Bettering your experience with Ivans Process | REI | EP. 26

Hello, Freedom fans. We're back again. Episode 26. We're going to talk a little bit today about Ivan the investor's experience. With me is Caitlin. She is our marketing guru. And I'm Aaron, of course, president of Freedom Real Estate Group, family of companies.

Yes.

So you and I work together on this a little bit.

Yes, yes.

Usually you're like the host, coordinator, manager of all these, like podcast stuff. But this particular subject, you were actually in the content with us, right?

Yes, it was kind of both. I am only in it for a small fraction, but also I'm not because I know the whole process where a lot of people don't know from the beginning to end. And so I was able to provide a lot of feedback in that where I would be like, okay, well what about here? Because, you know, I know this happens. So what if we do this where a lot of people are like, oh, I didn't even know that. So, yeah, absolutely.

Well, let's back up a little bit and define find what it is. Right.

Yeah.

We keep referring to Ivan as if this is some guy that everybody should know, but really it's you. It's kind of me too. So Ivan is our semi fictitious Persona that we've named to represent the investors that we work for. Right. So we gave that person a, you know, a biography of sorts that kind of represents the average person that does work with us as an investor. Right. So we called him Ivan. So if your name's Ivan, we really hit the nail on the head. But you know, it could be sue or George or anything. Right?

Right, absolutely.

So that's. That's who Ivan the investor is. Right. And so, yeah, tell us a little bit about, like, your experience. Like, this was kind of new to you. Right?

Like, it was, it was. So it was a very great process and I'm very glad that we did it. I loved it, doing it.

Really. Cause we still got like, we still got a list that's to do. Right.

So starting out, I know if you guys watched the vlog episode, Tiffany kind of talked about walking past our training room and seeing this tape, all this tape on the wall with some like, slashes. I was like, what is going on? What are we about to deep dive into? I was like, this is about to get messy was my first initial respons. And then actually it did, but it was, it was an organized mess. And so after that we went in each department. So Mark and cj, if you guys have ever talked to him, and Tiffany, transaction coordinator, everyone who is kind of involved we all went in and put our names up on this wall where we talked to them. At what point? From the very first initial contact to getting your first check for your rental property.

Yeah.

I don't know how that goes on the back end, but I'm gonna say.

That that's the whole point. There are all these little pockets of things that none of us know. All of it.

Right, right. And while doing it, like I said, like, Chris, he doesn't. He's the property manager for Independence Property Management. He doesn't really know a whole lot what goes on on the frag side of things, especially at the beginning. So having him in there, he could see everything that was happening at the beginning, and he could, well, why don't we change that and do this instead? And then we can cut this out and cut that person out to limit the amount of people and interactions you're getting that way. It is a much simpler process, and it was a lot of reorganizing things, a lot of old processes that we found that we didn't realize how old they were until we started doing this. So we have already put a lot of new processes in place of this, and I believe it has been helping so far with the smoother process and everything.

Yeah. And so, you know, the. I've talked in another podcast about, like, my methodology for leadership and that kind of thing. And so talking about the results immediately makes me think of, how do we measure that? How do we know if it's working? Right. Like, oh, we got. You know, we. An email signature was one thing that came out. Right. Clarifying that our brands are collaborative, we work together, we're part of the same family of companies was a big thing.

Absolutely.

So for our investors, was there was some uncertainty about that or a lack of clarity about the fact that we literally share an office space.

Right. Exactly. Yeah.

We go do lunches together.

Right.

We're not all these disjointed companies.

Right.

Even though we operate under a few brands and a few operating companies, we're actually, you know, a unified group of people. Right. So.

Right.

You know, the difference that this approach to it, it's really based on the fact that we were looking at it from our consumer's point of view.

Right.

As opposed to, I'm Caitlin, I do this. I'm Aaron, I do this. So, you know, we started with, what does Ivan experience? And I remember one time somebody said something like, well, then what happens is, I send the email and this is automated, and then I go into our tasking system or Whatever. And I had to say, pause, pause, pause.

Yeah, that's probably.

Ivan doesn't care. Ivan doesn't care how we get the work done. Right. Like it matters to us.

Right.

But we tend to think of those things that occupy our day as opposed to thinking about how that man or woman hits our website, how they listen to a podcast, get curious about us, how they have a conversation with our, you know, one of our investments leaders, and then how they get engaged in buying a turnkey property, whatever. So we don't. We don't think through all the things that they stop. They talk to their spouse. They get, you know, all these things that they're experiencing. Just a real different angle.

Yeah, absolutely.

What was like one of the biggest aha moments for you about what Ivan was experiencing, what our investor was experiencing.

In their journey, how many interactions they have with different people? That was the biggest thing for me. And again, putting myself in a. An Ivan's position is I would probably get confused with all the different names and faces and titles and everything. So that was one thing. I was like, okay, wow, our clients are working with a lot of people.

True.

Let's try to limit that. That way again, it is a smoother and easier process for them. So that was the biggest thing. And that was, I believe, one of the very first things we started doing that was kind of, I think, what everyone noticed right off the bat. I think you actually pointed it out.

Yeah. Or kind of honestly, honestly suspected it. That's why I had everybody print their faces. And we literally put pictures of everybody a couple times. They're like, I don't want that picture. I want this picture. Okay, cool. We literally have a dozen faces up on the wall.

Yeah. And so I just remember you going by and just like, okay, we don't need this here. And just like ripping them off the wall and be like, okay, let's limit, let's limit. And it got smaller, faster, significantly, I think, right off the bat. And I think that helped a lot.

Yeah, that's a cool idea. I saw Tiffany mentioned the emails being like a real easy, low hanging fruit. It was a real easy win for that investor's experience.

Right.

That, oh, we're sending out these three emails to make an introduction. And so you were part of that little chain of communications. We kind of revamped this email template that we communicate what we communicate. It sounds like the most trivial little thing, but the report that we're getting. And she's paying really close attention to, like, the response rate.

Yeah.

How much information is Coming back in the first response versus having, you know, follow up. Those aren't indications that we are moving faster. They're implication. They're indications that Ivan's experience is easier.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

It helps us, sure. But it's not about efficiency. It's about like an easier experience.

Absolutely right.

So that was, that was something I didn't expect to be like a real easy win. I was just a little email template instead of three emails from three different people. I thought that was pretty cool.

Yeah, that was a big one, I think. And that was something that, I think we did it in like 20 minutes too. I think Tiffany said it in the vlog episode where we just got on a Google Doc and we were all working in there together at the same time, changing things and just kind of like picked up, picked it apart and put it together on what we thought was the best as a team.

To be fair, it was 20 minutes after three hours worth of 10 people experience. Sorry, I'm a little bit of an analyst. There was a few hours that went into that. But actually tweaking the thing, that had an impact. Yeah, it was minutes. Absolutely.

It was.

Finding that issue is the tricky part. Right.

Yeah. And I think with the whole process on mapping this out on the wall, I think we found some of those holes. Again, like I said, I don't think that we would have found unless we did this process.

Yeah, the surveys was a big deal to me because I'm a big like feedback first kind of person.

Yeah.

You know, like I've run a startup. I, you know, worked in a scrum agile software shop. So I've been part of these like ecosystems where you just live and die on feedback. And obviously we're still a relatively small business. We're not thousands of people. Right, right. We're dozens of people. So getting feedback from both our team and your customers is just a huge opportunity for us.

Absolutely.

And so when I saw that we were sent, part of what I like an aha moment I had was that we were, we have two different operating companies, Freedom Real Estate Group and Independence Property Management, who literally walk the same halls, share the same break room. Like we have the same parties together, we're friends and whatever else. And then like we're sending out these, these two different surveys to the exact same person. Right. Hey, how was your transaction experience with this logo on it? Hey, how was your, you know, experience as a, as an owner and you know, did you get your first check and how are you feeling about property management with this logo? On it with, you know, creating the impression that it's coming from two different entities or doing it right on top of each other. And so to me, that was like an awesome easy win.

Yeah.

Make it easier for that person. They do a transaction, they get their first owner, draw all those, you know, they're feeling all those feelings together.

Right.

Because they're all part of the same transaction. They don't, you know, Ivan doesn't go, okay, I had a transaction and now I'm gonna have a different set of feelings about this experience and I'm gonna share that with Chris. Yeah, it's all this. It's all one experience for them.

So anyway, and I think that that goes back into kind of what you were saying about making it look like they're separate entities when they. They are, but they're not. We're a family of companies and we are under this.

We have our firewalls and divisions for a reason. But, you know, largely we operate in tandem.

Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I thought it was. I thought that was a cool opportunity because going back to the feedback comments, you know, getting good, clear feedback is so critical. So making the engagement and the clarity and the content of our feedback process, our surveys was just like, that was a high impact item, even though it took a little more than tweaking an email.

Yeah.

I think we mostly got there. We got some iteration of improvement there.

Yeah.

We're experimenting some new, better ways to do our surveys and stuff. But it's not so much that it was super easy. It's more that it was just super impactful.

Yeah, yeah, that Better choice of words. Absolutely. I know. There was like a point where at first we sat down and I was like. It was after the first meeting, I was like. I went into my assistant's office and I was like, oh, my gosh. I said, this whole game is about to change. I said, sit down and buckle up because processes are about to change and it is going to be for the better and it's going to be amazing. And so far, I think maybe month and a half, we've been doing this now, give or take, and already the transformation that I have seen happening has been amazing because of it.

Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad you feel that way. You know, the surveys are going to tell us if Ivan feels that. Yeah, right.

Absolutely.

I suspect he. They. She will. So what do you think are the. We've had our list, we've worked through it, and each of us, there's a bunch of us who have been engaged in that and each play a different part in some of the stuff that we're going to try to improve as we identify gaps and points of friction and frustration for having the investor. Right. So what's ahead of us? We haven't done it all, obviously. We haven't perfected everything. When you think about like the next things we could do a little bit better, what's front of mind to you?

I think it's going to be that feedback. Whether they give that to us straight or we just gauge that based on the non responses we get and figuring out what we can do. I know, for example, the, the frag and IPM surveys, for example, before we kind of decided to go a different route for that. The survey form, the actual form was the same, but the way it was presented in the email was completely different. And so the IPM survey has been getting responses left and right, whereas the frag survey, we haven't gotten a single one. And I think it was because of the way it was presented in the email.

So we were kind of marrying up the best or whatever.

Absolutely. So it was interesting to see that. And again, because we didn't get any responses on that or any feedback, we can make a decision based on that to change it like the IPM one and mitigate that. And I think it's just going to be a lot of, I don't want to say experimenting, but just seeing what is going to happen, you know, what do we need to change? What do we need to keep and base that off of Ivan's response.

I love the idea of experimenting. That doesn't scare me. You're probably picturing like mad scientists blowing up the lab or whatever. I'm like, great, it's better to tinker with that in the lab. Try it on the rats first or whatever. Like in house we mess with stuff. Do you like this? Do you not? Yeah, whatever you can do to contain the potential negative impact of something you try, the better. Right. So I love the idea of experimenting. That is kind of the nature of an experiment.

Absolutely.

Contained safe application of a theory or a hypothesis rather. And we're doing that in business now. We're all little scientists in the lab. Right.

We were talking about that earlier actually in a meeting about being a scientist.

Yeah, I mean you run a new ad campaign, whatever, you stop, see if it works, then you double down on it. We're doing the same thing with our consumers experience, with our investors experience. Okay. We tweak this little thing. Hey, did you like that? Did it Help things or hey, did they respond faster? Did they engage with more content? Okay, so we've made it easier for them. That's a win.

Exactly.

Yeah. So that. Yeah, that's a good thought. I was thinking about on the property management side, I think there's still opportunity. And one thing I've seen Chris, our director of property management, tinker with is getting engaged with our new turnkey buyers early in their experience, like when they first get their statement, you know, doing either a video or a conversation with them, a virtual meeting and just walking them through statements line by line. Right. Because one of the friction points that we. That we identified on that big crazy conspiracy wall was a lot of questions come back about what's the semi statement, what the statement. So when you get a high volume of questions, you know, there's a lot of pain there. That's a friction point. Right. He has seen some wins there just in identifying problems early, clarifying and creating a better experience. Like, oh, okay, that's the expense you told me about. Makes sense. I expected that $40 to pop or whatever. Right. So.

Right.

We've seen some great wins there just in, you know, the owner, Joy. Like, I'm a new owner. I'm buying this product. The whole thing I'm buying is. Is the cash flow that comes in. So understanding exactly how all those things are transacted and delivered to me is a big opportunity for us to get. Exactly right.

So, absolutely.

Of course, he's tinkered with it and I think has some ideas to do to improve it even a little bit better. So I'm looking forward to seeing how those things go. I think there's still opportunity there.

Yeah. And I feel like that's, at least on marketing end and on frags as well, is we are doing the same thing. It's kind of like we're starting slow with some type of change, and then we see it be impactful. And so then we were just like, okay, grab the bull by the horns and let's keep doing this and let's better it or improve it. So that's. We're doing the same thing. And it's. It's very. It's almost like when you are balancing out a balance book and you finally get all the numbers right and everything. It's satisfying. It's satisfying to see these changes happen and be so beneficial to. To both us and Ivan.

You know, we were just talking in a marketing meeting. Thanks for letting me ride along about this conversation that I think I had with Flip or somebody else. About the, the. The concept of building a high feedback, fast feedback culture. Right. And operation. Then we talk about it, and then people say, hey, I like that idea. I have feedback. Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we just talked about, like, oh, we should clarify and make that easier. And I don't know if we'll even make it easier by the time this thing is pushed out. So if you have a hard time finding links or whatever, we're working on it.

Yes.

But that's one thing we were talking about doing is can we make. When we provoke this idea because we're sharing our, our. Our operational design philosophy and it triggers ideas and folks, and they say, well, hey, I've bought from Freedom before. I have a turnkey property. I would have liked XYZ to happen. Well, I would like for. I would like to hear that. Right? We would love to hear that. Of course, sometimes we hear it too late or we don't hear it at all, that kind of thing. And, and it's a win for everybody if we capture it. But people have so much to do. Right. There's, you know, and we provide a passive, largely passive product. So, you know, trying to get a high level of engagement or we just have to make it easier. Right. Like, anyway, that's another thing that I think is it became clear we were looking at some of the comments and notes and stuff.

Yeah. It reminds me of really encouraging our listeners, our investors to give us your feedback. It holds so much value and it will help and it will change processes. I mean, I don't know how if we'll do the Ivins wall again or something. I think we should. But we, we could then go in there and be like, this is the feedback that we have gotten. Now, how can we make this even simpler for Ivan?

That's right. Yeah, that's true. Because it never really completely matures.

Right? Absolutely.

There's always some new technology which shapes the way a consumer wants to experience things, or there's some new, you know, we're getting into a lot of retail flips now. Right. So like, as a business, you get into new product lines and do different things. That one's not necessarily relevant to having the investor, but other ones are. Right. And so you get into new things and you tiptoe into new space and then you work out kinks because it all needs reviewed and assessed and improved. Right. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's all about approaching process improvement from the consumer's experience. Right. Which is obviously right up your alley. I appreciate you jumping in this Conversation with me for that reason.

Yeah, of course. No, that is something that. Even when I was in high school and I was working retail, customer service, that has always been so important to me is you are there to provide them a service, and you want them to have an exponential experience and to rave and to want to come back. And so whatever we can do to make that process simpler and just overall better for them, I want to do it.

You know what? You've done it to a large degree. I'm going to brag a little bit. So when I started as a consultant, we start. It was happening before me, but we kind of reprioritized, jumped in again to measuring what we call owner joy. So we were asking our turnkey and property management customers, tell us. Tell us how much you appreciate or how much you like your. How likely are you to refer us to somebody else? How much do you like your experience as an owner letting us manage your. Your rental property? Right, right. And I'm just gonna put it out there. It was. You can edit it if you want, but I'm just gonna put it out there. It was pretty ugly. It was. It was like less than six out of 10, I think, is how we were being scored. Scored. That was deflating to everybody. Mostly because it was true. It was real. Right. Like. And the amount of consistency on the comments that qualified those ratings made it impossible to ignore or dismiss. It wasn't three or four disgruntled people. It was a consistent commentary from people of goodwill saying, the communication's not clear. I need faster updates. I'm not. I don't understand this, that or the other. It took too long to get a response from something. It was all about communication. Right. Our properties are performing the communication about you, but you have hiccups, and that's what you employ us to do. And the communication and the speed and the thoroughness of that was just not up to par. And so, man, we moved that. And you were. You were party to some of that, you know, in terms of, you know, newsletter stuff and all kinds of different things that we've tinkered with. I know Chris is largely responsible for a lot of those improvements with the way the team was organized to make sure that certain things were followed up fast. And anyway, that was a. That was a big move. Now we're close to nine out of ten.

Yeah, absolutely. And it was quick.

And the comments that we're getting are. Love all the constant communication. Thanks so much for walking through that statement with me. When I. When I first bought the Property. Appreciate the thorough feedback. I can see things changing. It's crazy how clear the move was based on a bunch of, like, conceptual focus items. Right?

Absolutely.

But, man, when you listen, when you listen, you can change things big. But. So I'm really proud now of our brand. It changed a lot. That property management space was hard. We got into a really, really hard business through acquisition. We decided, you know, the folks on the outside who we were partnering with don't do it as well as. As we'd like. So we started to build our own. And it sucked for a while.

Yeah.

But man, we turned a big corner and Ivan is telling us that we did.

Yeah. I actually came from Property Management in Bowling Green, so you were awesome, by.

The way.

From about two and a half hours away from here. And I understand your frustration because I, having gone from property management to not really being in the actual management side of things or the leasing side of things, it was hard.

Yeah.

It's a hard business, which property management in general is.

Yeah.

But it's also very rewarding at the same time. And so seeing these changes, like you said, it has made you proud. And I love, love, love, love where things are going.

Yeah, yeah. There's, you know, what's, what excites me is the, all of the, the energy around ideas about what's next, both in property management, our rehab process, our sales and marketing process, the kind of finding exactly the right consumer, kind of working through that, you know, waiting list or priority list or whatever. All. All of those things. I'm seeing signs of energy about improving those things and a lot of orientation and communication improve about the owner's or the buyer's perspective as opposed to communication and commentary on internal process automation systems, blah, blah, blah. It's a lot of orientation around that buyer's experience. So that's a good sign that things are going the right direction. When people internally are talking more and thinking more about the, about the customer's experience, you're going to win.

And I feel like that's almost how you have to approach things. Like anytime I am creating an ad, for example, I don't think of it as a creator's point of view. I think of it from a consumer's point of view. How if I was scrolling through Facebook or any kind of social media Google, what would I think if I saw this pull up? Because then that is going to determine how you set things up and how you're going to communicate and do things internally. So that's how I always try to do almost any project that I do is put myself in their shoes. And how are they going to perceive this?

I spent a lot of time in the staffing world, so, like, I was a professional recruiter and leader of recruiting processes and stuff. And it just occurred to me as you were talking what a critical skill set empathy is and the ability to, like, think and feel like, like that other party is such a big deal. I think, you know, when you multitask. Forget multitask. I'll take empathy. Must be able to work independently or on a team. I'll take empathy. Right. Like, I just, it just occurred to me how much more important empathy is than so many other things that we tend to train ourselves for when we're looking at talent. Right. But that, that focus or that thought process when you're making the decision is it affects design and ad work. It affects the tone of your conversation with a customer.

Absolutely.

It affects everything, doesn't it?

Yeah, it kind of goes back to the saying on if you twist it around, but on treat others how you would want.

Yeah, exactly. It's the golden rule. Right. I mean, it's the basis for morality the world over, throughout all of time or whatever. It's. Yeah, it's a. It's a great. It's a great starting point for how to run a business too. Not just being a good person.

Exactly. And that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, back when I was in retail, you know, again, I would put myself in my shoes. I, even to this day, I am not a fan. When I walk into a store and they are just hounding me, hounding me, I'm like, no. So whenever I was in retail, I would go up to them, like, I would greet them and then I would let them shop around a little bit. And then I would come back and I'd be like, are you still doing okay after that? I wouldn't go back up to them. If they had questions, they would come find me. And again, that's just because I know how I am and I know how other people, I know a lot of other people think the same way. And so carrying that kind of mentality through my other previous positions and even now, like I said, I think for me is so beneficial to have. And I am trying to teach my assistants that and show them we may think this looks good. Let's now put ourselves in their shoes. How are they going to perceive this? So that's one of the biggest things that I try to influence other people to think about.

Yeah, it's a Great philosophy of leadership and business focus. Well, good chat. What else you want to hit on?

What other thoughts about Ivan? I'm just excited on where this is going, honestly. Like I said, it's been a month and a half. So much has changed so fast, and I am loving where this is going. I'm loving the processes that are being changed. And. And it's. I'm just excited.

You want to do it again next quarter.

I think we should. I think we should.

Right?

I think because.

Because now it's different.

It is completely different. We may find more holes that we're missing or.

Or we may find different friction points that we're concerning are no longer a concern. We're not getting a lot of those questions anymore. We're not getting a lot of those hesitations anymore. Those are. Those are easier and smoother, so.

Absolutely. And now that we are putting this podcast out there, and the vlog is out there, and our listeners and investors and clients are listening, if you guys have feedback, please let us know. Because if we do this again next quarter or whenever we do it again, I'm sure we will. We can then bring this feedback in there.

That's right.

And we can say this is the feedback that we are getting. Let's look at this on the wall. Where can we change it? Or how can we change it?

I love it. All right, well, I'll go get more masking tape, more stickers and sticky notes.

Sticky notes.

And maybe we'll share one of the pictures of the crazy conspiracy theory wall.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. That might be an interesting image for our.

It is in the vlog. It is. Also there's, I think, like, two or three photos of it in the vlog. Huh.

It's funny to look at.

It is. But it was very insightful and incredibly beneficial to do.

Yeah. Cool. Well, anything else? Let's wrap up. I think that was a good chat, as we always say at the end of these conversations. And best smart and live happy. All right, thank you all. Bye now. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions and information on this show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.