How Valeria Urcuyo Runs a Nationwide Home Services Business from Nicaragua

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You can avoid a lot of the problems if you select the right people, right? Because it's all about the people. You can have the best software, but it's only as good as the people who are inputting the stuff in the software. Most of my job is really just talking to the people. That takes a lot of my time. And so, one of the lessons I've learned is really almost being ruthless with like, okay, I'm, I'm, I've become more judgmental. That it is what it is. I've become more, I've become more judgmental and I've been more ruthless with that. And there, and because at the end of the day, I have the responsibility on my shoulders of what, 60 plus, not just people, families. I can't be taking risks because Well, I mean, you know, I felt this kind of gut thing, but I feel bad and, you know, I'm gonna give him a chance. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Every time that I felt a little something, I couldn't really articulate exactly why is it that this person, I wasn't jumping to hire them. Every single time I've had that feeling and I've ended up hiring them, I've been burned.

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 Val Urquillo. Val, thanks for coming on the show today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited.

I'm excited to get into conversation with you. And for those who aren't familiar with you, I'd love to just have you give like a 3 to 5 minute background to kind of bring us up to speed on what you're up to. Okay.

Well, I run the, it's called the Appliance Pro Professionals. Well, there's two names to it, right? Two sides to it. The Appliance Repair Men and the Appliance Repair Professionals. The Appliance Repair Professionals is, is the side of the company that's more focused on dealing with property management companies, warranty companies, things like that. Appliance Repair Men is the company that's kind of like the bigger kind of what we started with. It's a lot bigger. We do a lot more jobs and I'm the vice president of operations and yeah, I'm, I've been running it for, I think I'm on 13 years.

Yeah. And your title is Vice President of Operations, but you run the show from what I understand.

Exactly. They should change my title. They should actually change it to I'm something fancier. Right.

And just to, just to paint a picture for listeners. So, Val, you're, you're in Nicaragua and the company is based in Nicaragua, but Appliance Repair Professionals does a ton of work for property management companies all over the U.S. You guys are on the PropertyMeld platform and we, we use your company, we use Appliance Repair Professionals to do a ton of appliance repair work at RO Property Management. So just a little background if you're wondering why am I interviewing this random appliance company in Nicaragua? It's highly relevant if you're in property management.

So yeah, we work with a lot of property managers, you know, a lot of, I, you know, I'm sure that me, you know, through the years I think now I'm getting to know everybody in NARPM, right? I think we're talking about the other day how like, you know, our first conference, I wasn't sure how to measure like how big this, you know, this kind of in the NARPIM organization is. And now I'm realizing it's kind of like, it's actually pretty small, right? And it's kind of like still in its growing stage. And so I'm like happy that I'm, I'm a, I'm a part of it, right? And you know, because I can tell it's like, it's just starting to explode and starting to expand. And, and I think we're at the, you know, right place at the right time. So it's very exciting.

And you and a few of your team members were at the NARPM Broker Owner Conference in Colorado Springs.

Correct.

I saw your vendor booth there. So the first question that I have, and I've been wanting to ask you ever since we kind of did the, the pre-interview call a couple weeks ago, how do you guys run a company from Nicaragua in the US? Because when I picture appliance repair, I'm thinking about a local home services business that has a local office. But from what I understand, you guys are running thousands and thousands of jobs a month across most of the continental US. How are you doing that without a local presence?

I mean, I don't, you know, it's not necessary to have a local presence because, you know, we use subcontractors, right? So, you know, we like to call 'em kind of like a, full-time subs, right? So, you know, it's, you know, they're a bunch of independent contractors. It's, you know, we use a network of techs that we've worked with because our, you know, this started with the Appliance Repair Men, right? The Appliance Repair Men is really just kind of like we're, we function as a middleman, right? So, you know, we advertise, we book not leads but actual appointments, right? Customers call us and book actual appointments. Like they're waiting, you know, private homeowners mostly. We book the appointments and, you know, we, we're kind of the middleman, right? So like we've kind of throughout the years we've grown this network of, of technicians, but it's not just like, I think people get confused, you know, 'cause we use subcontractors, but it's not like we just call at random, right? Like we, we screen them, we get to know them, and although they're subcontractors, you know, they start to become part of like, you know, our network, you know, we, we get to know them, we, we know their nuances and things like that. So, Yeah, so that's kind of like where everything started. And really it's just a coordination thing. I don't really think it's necessary. I mean, a lot of the techs in the US don't even have like a storefront, you know, a lot of them don't even have an office. I mean, a lot of these guys are independent people, you know, the, the guys that have the shops that have the, the operations, like what the office is and like the squad of cars, those guys don't really even work with us really, right? Because they have enough work. There's a shortage of There's a clear shortage of, of, of financial paratext in the United States. And the ones that do really great, that have their offices, that have their, you know, their, their squad, their employees and stuff, they, we don't even work with them. They don't need us for work, right? But we work with technicians. A lot of them are independent. Some of them are operations like that and that use us kind of more for like a filler, you know, like the slow days or slow months, right? So that's how it, it functions. Like there's not necessarily a need for presence because a lot of the techs, they don't, they don't really, you know, they work from home. They don't really have like a store. There's no need for a store. Storefront.

They're working out of their truck.

Exactly. Yeah. They're traveling, you know, whether it's like a one-man show or, you know, most of them are like that. You know, they're, like I said, we work with some shops, you know, some, some guys that have like a squad and they have their employees and stuff. But those guys are usually, they're not common and they're usually too busy to even take extra work. Right? So they'll use us for kind of like filler jobs. And so I don't even think it's necessary to even have a presence in the US. Yeah, because I mean, a lot of these guys are just working on their own, right? They're just traveling. They're jumping from job to job. There's no need, they don't go back to the office a lot of the times, right? Maybe they have somebody, their, their, their wife or assistant.

It's just really efficient.

Yeah.

Keeps overhead low. And if you're hearing this model being described, you might think that, you might think that the, maybe the quality would suffer. And in our experience, that has not been the case. I, I asked our maintenance coordinator, Alex, prior to jumping on the interview, hey, what's been our experience with Appliance Repair Professionals? Because I didn't know any of this background. I didn't even know we were using you guys, to be honest, when you and I first started chatting. And then our maintenance coordinator was like, yeah, it's awesome. They, they get to everything quickly. Pricing's reasonable. We don't have many callbacks. So I think you guys really have a good system figured out to make these independent technicians efficient, you know, high quality. There's obviously some type of a screening and vetting process. You're not just like reselling leads to whatever random contractor. Like, there's, there's a significant backend that's ensuring quality and the other important metrics.

Of course. I mean, because, you know, although they're subcontractors, right, at the end of the day, we're the ones sending them to the home, right? So, you know, we try to make them responsible for their, for their, you know, whatever they do. But at the end of the day, you know, we're aware that we're the ones that send them to the home. And if there's ever an issue, "We're always gonna be there to back it up. And it, and if that means, you know, paying something that we didn't even make money on, then that's just the cost of doing business." Because, you know, it's one thing if you have employees, it's a whole nother thing if you're working with subcontractors, right? You know, so, you know, you have to limit yourself into like what you can ask and how much you can push and things like that, right? Because they can just choose as many, you know, as little or as many as they want. Job-wise, right?

When you look to enter a new market, do you first try to find out if there's like property managers you can work with, like demand, or do you first round up like a bunch of these contractors and vet them before you would even like open your doors?

I mean, the way it works is first of all, okay, so the company started with a plunger pair of men, right? So that's private homeowners, just kind of like one-offs, things like that, right? And that we're a lot less involved in that. Like we're the middleman. We'll, we'll, we'll take in the job, like we'll make the appointment and we'll send a tech out. But when it comes down to everything else after that, that's a tech's client. That's, you know, the, the estimates are between the tech and the customer and all that, right?

Oh, wow. Okay.

So, yeah, so is, you know, that's kind of like between them. We still, you know, like I said, if there's an issue, we're responsible for it. If the tech takes, you know, haven't got back to the, the customer with the part, like we're responsible for all of that, you know, and making, making sure that they do their job. But it's a lot, we're a lot less hands-on with that because we kind of let the tech and the customer, you know, 'cause that's kind of the now the tech's customer, they gain customers from us and, you know, that's between them. So that's how we started, right? So that's like, that, that side is a lot bigger. I hadn't mentioned, it was like, you know, on kind of like a slower month, it's like 5,000 to 6,000 jobs a month that we're doing, right? And then, but then as you're doing this, you start to kind of like see patterns and stuff. You start to see like the techs that are like really, that have the potential to do, you know, that, you know, that, that want more work, that, that, and honestly it comes down to, it's most techs know how to fix the appliance, but what makes the difference is what are the techs that like don't, for example, that we don't really get any like recall calls on, or the techs that like answer our calls when somebody's asking where they're, you know, if they're on their way and things. So when, because we have, we are doing so much every month on that side, I, I mentioned this to you, it kind of becomes like a filter. It's like a big giant filter. Of where you start to see behaviors and patterns and things. And then from there, now we start noticing, well, you know what, this guy's special, right? This guy— and special might mean honestly, they just answer the phone. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not even like—

there's a low bar.

That's— yeah, honest. Yeah, I think the key is like to be realistic, right? I just need them to fix the appliance like correctly and diagnose it correctly as much as, as much as possible. From there, we take care of everything else, right?, but I need the guy to answer the phone, right? So for example, there's some tests I don't, not even interested in taking work with, uh, for our other side, which is the appliance repair professionals. That is what we're trying to grow right now. That is the, the side of the company that's, you know, it's a lot smaller, right? Coverage-wise in appliance repair, I mean, it's like 40 states. Appliance repair professionals, which is the department that we use to, you know, work with property management companies and warranty companies. Yeah, coverage is about, I think we're at 26 states. And the reason why it's smaller is because there's just a smaller pool of techs that we are willing to even send to these homes, right? 'Cause it's a reputation, it's a relationship-based.

Yeah. So it sounds like appliance repairman is kind of like, it's like a feeder where you test out techs, you see the quality, you get familiar with these guys and some of them are gonna get called up. The ones that are interested are gonna get called up to work for the appliance repair professional side where you're taking on a lot more accountability. You need higher reliability and responsiveness for these guys because they're doing high volume for these management companies and warranty companies and stuff.

Yeah. And it's a reputation thing, right? Because it's like, you know, not that we don't care about the quality of service on our appliance repair side, but we're talking about, you know, one-off customers like private homeowners, right? Like you mess up with a property management company and maybe something bigger, it's like, it's a repu— it's more relationship-based, right? It's a reputation thing. So, it matters more. So, but like I said, we're not asking for much. You know, first of all, there's a lot of techs that don't even, they didn't even wanna consider working on taking jobs for the other side. There's a lot of techs that are just simply just, they just, they don't wanna be controlled. They don't want to be followed up on. Like they just simply just don't even, they don't even consider taking work. So that eliminates a big chunk of 'em. And then there's a, a big chunk that like would love to take more work, you know, especially property management jobs. But we simply, you know, I'll ask the feedback from that side and be like, hi, how is this tech? Well, you know, like he's okay if you can get him to arrive, but you know, he won't answer for 2 weeks. So it's like, those are the things like I don't even want to ask them to even jump and take some work from on that side. So that's why there's a difference. We're talking about 40 states versus like at this point we're 26 states, right? So now what we do is like when we go to the conferences, we'll hear like, there's a few areas like Oklahoma, Tucson, like, but that kind of area, there's, we get a lot of like, for example, South Carolina, Charleston, right? We'll get a lot of people coming up to us asking if we have coverage there. That's not really an area we have much coverage, but what we'll do is, okay, if I, if I keep hearing, or like Richmond, Virginia, for example, was, was, is a big one, right? That was a big one that we kept hearing. And so what we'll do is we'll go to the residential site, we'll see, okay, well, What techs do we have? Do we have coverage there? First of all, what techs are they and how's their performance? And then we'll go from there. And then, okay, well we have one tech. Well, one tech is kind of sketchy. You don't wanna open an area coverage-wise for a property management company when you have one tech, right? So then maybe we'll do more advertising on that end, right? And then we get more work, right? So then we'll like keep testing that one tech and then maybe we'll get like, we'll have the tech recruiting department focus on getting more techs on that end because we know that we have a high demand on the other end for property managers, right? So then we'll kind of like grow that side and get more work on that side and, and recruit there. Go, go through those, right? Because those are less risky in a way, right? We don't want to do a bad job with anybody, honestly, obviously. But there's a huge difference between a one-off private homeowner and a company that can send you whatever, 10 a day, 100 a day, you know? So, so we kind of like, we get the feedback from that side and then we get the best techs, we, we train 'em and then we kind of bring 'em over to the other side.

How many total technicians in your subcontractor network?

Let me see. Well, on the property management, probably, probably for professional side, we have about maybe 350 active. Honestly, it, it, it, it's a, it's a revolving door though. It's, it's constant. It's like we're changing a lot. On the other side, we're maybe more closer to, I don't know, 500 around there.

But, but these guys aren't, they're not all full-time. You know, it sounds like they're doing work for other companies potentially.

They're doing work on their own. Some of Some of them are, some of them, some of them, like I said, some of them just use this to like fill in their schedule that are a little bit more successful. They kind of just like, okay, we're having a slow day. We don't have any limits. Like you can take as many or as little as jobs as you want. Obviously there's some inter— internal kind of limits though, right? Because maybe because we get to know these techs, we'll, you know, maybe one tech, they, they can take, they wanna take 20 a day, but we're like, mm, we know you can kind of handle like 8 though. Right? So we're kind of like limit, limit like how many they can take because yeah, it's not just like what, what they want. So yeah, so we'll do, we'll do things like that to kind of control it. So some, some techs, like they only use us for their source of work, right? Advertising's super expensive. So like with us, like you're not getting just, they're not just leads. Like, you know, Angie's List and all those, those are very expensive and a lot of those companies are leads, but for us they're actual like booked jobs. Like book jobs, like literally a customer's waiting for you. So I think that's a, that's a difference with using us. But yeah, so like we have all, you know, some guys are like super full-time and some guys are just like randomly will just accept the job here and there.

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Do you think this model would work for, say, H— for, for like HVAC or for plumbing? Or is this something that— is there something specific about appliance repair that makes this model like really effective?

I think it can. I think it, it, it's already being done. I mean, for example, a company that I'm sure both of you guys are aware of or you know of is PestShare, right? PestShare is an awesome company. Very successful. They essentially do the same thing that we do, right? Except for pest control. We've actually thought about— we've like, we're kind of looking back and forth. We're looking into expanding those services to HVAC and plumbing and all that. So yeah, this is definitely something you can do. I don't know how the pest control guys are or the plumbers are, right? I, I think a planter person is probably notorious for being very difficult, to be honest with you. So, I don't, for me, me personally, like, it's not that I'm against expanding the services we offer, but it's kind of like I tell people, like, I don't know if you've ever seen Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Ramsay. You ever watch that? Mm-hmm. Okay. So, like, you know, once they're trying, one of the main things is like, you don't want too many things on the menu, right? So, it's kind of like, you know, you gotta be careful when you're expanding these things because like appliance repair takes, in general are just really hard to, you know, there's a huge shortage in the United States of appliance repair techs, which is crazy because the amount of money you can make as an appliance repair tech is insane. It's insane. Like we've seen it. It's crazy because there's a shortage. I mean, think about that. How many appliance repair techs do you know, right? Not many, but everybody that you know hopefully has what, average 4 or 5 appliances. Where they live, right? Doesn't matter if even if they're in an apartment. So yeah, sooner or later everybody's gonna need an appliance repair tech. But if you think about who do you know who's an appliance repair tech, like, you know, and there's not many. Yeah, there's a, there's a huge shortage. So the demand's never gonna— it's not stopping anytime soon, even with, you know, these appliances that are like, it's gonna diagnose itself and all that. It's like, yeah, but eventually somebody physically has to go and do it, right? And not everyone wants to do it. You know, I'm kind of more that style, right? Like, I'll I've changed like my screen on my phone and things like that. But a lot of people don't, I'm like into it, but a lot of people are not down for, for, for that, right? Even if they, even if they could, they're like, I don't, I don't have time. I don't wanna do that. So it's like, even if they, if you have a self-diagnosed appliance, which is not all of them, cuz not everybody has AI, you know, techie appliances. It, you know, eventually you still need somebody to go fix them, right? Cuz everyone's doing their stuff, especially now there's a lot of people who work from home.

Yeah. And it seems like the, the appliances are just getting more and more complicated. So there's more things to break and they're more expensive to fix. So it definitely, I agree, just like cars, they're getting harder to fix, more expensive, more complicated.

Exactly. More complicated. And just like some of it's like, yeah, some of it's, yeah. You know, the, yeah, like you said, the cars, you know, they had like thicker steel panels and things like that.

Right.

So now cost-wise you can't do that anymore. And then on top of that, just, By default, right? Design-wise, like I was looking at a cooktop for my house the other day and it was like here in Nicaragua and it was like a wifi connect. You can connect it to wifi. Yeah. And I'm like, why the f— why would I do that? Like, that's just another thing that sooner or later, like, I'd rather if I could just get like the old school, just knobs, just like click, click, click, click. Right. Just like a mechanical thing. Right. Like the more I can stick to that, the better.

Right.

Yeah.

What do you see as like when you're dealing with property managers and you deal with, you know, hundreds of property managers, what do you see that they misunderstand about appliance repair? Like where are we kind of making it more difficult than it needs to be?

I think first of all, I think you have to be realistic with like, you know, the guys that you're, yeah, that you're dealing with, right? Like I said, they're going from house to house. A lot of these guys, You know, especially a little bit of the better ones, like they, they're kind of spoiled in a way in this because like I just said, there's a huge shortage, there's a big demand. And so when you do things like, for example, one of the big things that we kind of like deal with that kind of stops us from working with some of the kind of like the bigger apartment managers is an example, 10%, right? A lot of these guys, you guys don't do that, but like the 10% fee that you guys take out of the vendor side, right? That's an example, like— Sure. Right? My understanding is, and I'm still learning about this property management world, right? Because like this, Property Management Professionals has just a few years, so we're still, I'm still in the learning phase, but you know, there's differences. I've noticed some guys, you know, charge the vendors 10%, some of them charge their customers, like I, right, Peter? Like I don't know how you guys deal with this.

Yeah, you're right. So there's a couple ways that can be structured. So what we do is, and all of our clients know this when sign up, we actually charge a separate project management fee on top of every third-party invoice. It's all disclosed. The owner sees the original invoice and so they know that there's no funny business. Now what some property managers do is they'll take the invoice from the vendor and they'll redo it on their own letterhead at a higher rate to sort of hide the original price. Mm-hmm. And then some other property managers will ask vendor, hey, I want you to like charge me a little more, but then like credit me back to my company the extra 5% that you charge. Like people try and play a lot of different games with this. You know, I think the way we do it is the most upfront and transparent with our property owners. Some of those other methods, you know, it's not something that we do. I, I won't speak to whether it's legal or ethical, but it's just not something that we do.

I, and that's, and that's what we're able to do. How many jobs now with, for you guys?

Right.

So a lot. And so at the end of the day, you still have to resolve, you know, resolve the issue, right? You still have to take care of the appliance. You want to, you know, you want to retain your tenants, you want to do all that stuff, right? So whatever you can do to make, and obviously it's going to sound biased, right? Because I'm the vendor, it's like, oh, what a surprise, Val, you don't want to get charged 10%, but it's really, it's not even that. It's just like, you know, it's, The only time that I, you know, that I would probably agree to paying 10%, you know, 'cause we hear that like, oh, okay, 10%. It's like, I can't take a hit at 10% though, because I still have to take the, pay the tech, especially for our business model. Like, we have to pay the tech, we have to pay the parts and things. And so what we end up making is just, it's a, it's a big hit, right? And because there's a lot of companies that don't charge that, that I'm gonna, I'd rather do work with those companies. Or if they do charge a fee, let's something more reasonable, you know, 3% is, is, is something reasonable, but 10%, especially for our business model, doesn't work, right? And then, and really the only time that I think I would, I would get, I would agree to 10%, hopefully, God willing, we keep growing as we have. I don't, we won't, we won't need to do that, is really if we get desperate, right? So what does that tell you? So the techs that are willing to take a hit of 10% on their own, you know, repair are probably maybe a little bit more desperate. Maybe they need a little bit more work because there's no shortage of work. We already know that. And there's a sh— but there's a shortage of techs.. So there's not a lack of work. So why would you take a hit, a 10% hit when you just get work somewhere else? Right?

Okay.

Well, maybe you're a mediocre tech, maybe you don't get callbacks, maybe you're not, you know, so then are you, what kind of techs are you really getting that are willing to take the 10% hit? And then we hear, okay, well, you just, you know, inflate your cost so that you're not, you know, that you're not really actually losing 10%. Okay. Well, then you're asking me to be, kind of, you know, dishonest. I'm over here trying to battle with these guys to like not over, to not inflate, right? Because the bigger the inflation, the harder it is to get approval, the less often I'm going to have an approval for the tech, the less happy they're going to be, right? Because they, at the end of the day, you want the tech to make money, right? So, so, you know, I think that 10%, you know, if a guy's willing to take 10%, they're either going to inflate the cost and you don't want that. For multiple reasons, or they're just more desperate. Why are they more desperate? Maybe they, 'cause they can't get work on their own, or they don't get callbacks. Maybe they're not on point. You know what I mean? So, and then, and on top of that, it's like, so then, you know, we've had a few kind of situations, but, and 'cause that's kind of common, right? So we actually have worked with two major maintenance companies, same thing, right? Like, okay, well we need, you know, to charge a certain amount. And I'm like, okay, but like when you present this to your client, Are you saying it's the Pledge Professionals? Are you saying, you know, it's my company? Well, a lot of them just put their name on it. Like the, the, you know, client doesn't even know who it is. And it's like, for me, it's like, okay, well, I don't want my cost or my invoice to be inflated because that defeats the whole purpose and it messes with my whole system, right? That I have. Yeah. But, but at the end of the day, it's, it's kind of, that's your business. Well, how much you wanna charge, right? So then there's these two companies that had that. They wanted us to, I was like, you know what, how about we do this? How about I just charge you guys what we wanna charge, right? Non-inflated, right? You pay me whatever you need to pay me grand total, and then you guys charge, add whatever the hell you want. Like, it's not my, that's your name. It's your responsibility. It's your name on the invoice. So, you're not affecting me, right? So, it's like, that's your responsibility. So, why don't you guys tack on, And then, and you know what, and maybe you don't even add 10, maybe you add 10%, maybe you add 12% because maybe you're realizing, you know what, these guys actually are pretty low, they're below market, right? So overall, so then do you have opportunities? So maybe instead of 10, you charge 12. Why do I care? That's your responsibility. If you guys want to charge 20%, you guys are the ones looking bad, not me. At the end of the day, if we ever have a complaint or ever, and somebody, you know, like, calls us out, it's like, no, no, no, this is how much we pay. That's, that's, you know, what you guys charge is on you, you know? So that's kind of like what happened with like two major companies who work thick and they're like, you know what? So what happened is that they were like, okay, well how about give me your average repair costs, right? So then we did that. I think that we're probably reasonable and I think that that's why we're able to work with some of the major maintenance companies because it's kind of like we opened that idea up, just you guys charge.

Whatever you guys want to charge, right? So many people don't understand the difference between like a retail price for a repair, HVAC, whatever. And the— there's like, there's retail pricing, then there's kind of like property management pricing or volume pricing or commercial pricing. So like what we pay for our vendors is not retail pricing. So we're already getting a really good deal from like, for example, from you guys and from many of our other vendors. There's no room for you to lower your margin even further. The question that property management company owners need to think about is what is the property owner entitled to? Is the property owner entitled to commercial pricing on every job? Is that like part of what they get when they sign up to, you know, with a property manager? Or is it okay for the property manager to charge retail pricing like the same price they would pay if they called a random plumber with who had the fancy wrapped van and everything, or are they entitled to like somewhere in between? So this is like a question that every property manager needs to decide for themselves. If you believe that property owners are not entitled to commercial pricing, then maybe you take some of the vendor invoices and you mark them up through whatever method. You know, we talked about that earlier. There's a few different ways you can do that. But I think whatever the case is, everyone should agree that Property owners should not be paying inflated pricing above what they would pay if they, if they are the ones that, you know, called in the job. And so that, you know, there's this question, it's kind of a gray area of like, what can you charge owners for repairs that you control? There's almost a conflict of interest as a property manager when you're controlling their purse strings. And once you've, once you've done the job for them, they have to pay for it. So it's a very relevant question.

I mean, I think it's like, I mean, it comes down to like, you know, retaining, you know, that's kind of what everyone's talking about, right? Like tenant retention, owner retention. And I think a lot of property managers also kind of get stuck sometimes on like, well, this company, their average repair is, you know, whatever. And you guys are like whatever percent above. It's just like, you know, it's not just obviously it's not the cheapest option is not the best option usually. Right. That just goes with everything. And like, for example, you know, what happens is, okay, some, maybe a property management company, and that's what happens with us too. It's like, well, you guys are expensive. Like, what's your average cost for repair? And it's just like, they, they're like, oh, that's so expensive 'cause I have this guy. It's like, yeah, okay, but what's happening though? Are you including just diagnostic fees? 'Cause there's a lot of techs in the industry that will charge a super high diagnostic fee. We're like, what, $120, $110? And what are they doing? They're just recommending replacement. Or they're giving these estimates that are like too high. And so you still have to pay them for the diagnostic fee, right? So you end up paying this tech a lot of diagnostic fees. And so then, you know, if you mix that with like the few repairs they do, their average total looks a lot lower, right? When in reality you have to analyze that, like why is this tech, why do I end up paying this tech $120 constantly for a diagnostic, right? That's obviously gonna bring down your repair. Why? Because there's a lot of techs that all they're doing is they're just driving around collecting diagnostic fees.

You know what you have? Yeah.

And recommending replacement. Yeah. And recommend replacement or doing an over, like an over, you know, a big estimate, right? So then what happens is like, you know, they're not really going with the intention of fixing the appliance. We send somebody because, you know, we hear all the time, like a tech will say, yeah, I can do this, but you know, it's not cooling, but it, okay, but if it's free unrelated, I can't do it. "But if it's this, if it's a sensor, I can't do it." It's like, okay, well then I'm not gonna send you. I'm not gonna send a tech that can only do if it's one or the other, right? A lot of companies don't do that. They might not even really know that well or I've actually heard personally some of the, even some maintenance companies that will say like, you know, honestly, like sometimes when there's areas where we don't really have coverage, we'll send this like handyman. And if it's not something super obvious, like a handle falling off or something, We'll just like recommend replacement. So you're having like the owners or whoever, you know, buy a brand new refrigerator. It's for $2,000 when something could have been fixed for $200, right? $300. So one of the keys there is to make sure that it's not just the cheapest average, right? 'Cause that's manipulated, right? How do you know? That's what we do. That's what we watch. We watch, okay, if there's a tech that all of a sudden, like, you know, there's a lot of diagnostic data, you know, he recommends replacement. We're always checking that to make sure if it actually makes sense what he's saying., but we'll see the patterns because we already know that's a pattern, right? That's common, right? So that's what happens a lot of times is they'll say, they'll ask for like, okay, you know, what's your average repair? It's like our average repair when we actually, you know, on approved estimates is this amount, right? So when you're asking for what your average repair is, yeah, you don't want to ask what's your average repair because they're going to include the diagnostics, right? A lot of companies will say that. So it's like their average is a lot lower, but in reality, The key is, which is how we were able to work out some of these deals with some of the bigger maintenance companies with the 10%. The question was, okay, you know, the thing was, okay, how about you guys tack on 10, 12, 20, whatever the hell you guys want, that's your business. So then some of the smarter companies, right? They're like, okay, well then I need your average repair, but I need the average cost of repair on approved estimates. That's a more realistic number, right? So based, yeah. Yeah. So that's what you have to ask. And then based on that, That's how we ended up kind of coming up with a deal. And then they realized, you know what, they even on an approved repair, which is the whole point, right? You want to take care of the customer. You want to go there with actually fixing it, resolving it so that people feel taken care of. And so that's what, that was one of the key things.

This question of repair versus replace, highly relevant for this conversation. This is a question that property managers face many times a day. You know, tenant calls in, issue with oven, issue with refrigerator. Issue with microwave, whatever it is, send out our appliance repair person, whether it's your company or somebody else. That person then calls the property management office from the unit. Hey, I'm here. I'm looking at this oven. The element's burned out or whatever. And there's always this question of repair versus replace. And we get a lot of strong opinions from our owners. Some owners feel strongly about repairing. Some owners feel strongly about replacing. We also get a lot of strong opinions from our vendors. Some vendors are often recommending repair, some are often recommending replacement. Help me understand what's the rational, logical way to think about these questions? Like, what are the questions I should be asking of the repair tech, and how should I be thinking through and explaining to my owner whether we should be recommending repair or replacement?

Hmm. I mean, there's so much variation, right? That's kind of like a tough question.

What are the, what are the things that you take into consideration? Like, what are the, I'm not asking for like a yes or no, you know, one size fits all, but when you're thinking through it, what are you thinking about?

First of all, the first step is, okay, well, are, what parts are, are the parts even available? Right? Like, or, you know, so that's a, that's the one, like, yeah, you know what, this and this and, you know, is, is, is messed up and it's really hard to get these parts. Like, you know, obviously those are kind of just like, kind of like a given, right? Like, you know what? Sure. Like, I can get this and this part, but this one's like really hard to get. I can maybe get it refurbished.

Right?

So, but is it refurbished? I don't really recommend that for this time of unit. I recommend replacement, right? So, there's age and then, you know, there's, there's, you know, some parts are super expensive, right? Control panels, things like that. And so, we always like, before we recommend replacement, like, well, first the tech will tell us first, hey, I recommend replacement 'cause of this, this, and that. It needs this, this, and that, right? But we don't just trust the tech's word just because that's just not what we do. We're going to check their work. So then we'll go and we'll, we'll see a comparable appliance, maybe not the same exact one, you know, but, you know, we'll look up the comparable appliance. And then a lot of times we'll kind of give the client kind of both options, like, hey, we recommend replacement, but we recommend replacement because here's what needs to be replaced. This and this and this part costs— and we give the parts at cost, right? Okay. And if, if the tech provides a part because you can just get it done right then and there, which is the goal, right? If we can get something done in one day, why not?, but we'll still ask for the price from the tech. Like, how much are you gonna give this price to me for though? Because the most I'm gonna allow you is like what, 10% max? 'Cause I understand you guys need to make money, but that's it. Otherwise we're gonna take, you know, we're gonna get the parts ourselves. That's, we have, we have relationships with, I'm sorry, I'm like veering. We have relationships with Marconi and Encompass and you know, they're, we get 'em for cheaper and we give 'em my cost because we're not even interested in making money off the parts because we're just interested in getting these things approved or you know, whatever.

Anyways, where was I? Buy someone—

We were just talking about repair versus replace. Okay, yeah, yeah. So, so then, so then what we do is, yeah, so then we'll, we'll say, hey, you know, we need to replace this part even at the cheapest price that we can get, right? We have these special issues with Marcon, like we're literally giving you at cost at wholesale price. It's gonna cost this. Here's our comparable, right? Here's what we found. We recommend replacement because this is gonna cost $600 to fix and the new one's gonna cost like $800 or something. You know what I mean? I forget what percent we usually kind of focus on. So we'll recommend replacement, but we're always trying to educate so that they, the, the, it's important for the customer to, even if you're kind of telling them what, what to do, like you should recommend replacement, I think the key is also to make the person feel that they had a say, right? That they had some sort of decision making, even if you're kind of like pushing 'em towards something, you know what I mean? It's like, but it's up to you though. Here, here you go. Yeah.

Which one do you wanna do? Yeah, I think that's the right approach. And it's always, I think the conversation always goes well with an owner if you say, hey, we went to the property, we diagnosed the issue, here's what it is, here's the cost to replace, here's the cost to repair. We're recommending X because of X, Y, and Z reasons. Age of the unit, availability of parts, repair is almost as much as a new one, et cetera, et cetera. And then, you know, strongly make a recommendation, but in, in the end it's up to the owner and they usually walk away from that feeling really good about, you know.

Exactly. You want to make— you know, like, it's all about empowering them, making them feel like they're still part of the decision-making, right? Even if you're kind of just like, you should do this, you know.

Yeah, exactly. Today's episode is sponsored by Crane's Access Granted live webinar coming up on September 30th. If you haven't heard of Crane, it's a private community for property management business owners who want freedom of time. I co-founded Crane 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 going to 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. Just kind of a, kind of a fun side question. There's this idea of like planned obsolescence that comes up, especially when you're talking about appliances. Do you think it's true that manufacturers like intentionally design products to fail so that they can sell you a new one?

I think it's a combination. I think that if we're gonna assume that all these major companies that, you know, make billions of dollars, if we're gonna assume they're just super honest and morally correct, like that's a little bit like, you know, no, that's not the case. Right. Like naive.

Right.

I think that, you know, I, I imagine if it was me, right, I imagine you have to have enough data to be like, okay, If we use this component made in like whatever, Thailand, this one kind of adds an extra 5 months to this appliance, right? Based on the data. But if we use this component, mm, it adds more like a year. So then overall, all right, competition-wise, we're, uh, ours are whatever, last 2 years more than the other competition. So that's good enough, but I don't want it to last 10 years though, because then I'm not gonna be able to sell. Okay, sure. So I think there's obviously, if the goal is to make money and to compete with everybody else, I think they're probably, there is obviously something like that. They have enough data to probably know which components and which things to use to like increase by X amount. Right. So there's like a, you wanna be better than competition, but like you don't wanna be too good because then you're not, you're gonna not gonna sell any appliances. Right. So there's that. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah, of course. That's, that's just, you know, money, you know, my, that's how, that's how it is. Right. And then the other thing is, yeah. And then that's just the reality. And then the, and then just, and this is kind of like, and it's also the kind of almost by default design-wise, right? Like I just said that, you know, the cooktop, like why would I, I don't want a cooktop with what, what that's Wi-Fi enabled because I'm like, I don't want another thing that's gonna mess up another possibility of something messing up. But because that's kind of the thing, right? Everyone's, especially right now, AI and self-diagnosing appliances and appliances that like you can turn on from your house or whatever, right? So people are into that. So, but obviously the more technology, the more, you know, motherboards and delicate, you know, wires, the more you add to that, right? So for me, even now, like I prefer, although it's, you know, I was literally like, I was literally just happening right now from my house. I'm like, oh, there's a cooktop, but this one's wifi enabled and, and it has like LED, you know, nice little lights as you turn on and it looks pretty, but yeah, I don't want that. I'd rather just I'd rather just have the mechanical, you know, the knob that just goes click, click, click, click, and then that's it. You know, there's no lights, there's no Wi-Fi, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like I need, I'm getting to the point where I need a Wi-Fi to tell me like, you left the stove on, you know what I mean? It's like, maybe you shouldn't even be cooking if you can't, you know, you should probably, you need to remember to turn that shit off.

But that's what Uber Eats is for. Yeah. The cooktop at our house, pretty sure is original to the house, which would mean it's from 1997. It's a glass cooktop and I'm quite sure it needs replacement. And yeah, it's very, it's very, it's literally just buttons on and off and like you can change the temperature.

That's it.

There's nothing else about it that's fancy or yeah. Love it. Um, awesome. Well, I wanted to make sure we had time to ask you about sort of your story with the company. You know, we talked during our pre-show call about how, you know, You are running the show there. The owners are mostly out of the picture. They've fully empowered you. They fully trust you. And that's a pretty special relationship. There's not a lot of people who are trusted to that extent with a, with a big company, with a lot of employees and a lot of moving parts, a lot of big customers. How did you all get to that point? And what's— I'd love to hear more about that relationship and the dynamic where you're running it and the owners are sort of really fully empowered you there?

They fully empowered me. I mean, honestly, we talk almost every day though still, right? So we are always in communication, but they fully empowered me. I mean, yeah, 'cause like it started off as very much like I work for these people and I gotta, you know, and honestly now it's, it's morphing to really just a partnership. Like there is no feeling of they're the owners and I'm not the owner, you know what I'm saying? It cert— certainly feels like it. I mean, this building where I'm at right now is, it's, it's the company's building, but it's next to my, family's compound like next door. Mm-hmm. Right. So, so like, you know, they've, they've invested in me and I think that, you know, we've gotten to know each other a lot and we've been through so much that, and, and, and, and I think the key is just being consistent. I think I've always, one thing I've always tried to do is just be very consistent, very honest. And they've, you know, these are guys that, you know, James and Peter, they're, they're great. I've learned a lot from them. And just throughout the years when you grow through a lot of stuff and also You know, and you kind of like, it's, it's a bonding thing. And then, you know, dealing with the things we've had to deal with, like trying to build this thing and also just, just being consistent and just, you know, the, what's made us closer and what's made, what's built this relationship so strong is that there's no filters between us really. Like literally there's no, I don't have to work, like there is no filter. I say whatever I'm thinking, I need them in and they understand, they appreciate me being 100% honest. We argue, we fight, you know what I mean? There's never, there's, we, we have, we fight like, you know, like, you know, so sometimes it gets really intense, like angry, crying, like, well, I'm done, you know, just hitting up on each other, shit like that. Like, but it's, it's allowed. There's never this kind of sense of like, you know, like stopping me because I'm the owner though. Remember that there's nothing like that because I think there's, it's just a realization of like, we need each other just as much as the other one does. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's very equal. And, you know, and because there's, there's this feeling of, I can be as honest as I wanna be, you know, and maybe sometimes I'll say things that are not, you know, maybe the most politically correct, or maybe there's some things that maybe sound a little bit whatever, right? Like, but there's no, there's no filters. There's no, like, what exactly what they're thinking, they'll tell me and vice versa. You can be real with each other. Keeping it real is like the key, like keeping it real. Yeah. To the point where I literally, there's not much they can tell me or vice versa that is gonna offend us or, or, you know, make it big, be a big deal. And if it does, I'll tell 'em, and you know what, that pissed me off. And like, you know, that kind of thing. It's such a, you know, it, it's, it's there, it's kind of, it's an even playing field and it's also just been consistent. Right. And at the end of the day, I think we're all, you know, we all have different personalities, but we're all, you know, we're, we're all good people, right? We're, we're good people with good hearts. We're trying, we have good intentions. We're not perfect. But we're all, you know, we try to do what's morally right as much as we can. Right. And we try to be consistent.

It's been like a 12-year, I think we're like 13 years I've been with this company. 13 years. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of people listening, you know, for those who are owning a management company, they're thinking, wow, I, I need to find my Val. I, I would love to have somebody who's fully empowered and I can trust them and they're running the show while I'm, you know, traveling or whatever. And for those who are running a management company, they're probably thinking, wow, I need to find owners. I wanna work for somebody who trusts me to that extent. I wanna be Val.

I wanna run a company and allow people to manage. But I mean, it doesn't come overnight though. That's just, that's a consistent thing. And also I think what helped me too, not everybody has a mentality, right? Growing up, right? 'Cause I was, you know, a Nicaraguan, but as I told you, born and raised in, in California, my parents had to flee for, political reasons, they had to flee to the, to the US. And my mom, one of the first jobs was she actually worked at Taco Bell, like just the basic, like literally Taco Bell, which one of my favorite fast foods, by the way. Love it. I don't care what everybody says. She started like, like literally like fry, they used to fry the taco shells. I'm sure it was wonderful. They used to fry the taco shells. So she literally has like a scar from her frying Right? These taco shells. And then like, that was just one of the first jobs she had to do cuz she was young, she had a baby, she had to flee and you know what I mean? Yeah. And, and so it was kind of like, and then she climbed up and she worked for this corporation called Dolan, Dolan Foster Enterprises. They owned about 100 Taco Bells in California. So then she literally climbed from frying the taco shells, right? Like at 20, whatever. To being the top profit maker. I think she ran like the 10 most successful Taco Bells in California with the most profit, right? She had like 300 people under her, you know, they wanted her to take the entire, like half of California and, you know, and she was like, no, you know, like, you know, it was just a lot, right? 300 employees and the restaurant business is brutal and it's very difficult. And so then I, what was happening is kind of like almost by osmosis, I didn't realize I was getting, 'cause I have my degree is in biology. I didn't, you know, but I didn't realize just hearing her, just hearing what she would say, like on the way to school and things, I was actually kind of getting like some of the best training I could possibly get. Yeah. You know, just kind of hearing, and there's like these phrases that still to this day I use all the time, right? 'Cause it's all about the people. So, you know, systems in place, you have to have systems in place. You have to have that, you know, owner mentality. Love that. You know, owner mentality. I heard owner mentality, owner mentality. Owner mentality, treat this business, treat what you're working with as if it's your own. What does that mean? That means if the lights are on unnecessarily, turn that shit off. You know what I mean? We still do that. We're considerate. Always be considerate, always be appreciative because at the end of the day, because I think sometimes people get in this funk of like, "I hate my job." It's like, "Well, then leave." Then leave or, you know what I mean? Or yeah, leave or just like get it together. But it's just like, at the end of the day, this job was providing you and your family, you know what I mean? Your livelihood, take care of it, right? Like, why would you want this company that's providing you work, that's paying for your family's things, why would you want them to just, you know, waste money on an extra whatever, $20 here on the light bill? Or, you know, I'll negotiate. And that's what James and Peter knows. I'll negotiate to this day. They don't even know I'm doing that, but it's just kind of like, what would I want it if it was my business? What would I do? I don't care. I'll negotiate $20. You know, it all adds up, right? So I would hear her say those kinds of things, right? There's a lot of things I would hear her say because, you know, things have not, you know, there's AI and all that, but at the end of the day, it's the people. That's the hardest thing of any business is managing people. And that hasn't changed and it doesn't really change much. It doesn't matter what country you are. And it's like all these things I would hear her say about the importance of having owner mentality, the importance of, I would hear her, "Walk the talk, walk the talk." Like, I would go, I would show up to like one of the Taco Bells and, you know, she's already at this stage of her life, she was already like way up, you know, she doesn't need to be ringing customers up, but I would randomly come in, visit her, and I would see her ringing some customers up in her like fancy— That's cool. You know, corporate attire and like in the corporate car. And because it was kind of like, I would hear her say things like, "Walk the talk, walk the talk." You always, you know, it's like,, you know, and always kind of coming off of like, you know, making sure that everybody knows like nobody's above anybody, right? Like, although I'm your boss, like I need you, the guy, the person who's doing the talking just as much as I need the person managing the whatever, the accounting, right? Don't ever, you know, think that you're above anything. And so if you're expecting to your managers to resolve things or somebody calls in sick, if you're not willing to kind of show them and walk the talk, then you're, you know, what are they gonna do, right? So then when they see the big boss, literally just taking orders real quick to just jump in and lunchtime, you know what I mean? It's like, it kind of just humbles everybody, you know what I mean?

So, yeah, sets the culture, sets the tone. Love those lessons. And I got tons of lessons from my mom as well. And I actually think I'll be interviewing her for this season of the podcast. I grew up on, in a small family farm and my mom ran a horse business for my whole life and I learned a ton from her. So I really, I relate to that quite a bit. I wanted to end with asking you about sort of your own lessons learned along the way. So you've helped scale Appliance Repairman, Appliance Repair Professionals from like 10 people, I think you said when you first got started, to hundreds of technicians all over 40+ states. Take me through some of the key turning points in the business or some of your hardest one or hardest learned lessons, because Scaling, you know, that's a lot of scale even over a decade. That's still a lot of growth and a lot of pain. And I know there's a lot of things that you tried and didn't work.

And so, what, just gimme a little taste of that. I don't even know. There's so many, like, what do I don't— little, large, I don't know. Well, what I can't, I don't even know where we'd start. In the beginning, you know, I was pretty green, right? I'm like from California. I was kind of like, everybody deserves a chance. You know, everybody, you know, like, you know, let's not judge, you know, like, yeah, he was in jail, but he did his time and, you know, and this and that, like those kinds of things. Right. And it's just like, and so what would happen is I would be a little bit too lenient. Right. I'm a big, like, obviously you have to delegate and all that. Right. That's like, you can't scale something without delegating, but there's certain things I feel like even at this stage, one of the main things that has made, you know, that has you know, brought me success is one of the few things, one of the things I'm still involved in is the interview process, right? Obviously I can't be in every interview, or especially on the kind of more entry-level positions, there's no need for that. But I'm, oh, I, I try if I can, everybody knows it, like they'll try to schedule around my schedule because, you know, a lot of the issues really just comes from the very beginning, right? You can avoid a lot of the problems if you, select the right people, right? Because it's all about the people. You can have the best softwares, you can have the best, you know, everything, but it's like, but it's only as good as the people who are inputting the stuff in the software, right? Yep. So it doesn't matter if you have the best software in, in, in, you know, whatever, in the country, it comes down to the people, right? I spend most of my job is really just talking to the people. That takes a lot of my time. And so one of the lessons I've learned is really almost being ruthless with like, okay, I'm, I'm, I've become more judgmental. That it is what it is. I've become more, I've become more jud— and I've been more ruthless with that. And there, and because at the end of the day, I have the responsibility on my shoulders of what, 60 plus, not just people, families, children. Yep. Their workers, you know, the, the people that they pay for, their gardeners, their whatever. Right? So it's like, there's a, that's a lot of pressure there. So it's like, I can't be taking risks because, well, I mean, you know, I felt this kind of gut thing, but I feel bad and, you know, I'm gonna give them a chance. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. You know, every time I think it's, I'm literally have a count. I think I wanna say it's like at 8, literally every time that I felt a little something in the past, but I couldn't really quite put, like, I couldn't really articulate exactly why is it that this person, I wasn't jumping to hire them. Every single time I've had that feeling, and I've ended up hiring them, I've been burned. Literally. I'm 8 for 8.

8 for 8. I'm not exaggerating. It's a similar thing we run into with tenants who have excuses as to why the rent isn't being paid. Every property manager goes through the experience of giving people some grace and, you know, believing their excuses. And unfortunately, if you're in this business long enough, you just completely become immune to all that. And you just, you just assume that everyone's lying about rent and you got to enforce, you know, the policies.

Yeah. And then, yeah, and maybe sometimes maybe they're not lying, right? So that's kind of like a thing, but I can't, I, and, and I'm, you know, obviously I'm a human being and, and you have to kind of, you know, kind of analyze everything. I've given people second chances, but maybe before I've given them maybe third and fourth chances where now I'm more ruthless. And because, and at the end of the day, that's what everyone needs from me, right? If you want job stability, you know, running a business for this long, That's a long time. And, and, and you want people to feel cozy. You want people to feel like this job ain't going anywhere. We have some people who've been here for 10 years, 8 years. And the only way you can accomplish that is by, yeah, being more ruthless. You know, like it's horrible. I've had instances where before, like, I want, I need, I know I need to get rid of somebody and it's just like, you know, like, but no, but please. And they're begging you. What a horrible feeling that is. Yeah. Understanding life up at least for a little bit today. Say at least. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, and it's like, you know what I mean? But it's like, But you know what, they brought it upon themselves and I'm not being responsible for everybody else. You know what I mean? Because one person, you know, can cause a lot of harm, right? So, I've learned to be very, a lot more ruthless in my decision making. And that means I'm a little bit more judgmental. Yeah. I'm gonna, you know, I'll hear one wrong little thing in an interview process. I'll have some key kind of things I'll ask. And if I just feel a little, even if I don't even know what's exactly what it is, If I just, it's my gut feeling, it's, it, it's, I've already proven to myself that it's, it's usually not wrong. And so I'll just be like, no. It's like, why? I don't know. Just no, no. And I'm not willing to take a risk on it. Why? What am I, what am I, it's not a charity. You know what I'm saying? Like, I need productivity and I need, uh, you know, I need to be, keep the company safe. So that's one of the things. There's so many lessons, like, you know, a lot of the things, like when you're trying to scale something, I think a lot of people also get stuck on, You know, waiting for like the perfect thing, you know, like, oh, well, let's just wait for like this program or let's just wait for like the development team to add this feature onto this software, right? Like even to this day, I'm not above, you know, this company was run literally, I told you on Google Sheets in the beginning, right? I'm not above Google Sheets. I still will come up with something like we're constantly adding to our custom software. One of the things, for example, is ordering parts, right? Now we're gonna integrate an Merkon API and kind of like streamline that. But before it was kind of like, okay, well we have the data in our system of what parts anybody ordered, but then to get the parts cost and send the estimates, you had to go to like the Merkon website and it's kind of tedious. And then if they approve it, you have to order it, you have to follow up on, you know, like when it arrives to the technician's house and all this, right? So now I know what needs to be done, right? System-wise, but that takes time, money, and then also what you have to be careful of is, is, is starting to invest time, money on something like a custom software, like a feature when you really haven't actually run, ran through it and like walked it through, right? So like, for example, I'm not above doing something that's not like the most ideal as long as it kind of takes care of like 95% of the problem. And I can also kind of run a system and run into the actual problems like in real time. Now, when I go to actually add this feature in our program, now already kind of like troubleshooted the whole thing. That's actually an example what I did, right, literally recently was, okay, until we can get the API integrated into our software so that when I'm putting the part number automatically it gets the pricing and all that and the orders if I want to, what can we do for now, right? Because that's taking a lot of time from our agents. So, okay, let's have these other, you know, person just literally, you know what, let's just do it old school, send an email. These guys are gonna send an email, I need a parts for this job. The person orders the parts manually, goes on the websites, puts it on the spreadsheet, and we run into things that we wouldn't even thought of, right? And then now, now we know exactly what to do and what to add to our in-house software without wasting time and money and all that kind of stuff. So I think there's a lot of that there. Don't be afraid of like these workarounds that are less than ideal. It's not about getting the most ideal scenario, it's about getting like a pretty good Pretty, you know, pretty ideal scenario.

Yeah, that's a, that's a big one that it's really hit home for me too, 'cause I've got this engineering background, so I really want everything to be perfect, but you guys just gotta be good with 80%, roll out the solution and move on to the next thing.

Yeah. And then you run into all these things that sometimes you don't even think of, right? Sometimes it's some, some simple stuff, like, you know, and then also another thing you have to make sure you do with everybody that works with you is they have to feel Yeah, okay, there's always gonna be this fear 'cause of the whole livelihood thing. This woman has a lot of power over my life, right? So you gotta be aware of that. So I think what's important is for everybody that works with you to feel like they can be pretty honest, right? I'm not gonna take things personally. Like when we switch from one system to another system, and I was spearheading obviously a lot of the development, you know, there was even still like there, I would get kind of like, hey, so what do you guys think? Like, gimme your feedback. Like, what do you think of this page? And then some people would be like, well, it's like they kind of like were scared to like hurt my feelings. It's back to that idea of keeping it real. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, just keep it real. No, no, you don't understand. Like, like, I need— I don't care whatever makes— if you tell me, hey, you know what, Val, honestly, this purple button, I don't like it. I, I want it colored. I want it literally— I want it this, I wanted this shape and this is somehow gonna just grab my attention more. I don't give a shit. Whatever you guys need, it's not, I'm not gonna take it personal. Tell me, you know, or like if there's a chance that I can, even if it has nothing to do with work, right? If I'm walking around, like we have, we're having some issues. We have two gates or wifi. Speaking of wifi. Yeah. Wifi connected and one kind of gets stuck and things like that. And I know it's annoying for everybody and it's like, instead of me just pretending like, oh, oh, there's an issue. No, I'll like vocalize it if I can. Like, like, this gate is driving me insane. Doesn't it drive you guys insane? This is driving me insane. It's kind of like the elephant in the room. It's like, you know, they have to understand that it's okay to be pretty honest with Val, you know what I mean? Like, and so then you'll, you know, you have to, because I want to hear the truth. I want them to say, you know what, Valerie, this part of the system drives me insane. Like, I hate the fact that I have to press this button and press this button and open a window I hate it.

It drives me insane. You know, you really have to like cultivate a culture where people are comfortable speaking up and you end up having to just over and over again remind people, hey, tell me what's keeping you from doing your job well. Do you need a new computer? Is this slowing you down?

Does this process suck? Like, and you know what, a lot of times, like, if I think a lot of like, you know, when you get to a certain level, you start to like, you know, you're outta time. You don't really have that much time. Right. But I think it's always important. I It's still an— it's an investment though. What we have to look at, at our level is it's an investment. Like, even if I'm like, my schedule is crazy, if there's just an issue happening or like there's an inefficiency in somewhere, I'll sit physically next to like whatever customer service agent and I'll just sit and watch them. And then I'll vocalize something, you know, like, oh my God, you guys have to do this? You have to open these two windows to even click this to even get there? Ugh. And I'll vocalize it. You guys do that, I feel bad for you guys. Like, I'm sorry. Like, you guys should have told me something. And they're like, oh, I didn't even know you can even do it. It's like, even if you didn't know, I need to know, you know? So, it's like, it's so important for them to feel, you know, that they can pretty much keep it as real as they possibly can, right? I love that. Another thing is, yeah. And, and it's also another lesson is what, like picking the right people. It's not just picking the right person for the position. You have to always think, who are these people gonna be working with? What kind of personalities is this person gonna be working with? Because I have, you know, there's people from all walks of life, right? Different ages, everything. But it's like, you know, would this type of personality work with this other personality, right? It's not just the right person for the job, it's, you know, is this gonna get along with this other person? Because then, you know, you're gonna create another problem and it's gonna take you a lot of time because I'm not getting along with this person. So then like, for example, the way I know that I'm doing a good job of picking the right people is when, you know, I hire these people, right? There's a department of customer service dispatch, right? 25 people in one department. When they on their own get together on their own, 23 of them out of the 25, and they wanna go do like a bar crawl, right? Just go bar hopping on a Saturday, 'cause I'll hear it, right? Like, I'll hear about these things. Like, that's when I know I'm doing a good job because that means that these people that see each other every day, literally every day, probably more than their family, are still on their own for no reason, willing to coordinate an outing for fun to go, you know, that, and there's like 23 outta the 25, that's when I know I'm doing a good job. And that's also why I don't even do any of the team, you know, the team building where it's like, let's walk on a plank and let's, you know, put, you know, let's catch each other. You know, those like team building things where let's say you gotta climb this and your other teammate, like, Now I'm not trying to offend anybody who does that. You know, there's two things. Me personally, I wouldn't want to do any of that. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I don't, it's like, I don't even know this asshole. Like, why? This guy doesn't have to catch me. You know what I mean? Like, that's like the— and then there's also kind of like the best team building is when they're out at the bar having a good time. You know what I mean? That's where the walls are down. That's when you get to know each other. So when I hear they do that to me, I'm like, yes, okay, I'm doing something right. Because we're talking about Totally different personalities, different ages, different people. They see each other every day and they're still willing to hang out and have a good time, you know, with each other. Talk about, that's the best team building that you can even get. Screw the paying thousands for team building, walking on planks. You don't need any of that. And if they're not doing that, right, they're not inviting each other to their birthdays and stuff, then there's something probably wrong.

That's a great insight. And I think that, that's a lot of wisdom in many years summed up in a, in a few minutes there. Val, thank you so much for coming on the show today. And this was really fun hearing more about Appliance Repair Professionals and your background. For people who want to learn more about the company or yourself, where would be like a great place for them to do that?

Should they just go to the website? Yeah, the website, theappliancerepairprofessionals.com. You know, I'm always, you know, I'm on LinkedIn. All right. You know, yeah, wherever, just however you guys want to do it.

Email, phone. We'll drop that in the show notes.

And thanks again, Val. This was, this was great. Yes, it was fun. My first time on the podcast.

It's been fun. I loved it. 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.