we let him go it was we know I know that this is hard for you right now, but I know this is going to be better because I know where you're at and what you want to be and who you want to be is not here. And he is happier now. Yeah, he knows that. And he actually brought that up to me, You know, a few months back.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:56] You don't see it at the time, but I had a business coach tell me what we're going to do is you're gonna tell me you're gonna free up their future so they can go do what it is that they what they were born to do. Because this isn't it, you know? So. All right, listen, Tommy, we got to take a quick, quick break. We're going to hit commercial, and then we're going to put you into the lightning round. Are you ready? All right, everybody, we'll be right back. All right. Welcome back, everybody to the North radio show. We got Tommy Perfect with Uplift Property Management on the hot seat in the lightning round. Tommy, are you ready? I'm ready. All right, here we go. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Just, you know, whatever comes to your mind, if you want to expand on it, be more than happy to. All right. What PPM software do you use?

Tommy Perfect: [00:35:41] Appfolio.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:42] What is your org structure?

Tommy Perfect: [00:35:44] Uh, CEO leadership team with everything else. And then portfolio. Portfolio based. Management.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:51] Portfolio based. Do you have BDMs or salespeople?

Tommy Perfect: [00:35:55] My my BDM he likes the title of sales and marketing director, so I give him that title because he likes it.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:02] No problem there. Uh, what is one piece of advice you'd give someone just starting out in the PM business?

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:09] Uh, get involved with a mastermind group or a local chapter.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:14] Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:17] Absolutely.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:18] What was your first job?

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:20] Uh. Soccer referee?

Pete Neubig: [00:36:22] No way.

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:23] Yeah, I I've been dealing with conflict my whole life.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:28] What is your ideal vacation?

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:31] Oh, uh. Desert trips out with the family in the motorhome, riding motorcycles.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:36] Oh, dirt bikes?

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:38] Dirt bikes. Three wheelers.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:39] Awesome. Oh! Three wheelers. Awesome. All right.

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:42] Yeah. Death traps that I love to attach myself to.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:47] What is something that most people don't know about you, other than that you love getting on three wheelers?

Tommy Perfect: [00:36:54] I'm a twin. I have a twin brother, but he's about. Yay! Tall, blonde hair, blue eyes. Can't catch a tan.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:59] Oh, wow. No. Nice. Um, if you could have dinner with anyone alive, who would it be?

Tommy Perfect: [00:37:08] Um. Ooh, that's a hard one.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:11] It is a hard one.

Tommy Perfect: [00:37:13] I'd have to. I'd have to think about that. Honestly. Probably somebody like Mitt Romney.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:19] All right, that's a new one. Uh, what book are you currently reading? Or one that has impacted your business or life? And I can I know traction is one of them. So do you have another one?

Tommy Perfect: [00:37:29] Yeah, I got this one right now. Uh, Ben serving with Black Sheep Global gave this to me. It's the checklist manifesto. And it's all about how checklists came about with, uh, the, the air, um, you know, plane aircraft industry as well as the hospital industry.

Pete Neubig: [00:37:44] Yeah. That's a that was a good book. I read that one. Which Disney character do you most associate with?

Tommy Perfect: [00:37:51] Uh, none. I don't know. My my kids watch all these Disney shows all the time. I don't know if I relate to any of them.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:01] All right, I'll let you off. You use a marvel character. If you want to do that, I can let you off the hook there. Or Star Wars character.

Tommy Perfect: [00:38:06] If I could have a superpower, it'd be to be efficient. That's what I tell people.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:10] Captain, captain Efficiency, huh?

Tommy Perfect: [00:38:12] Yeah. That's me.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:14] All right. Uh, dogs or cats?

Tommy Perfect: [00:38:17] Dogs.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:18] Dog guy. All right. Uh, well, that's it. You're off the lightning round, brother.

Tommy Perfect: [00:38:22] Oh I survived!

Pete Neubig: [00:38:24] If somebody, uh, is is, you know, wanting to reach out to you, what's the best way that they can? They can contact you if they want to learn more about EOS or or rebranding or anything like that.

Tommy Perfect: [00:38:34] Yeah. I'm I'm always open. I'm on all the Facebook groups for property management. You can find me there or just go to my website, give us a call, say, hey, I saw Tommy on a podcast and you know, if you call me Tommy, they will get you through to me if you call me Thomas. They know you're just a salesperson, so call me Tommy. And if you're calling for Tommy Perfect. You'll get me.

Pete Neubig: [00:38:55] Awesome. Perfect. All right, um, if you are listening to this and you're not a member of NARPM, um, please go ahead and join up. It's. It's probably the best investment that you could probably make in yourself and in your business. Call them at (800) 782-3452 or go to NARPM.org. And if you're listening to this and you're like, man, I want remote team members to to run as efficient as, as they do for for uplift. Then give us a try at VPM solutions. vpmsolutions.com Or you can email me at pete@vpmsolutions.com. Tommy, thanks again for being here. All right everybody. Till next time. Ciao!