Tune in to this episode of The Same Day Podcast as Yonatan (Yoni) Schmidt joins Sarah Durbin, VP of Franchise Success at Keyrenter Property Management, to talk about how entrepreneurs can manage the demands of growing a business. Sarah talks about the challenges she first faced while growing her property management business, the importance of creating and refining SOPs, tactics to avoid disrupting your schedule, and the philanthropic endeavors she participates in to make a difference in people’s lives.
Managing a Thriving Business: Tricks of the Trade
Sarah Durbin is the VP of Franchise Success at Keyrenter Property Management. In her role, she leads group coaching sessions, hosts acquisition workshops, and provides one-on-one coaching to franchise owners and their teams. Sarah also serves as a business consultant on Keyrenter’s corporate team.
As a licensed real estate professional since 2006, Sarah previously owned and operated five property management firms, overseeing a portfolio of 1,200 homes. Currently, she works as an independent business consultant, where she focuses on helping small and midsize businesses streamline their operations, reduce costs, and optimize their departments to create more efficient and effective organizations.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Sarah Durbin explains how she ended up in the property management business
- The challenges Sarah initially faced in her business — and how she solved them
- Why it’s vital to whiteboard, document, and tweak processes continuously
- What does it mean to be the mayor of your community?
- Why small business owners should have a basic understanding of their financial statements to recognize problems and cost-saving opportunities
- Emerging trends in the technology solutions arena
- The integral role company culture plays in boosting morale and encouraging collaboration
- Strategies for determining staffing needs
- How Sarah uses time blocking to schedule and protect her calendar
- Sarah’s Sammy Smiles initiative — and who it honors
In this episode…
Entrepreneurship is a demanding yet fulfilling journey. By leveraging the knowledge, insights, and best practices of those who have been there, you can navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship with greater ease and increase your chances of success.
As a seasoned business consultant, Sarah Durbin has developed proven strategies to help businesses run smoothly. For example, if your company is experiencing a surge in growth, how do you know if it’s time to hire additional staff? Sarah recommends evaluating performance to determine if employees are overworked since productivity will suffer if they’re wearing too many hats. Your people need a company culture that fosters collaboration and enhances morale, which is also crucial to building a thriving business. Continuously developing and refining standard operating procedures (SOPs) is essential to ensure clear business processes. Business owners often have much to juggle, and distractions can present a significant challenge, so Sarah suggests structuring and protecting your calendar to ensure you can manage everything from client calls and business issues to family time.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Yonatan (Yoni) Schmidt on LinkedIn
- Keyrenter Property Management
- Keyrenter Property Management in Tulsa | Oklahoma City | Arkansas
- Keyrenter Property Management email address: [email protected]
- Sarah Durbin on LinkedIn
- Keyrenter Property Management Franchise Opportunities
- “Closing the Deal With Real Estate Investors” with Scott Reeves on The Same Day Podcast
- “From Sale to Closing: Fine-Tuning the Home-Building Process” with Noah Bleicher on The Same Day Podcast
- Ben Nemecek on LinkedIn
- Leo Abramovich on LinkedIn
- Sammy Smiles on Facebook
Sponsor for this episode…
Keyrenter Property Management:
This episode is brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management.
Keyrenter Property Management is a full-service property management company that helps clients buy, renovate, and operate real estate assets.
The team helps clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management.
That’s why, no matter what rental you have — single-family homes, condos, townhomes, or apartments — they can give you the management solutions you need.
To learn more about their services, go to https://keyrenterpmc.com/ or send them an email at [email protected].
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:05
Welcome to The Same Day Podcast where we discuss driving incremental business growth and other topics related to real estate, property management and entrepreneurship. Now to the show at hand.
Yoni Schmidt 0:20
Hello Yoni Schmidt here hosting today’s episode of The Same Day Podcast where I connect with entrepreneurs and top business and real estate leaders. past guests include Scott Reeves, Senior Vice President of Chickasaw Community Bank, Noah Bleicher Director of Operations at Capital Homes and many other esteemed guests. Today’s episode is brought to you by Keyrenter Property Management at Keyrenter Property Management we are a full service property management company, helping our clients buy, renovate and operate real estate assets. We help our clients build wealth while taking the headache out of property management. Listen, Sarah, we’ve helped Brian and Jason turn a nonperforming 14 unit property into 100 plus unit portfolio of renovated single family and multifamily properties. That’s why no matter what rental you have single family home condos, townhouses, apartments, we have the management solutions for you. Today, we’re excited to welcome Sarah Durbin, VP of Franchise Success at Keyrenter Property Management to our podcast. Sarah is a real estate powerhouse with a remarkable journey in the industry since 2006. She’s been a licensed real estate professional with her experience, including owning and operating five property management firms across four states and managing over 1200 homes. Known for her problem solving skills and expertise and streamlining operations. Sarah has made a significant impact in helping businesses enhance their performance and profitability, and outside of the professional realm. So Sarah is a passionate traveler, a dedicated supporter of the foster care system, and the inspiring force behind the Sammy Smiles movement. Join us as we delve into her fascinating story and gain valuable insight into from her wealth of experience in property management and business consulting. Welcome, Sarah, to the show.
Sarah Durbin 2:19
Thank you, Yoni, for having me. How are you? I’m doing great.
Yoni Schmidt 2:26
Wonderful. Well, I guess let’s just get started. And if you can share a little bit about your journey into the world of real estate, what was it that drew you to it?
Sarah Durbin 2:37
Yeah, so like, everybody else kind of landed, landed into it. So in my early 20s, I was actually running a door to door company, and single mom at the time and had gotten completely burnt out. And so I decided to move back to my hometown, rural Utah 9000 population, and was actually going to take a break for a little bit. And I lasted about two weeks doing that, and does not a sit still still kind of a person. And so I actually started a consulting with a real estate brokerage, and got into my first rental property there and purchased, you know, a house and a rental property, and then saw the opportunity for property management. And that’s what really, that’s what really got me started on the journey. So that little town just saw, you know, a lot of opportunity for investors. I think investors sleep a lot on small towns, and there’s still some really great deals. And the the rents were high at the time, the area is you know, there’s a lot of natural gas and those type of resources. So a lot, a lot of blue collar that was driving driving the ramp prices. And so just started there grew that operations to 350 doors. And then yeah, yeah, so over a pretty quick period of time. So initially, starting out first three months, I wore all the hats, I was doing everything, took it to about 70 doors. And actually, one of my biggest learning experiences for myself, you know, had had another business owner was like, You need to hire like, why haven’t you hired already. And so finally hired and then was able to double and another three, four months, and so hit about 150 doors. And then about a year and a half later, two years, we were 350 350 doors, so
Yoni Schmidt 4:47
Wow, that’s impressive. You must have had a big piece of a market share and in a town of 9000 people tell me what kind of challenges did you face when you started your property? management business and Utah.
Sarah Durbin 5:03
Some of the biggest challenges, one, definitely the staffing, not not doing that, early enough, this is going to age me 2006 Some of the property where systems just we’re just we’re not there. And so what we’re utilizing was not cloud based. That was, that was a huge, huge headache. With running around, I didn’t even use a website, I think for the first couple of years. So all of my all of my business was absolutely word of mouth. And so and then I had about eight competitors about after that first year, just pop up. But, you know, a couple years down the road, that definitely, definitely dwindled off. But just trying to make investors aware of the area too, because it was, it was just a great place to invest in at the time. So.
Yoni Schmidt 5:56
So yeah, exposure to the area, you know, showing showcasing to investors, you know, why it’s a good idea to invest in that area. Other investments can appreciate an improve, I bet you had a lot of, you know, growing pains and challenges as you are launching and scaling that business. How do you generally approach problem solving in business? And can you give us an example of a significant problem that you solved? Either back then when you were launching that business, or maybe something more recent? Nowadays, when you’re handling, you know, lots of communication from the franchise owners that you enter? And, you know, heading up all the marketing initiatives, making sure that we’re all set up for success?
Sarah Durbin 6:47
Yeah, so I mean, I’ve done a lot of coaching, not just in the property management space, so ecommerce, you know, Attorney’s Office, dental supply company. And so when I’m, when I’m approaching and going in and taking a look at the business, you just start to ask questions, right? So it’s asking the right questions and sitting down with everybody to ask ask questions, right, what’s working right now? What’s not working right now? I also like to ask three questions at the end of every year. So I’ve been doing this quite a quite a bit. But what do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing? What do I need to continue and improve, and when you when you sit down and remove yourself from the day to day and get quiet for a minute, and so that’s usually what I helped do get on the Zoom that’s taking, taking you away from the phone calls, it’s taking me away from the staff per minute, you’re shutting yourself in the office, and we’re getting clear, right? They usually know what’s not working, they usually have a pretty good idea of what what staff members are not are not working. And so when I get in, and start taking a look at that, I like disc profiles. And so in the property management world, I’m pretty clear on what disc profiles work best in the right seats. And so I’m a I’m a department style management. And I just think that, you know, somebody that does, well, maintenance probably isn’t the best at doing the cells in the business. And so taking a look at the different personalities. And so sometimes people are interested in the wrong seat. Or there’s the growing pains of if you’re under 300 doors, it’s it’s harder to staff correctly. And so really trying to get to those 300 doors so that you can actually staff each department correctly and have people in the correct seats. Because as you’re growing under under 300, doors, everybody’s wearing multiple hats. And so some of those hats, they’re better hat and some they’re not but out of necessity of the business growing, sometimes you got to make things work. You’re describing in there and figuring out, you know, what’s going on, operations wise. Sometimes everything is in someone’s head. And so they need to hire, but they haven’t been able to take everything out of their head and pass that along to staff because nothing’s written down. There’s not the processes put in place. It’s in somebody’s head. And so they’re reactive, right? That just creates a lot of reactive in the business instead of being being proactive. Yeah, just starting to dive into those into those things.
Yoni Schmidt 9:27
That’s great. Yeah, I know that, you know, that’s definitely a challenge and something that I’ve been focusing on, most recently with my department, you know, heading up the sales department here at keyrenterpmc.com. Where we’re, we’re operating in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, in Northwest Arkansas in Wichita, putting pen to paper or I guess, you know, keyboard to Google Doc and really putting those standard operating procedures those SOPs in place and writing either in a Video and a loom and something so that we can share this across the board. When we’re hiring and training, we’re using those resources rather than, you know, clogging up our time and our calendar and meet with meetings that are redundant, or, you know, the meetings that are just like the same thing over and over again. That’s wonderful. And I know that you’ve helped startups and, you know, companies that have grown and expanded, and as a consultant, that’s one of the things that you do. What would you say in today’s world is one of the most common pitfalls you see in property management businesses? And how do you address it?
Sarah Durbin 10:47
Most common pitfalls on would probably, it’s probably the operations and not having that not having that in place. And so starting, you say pen to paper, but I like whiteboarding it, right? Really getting it written down to where it’s visual, before you start utilizing other systems like lead simple or Monday, or any of those systems that you can create the recurring tasks that your staff can follow. So getting it down on paper first, then getting it into the system, and then testing it real world, because a lot of times what’s in our mind, and then when you start actually using it, or the person that’s in that position starts actually using it, it’s like, okay, we need to tweak a couple of things. Because real life, this is not how this goes.
Yoni Schmidt 11:37
Yeah, I love that. Jordan Muela actually has a really great podcast about this, where he talks to a property management business owner, I can’t remember who it was. But that was one of the things that she really harped on, and she brought her whole team and they did this massive whiteboarding session and exercise where they put out the processes on the whiteboard. And they build the process external to any system. And then, you know, they decided on, okay, what system would work best with this process that we’re building, and then they ended up landing on lead simple, which, as you know, and I know, is such a wonderful piece of SaaS and software as a service, with, with lots of, you know, great features, and, you know, something that I think almost every property management company should consider utilizing, because of how easy it makes things for you in, I guess, at least in the sales world, we haven’t talked quite much into the, into the operation side of the business, but you’re, you’re, you’ve astutely recognized how painful it can be with operations and, you know, not having those, those, you know, playbooks really tightly knit and put together. So start with
Sarah Durbin 13:01
one, like people get really, they get really over overwhelmed, right, start with one area. Yeah, the first thing that you’re doing with the, with the client, right, you’re onboarding the client, like start there, and then go through the whole process, and just know you’re gonna have to tweak things, right? You’ve got to sit down and, and make time for this. So I used to say, you know, quarterly, if you can step out of the business, I would sometimes do staycations, right. So check myself into a hotel down the street to get out of out of the everyday life. So that, okay, I’m going to hotel this weekend, I need to bring with me what I need to sit down to give this some thought of what’s not working in the business and what do I need to be sitting in evaluating? Are we still headed in the right direction, but removing yourself out of that day to day and actually putting it on your calendar? I mean, it’s hard. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, easier said than done. But if you can protect that, and and make that a habit that will that will help drive things forward, instead of just staying stuck in the day to day.
Yoni Schmidt 14:10
Yeah, balancing life and family and friends and, you know, work it, it can be challenging, especially in the world of property management, where things just never asleep, and you know, they’re constant. When you have 350 homes that you’re managing that’s, you know, 350, maybe maybe 600 problems just waiting to happen. You just never know.
Sarah Durbin 14:33
That’s the fun of it too right. No day is ever the same. Something’s gonna come up.
Yoni Schmidt 14:41
That is definitely the fun of it is that every day is unique and you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow and you know, every day brings its own set of challenges. So it’s, it’s an exciting industry to be in, and an important one too, because we’re in the business of putting roofs over people’s heads. So we need to make sure that, you know, we operate as going concerns and we operate sustainable businesses. Tell me, I guess, could you talk a little bit about a memorable success story in your consulting career, I mean, it could even be this, this role that you’re in right now, because I know you came in to queue enter as a consultant, and then our CEO, need to was basically chomping at the bit, wanting to bring you on full time, once he’s saw what you’re capable of, and, you know, the improvements that you’ve made to the business overall, and your consulting, advice and expertise really came in handy for many of the franchise business owners, any memorable success stories, either from culantro, from your past clients that you’ve worked with current clients that you’re working with?
Sarah Durbin 15:56
Yeah, so I mean, I love coaching. So that’s what brought me brought me into this, I love problem solving, I love you know, figuring out a solution, I have a lot of bruises from running five property management companies, I ran a women’s mastermind for a long time, so dove into a lot of their companies as well. And so if I can, if I can help help eliminate some of the problems, right, because sometimes the problems seem really scary. And if we can really, you know, just chunk it down to the to the basics. And that helps move through a lot of things. You know, consulting prior to key renter, one of the companies I was working with, we started at five doors, and we took them to 500 doors and about a 14 month period. Wow. And so that was that was a lot of fun, they had phenomenal growth. It was just it was great to see they embraced everything of I say a lot, your network is your net worth. And so on the BDM side, really embracing embracing that growing the business turning on all marketing aspects, social media, I’m big on social media, and, you know, all those different, all those different avenues, but you know, helping them grow working with, you know, their Rockstar, office manager, really getting the systems in place, and sometimes growth happens fast. So sometimes things are working really well like 300 doors, then you all of a sudden are sitting at $500 You’re like, what happened? Why? Why isn’t this, you got to pause sometimes and readjust. And, you know, put the put the wheels back on. And make sure, make sure the entire team knows the direction of the ship, and that we’re all rowing in the in the right direction. And so it’s just, it’s fun, it’s fun getting to dive in with different business owners. And so I’ve I’ve enjoyed it.
Yoni Schmidt 17:48
Love that. That’s massive success going from 85 to 500. You mentioned a few things earlier, you mentioned, you know, the right person in the right seat. And we talked, you talked a little bit about BDMS. business development managers, my responsibility is to lead the sales and marketing department for our four franchises at the moment. And one of the this has been definitely one of the most challenging roles that I’ve been elevated into. And one of the most rewarding one ones as well. It’s extremely humbling, I would say, to go from the person who’s hunting for the business, right, driving the growth of the business and whatever market I’m in to now arming the business development managers with the tools, knowledge resources. And, you know, let’s call them weapons, so to speak, to educate our prospective clients are coming into the top of the funnel. I’d say, you know, for me specifically, that was a tough transition, I’m you know, it’s always a learning curve, and I am enjoying the process. You know, a BDM, from my perspective, is someone who can add value into a client’s life, right. And one of the most important things is to add value with the expectation of nothing in return, whether it’s, you know, conducting a quick rental analysis, helping them determine whether a property is a good investment in general. I just had a gal who’s a client of ours checks me three properties today, and I said, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily go ahead and buy these. The reason is because these are $250,000 homes, even if you were to pay cash, you know, you’re probably looking at about a 5% return on your investment. Today is January 17 2024. You can lock up your money in a 10 month CD for five, five and a half percent. Right and so, kind of shooting myself in the foot saying, Don’t By this, you know, I’m not going to commission go lock up your money in a 10 month CD, but let’s reconvene when the market is at a place where it makes sense. Because here you have moderate risk with moderate appreciation. And on the flip side, if you put in a, you know, certificate of deposit at a bank or a high yield, interest bearing account, right, you, you have zero riffs. She immediately said, Oh, my God, thank you so much for your honesty, right. And the reason is, the reason I want to make sure that this is a good investment for her is because it’s a long term flip, we want to build long term relationships with our clients. And if we don’t, and if they don’t have a good taste in their mouth, once they have gone through the process of acquisition, then they won’t enjoy the investment, it won’t make sense for them long term, and there’ll be disgruntled ultimately, maybe firing us and we won’t get to, you know, some more real estate, help them grow. Build that generational wealth. Yep. All this to ask you. If you if you were in front of a, a BDM, who’s starting out in the world of property management, what is, you know, the number one piece of advice that you would give them as far as, you know, the challenges that they can expect, and what will define their success.
Sarah Durbin 21:30
So I’m, I’m big on becoming the mayor of your community. And so the BDMS really are, that for the company, they’re the face of the company a lot of times and in their local market. They’re the local experts. And what I mean by become the mayor of the community is if they’re building their network, they’re connecting everyone. And so they’re building that know, like, and trust with the client, they’re connecting them. Like you said, you’re gonna put your money here, maybe, maybe they didn’t connect with you guys at all, after they purchased a property. And maybe they didn’t realize, you know, see class and what that really meant for their investment. And so maybe you are connecting of like, you know, this investment long term, we’re taking a look at these numbers, let’s 1031 it. And so, just having the knowledge, keep learning, never stop learning. Listen, listen to all the podcasts, you know, listen to Audible, you’re going to be in the car a lot, utilize that time, I love to listen to audio will like one and a half or 1.25 speed, right? Listen to my podcasts and books anytime I’m traveling around. So be a sponge, learn, get out there network, attend, attend other people’s events, anything that you can get education from keep learning so you can keep providing that value to your clients, and get that information out there. Like don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid to get behind the camera record a quick little educational video, you know, we’re stepping into, into a lot of markets that are creating what we call Alan, the accidental landlord. Right. So if you if you’re a real estate agent right now, and you you know, you’ve got a client that’s really frustrated, you know, they’re frustrated with you, you you’ve done everything you possibly can to get this house to move. But interest rates, you know, whatever is happening in the industry right now, renting it may be the solution, right? And so the BDM can come in there and help help explain that. Maybe they turn into long term keeping that as a rental, maybe they don’t, maybe it’s a year or two. And we’ve got that guarantee that when clients ready, we’re going to turn that client back over to the real estate agent, but having all those connections to be able to be a solution for people when we need to be that solution.
Yoni Schmidt 23:55
Yeah, so mayor of your town, absorbing everything, learning, going through the getting out there, networking, getting out there. That’s all, you know, wonderful things. And I 100% agree. I mean, people do business with people that they know, like and trust, like you said, and, you know, in certain cases, it may not make sense to sell it, especially if the market isn’t ripe for that. And renting might be the better option. And it really does come down to the individual’s personal financial situation, right. If there are high earner, and they have a property that they could either sell or rent I would I would advise them to rent because of the benefits that come along with renting your properties and investing in real estate, not to mention that it’s a great hedge against inflation. So in your experience, you know, what kind of what approach What’s your approach, I guess, to finding and implementing cost saving strategies for businesses because, you know, businesses who are scaling, I spend a lot of money on marketing. Right. And we know that marketing isn’t cheap. And we know that everyone’s competing for that, you know, top of page, one on google and, you know, showing up on the map. And those initiatives can oftentimes cost a lot of money. What would you what would you advise a company that you’re consulting with? What strategies can they implement to save some some money and not stifle the growth?
Sarah Durbin 25:45
Yeah, so let’s like can take that quite a few, quite a few direction, when I first go in and start and start working with the company need to sit down and look at the p&l and understand the numbers of of what’s going on. I can’t tell you how many times I found fraud. I’m not a CPA, I’m not an accountant. That’s not my background. But just going through and just looking for anything that doesn’t look right. Right, I had a bookkeeper that had stolen $30,000 over a five year period from a company and they just hadn’t inspected enough. And so nobody, you know, nobody caught that as a line item. Same Same with, you know, staff putting personal travel expenses, under you just you need to be reviewing your numbers, and have that basic understanding. And I think a lot of small business owners just don’t they’re relying on on other people and not inspecting what they expect. And so making sure that they’re they’re getting in there, you can make a lot of reach with with marketing of just being willing to, to do some of the marketing, right, record the videos, put out the information, you don’t always have to hire a third party company to do it, you can do a lot of this yourself, there are so many videos of you know, spend a few hours, I think as business owners, we should have basic understanding of SEO and SEM, period. Like if you’re hiring somebody to do your SEO, have a basic understanding of what that means. And you know, your your pay per click at the top on Google, the local pack, and then the organic search, what do all three of those mean? And what do I need to be doing with from an SEO standpoint, to be getting that ranking and to keep that ranking, right? That’s evergreen, you’ve got to you’ve got to work on that. Work on that, wherever and then marketing is a long game to right, you’ve got to you got to continually have that on you’ve got to spend the money to to grow and and every market is different. So understanding if you are in a low medium or high competition market is absolutely going to affect your marketing spent and, and the traction that you’re that you’re going to that you’re going to make there. So I
Yoni Schmidt 28:10
love that. Thank you shifting gears just a little bit. You know, you definitely have your finger on the pulse of you know, the market technology. Your your husband is a software engineer who has you know, stepped in and has been helping us and has been doing some stuff for your insurer as well. Brian Durbin, who I’m so glad to have him on the team because he’s pushed for some great stuff on the website. And that is extremely exciting for me. But what are some emerging trends in property management and property management technology that are exciting new
Sarah Durbin 29:00
Well, I mean chat GPT the the buzz right? But utilizing that understanding how you can use it to leverage in the business to make things easier, easier for yourself and your staff understanding prompts, understanding how you can feed it data and you know, get results and utilize utilize that data utilize check up to understand your data more. And so I just think it’s it’s going to become more and more in our you know, involved in our in our businesses and then just, you know, streamline utilizing things like lead simple, connecting, connecting, so that there’s automation there so that you can staff less than your companies, right, make it easier on your staff and so they’re not so you know, stressed out because there’s actually some automation and reminders in the task management. Is there
Yoni Schmidt 29:58
yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Love chat GBT, one of my favorite things to do right now is create these assistants within chat GPT. And I have the I do pay the $20 a month paid version for, for, you know all their GPT tools. And one of my favorite things is I created this assistant that helps me with comparative market analysis. And I essentially created this assistant so that anytime I upload a PDF, that’s that’s named CMA, Dash 123 Main Street, right, immediately knows what to do. And it’s analyzing the data within the CMA. It breaks it down for me. And then it also provides me with an email template that I can take and of course, review, edit, change it for context with the client that I’m communicating with. And, you know, give them a suggested list price, whether it’s for rent or for sale. And that has been one of my favorite things to do. Just utilizing Chat GPT. Any other technology, or
Sarah Durbin 31:09
one thing with your BDMS with the paid paid version? And have you utilized it for role playing? So Chat GPT will be an investor and roleplay with your BDMS I’m not I’m not.
Yoni Schmidt 31:22
In this, I will definitely be doing that in one of our next Monday morning sales meetings, because that is absolutely ingenious, really, that I didn’t think about that. Thank you. I’m gonna I’m gonna do that. And then I’m gonna let you know how that way. All right. I guess any other technology solutions that are out there that are exciting to you? I know that, you know, we at Keyrenter we’re, you know, looking into a partnership with [email protected], Leo Abramovich him and Ben Nemecek are going to be on the Keyrenter cruise.
Sarah Durbin 32:03
And they are in a pilot program with them right now. Yeah, yep. Yeah.
Yoni Schmidt 32:09
So we’re using it already. We’ve rolled it out. And I love the solution. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts and your perspective on why does this matter? And how does this affect our clients? And, you know, what are the benefits in general from having an investor dashboard that really showcases your your returns on a property by property basis and on a portfolio basis, and then also heightens the level of transparency that Keyrenter offers its clients by providing a daily, you know, checking account experience, maybe I just stole everything that you were.
Sarah Durbin 32:51
I think that’s missing, you know, from not just property management companies, but just investors in general, typically, $10 or less, just don’t have that information. And so being able to have that information data to make educated decisions is not that’s game changing for a lot of people. Yeah,
Yoni Schmidt 33:12
I know, I love it. Because I can see, you know, what my actual returns are for my portfolio rentals. And I don’t have to be buried in a spreadsheet. And that’s really what was a game changer to me. I guess, let’s talk a little bit about, you know, your take on the importance of company culture, in business success, you’ve launched successful businesses, you’ve consulted, you know, businesses that needed help, and you’ve transition them into successful businesses. How does company culture, you know, what’s the importance there? And how does it impact the business in general?
Sarah Durbin 33:53
Company culture is everything. So if, if you’re treating your employees, right, they’re going to naturally that’s going to cascade down to to your clients. And so, I mean, we’ve all got one life, we’ve got to enjoy getting up and working with the people that we’re working with. And so I’m having a good time doing it. Property Management is hard. There’s a you know, there’s a lot of situations that that come up in our every day and so, having, you know, the support of all team, you know, working together and willing to jump in help where they where they need to, but company cultures, it’s it’s everything. And if you’ve got somebody that is not the right culture fit, that that’s poison in your company, regardless if they are the best BDM out there, and they have a way higher close rate, they’re growing the company, if it is poisoned, and not the right culture fit, you have got to make a change. And that’s with every you know, with every seat of the company, don’t hang on, just because somebody might be exceptionally well, because it will destroy poison through the through the entire company. And you’ll you’ll lose other other key employees, you know because of it.
Yoni Schmidt 35:09
Yeah, that seeps through to to other departments and other employees. It’s noticeable. Very interesting. Yeah, culture is a big piece. I agree. And what’s the saying, I can’t remember who said this, maybe it was like Sir Richard Branson, but maybe it wasn’t. But you train your employees well enough to where they can leave you, but treat them in a way that they wouldn’t want to write. And that’s a great way of life in general. So I agree that culture is a huge piece of the puzzle there. So, you know, speaking of culture, speaking of staffing, speaking of human resources in general, how do you assess and advise on staffing needs for growing businesses in particular property management companies?
Sarah Durbin 36:02
Yeah, so I go in and take a look at a number of things. So all of all of the basic KPIs, I know, some people really, really create some dashboards and things around around KPIs and can really get in the weeds there. But I, I tend to go back to the basics. Like what what’s going on? You know, what, what’s the number of doors? How many work orders? Are we are we handling on a monthly basis with this portfolio? Is it too high? Why are we right about, you know, the right amount? If we’ve got the correct people in the correct seats? You know, where are we growing? What what’s the goal for growth? And what do we need to staff to to get there? Are we understaffed, and, and everybody is just, you know, barely, barely above water hanging on. And so just starting to take a look at, look at all of that basic KPIs what’s coming in? I’ll look at phone system and the phone records. And that gives me an immediate indication, are we in a reactive state? Or are we in a proactive state, so reactive, there’s way more calls flowing in than flowing out? And so starting to just take a look at that, and go through interviewing the staff. This profiling, like I, like I said, and just assessing from there. And then knowing goals? Like, are we sitting at 200 doors, and the goal is 500 doors over a two year period? What what do we need to do to get there? And who needs to be put in place? Who is currently in place, being self aware with yourself and all of you know, all of the employees who’s currently in place? And then who do we need to add to fill in the gaps?
Yoni Schmidt 37:41
Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. You mentioned, you know, feeling underwater, if the team is a little bit, you know, overwhelmed. Can you share a little bit of insights on effective task management strategies? You know, what are the best task management strategies that you’ve noticed? Especially again, in the world of property management, where there’s so many tasks always right, between maintenance and leasing, and marketing and advertising and showing an owner isn’t, you know, Owner Statements and accounting, it’s just like, never endless, right? It’s
Sarah Durbin 38:20
so so I’m, I’m huge on time blocking, that is the only way that I was able to run five companies. So I’m very big on time blocking my day. And I never ended my day, before reviewing my entire, you know, task lists. And knowing what tomorrow looks like for me, I do not start my morning ever, not knowing what I’m going to do for the day, I know exactly what is on my plate for the day. And so when I sit down to start working, it’s you’re you’re just going instead of spending 30 minutes trying to figure out, Okay, what’s my priority? What do I need to get done today, letting all the other emergencies that come up with property management take over your day. And then with that time blocking, so let’s just use like maintenance as an example. A lot of the times our staff just are reacting as everything comes in. And it is not likely that a maintenance item, usually unless it’s an emergency is going to get dispatched that day, right, we’re going to create the work order, we’re going to get it over to the right vendor. And so with time chunking so they may want to take the morning, get everything that’s come in over the night and people that are calling first thing in the morning, but not dispatch that till 10 o’clock. Then also hold the rest of it and do it again at three o’clock. And so if you’re just constantly letting interruptions all day long, of sitting to do that, it’s going to add up just bogging them down for the whole day rather than just Okay, right now. It’s 10 o’clock. I’m gonna dispatch everything and then I’ll do that again at three o’clock. There’s the times that I need to do Follow up some estimates that are out. And so really taking that day and and being intentional about what you’re what you’re working on.
Yoni Schmidt 40:08
Yeah. Time blocking is the answer, Ben, I love it, I time block. It’s extremely helpful. And it also gets me in the rhythm because I know, every week on Tuesday, I’m auditing pipelines and lead Simple, right? Every day every, I guess, like Tuesday at a certain time, I’m handling my rocks and my projects, right. So that’s a really great piece of advice there. And protecting
Sarah Durbin 40:39
it to like a BD sample, if they need to do their outbound calls, you know, touch points of how many, you know, the 2020 20. But making those 20 calls out, if they’ve got it blocked on their calendar from 830 to 10 o’clock, or whatever that looks like protecting that right, not letting other emergencies come in. We’ll resolve those at the appropriate time. But protect to protect your calendar.
Yoni Schmidt 41:06
Love that. Super important to protect your calendar. Sarah, tell me a little bit. I know that we’re coming here. At the end of the of the hour. Just a few more questions. What was it that inspired you to shift from owning property management firms to consulting?
Sarah Durbin 41:28
Yeah, so we, we had a family tragedy, I lost my 17 year old son, November 9 of 2017. And so I actually stepped out of the thank you, I actually stepped out of the business, just for a couple of years to go through that. And I actually had never considered really consulting full time. But it’s all been word of mouth. And so I started with with one company and just loved it just fell in love with being able to go in and help people out. And so just word of mouth kept getting busier and busier and busier with that. And so that’s what stepped out of, of owning the businesses and, and going into consulting.
Yoni Schmidt 42:18
And you mentioned helping people out, which is really the route and kind of the foundation to what I consider most people’s success in general. You know, helping out and volunteering I know is something that you care deeply about. Can you tell me a little bit about what drives your passion for volunteering specifically, in the foster care system? I know that you mentioned that a dinner that we were together in Austin, Texas, that it was related to the tragedy that your family experience. Yeah.
Sarah Durbin 42:56
So we created Sammy Smiles. But even prior to that my two youngest are adopted, not out of the foster care system. But we met a lot of other families that had adopted out of foster care system, and a lot of people don’t realize, so some of the numbers have gotten pulled up here. More than 23,000 kids aged out of the foster care system every single year. One in four will not graduate from high school or get a GED. Seven in 10, women, girls who age out will become pregnant before the age of 2101. And four will become homeless within four years of aging out of the system. And so just learning some of those statistics. And then just knowing children that are removed from homes, they’re removed a lot of times with their hand a garbage bags, like put some of your clothes and things into a garbage bag. And so we’ve just done some things there where we’ve where we’ve created bags, right, with just some some basic needs, just locally where we’ve been just to make little to make little differences there. And then in the foster care system. So an adoption is huge, huge, our heart and so my son’s name was Sam, we always called him Sammy. So we created Sammy Smiles. And so we try to do a project every year for his birthday. And in honor of him so.
Yoni Schmidt 44:23
And that’s in September. Yes, yeah. So every September you dedicate to Sammy Smiles and to the project that you are pursuing that year. Can you tell us maybe about one of the most recent projects, something that you enjoyed and impacted you? Yeah,
Sarah Durbin 44:44
yeah. Probably not the most recent but one of the years starting out and it just really just pulled our whole family. And we just did random acts of kindness. And so we actually did that for the entire month of September and asked all of our family friends And, you know, colleagues, everybody in our network to participate. And so it was just random acts of kindness. And so when you’re just looking out for, you know, just somebody you’re out in your day to day life that looks like they could need a smile, right. So my kids have taken flowers back into like a cashier that maybe was having a hard day somebody was sick for their birthday dropped off present, we’d leave money to pay for a book in a bookstore, money to pay for diapers at a at a grocery store. And so it was just all these different random acts of kindness. That just, you know, making somebody smiles. It can be being of service brightens your day.
Yoni Schmidt 45:40
Definitely an ounce. I love that. I keep little $10 Kwik Trip gift cards in my glove compartment that, you know, I hand out to, you know, people, I feel like I need it. Sometimes even just our vendors, you know, just to kind of boost their day a little bit. And I see that it really impacts people and positively tell us how can people get involved in Sammy Smiles? If that’s something that’s open to the community if I wanted to partake in, you know, in the next project in September? Is that something that you advertise?
Sarah Durbin 46:25
Yeah, not really, so much advertise, can follow me on on Facebook. So Sarah Durbin, it’s D, U R B I N D as in dog, U R B as in boy. And as a Nancy 10s, spit that out. But I have that as a public post every year when we’re starting that and in September.
Yoni Schmidt 46:46
Love it. I can’t wait to get involved this September and be a part of the movement and hopefully make some impact into people’s lives. On a different note. i Yes. And you know, as a final question, and tell us a little bit about you know, I know your day looks like a lot of time blocking. But what does a day in the life of Sarah look like balancing, you know, professional and personal commitment.
Sarah Durbin 47:15
Yeah. So I think balance is a lie. And so I will just say that right off, I think especially working with a lot of women, we try to business owners, women in general, both, we try to hang on to this, we should have some sort of balance. And I think balance is a lie. Sometimes you’ve got to dig in and work a little harder, harder on your business because of growth. There’s some goals there. But then also flip the coin, you know, you take a couple of weeks off and you travel with kids or you know, things like that, and so you’re not working on the business then and so maybe some things need to be set aside while you’re while you’re doing that. But everything gets put on a schedule for us. So even my kids even my kids know that it’s got to go on the calendar. So soccer games, soccer practice are huge into into soccer, you know, music classes, all that kind of stuff. It’s got a it’s got to go on the schedule, so that everybody knows what what we’re doing. And it’s not always perfect, right? Right Effort. We drive through fast food, like sometimes that’s just what that’s just what life needs because that’s just made it easier for the night to get through practice and home and everybody you know, in bed on on time. So that’s my that’s my take on balance, give and take work as a team as a family for sure. Love that.
Yoni Schmidt 48:43
That’s great. Sarah, thank you so much for joining this podcast recording really truly inspiring stuff and love learning from your experience and your years of dedication and commitment to building successful businesses helping people you know being that person who is the go to person for any and all owners, accidental landlords investors, and then all of the work that you do for the community in the foster care system. Sammy Smiles and for us here at Keyrenter, Truly, truly, truly thank you.
Sarah Durbin 49:26
Appreciate it. Appreciate you having me on it. Always good to catch up with you.
Yoni Schmidt 49:30
Likewise, thank you. Alright, thanks.
Outro 49:37
Thanks for listening to The Same Day Podcast. Tune in to a new show each week, and be sure to subscribe to get future episodes