PM Collective - The ART of property management
The ART of property management with Ashleigh Goodchild is a leading platform supporting collaboration not competition through an online community and events throughout the year with one purpose: to create happier property managers. She creates connections for property managers looking to create momentum in their careers and personal life. Join Ashleigh and her guests as they discuss challenges, struggles, mental health, mindset and give advice to property managers and anyone in the industry. To get the support in your property management career, join our PM Collective Facebook and Instagram community.
PM Collective - The ART of property management
Chats with an Operations Manager on getting the Tech Stack right.
Marisa Reeves from SOCO Realty shares expert insights on managing real estate tech stacks effectively to streamline operations and increase efficiency. We explore how to evaluate current systems, when to make changes, and strategies for implementing new technology successfully.
• The average real estate agent uses 15 apps, but most only utilize them to 40% capacity
• Evaluating tech effectiveness by examining system metrics and observing staff workflows
• Identifying double-handling and inefficient processes as indicators of problems
• Staff complaints as early warning signs that systems aren't working properly
• The importance of reviewing current system updates before switching to new platforms
• Financial considerations – keeping tech expenses under 30% of business revenue
• Strategies for convincing leadership to invest in necessary technology
• Change management approaches that focus on the "why" behind new implementations
• Free tools like Calendly, Zapier, and video platforms that can improve efficiency
• Industry benchmarks – 100 properties per head with potential to reach 150+ with proper tech utilization
If you have questions about optimizing your real estate tech stack, reach out to us for more detailed guidance and support.
PM COLLECTIVE - GUIDE AND SHAPE AN ENJOYABLE FUTURE
We believe in making industry-leading education and support accessible to everyone. Our community is packed with free resources, expert insights, and innovative training designed to help business owners, property managers, and BDMs thrive.
This podcast is kindly sponsored by The Grout Guy.
The team at The Grout Guy are the leading experts in regrouting, waterproofing, and tiling services nationwide. Property managers find comfort in their 10-year waterproof warranty on all full shower regrouts.
Visit thegroutguy.com.au to rejuvenate your properties tiles and grout now!
This podcast is kindly sponsored by Plumbing Bros
all right, we are back with a another podcast with marissa from soco realty. She's the operations manager. Welcome, marissa. Thanks for having me, uh, talking about your favorite topic, which is tech stacks yes, so we're going to jump into that.
Speaker 1:It's something I think I read that the average real estate agent has like 15 apps that they use or 15 on their tech stack, and before you started I had been on a mission to try and really get that down to sort of four or five. I mean, we're hovering around that, so I don't know how many we are now, but that sort of was something that I was really focused on, because we find that a lot of people these days use things only to a 40% capacity. They don't really use things much. So, to kickstart, when you review a business's tech stack, what are the first things you are looking for to see if it's working or not?
Speaker 2:Definitely the numbers. I think that's one of the benefits of the different softwares that we have available to us.
Speaker 1:Do you mean the number of how many you've got?
Speaker 2:No. So one of the benefits is that you can pretty quickly see at a glance how many things are outstanding on all of these different systems. So you know, if I jump into Tarpian, I can see that we've got over a thousand outstanding jobs in the agency. I can see that it's not being used properly. So same thing if I was to go into like PropertyMe, and I can see that if it was a business that were just using the tasks in PropertyMe, you can see very quickly if it's actually being used properly. And then, once you can identify is it being used properly or not, you can actually start to dig into it and figure out. Why is it not being used properly? Is it that the staff don't understand it? Is it that it's not set up correctly?
Speaker 2:I guess one of the best things to do is to sit with staff and actually identify how they're using the tools. So sit with them one-on-one, just watch them observe how they're using it in their day-to-day processes. One of the big things is double handling. So the point of these tech stacks is to make their lives easier. But if you notice that staff are having to, you know, enter the same thing in three separate systems, that's clearly not working. You're creating more work for them rather than reducing it down. So that's one of the first things that I'd be looking for.
Speaker 2:And how long does it actually take to complete a task? So if you're watching someone go through the lease renewal process and it's taking them, and if it's quick and they know exactly where to find it, they're not getting frustrated with the system. Perfect, not a problem. But if you're watching them go through the process and they're having to go digging for information every time or they're having to jump back and forth between a million different screens, that's a pretty easy way to identify that the current setup's not working yeah, I was, I didn't think of it, but yeah, having seeing all those numbers, like you said, on that dashboard of property me, that's um, yeah, that in my mind.
Speaker 1:The first thing that I thought was, oh, there must be problems on the portfolio, but the way that you see it is, the system's not being used. So I like that difference of thought, because there'll be people out there that might have that same thought that I did. How do you know when it's time to switch a new system? So, like, obviously we're getting called all the time for new products, we're seeing, uh, other agencies use different products and I think it's very easy to get distracted and to think that we need something when, um, when we don't and we also, some of us are like, I know that I've got to keep on moving ahead and I've got to embrace the technology, but they're not, they're just doing it because they see the next person doing it. So how do you know that you actually even need to change in the first place?
Speaker 2:I'd say staff complaints is usually a pretty quick indicator. Hopefully your staff feel comfortable talking to you if there are problems. Ours definitely do so. If there's issues, they will let us know and if you are having that come up, take the time to sit with them Again, identify if it's a lack of training or if there's problems with the actual system. So you know, are they having to come up with a million different workarounds just to get their you know vacate process done? That's when you'd be thinking, okay, maybe I need to actually have a look at the other options out there because what we have isn't working. But I guess, in terms of being tempted by the shiny new things that come up, so many people start looking at that but they don't realize how many updates are being done to the current system. Propertyme is the best example. They're constantly coming out with new updates and I see this with the staff as well. People log in in the morning. They get the little pop-up with what's new and they cross out of it straight away and they ignore it. They delete the emails with the release notes.
Speaker 2:Personally, I love the release notes. I sit there and I read them. I love reading through the comments and seeing what people are talking about. So I think you really need to take a step back and look at what you currently have first. So, anytime you know and there's nothing wrong with doing demos I know that you love looking at other softwares, I love looking at other softwares and seeing what's out there. But before you go and make the switch, you've got to stop and think what am I currently doing with my systems, what have I got set up and what am I not actually utilizing? Because if you were to have a look at PropertyMe or Inspect Real Estate the amount of updates that they have done in the last few years, you know that they've gone through this massive change and they've updated all of these things. But people don't realize. So they're sitting there and feeling like they're, you know, stuck with this old technology. But it's actually because they're clicking out the release notes as soon as they pop up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's interesting to sort of get that that take on it, because I guess I was having some personal coaching yesterday and he, he goes to me write the word system you know down vertically.
Speaker 1:So and he the um, what do you call it when you put the like, the acronyms or the words next to it? But anyway it says save yourself some time. Um, what's it? Yeah, save yourself some time, energy or money. So that was his way of like. You know that's when you know what you need to, uh, potentially look at moving to another um product is if it's going to save you time, energy or money.
Speaker 1:So, to give for me, like when I'm looking at tech stacks, I am, from a business point of view, looking at the financial side of things. So like I know that you mentioned like people will complain. So absolutely, that's like in the first step. But if people aren't complaining, first step. But if people aren't complaining. But you still want to stay relevant and up to date for me, I look at the financials and I want to make sure that the technology that we're using and our admin expenses are not exceeding about 30 of the business. So if I look at my pnl each year and I can see those subscriptions getting quite high. That's when I actually go through and then look at the tech stack. So, yeah, completely sort of different from you, which is a good balance.
Speaker 1:But an example would be recently when we've moved from switching over our CRMs. So, while the main purpose of switching over the CRMs and for us to explore that and I've had a lot of people on my socials ask me about why we moved because I do love IRE BDM we've got AgentBox and we are not. We're using IRE BDM really well, I think, but we're not using AgentBox. So therefore, looking at a product to reduce the tech stack there. So we only need one product, not two. So that was the first thing there. So we only need one product, not two.
Speaker 1:So that was the first thing. Um, that one will save us money as well, but that is only a bonus, because if merging the two into one was going to cost me a little bit more money, I wouldn't have a problem with that, because there's still the benefit of tidying everything up. That was just an added bonus and that was like that was why it was a no-brainer. Oh, absolutely, we're going to switch it over because there's um an added bonus and that was like that was why it was a no-brainer. Oh, absolutely, we're going to switch it over because there's an added bonus of that financial benefit and it means then that it's not about for us, because our numbers are pretty good. It's not about saving that money. It's now about where can we put that extra money in the business to revamp something else. Maybe it's Facebook leads, so I want to redirect that money into another area. So, um, for me. So that's, I guess, how my mind works when we are looking at that tech stack.
Speaker 2:I guess, though, if you're coming at it from the financial perspective, it does still pay to to review what you have first, because when you look at the setup costs of new systems and I know different subscriptions are different, like you might look at PropertyMe and there's no way that you can save money. You're on what you need and that's it. But if you look through your IRE, you might not realize that you've got SMS set up for every single step of the application process, and that would be costing you so much money, especially in today's market. If you're sending both an email and an SMS for every unsuccessful applicant, that's completely unnecessary, and so even just going through and making those little small tweaks to what you currently have and then maybe reassessing it in another couple of months, you might still decide to move, but then at least you did try. You did at least review what you had and had the opportunity to reduce those costs first before making that change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good tip.
Speaker 1:And also I'm thinking of some products where you pay per user and you might have a whole heap of users that no longer use it or need to, that you no longer need to have on there.
Speaker 1:I know that we did that with one of our subscriptions and cut it right back. We no longer needed to be in the five to eight staff member price tag, we only needed to be the one to four. So for the sales department, so something as simple as that, like you said, to save on those costs while you're deciding, convincing leadership and when I say leadership, I mean business owners can be quite hard. So I'm picturing that there are property management teams maybe operations managers like yourself where they know that the team need new technology, but the business owner is not wanting to spend the money. How do you think is the best way to present that to a business owner? If you were a property manager listening to this, sorry, yeah, if you were a property manager and you know that we need to invest in Inspection Express, for example, or something, how should they put it through to the boss or the leadership team?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say you have to focus on the end result. So when you start speaking to them, don't start with this is how much it's going to cost us, this is how long it's going to take to implement. Focus on if we have this system. This would improve my workload and my life in this way and I'll become this much more efficient and it will take me this amount of time to do a task instead of this amount. So I think, yeah, focusing on the end result. And when you improve staff efficiency, in turn, you improve your client retention. You improve your staff retention. So you've got to focus on all of that and how it's actually going to benefit the business. And then you kind of you know you slide in the rest of the stuff about the price and the timeline and everything like that afterwards. So, yeah, focusing on the benefit that it's going to have to the business, but also coming to them with genuine, like peer experience.
Speaker 2:So you have people calling you all the time, asking about you know I just spoke to someone yesterday that had some questions about detector inspector and I gave him my opinion on you know how the rollout went and you know any issues we might have had at the start or how things have been resolved. Those sort of things do matter in speaking to people that have actually gone through. I know you constantly champion for TAPI and for PropertyMe and for Inspection Express because we use them and we can see how great they are. So we're always happy to chat to other people about that. So if you're a property manager and you've got friends in another agency that are using it, speak to them. See if they can come into your office and do a little demo. Sometimes, almost most of the time people are going to trust that peer-reviewed experience a lot more than having, like the BDM for that program, coming into the office and doing more of a sales pitch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know that you've just sort of mentioned that the bigger things, which where you absolutely need to have the business owner involved in that, so I get that. But it sort of came to mind as well that there are products that are also free, that a property manager could have access to to make their life easier. So I know, you know, ultimately we're talking about the bigger tech stack, but I'm just thinking like the littler tech stack, like Calendly. You can get a free account with Calendly that might make your job as a property manager a little bit easier with getting appointments booked in or whatever that might be. You've got Zapier that you might be able to get some automations done for your emails. You've got like video ask, story time, like different types of ways to ask for Google reviews, like just like little minor free tech stacks that you can take responsibility for and it's not going to cost your business owner anything, but it'll still make your life easier. So I think that that's something that would be good for people to explore as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, there's a lot of options out there and I love playing around with all of those things and setting up our little Zapier automations or I had never used Calendly until I started here and it's brilliant, so being able to even just I think getting involved in forums online is a great way. Like most people I would assume in WA are part of the WA Property Managers Group, but I find that the Australian-wide Facebook group is really interesting and a lot of people do post in there about little like tips and tricks of free tools that they're using and just more ways to make your life easier. Yeah, there's so many options.
Speaker 1:So I haven't told you because I've literally just got off the call this morning, but I have got a demo coming because you know I love demos. I, you know I love demos, even if I'm not interested. I'd just love to know what's available. That's like my biggest thing that I tell everyone is just say yes to the demo, like because what will happen is you might not need it now and it might not be a pain point now, but in you know, three months, um, six months, twelve, it might not be a pain point now, but in you know, three months, six months, 12 months, you might have a pain point that comes up and then you go, you know what. I reckon that product would be good for me and then you've sort of you know just, you know that there is something available there that could fix.
Speaker 1:So the demo. I've got one of those demos coming up on Friday and it's for and I I'm not there yet, but I'm interested it's the AI calling for leads from your database and they put them in your system. I mean, they put it in your um, in your calendar, but you don't pay for it from the sounds of the marketing you don't pay for unless it's actually resulting in leads, and I'm curious at the product. And I also don't know whether the guy that called me was AI or not AI, because if he was AI, he was pretty cool and I feel like he should be AI because that's what you're promoting. So that's just an example of maybe it's not tech stack, but it's a new product that I'm interested. I'm curious I'm not 100% there yet about letting an AI call my clients, but I feel like I've got to get to that point at some stage over the next couple of years, because I think everyone else is going to do it. Click me the invite. I'll jump in on that one. Okay, all right, I will do because I think it'd be interesting. Okay, I digress Now.
Speaker 1:Change management is another big, big issue. So we've just talked about, you know, getting the leadership team to agree to a tech stack that you need. Now let's go in reverse. You've got a business owner or a leadership team that like, wants to throw in all this new tech, and then you've got a property management team that is just like eye-rolling. You know you're always changing. What's the best way to get the team on board when the business owner gets all excited about new products?
Speaker 2:Same approach. You have to focus on the why. Like you have to start with that. If you like, I've worked in businesses before where, um, you know, change was made constantly with no reason, no explanation. No, like, you have to understand the reason why, and I find that this works really well with our offshore team as well as onshore. If I'm making a change in a process I'm starting with, this keeps happening and so now we're going to do it this way to get this result. Like you have to start with the actual outcome for them to understand it, whereas if you just send out an email to say, hey guys, we're rolling this out tomorrow, this is what you have to do now.
Speaker 2:That's when people get their walls up. They are resistant to change because they're just thinking, oh my God, another change, another thing for me to log into, or whatever it is. I'd say the perfect example is we just did a training with our team for Lisey on Friday last week, so it's something that we're trialling instead of RP data for our CMAs to send out to owners, and I was a bit nervous because I'm thinking, oh my God, I just recently moved our workflow systems over and staff going to be frustrated that it's another change. But Michael, who did the training for us, really focused on the why and the time-saving part of it first and then explained the process of how it's going to happen, and the team loved it. I was really surprised. They were all straight away on board with it. They're all excited because they can see how much quicker the process is going to be and how it's actually going to make their lives easier.
Speaker 1:And it reminded me of the time that when we brought in Tarpy and I remember I was really nervous because I think I'd just come back from a trip away and when I didn't have, you and the team would eye roll because I came back with a new idea. And so what I did for that situation is I booked out an actual room somewhere and I created it as a bit of a half day event, so we had a money mindset coach come in and do like a session with the team about managing budgeting and all of that, and that was actually really cool. And then we had Taylor who came over and did the session about TAPI and he was like we're rolling it out tomorrow, day one's tomorrow, even though I said to him and I'm very grateful for this I said to him, listen, can we do it for all portfolios except for one? And he was like, nah, it's a whole lot, everyone's on board. And I'm glad that he put that pressure on me to do it, because it definitely the person I was worried about.
Speaker 1:I wasn't didn't need to be worried about anyway, but um, then the and then what we did is after that session we finished off with like um, it was at a health like mind body clinic, so we finished off with like um, cryotherapy and and brain tapping and massage and all of that.
Speaker 1:So it's sort of like I call it a shit sandwich because it's sort of like stuck it in the middle with some good stuff on either side, so they were distracted and never had a problem since with implementing. I think as well though it comes down to like the team trusting you and trusting me and trusting us as a business that we are, we do bring things in thoughtfully and they don't come in just for the sake of it. There is absolutely a reason. So having teams trust for it, I think, is just really important because, um, they would never question you know really something that we were doing um, because they know that any, anything that we do is for the business's benefit and for their benefit as well yeah, absolutely um, now let's finish off with two last questions.
Speaker 1:First one is what is your favorite tech stack?
Speaker 2:oh, I'm gonna say tarpy. Yeah, I just, I really love tarpy and being a property manager using it, and because I have I've tried so many different systems, I feel like I've been through every CRM possible. Um, being a property manager and having seen the benefit of when it's used to its full potential, that switch from reactive to proactive maintenance made such a big difference, like the way that it increased my capacity. You know, I was going home and I could sleep at night. I wasn't waking up at 3am being like, oh my God, I forgot to send this or I forgot to set a reminder to chase up that, because I had those systems in place to support me.
Speaker 2:And it made all the difference with my owners and my tenants as well, because they were getting that constant reminder, that constant update from me to say, hey, you know, this is showing up, like it would show up in my inbox. To say, hey, this needs to be followed up. And even if I knew what was going on, I then had to do two clicks and I could update with, okay, hey, guys waiting for the contractor to quote, snooze it out for two weeks, or whatever it is. So I would say my close second is definitely anything through StaffLink. You know I love my workflows but if I was to pick anything, I would really say Tarpy, because of how much time it really did save me in my own portfolio.
Speaker 1:Amazing. And last question would be is there like and this is a visionary thing is there like some sort of tech that you wish we had, that you don't know about, that you're like imagine if we had this, how much life would be easier? Like a future idea.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's definitely something out there and I think it's interesting seeing what people are creating, because there are so many new things popping up constantly. I am seeing there's going to be some sort of AI program come out like that has it integrated in everything? Because really like it would be great if we had an all-in-one system and I know that there's some out there, but they never quite do everything exactly how you want it. But imagine if we could just have like a Zapier that connects all our systems so we can still keep our tech stacks that are customized to our agency, but everything just flows seamlessly all the way through and all the way back. So you know if I didn't have to to leave my PropertyMe tab to open up ChatGPT or whatever it is like.
Speaker 2:I think that there's definitely the space in the next three to five years, I'd say, to see how people integrate AI into our systems will be very interesting. There's not really one specific thing that I've thought okay, wow, like I wish I'd had that. But there's things that I now look back on and I'd say I wish I did have it when I was a PM, like the 360 cameras. So I feel like you don't know what's out there until you have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's the whole iPhone concept, isn't it? Like I don't know the features until you give them to me, and then I'm like, yes, I need that feature, but I don't know what it is, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I wish I'd had it forever Correct. So what I'm hearing is sort of like an AI that sits in the back end of your computer that talks to all your programs and at the moment, like you said, zapier, that sort of links the programs together. But I'm thinking of something in the computer that works everything. But I'm also thinking and there's probably I don't have a visual to show people but like our HubDash that we use, which is basically like a dashboard, maybe a little bit like let's use the PropertyMe dashboard as an example, just for the visuals, but a lot more involved. Dashboard as an example, just for the visuals, um, but a lot more involved.
Speaker 1:So on that hub dash, we've got like or you've got the anniversaries, the birthdays, you've got links for forms, um, you've got your workflows, your processes. But imagine, like, in my mind, I'm thinking like what would be great is to have the emails inbox sitting in there so that where it's got my tasks for the days, it's got the tasks for everything. So it would have like two Facebook messages, three LinkedIn messages, um, post you today on LinkedIn, my inbox. So all my tasks were in that one hub dash yeah, and I know that there's.
Speaker 2:there are people out there trying to do it, because I've spent a lot of time looking into this recently where they're capturing everything from your work emails and then your personal emails and then creating just one big to-do list, but no one's really done it properly yet. Like there's always something missing, and I think I guess people are taking into consideration the security side of it, like do we really want to link our property main with one thing that's going to have access to everyone's information? So I can understand the limitations, but I think, yeah, over the next couple of years, I'm sure someone's going to come out with something and I'm sure that you and I are going to sit on a demo and think this is exactly what we were wanting Exactly.
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, what you've just said is absolutely correct. We've also got that problem with the current tech not wanting to have that open API for products. I guess we've got is getting the tech companies to get safe in that space.
Speaker 2:yeah, interesting anyway yeah, very interesting, I think, watching what happens, um, especially looking back at the last you know six years of how much stuff has changed, it does make me very excited for, I guess, what's to come. I'm interested to see what people are going to start coming now. But you know what's not come. I'm interested to see what people are going to start coming out with.
Speaker 1:But you know, what's not changed is the capacity of how many properties you can manage with all this tech stack.
Speaker 2:It has. It has changed, but people just need to actually use them properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the difference. So, to leave everyone with a lasting little thought, that a bit of a benchmark in terms of where agencies are sitting Australia-wide with their capacity. It's around 100 properties per head. Now, just keeping in mind that that's very different to how many properties a property manager manages, but how many properties per head in that department. So, taking into account your assistants, your VAs, etc. So Benchmark is around 100 and we, I think, are sitting at about 120 and the goal for us is to get to 150 headcount, which would probably result in portfolios being around 180 to 200 properties. So that's a little bit of a. So I'll leave people to sit on that stat and maybe reflect on what they're doing in their business. Always, if anyone's got any questions, I'm happy to go into anything in more detail. Thank you for your time. All right, Thanks, Ash.
