Sustainable Growth In Property Management

We explore how to grow a rent roll without burning out teams or profits, drawing on Kylie Lange’s 35-year path across sales, strata, commercial, and residential PM. We unpack aligned incentives, profit per management, modern tenants, and practical training that sticks.

• defining sustainable growth and client fit
• aligning owner, BDM, and PM incentives
• spotting turnover red flags and culture gaps
• separating hard clients from bad business
• time-cost math and internal charge-out rates
• tracking profit per management, not portfolio averages
• quality owner, property, tenant, and team standards
• modern tenant expectations and inclusive content
• one-on-ones, business plans, and flexible roles
• training pathways and hands-on workshops

Head over to Real Estate Business Solutions and connect with Kylie. If you are in Adelaide, please go join her at Coffee Conversations as well

Detector Inspector | Safer Homes

This podcast is kindly sponsored by The Associates Co. 

The Associates Co provides fully trained professionals to assist you with scaling your property management department. They are ready to hit the ground running! Once a luxury, VA's are now a staple in every business, whether you are managing 5 properties or 500+

Head over to www.theassociatesco.com

Transcript

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Kylie’s 35-Year Real Estate Journey

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Today, joining us, we have the lovely Kylie Lange joining us from Adelaide. She is also um one of our coffee and conversation hosts in Adelaide that you may have met. So, Kylie, welcome. Thanks, Ash. So good to be here. Can I get you to start off by doing a bit of an intro about yourself, sort of what your careers looked like and what you are up to these days?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Sure. Well, my career has spanned over 30 odd years, 35 years, I think I celebrated last year, to be quite honest, sad to say. And it's been through all aspects of the real estate industry. So I started off in reception and admin, and I was selling real estate, or I had my license to sell real estate before I was 18. I started selling real estate when I was 19, and then I got into residential property management, which is where I pretty much left focused my whole career over. I moved into state and got my licence again in the Northern Territory and stayed there for a little while and relocated from there to Western Australia, where I got my licence again, and I worked in Strata as well as commercial property management as well. And then I came home to South Australia and I've been here ever since. And like I said, I've been concentrating on residential property management and I focused on that for the remaining part of my career. And then over the last nine or so years, I then worked in a corporate position, corporate position. So overseeing the corporate offices or the businesses within South Australia from a property management perspective. And after I left that position, I started my business, Real Estate Business Solutions, and I thought I'd be able to offer the same kind of services that I'd offered in my corporate position to other general businesses within South Australia. So who weren't lucky enough to have what that corporate organisation offered. So I'm now offering it as an individual to other officers within South Australia and around the country, really, because it sort of goes everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, amazing. I didn't know you had done all facets of real estate. Like literally, like there's not many people I meet who have done selling, property management, strata, and commercial and upper management.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yes. So I have done all of it and I haven't spent like a long time in all of it. I think I was I did a bit of strata while I was in WA for around about 18 months, and that was the same with commercial. I was going to become a commercial property manager once I arrived back in South Australia, but I think the legislation changed and I ended up going back into residential property management and I never moved forward to get my license. I've also got my license as an auctioneer as well. So like yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Do you know what? I will I would put money on it that there are not many people in Australia that have literally done it all.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Very rarely. When I was getting my sales license back in South Australia for oh my god, I don't know how many times. I think it was about the third time. Because I let it lapse. So the moral of the story, everyone, is never let your licenses lapse. So when I got my sales license back in South Australia, the organization that I was going through, one of my colleagues had said, Well, Kylie, you know what, you're gonna get your auction years license as well. And I'm like, I don't really need it, I'll never use it. I don't care, you're gonna do it. And I'm like, oh, okay. And it was so much fun. It really was. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

So I loved it. So good. Also, the other thing that I don't see a lot of people do is go from selling to property management. So why did you get started in selling to start off with? Was it just because the job sounded like, you know,

Licenses, Auctions, And Career Pivots

SPEAKER_00 3:50

like glamorized or like, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Look, I think when I'd moved into real estate, I could I went straight from school into the reception position. And one of the conditions for me leaving school at the time with the business owner and my parents were that I I had to continue my study because at that point in time I was only 15. And then it was agreed that okay, well, you go ahead and get your license for sales, and then once you've done that, you can move into sales, and that so that's what I did essentially. And I remember feeling at the time as I was moving into sales, and it was it was harder than what I'd expected as well. And I'd had to give up my weekend time, which of course, a young lady at that particular time I didn't really want to do it, and I felt as well almost being a young lady as well, that I wasn't really taken seriously at that point. It was a real boys' club at that point in time, and it's a lot different now to what it was then. And there were women in real estate back then as well, don't get me wrong, and they were doing amazingly well, but I just felt for myself it just wasn't where I wanted to be. So, and then I had the opportunity to try residential property management, and that's where I went after that, and I just loved it.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

So it was more that you were just working in an office that probably not not pressured you in any way, but just were more sales oriented, and that was where their mind was working.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yeah, and I and I wanted to do that as well because I had done work experience at the office as well before I'd secured the job. So I had done work experience there wanting to go into real estate. So it wasn't like I want I didn't want to do it, I wanted to do it, and they offered me the ability to be able to do it. And it was when I moved from sales into PM, it was just I didn't want to do that sales thing. It just wasn't for me after all, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah. Now you did a great post last year, which was five questions to ask before planning for 2026. And we're going to go through it because I really like the questions that were on here. And so the first one was, and the number one was, is my rent role growing sustainably? And the question that I've got for you is what does sustainable mean to you and what should it mean to businesses?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Well, I think sustainable,

Why Sales Didn’t Fit And PM Did

SPEAKER_01 6:20

you need to be able to look at it's not just we when you're growing a rent role or when you're growing your portfolio, you're not just adding properties for the sake of adding properties. It's got to be something that you can continue to grow from. So are you going to be able to sustain those properties? Are you going to be able to keep them, retain them within your portfolio, or are you just adding them on for the sake of adding them on? Because not every property that you bring into your business can potentially be good business. So it's not like we should be listing absolutely everything because we can. Is it right for our business? Is it bringing in the right vibe, the right, I guess you need to think about what the business, uh, the clients are bringing in to your team members as well? Because I hear quite a lot the terminology, and I don't know whether everybody hears it either, but the term slum lords, it's not something that you want to bring into your business. So you need to really look at the business that you're bringing on. So have a look at what you've brought on for the previous year or the current year or what you're currently bringing on now. The business that you're bringing on, is it going to sustain, be sustainable within your business? Are you going to be able to retain them? Is it going to be something that's going to help grow your team? Because you need to look at the team as well and how they're impacted by the business that you're bringing in as well. If you bring in businesses or properties under management, I should say, that are going to impact your property managers and your team members in a negative fashion, then that's not what you really want to have within your business because it's going to cost you money in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah. It's the first thing that comes to mind when you started talking sort of about that and you know, making sure that you're not bringing on, you know, slumlords per se, is getting everyone in the team on the same level. And you've got maybe a business owner that might be saying to the BDM, take on everything, because we know that a lot of business owners are focused just on the actual number of managements. You might have a BDM who is potentially feeling like they want to take on as many properties because again, you know, everyone focuses on the number and they get commission. And then you've got the poor property manager then who has to deal with it. Do you find a lot of businesses where everyone is like, you know, if it's a little bit fractured with, you know, you've got maybe someone who's listening has got a business owner who is, you know, really wanting to take everything? How does the team potentially get the business owner to understand that we don't want to take them all, you know what I mean? Do you find any businesses with that bit of conflict? Like, how could someone manage that?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yes. And it's great that you bring that up because the businesses who continue in that fashion, you'll generally find that they have a high turnover of staff. Because when the business owners don't understand or can't work together with their teams, and essentially what you're saying there, that not everybody's on the same page. And everybody for the good of the business needs to be on the same page as well. And when you have a business owner wanting absolutely everything coming in because they just want properties under management, which apparently equals income, then you've got the BDMs bringing in absolutely everything because they're financially rewarded as well for the sake of it. And then you've got your property managers that are squawking because of the fact that it's just not working because of the properties that are being brought in. It's it's an absolute mess. It's a dog's dinner. So you need to be able to all be on the same page. And how are you all on the same page? Well, you need to make sure that I guess you have a great culture within your business. And that starts from the top, right? So the culture needs to be grown and nurtured. Team leaders need to be on the same page as well. And what you'll find that if there are fractures within teams, it creates the ability of one of the team members or more team members leaving to go to a culture that's more understanding and more on the same page as where they are with their values, because it

Defining Sustainable Rent Roll Growth

SPEAKER_01 10:55

also stems down to an individual and an individual's values as well. And if your values aren't aligned amongst the whole team, then you're going to have people hopping around until they find where they belong.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah. So then in the other turn, so high turnover would give that indication. High, what would you consider high turnover? Every six months, every 12 months, every three months is a goal or two?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Oh my gosh, if it's every three months, definitely. Look, even every every six to twelve months, you should be able to retain quality team members for longer than that. And I've know of business owners who do have quality team members who stay with them for a very long time, and loyalty does mean absolutely everything. However, there are people out there who don't believe in that loyalty side of things anymore, and that's when the turnover happens as well. So, yeah, so if you've got team members leaving every three months, you've definitely got a problem there. But yeah, six monthly and 12-monthly as well. If you can get them to the two years and then, you know, thus staying after that as well, that's a good thing, you know. So I also find that, you know, sometimes there are little cracks that might start appearing in one's work as well, around about that 18-month mark as well. So, you know, if you can get past the 18-month mark and two-year mark and everything's rolling along nice and smoothly, everyone's happy, then you're on your way to that's a that's a really good thing to have.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah. Now I've got another controversial question to ask in regards to this. Um, I tend to ask weird questions because I'm sure that there's other people thinking the same. I have experienced this before, uh not recently, but before, where I have property managers who become increasingly fussy with the properties that they manage. And so sometimes a property manager's version of a crappy property or a crappy landlord, I think is sometimes unrealistic. And I and I don't know if this is the right thing or the wrong thing to say, because there's going to be people that don't like like this statement. But I sometimes think that property managers also can't expect to have a perfect portfolio of just perfect properties, just perfect landlords. So there are people that are going to be like, oh, that landlord's difficult. Well, you know, uh does that make them someone you want to get rid of? You know, do you sort of understand what I mean? Like, and how do you balance, how do you balance that? Because I have had property managers say to me before something about a crappy property, and I'm like, well, it's not. And you have to have some of these on your pro on your portfolio because I think it makes you a better property manager. Obviously, we're not talking about owners that are, you know, not wanting to do compliance or you know, safety concerns and things like that, because that's just a given. But we're just talking about sometimes you have difficult owners. How do you manage it?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah, well, you know what? You're absolutely right, because property management's not a perfect world. There's there's just because you're not a perfect landlord, it doesn't mean that you've got to get the boot. And just because it's not a perfect property doesn't mean it needs to get the boot. So I think, and and I have had property managers say to me as well that you know what, this particular business owner is not listening to me. It's a substandard property and we shouldn't be managing it, and it's blah, blah, whatever the case might be. So, yes, there are property managers out there who are absolutely wanting the perfect world and the perfect portfolio and everything to, you know, follow through with everything so that they don't have to lift a finger. Well, that's not property management, right? So if you're expecting that, you perhaps better reassess what you're actually looking at doing for a career and think maybe whether it's not for you or not, because you're not going to get perfect landlords and you're not going to get perfect properties. But it doesn't mean just because they have some issues from time to time that you need to get rid of them. It's the the the people that you need to reassess as to whether they're actually worthwhile to keep is to the ones that are costing your business money, costing your business money not just with not getting enough income from it, but spending so much time on them because they're actually that needy, and you're not actually generating enough income to cover the expenses. So you need to understand from a business owner's perspective with regards to how much your property manager's costing you and how much your uh your clients are costing you as well. From a property manager's perspective, I think what you need to do is if you you have queries or concerns with regards to certain clients or certain properties, instead of going into your business owners and complaining about the problems that you've got, go in with solutions as well. And the first solution is not just to get rid of them, because if you get rid of all of your properties and if you get rid of all your landlords that you're having difficulties with, then you're not going to have anything because then you're not going to have a salary because that's what's

Misaligned Incentives And Team Culture

SPEAKER_01 16:54

bringing your income in. So instead of just going in with problems, go in with the solutions and have a look and use that critical thinking as to what can be done about it. Is there anything that we can do? Can we adjust what we're currently offering this particular client? And and that kind of thing, because not every, you know, the the really bad ones are quite minimal, you know. But you know, in a portfolio, there's not a lot of slumlords and there's not a lot of bad properties as well. So you need to have a look at I think I think it comes down to again being on the same page with your team members and working with expectations of the clients that are being brought into the business. So when the BDM's speaking about new speaking to new clients about their properties that are coming in, what are the businesses' expectations with regards to how a property should be presented? What does the current new landlord need to do in order to the property in order to bring it up to the standard for the expectations of the business so that all of the BDMs and the PMs and the PMAs and everybody within the team can work together? So, and then there needs to be processes put in place with regards to who's going to be managing this process with the new landlord. Does the BDM just come in and say, okay, here's a new property? I'm now going to wipe my hands of it, and it's up to you, Mr. Property Manager, to make sure everything is resolved nicely. Well, Mr. Property Manager doesn't have the relationship with the current with the new client like what the BDM does. So there needs to be some sort of joint working with the BDM and the PM to make sure the new property is onboarded in the right fashion. And so it comes down to processes as well, to make sure that you've got the right processes and again, values are aligned to make sure we have the same, the good result. And we want the client to have the best experience as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, absolutely. So I've just written on my notes, sort of with the landlords, you know, making sure that they're financially viable in the business and that they're not a safety and compliance risk. So more so than a diff being a difficult client person, but you know, still keeping an eye on the time you're spending with them. Now, just as a really, really quick calculation, which is going to look different, and this is not completely accurate, but this is immediately what I thought about when you were talking about a landlord that was taking up someone's time a lot. So the first thing I did was just calculated and thought to myself, well, how much time to spend with an owner is too much time. And the way that I would work it out is that if you were hypothetically, let's, I'm just going to use it for just for the simple maths, but let's just say that you received about $250 a month in management fees for that property. I tend to calculate in it as a business that I would for the business to be running efficiently, I tend to work with a third, third, third rule, which means that the salary, the alley rate that the property managers on times that by three. And that's what I would want the client to be charged through services. So when I calculate just as a bit of an average property manager wage, it works out that a client should really be getting charged around $115 per hour for the management of the property. So this isn't including anything that we separately charge for, like inspections and finals and things like that, which we do in WA, but some listening will be like, why do you charge for inspections? I know, right? So, but we'll just talk about it on a management level, which is maintenance, rent arrears, and that type of thing. So I'm saying that, you know, my calculations would say $115 per hour is what the client is getting charged. That allows for the property manager to be spending two hours per month with that client for maintenance, phone calls, lease renewals, admin, and all of that. Now, granted, that there's going to be times and months where you have a big, big you know, situation, it's taking up more time. And there's going to be other months where you don't hear from here, you know, you have to hear from the client. Like I said, not a completely accurate calculation and it will look different, but that's for me, if someone said to me, how many hours should you be spending

Turnover Signals And Retention Benchmarks

SPEAKER_00 21:35

with clients, phone calls, emails, admin, rent arrears, lease renewals, I would probably say around two hours per month. I don't know if anyone's ever calculated it before.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Look, I don't know whether anybody's ever calculated it before either. I think that's a great way to look at things. I think you'll know if you're spending too much time on a client because it'll it'll be a constant, constant, constant, constant. Yeah, and that's when you know it's sucking your resources and it's sucking you dry. But yeah, that that's a great way to analyze it and and look at it for sure. Because, like you said, you will spend a lot of time with one client for a while, then you might not have to spend any time with them at all for six or seven months, right? So it kind of also waves uh weighs up in that that kind of thing. But if you're if it's a constant, that's when you, like I said, a constant, constant, constant, that's when you have to reassess and look at it and really start to pay attention. And I think I was I was thinking about this earlier. Earlier as well. And I was thinking about the financials, and I was thinking about determining what growth looks like when it comes to your business on a yearly basis. And I think this is one of the questions as well, with regards to making sure that we're tracking profits per management as opposed to on an overall basis of your portfolio. Once you start tracking the income, the profit that you're receiving per management on a yearly basis, as opposed to just linking it into your whole business, you can then start to track it more efficiently as to how much time and what the time is actually costing you for that. And then you can actually break it down a lot easier to see which client, which properties being spent more time on, and what time and how much is that costing your business. So that's why it's so important to make sure that you're actually tracking the profitability of each property that you have, of each client that you have, rather than just overall, because you know some people say, Oh, you know, I'm I'm getting, I might be getting 10% or 11% or 12% for that particular property because of whatever reason, and I'm only getting 5% for this property. But I, you know, because I'm getting so much for the other property, it offsets what I'm getting for this. Well, yes, to a certain degree that's accurate, but or that's true, but then you still have to work out whether that property that you're getting 5% for is actually viable when it comes to the type of property that it is, and when it comes to the type of client that it is, and when it comes to the type of tenant that goes in it as well. Because you need within your portfolio a quality client, quality property, and a quality tenant. So, but to get all of that, you need your quality team members in order to be able to attract such quality.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah. It, you know, I've I've done this before when I've looked at our portfolio, and you know, we all make excuses, me included, of why we're gonna hold on to that one and why we're gonna hold on to that one. Yeah, we certainly do. I've got I've got one, you know, where he's got 12 properties, and we literally have managed them for 20 years for the whole time we've had the business. And he holds a soft spot in my heart because I remember him coming into the business, basic as you know, he's an old man. He was looked like he wasn't much off the street, came in with his one crappy property and a bed sit in that was like $120 a week or something at the time. And I gave him my time and I treated him like I would any other client that had a thousand dollar a week property. And at the end of it, he had been to a few agencies and I was the only one that actually gave him the time to sit through because probably whether he was doing it on purpose or not, with his appearance, I'm not sure. And then he turned around and he said, actually, I'd love for you to manage it, but I've got, you know, 14 of them or whatever. And I remember at the time I had 90 properties and I had a goal to get to 100, and that ticked me over. So emotionally, I'm never going to get rid of him.

Hard Clients vs Bad Business

SPEAKER_00 25:54

He's still on his fees from 20 years ago, and I am not doing anything about it, and proudly so. But then we've got another client as another example where he is also on some cheap fees, but he also owns three or four very expensive properties in our local area, and we hold on to them because the excuse we tell ourselves is, well, if he's gonna sell his properties, surely he's gonna be selling them soon and we want the listing. Exactly. Yeah. You've probably heard them all, haven't you? All the excuses we have. So I think for me, because like we are we are going to have the excuses, I think for me, I would say that I probably feel comfortable as a business owner having a percentage to say, okay, I'm going to allow 2% of my portfolio or 5% of my portfolio to be, to have excuses for. And but that that is all. And I guess that's what I would encourage other business owners that also share excuses to say, well, that's maybe okay, but how about you just have a rule that only a percentage of those owners you make excuses for? That's probably what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Oh, absolutely. And using both of those as an example, I would suggest that they're not slumlords either. They're great people, right? And the salt of the earth. When you when you're dealing with people like that, you can have that flexibility and that we've got like a small percentage of them just being that's okay. I'm happy with that because you know what? At the end of the day, I love these people, these are great people, and I don't mind. I was having a conversation with somebody today, actually, we were talking about treating the way that some people still treat tenants as tenants instead of treating tenants as people, and it's incredibly different now to what it was when I first started out in real estate. Tenants were tenants because they had to rent, whereas now they're opting to be tenants, and they're there's a high probability that they're landlords as well. And what happens is that, you know, they rent where they choose to rent because people want to rent these days. It's a great thing to rent. Maybe they're young people and they can't quite afford to buy an area they actually want to live in forever. So they buy their first home in a in a geographical area where it's affordable and they have it as an investment property, and then they might buy their second property as an investment property whilst they're still renting over in the area that they want to live in. And by the time they've got their two investment properties and they've they've grown in value and, of course, they've generated income and so forth, they have the ability to be able to either use them as collateral or to be able to sell them to eventually buy their forever homes. So, you know, tenants don't, tenants choose to be tenants these days. It's not like it was 35 years ago when the people who were tenants couldn't afford to buy their own home.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

And it's interesting you say that because uh I've been doing a bit with our database in terms of our marketing and newsletters that go out. And I have chosen to currently not separate the email marketing that's going out to, you know, to tenants and owners and this and buyers and sellers. I'm actually trying to create content that's relevant for everybody because the thing we fall into the trap of just sending out, you know, to the tenants that are listed as tenants, we just send them out tenant information. But imagine them getting like, you know, like information that they're still going to find interesting, that yeah, because one day they will be, like you said, the investor. So that's something that I've started doing. It's pretty hard to come up with ideas though that suits everybody. But I'll share the two just in case anyone's listening and they find it helpful. But the most recent one that I just sent out was about safe safety of lithium batteries and homes and how, yeah, and how, and that's relevant for everybody. And it was an article that Detector Inspector had that I used and put the link in. But it was basically, you know, if you are a landlord, you know, ask your property manager if they, you know, can include it in the welcome pack or advise a tenants, you know, if you are, you know, but if you're renting it, it's relevant for everybody. And that was quite a good topic. And then the other topic that I did, which I'm going to do more of them, was opinions of different generations with the housing market. So I did an interview with a couple in their 20s who really don't have any interest ever in being investors. One of them owns a property, one of them doesn't. And they will they own a little one-bedroom unit, which would make a perfect investment property. But when asked the question about, you know, down the line when they want to upgrade, what will they do with it? 100%, there's no way they're ever going to be renting that out and contributing, in their words, to a rental crisis and they will always sell it. Really interesting perspective from someone in their 20s with their opinion on the housing market. And that was some an interview that I sent out to the full database because again, renters will find that interesting, landlords will find that interesting, buyers and sellers, everyone will find that interesting. So I'm doing other generations as well. So, like I said, a little bit hard to think of the generic content that's interesting, but I would encourage people to maybe try not to segregate your database too much because you've got that missed opportunity, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Yeah, I totally agree, you know, because you just don't know what someone's thinking, right? They

Measuring Time Cost Per Owner

SPEAKER_01 31:29

might be a buyer, they might be a seller, they might be a landlord, they might be a tenant. But at the end of the day, we're all just people, right? And we all need a home to live in. And the information that we can share with our database can, you know, like you said, be common for common enough for everyone to be able to take something away from. So and gone are the days where we we treat anybody differently, you know, at the end of the day, we're all just people, and I just don't get how people are still doing that segregation because and I think part of the conversation that I was having with this property manager today as well is that, you know, we've got a duty of care to our tenants that we'll always have. We've got our fiduciary duty that we've got to our clients and so forth. And we need to ensure that we we can just keep that separate and do our best to be a good person with regards to our duties for each of those people that we're working with.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Absolutely. Absolutely. We haven't got past question one.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

No, we kind of talked about question four a little bit, the tracking.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

We did, and we did talk about number two, which was are my team's goals aligned with the business? That what I all I wanted to touch on that is is that something that you would just like recommend people each year to sort of just because I guess you've got changeover of staff as well. So once a year sort of coming together, or is it something that maybe we should be filtrating through our day-to-day on an ongoing basis? What are businesses doing these days?

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So I really like the idea of the one-on-ones with business owners as well, to make sure that you know the people that are within your business are with you and don't have any problems in coming to you. And if you if you a big business and it's not the business owners who who's running one-on-ones, it needs to be the team leader or the department manager or someone needs to be having those one-on-ones with with each of the team members in order to be able to take that information back to the management team. So everybody can be on the same page, and it makes it easier for everyone to work together as a team in order to be able to get to the end goals as to where the business wants to take their business or the business owner wants to take their business. So making sure that you you do those one-on-ones is extremely important as well, and to making sure you have a business plan for the property management department and individual BDMs as well. So sometimes businesses will just have an overall business plan for their business overall, but then why not drill down into the actual property management department and to the individual team members as well? Because knowing how your team members tick and what makes them them helps you drive your business in the direction that you want it to go. So staying abreast with that as well. So regular, regular meetings with your team members. You know, I've been in a business where I've had monthly one-on-ones, and that's just way too much, in my opinion. So I like the quarterly ones where it's sort of, you know, it time ticks away so fast as it is, and we've got so much going on and so forth. So, and that kind of aligns with the regular regularity of what you should be, where you should be looking at your business plans anyway. So making sure that that um you're keep keeping up to date and you're keeping on track with all your targets that are in your business plan as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, I the because like they're two different things. Yeah, the business owner's business plan I uh is completely separate. Well, I feel like it's sort of in a way, completely separate to the micro plan you have for the team. I know for me, I'm someone that like I don't like one-on-ones. I don't think I've ever done them in my business at all. They just are not something that's natural for me, but I do, it's not that I don't have the communication with the team. I'm just a lot more ad hoc with it and and approachable with it as well. And so, as an example, just the other day I had a chat with one of the team, and it was, it was just over the phone, but it was chat about for her to think about in the next couple of months because she's nearly at capacity with her portfolio. So the chat we had was in the next couple of months, I want her to have a think about what direction she sees her role, because there'll be the opportunity for us to either cap her portfolio and not do anything with it, and she just stays as it is. And there'll be absolutely property managers that are happy with that and don't want anything to change. But then there's also the opportunity if she wants to grow that portfolio further, but then bring in an assistant, or she could outsource the inspections, or she could have a full-time VA. There's different ways that we can go. We could bring in a leasing consultant. And I personally actually don't mind which way she wants to go, because I would rather,

Profit Per Management Tracking

SPEAKER_00 36:29

she's so amazing, I would rather look after her and what her personal goals were. So she hasn't given me an answer. I don't mind what the answer is. So as long as she's happy, so she'll let me know in the next couple of probably the next couple of months, she's gonna have to tell me what the plan is and then I will work towards that. So, and if she says, no, Ash, I'm very happy with just my portfolio the way that it is, it's ticking nicely, and I don't want to be responsible for assistance or anything, then I know, okay, I will now need to bring on another property manager who will bring in the new growth. So, yeah, whether I'm hiring for a property manager, hiring for a part-time assistant or sorry, an assistant, hiring for a VA full-time for her, doesn't really matter. Just don't we just want to work in with the team?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Exactly. But you you also have a lot to do with your team. You're very hands-on. There are business owners out there that are not so hands-on with their property management teams because they're sales focused.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

And when they are sales focused, that's when they have a team leader or a department manager who manage every manages everything. And from that respect, that's where you really need to make sure that everything's humming along nicely because all of a sudden, then the business owner finds out that it's not. So there needs to be some regular communications to feed back to the business owner. So the business owner is mind is kept at ease that he knows and understands that the property management side of the business is humming along nicely and everyone's happy.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Yeah. It is a hard one though, isn't it? Like I'm I'm I'm happy to be flexible. Actually, I did have this chat with someone the other day, I can't remember who it was. And I was saying how I would find the right person and I'll be happy to modify, you know, what we need around that person. But I wonder if there's businesses that don't have the ability to do that. And and I wonder whether that's a fair, a reasonable thing that there is a certain size business where they just can't afford to have flexibility, or is or can everyone have you know have flexibility? Like I'm just wondering which one takes precedence, the structure and the business plan that I have, which is this way, or being fluid with my team. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Yeah, yeah, I do. And I think you might find that out once it's too late because then you're when you when you start to see or feel things that are not working, or you know, there's holes or things start to break down, it's like, well, hang on. That's when we need to restructure and re-assess the way we're doing things. So yeah, it's a hard call, but you know, at the end of the day, it comes down to your business model and what you're happy with. So I've always said to businesses when I've talked to them about business planning and I've talked to them about one-on-ones and so forth, look, if it's if it's not for you and it's working efficiently at the moment, then you don't need to introduce it just because I say, it's something that you've got to take into consideration and will it make your better business better or not? Because if it's not you, like it's not you, you don't do it just because I tell you to, because it doesn't mean that it's going to work. So if it's not broke, don't fix it. But it's something that if there's something that's not quite working within your business, it's like, halo, well, perhaps we do need to start looking about maybe doing some one-on-ones and and seeing whether that's going to, you know, solve any of the problems that we've got. So it's about trialing new things as well, I think, and looking and being a little bit more open-minded as to how that can be positive for our business, or whether it's not. And if it doesn't work out, you stop. You know, it's like a process. You introduce a new process and you trial it, right? And if it doesn't work, you tweak it. And if it doesn't work, you might say, Well, I'm not going to do it anymore. And get rid of it. Or otherwise, you tweak it and it's like, oh, yeah, this is working. You keep it and you reassess it in, you know, 12 months' time again or so.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

And I guess this is the point where people go, I need to bring someone in to help me sort this out. Help me be by my side while I make those potential mistakes. And that's when they go, Carly, can you come into my business and please help? So let's let's get into that just

Quality Owner, Property, Tenant, Team

SPEAKER_00 40:59

to finish off. What is the ideal size business that you you know love working with? And when are you finding clients calling you up? Like, what are they calling you in for? Like, what's your specialty from a service point of view?

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Well, I do work with a lot of businesses and you know, bigger businesses to smaller businesses as well. When I first started my business, I was working with new openings, so people who are just getting started and they might have needed new processes to be sort of uh introduced and so forth. And what I also do now, and I have been doing it for a little while, is providing support to new property managers. So quite frequently I heard, and this is where I sort of started getting the idea from, started to get a lot of feedback saying I'm not going to take a new property manager to the industry because I just don't have the time to train them. We don't have anybody to support them as going to take team members away from their current duties, blah, blah. And so I thought, well, you know what, I'll offer them the ability to be able to shadow their property managers, provide them with information and teach them how to do things and do that basically over an eight-week period so that it doesn't take the work away from the current property managers and they're provided with all the processes, best practice processes and so forth, so that they can move forward. And then I'm not going to end it just there. They've always then got me on phone. And if they've got any questions, they can give me a call. So we run through the eight-week process of best practices and so forth from A to Z of property management because they've generally just finished their licensing as well or their registration course. So they've already got that going on in the background. So they don't need too much of me doing that. And then we do some out-of-office work as well, on the road work, such as ingoing inspections, final inspections, and routine inspections and so forth, and how to manage different processes. So that's a big one. And then, of course, there's business planning that I've talked about and providing professional and legislative training. So I'm just about to do a trust accounting workshop. I saw that.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

I love that you're doing trust accounting. Good job.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Yes. So one of my industry colleagues, Diane Robson, here in South Australia, she's amazing when it comes to trust accounting. So her and I first held our first trust accounting masterclass last year. And we're holding another one again on Thursday, the 19th of February, I think it is. And then I'll be running through during the course of the year, and I'll be running little workshops as well where people can come and join me face to face, and we can, you know, do a routine inspection together. We can talk about doing ingoing inspections. So it then provides the other people who aren't maybe employed yet in the industry, and they may have just done their licensing course, and it has it provides them with the ability to be able to get hands-on practice on doing inspections, that kind of thing. So I hope that answers you.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah, amazing. And the best way for people to contact you, I know I find um you you do a lot on Instagram. So for me, that's like my favorite place to connect with you. But is that is that an okay place for people to connect?

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Yeah, look, I'm on all socials to a certain degree. Uh let me call socials Instagram Facebook because in my generation, that's probably about all I know.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

But I am on LinkedIn as well, and I do have a website, Kylie Langey.com. So K Y L I E L A N G E dot com. And so, yeah, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram and my website. So and there's my phone number as well if anybody wants to ring me on that too. So you know.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Amazing. Easy to find you. Well, I love your Instagram. So head over to Real Estate Business Solutions and connect with Kylie. If you are in Adelaide, please go join her at Coffee Conversations as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Oh my gosh. We've got that coming up on Friday, actually. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

So which is which is wonderful. Adelaide misses out in a lot of love. So I'm very thankful for your support down there. I'm so excited. I love uh love a good coffee. So

Modern Tenants And Database Strategy

SPEAKER_00 45:09

it's fantastic. Love it. Amazing. Um so good chatting with you. I think we did cover all those five things, even though we didn't directly go one, two, three, four, five. But I appreciate um everything you shared today. So if you're listening, head over, follow Carly and love everything that you're doing. I'm so glad we got to connect last year. So thank you for all the support and we'll talk to you soon. Okay. Thanks. Bye.