Behind the Scenes at NARPM: Amy Hanson on Growth, Policy, and PM Exits

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The biggest lesson learned is in this business, if you haven't been sued, it's not if, but when. It is going to happen.

It's true.

And sometimes it's, you know, sometimes we goof stuff up and we deserve it. And other times we don't. No matter what system you use, no matter how you do it, You could still do it on tablet and chisel, pen and paper, however, whatever works for you, but document everything. One of the best things I learned from NARPM was make sure you're documenting it. Treat every single file the same. Treat every single owner and tenant the same. It prevents mistakes.

Welcome to Season 5. Of Peter Lohmann's Podcast. This podcast is a show about all things residential property management, from property operations to sales and marketing to growing and managing your team. I'm your host, Peter Lohmann, co-founder of RL Property Management. For season 5, I have an exciting new guest each week. We go deep into conversation about problems facing professional property managers and the best ways to overcome them. Thanks for listening.

Now let's go.

Welcome back to Peter Lohmann's podcast, friends. Today I have with me in the virtual studio, National NARPM President Amy Hansen. Welcome to the show, Amy.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Anytime. I'm excited to have you here in conversation. You know, you and I connected just a week or two ago about some NARPM business and just really enjoyed, you know, you and I hadn't really gotten a chance to talk before that, and I really appreciated your knowledge and your willingness to share some of the behind the scenes stuff with NARPM. We'll get into a little bit of that, but I'd love to start by having you give just like a 2-minute background on yourself for anyone who's not familiar with your experience in property management.

Awesome. Well, thank you. I'm looking forward to today as well. But just a quick tidbit on myself. I actually got my real estate license in 1993, which seems like a million years ago. I've probably almost had my real estate license longer than Peter has been alive.

So not quite that far, but getting close.

I got my real estate license by accident. I had a part-time job at a real estate company answering phones, and they said, you know, if you got your license, we could pay you bonuses on the commissions. And I was like, hey, money, let's do it. So I got my license and that, you know, the rest is history. I never had planned on going into real estate. I did real estate sales for a number of years, and then I had the opportunity to purchase the company that I originally started working with. So I bought it and they had this little property management group that I knew nothing about. So I got to learn trial by fire when it came to property management. And that was back in 2006 and purchased that company. Then, you know, the market fell out 2008, 2009. It was a wild ride. And we were so grateful to have that property management group. I knew nothing about property management when I first started over there. And then I found NARPM and NARPM showed me the way, showed me the way to make it profitable and to make it productive and to really do it the right way. So I was super excited to find NARPM. And then one day at lunch, one of my NARPM friends, I had said, hey, I got this random offer to buy my company. And they're like, don't sell it to them. Sell it to us. We'll buy it. I was like, okay. So I ended up selling my, my company to a local NARPA member in San Antonio, do the non-compete, which is very common. I made a decision to move to Dallas and start all over. So in 2017, I started a brand new company in Dallas, ran that for the last 9 years. And this year, just a couple of months ago, back in March, I got an offer from Berkshire Hathaway PenFed Realty. To purchase my property management company and bring me on board to help them develop a property management group and take it throughout Texas. So it's been a very exciting and wild ride all at the same time as being NARPM president.

Yeah, it's been a big year for you.

Big year. Been a very big year. Absolutely.

I love, I love the story. You really filled in some edges that were blurry for me with that great succinct description. Thank you. I want to back up to the first real estate company that you worked for. You started as, you know, would you say receptionist or admin or something? And then got your license. Yep. And ended up purchasing it. So that is not something you hear every day. And there's a lot of people who dabble in real estate and there's a lot of people who get their real estate licenses. I almost never meet somebody who's like, oh yeah, then I purchased the company. So I'd love to hear, sort of, and it sounds like this, you know, really had nothing to do with property management. You, you bought basically a, a real estate brokerage that had some property management that you probably didn't care about or know anything about.

Correct.

So what was, you know, why did you do that? What do brokerages even go for in terms of multiples or anything like that? I don't know much about that world.

Well, back in 2006, we didn't know either. So I had known these, these people at this brokerage for years and years and years. I was not currently working there. So after I got my real estate license and started working in real estate, I met someone, ended up getting married. I married a soldier and we ended up traveling all over the world with the Army. So I had kept in touch with this, with these people of this real estate company for years. Although at this point in time, I was living in Phoenix, Arizona. And so I was working for Prudential Real Estate and Relocation out in Scottsdale and had been there for 6 years or so doing corporate relocation, both domestically and internationally.. And I was just ready for a change from the corporate race. And so one afternoon I called up my, my friends and just said, hey, how's it going? And they're like, you know, we're looking to retire and make a change. And I was like, oh, maybe. I said, well, are y'all going to sell? And they're like, yeah, we actually just converted from a partnership to a corporation so that we could sell it. And I said, well, I would love to buy it. Let's have dinner. So I flew to San Antonio, sat down and we had a relationship. And I think that's what a lot of people find when they're buying and selling these companies over the years. You know, it's not necessarily people are going out and looking online to buy a real estate company. Most of the time it's transactions done between people within the same community that know each other and say, hey, I'm looking to retire, I'm ready to get out, I'm done messing with this stuff. And so we had no idea what we were doing. We had no idea of multiples. We had no idea of any of this. They had about 12 agents, of which about 5 of them actually produced results. And they had about 90 doors that were completely accidental. They were all accidental landlords. And so there was no strategy there at all. And so we gave like no value to the property management side. I love this because we didn't know.

Yeah, you didn't know. Yeah. And back then, I mean, you know, the industry was, was— I don't know if it was nascent, but it was, it was much less mature than it is today.

Oh, absolutely. There were no NARPM accounting standards. There was no standard there. I mean, yeah, when, when I bought that real estate company, we were on TenantCloud, if anyone even remembers that. It was a DOS-based system that you could dial into. It was awful.

Oh my gosh, wow.

It was horrible, but it was all we had, you know. These were the days before great software came along. And so we came up with a price, and they said, this is what we think it's worth. And I said, Sounds good to me. And they said, we'll seller finance it. I'm like, done and done. Let's do this. They weren't quite ready to retire. So one of the best things that happened for me at that time, I was 35. And so they said they wanted to stay on for another 5 years or so. And I said, well, great. Why don't you just work like 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, et cetera, work your way out. And I can, I can learn from you because they had been doing it for 20 or 30 years. And so that, that's how it all came to be. And then when the, when the market crashed, I was like, oh my gosh, I really need to look at this property management thing. Like I need to figure this out because it was the only thing making any money. It was the only thing that kept our doors open when that happened in the market. And the cool thing was none of the properties were selling. And so we just built, built, built, built, built. We had tons of new acquisitions on properties that came in.. And then when the market turned, we ended up selling so many of those properties. So it was a very stressful time. It was scary, but it, it absolutely paid off. So I got, I was really blessed, but it was all about really the connections, the connections when I bought it. I, when I sold, we had 35 agents, 250 properties, 8 homeowners associations, 5 employees, and a business center that we were doing where you rent the rooms. Individually. Oh cool. Yeah, yeah, like a coworking thing before that was a thing. Yeah. And by then we had kind of, you know, so many people had bought and sold by then. So by 2016 it was like, oh okay, now we understand you could do a multiple and you should sell, you know, do you sell the company, do you sell just the, the doors? And it does get really complicated when you mix real estate in with it. One of the things that I always tell people, because I have lots of people call me now and go, we heard you've bought and sold and bought and sold, and, you know, tell us what you can. And one of the things I would tell people now, looking back, if you're going to run a real estate company with property management, keep two separate sets of books. Don't put it all together. And we didn't have that opportunity because I inherited the books as one, but that would be one of the, one of the big things that I learned. And of course, that was way before the NARFM accounting standards as well.

So yeah, you bought, you bought that in 2006, you sold in 2016.

Mm-hmm.

Are you able to say who you sold that one to?

Yeah, I actually sold it. The name of that company was Northwest Real Estate. It was an independent company in San Antonio. They actually had started out as a Century 21 franchise, and a bunch of agents got together and said, we're tired of paying franchise fees, we're gonna go independent. And so they developed Northwest Real Estate, and then I actually sold that to Copernicus Realty, and they still run it under the Northwest Real Estate brand as of today.

Nice. So it's still around. You could go visit it. Yeah. Kind of. That's awesome. That's cool. Yeah. Okay, great. So, so you had a non-compete. That's very normal. It had some, you know, probably 50 or 100-mile range. And this, I find this interesting. So you're like, all right, bet I'm leaving. You just like left and started a new company, which, you know, that's amazing. Like, it's very, um, a lot of people would just kind of like sit around, twiddle their thumbs, complain about the non-compete, try and like play golf. I don't know. And you're like, no, I'm not done. I'm gonna go move over here. I'm gonna start. We're gonna, we're gonna run it back. So this second company, you started from zero or you bought it? Zero. Okay, started this one from zero. And I'm dying to ask, what lessons did you take from running that first management company that you then applied to— you're like, okay, because sometimes I fantasize about this. I'm like, all right, we're gonna start a new management company. We're gonna do things differently. We're not gonna do this. We're gonna do this from the start, right? I get all these ideas about like innovative pricing and just like different things. So I'd love to hear what did you do, what did you not do. This is really interesting.

Well, that is fantastic. And you're right, it was kind of like I won the lottery. I had a chunk of change from selling the company. I didn't have to work. I wanted to work. My goal was, you know, I could run a part-time property management company. I could do it by myself, 50 doors, Done and done. I could do that in my sleep. It's a good look. And I could set it up exactly how I wanted to set it up at. So one of the coolest things about being able to start from scratch is I learned so many lessons from the first company. First company I inherited, I had to run it like I got it. I was kind of stuck with what I had. But when I went to the new company, some of my biggest things that I wanted to accomplish were, number one, I wanted to be completely virtual. I wanted to be able to run it from the beach. If I wanted to take a Peter Lohmann 30-day vacation. I wanted to be able to run my company, um, yes, a brain break, a huge brain break. So that was a big piece of it. I wanted everything to be scanned into the system. I wanted everything portable. The old company, we had a 10 by 20 storage shed full of paper, and when we had to go find something, it was a nightmare. So very hard to convert to that when you're in the middle of 20 years worth of stuff, but very easy to start that way. So that was the big deal for me. I also did not want a brick and mortar. I wanted to be able to work from home and I didn't want any agents. I had been working with agents for 25 years and I was done working with agents. I just wanted to do my own thing, manage my 50 doors, and that's it.

I don't blame you at all.

Yeah, I hit it. I hit a snag. 6 months into it, I was already at 50 doors. I was like, oh no, what have I done?

I've created a monster. Your price too low, that's what you did.

Well, that could be. Well, and in this market, it's really wild, but in the, in the DFW market, when I first, you know, came up here, I literally knew one person. I knew one realtor. Wow. And I said, tell me how to get involved. And they're like, well, here's where the board meets, and here's where Women's Council meets, and I knew about NARPM because I had been part of the San Antonio chapter, which is a super strong NARPM chapter and has been for many, many years. And so I was like, let me get involved in the Dallas chapter. Let me get involved in the Fort Worth chapter. So I just got plugged in right away. And there are so few people that did property management here. My phone was ringing off the hook. I mean, it was just nuts. So I was at a— I was over 117 doors after my first year and I was like, help, I need to get some help.

Yeah, so yeah, you know, 50-door, no employee.

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So I'd love to hear a little bit more of the architecture, like what software did you use? And like, because this is 2016, so things were humming and clicking a little bit more in our industry. There was probably some good options.

Yeah. So I, I stuck with AppFolio. I had been on AppFolio for 8 or 9 years, and so I knew it. They still had their, you can't come on board unless you have 50 doors. I'm like, but I think that was more for brand new people. If you had been a client before, I said, look, I've been on AppFolio for 9 years. Like, I need zero training. I just need you to turn it on. So went straight to AppFolio. Since then, you know, since now that it's grown and now we're at 242 doors, I think as of today, I've got more help and, you know, a bigger team now. We, you know, we're running LeadSimple, we run ZInspector, we do all of our leases still through Zipforms, through the Texas provider, and then through DocuSign. But keeping everything in the cloud and making it extremely mobile. We have VAs now. I never had VAs before. One of the best things we ever did. I tell people, if I, if I could do it over again, even this part of it, I would have gotten VAs from the start. So Lessons learned along the way as you grow.

Totally. Very cool. Okay, so your, your new firm that you started in around the Dallas area, and I think I heard you say that you've got some family working there or was, and I want to ask you about the sale. So you sold this year and now you're, you're working there to, sounds like, take it throughout Texas. How did that come about and what was that experience like?

Well, they called me up and said, hey, we have a company that we're trying to buy, and we know that you have bought and sold, so would you consult with us on this purchase and sale? And I was like, oh, that sounds fun, I'll go do that.

Yeah, it's an old trick. Yeah, it's an old trick. Hey, we need your advice. Okay, sure. That's how they get you talking.

Okay, well, that's what happened, exactly what happened. And so they said, hey, you know, here's the company that we're looking at buying. They didn't tell me the name, but you know, kind of here's what their, their model is and here's their footprint and kind of what they're doing. And it was somebody that was retiring and they said, you know, we really want to do this. We really want to get into property management. Our agents really, really want it, but we don't know anything about property management, which is the smartest thing they ever said. We don't know anything. We need somebody to run it. We need somebody who understands it, who knows it, who knows the rules, regulations, and can take it to another level. Well, backing up a step before that call, my husband came on board with me and he started working with me after, after I got to that 120 doors and I couldn't do it by myself anymore. But he was looking towards getting closer to retirement. He's actually retiring this December in, in 2025. So I knew that was coming. My son was an engineer in Austin and I said, hey, why don't you come to Dallas and work in mom's company is like, oh, I don't know if I want to do that. But he did come up, he did move here, and he's been our leasing agent, BDM, property manager for a couple years now. And I said, hey, you know, when I get done with this, I'd love for you to buy it. He's like, oh no, Mom, uh-uh, you don't want anything to do with that. I said, yeah, but you said you never worked for me either, and now you've been working for me for a couple of years, so don't ever say never. Then my younger son also, Aiden, does our field work. He does all of our anything outside of the office. Running to properties and checking on things and taking care of stuff. So I'd been talking to my son, my older son, at least a year, maybe 2 years about, hey, what do you want to do in the future? What are we going to do with this in the future? And one tough part about property management is when you're the broker owner, you can't just say, you know what, I'm done. Here's my 2-week notice. I'm out of here. You can't, you can't just shut it down. So there has to be some sort of process. So I'm not, I'm not ready to retire yet, but when Berkshire came along and said, hey, we would love to acquire you and then have you help us do these other acquisitions in Texas and kind of run Texas and be able to offer this to our agents, which we, we currently don't offer anything on leasing or property management to our agents. It just was kind of the perfect timing. I didn't look for them. They didn't look for me. I did know them, but yeah, they, they got me with the, hey, just come give us some consulting. And so I said, well, let me think about it. And then it took about a year to like, you know, go through disclosures and, you know, what do we have going on? What do they have going on? What works for them? What works for us? So I actually did a buyout with them, a structured buyout, and I'm now on salary for them as the vice president of property management. And my two sons are still working for the company now and can work, you know, they can give their 2 weeks notice, whatever they want. Yeah, sure. But they're working full time for the company now. And we do have the 2 VAs. So there's 5 of us total that are, are working in the business.

But okay.

Yeah, that sounds like a great offer. Well, and see how it all goes, you know, who knows what next year brings.

Yeah. So, so 2x, you know, 2 times founder and exit. And what is it like to work at a company that you don't own, work at a property management company that you don't own? 'Cause that's one thing that runs through my mind, like way down the road, not in any immediate term future, but sometime if I were to sell, 'cause I got two kids too and we'll see where that goes. But, you know, I'm like thinking, you know, could I work here if I didn't own it? That would be really, I don't know, I'm curious to hear what that's like for you.

It is a, you know, there are some challenges. It is different being a sole proprietor and then going into the corporate world. There's some, you know, there are corporate hurdles you have to go through. The benefits are really nice. It's really great to have benefits paid for by someone else. And I think, you know, back to that very first conversation, they, they were really clear. We don't know how to do this and we want you to teach us how to do this. You know, obviously how to do it. You're very successful in doing it. So teach us, teach us your ways. We don't, we're not going to ask you to change anything. So that was, that was huge. I think so many times these companies, you know, acquire or merge or buyout and they're like, okay, now we're gonna change everything on day one. Yeah. And it messes with the culture, it messes with the team, it messes with the processes. And, you know, there's a reason you're buying it. Usually you're usually buying it because it's a great asset and, and you want it to grow. So there's definitely a, a challenge there and, and something that has to be worked through. I was very blessed to have a great team above me saying, Show us the way, Amy. Show us what we need to do, and, and we will do it your way. So, so far, knock on wood, we're 4 or 5 months into it, and they have absolutely held true to that statement. So that's been great for us because it, it is hard and it's scary because it's, it's your baby and you're going to give your baby away to someone else. But it was great for me too that this is one less thing I have to do in the future because, like I said, you can't just give your notice and walk away, right? You have to figure something out. So at some point in some time, I was going to have to make a decision on do I sell it, do I, you know, whatever, do I just shut it down, do I let it die, you know, what do I do with this thing? So it solved that issue for me.

So now when the time is right, you can, you know, easily move on.

Yeah, yeah. And so far it's been great. It's like, you know, I, I could see myself doing this in other 6, 7 years or so. I'm 53, so, you know, another 7 years, retire at 60, that's not too bad. Yeah, that'd be a pretty nice wrap-up to the year.

So yeah, and you're obviously highly, you know, still highly involved in the industry, and I want to kind of pivot to that now. So as NARPM president, you're very much, you know, moving among professional property management business owners, still working in a property management business. And I want to back up a little. When did you first join NARPM?

What year? I think it was 2009. So I had owned a property management company for a couple of years before I found NARPM. And we were— when I went to NARPM, I was like, uh-oh, we are doing all of this wrong.

We're doing everything wrong. Yeah, we've all had that experience. Don't worry.

We all did that. Oh no, am I on Candid Camera?

We are in trouble. Yeah. So at that time, NARPM was pretty new and like there was no broker-owner back then, was there?

Or was there? No, there was no broker-owner back then. And so, and that was when, you know, the whole, you know, the whole real estate market was in shambles back in 2009. I still remember going to my first NARPM conference, which was in Orlando. It's so funny that we're going to Orlando again this year as president. I'm going to be in Orlando and we don't get to pick any of that. It's picked years in advance. So Very wild. But yeah, I remember going to my very first— we have a very strong property management committee at the San Antonio Board of Realtors. And so as I was going to the committee meetings at the board, somebody said, hey, NARPM's having an event or whatever. And I still remember going to my first thing. They said it's an open house at a property management company. I'm like, what are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense to me. And Stephen Foster, who was the broker of Boardwalk Property Management, had an open house, food, drinks, and ask me anything you want about property management. Yes. And we went over there and he's like, here's how we store our files. Here's how we take care of keys. Here's how we collect rent. And I was like, oh my gosh, my mind is blown. Yeah. I'm like, they're going to— they're going to tell me how to do this. Like, I can make this a business.

I was flabbergasted. By the way, if you're listening and you haven't done this, you haven't gone to another firm and seen how they store their keys and how they keep their files exactly like Amy just said, please do. And if you don't know anyone, message me. I'll introduce— I'll use my network and introduce you to someone in your network, in your area, because it is so valuable. And so just, it's kind of world-changing when you get to connect with somebody who's a little bit ahead of you, who's been doing things a little differently than you, and exchange ideas, and you just feel validated because you you're hanging out with someone who gets you. It's very, very— I highly recommend it, and I've done it many times. I'm pretty much an open book for folks who, you know, are in the area, want to come see what we do here.

So yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah, and I have done that for many people over the years. I have done one-on-ones in my office. Come on in, ask me anything. Here's copies of all of our forms. You know, we used to have checklists and forms and file folders. Now we have everything digitally, but Back in the day, I used to— they used to walk out of my office with a big folder full of checklists and they were all color-coded and they were like, mind blown when they would leave our office.

Yeah, that's great. Copy machines running all afternoon.

All afternoon. Yeah, man, we had, we had those copiers going. But yeah, I mean, that, that was the thing is I had no idea what I didn't know until I found NARPM. And I think a lot of people are like that. And that's, that's one of the challenges we've had at the national level is how do we spread the word of NARPM? How do we get people involved? How do we explain it to people? Because people say once we find it, it's like they're drinking the Kool-Aid and it's like from, yeah, they can't wait to get, get more involved. So that's definitely one of the big things that we're working on going into '26 and with a lot of the changes. And you and I spoke about some of the NARPM 2.0 changes, but yeah, when I first, when I first met NARPM, when I first went to that first event, I was like, all right, I will. And they're like, hey, we need a volunteer to help, you know, take names at the registration table. I was like, I'll do it. I'll do it. If I get to go, if I get to go, I want to go. And that's how my volunteering life began. So back then, you know, they had asked me, hey, do you want to move up into an officer position? And I really couldn't do that in San Antonio because my kids were still really little. So it was a challenge and it was a challenge to be able to travel because the kids were little as well.

I hear you loud and clear. I'm in the middle of that myself.

Oh my gosh, it's tough. And unfortunately, right after I bought the company in 2016, 2015, I got divorced, and so that, you know, made it even more complicated. But so I wasn't able to do a lot of travel stuff. I told them, anything y'all need me to do between 9 and 5, I'm your girl. If it's after 5, you might have to find somebody else because I got, I got the kids situation. But now that my kids are, you know, adults, it's fantastic to be able to travel and, and visit with chapters and get to do a lot of these after-hour events. So that, that's made it all worthwhile as well. But yeah, I'm an ARPM seriously changed the trajectory of my, of not only that business, but this business and probably a future business. There might be another business down the road.

You never know. Yep. You've got that, you've got that, you know, desire to be doing something new and moving on to the next thing. So, yeah. Yeah. So, so kind of fast forward into the present day now with your current role at NARPM and what's happening with NARPM. One thing I was curious about, I'm sure you'll have a good answer on this, Why is the president term only one year? Because it feels like you would want, I don't know, at least two years to really kind of make your mark and kind of drive some change. If we're switching it up every year, it just feels like kind of a lot of switching around of the chairs and people. It's kind of hard to build like, you know, institutional change.

Yeah, that's a good question. I think for us, all of it should be driven by your strategic plan. And if you can get that strategic plan in place and everyone's following that strategic plan, typically those are 2 to 3 years in length. And so you've got time for it to start and, and take place and get finished and then revamp it. But it's a, it's a huge commitment. Previously, before we made these recent changes, you had to, you know, have quite a bit of experience before getting into a director role at the national level. We made a lot of changes this year to remove a lot of those. Items. But in the past, you might have had to be a local chapter president, state chapter president.

So what if you don't have a local or state chapter?

Like, yeah, that makes it a, that makes it a challenge. You know, you want, you would want to be an RVP before getting onto the, into an officer position. And now we've eliminated that barrier. But by the time you get to the point where I am, I mean, it's been 15 years to get to this spot. That's a long time. A lot of people are not going to commit 15 years to right, doing this. And honestly, I had no idea. I was a local chapter president, then I moved into state chapter president, and then Pete Newbigg called and said, hey, we have this RVP position. I was like, okay. He goes, I think you'd be great at it. I was like, uh, okay, well, I'll throw my name in the hat. I didn't really think they'd pick me. I mean, I thought, oh, well, this can be like 20 people applying for this position. And then they called me and they're like, okay, you're it. And I'm like, Oh crap, what do I do now? Nice. And then, you know, RV, then that to Treasurer, then President-Elect, and on up. But so this was never like, oh, I want to be President of NARPM one day. I just wanted to be involved in NARPM. I didn't really care where. So it just, you know, best laid plans, I guess. But it is a huge commitment. Some of the local chapters, some of the state chapters have converted to 2-year terms that may work for them. But be careful of burnout. You got to be careful because this, it can absolutely burn you out because it's all volunteer. Yeah, all volunteer. Yes, it's a lot of volunteer hours.

And, you know, most of, most of these folks are running businesses. Yes.

So yes, that's, you know, and I've told people, they're like, well, how do you do it? How do you run a business, have a family, and do NARPM too? Well, NARPM does take some time, but I have found I've gotten back thousands more than what I've ever put in. Oh, for sure. So when I, you know, work on a conference and then go to the conference, I learn tons from the person sitting next to me, the people I meet in the hallways, the people I sit next to during lunch. I mean, I am just a constant sponge just getting that information from them to make my business better. And everything keeps changing. I mean, 5 years ago we didn't talk about artificial intelligence. We didn't talk about, you know, virtual phone systems that would and texting that would automatically answer tenants' questions that didn't exist. Yeah. You know, 10 years ago we didn't talk about— we didn't know what VAs were or how VAs worked. I mean, yeah, it's amazing to see the progression. So I'm like, oh gosh, what's it going to look like 5 years from now?

That's exciting. You know, it is.

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So these, these terms run on the calendar year, is that right? Yes, calendar year. We're halfway through. We're recording in late July. I'm not sure when this will come out. I'd love to hear, I guess, two related questions. One is what parts of the strategic plan did you take sort of as your— the way I would think of this is like rocks, like your rocks, like in under EOS parlance. What are the major initiatives as part of the strategic plan that you wanted to accomplish or are accomplishing during your term? And then separate from the strategic plan, what, what were your personal projects that you came in, you're like, all right, listen, if I'm the Arbonne president, or a couple things are going to change around, because that's what I would do, a couple things are going to change around here, starting with XYZ. I don't know. I'm curious if you had anything like that going in. So two questions there. One is about the strategic plan and then your personal thoughts.

So the strategic plan, my year was a review year, so I did not create the strategic plan, although I was there when it was created. The previous strategic plan was very operationally focused. Let's do a membership campaign to do X. Let's do something different on designations to do Y. We are scrapping all of that and we are going big picture in the future. What we were doing in the past is the strategic planning team was figuring out what all the different operational things were going to be done. Now we want to figure out, okay, our goal is, you know, 7,000 members or whatever, whatever our goal is, and then let the membership committee go figure out how to get there. We don't need to tell the membership committee how to go get there. So using the staff, We do have a management team at the association management company, which is Organizational Management Group. Very confusing, I know, but they, they run all of that for us. We have a full team of staff that are managing these operational issues for us. So this year, the, the big goal was to look at where are we going to go next and doing this NARPM 2.0. We hired a consultant to look at everything. From our management company to our bylaws, to our rules and regulations, our policies and procedures, our governance, how we do governmental affairs, how we do events, everything. And we basically said everything's on the table. What do other great volunteer-led companies do? What do these other organizations and management companies do to make all of this happen? And, you know, to take a line from Profit Coach, you know, them doing the benchmarking We just kept going back to it and saying, we want to do benchmarking where we can figure out what it takes to be a top 20. We want to be a top 20. So what does that, what does that take? Well, we're going to need to revamp our membership, revamp our technology, revamp our events, revamp our governance, look at our governmental affairs. I mean, everything was on the table, which is huge. But we were also at the same time coming to the end of the contract for OMG. So we have done two back-to-back 10-year contracts with OMG. That contract ends at the end of '26, so we knew we had to kind of tear everything apart and see what's working, what's not working, because we're not the same organization we were 10 years ago. And goodness gracious, we're sure not the organization we were 20 years ago. And so where do we want to be 10 years from now? And so that's really what has been driving all of the NARPM 2.0 changes. We completely updated all the bylaws. We just finished the 188 pages of the policy and procedures manual, but it had, it needed to be done. It had to be done with all of the changes. So lots of good things to come. It's going to take some time for us to get all this going, but, and I think we're very excited about, about that future. Yeah.

Let me see if I can summarize that, make sure I understand that. So your year is a very much a transition year and NARPM engaged this consultant to come in, take a look at everything because NARPM wants to be in the top 20% of association Like NARPM wants to be a top 20% trade organization or trade association. So like for every industry, there's a NARPM, basically a trade group, trade association, and NARPM wants to level up. So the consultant came in and when did the consultant do all this analysis and the report came out?

So it took about 5 months for them to do the full analysis. They looked at everything from, you know, who our members are, who renews, who doesn't renew, what is our marketing look like? They looked at everything. So that finished up back in May, and so we've been working on their recommendations from that.

So they issued some big PDF with conclusions and benchmarking and— okay, awesome. Now, is that available? I'd be interested to see. That'd be really cool to look at.

I would have to find out. Okay.

I don't know.

Yeah, but I could get back to you on that.

So you guys then took some of these recommendations, and I assume the report came back and said, oh, you're doing well here, you're doing medium here, this area needs big improvement blah, blah, blah, and the recommendations, you know, you all have been reviewing and deciding which ones you want to do and in what order, what priority. Is that basically what is getting rolled into NARPM 2.0, or does NARPM 2.0 sort of predate that?

No, they, they go hand in hand. So we had them look at our entire structure of our volunteer base And they had come out with some recommendations last year. Then we employ— that was consultant one. So we've had two consultants. The first consultant said, let's look at NARPM and see what's working, what's not working. And, you know, based upon what works really well with other volunteer-led organizations, you know, it was their recommendation that the RVPs are really not in a good spot, that that was not a good position for us. While we need people to help the chapters and be a support for the chapters, having that person sit on the board of directors, it's, it's just not the right fit. So we need to break those out, have directors that are solely on board of directors and looking at those big picture items and that strategy and that focus versus working and doing the help of the chapters. So that was a big piece of that. I don't know that we would have come to that conclusion without having the consultant tell us that.

It is so important to have an outside set of eyes in any organization. Small business, you know, nonprofit, doesn't matter. Get someone in there who's seen 100 of you. Yes. And get them to tell you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Yeah. And make sure— my advice to anyone who hires a consultant like this is you need to tell them to be brutal.

Brutal.

Because, because you pay them, they have this tendency to kind of be nice, and they don't— but you're, you're paying to hear what they have to say. So tell, like, tell them, listen, you're not going to hurt my feelings. Give it to me raw. I want to know, you know, what are we doing well? What are we really doing a horrible job at? And like, that's what, that's what you're paying for, right? Right.

And some of the things they told us, like membership is stagnant. We knew that. It's hard to hear, especially because this is our baby and we love it. It was very hard to hear. But yes, we knew it. But it was a different thing hearing it from an expert. Looking at our finances, honestly, we have too much money sitting in the bank. We should be doing a better job of allocating those resources. And so we need to, we need to do better. Our budgeting needs to change. Our priorities need to change. We need to work through that some more. And then retention. We have tons of new members. We're always so excited at conference, right?

We have 300 new people. What's your churn rate, right? That's like, it's like the equivalent of the property management churn rate.

Yeah. Yeah, the churn rate, that's a problem. So we got to work on that. Why, why is that happening? Why are they not drinking the Kool-Aid? Why do they not stick around to drink more Kool-Aid? So yeah, but it was brutal. There were a few tears shed.

We're like, it's the right thing to do though. You got to take the medicine, right? I mean, you got to know where you're at if you, if you want to, you know, understand where to make changes. So I really am glad, you know, for whoever got this rolling, you know, that, that's That's great.

Yeah. Well, the board has worked really, really hard this year. They were in the middle of transitioning from RVP to director, and so it's been a big change for them. Our whole leadership development committee, we no longer have a nominating committee. We have a leadership development committee. Any member in NARPM was eligible to apply to be on the national board. We had 20 people apply. We've never had 20 people apply for anything at national. So that was a— that was huge. They did 20 interviews with everyone that applied to see what their competencies were and if they would be a good fit going forward. And then trying to break all that down into 6 new directors going into 2026. So it was a huge job, all new people. So we're going to have to onboard people differently than we ever have before because a lot of these people have never been, never been on a board. And so we got to, we got to teach them the way of the board and help them understand, you know, how that whole process works while at the same time not stifling that creativity, especially with these, these new competencies. So it's, it's an exciting time, but it, yeah, it's been a heck of a lot of work. I think we're going to see some great results. You know, it's going to take us a year to get to something that we're going to be able to say, hey, look, we did that and here's the result, and thank you for being patient. But we've got all those wheels in motion all at the same time to, to make some really big changes.

Love it. So it probably goes without saying, but I'm an NARPM member, highly recommend NARPM. I think I joined in 2016 or 2017. I don't remember which. But yeah, anyone who's a professional property manager should join NARPM. I wanted to ask you about some of the backend stuff first. Here we are in late July. I was curious how the CEO search— so just to back up a step, and I know all this because you just told me a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned Organizational Management Group, OMG, funny acronym. They are, so the current CEO of NARPM who works for OMG and also is a part owner is Gail Phillips who is retiring by the end of this year. So NARPM is looking, and NARPM and OMG are running a search for a new NARPM CEO. The CEO, and again, the CEO works for Organizational Management Group. I wanted to see how that search is going and just kind of check in with you on that.

The search is going great. We have identified a new CEO. Oh, exciting. It is very exciting. It is not public yet, but it will be very, very soon, as in August. So hopefully by the time this rolls out, the new CEO will be rolling right along. And the plan is there's a transition plan in place to make sure that as much knowledge as we can pull out of Gail's brain can move into our new CEO's brain. They will be working in tandem through the end of December. And of course, one of the great benefits for us, and it's just fantastic, uh, Gail's got unbelievable amounts of knowledge there because she is an owner at OMG. She will be staying on with OMG going in the future. So if we have a question in July of '26, we can call her up and go, Gail, well, how did we used to do this, and why do we do this, and where, where is this document? So yeah, I'm so excited. I mean, having a CEO for 20 years, number one, that's a huge accomplishment. Unbelievable. Yeah, unbelievable. We are going to be having a reception for her in Orlando at our national conference. So I hope people will come and join and to celebrate her. She has done an amazing job for NARPM. She has kept us on the straight and narrow for years, and her legacy will be along for many, many years. And she is 110% committed to making sure that the new CEO is ready to go and, and, uh, able to take this to the next level. So And they got a big job to do. We told them, hey, look at all the things we're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you sure? It's a good time for that change. It's a good time. Like, because while you're kind of shaking things up, you'll have some new blood come in.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a lot. And I will say that we did get to interview the CEO. The entire board met with the CEO and it was 100% in favor of moving forward. So we're, we're super excited.

I think you will be too. That's outstanding. Well, I actually think this is a great place to end. This is a wonderful discussion about your experience in property management. You brought us up to date on NARPM. Anything else that you want to share either about your experience, lessons learned, or about, you know, NARPM and what's going on there?

I would say that the biggest lesson learned is in this business, if you haven't been sued, it's not if, but when it is going to happen.

That's as far as I know. You're going to be sued. You're going to be sued.

So it's true. And sometimes it's, you know, sometimes we goof stuff up and we deserve it and other times we don't. And so the number one thing I would leave you with is no matter what system you use, no matter how you do it, you could still do it on tablet and chisel, pen and paper, however, whatever works for you, but document everything. We have been so fortunate now with this new company that everything is electronic. We have copies of everything. We document everything. It's just part of our process. That when hiccups happen, we've got that documentation in there. And, you know, the very first thing the attorneys always want is send us a timeline of every single thing that happened in this file. And it sure is a lot easier to make all that stuff happen now. So one of the best things I learned from NARPM was make sure you're documenting it. Treat every single file the same. Treat every single owner and tenant the same. It prevents mistakes and really makes it a systemized process. And I think that's what's allowed us to grow so much. Is we do the exact same process for every tenant, every owner, every property we onboard. And I would never understood any of that had I not been a member of NARPM. So I too would encourage people to reach out and get involved in NARPM and, you know, give an hour a month to volunteering. It is unbelievable the dividends that it pays.

Love it. Great advice. Great thought to end the show. Thank you for coming on today, Amy.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. It was great visiting with you. And happy birthday again. Thank you, Amy.

All right, bye-bye. If you like the show and want to get connected to the community, you can follow me on Twitter @PSLohmann and subscribe to my email newsletter on my website, peterlohmann.com. I try to share as much valuable property management content as I can on a regular basis. Thanks again for listening and have a great week.