Can You Really Evict a Horse? Entrepreneurial Life Lessons w/ Susan Lohmann

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All my kids saw that I was passionate about what I did. I never thought of it as going to work. I'm going out to ride a horse. I'm going out to teach a lesson. How fun is that? That's not like, oh, I'm getting in the car for a dreadful commute to like sit behind a desk for 8 hours. But I think all of you did see that I was passionate about my business. I made it fun. I put my whole self into it. And that if you wanted it to work, you better answer the phone.

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. I am thrilled today to introduce my mother, Susan Lohmann. Thanks for coming on the show, Susan.

You're welcome.

My mother, Susan— I'm not sure if I'm supposed to call her mom or Susan. It feels weird to use your first name. Mom has a really interesting background as a small business owner, and I learned a lot from you about dealing with customers, running a small business, having employees. And so I thought it would be fun to bring you on the show. And tell some stories about your career and your involvement in the horse industry, and just explore some topics around entrepreneurship, raising entrepreneurial children, dealing with just the ups and downs of a, a whole career of owning and running a small business. But I'd love to start by having you give maybe just a 5-minute background of your professional career in the horse business, just so folks get a sense of sort of who you are, and then we'll, we'll jump in.

Sounds great. It's great to be on the show. Thanks for inviting me. So I did come into the horse business, which is my business, through the back door. I did the very traditional thing of going to college. I went to and got a BA, a double major in psychology and sociology. And then my parents were not happy that I was playing around with horses, as they called it. I started taking riding lessons as a 7-year-old, and I was quite good right from the beginning. And I was always hustling free horses to ride and hustling like little training jobs, even when I was 14 or 15 years old. So after I did this, I took a horse to college with me actually, and I was training horses while I was going to college. I went to Gettysburg College, which is in the country, so I was able to do that.

And I took a horse with you to college?

I really did. Yep. I took a horse.

I've never heard of that. I've never known anyone else to do that.

Yeah, well, they— Gettysburg is in the country, and I boarded the horse a mile off campus. In those days, you could not take a car to college. I rode my bike to the barn every single day, and I got a job at the barn to pay my board while going through college and having a double major. So right from the beginning, I was sort of an overachiever with everything.

Did they have any type of horse program at all at Gettysburg?

They did not, but now they have actually a college riding team at Gettysburg College. So I was just an individual. I actually ended up at the Dean of Students at one point because I rode my horse on the college campus and jumped the picnic tables on my horse that were outside the football stadium, and I got caught and sent to the Dean of Students.

That's amazing.

At any rate, after I graduated from college, I had summer jobs always teaching riding at camps and what have you, and I just loved it. But my parents are like, oh, psychology and sociology isn't going to get you a career. You need to get a master's. And so I went on and got a master's in guidance counseling, high school guidance counseling. But when I was only halfway through that master's program, I was already making a sizable income teaching riding lessons and selling horses. And it was already about equaling what I would make as a high school guidance counselor. So I never actually used that career in a high school situation. I did do lay counseling in my church and with college counseling with friends, but I went immediately into the horse business after college and started managing somebody else's 50-horse farm. And then I was, you know, able to make money on commissions on sales and commissions on riding lessons. And that was sort of my, my, you know, short circuit into the horse business. And since then I went on to purchase 3 different farms, each one bigger than the one before. And Then I eventually got my judge's license because I decided that was a more fun way to make money than sit in the middle of the ring on a 95-degree day teaching somebody how to steer. And so I have had my judge's licenses, I have a few different ones for about 15 years now, and I judge about twice a month and I still do teach selected riding lessons and I ride selected well-behaved horses.

Mm-hmm. And I was born somewhere in that story.

You were born somewhere in that story.

You were between a couple of those barn farm purchases.

That's right.

And so how long was your total career from your first dollar earned sort of out of college until your essentially retirement, moving off your last farm into Pennsylvania last year?

About 50 years.

Oh, 50 years. Okay.

Wow.

Yeah, I said 40 years. Okay, perfect. That's a great background. And there's some interesting parallels between the horse business and property management. First of all, we're both in the business of collecting rent, so I was quite familiar with the idea of, you know, people being behind on their board and going after them for the money. And there's also this interesting— and I was reminded when you talked about earning commissions, you know, most property managers also help their customers buy and sell homes, and you help your customers buy and sell horses. So there's another parallel there as well.

Very much so. Yep.

I want to start by asking you about dealing with difficult customers. I knew just from watching growing up that you dealt on and off with some very difficult customers, whether they were boarders or students. And I, you know, I observed how you dealt with that. And, and then as, as I got older and started my own business, I would sort of reflect back on how you handled that. But I'd love to hear from you. Some of the challenges that you faced and some of the strategies that you developed over time on how to deal with it?

Well, you know, all difficult customers are difficult in a different way. So the same strategy does not apply to all. Some of them were difficult financially and they just, you know, either didn't pay or they paid late. And the horse business is really different than the property management business in that you are really almost good friends with your customers. They come and they hang out in your barn for a couple hours, 4 or 5 days a week. You know, they give you a Christmas present, all kinds of things that are a much closer relationship. So it's easy for them to sort of stop paying or to pay late. And most people in the horse business do not address this well. And from the very beginning, I was very forthright about it. And if people were a week, a couple days or a week, usually a week late in their board, I'd be like, Hey, you know, it was the first last week and I really need the board. Gotta buy some hay and everything. And they may or may not have an excuse, but the main thing is I would address it. It did not sit there like in the background. And similarly, if they were doing something, there's rules at barns. There's rules of what you can and cannot do because you're keeping your horse on somebody else's property. So many instructors have a rule that you cannot jump jumps without being in a lesson. You certainly can't ride somebody else's horse. One of the big rules that I'm kind of a nut about is you can't be getting into my hay and grain and feeding your horse. I feed your horse. And so it doesn't work for you to then feed your horse the second or third time. First of all, your horse is going to get sick. Second of all, it's going to cost me a lot of money. And third of all, like, I've lost control then. So—

Bring some carrots.

Bring some carrots, exactly, or sugar lump. So I have, I've had many people who tried to feed their horses over the years. And again, you just, you have to come right out and open and say, hey, listen, I feed the horses at 7 AM and 4 PM, and I give them a midday hay, and you don't feed them in between. If you think your horse isn't getting enough, let's have a conversation about it. So I just, you know, very forthright about it. Now, riding lessons were another thing because, you know, a lot of times people take many lessons per month and you either run a billing system or they pay per time. And you have to kind of specify that. And when you give them their bill at the end of the month, a lot of them just don't pay for the longest time. It's just so annoying. And it's not like a credit card where you're going to accrue interest if you don't pay in 30 days. This is a home, you know, with your own rules and what have you. So I will usually tell them when I first get them as a customer, I'm going to give you a monthly bill if you want to be on a monthly system, but you need to pay that within 2 weeks because I have expenses. And if they don't pay, then I do start pestering them. So I think the big thing about difficult customers with anything is don't let it fester. Get on it right away. And I know like you have something like a 24-hour or 48-hour rule about rent and you and I have gone around and around about that because I think people do have things that happen to them in life. And I think there should be some accommodation taken for the fact that they're away or they're on a, I don't know, whatever would happen in life. It doesn't matter what happens. And so I'm not as strict as somebody who's got 700 units they're trying to collect. But when I used to manage barns, I did collect, I remember I had to collect 47 board checks for my boss when I managed this big barn. And boy, it was a challenge. And my boss would be hot if they didn't pay within a week, and then I would be in trouble.

And this is, you know, this is long before paying online. There was no— you couldn't text anybody. This is like you get them on the phone. If they weren't home, they didn't answer the phone, or you had to catch them when they were in the barn.

Absolutely. And the interesting thing about the horse business, which is really kind of entertaining, is it's very common for the spouse to not realize how much horse board costs. So I had about 1/3 of my people who paid half in cash, which they had been accumulating in their pocket during the month.

That is hilarious.

And half by a check because their husband or their wife thought it only cost, I don't know, $300 a month to board their horse. And it's actually, you know, was 2 or 3 times that. So that was like an accounting nightmare for me when they gave me like a stack of $20 bills and a check. I mean, there's all kinds of weird things.

Lessons, why didn't you make them prepay for the package or for the month?

Yes, they did— would prepay for some of them. You could have a prepay package and that didn't really work that much better because they thought the prepay was like for the next 90 days, but it said on the package, this is only good for 6 weeks. So they had to take the 6 lessons within the 6 weeks because if you're skipping lessons, I'm not making any money. My horses are sitting there doing nothing. So I actually ended that after a little while because, okay, it, it was just, it was a mess.

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I would not notice anything upfront, but I would hear about later that the people were calling me— people's spouses were calling me, oh, General Lohmann, or something like that, because they just had never met a woman who was so forthright. And I mean, I want to say that I was always tried to not be like a real witch about it. I tried to be very nice. Yeah, you were there.

Just the facts.

Just the facts. And I'd be, you know, just come right out and say, hey, your horse went really well today. I thought you had a good lesson. And hey, by the way, you know, we're kind of behind on the lessons. Were you going to like try to give me a check? And you can just let it flow into the conversation. You don't have to be awful about it. But the spouses were, especially the husbands, were like, they hadn't, they had really never met a woman that was that forthright about anything— money, feeding horses, going to horse shows, whatever. So I did hear the back, the backwater on that.

Yeah.

And I did hear from— I still do hear. I was trying to lease a horse the other day, and the lease was going really well to the very end, and then it fell through and they didn't sign the lease on the horse. Now, many of your Viewers probably do not realize that you lease horses just like you lease cars, and that is a big part of my income. Show horses lease for huge amounts of money. So just give people an example. They lease for anywhere between $1,000 and $5,000 a month, which is separate from the board that they would pay to basically—

so just to paint a picture here, the, the farms that I grew up on that you owned were small family farms. We would live on the farm, and the farm would be anywhere from 5 to 25 acres. And there would be anywhere from 6 to 16 stalls where the horses could be indoors in the barn. Then we have big pastures where they could be out and graze. And so you at any given time would own a small handful of horses, but the majority of the horses on the property were boarded— boarders. And so people would pay you a monthly rent essentially, or board, to have the horse be on the property, stay in the stall overnight, be out in the fields. Eat the grass, drink the water. You would be feeding them and mucking out stalls. I mucked out a lot of stalls.

Yes.

So that's one income stream. You also teach lessons to all different skill levels. That's another income stream. Later in life, you started judging. That was another income stream. And what you're talking about here is you would go out, find horses, buy them, train them, and then lease them out. To customers or other people who may or may not board them at the barn, but that was a separate agreement. These leases, just like you said, leasing a car. So you would be making money on these leases as well. And just like with property, there's all kinds of complications with agreements, month to month, long-term contracts, insurance, like all of these.

Absolutely. All of those things. Yep.

Yep. So that just, I wanted to like paint that picture a little bit.

And just like with a car, with horse leases, you usually have an option to buy out the lease at the end. So you make the lease money and then you could also sell the horse or they just lease it. And, and just so people understand why you would ever wanna lease a horse, it is very commonly done with children because they outgrow, for instance, a pony and need to move on to a horse. So it's better to lease your pony if your child is growing fast, or if your child is going to go to college in 2 years, you're much better off leasing a fancy show horse than purchasing one and then having to sell it.

Because they're probably not gonna take it to college like you did.

Exactly. Very, very good point. So at any rate, this lease that was kind of the, everything was going along fine. And I sent this woman the lease agreement and she took an issue with one point in the lease agreement, which nobody has ever had a problem with. So I simply said, I'm comfortable with eliminating this one point on the lease and I will resend it to you, which I did. And she sent me a text a day later and said, I'm uncomfortable leasing this horse. I'm not going to go any further. And so I did a little research to find out what went wrong. I mean, I wasn't going to beg. So I sent her just a little text back, said, if you change your mind, I'm willing to— you can write your own lease and I'll look at it, et cetera, et cetera. But a friend of mine said, that woman just came on so strong, I was scared of her.

Meaning you.

Meaning me. And this was like— 2 months ago. So I was thinking most people said I've gotten a little softer my old age, but all I did was send the lease agreement and then tell them that I did say that I had never had somebody not like that point, but I would take it out. So that's really, you know, that's kind of a long answer to your question.

So when it came to customers, either boarders or, you know, riding students, and when it came to these, you know, some of them being difficult, how would you know when it was time to say goodbye? Like it just, how did you know if it got to a point where you just said, hey, you know what, this isn't working out, let's stop. I need you to come get your horse or we're not gonna do any more lessons.

Short answer is when I started losing too much sleep.

Got it. So I, the, I have a saying that I've been saying a lot lately, which is, it has to do with employees, but very relevant here, which is like, You take the bad ones home with you. If you find yourself thinking and talking about team members at home and like stressing about it, that's kind of a sign.

So, yep. And, and the, the other thing is, is because these people, most of them are boarding at your facility. If you don't want to go out to your barn because they're there, there's probably a problem.

I like that. Yep. And that's a, that's going to be really uncomfortable because it's your property.

So exactly. And the other problem is how do you get rid of them? Because they sometimes are happy with you and you're not happy with them. And so then you have to, you know, you don't want to get sued for discrimination. And they, they do sign a boarding contract and, and their boarding contract, they have to give 30 days notice if they want to leave. But there's actually nothing in my boarding contract saying I have to give them 30 days notice. So it's been, I've only really had to get rid of anybody 3 times in my 50-year career. So that's pretty good. But each time it's been a challenge.

So for, I've been dying to ask you this, in terms of non-payment of boarders, have you ever had to evict a horse?

You don't evict a horse. What happens with that is there's a legal process. And the horse gets put up for auction. And you have to— this is actually, I mean, this is legally how you do it. It's a little different than how you evict your people.

Because you can't just let the horse— turn them loose on the city streets.

I mean, you have to— and I have had to do this— you have to run an ad in the local— I don't know how it is now because newspapers are sort of passé. But back when I had to do this, you ran an ad in the newspaper saying that this horse was going to be auctioned off on this day, private auction at your farm. For nonpayment of board.

This is unbelievable. I never really thought through the logistics of like if someone just stops paying for their horse.

It's really common.

It's at your farm. You're paying still to feed it and everything, and you can't— I mean, unless you know where they live, I guess you could drive it over and drop it off at their house or something.

But it really only happened to me once, but it happens too. It's a very common problem. And so once you won this, and now that newspapers are passé, I don't know what the what you do, but you run this one-liner in the newspaper that nobody actually reads. And, but you've legally said that this horse is for sale for non-payment of board. I can't remember whether you put the amount of non-payment there is, and you send a certified letter to the owner saying that they haven't paid their board. And so how many days? And so the horse is now for sale. And I did take ownership of a horse that way.

So this must be like state law somewhere.

It's state law. Each state is, I think, a little different. Yeah.

And so you took, oh, you took possession of a horse in this way one time?

I did. And the horse was quite a nice horse and I made quite a lot of money when I sold it.

So no one showed up to bid on, on the horse?

Nobody showed up to bid on the horse. The owner never came and got the horse. And the horse, I think she owed me something like $1,500. And I, I remember specifically I sold the horse for $5,600.

That's great.

So I mean, this, this was back in— I want to say this, this was before you were born. Let's see. No, you were born, it was in Ashford. So this—

you were late '80s.

Late '80s. This was late '80s. So that's, I mean, $5,600 in today's market.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. So I know, you know, just from listening to you growing up, you talked a lot about how— and people kind of know the horse business is kind of dirty, and, and I don't mean just mucking out stalls. There's a lot of unethical things that go on in the horse business and the horse industry. You, I know, made a point, of course, to sort of be above all that, and I want to talk a little bit about that. But what are some of the unethical things in general that go on in the horse business? And then if you have any specific stories, I'd love to hear that.

Sure. Well, the, the most common one that everybody hears about is that horses are drugged before the buyer comes to try the horse. So you have a horse that appears to be very calm for your little Sally to buy and for her birthday or for Christmas. And this little horse was drugged before you came to try it, and you take it home and the thing's like a total crazy lunatic. That is less common now than it was. It was very common in the '60s and '70s. But horses that are worth very much at all these days, part of the veterinary examination is to pull a blood test. And to test the horse for drugs. Also commonly done is to do a lot of shortcuts on the care. So if you're boarding the horse, you know, you say that the horse, this is the horse's stall and the horse gets turned out 8 hours a day. But what commonly the manager does is have 2 horses inhabiting that stall. So one goes out all night and the horse is in during, the other horse is in during the day, and then it's the reverse. So 2 horses are using 1 stall and they're collecting full board from both of them. And also what is commonly under very, very deceitful is that you are using somebody else's horse to teach riding lessons on. This is especially true when someone has a 9-to-5 job in New York City or something, and you know they're not coming out to ride their horse. So you can use their horse without them knowing. And of course, this is very bad for the horse's training. It's very deceitful. You're making money on somebody else's horse. And it's, uh, so that's a very common dishonest thing to do. The commission schedule for horses is not at all like it is for real estate. So that's the other big deceitful thing that is done. Very often commissions are collective from both sides. So if I am selling a horse for you, I will get— let's just say I'm selling the horse for $20,000.

I own a horse and I'm hiring you to sell it.

I am, right? So, and you say you want $20,000 for the horse. I tell you that I got $20,000 for the horse when in reality I sold the horse for $30,000. So I just pocketed one-third of the horse's price, which is much more than a real estate commission.. And at the same time, I also made, maybe made money on the other side. So the trainer for the buyer actually also gave me an additional $5,000.

A finder's fee.

A finder's fee. So there, so that's commonly done collecting from both sides. And the most average commission is 10 or 15%, but that's average for, and that's and it should be written in the bill of sale and it should be upfront to everybody, but it rarely is.

It's unreal. Like, I remember talking to you about this years ago and it's just— I mean, imagine you sold your house and your realtor, you just take their word on how much it sold for and they kind of give you the net proceeds. It's insane. And there's just no, you know, there's no consumer protections in this area the way there are— there is for real estate because I presume the state takes the opinion like, hey, these are rich people buying and selling horses. They can fend for themselves. We don't need to put laws in place to protect them. And I don't know, I kind of buy that argument. But it also seems like we need some reform in this area.

Well, the United States Equestrian Federation has really stepped up to this. And they now put out all kinds of protocol about what you're supposed to do. And if somebody like myself being a judge, and I'm licensed by the United States Equestrian Federation, If somebody found out, now it is fairly hard to find out, but if they found out that I was, you know, being dishonest about what I sold the horse for, I could lose my judging license. So it's not that nobody's trying to do anything about it. There is some, some people trying to do something about it, but it isn't regulated by the state or anything. And most horse sales are cash sales anyhow.

And what were, how did you kind of keep your hands clean here? I mean, obviously you wouldn't engage in some of these practices, But did you ever have to forego opportunities or disassociate with people in the course of, you know, operating in this industry?

Absolutely. As soon as I realized that somebody was, you know, regularly drug their horses, even if they had customers to buy my horses and they want, they said, hey, but you send your horse to my barn and I'll show to my customers. I knew they were going to drug it. So I, I wouldn't send the horse because eventually that could come back on me. It's also a big thing with lameness. I didn't really talk about lameness, but there is an old adage, no foot, no horse. Horses have incredible number of foot problems and leg problems, and then they are unsound and unfit for riding and jumping. And so that's the other thing is horses are very often given some sort of a painkiller, either injected straight into their leg, or, you know, like a very sophisticated type of an aspirin. You don't give horses aspirin really, but something like that before a buyer comes to try the horse. And so I never engaged in any of that, but you have to really watch where you send your horse and who you deal with because that is very prevalent.

Where did you learn some of the business skills that you needed in your career? Is this, you know, did you just pick this up from working at other barns? Because, you know, your, your parents, my grandparents, your dad owned his own business. And so, I don't know, maybe you talked with him about owning a business, or I'm just curious, you know, where you picked up some of that.

It was really trial by fire. Most of the barns I worked for, well, the one that had 50 horses in Connecticut, He was a cutthroat businessman, and I actually just caught up with him a few days ago. He's now like 88 and he still has a thriving real estate empire. And so he, I did, he was kind of tough and mean, but I did learn from him. I remember when I was managing the place, he told me that riding lessons are our bread and butter. You don't really make money off boarding horses because you have to pay your employees, you have to feed the horse, et cetera. So he said, any week that you make it, that this farm does more than 100 lessons per week, you can get 50% of those lessons. And as manager, I had a salary and I received a 30% commission on any lesson that I personally taught, but I had 4 instructors, so I didn't teach all 100. Well, I was impressed with that incentive. And likewise, if we ever dropped below like 70 lessons a week, I got hauled into his office. And chewed out. And I would say things like, well, there was this, this was Connecticut. I would say it's Christmas, it's Christmas week, or there was a huge snowstorm. He didn't wanna hear it was Christmas week. He didn't wanna hear about the snowstorm. He said, we have 68 lessons on the books. This is no good. I'll have to sell my school horses. So I, I, I kind of got the fire from him because he had the fire and I was impressed. Otherwise, some of the things I did, and I think I've seen you this in your newsletter, so I know you've, you've caught this either from me or just, just from business in general. I found the horse business to be very seasonal and nobody ever taught me to do this, but I early on started keeping a graph of my income from every single month. And I figured out from that graph that I must never, ever, ever go on vacation in the month of June.

Which is exactly what I do every year.

Right. But June is the highest income for, for the horse business for a number of years. And this one year I went on a 10-day vacation in June and it devastated my income.

It wrecked all your profit for the year.

It's very good weather in June. People are getting out of school. People are getting ready for the summer horse shows. They all want to double up on lessons in the month of June. So that was it. I could never go on vacation in June again. I think it was that Out West trip we went on to Yellowstone. Remember that? Wrecked my business in June. So that was the end of ever going in June. So that was something that nobody taught me, but I just learned through trial and error. And I just noticed, I just noticed how the income went. And then I, you know, I made sure I had all my ducks in a row in the month of June. And the month of August was always terrible because everybody goes on vacation August. And you have Labor Day in August and you would think that would be a great time, but it wasn't very good. So that was interesting to me. It's June, September was my second biggest month.

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Okay. You know this answer to this question, having lived with me. What came in the mail every week and every month?

The Journal of the Horse? Chronicle of the Horse?

Chronicle of the Horse and the Practical Horseman and Horses Illustrated. And actually, United States Equestrian Federation put out their own thing. So you, if you were a, a horse business in the horse business, you got 3 of these magazines every month. And the, uh, the Chronicle of the Horse came out every week and you read it cover to cover. And there were lots of business articles in there. And I wrote, I wrote some of the articles for the Chronicle of the Horse.

I had no idea. The only thing I remember from those was just all horse stuff. I don't remember reading any business things in there.

Oh yeah, there were plenty of business things. A lot of it. And there were even a lot of things about how to collect money from your boarders, how to be a good boarder, how to be a good instructor, how to sell horses, what the commission schedule should be. So that's what you did. You also did talk at horse shows. But then I had my friend down the road, Sue Metzger, that we were always borrowing horses from. She was a shrewd businesswoman and we were like-minded. And we would, just like you and Adam probably, we would get together and we would be shipping a horse to the other person and we'd stop for 15 minutes and we'd talk about business practices.

Talk shop. Yeah. Yep. You have an unbelievable work ethic, as does your husband, my father. And I'm curious where you may have gotten that from because, you know, I thought it was normal growing up, but you guys work unbelievable. I mean, the amount of things that you can get done in a day, just relentless day after day. I mean, it made a big impression on me. I think I picked up on a lot of that. But it, it definitely, I think you probably, you'd agree it was instrumental in your success and how far you went in the industry. And, you know, just curious if you have any thoughts on that because it really stands out to me and I think to almost everyone who meets you, honestly.

I'm not sure where it came from. My parents, I would say, were very medium workers. They were certainly busy, but not, not productive and busy to the extent that both your father and myself are. I think for myself, it was kind of a challenge. I realized that if you, if you did something well, a little bit of the time, if you did it more of it, more of the time, it would be that much more productive. And it was almost intoxicating to me. So I would, I always wanted more riding students, even though I, there was no reason I I was, I can't even explain it. I, there, I always wanted a new riding student, which was kind of a pain. Whenever a new riding student would come to your barn, you'd have to resell yourself time after time. And for dozens of years, it was the, it was kind of like the hunt, like, okay, I'm, I'm going to be better for, I'm going to be a better instructor than their last instructor. And I can, I can win this. It was like a sale. Sales thing, kind of a competitive feeling, a competitive feeling. It took me till about 10 years ago to— maybe 15 years ago to realize that not all students— it's, it's not fun to get new students. You have to learn a lot about them, you have to get them used to your barn. And so I kind of got over it 15 years ago, but now I'm quite the same way with judging. So your father doesn't like me to judge very much because I can be gone anywhere between 1 and 5 days, and it's very long days, and I'm in hotels and what have you. But every time— now I've moved to a new area, and some Maryland shows are hiring me, and it's, again, it's the thrill of the chase. So when a new show manager hires me, or even starts talking to me, I'm like, I gotta get this one. And it's like, I'm not gonna have— in my mind, it's like, I'm not gonna have food on the table if I don't get this judging job, which is totally ridiculous. Yeah. So I think part of it is it was kind of a game, but I also just feel like days are short. Do everything you can.

Along these lines, you've done something which I've never done, which is move to a new location and start over from scratch. You've done that 3 times, basically, where you moved completely away, well out of driving distance of your old farm, and started a new farm and had to find all new customers and all new board and all new everything. You know, I've never done that. I, I moved to Columbus, I started my property management company after a few years, and here we still are. How was that? That sounds to me like almost impossible or just extremely daunting and almost to the point where I just would just give up and just say, I, I'm not starting over. This is just too hard to find all new customers and all new horses and all new everything.

And all new vendors. Finding a new vendor for hay and for feed and for a farrier and a vet, that's really daunting. I think, again, it was a little bit the thrill of the chase. The first time or two, I'm like, I'm going to prove to them in this new state that I'm as good as it gets. And I had to take a couple of not very nice horses and not very wealthy customers who kind of wanted to work off their lessons or do something that isn't very profitable. To kind of get going. But once I got the foot in the door, it, it— there was a ripple effect, and I got going, and I realized I could do it. I think it— I'm trying to decide whether it'd be harder or easier today. Well, I did just move to a new area, but I'm working out of your sister's farm, so she already has, uh, built-in vendors and customers. But I'm trying to decide whether the internet would make this harder or easier because It was very much word of mouth back then. And I did do this thing that you would never see anymore, I don't think. And I had a lot of success from it. I took some cute pictures of you kids on horses and hung up a brochure in the grocery store. Mm-hmm. And I hung it up wherever you could see it and I would refresh it. And I got a lot of customers that way. You would never see that now. Nobody, nobody looks at things in grocery stores.

You still see those bulletin boards, but you're right. I don't think anyone really looks at them anymore. Well, now that hearing you talk about that, I definitely got some of that the way you described it. I feel some of that. I remember starting in the property management industry and I did have that real feeling of I'm going to prove to everyone that I can figure this out and that we can do it better than anybody. I mean, I remember thinking that really clearly and that really got me going and kept me going. And even now, sort of, you know, speaking more, you know, at industry events and writing for the industry and speaking with property managers all over the country, I do still feel that, that drive of like, I'm going to figure out the best way to do this and tell people about it and talk about it and try to really be the best, be the best version of myself that I can be for whatever I'm doing. So, Yeah, that really, really, that really resonates with me. I've never felt a very strong competitive nature against like specific other people. It's much more of, like you said, thrill of the chase. It's like, what can I accomplish? Let me see. And I'm just going to kind of prove it to just the world. I don't know. I don't think of myself as competitive, but I, some of what you're saying there, I think I picked, I think I got some of that from you.

You probably did. Yeah. And it very much kind of under the radar. It was not enough. Definitely not something I got from my parents. It must have just the personality thing because neither of my parents were entrepreneurs, you know, and they, they were not really built that way at all.

Well, Pop, you know, he, your dad had that, he had his own business and it was an inventor and—

Yeah, that was more of a wacky engineer thing. And he'll say, he will be the first one to tell you that he did a terrible job selling the wacky engineer thing that he made. Yeah, his— it wasn't the thrill of the chase, it was the thrill of the technical challenge. The technical challenge, which is a little different.

Yes, you're right. Okay, I want to talk a little bit about family life. I think this is going to be really relevant for listeners today. A lot of my audience has young children, and a lot of my audience is, is married and dealing with questions around either one spouse or both spouses working while the other one stays home and working from home, which is basically what you did for 50 years. It's kind of a different version of it, but so I was curious about what it was like for you raising kids while working out of your home, you know, a home-based business essentially. Us, you know, we were around a lot. It's not like we were shipped off, you know, to daycare all day, every day. Far from it. So very curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Well, I think you do have to have some boundaries, but the boundaries were more for my— I did something a little unusual. I took Wednesdays off. I don't know if you remember that.

I don't.

Of course, people don't take Saturdays and Sundays off much because that's when the competitions are. And so for years and years, I mean, I always took Sunday morning off to go to church, but unless I had a competition, but I did take Wednesdays off and Wednesdays was when I would schedule all your kids' like doctor's appointments and what have you, 'cause there would be no afterschool riding lessons on Wednesdays. And the other thing I did, and this is, uh, your, your viewers will be very interested in this. So there was no texting and there was no cell phones. So, and I had a huge business. I had, you know, 25 students riding per, per week with me. And so they needed to get in touch with me and they needed to schedule lessons, change their lessons, schedule a horse show, whatever. So I had calling hours and they could call me and get me on the phone between 7 and 8:30. And every weeknight, every weeknight. And so you kids were at that time, dinner was over, you were doing your homework and you would stay away from me because you knew, and the phone would ring off the hook. It drove your poor father crazy. And I, I did really—

There was no separate line. I mean, this was like the main house line. There's not like you're in the barn or in an office somewhere.

There was an answering machine. So if you called me at another time, you would get the answering machine and I would call you back between 7 and 8:30. There were, were calling hours. And that's how people would get hold of me. So they weren't expected— if they called me after 8:30, I wasn't picking up the phone. I was putting kids to bed. And if they called me during the day, you might get me, you might not. But I would certainly be doing things with you kids. I would say working from home, I highly recommend it. It's the best thing for people with kids because you kids would be home sick and I could still do my business. I could run in and check on you and go out and, you know, doctor up a horse and come back in and take your temperature and give you some Tylenol. And I could go back out there and teach a lesson. And I honestly do not know how people work, you know, and have to drive into the city or something and work without— with kids, because kids get sick right and left.

What about when we were little? I mean, you can't leave you know, a 4-year-old and 2 1-year-olds to go into the barn and do something.

Yes. So when you kids were too young to go to kindergarten, you went to a half-day daycare, home daycare, so that I could knock off a lot of the horse stuff. And then you would come home and take a nap, and I would use a monitor— not, no cell phone, but, and none of those fancy cameras you guys have now— but I use a monitor and could be doing barn stuff while using a audio monitor, so I would know when you got up from your nap. And then for the afternoon riding lessons, you would come down and hang out. Do you remember the gigantic sand pile by the barn where you would play while I taught lessons? But again, I would take Wednesdays off and there would be plenty of bad weather days that we would get off also. But that's, that's how I handled the, and then you would go to kindergarten and I would, you know, and then first grade. And so then I will get a lot done. While you were in school. So I did schedule things, and I did say no to customers if they wanted to ride on Wednesdays. You know, I would tell them no. I did teach 2 evenings a week also, because, you know, when it, when it was laid out, so you had to schedule on those 2 evenings a week. You couldn't be scheduling. I had this one really annoying customer that was one of the ones I finally had to get rid of that tried to schedule with me every Friday night at 7 PM. Like, she thought that Friday nights were riding lessons, and I'm like, I have a family, I'm not teaching at 7 PM on Friday night. We had fight after fight about this. It was just unbelievable.

Times have changed, but in some ways they haven't. I mean, you guys made it work. You know, my, my dad worked a very traditional 9-to-5 job and had the health insurance and the salary, and you had the horse business and you were home And I mean, you made it work. That's what a lot of people are still doing today. The roles may be reversed in terms of who's out and who's not. And today families have to make these decisions about, are both parents gonna work? Is one parent gonna work? How are we gonna figure this out? Who's gonna take care of the kids? It's actually kind of depressing to me that the situation hasn't really gotten any better at all. I mean, there's no cultural support for alternative arrangements and everything's just kind of this hack together, figure it out for yourself. I mean, you had to take Wednesdays off and have these calling hours in the evenings and this patchwork of sitters and daycares and just kind of a big headache to get it to work. But you, you make it work. I mean, I think it worked out really well and I got so much value from growing up around that and being down at the barn in the sandbox and hearing you talk to customers and hearing you talk to the horse farrier and the hay guy and the manure guy and deal with people who are late. And just seeing you in your element, I mean, that was a privilege. That was a really cool thing, and I really treasure that.

That's one of the great things about having your own business and working from home. If I worked in an office, you would have never seen that part of it. Yeah, you wouldn't have learned that part of me. And I think you probably heard me negotiate with the farrier a lot. We pretty spirited farrier, and I had to negotiate the cost of horseshoes a lot, and I negotiated with the hay guy. And probably some of your business skills came from listening to your mother negotiate.

Definitely.

Absolutely. And there's a, you know, you can do it politely. You don't have to be a jerk about it.

What would be your negotiation advice? Especially, I think, you know, there's a lot of research around the idea that women are less comfortable negotiating. Also, they are perceived more negatively if they do negotiate by men and women, and they end up getting less in many cases compared to their male peers during a negotiation for something like a salary. So how would you, you know, what would be your advice?

I think first of all, you, you have to be nice. You can't be just a witch about it. You, you have to, I, I always say, I think it's from my psychology background, you have to sort of stroke people first. So when, for instance, I was negotiating with my farrier, I would say things like, this horse has done so much better at the horse shows since you started shoeing him because the way you do his feet is making him move better. And I really appreciate that he doesn't lose his horseshoes out in the field. You're doing a great job on him. And then when he would go to raise my price, and then when he would raise the price, I had already praised him about how well he shod. And so I would say, You know, that is too much money for me to be spending on this horse's feed. And you're trying to charge me extra money for each of 8 horses you do, but you get to come to this barn and do 8 horses in 1 day. You don't have to drive to 8 different barns. So it's sort of like the, you know, the, the model where you can, you know, when they go—

It's cost-effective for him.

Cost-effective for him to come. Yes. So I said, I understand that you need to have an increase this year, but how about your increase be $10 per horse instead of $25 per horse? Because you— I've been a good customer. I pay every time you come and you do do a very nice job with my horses. So I think part of it is too, you have to be complimentary along the way. You can't just decide to negotiate from no It's sort of like the earned the right to be heard here. And he appreciated that. And, you know, the same with the vet and the same with the hay guy. You have to tell them when they give you a good batch of hay. And then when you want to negotiate a little bit, they're more willing to listen to you. It's certainly the earned right to be heard.

I also think that you're— it was always clear to me, and I really took away from you this concept of ask for what you want. People are just— they don't even ask, right? Or they come out really hot and just assuming the other person's gonna say no and negotiating just really hard right out, right out of the gate. And you always— that you used to say, and I would just see you, you just ask for what you want. Hey, I'd really like if we can get this for $15 a horse, can we do that? And just being really plain spoken about it. But you're never going to get something if you don't just ask for it.

Yeah, I will say that That probably came from your grandmother because your grandmother had this saying that I used constantly. This was the, and it was always nothing ventured, nothing gained. Remember her saying that? So that, you know, though she wasn't a business person, that idea came from her. I'm like, I might as well ask. I might as well try.

Yeah. In terms of raising entrepreneurial children, so all three of your kids, your biological kids, run their own businesses. So my sister Holly has a horse business, a lot like yours. My sister Julie has a flower business, floral design and weddings. And, you know, one of the things I really remember growing up is your mantra around the phone, which is the phone means money, right? So as kids, we were You know, extremely directed by both of you to answer the phone when the phone rings because the phone means money. It could be a customer, it could be a border, it could be somebody interested in working and doing some type of business with you. So you, you know, from a very young age taught how to answer the phone politely and take a message, write it down, leave it in an obvious area, make sure you capture the person's name and their phone number, not just Hey, somebody called earlier. So that, you know, I'm sure it was a lot more than just that, but for some reason all three of us kids went on to own our own businesses. What do you remember doing when we were kids that you think may have impacted that? Because I think a lot of listeners really would love for their kids to own their own businesses, if not, you know, the property management company that, you know, that, that our, that our audience is, you know, currently owning and managing, but some type of small business.

I'm not sure. The only thing I can think is that I think I made it look like it was fun and it was fun. I mean, I, I did what I loved. I loved horses. I still do love horses and I love the customers for the most part. And so I think when they, they, all my kids saw that I was passionate about what I did. I never thought of it as going to work. I'm going out to ride a horse. I'm going out to teach a lesson. How fun is that? That's not like, oh, I'm getting in the car for a dreadful commute to like sit behind a desk for 8 hours. So I, I do think that your grandmother, uh, as in Gram, she had her own business also. And I know you guys kind of saw that. So it might've been just not me. But I think all of you did see that I was passionate about my business. I made it fun. I put my whole self into it. And that if, and that if you wanted it to work, you better answer the phone.

Yeah. Okay. Last question is around just the longevity in an industry, 50 years in the same industry, essentially the horse business. What are your reflections? I mean, you don't see that a whole lot these days. People tend to bounce around. What are your reflections on building up this deep, deep, deep skillset and knowledge and experience in a specific domain? Do you think that's worthwhile? Is that something you would encourage people to do? And then what did you notice has changed over those 50 years? And you know, Have you seen anything that kind of went in cycles, fads, or things have changed for good, never going back? Kind of curious about that.

I think that if you're going to stay in the same industry for 50 years, you need to figure out how to diversify and move up in that industry. So you pointed this out earlier in the podcast that I boarded horses, I trained horses, I taught riding lessons, I sold horses, I leased horses, then I judge. So I didn't start doing all those. I started teaching ride lessons. That's it. Then I, I had a very thriving sales business for quite a while, and that was my main thing. I probably sold one horse a month, which was highly profitable, but it was, that's a whole thing unto its own. Selling horses is, you have to hustle like you can't believe. And then for about 25 years, my main thing was preparing high-level riders and high-level horses for the, for the show ring. And that requires a lot of travel, that requires a lot of care for the horses. And now my main thing is judging. So I think you have to not stay exactly in the same thing. So if you were baking cookies, for instance, you probably need to not just bake cookies for 50 years. You need to then, you know, teach other people how to bake cookies or start a cooking school for specifically for cookies, or make a mail— go through the mail thing for cookies. So I, I think that's your answer, but I feel like there's a part 2 to the question. Oh, how has the horse business changed? The horse business has changed a lot at the higher level. At the lower level, kids still want to learn how to take, ride horses, and that has kind of never changed and probably won't. It's a little bit more expensive. The liability is a little higher, so people don't get to do fun things like go trail riding very much. But the other aspect, the horse show industry, has changed a lot. And to an uneducated audience, the, the way it's changed is it used to be little teeny horse shows that you go to down the road, and now there's hardly any little teeny horse shows. You pack up your horse and you go for 5 days And it's terribly expensive. And you need a fairly expensive horse to be competitive. And it's not the same genre at all. And I dislike it because who wants to go away for 5 days just because you want to show your horse? And who wants a $50,000 horse just because you want to try one horse show? So I don't think that's positive. But that's the way the industry has gone. And the other thing that is a little different is you used to prepare your own horse for competitions of every type, and now a professional usually gets on and prepares your horse, you know, and, and then they get off and some— and then you get on your horse sort of the last minute and go and, you know, ride your perfectly prepared horse in the show. And I, you know, that's very different too. I don't like it.

Did you do horse 4-H?

I never did Horse 4-H. I did something called Pony Club, which is similar at a slightly higher level. Okay. United States Pony Club.

Would you recommend— like, what would be your recommendation for a parent who has young kids, you know, 6, 7, 8, 10 years old, and the kids want to get involved with horses and riding? Like, would you say Pony Club, 4-H, find a local barn? What would you say?

I would say find a local barn that is not very competition-oriented, or they just go to little competitions, and encourage your kid to become a barn rat where they can clean stalls to work off some of their riding time, where they can be mentored by somebody such as myself, but really check out the barn so that the person that your child is going to be a barn rat for is really a quality individual. Because there's, you know, there's plenty of things that can happen and a lot of you know, all those things I mentioned that are dishonest. You don't want that kind of mentoring. But it's a much more healthy situation to hang out at the local barn with a fun group of kids and a really caring individual than to do this high-level competition or to— the United States Pony Club has changed a lot now. So you need a, you probably need a $25,000 horse to be doing that program. And 4-H clubs vary tremendously. So a good 4-H club will be great, but you, it just depends on the area.

Okay. What are you most proud of?

I'm most proud of getting my judges licenses. It's extremely hard to get. There's probably, I don't know, a couple of hundred judges in the entire United States. It was as a 20-something, I met a couple of judges and I said, that's what I wanna be when I grow up. And I didn't think there was any way I could do that because so many people who become judges have been, you know, very well-mounted on very expensive horses and have ridden almost on the Olympic level. And that's not how I grew up and I never had that chance. So I had to really work to get there and I had to mentor with the right judges and I had to hobnob with the right judges, which is not really my cup of tea. But it's an elite group, and I love to judge, and I love being a judge. I'm proud that I got there. Now, the horse show industry is changing a lot. I'm not sure I want to be judging 10 years from now for various reasons, some of which I kind of mentioned. Everybody's, you know, all the horses professionally prepared, and like, they do some sort of things I don't agree with. Like, they might ride the horse for 3 hours in the middle of the night. In order to have it perform well for me when I'm jetting it at 8:00 AM. And I kind of know what's going on behind the scenes, and that's kind of hard to judge because, you know, you know, not all of them are doing that, but enough are doing that, that it's now getting harder and harder to judge. So we'll see how long I stay in it, but that's what I'm really proud of.

That's awesome. Well, that's all I have. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. I know it's a little unconventional, but I think this was Really great and, and appreciate it.

Well, thanks for having me. I, I always thought it would be fun to be on your podcast because I did know that you got some business ideas from growing up in a, in a home business.

Yep. All right. Well, thanks again.

All right. Thank you.

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.