00:01.33

wongga

Hello investors welcome to the investing to win podcast. My name is Garret Wong your host and today I have Tony Leblanc all the way from the East Coast of Canada this week Tony how are you I'm doing great excited to get into this. Um i've.

00:12.14

Tony

Um, doing fantastic how you do.

00:18.81

wongga

Seeing you. This is actually the first time that we've been speaking in person obviously on social media and things like that. So I'm excited to ah dig into what you've been doing lately. But let's back up. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself. What's your story and your background.

00:21.53

Tony

I Know it's crazy.

00:33.73

Tony

Yeah, absolutely. Um so started off ah, funny enough. Ah in the property management space. So I grew up in a family or specifically my mother. Ah she was a vp of operations for a large management company here in town. So. And addition from working into the office. She was also the resident manager of an 18 unit building apartment building that we lived in from when I was born till I was sixteen years old so I had the the luck or the unfortunate luck of being brought up in the world of being a landlord. Property management taking care of an apartment building. So I got to see a lot of the behind the scenes quite early in life whether if it was helping cleaning hallways for my mom doing the lawn seeing her communicate. And deal with tenets. That's probably 1 of the things that I've taken with me entirely throughout my career as her charisma and her ability to be able to work with difficult situations with tenants. Um, so yeah. Grew up around that grew up around real estate learned pretty young about real estate investing through the owners of her management company. Um I always made the distinction I'm like mom I'm like the guys that own this this company that you're working for I'm like they're really rich.

01:57.60

Tony

And like we made the connection because I asked them a lot of questions right? I'm like how did how do you guys do this so you own apartment buildings. You rent them out and like you make money from them. So I I learned that pretty young as a teenager um not knowing exactly that I was ever going to get into that field. But I thought it was quite interesting because I liked the idea of money. Um, forgot about that for a while went to college was very interested to technology um ended up doing 15 years as a software engineer with Ibm had an amazing amazing career started investing quite young 23 about my first duplex. And then life started to change a little bit I didn't like the traveling that I was doing with Ibm and it was taking me away from my family a lot and I always had the entrepreneur a bug I always had a side hustle whether it was selling supplements selling life insurance I always did something on the side. And 1 ne evening I was sitting by a fire with a friend and he's like why aren't you doing property management I'm like that's what you know and that's what your mom knows and like you've been surrounded by your by it by entire life and. That day I think the next day I came up with the name ground floor property management that was in 2010 and we've kind of never looked back. We've been. We've been running and managing a large management company here in Monkton new brunswick out on the East Coast

03:22.82

Tony

And from that management company. We've we've done a lot of cool things right? we've we've we've taken our business that we've turned into what what I call a platform business and we've been able to grow build and acquire other service brands and have attached it to our management company to provide more services to the people that we work with. And I've written a book about it and I also coach and teach other property managers. How to do that. So that's that's kind of where I am today.

03:48.24

wongga

Wow. Okay, so what is the what is the operation look like for the management company like how many how many doors how many people do you have working.

03:54.95

Tony

So the management company. So um, so we're at around 1500 doors I'd say just the management arm I think we're 12 or 13 people. Um and then throughout all the organization we have 65 staff so that's our maintenance.

04:10.84

wongga

Um, okay, right? Okay and the portfolio itself 1500 doors which is quite impressive by the way. Um, multifamily and single family splits what? So what does that look like.

04:12.93

Tony

Cleaning Snore Removal landscaping and all the other divisions. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, everything I would say 85% multifamily like fourplex and up and then I would say the rest are single family duplex and we've got one office Tower commercial. Which we we Love. We Love to get into more commercial but it's a little bit more challenging here.

04:38.67

wongga

Okay, so yeah, well, especially with the environment the way it's been Wow So you're really really multifaceted. Um, yeah, fascinating Can you maybe elaborate on that I mean you said I know where that's.

04:44.71

Tony

Um, yeah, yep.

04:55.49

wongga

Purpose of me bringing you on the podcast here. But what sparked the idea to like you call it a platform business. Why don't you define that term.

04:57.78

Tony

Yep.

05:00.95

Tony

Yeah, so in 2010 when we started the company I knew I had a vision in terms of what I kind of want it to do I knew that I'm just the personality where I don't just do something half fast I knew I wanted to building build it. To something somewhat significant. So the first crazy ideas. Oh I'm going to build you know like the build biggest management company in Canada which you know maybe we've all had similar dreams of doing that until we actually get in the business and say like no I don't want that Ah yeah, yeah, exactly? Um, so I started off and like.

05:32.58

wongga

I'll never admit that Tony I'll never admit that.

05:40.37

Tony

Within I started the company January first within thirty days I had a hundred doors I panicked called my mom I'm like I need I need a right side. You know I I need somebody to help me build this. She gave me her right hand man that she hired at a university 19 years prior um my partner Steven. He's been with me since day one. And we grew the company very fast. We we got to around a thousand doors in less than three years and it was and this was all while I was still working at Ibm full-time and traveling the world and ah one day we were reviewing our financials and as the visionary I'm like what's next.

06:03.18

wongga

Wow.

06:19.18

Tony

But we like we got it. We got a thousand doors. It's fun, but it is is all I'm going to be doing is this door chasing is this all we were meant to do so we started reviewing our financials and I wanted to know where a lot of our money was going so I realized that we were spending around a quarter million a year in landscaping and snow removal subs. And I'm like oh that's interesting. These are the 2 biggest pain points that we have why don't we try to do this ourselves I looked at my partner I'm like what do you think he goes I don't know I don't know anything about snow removal or landscaping. But I'm open to it so about a year went by. We found a franchise out of Ontario. We love them. We bought the franchise because we wanted the the playbook to say okay, how do I run this business and three years later pretty successful. We. We took that landscaping and snore removal company and it was now 3 times the size of our management company. So that's when the light bulb moment started to appear to where I'm like this is interesting. My management company allowed me to incubate an idea or acquire or buy another business platform that I could grow from. The help of my management company I e my properties were using that services. But also I could get outside clients I e the general public and that blew me away and we were at a point to where we were like seventy thirty 70% general public 30% internal and I'm like okay this is.

07:52.15

Tony

Very interesting and we did it again with maintenance. We grew our maintenance division opened it up to the public and blew that up and then that's when the whole doorpreneur concept came to me at Starbucks one day I'm like I need to write a book about this because I need to tell all these property managers that. They're killing themselves running these companies and wanting them to grow them so big yet I think I've found an easier way to grow and it's essentially by taking a management company and turning it into a platform. What I call a platform business. It's it's ah, a foundational element or a type of business that you can. Have different ideas or strategies to verticallyate integrate other services which is it's ah it's called forward integration. That's the type of vertical integration and essentially it's you eliminate the middleman. What could I do that has a good margin that I use a lot in my. Management company. Um that I can make some good money and we've since we figured that out. We've just rinsed and repeat the model. We just keep buying companies and we're yeah.

08:57.93

wongga

So I mean I mean I'll be devil's advocate here. Why even have a management company. Why not you know, like if you had started out because you said seventy thirty right so 30 is not I mean it's significant. But.

09:08.64

Tony

Yep yep yep.

09:12.97

wongga

What happened if you had woken up one day and said I hate management I'm just going to buy a landscaping company. Do you think you would have been as successful with it.

09:17.61

Tony

No no because initially it was one hundred zero it was all of our properties. It's the incubation phase and the incubation phase doesn't necessarily always have to be the same so I grew. And and developed this framework for a very specific reason I know how hard management is I know how challenging it is and I know how much it can wear you out I wanted to have the choice at some point in my life to say do I want to continue managing these properties. Do I want to continue with this business and I still. It's that's still the same thought process that I have today I still love it. So the answer is still yes but I've now positioned myself where I've got 5 other companies that no longer rely on my management company for business. That I could flourish with and it'll keep me going for the rest of my life. So I'm I'm good. So now I have the choice I could shut it down if I wanted to There's no more tie in between but it's still. An amazing resource and platform to continue to grow and acquire and buy other things and now the incubation phase is completely different like you just mentioned we bought a concrete company two years ago it's my management company is sometimes a client.

10:30.93

wongga

Okay.

10:44.72

Tony

But 99% of it is its third party. It's the general public but it just so happened to be such a great business. Great margins. Great help to what we're doing and we had such great synergies because in the winter. Those guys are not so busy so they can come and do snow removal for my snow removal company and then in the summer if they're busy I can take some of my landscapers and throw them their way to help grow them. So so the synergies were beautiful and again, that's.

11:11.60

wongga

A.

11:19.36

Tony

You know that's that's kind of where a lot of the magic happens right? when you can create this environment to where you can share your resources between all these companies to make them all better.

11:28.90

wongga

Okay, so what? what's long term vision for I mean I'm big into goal setting I'm sure you are as well. Um, where do you stop like is is it to service. A management company is it to just keep having complimentary businesses.

11:33.53

Tony

Yeah, oh yes, absolutely.

11:43.95

Tony

Yeah, right now in terms of in terms of the size of our we live in a small city monedton is 18200000 people tops. Um, so at our size do I think we could eventually hit 2000? Yeah, but it's kind of a slow ground I'll probably have to acquire a few people. But we're happy with the management company. What we're now focused on is acquisitions and partnerships to um, a couple more inside of Mongton and then what we're now getting ready to do um is to deploy the playbook. And other cities. So approaching other property management company owners to say listen we've built a pretty amazing playbook a to help you scale this management company but the playbook and how to add a maintenance division which we know you need if you want to do snore removal if you want to do landscaping if you want to do all these other services. We can help you do all that. So either. We partner together. Um, or it's an educational component to where they work with us on the the coaching and education component of our business. So our yeah, we we again I've been doing the coaching thing now for about three and a half four years

12:49.48

wongga

Okay.

12:58.80

Tony

And I think there's a tremendous amount of management companies out there that are very interested in this concept but have no idea how to deploy it or how to do it So we've yeah.

13:07.45

wongga

Well, we've we've all seen the failures right? I mean how many I can name you know 3 or 4 in my city that and I I tried it too. I mean we've been in business for about 25 years and I see the evolution where oh we're we're going to open up a maintenance division number one because we can't get enough subs. In a timely manner and number two because we think we're going to be able to make a little bit of money and I lost my shirt doing that right? never mind like it was the warranty work people not showing up idle time. There was all these things of course that was many years ago before tech and things like that. Um you know, further to that.

13:31.80

Tony

Yep, yeah.

13:45.23

wongga

I've attended a lot of narpam conferences in the states and as you know are probably aware the average I think narpam did that study a profitability study a couple years ago and I think the average property management company 60 Yeah exactly 6% so it's like why would you do that.

13:47.73

Tony

Yep.

13:51.46

Tony

Yeah.

13:56.72

Tony

6 expert event. Yeah.

14:04.49

wongga

Right? Even in a million dollar business 6% I mean you can just have a full-time job instead of having to manage fifteen Twenty people right.

14:12.97

Tony

Yeah, no I've I've I've said it over and over and we talk a lot about that that study that was done in that specific stat of if my management company only did 6% margin I would jump off a bridge I would have shut it down a long long time ago. Um, we've. Since day one. We're comfortably I've always been between 15 and 25% so we're rate where we need to be in terms of a margin and um, the maintenance world is in my opinion. The biggest untapped component of the management solution. To me management is all about there's customer service. There's accounting and there's maintenance if you get either 1 of those wrong you you can be out of business pretty quick and you know full transparency. My maintenance company is 4 times the size of my management company in terms of revenue and.

15:03.98

wongga

Yeah I'm I'm not surprised I mean I've looked at complementary businesses and I'm just like as I do the numbers and I'm contemplating getting into it I'm just like if that takes off it's going to dwarf what I have here and.

15:06.68

Tony

Profitability is a lot higher. Yeah.

15:20.72

wongga

Then do I have to make that decision but like to your point platform business I Never really considered it.

15:25.85

Tony

Yeah, and in my opinion I'm incredibly biased. Um I think property management as an industry is one of the best platforms that exist out there. There's a lot of others. You can you can literally take any small business. You can take. Ah, plumbing service company and you can I can show you a complete plan how to vertically integrate 10 new services within that within that business anything can be taken it just so happens that property management and a lot a few other different real estate functions. Um gives you a leg up. Because at the end of the day in our worlds we control these assets for our owners so we have a lot of say in where and what gets done so if you do things right transparently with honesty. Um and with the right mode behind it. Then it can be incredibly successful. But if you go into it to where you're being greedy and you just want to rip everybody off and make all the money in yourself then you will fail miserably in my opinion. Um, so it all has to be done above board. Um, everybody needs to be in the know in terms of what you own and what you don't. Pricing needs to be completely transparent in terms of who you're working with that's why we went to from a you know, completely time and materials world to now where everything is quoted ah everything that we do so that there's full transparency with all of our owners. Um, and when it works it works.

16:59.18

wongga

Well, that's actually 1 of the questions I was going to ask later on and you know so and I've we've we've all heard this right as management company owners. Oh hey, can you give me the original invoice for your sub or whatever it is right. And now if you if you are the contractor now the invoice is this is this is what it is. What do you want me to tell you how much I'm paying my people. What is it so I guess that that buzzword that alarming word conflict of interest. Um.

17:17.34

Tony

Now.

17:22.78

Tony

Um, yeah.

17:30.18

Tony

Yes.

17:33.58

wongga

How do you navigate that I mean do you did they have a choice. Do you still give three quotes. Um.

17:39.24

Tony

Yeah, so the way that we do it and it's it's an amazing question and it's in a very it's a very important question when you're when you've decided to to utilize and and leverage this framework. Um, so when it comes to our management company. Um, we do all the service work meaning all the service calls those are we do that I am not going to rely on a third party sub to do service work to to try to call somebody at 2 in the morning we have our infrastructure wherever system really good. Um, anything over $500 is a quote and it goes to the owner. Um. We've established some very good working relationships with all of our owners so most of the time we go in and do a quote. We just go ahead and do the work. It's faster. They know the service. We're very fair on the pricing and then there's sometimes there's there's there's timing things as as well. You know if you're trying to get a unit. Prepped quickly to get in another tenant then I don't have time to go get 3 quotes if I've got the next twelve hours to get this unit turned over It's like here's what it is. We've got the guys can we go and do this and again, there's a there's a big trust factor in there right? So you gotta you got to make sure. However. We do not hold any of our owners to say you have to use us in terms of the renovations or any stuff like that. We've got a number of projects going on right now or their third -party contractors and our job as a property manager is still to oversee them. But we're just not doing the maintenance work and we're totally fine with that. That's cool if they have a good contact then they can get it for.

19:11.13

Tony

Twenty Five bucks an hour cash power to them I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get in that way. Um, it's just for most people that we work with. They don't live here. They're from out of province. They don't have the connections. They don't have the network and that's why they hired us right? so that they can have this. You know all in one solution that just take cares of this stuff.

19:28.97

wongga

So when you let's define this for the for the listeners because I mean this is a real estate podcast not necessarily a property management podcast when you're talking about service work. We're referring to tenant concerns that have to be resolved in a timely manner like broken tap.

19:44.92

Tony

Correct. Yep yes yep or anything small like ah my screens screens broke. Ah my fridge is not working you know appliance repair calls small stuff. Yeah.

19:45.75

wongga

Plug toilet those types of things.

19:57.81

wongga

Yeah, but I mean to that point because a tenant is creating this maintenance ticket it is in the owner's best interest to get it done in a timely manner I know many many many years ago. Boy it must be 12 or 13 in our evolution we used to ask.

20:08.92

Tony

Are.

20:17.14

wongga

Every single owner for permission. We didn't even have a minimum or like anything and you can imagine your tenant. Okay, my air conditioning is broken is ° we can't even call a tech to go out because as a service call now we're waiting for 2 3 days for the owner to call back sometimes we're out of the country. You're probably.

20:30.77

Tony

Now Oh yeah.

20:37.50

wongga

Want to put words in your mouth. But I mean there's that tenant component here too or you're going to lose the tenant now your owner is going to suffer.

20:43.70

Tony

Or hundred percent on ah keeping great tenants and keeping them happy. Maintenance is number 1 if you don't answer their service calls or get the work done in a timely manner. Ah they're they're gonna get pissed either. They're gonna move or you're they're gonna have bad reviews or you know. Whatever the case may be so absolutely maintenance and and our opinion as an investor is incredibly incredibly important.

21:06.65

wongga

Um I read a stat out there a couple years ago that 65% of all tenants. The reason the reason that they gave for not renewing 65% of them said it was because of maintenance or lack thereof. Okay.

21:18.60

Tony

I'm yeah, not surprised whatsoever I look at the the different landlords and the different types of landlords that are in most of our cities right? We've got. We've got the big reits. They usually do a pretty good job right? They've got the people staff all that good stuff.

21:27.00

wongga

Yeah.

21:35.45

Tony

Then you have the professional property managers I would say like us and then you have you know smaller Pms that are under 100 units and it's kind of like a side gig for somebody and then you've got Diy and it's in the lower branch. That's ah, a big part of the pie. It's it's kind of like the wild wild west sometimes.

21:52.46

wongga

A.

21:54.69

Tony

It's like you know, does it get done. How does it get done. Is it just lipstick. Did you actually fix the problem like who knows.

21:59.52

wongga

Yeah, so speak to me about efficiency and profitability of the actual like the primary management business. These additional businesses have you felt they've impacted that efficiency and profitability.

22:16.16

Tony

Ah, hundred percent yeah absolutely the so the management company ah on its own is you know it. It does its thing. Um, it does very well. Um, what. As we continue to grow and as you continue to grow your your your portfolio of companies. Um, it brings more vision or more conversations around real estate investing which is fine right? So my um I'm all about.

22:45.58

wongga

Sure. Okay.

22:50.37

Tony

I started my management company because a I loved the industry and I I saw some I saw the way that my mom communicated with tenants and I saw how she took care of her owners and that stuck with me my entire life and I'm like I really want to provide a different experience for my investors and of course for my tenants but investors first. Um I shared something the other day where we literally last Friday we sold our last property I've been working with this guy from Calgary for the last five years he bought his first eightplex five years ago over two and a half years bought 39 doors and last Friday we sold. So we bought them all and we sold them all and I calculate it and based on the the sale price and when he bought them to when we exited it was about 1.3 one point four million that he made on thirty nine doors and I'm like that's why I do what I do right? this this.

23:38.71

wongga

A. Here.

23:47.61

Tony

Entire environment that I've built because we've bought stuff I'm an agent So I've helped them find the deals most of them off market through my other owners. We've done a lot of renovations. We've done a lot of repositioning rent increases all the fun stuff that goes into that and then once the time was right. He had my expertise to be able to tell him I'm like dude, it's time to sell you want to cash out on these things. Let's do it and we got top dollar for everything and I have one happy camper.

24:15.62

wongga

Well, you actually took the question right out of my mouth because I'm not I used to be an agent I gave it up for various reasons and that in itself is another integrated business right? because I think you had said roll back the tape 10 minutes ago

24:27.37

Tony

Um, of course.

24:33.83

wongga

Property Management is one of the best epicenters of these businesses because like literally cleaning plumbing like name anything that centers were in a house but let's move over to the legal side right? A lawyer accountant mortgage Broker financing Banks I mean.

24:49.45

Tony

Mortage Broker Yeah insurance. Ah.

24:52.86

wongga

I yeah I don't know about your company but I'm probably getting 10 to 15 cold calls every single week from I mean just name the trade because you know we've got 350 clients here 700 doors you're twice the size people just want to do business with you.

25:02.74

Tony

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely you grow that that network just grows and grows over time right.

25:16.55

wongga

So you've used the word vertically integrate. Um I think I have a foggy idea of it. But why don't you really like Crystal define that for us.

25:25.52

Tony

Yep so vertical integration has typically been a strategy a business strategy that's been reserved for the massively rich and big companies right? So mostly I think this ah to be honest. 1 of the pioneers of this is Henry Ford in terms of how he started building out his plants and eventually um, he just started bringing more stuff internal right? and instead of having a hundred contractors or subcontractors doing various things. More and more he would do like we're seeing Apple that's probably the best example recently of bringing in their chips. They're like byebye Intel we can do this better so they vertically integrated that thing that somebody else was doing because they thought they could do it better cheaper and provide better value for their for their marketplace and provide a better product. To the end user. So the the vertical integration has multiple forms of it. They have backward integration and they have forward integration. Forward integration is the type that we do which is you eliminate the middleman you get closer to your end customer right? so. If I'm the pm and ah I want to do a big renovation project then in the typical world I'd hire a contractor that contractor is going to be possibly dealing with the owner and they're kind of doing that and I'm just kind of like watching over things by eliminating the contractor and me doing.

26:59.19

Tony

Contracting work it now puts me once again, even that much closer to the client but in different roles and if you build it right? and that it's beneficial to everybody then everybody wins. The client gets a faster job Done. He gets it at a better price with people that he trusts. So again, vertical integration is about sticking in your lane. Um, you hear a lot of people talk about. Um, what's that What's the term. Ah you know like the squirrel effect and they see a good idea. They kind of run after it. Um. Um, I feel that I'm incredibly disciplined in terms of I don't do anything that's outside of the box of real estate.. That's what I do everything to do is got to do with property management real estate and it's associated to all that So when you vertically integrate into a niche that you know, very Well. Um. Again, you're just continuously getting closer to the client building more trust better relationships and more opportunity for you to grow it.

27:58.70

wongga

Okay, well you twigged me there because having you know some people like being an entrepreneur is tough. It's a grind. You're busy how in the world and when do you decide? Okay now.

28:08.73

Tony

Yeah, um.

28:14.88

wongga

I'm going to focus my efforts on acquiring you know, onboarding this brand new company. There's There's so many things to do speak to me about how you how do you do that? balancing act is it a risk. Are you spreading yourself too thin.

28:22.44

Tony

Yep, yeah yep, yep! I would say there's times yes to both to both of those questions. So the way that I've developed my coaching program and when to work with other pms. There's 3 very specific phases that they need to go through. It's called build optimize and then expand so build is really about building a platform business that is running well from an operations perspective. And from a fiscal perspective meaning that you're not breaking even like you're making money the things going well um, you could be running full tilt. But you're running overall a great business and we have different metrics that we look at what does that mean for a property management company then we get to phase number 2 to where you start looking at optimizing so this is the transition from being the sole proprietor of 1 business and then you're kind of transitioning into a multi-business owner operator so optimize is all about first optimizing you as the. Owner of the business. What does your time look like where what are you doing? What are you responsible for how involved are you in the day-to-day then we look at processes ah of the business optimizing that automating that and then the last part is optimizing your team to make sure that you have an operator.

29:54.60

Tony

For the business that runs the day-to-day so that it gives you the time and energy to go out and do something else. It's not saying you know see a later property management company have fun I'm I'm over here having the time in my life trying to start this new business. You're always teetering on both. But. You need to be able to systemize the business to a point to where it does not rely on you on a day-to-day basis. You have to get there or else you will never be able to do this. That's why I'm such a big kind. Ah fan of the pumping plan by Mike Mccalowitz it's basically the premise of the book right? it's it's. It's.

30:30.26

wongga

Um, yeah.

30:33.79

Tony

Build a business so you can you know take two months off a year kind of the concept. My philosophy is you have you got to be able to pull that off or else. You'll never be able to do this and then it's basically a rinse and repeat once you've got an operator running the business from a day to day. You're now acting like as a.

30:38.10

wongga

Um, yeah.

30:53.43

Tony

You can still be Ceo. Um, still have direct reports and still kind of do your thing there but you're more so like on a board of directors and you're you're helping to you know, oversee the company but a lot of your attention for a short while is going to be going on the startup of this new thing. Right? So when we when we bought our concrete business for the first year I was like you know I had a lot of energy into that. But luckily I knew that everything else was I I hate the word autopilot but everything else was running you know and I could I could balance it after 2 years that company's now stabilized I am now ready to look at what the next move is and the way that that we're going to our plan and the way that we're doing to ensure that we don't get sucked in too much into the 10 different companies at once is. All of our head operators of each of our business units are also equity partners. So we're working and building up our key team members to not only be managers and and you know hold c- level positions but they're actually given equity in the companies because eventually we're building all of these to sell. Hopefully to them. Um or to some other you know pe company once we're big enough.

32:14.31

wongga

Okay, so a little bit of skin in the game kind of having that entrepreneurial mindset when you're running that division or that company. Um.

32:21.80

Tony

Yep, and and people coming people come coming to work with us. They're blown away when I have these conversations with them and I'm like you could come in as a landscape or or a secretary or this or that like we've got an unlimited road here of where you could go. And these companies and there's many companies to choose from as well and they're like Wow this is unique. All right. This is very cool.

32:45.54

wongga

So are you having these companies as separate entities are they integrated like truly integrated into the management company separate names separate entities obviously accounting why you'd want to do that. But.

32:55.50

Tony

Um, no, they're all separate. They're all there. Yeah yep, yeah, so we have ah 3 so my 3 core businesses. The management company is completely on its own. Then we have one that's called core property services which is a multi-division company. So It's snow removable landscaping cleaning landscape construction Appliance repair. So That's the one that has multiple divisions and then we have a concrete business and then we have my coaching platform but we've taken one of them and that's. And has multiple divisions inside of it.

33:34.93

wongga

Okay, okay, would you um, recommend like you've said you're you're acquiring these businesses. Do you ever consider or have you just started one from scratch instead of buying a business.

33:47.66

Tony

Yeah, yeah, we all are maintenance cleaning those were all incubated from just hiring that first employee? Um, but I've since learned that acquiring is so much easier so much faster. It's like you're already. If you're doing it right? So the 2 companies that we bought the previous owners came with it right? They came to my team to help us grow and build and and and manage the day-to-day operations. So and in a sense I'm I'm a big fan of shortcuts like I want to? Um, I'm okay to pay a little bit of money to learn faster.

34:07.15

wongga

E.

34:23.85

Tony

So I I really like the acquisition. It's got an established name. It's already got clients. It's got infrastructure I love that. But this summer we just launched our new subscription plan which is a first I believe in Canada um, that's completely new. We're we're running that. You know from the inside and we're building the infrastructure all on our own. So so we've created a so maintenance subscription plan for residential and commercial clients. So ah, a homeowner for example, 75 year old lady that doesn't know a whole lot of people.

34:48.17

wongga

Subscription of of what sorry. Okay.

35:02.18

Tony

She could hire us for $99 a month and she gets 2 hours of maintenance work per month to do anything she wants. Um, can be my landscapers. It can be my plumber. It can be my painting guys. It can be my whatever appliance repair you can you have access to all of our trades inside of our company. Um, if you don't use it this month you can bank it. So you can say maybe you know I want to bank three months and then that'll pay for the snow removal for the winner. Okay, perfect, but it then also gives them 1 phone call to get access to anything they want from a trades perspective whether we do it internally or we do it externally and and bring people in. So. We've launched that to residential commercial and it's it's a game changer.

35:42.69

wongga

I would say so I've never heard of anything quite unique like that and I mean I was just was out I was at a pickup hockey game last night right? So you know friend of mine is like hey how's it going, etc, etc and I was telling him about my new project and he's like how in the world. Do you find reliable contractors. Or and then the other guy said well if I when I'm ready to you know fill the blank on this repair I'm going to give you a call. Maybe you can share some of those I mean there's just an inherent I don't want to call it a distrust but people just don't know who to trust.

36:02.29

Tony

It? um.

36:15.14

Tony

Yep yep, it's it's challenging. It's in every community. It's covid has really put a spotlight on trades and given them plumbers and electricians are the new doctors and lawyers right? they're. Their paychecks have skyrocketed and the demand and their respect that they now garner in terms of how important they are has totally transformed I interviewed a guy yesterday. He's sixty years old and he's like covered was the best thing that's ever happened for our business like trades he goes.

36:44.71

wongga

Yeah, well.

36:49.10

Tony

it's it's it's nuts um so you're completely right? where it's very challenging for normal. You know John John Doe down the street to find out of the 10 contractors that they google and they find like how do they know who's good and who's not and all that stuff. Um, all, we're doing is we're leveraging the infrastructure that I spent 15 years building I've already got the text I've got the you know red seal plumbers I've got the landscapers I've got the appliance repair text I've got the licensed electricians I've got that all I've got the 24 hour service because we need it for like.

37:10.94

wongga

Here.

37:27.34

Tony

The infrastructure is already there What we're now doing which is part of my model is we're now opening it up to the public and that's when it can completely change your business and.

37:38.13

wongga

Your background though is software engineering how much of that like truly if you're being honest has has ah a hand in you're talking about systems like the average person when they say systems are just like okay I've got a notebook and a pen right? I have excel So how.

37:46.70

Tony

Um, yeah.

37:54.38

Tony

Oh yeah, yeah, huge huge. So what I did with Ibm was um I basically did um so it was a very specific type of software that we built and I was a consultant for that software and I did health checks. So i.

37:56.55

wongga

You know how has that impacted things.

38:12.39

Tony

Basically travel the world I've I've done health checks for Apple samsung Disney Airbus like some of the biggest companies in the world and I would go in and I would analyze how our software was working and then I would make recommendations to make it more efficient make it better. You know all that fun stuff. And being exposed to the corporate world um getting in different boardrooms ah working with more ph ds that I could have ever imagined in that world. Um, technology was obviously. Hugely important for me coming in and I knew when I started the company that it was going to be 1 of my secret weapons I understand that world very well and after four or five years of focusing 100 % on sales and then realizing oh man, our our operations are. A little bit wonky I get I got to fix this That's when I basically created my own infrastructure and app you know we're I don't know if you know this but we're a big user of monday.com we've we've built a massive application and infrastructure with Monday with zapier with.

39:14.76

wongga

A.

39:25.76

Tony

Make and all these other tools that allows me to run a fifteen hundred a fifteen hundred unit management company with 10 to 12 people right? It's because we run thirty forty Fifty Thousand automations a month. Everything we do is is got a system and it's got a place and it's got an outcome. Um, so yeah. Tech is still a very very big love of mine. We're we're deep into it every day which makes me happy and it's fun now because we're starting to get more guys and girls on the team that are tech savvy as well. So I feel bad for pm's or any small business owner out there. That's not technically competent. Because it's it's such an edge that they're missing out.

40:10.50

wongga

Yeah I mean I'm I'm a scientist by trade. Um, and I I mean I'm very good at computers and I did a lot of the tech. But um when I promoted my my one of my ah. And want to call it my best employees because that's not fair to my other employees but 1 of the people who I thought could run the company. Um I find I mean he has a bachelor of science. You know, compute compsi. He's constantly learning and now instead of all of the little tech pieces that I've put in place. He's now trying to integrate them.

40:29.58

Tony

Um, yep.

40:45.39

wongga

Get a really good tech stack going I mean he's using words like Monday and Api and things like that. So I think pm's need that and um I I mean that's why those are the 6% profit margins when you're doing everything manually I did some consulting last year for a friend of mine and.

40:53.98

Tony

Ah.

41:02.16

Tony

No.

41:05.17

wongga

Everything was manual I mean they were still hand-delivering leases to the caretaker. So the caretaker could slide them underneath the door I mean Wow right.

41:13.37

Tony

Yeah, well,, there's there's there's crazy things that I still hear whether people are still accepting you know cash or whether if they're still handwriting leases um to you know, no real onboarding system and checklists and. Doesn't make sense these days. It just doesn't and and property management is is not the only you know, only business that has that that issue it's it's to be honest, it's most most small businesses and if we want to.

41:42.11

wongga

Me.

41:47.44

Tony

0 in more precisely in the home services space. Um, there is a tremendous lack of understanding of technologies and most if not all these companies. There are usually their trades. Um, that say I'm done working for the man I can do this on my own and make more money. And then they're like occidental business owners and they get to 350 if they can crack half million it's pretty good, but it's pretty rare that they get over that. Um and to hit the million is like you know you're you're on a different level comparing to most most small businesses are probably under between 2 and three fifty um

42:22.84

wongga

A.

42:25.84

Tony

And the technology is just embarrassingly nonexistent. Ah.

42:31.40

wongga

And now we've got Ai coming out into into the space I mean Infinite Infinite possibilities. Um I wanted to back up just a little bit because you were talking about. How you would want a Pm company to make sure that everything's running properly before they make that leap. How would you? How would you coach somebody who's not a Pm company I mean they're just a business owner same advice.

42:55.16

Tony

Um, yep, yep! Absolutely you need to before? Um, actually I wrote a post today about this idea but on um, making sure that you do not lose track. Or lose focus or remove your attention from your your baby like your platform business that thing needs to be running and again I hate using the word autopilot but it's a good description of of what it should be the company needs to be a profitable and needs to have. Somewhat of an infrastructure put in place that it's running um and it needs to as much as you can run without you from a day-to-day perspective I e operations if you're still involved with sales to a certain degree. That's fine, but you shouldn't be let's let's take ah a plumbing company For example, you cannot be the guy on the tools going and fixing a toilet if if you're still there and you want to start something else like you're you're crazy like it doesn't make any sense. You should have a team of 5 guys that are doing that a foreman and an office manager. And place then you can start thinking. Okay I can sit back. Um, my salary might not be where it needs to be because I'm reinvesting into the company to buy me time right? It's this. It's this principle calling. Ah I know it's called buy back your time and we have this scale ladder.

44:21.89

wongga

Um.

44:28.62

Tony

Um, on what are the different things that you need to start doing as a business owner to start buying back your time to be able to get the freedom to do the things that you want to be able to do right this year for me was the first time I I now have an ea like you know halo over my head like ah it's like wow this is like an amazing thing right? It's a game changer. And I was reluctant for years same excuses. Oh what am I going to get him or here to do can I afford it does that mean does it I don't know anyways I I was like screw I need them and I hired her and it's been absolutely amazing and now I can just start knocking off more things so I can start buying back my time. To be able to focus on acquisitions and direction of the company I think that's the same property management is just an example of all this.

45:15.93

wongga

Yeah I would agree. Um I have seen a lot of entrepreneurs all of a sudden they're opening up a cleaning company and they're calling me hey I just opened a cleaning company because my other business wasn't doing so well can you give me some business and I'm thinking. Well.

45:30.53

Tony

Um, yeah, third there are yeah yeah.

45:31.72

wongga

I mean there's 2 messages there obviously but I mean if they hadn't said the first thing about their business not doing well to your point. How are they going to run both. Well yeah, they're just not ready.

45:40.67

Tony

Yeah, yeah, you yeah, you have to be you have to be in a good Position. You need really really good people. You need great systems and it's It's not you know it's it's It's a tremendous amount of work. Um, it's funny because when I went into when I started my Academy I thought I had the idea of okay I've got this, you know this model build optimize expand I'm going to be able to take people through this like you know in a year and they're going to be able to start looking at outside businesses and I was like boy was I wrong.

46:17.40

wongga

A.

46:18.81

Tony

Um I I was stunned on how much was lacking to just get past the first phase of build did they have their right infrastructure. Do you have. You know? do you have a sales process in place. Do you have an onboarding process. What does your leasing look like what is your accounting are your books in order are you 2 or 3 years behind um, what does your tech stack. What does your what does your organizational chart look like um, all these questions your branding your messaging your website like is like that's those are fundamentals. You can't you got to get that stuff done first before you start getting to the sexy fun stuff. People have a hard time with that. So it was ah it was quite an awakening for me to realize that okay, we got to put a lot more work into these initial phases. Um, because if I start introducing the ideas and. The excitement around will go out and start a maintenance company or do this or do that before they're ready then it's it's not doing anybody any good I'm just um, I'm robbing their focus on what they should be doing into something else. So um, it's it's essentially when I shut down my academy in March ah to be ah to be able to. Refocus and reestablish the right points in terms of where people need to be and kind of how I deliver stuff. So it's been interesting.

47:39.82

wongga

Yeah, because you were speaking about coaching well typically coaching I mean we all know and there's good coaches and bad ones out there. But I mean to to me. It's not coaching when you're coming in and you're fixing somebody's entire property management business I mean that's more like.

47:54.54

Tony

Um, yeah, it's consulting. It's a therapist. It's oh my god Garrett I've I've been I've been them all. It's it's been interesting. But oh yeah.

47:57.75

wongga

Consulting like my goodness.

48:07.50

wongga

Social worker psychologist. Yeah, okay, well, um, you know these these podcasts are normally about forty five fifty minutes and we're right on that edge. It's flown by I feel like we've just been having coffee. Um.

48:17.29

Tony

Um, awesome. Yeah, um, really oh my god absolutely I love that I'm not I'm not often. you're in Edmonton right oh you're in Winnipeg okay

48:20.94

wongga

I was out in Monkton a couple years ago but when I do get out again. We'll have to to meet in person go for coffee because this has been great.

48:31.75

wongga

Um, I'm in Winnipeg. Actually yeah, right in the center. A lot of people could say that that's listening to this podcast. Ah.

48:35.70

Tony

For some reason I thought you were in Edmonton I've never been to winnipeke so I'm not sure if it's all my destinate. Yeah say I don't know if it's on my to do list. But if it is yes yeah yeah.

48:46.58

wongga

Well, you guys get the snow. We get the Cold. So I think it's It's a fair tradeoff. Um, yeah before I let you go?? Um I always ask every guest a question and like to hear what you have to say so this is the investing to win podcast. How do you? Define Success. And what does winning look like for you.

49:07.14

Tony

For me, it's all about a ah concept of continuous expansion I I work on myself every single day to get better than I was the day before um I have certain things that I treat as scoring mechanisms. To see if I'm making progress. Um, it's not about a dollar amount. It's not about a staff count. It's about am I getting better is my business getting better. So. It's always always pushing and striving to have a better version of Tony and that's that's what I seek to. To do right? And and again I I use a bunch of things that that I look at to to see if if my life is getting better if my my family lifestyle is getting better. Um, yes, there's an economic component to it but ever since day one.

50:01.49

Tony

When I started ground floor The management company I Saw how owners and tenants felt around my mother. It was real. It was special. She was very um. Motherly and she just she just took care of people and then I saw the outside world bash and thrash our industry to pieces and how abused we are as property managers and I I just said from a pretty early age that I part of my life will be. Committed to changing that and helping the industry as ah as a whole maybe looked at differently or at least by helping property managers build better companies so that they can have so they can treat people better right. And and have a better lifestyle for Them. So It's It's just always pushing myself and some days. It's a blessing some days. It's curse I Wish I could shut it off some days but it's just it's how I'm wired So I'm always looking to become better.

51:07.27

wongga

Beautiful wow no well, it's been great Tony I really appreciate you coming out on the show and we will definitely yeah touch base in the future. All right? Thank you.

51:13.30

Tony

Thank you I Appreciate you Amazing! Thanks so much.