From 500 to 2,300 Doors: Joni Wolfswinkel’s Property Management Journey | Peter Lohmann's Podcast

You don't have to be doing all this yourself. Let your ego go, which early on, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that, is that they let their ego kind of take control and like, oh, I can do everything, right? I'm Superman, I'm Superwoman, whatever. But once I figured that, you know what, I don't have to be doing it. It doesn't have to be me. Once I put that in perspective and changed my mindset, then that's when I truly started to grow. And then the other part was hiring the right people. So early on, I think that I was just hiring to fill roles, to fill bodies and seats. And in reality, that hurt me, you know, quite a bit. And so had to learn the hard way, kept people, some, some people for far too long, longer than I, I should have. And so now that I've got the hiring process the onboarding process down, and really focusing my time and energy on that hiring and onboarding and finding the right person for the right seat, that's when I truly was able to grow as well.

Friends, welcome back to Peter Lohmann's podcast. Couldn't be more excited today to introduce Joni Wolfswinkel. Joanie, thanks for coming on the show today.

Well, thank you for having me on, Peter. Super excited to be on this podcast.

Yeah, and I'm excited to have you. So, Joanie, you are quite a name in the industry. I knew your name for a long time before I even really got started with any of my stuff. And but so a lot of people are already familiar and I'm excited to talk about some of what you've been up to. For anyone who isn't, though, I'd love to have you just give us like a 2 to 3 minute high-level background on what you've been up to and then we'll get going.

Yeah, sure. So for those that don't know, I own two real property management franchises, one in Houston, Texas, and the other in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So between the two markets, we manage just about 2,300 doors. And so yeah, built a pretty large team. Love the culture that we've built, and it actually has been able to get me out of the day-to-day. And I actually now run a remote team member business called TruWork Logistics, and Really what I like to focus on that end is really helping business owners grow in scale and get out of their own way, so to speak, because as entrepreneurs we think we have to do everything ourselves, be everything right. And once I truly figured that out, I was able to myself grow and scale my business. So that's kind of where I'm headed these days.

Perfect. Okay, so I did not realize the scale of your operation. 2,300 doors. Is awesome. I'm curious, why is it two separate franchises? Like, would it have been possible to have like one that operated in two locations?

Yeah. So funny story. So born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, right? And we actually— my husband and I actually moved to Houston in '05. So we were real estate investors. We actually were actually buying pre-foreclosure properties back in '05. And how the property management kind of started was when the market kind of took a turn in '08, we were like, oh crap, like what are we going to do? We can't be flipping houses for the rest of our lives. And so we were looking at property management options and franchise options because what we were doing, we had a unique model where we had transitioned to sell to investors who understood the market, all of that good stuff. And essentially we would manage the properties for the investors. So, Needed a property management, knew nothing about it. And so the franchise was kind of that best option for us at the time.

Yeah.

And then several years later, our investors are like, hey, well, we don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket in one market, you know? And so since we were selling turnkey properties, we thought, well, we knew the Albuquerque market really well. And so there was actually a franchise that had opened up. And so we acquired that company. And open another market for investors to purchase in.

Okay.

So that's how that came about.

That makes total sense. So you went back, bought a franchise in your hometown.

Exactly.

It was already existing, probably had some brand recognition going. So like, hey, let's just keep rolling with the existing name.

Correct. Yes. Yeah.

And do you operate those two locations as totally separate businesses with separate P&Ls and separate entities, or is it operated under one big entity?

So totally separate entity. Okay. So we, yeah, so we operate them separately. We have, you know, our team in Albuquerque managing that. It's a remote staff. And then our Houston office.

Okay. So just these two monster locations.

Yes.

And you know, not for nothing, that's a lot of doors. That's over 1,000 doors in each market, I'm guessing, or close to it.

Yep.

Which, you know, that's a, that's an accomplishment. Any, I think any operator who gets over 1,000 doors in one metro area, like, That always impresses me because you've reached like this density, which has its own advantages, but it's not easy to do. Like anyone who's over 500 doors, you know that your churning is just brutal. Like even if your churn is good, let's say it's like 12%. If you're at like 800 doors and you're churning 12% a year, which would be really good, that would be 96 doors a year just to stay at 800 doors. If you want to get to 1,000 or more, you have to somehow overcome that. So serious, serious operations.

Yeah, it's definitely a serious operation. And I will tell you, like, my background, like, I actually, I was flipping houses in college, so knew nothing about, you know, growing teams, operational stuff. And so definitely has been a lot of failure, failure after failure, you know, growing pains. But I think right now we're in a place where we've got a really good leadership team. At a high level can operate the business.

And is it all single-family or is there some multi in there as well?

So we, in our Houston market, we do have a small multifamily division, but we operate it separately, obviously, because multifamily is a total different beast than single-family.

Okay, got it. And each office, it sounds like, has their own leadership team?

Correct. Yes.

Got it. So it's you and your husband, the co-owner, who are sort of ownership and then each, each office has like a president or something?

Yeah. So how it's made up is we have somebody in operations that sits on the leadership team, somebody in finance that sits on that leadership team, our COO, and then a marketing and sales person that kind of sits on that.

Okay. Awesome. Really cool. TruWork Logistics, which is like a global talent placement type of agency, RTMs. I'm assuming that just grew right out of your own need to staff your own existing companies.

Exactly. So we've been, I mean, obviously using remote team members for the last, I would say, 12 years or so.

Early adopter even by property management standards. And we were early, I think as an industry we were early to that. But you were like early to the early.

Yeah. And I think how I figured that— so I would— I was probably at the 500-door mark at that time. And I remember because I was actually pregnant with my daughter and I was fixing to, you know, go on maternity leave and I'm sitting there doing my work, right? And everything's basically coming to me. And at the time I had a coach and mentor that said, Joni, like you're doing this to yourself, nobody else but yourself kind of thing. And so if you don't figure a way to get outta your own way, you'll always be kind of stuck in this 500 door mark. Which there was a lot of truth to that. And so, you know, when I got back after maternity leave, I thought, all right, this is, this is it. I need to put some things in place so that way I can, you know, hire some remote team members in. Mm-hmm. Really worked out for us, you know, on the P&L. I mean, I would, I could see the numbers. I'm like, man, like, I mean, the, our salaries, we were paying a lot in salaries and I just saw that right off the top. Like we were, you know, saving money that way. And then, so it just grew into that. There was actually an opportunity for me to buy a remote team member business. So it is, it was an existing company. So I took it and I actually had a vision for it because, so I don't know if you're familiar with Neighborly, but Neighborly, they have probably about 32 different brands through Neighborly. And so we saw the need there, you know, with hiring remote staff. And so we really went deep into Neighborly. And so We actually service our RTMs through all the different brands, not just Real Property Management.

So you're fulfilling— you're placing RTMs not only in RPM franchise, not only in your own companies, but in other RPM franchisees, and not only in other RPM franchisees, but the other— how many other brands did you say? 17?

Oh, 30. 30 different brands.

30 different brands under Neighborly. So all of those franchisees, which is That's got to be tens of thousands of franchise locations across all those brands.

Correct. Yep. And it's kind of a new concept to them too. So, you know, it's educating them and kind of showing them like—

They're behind property management, aren't they?

Exactly.

We were, we were desperate. We were just like, oh my gosh, we need help. We need, we need, we need people who can get some work done without breaking the bank.

Exactly. Yeah.

That's got to be a great business like that in with Neighborly. That's, that's got to be doing really well for you guys.

It is, and it's a lot of fun too, because, you know, I love just to give back and help wherever I can. And if, you know, just giving back to some of the franchises is, is kind of my passion now.

Yeah, really cool. And are you finding that other industries, like when you approach them about like, hey, by the way, did you know you can get someone in the Philippines for $7 an hour who can really handle all of your back office tasks? Like, how are they responding to that?

So at first they're like, it's too good to be true. There is no way that you can get somebody for a fraction of the cost. So yeah, until, you know, and it takes one. We work with a lot of like the bigger offices. So once they see them, it works, it's working for them. Then they're, you know, eventually they come in like, all right, like I want to try this kind of thing. But at first, yes, it's like, yeah, there's no way that you can get.

Yeah.

Somebody for that cheap and the talent, right? Because I mean, there's some things that we do on our end to make sure that it's one thing to find a VA, but it's another to actually find the right VA, right? One that has the skill set. We do a lot of testing on the front end. We use the— I'm sure you're familiar with the Predictive Index.

So we use Predictive Index.

Yeah. And you can really get, you know, pretty close to what you're looking for. Right. And so we try to weed out ton of 'em before we even bring 'em to the candidates. So we do a lot of that in the front end.

Are you comfortable sharing like how many placements a month you're doing across all these?

So we're about 15 right now a month, and I think it's, it's definitely is growing, especially because of where we're at right now. It's really hard to find in-house people, key in-house people, you know, without going broke.

Yeah. Totally. Okay, awesome. And the model, because I know there's a couple different models with these RTMs, like, are you, are they employed through you and like you're handling the salaries, or is it like direct hire where after you match, then they, they employ them directly?

So actually our company is a Mexico-based company. So what's nice is that we pay the taxes on behalf of the RTM. So technically they're our employee, you know, and so which in turn I find that they actually stay longer term because they're, they're looking for stability within a company. Yeah. Right. As opposed to like a freelance VA, we've noticed that there's a chance where they might be working for you and they might be working for 2 other property management companies. Yeah. And so when we hire these remote team members on, we, they know that this is their only 9 to 5 job and that's it. Mm-hmm. And so in turn, I feel like they stay longer term.

In terms of— so back to the property management businesses, what really had to change either with the way you thought about the business or how the business operated to break through the 800 to 1,000 door mark? And I'm going to be very selfish and ask you the exact problem that I have in my business. Right. Hopefully some other listeners will get some value here, too. But, you know, we've been around and I've written quite a bit about this. We've been around 600, 700 doors for a couple of years now. We've, we're at that plateau. I'm curious, did you have some plateaus like that and what, what overcame those?

Yeah, so a couple things is, number one, I had to grow as a leader. You know, that wasn't natural for me, right? And so getting a mentor, reading all the books, you know, podcasts, like really soaking myself into learning and growing as much as I could. And then I will say that, so it wasn't working harder. No, no, it was getting, getting my mind straight, right? To say that, hey, like you don't have to be doing all this yourself. Let your ego go, which early on, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that, is that they let their ego kind of take control and like, oh, I can do everything, right? Yeah. I'm Superman, I'm Superwoman, whatever. But once I figured that, you know what, I don't have to be doing it. It doesn't have to be me. You know, that there's that, the, there's a good book out there, Who Not How, right? And so once I put that in perspective and changed my mindset, then that's when I truly started to grow. And then the other part was hiring the right people. So early on, I think that I was just hiring to fill roles, to fill bodies and seats, and In reality, that hurt me, you know, quite a bit. And so had to learn the hard way, kept people, some, some people for far too long, longer than I, I should have. And so now that I've got the hiring process down, the onboarding process down, and really focusing my time and energy on that hiring and onboarding and finding the right person for the right seat, that's when I truly was able to grow as well.

Got it. Very helpful. Do you have sort of ambitious goals for the two offices in terms of door count? Like you're, you know, you have this big vision and dreams of growing, or are you kind of like, hey, these businesses are operating awesome. Yes, we want to grow slow and steady, but these are going to be kind of where they're at, you know, with slow growth for the foreseeable future.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think we're at a point now where, you know, we're growing pretty steady. We've actually been able to acquire smaller property management companies in both markets, anywhere from, you know, 100 to 150 doors, you know, a year. So that's actually been helpful in our growth. We're actually looking at a couple of different markets to open up now that we've got Houston, Albuquerque running pretty smoothly. So in the future, we're probably going to open another one in Texas because I don't have to get another license and probably another one in New Mexico as well.

Today's episode is sponsored by Crain's Access Granted live webinar coming up on September 30th. If you haven't heard of Crain, it's a private community for property management business owners who want freedom of time. I co-founded Crain with Wolfgang Kroski 2 years ago, and the community has grown very quickly with over 170 members. We only open up twice a year to admit new members, and the next application window opens very soon. Our upcoming Access Granted live event is for current and prospective Crane members. This is our first ever launch event for Crane, and we've saved up a ton of exciting news and announcements that will affect everyone in the industry. As part of the event, we're doing a 1-year Crane membership giveaway, which we've never done before. We're also gonna be announcing new ways to pay for your Crane membership, the location of the next Crane Horizons retreat, Upcoming Crane Unplugged dinners around the country where you can mix and mingle with members, and tons more I can't even talk about yet. If you've ever thought about joining Crane, this is the event to get your questions answered and learn about all the amazing benefits that members enjoy, some of which end up paying for the membership costs multiple times over. To register for the live event, go to joincrane.co or click the link in the description. See you there. Okay, very good. So, you know, not slowing down. Sounds like, hey, more offices. Let's keep— we figured out how to, how to, you know, start and grow companies. Let's keep going.

Exactly. Yep.

And you think those will be acquisitions when you find the right company, or you'll just start them from scratch?

It will be acquisitions. Yeah. That's one thing that I will say, that if I were, you know, starting all this, I probably would've acquired. Because once when we did acquire the Albuquerque office, I mean, things were, you know, yes, there were some things that we had to fix,, but it really helped us, you know, in terms of being able to hire quicker, you know, growing at a steady pace, that sort of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. It definitely seems like you are very comfortable in the acquisition motion at this point. And sounds like if you have some business experience, you really view it as like a shortcut to, hey, if, if you know you want to be involved with something and you see an opportunity, just, just jump on it and you can do some course correction, but it'll cut off a couple years of slow and slow growth. Yeah. Very cool. So do you spend much time on the conference circuit? I think you and I ran into each other recently at a conference. I was curious, like, are you, do you feel like you sort of outgrown that phase of it or are you just there with TrueWork Logistics anyway and you just love doing it?

Yeah. So I mean, when back in, what was it? When did we meet? Probably 3 or 4 years ago. I think I was more involved with the conferences. Now I, I send my leadership team. Mm-hmm. So, you know, I think they're gonna get the value out of that. So I don't go to as many conferences anymore. I just let my team and then they come back and tell me, hey, this is, you know, what they got from it. Yeah. That kind of thing. I think it also helps them grow as well. So I'm not as involved in the conferences anymore.

Sure. And you guys, do you normally get a booth for, for TWO?

We do. Yes.

Yeah. I think I've seen that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very cool. So yeah, we'll, I think we'll be a, so I'm gonna be at Southern States is the next one because I'll be speaking on natural disasters. But yeah, so TruWorks will have a, a booth there as well.

Awesome. So I love the vantage point you have both in terms of the scale and two different offices. I want to ask you what you're observing about our industry, the property management industry. In the last year or so? And I want to set aside AI because everyone talks about AI nonstop. We've all seen and heard a lot about AI. Outside of that, what are you noticing? What are you feeling? What are the vibes? What are the, you know, is it easier than it used to be, harder than it used to be? Technology. I'm curious, like, from your perspective, what you're seeing.

Yeah, I mean, I think that with all the tools out there that property managers have. I think in that sense, yes, it makes our job easier and more efficient. We can be more efficient with it. But I mean, as far as, I mean, it's in terms of growth, that has been hard, right? I know that our teams, our sales teams are out there pounding the streets and the SEO isn't working as well as it used to, right? And so we're really having to be out there, be the local expert, expert, really beef up our realtor referral program, which is right now that's really what's working for us is really networking with those realtors. And so we're having to, to go back to old school stuff. Mm-hmm. And not just rely on SEO.

What does your team do to enhance those realtor connections and referrals? Like, are they going to the realtor meetups or like how are they actually facilitating that?

Yes. So they're required to actually go to in-office realtors and, and bring them donuts or kolaches, you know? An offer for them to sit down with our team meetings and really just provide the value. I actually do a lot of CE classes. So here at the office, I'll do a CE class once, once a quarter. And so really just getting those realtors in, showing them how we can be a partner, which has been really cool because, so we in, we have what's called the Wealth Optimizer. And so we can take, you know, property and we can put in the Wealth Opti— Optimizer and we can analyze the deal. And so we use that tool to help our realtors. So if they have a client that is interested in purchasing a property, we'll help them to analyze that deal for them to see if it makes sense for the investor. And so just naturally showing them that tool, like, let's be a partner with this. You know, we've been getting realtor referrals off of that. And once the investor's ready to sell, we tag it in our CRM system, LeadSimple, and give that right back to the realtor to sell because we want them to capture that sale.

Yeah, we do the same. We don't, we don't do brokerage in-house. Do you guys do maintenance in-house?

We don't. Everything is outsourced. Yeah, we outsource everything. We tried that, you know, and honestly, it's another business. I have way too many businesses.

I'm going to ask you about that.

We're going to come back to that. I do not want to have another business though. Yeah. You know, it just worked out for us where we outsource everything, you know, and obviously upcharge on that.

Got it. And do you take advantage of like the neighborly brands in your vendor network? Do you get some kind of a discount or anything?

No, we've tried, but so the Neighborly brand, I think that was the initially when Neighborly kind of brought Real Property Management, we thought that that's how it was going to go. But Neighborly is more of a premium brand, so it's a lot more expensive, so it hasn't worked out. I do own a Mr. Rooter Plumbing in Albuquerque, so Mr. Rooter does all of my Albuquerque plumbing and we have used the Houston location as well. So Depends on the brand.

That's really interesting that you own a Mr. Rooter. I didn't know that. How do you like owning and running a plumbing company versus a property management company? Like, what, what's the same?

What's different? Well, I will say that I will never own a plumbing company again. So we are actually selling that right now. So we're actually under contract. We're actually selling it to one of our main technicians. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's You know, right now Sean, my husband, he's been running that business and it's different because I think it's kind of a maintenance, like a maintenance company. So the technicians, I feel like they're a lot of work, right? You have to always be managing them, monitoring them, that sort of thing. There's a lot of, I mean, just like property manager, there's turnover, but it's higher in the plumbing industry for sure. And as far as like the capital that you need, and I mean, it's, the materials, the equipment that you need for plumbing, it's actually pretty large. So yeah, I mean, we started a property management company and we really didn't have a whole lot of laptops and a lockbox. You're in business. Yeah. So, but when it comes to, you know, sewer machines and all that, it's just, it's a lot.

Yeah. All right. Interesting. Yeah. We have some people in our office who, who came to us with home services type of business experience, like a pest control company. I'm always interested in like, there's some crossover there because we kind of are running like little home service businesses as property managers with the added layer of complexity. So the fantasy I always have in my mind is like, oh, well, if I just own like a normal home services business, like a plumbing company, that should be easier, right? Because you don't have like this other layer of like the tenants and you're just dealing directly with the homeowner. You just have that one customer. But it sounds like maybe not.

Maybe not. No, no. I always say, and I, I say this now, like looking back, if I started all of this, I would've just focused on my core, like focused on property management, focused on what I actually know. Yeah.

Right.

And then start instead of all these different verticals because it really does slow your growth down. Because you're also pulling people. Initially we were pulling people to help with the accounting and plumbing or helping with this and the plumbing, right? And it just doesn't work out as you envisioned it.

I've heard a lot of similar sentiments from business leaders I respect, this idea of focus and just sticking with— if you're going to be good at something, stay with it, get great at it. Alex Hormozi talks—

he's always talking about this. He just had a podcast on this, which— yeah, totally. I mean, just get really good at what you do, perfect, you know, different parts of the business and instead of trying to conquer the world. Like, I tried that and I can tell you it wasn't easy. If I could do it all over again, I would have just focused on my core, which is property management.

Yeah. I mean, you're preaching to the person who needs to hear it. I was going to say the choir, but not the choir. You're telling the person who needs to be hearing this. You know, I also have a couple of different businesses and get a little, you know, distracted and shiny idea syndrome. I think I'm, I'm getting better at it and I'm ruthless about saying no to stuff these days. Alex Hormozi talks about like it gets harder and harder to say no because the better you get, the cooler the opportunities that come your way. So something that would have been unbelievable, life-changing opportunity even as recently as like a few years ago now is just a distraction that's actually not going to be the best use of like time and focus. And you're like always having to reset mentally. What's the, what's the opportunity cost? It keeps going up and up and up, right?

No, totally. Yeah. So now I look at it is, all right, does it align with my vision and goals? If it does not align with my vision and goals, like, Joni, you need to—

Yeah. Okay. Very interesting. Say more about that. So do you, you have a set of personal of personal vision and goals that are over and above any specific business. So I assume every— I think I heard you say during my prep for the show that you guys run EOS in every business. So every company will have its own, you know, 3-year vision and 1-year goals and rocks and all that. But you may— you have like some sort of overarching personally that helps decide where to allocate your energy.

Basically EOS for us personally. Okay. So it does, we, we run the same EOS for our personal goals, right? And if it doesn't at a, if it doesn't match up or align with that, then we're not doing it.

Okay, cool. So this is like you and your husband have like a family EOS or a couple, like, you know, here's what we wanna be doing over the next.

Exactly. Yep. And we also, I mean, our, my, my oldest is 15, so, you know, he's part of that as well. Our 11-year-old is, is as well.

He's old enough to get rocks.

Yeah, exactly right. And so, but we want them to learn and, you know, because he's, he's going to be working in the business in the next year, and so we kind of try to get him involved in that.

Very cool. Yeah, I've heard that idea of using EOS as like a family organizer is definitely gaining steam. If they were smart, they would like jump on that and sort of release a version specific to that and support it with some of the tools and stuff. That would be really neat. Or someone could like, maybe someone could license, license their intellectual property and like create that. That'd be neat.

You know what, Peter? I'm not gonna start another business. I just, that's a good idea though.

Let's talk ourselves into something. All right. So speaking of EOS, I did wanna ask you about how you and your husband Sean break apart or separate work stuff. Like I assume there's some kind of a visionary integrator dynamic happening there, or maybe you're both visionaries and you have integrators working in the businesses. Curious how it, how you, how you found your rhythm in terms of who does what.

Yeah. So anymore today, I've actually, I don't do as much of the property management anymore. So Sean is the visionary and then we have our, our leadership team and I sit on the leadership board. So obviously I have say so in that, but any more day-to-day stuff, like I, I really don't have any involvement in. And so it's initially though, when Sean and I were building the business together, we were both kind of the visionaries, the big picture, right? But as we grew and scaled, then it just made more sense for me to do my thing and, and he can handle the RPM stuff.

So, okay. Sounds like early on two visionaries. I have been in some partnerships like that and it's, it can be done, but it's, you have to be very careful and, and really be clear with communicating, you know, who's actually going to go and do this stuff. Did you have some trials and tribulations as you settled into that groove?

And that was part of the reason why we separated it is truly you can only have— I feel you can only have one true visionary. Sure. And that was Sean. And so for me, I'm the brokers of the company, so I oversee, you know, the property management companies. But as far as everything else, I hand it off to Sean. He's obviously the better visionary.

Got it. So are you— which business are you the most involved with day to day these days?

TWL. So True Work Logistics is basically what I do on a day to day.

Okay, got it. Very cool. And how big is your team there?

So our TWL team is out— so we are a team of 10, about 10. And then on our RPM side, I think we're close to about 40-ish.

Nice. Okay, cool. Are you able to share like a Predictive Index license across all those businesses? Because that is expensive.

Yeah, it is expensive, but we make it worth work because we also use it for our internal hiring for RPM, for all of our offices. So it works out where it, you know, it makes sense for us, but it is very expensive.

I've tried to negotiate with those guys and they do not budge. They're very rigid on pricing.

They won't.

Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how to get like a big group together and like do a, a big group buy with a great license rate or something. But today's episode is sponsored by AppFolio, the technology leader powering the future of the real estate industry. Speaking of the future, AppFolio has an event coming up that you can't miss. And I'm super excited to be on the speaking lineup this year. Get ready to dive into everything from using Agentik AI to surviving leasing season at the Future conference happening October 13th to the 15th in sunny San Diego. So I get to go this year. I'm really hyped about that because everyone who went last year was raving about it. If you bumped into anyone who was able to go last year, you know what I'm talking about. It pretty much blew everyone away. Not only that, but I'm actually taking the stage to share exactly how I've taken the month of June away from my business for 4 years in a row. And I'm also really excited because my business partner in Crane, Wolfgang Kroski, is speaking in a couple sessions as well. He's honestly a more experienced presenter than me, so skip my session to catch his. Honestly, he's way funnier. Even better, catch keynote speaker Robin Arsene, Global Fitness Leader and Head Instructor at Peloton, and wrap up with an epic party at the Radio Shell featuring a legendary performance you won't forget, I promise. So listen, Future's not your typical industry conference. It's not just a user conference for AppFolio. It's where the future of the real estate isn't just talked about, it's built. To register for this not-to-be-missed event, and see more breakout sessions, visit futureconference.com. That's futureconference.com, and I'll see you in San Diego. All right. Awesome. And I definitely want to ask you about your content. So you and Sean have a podcast and it's been going for a long time. You've been at it a while. What was the impetus for that? Because the content, it doesn't seem like it's targeted as a way to grow your management company necessarily. It seems more targeted to other business professionals.

Yeah. So it's really an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial-based podcast. And initially when we started it, we were, because we service a lot of, you know, our investors who, you know, that were investing in us, whether they're buying a property from us or where they're investing money to, you know, purchase a property, that kind of thing. And so, we just wanted them to kind of connect with us, right? And get to know us and kind of be that local expert in the industry. So that was the initial thought. And then, you know, over time it just kind of, you'll be surprised, like we get, you know, individuals that are like, I'm interested in a property or, you know, I need an RTM or I just need help with my business. Right. And so really just trying to add as much value based on, because we've been in business 26 years. And we've gone through pretty much everything that you can think of. And so if we can touch one person, hey, yeah, to us that's worth it.

That's great. What's, what was the first property management software you guys used, like way back?

So the first software we used was PropertyWare. Okay. And so being part of a franchise, obviously you don't get to say in what software system you use. And I remember we were, I don't know, I probably had 100 doors when we were using PropertyWare. And I don't know, I don't know if you were in business at that time, but it like the whole system went down and we couldn't like email, we couldn't do anything. We couldn't send owner draws, we couldn't do anything. It like totally collapsed. Wow. And so like 2 weeks later, finally it came back.

2 weeks later?

2 weeks later.

Yes.

And I'm like, there is no way we could have operated our business. Like, can you imagine if something like that went down?. And so then the franchise started looking at different options because of that. And so that's when we started using Outfolio.

Okay. Wow. 2-week outage. I did not hear, I need to research that.

That's crazy. Oh yeah, it was. And I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it felt like 2 weeks.

I bet. Yeah.

It was definitely like a week and a half.

Yeah.

And our owners, I just remember them yelling at us. Yeah. Because we couldn't get the owner draws out. Yeah. And anyhow, so we're, the franchiser's like, we can't have this.

Again. So, and PropertyWare's still around, like, they must have got it figured out, which, you know, hey, all right, things happen. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. And like, what, what's really— so by the way, we should say the name of the podcast, which is Inside the Wolf's Den. And the— your podcast really stands out because it's super, like, the setup is very professional. Like, you've obviously invested in the studio and the lighting, and it's got this unique arrangement with like your guests on the screen and you guys are on either side. So, and I was just, I was just a guest on the show. Thank you for having me. Yes, absolutely. So what, tell me more about that because that's obviously not something where you guys were just like, because what I do with this stuff is I'm always like, all right, where's the microphone? Let's just start. Like, I'm so, when I get an idea, I'm like, we just need to just do this before we invest a bunch of time and money. Is that what you guys did, or did, is this something where you invested from the start?

So I'll kind of give you some backstory on this. So Shawn and I happened to be in Mexico vacationing and we met a guy, which you met Brett Moses on the podcast. He was at the resort we were staying at and he was from Houston and he was looking to get into a different industry and he was in marketing. And we thought, well, how cool would that be? Like he was, you know, he, he was the right fit for our company.

You guys are having drinks poolside in Mexico. Yeah. We're having drinks poolside. You're like, we should go in business together.

And we were talking, we were talking about, you know, our dreams to have a podcast. Yeah. This and that. And he got back to Houston and he reached out to Sean and I and he's like, hey, like, I'm, I really liked you guys. I'm, you know, would you gimme an opportunity to work for your company? At the time, Sean and I really couldn't afford to hire a true like marketing guy. Mm-hmm. And so, but we thought, all right, this is an investment. So, you know, fit what we are looking for. So we brought him in and he moved from Beaumont, Texas. Moved us to, to Cypress in our area and started working for us. And so that was his first thing. He's like, well, I'm gonna make your dreams come true. I'm gonna start a podcast for you. Because his background, he actually was in entertainment in LA, and so he filmed a lot of shows and videos. That makes sense. And so he knew, you know, what he was doing in terms of starting a podcast. And so he came to us with the vision of what he wanted as far as the studio and made it happen. Cool. So yeah, so that's kind of how that— it's nice to have somebody that knows what they're doing. And then our editing is actually done by an editor out in LA who obviously works on, you know, I think the last show he did was like Ninja Warriors. Oh, you know, stuff like that. So really cool.

Definitely professional. Yeah. And it definitely stands out like the branding is, you know, it's instantly recognizable, that studio. I know that you and Sean have talked about branding and it's something that's clearly important. You have consistent branding across like your content. Where did you sort of get that? Is that something you've always been passionate about or did you like learn that over time?

I mean, it's definitely something that we've learned that over time, you know, just, and to be honest, a lot of that has come from, you know, our marketing guy. Who was good at the branding side of things. And so, you know, just taking his lead and letting him kind of lead that side of things. But then, you know, I kind of like being the face of the company to begin with. So, and Sean, he's totally not, he's like, sit me in the back of the room, you know? And so Brett has really used me to kind of be the face of it and create content around that.

Okay. Really cool. And the content, the long time period in which you've been creating content. Now, I know you have the podcast and there's a video version of it. Do you or Sean produce any other forms of content besides that? Like, where are you most active on social media?

So LinkedIn is probably where we're most active on social media. Of course, we post our— we create our— our VA creates little reels off of the podcast and those go on to You know, like Facebook or Instagram, those sort of things. So we're on all different platforms, but, and YouTube, a lot of our stuff is on YouTube as well. But for the most part, LinkedIn is where we actually share a lot of our content.

Okay. Very good. Returning to sort of the idea of focus, multiple businesses, and you've been in business a long time. Where, what are you thinking in terms of like So I guess what I'm asking is a lot of people would take a look at what you've accomplished and they would think, hey, she's made it. Like she's got multiple businesses, multiple thousand-door-plus PM companies, her own podcast. And so I'm curious about sort of where your head is these days in terms of focus. And also, have you given yourself permission to let off the gas pedal?

Yeah, really good questions on that. So where my head is on focus today is I'm trying to simplify my life. You know, I've, I realized that having more is not necessarily better. And so, you know, as I, as I get older, I realize, okay, like where I really wanna spend majority of my time is with my kids, right? We only truly, you have, there's a great book out there. It's 18, it's called 18 Summers. And you truly only have 18 summers to spend with your kids. We're about to start another one. Right? And so, so that's where my focus is now is that it's not about, yes, I've created a legacy and I've created the businesses that I have. Now it's about, all right, let's go ahead and, you know, build those, let the leadership team build those, and then I can focus on family time, be more present with my family. Like, we take off a month every summer, right? And that's truly like off the grid, no phones, no emails, nothing. Truly just focus with my children and my family. And that honestly, it wouldn't have happened unless I could have delegated everything off my plate, like putting systems in place, structure in place so that we could truly do that.

Yeah. And so it sounds like the answer is yes. You have basically given yourself permission to, hey, this is great, things are running awesome. I'm going to refocus on family while we have these number of summers left. And do you think that, you know, as your kids grow and go away to college, are you going to be like, all right, let's get back to it? Are you going to sort of from that point you're like, all right, you know, it's kind of nice to not be 100% oriented around work and performance and business. I mean, by the way, these are all questions I'm struggling with as well.

So yeah, no, it's a valid question. I mean, and I feel— I mean, we, we spent a decade knocking on pre-foreclosure doors like then, and that was like hard work, like running 25 doors a day. 7 days a week, getting all the rejections, the nos. I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I'm pretty satisfied. I don't need a lot more, honestly. I've got my rental portfolio that I own. And so I honestly don't think that once they graduate, I think I'll probably go buy a house close to where they're at, spend more time with them or travel because we love to travel. Yeah. So I don't think I will go back to working as much as I did. I've, I've done that. I've done my time. Yeah. And now it's about just, you know, building it steady and hey, hopefully one day my kids will wanna take over the business.

Yeah.

I'm not, I'm not gonna sell anytime soon, so hopefully they'll, you know, wanna take over that.

Sure. All right. That sounds like a really healthy approach and I think when I think about my own journey, I worry about getting bored, but I just have that personality where I'm just, I get bored really easily. People, my parents, like, still make fun of me about that to this day. And the idea of like kids taking over the business, that's an interesting one that you brought up. I mean, I know that you get the emails and the letters and the phone calls from the acquirers, right? And I just released my M&A report. Like, there's a lot of there's a lot of M&A activity. So you could at any time sell to another franchisee or sell, you know, work out some deal with a franchise and sell to one of the roll-up groups. But it sounds like that's not of interest and you've gotten the businesses to a point with these leadership teams where you don't, you don't need to do that in order to step back.

Exactly. No. And I mean, I honestly like the recurring revenue, you know, and so with the stuff, the rental portfolio that we've built, You know, this is just the cherry on top, really.

Yeah. Out of the, you know, the rental portfolio, the property management companies, TWL, everything that you've been involved in, what are you, what are you really most proud of? Like, what do you look back on? You're like, okay, that's kind of my— that's the thing that I'm going to tell to my grandkids and explain how proud I am of the challenges we overcame and the end product that, that resulted.

Yeah, good question. I think like looking back, I don't think I ever thought I would be where I'm at today. Like, and, and we, we had some pretty high goals and visions, you know, and like getting to where we're at owning multiple businesses, but then also just learning for me to be the leader that I am today, that was not easy. That, that took a lot of work to get to where I'm at and just for my kids to see like how hard we worked to get here. You know, hopefully that will instill in them that, yeah, working hard and eventually they'll get there if they work hard. I've got, I have some friends, for example, they, they're, they sold their emergency care center years ago, but they, they sold it so they can be, you know, available to their kids, right? And be there for their kids. But then as our kids grew up, they didn't ever see their parents work. And so to this day, you know, they haven't seen their parents work. And so they're, they're having a tough time. Right. And so I don't want my kids to, you know, just live off mom and dad. You know, I want them to see the value of what hard work will get them. And hopefully that is what I'm doing.

Yeah. That is a fascinating topic. It's something I, I think about too, because You got a really early start in your business career. I kind of did too, although not as early as you. And by the time both my kids are teenagers, I mean, even now, like things are going well. And so by the time my kids are teenagers, work is definitely going to be optional for me. And even the work that I am doing, I'm not going to be, you know, working these 80-hour weeks and knocking on doors like you did. Early in your career, and I did a lot of stuff like that early in my career, but my kids weren't around then. Right. So I worry about that too. Like, are my kids just going to see the success? They weren't there for what built it, and they're going to walk away into their own adult lives thinking that they should just get stuff like— and that's just— you just live in these nice houses and have these nice things. And, and that's just like the way life is. That's not the way life was when I was growing up. You know, and it's not the way life was when they were little, but they probably won't remember that. So it's like a really interesting thing because you and I who have worked hard, when, when we are in our forties, we want to have nice stuff. We want to go nice places. We want to like enjoy some of the fruits of our labor. We don't want to wait until we're 60, but in doing, in doing that, we're going to expose our kids to that lifestyle. So what do we do here, Joni? We got to figure it out. We gotta solve this right now.

We gotta figure this out. And I think I'm still trying to like figure it out, right? And every— I mean, I think the hardest job for us is, is parenting because, you know, I mean, it's, it's tough because you don't— you look at those things, you're like, man, like, am I doing the right thing, right? So yeah, I mean, I'm with you.

What's your suggestion? We got any ideas? Like, what? So to make this a little more real, I mean, your kids are a little older than mine. Are like, when you book trips or like, do you talk with your kids about like, hey, like this is because we worked hard all these years and do you walk, do they come to the offices? Like, gimme a sense of like how you're dealing with it right now.

Yeah. So, so I actually invest with my children. So we, we, every year we buy a house together. So cool. And yeah. And so, and we renovate the house together and we kind of, you know, we do the whole thing like budgeting. Wow. Creating a profit and loss statement and going over the budget, all of that, right? And so they get to see that. And at the end of the day, when, when it's time to sell this house, they're like, well, where did the profit go? I was like, well, yeah, that exactly. Where did it go? Right? Like things happen.

Like this investment, we got to pay the contractors, we got to pay the loan, we got to pay the closing costs.

Exactly. And we didn't realize that this, it needed foundation work, right? Things happen. But, you know, and when it's all said and done, they see the profits and we get to split the profits. And so So that was one way of us kind of teaching them, you know? And so we do that every year with our kids. But I mean, yes, our son, he's, he's, when he was younger, he used to go knocking on door. Like he was actually in his car seat while we were knocking on doors. Oh, so cool. Yeah. So they've, they've been, they've been as, you know, they, they've seen it all. Um, and I think that's the best thing that we can do is put him in those situations and let them experience. Experience what we go through. Yeah. Because I'll tell you, there's sometimes where my daughter will, you know, she's writing something from school and she, she'll tell it like it is, like, Mom works hard, Dad works hard, right? Those sorts of things, because they actually see it.

Yeah, we got to take a lot of pictures, right? Like, I love the idea of the baby in the car seat, you're knocking on doors, and we need like a snapshot like from the road showing the car seat like outlined in the car, and you're like, you know, exactly. Trying to get some homeowner to open the door.

That's great. Yeah. And, and I mean, they, they've been kind of involved since, you know, they were little. And so just putting them in those, you know, getting involved in that experience, I think they see that.

Yeah. So love that. Awesome. Well, I think that, that's a great way to wrap up, Joni. I, I really appreciate your time today. And for people who want to follow along with you and your business journey, where is the best place for them to do that?

Yeah, so you can reach out to me on Facebook, LinkedIn, or pretty much all social media, Joni Wolfswinkle. And check out our podcast, it's Inside the Wolf's Den, and I think we're about 240 episodes in. Mm-hmm. So yeah, so there's something in there for everyone, whether you're a new business owner trying to start up your business or, you know, in business for a while, there's something in there for everybody.

Awesome. Well, thanks again, Joni.

This was great.

Thanks so much, Peter. 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.