Transforming Property Management Through Technology and Partnerships With Ben Nemecek

June 17, 2024

In this episode of The Same Day Podcast, host Yoni Schmidt sits down with Ben Nemecek, Partnership Manager at Blanket, to discuss transforming property management through technology and partnerships. They explore the importance of quick maintenance turnaround times, the role of advanced analytics in optimizing property management, and the criteria for forming strategic partnerships that add value to property managers and owners alike.

Transforming Property Management Through Technology and Partnerships

Ben Nemecek is the Partnership Manager at Blanket, a platform specializing in property retention strategies and business growth solutions for property managers. With over a decade of experience in real estate and property management, Ben’s efforts have been instrumental in fostering strategic partnerships. He champions the role of technology as a critical tool for property managers to improve operational efficiency and client relationships. Aside from his professional pursuits, Ben is a dedicated Oklahoma State University supporter and an outdoor activity enthusiast.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [3:04] Ben Nemecek’s journey into property management and where it’s led him
  • [5:16] Blanket’s impact on property management firms and their approach to client wealth building
  • [6:45] Tackling property management challenges, including owner churn
  • [8:20] How Blanket’s platform creates a brokerage account experience for real estate assets
  • [12:46] What modern challenges do property managers face today, and how does Blanket address them?
  • [16:51] The importance of investor education in property management success
  • [21:46] Tips on crucial operational metrics for tracking a company’s health
  • [27:56] The role of maintenance turnaround in achieving customer satisfaction
  • [31:09] How established professionals can leverage platforms like Blanket for strategic growth

In this episode…

The property management landscape is rapidly evolving with the advent of new technologies and innovative solutions. How can property managers leverage these advancements to enhance operations and foster stronger relationships with property owners?

According to Ben Nemecek, a seasoned expert in single-family residential sales and property management, the key lies in adopting technology that streamlines processes and improves efficiency. He highlights that automation and advanced analytics not only reduce operational costs but also enhance customer satisfaction by speeding up maintenance resolutions and providing transparency. The main effect is a more efficient and scalable property management operation capable of delivering consistent, high-quality service without inflating costs.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special Mentions:

Related Episodes:

Quotable Moments:

  • “Owner churn was around 35% for the average property manager… We attack those head-on.”
  • “Started property management… fortunate enough to meet some really great people, and Blanket is big on relationships as well.”
  • “It’s nice not to take Friday night plumbing calls… but I still really like working with property managers directly.”
  • “I loved property management; I still do, over seven years… I was ready for a new challenge.”
  • “Being able to show them their appreciation, their cash on cash return, their NOIS, their cash flows, everything in a nice, concise way.”

Action Steps:

  1. Embrace technology platforms in property management to increase operational efficiency and client satisfaction: This allows property managers to handle tasks more effectively and provide transparent reporting.
  2. Focus on turning accidental landlords into steady investors through educational resources and financial performance tools: This encourages a mindset shift that boosts long-term investor relationships and property retention.
  3. Keep abreast of industry trends and leading voices through platforms like LinkedIn, NARPM, and podcasts: Knowledge from experienced professionals can help new managers avoid common pitfalls and adopt best practices.
  4. Track crucial KPIs like revenue per unit and maintenance turnaround time to gauge the business’ health: This ensures the company’s financial success and aligns customer satisfaction with business goals.
  5. Leverage data to understand the correlation between maintenance expenses and property owner happiness: Data-driven insights can guide decisions that maintain a balance between costs and client satisfaction.

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 top business and real estate leaders. Our past guests include Donny Coram, a foreclosure expert, Marissa LoCascio, 1031 exchange expert, Kurt Volk, a wonderful client of ours who continues to grow his portfolio. 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. That is why, no matter what rental you have, single family condos, townhomes, apartments. We have the management solutions you need. Go to keyrenterpmc.com or email us at [email protected], for more details, welcome to today’s podcast, where today we are excited to have Ben Nemecek, a seasoned expert in single family residential sales and property management. Ben is currently the Partnership Manager at Blanket where he plays a crucial role in helping property managers enhance their business through innovative retention strategies and growth solutions. With a robust background spanning over a decade in property management and real estate, Ben brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the table. His expertise not only covers the operational aspects of property management, but also extends into strategic business development and fostering impactful partnerships beyond his professional achievements, Ben is an ardent supporter of Oklahoma State University, which we are terribly sorry about, and enjoys golfing and outdoor activities in his free time. Today, Ben joins us to share insights into the evolving landscape of property management, the role of technology in shaping the industry, and how property managers can leverage technology to achieve these to propel their growth. Join us as we delve into the conversation with Ben, who is here to guide us through the complexities of property management and discuss the future of real estate investment strategies. Welcome to the show and thank you for being here. Ben, how are you?

Ben Nemecek 2:28

I’m doing well. Yoni, thank you for those kind words. I just have two other words. Go Pokes.

Yoni Schmidt 2:32

Oh, well, you see that degree right there?

Ben Nemecek 2:36

Yeah. So we go forward.

Yoni Schmidt 2:40

Yeah. I know you asked me to take it down, but you know, for the purpose of the podcast, we just cannot. Ben, so tell us a little bit about your transition from, you know, overseeing the build to rent operations, you know, I guess was that with Simmons Homes? Or, right, that was with Simmon Homes, and how you transitioned into the partnership manager at Blanket?

Ben Nemecek 3:04

Yeah, for sure. So I was very fortunate right out of college that was unsure, you know, what I wanted to do, and the folks up at Simmons kind of took me under their wing and turned me loose within the property management industry. I knew nothing about property management when I started, but stayed there for about seven years. It’s a very interesting story to kind of tell you the transition. I’ll try to make it brief. Here I was at a conference in November of 21 it was also my 30th birthday, so it’s the only reason I remember the exact date. But I kind of dove into some conversation with various vendors and became friends with one. Specifically, the unique story is she’s now our customer success manager, but she was with a different partner at the time, and she just kind of became a friend of mine and started talking to me about, would you ever consider making a change? Would you ever look to potentially coming to this side of things? I guess she thought I had some sales experience or some maybe some schmooze ability, or whatever, at that particular conference. But anyway, we became friends, and long story short, she introduced me to a company that I worked with previously to Blanket starting in that space. It was in the InsurTech company. I was there for about nine months, and then I was fortunate enough to meet our CEO, who’s been on this podcast previously, Lior. And we became good friends, and he kind of convinced me, over a long period of time, to join him here. And I’m very thankful I did so. Long story short, started property management. I was fortunate enough to meet some really great people, and I Blanket is big on relationships as well, where tension starts with those relationships. So it’s interesting that unironically, I developed relationships, and it kind of got me to where I am here today.

Yoni Schmidt 4:44

Yeah, love that. Um, that’s, that’s awesome. What? What was that? What inspired you, I guess, to make that transition from, you know, direct property management. And how did you, you know, love or not so much love the hands on property management, you know. And what was it that, I guess, propelled you into coming into Blanket, right? Which is more of like an ancillary technology platform for property managers?

Ben Nemecek 5:16

Yeah, so I loved property management I still do over seven years, you know, working with specific clients and certain tenants and vendors and whatnot, I developed a lot of really good relationships. I think, just over time, I was ready for a new challenge, and when this opportunity arose, I was extremely excited. If you’ve met Lior and spoken with him, he’s just a very inspiring person and someone that I wanted to work with. And so being able to take, hopefully, some of my knowledge from starting in property management, learning the ropes, scaling and operation, and then being able to help other companies that are looking to do the same was was one of the big pushes that kind of led me to where I am today. But again, I love property management. It is nice to not take Friday night plumbing calls or HVAC called in the summer here in Oklahoma, but I still really like working with property managers directly, and so that’s what kind of inspired me to stay in property management, just on this side.

Yoni Schmidt 6:11

Yeah, the inevitable call that definitely comes on Friday night, New Year’s, right? Or whatever.

Ben Nemecek 6:18

Memorial Day is coming up. So for property managers this weekend, you know, they’re going to get a couple call Monday or Sunday. So it’s inevitable.

Yoni Schmidt 6:26

I have no doubt. So that must have been a lot of great experience that you’ve gained throughout, you know, the 70 years that you were doing that. What experience do you think currently influences your role in, you know, developing these partnerships with property management companies?

Ben Nemecek 6:45

Well, yeah, that’s a great question. What I would first say is, I did get a lot of great experience, and thank you to that company that I started with for basically dumping in, dumping me into the fire. And I was also fortunate to sit next to our chief credit officer, who did a lot of our multifamily loans and a lot of investment strategies, property tax appeals, partnership agreements as far as LLCs and LP. So I kind of learned the property management side, but also was very fortunate to sit in on conversations and learn that side of things. So as I talk with property management companies, I can speak not just to specifically property management, but asset management, underwriting, assets, long term finance, structuring, all the different kind of facets that property managers deal with with their specific clients. So when we advertise and talk about the Blanket platform, I’m able to use my experience doing those exact same things that the Blanket platform is hopefully helping property managers automate. Just gives me that experience and the knowledge to talk to them on those specific matters.

Yoni Schmidt 7:43

Yeah, love that. So the Blanket platform, which, you know, I love, I was a very early adopter of the Blanket. Yeah, I don’t know if I was number one, but I was definitely like, pushing very hard to implement Blanket. Tell us a little bit about the, you know, Blanket and, you know, the property retention strategies that, or the owner retention strategies that you have, just like natively built into this platform. You know, the specific problems that you’re trying to solve for property managers. And how has that been going so far?

Ben Nemecek 8:20

Yeah, so the Blanket platform is a property retention platform that’s white labeled to your company, to your property management company. And what we do is we are set out to achieve, help these property managers achieve three goals. One, it’s to add the number of doors they manage. Two, it’s to decrease the number of doors that they lose each year. And number three, and probably most important in the current environment is encourage their owners to think more like investors. Published a study a few years ago or a couple years ago that said owner churn was around 35% for the average property manager. The two main causes are sales and experience. And so we attack those head on, and I’ll kind of give you the 30,000 foot view of how we do attack those specific challenges and also help you achieve those three goals. We provide you with an investor dashboard. Excuse me, we provide your owners with an investor dashboard, which allows them to see their full financial performance, not just income expenses, but value equity appreciation, all the necessary metrics that they need to see their full financial performance of their assets, and then we provided the property management company and their owners themselves with a white labeled marketplace, which allows any of their owners to list properties within that marketplace, with the main goal being, if an owner wants to sell, we don’t want them to sell, but inevitably they’re going to try to sell at some point. We want you to help you capture that within your specific ownership group within that marketplace. Make it brief as I can within that specific marketplace, you can also invite outside marketplace users, family, friends, lead lists that you’ve collected, any folks that you think might be interested in purchasing investment properties, and then we will go out as a company and help you source inventory as well. So new home construction, turnkey opportunities and some. Sell opportunities to help you create that own ecosystem there in your area, about regions. So that’s the 30,000 foot view of what Blanket does. It’s been going very well. Thankfully, you’re a satisfied client. We’ve been adding clients periodically throughout the year. I had a really good broker owner conference, and looking forward to working with folks as we move forward.

Yoni Schmidt 10:18

Nice. Love that. Yeah, the way that I kind of describe it to our clients is the Blanket platform is almost like a brokerage or checking account experience to your real estate assets, right? Because today, when you buy equities or bonds or, you know, whatever it is in in the through your vanguard account, Merrill Lynch, whatever it is, you can log on and you can see, you know, your performance returns. You can see how well each each equity is, is doing. And in today’s world, there isn’t, there weren’t many solutions, or any at all that I’m that I’m aware of that offered, not only that, call it, deeper level of understanding, but also higher level of transparency to our clients. So when you log it on, you can see, you know, income and expenses, daily transactions that occur daily. And then, of course, you know, you want to understand the performance on a property by property basis, but also on a portfolio wide basis. So I know that a lot of our clients enjoy it. And I know that, you know, yesterday, we were at the event together with David Green from Bigger Pockets, and we ran into one of the our peer entrepreneur clients. And you know, I asked her, did you activate your investor dashboard through Blanket? And you know, she said yes, and that she loves it also. You’re one of our clients, and you get to play around with it as a as a kind of key enter. So I hope you’re enjoying, I hope you’re enjoying the platform so far.

Ben Nemecek 11:52

One other no Yoni on that too. What I what I find interesting, two quick points. Number one is, I think it’s like the mint financial I don’t know if any of the listeners or yourself have used mint, where everything plugs in. That’s when I first started with with Blanket. I was like, this is like, mint financial for investment properties. So that’s not a tagline or anything that we’re using, but that’s what it feels similar to. And then, yes, it was really cool to meet those clients yesterday, fellow clients, and talk to them specifically about finding more investment properties. So she was really excited about what she’d seen so far. So it was really cool to meet her.

Yoni Schmidt 12:26

Yeah, awesome. Tell me, I guess, like you guys are, like, in the thick of things, during the weeds all the time you’re talking to property managers, what are you hearing? Are the most challenge, or the like, the biggest challenges that property managers face today, right? And how does Blanket help address those?

Ben Nemecek 12:46

So I think the number one problem in property management or challenge, I should say, excuse me, not, a problem a challenge is always going to be maintenance. At least it was for me. It probably is for most companies. Thankfully, there’s some really great companies out there doing a lot of great things to help make that easier on property management companies, so Blanket doesn’t necessarily touch maintenance, but I think that’s probably one of the most common challenges, the two challenges, or the main challenge that we, that we are trying to address in tech was I mentioned a little bit earlier, is owner churn. There’s a lot of accidental landlords out there that you know are holding on to this property and encouraging them to think more like investors is a way that we hope to help them see the long term potential of owning real estate. We’ve had some clients that say, I have 85% accidental landlords. Like, I don’t know how many people are going to buy or sell. I don’t know how many people are going to use this platform. And seeing some of the external landlords submit Buy Box submissions and things of that nature. Of, hey, I’m looking to buy. I want to buy properties. I see the equity that I’ve gained. It’s asset and whatnot. So owner churn is a big issue. Accident landlords is one piece, and then sales is that other piece that we’re hoping to solve for by advertising within your ownership group and providing opportunities to your owners to see those exclusive listings that the property management company posts so that we can keep those doors there within the company. Those, those are the two things that Blanket takes on. But obviously maintenance will always be kind of the beast of its own.

Yoni Schmidt 14:13

Yeah, yeah, churn is a big deal. I remember, you know, maybe last year it was like, you know, mid last year, we were looking at our churn numbers, and you know they were, they were quite high. People were selling a lot of properties. You know, clients were coming on and you know they weren’t necessarily leaving us immediately, but you know they would leave us within 12, 24, months, and they would say, this isn’t really what I was expecting. I’m an accidental landlord, like you say. And you know, they don’t necessarily think of it from an equity growth perspective, because for them, they’re a little bit fixated on that cash flow, right, which David Greene touched on yesterday in the event, and it’s a lot easier to build. You know, 102 $1,000 in equity than it is $120,000 in cash flow. And you can do that a lot faster too. So you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a great I think Blanket is one of the contributing factors that led to us bringing our churn rate down to roughly around 10% which I imagine today’s like the industry benchmark.

Ben Nemecek 15:24

So, I mean, yeah, with 35% being the NARP of average. I mean, you know how average is work, so that means some of those companies are in the 50s and stuff of that nature. So we hope that we continue to help folks reduce churn. We’re glad that our partnership has been successful so far. But I do think with the platform and that churn number those owners that might want to sell or might be obsessed with cash flow, being able to show them their appreciation, their cash on cash return, their nois, their cash flows, everything in a nice, concise way. It’s easy to tell them on the phone, but when you can pull it up and share it with them visibly, our clients have seen a lot of success with that so far.

Yoni Schmidt 16:02

Yeah, then if you’re not, if you don’t have this platform and you’re trying to understand these things, you’re basically living a spreadsheet, right?

Ben Nemecek 16:14

Yeah, you probably do it. That’s how I did it before, even in my private previous company, spreadsheets were my thing. So it’s much more pleasant of an experience to have everything right there on a digital platform.

Yoni Schmidt 16:27

Right. Love that. Tell us, I guess, from your perspective, you’ve been on the property management side, you’ve been on the ancillary technology side, where you are right now. But from your perspective, how has Property Man, how has the property management sector and industry evolved over the years with the introduction of these new technologies?

Ben Nemecek 16:51

Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day. You know, I’m on LinkedIn a lot, and seeing different posts and and what people are sharing about the industry. Obviously, the advancement of technologies have been huge in the property management space. I was thinking about this earlier. We used to go and do move out walks with paper and take notes. I mean, very, very old school. We had paper leases still at a point. So just the automation standpoint, the processes with companies like aptly and lead simple, being able to help property managers streamline all of their processes. Maintenance has evolved with all the technological advances, with with property meld and others that have really helped property managers move forward. So I’ve been out of property management almost two years, but just in that time frame, just to see all the new tech automation and vendors and property management systems that are improving, as well as seem to allow property managers to scale or to not necessarily grow headcount, but be more efficient with the current headcount that they have, team members, you know, probably three years ago, that five years ago, maybe it was kind of like voodoo, essentially, of like, Oh, we don’t want to hire anyone off, off site or offshore, excuse me, but every property management company I talked about, it’s multiple remote team members that are doing just fantastic work for them. So just the ability to take all of those items I just mentioned has allowed all of these companies to be more efficient and to scale more quickly from what I’ve seen.

Yoni Schmidt 18:22

Yeah, that’s crucial for the success in providing you know that consistent level of high customer service to our clients is to achieve that operational efficiency, because that allows us to keep our costs at bay and not have to increase our costs year after year after year to the point where it’s not making sense anymore for the investors. Yeah, remote team members is a huge piece of any property management, any successful property management company. I think I’d imagine that it’d be a lot more difficult doing it without any remote team members. Yeah, tell me, I guess, how important is investor education in your strategy for helping property managers grow their operation?

Ben Nemecek 19:11

I think it’s extremely important, and we talked about it just a few minutes ago. But the increase in external landlords with the decrease in rates and people sitting on 2% that are probably never going to sell in their lifetime. They increase those external landlords, turning them into, essentially, not one unit owners, but they want to buy 2345, getting them to take that mind shift of I just own this asset because I essentially have to with this rate to Hey, look at what I’ve been able to do in the short time I’ve owned this asset and turning them into investors. Another thing that I think investor education is if you have good investors that understand how Property Management works, understand how assets perform or may not perform, that leads to good clients to have as well. If you have folks that may be unsure of how investment works within the real estate space specifically, or how you do property management makes it much more difficult as a property manager to have conversations with them. HBs in Oklahoma, obviously a huge expense. If one of those happens, you typically, you know have to have a conversation with an owner. If they’re not a seasoned real estate investor, they may be spooked and want to sell the asset or go to a different company, or something of that nature. So just the education and being able to talk to them of the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly of owning real estate, I think, is vital to having that deeper relationship with those owners and getting them to trust that advisor and hopefully purchase more assets for you as well.

Yoni Schmidt 20:37

Yeah, yeah, that is that is definitely a huge piece of our business. Sometimes owners think that we make up for quotas, right? And that’s just simply not the case, which is why we’ve developed the technology of our own to, you know, you know, pull the curtain behind, you know, pull the curtain aside and show owners a whole bunch of things, right? You’re an owner of ours. Anytime one of your tenants puts in a work order, you immediately get an email with that PDF showing you, you know, here’s a work order that has been submitted by your tenant. We really we have no control over that email that goes out, and what it allows you to do is prepare yourself for some sort of financial expenditure or run interference, and, you know, delve into this situation to gain a little bit more insight. Love that. Can you share a success story where the, you know, partnership between Blanket and a property management company has significantly boosted the company’s performance or help them in some sort of way.

Ben Nemecek 21:46

Yeah, and I mentioned it a little bit. I’m not a huge callback guy, but I’m going to keep calling back to the one thing that I let off with was the accidental landlords that partner who had had said they had around 80% accidental landlords, just because of the market that they were in. Several of those accidental landlords that they thought, you know, they’re not going to be interested in buying more properties, or checking this out or whatnot. They help them collect tons of interest and potentially buy more properties from these accidental landlords that they may have never known. Because a lot of folks aren’t just going to straight up call and say, Hey, I’m looking six months from now of buying a property, but utilizing a Blanket platform, being able to gain information about these owners and their behaviors has led to a company that has a majority actual landlords with a lot of interest in purchasing additional properties. So that’s a huge goal of ours, and it’s also a huge goal to help the property management company stay top of mind. I broke your owner last week, or a couple weeks ago now, I spoke with several folks that had managed properties for over 20 years for separate people, and then they went with another agent to sell those properties. So a big goal of ours is to help the property management company stay top of mind anytime they want to buy and sell. So being able to utilize what these accidental landlords, if they are going to buy or sell, they’re going to come to you first. And that’s the goal that we hope to help achieve. So to answer your question and a long rambling answer, being able to see folks kind of nurture clients that they may not think be interested in purchasing additional properties, our platform has been able to converse with folks.

Yoni Schmidt 23:18

Yeah, and Blanket does a really good job in you know, just like engaging those clients and helping you stay top of mind for for those clients, right? Or in those clients minds, so that they can remember, hey, you know, you guys can also handle these brokerage activities that I’m that I’m hopefully trying to accomplish. Tell me what, what key metrics from your perspective, what key metrics should a property management company focus on, you know, to gage their health, the health of their operation, aside for churn, for example, right, which we know, is a huge topic of discussion, and a metric that any, Any property management company should, you know, follow weekly, monthly and you should really look at those numbers. What other metrics would you advise? Because you guys see so much, so much data, and I know I’ve spoken to your CTO Sagi Medina, and you know, he loves the data, right? He’s just, he’s a data nerd, and he just like, loves getting into the numbers. What are you guys seeing as, like, those top metrics? And I have some thoughts, because I know some of the calculations and ratios that you have in the platform or on the pm dashboard, but what are you hearing?

Ben Nemecek 24:37

There’s several that I could start with. I think there’s some companies that have done a really good job of helping properties property management track these KPIs and establish them for or help establish these or property managers for us. I’ll just use my prior experience for us. Revenue per unit, obviously, is a huge number that everyone tracks and wants to see exactly how. Each unit is performing for them. Another thing that we each would track is kind of maintenance turnaround time of when the work order came in, so when the work orders completed, to the conversations we had with the tenant and the owner, making sure that that process is tight knit. So there’s different kind of KPIs that you could set up for that specifically. And then owner engagement. We have seen a lot of folks that utilize the Blanket platform actually to make sure that all of their owners were signed up. They would reach out to them specifically and just track conversion rate on specific platforms that the Blanket platform, but also other specific platforms. So everyone has these huge KPIs. You asked me specifically, you know what? What’s the best to gage the health, obviously, rpus, nois, portfolio, value, owner growth, unit count, growth, different things of that nature is what I’m seeing most folks talk about, talking about the main few that are, that are out.

Yoni Schmidt 26:00

Yeah, and you mentioned, you know, maintenance turnaround time, which is such an important piece of the puzzle, especially when it comes to customer satisfaction, tenant resident satisfaction, owner satisfaction, right? You know, sometimes the owner a gets hit with work order, for example, that is for their condenser or their furnace, and they’re immediately, their immediate concern is, oh, my God, how much is this going to cost? Yep, right. But here’s the kicker, right? If, if you say, Well, I’m going to wait a week or two to get another bid, or two or three, right, so that I can get the best price, it’s going to cost you the resident, right? And so you’re better off handling it quickly with a good vendor, right, that your property manager has vetted probably time and time again, and satisfying that resident, so that they say, Well, you know, I am going to stay here for a very long time because I get the best customer service. So the cost, the cost of, you know, being, you know, what did we say that? What was that phrase we used yesterday, Penny smart and pound foolish, right? So, the cop, yeah, the cost of that is sometimes your resident, right? So you’re better off engaging quickly and really reducing the time from the moment that work order came into the moment that it was result closed and handled to everyone’s satisfaction, right?

Ben Nemecek 27:35

And the customer communication too is huge, because you may have, a vendor that’s going to take a couple days longer than you thought. Just having that open communication, keeping both parties up to date is huge, I think, in that turnaround time and being able to have we spoken with this client, what is the reaction? How can we help them in this specific situation?

Yoni Schmidt 27:56

Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that I really appreciate about the Blanket platform on the pm dashboard, at least, is the, you know, maintenance and expense ratios that we’re looking at, right and that helps us understand, you know, how high or low these maintenance expenses are compared to the income from the property. And ultimately, we’re hoping through, you know, in the future of machine learning data and more insight and more data, we’ll be able to understand, you know, where, what’s that inflection point of, you know, an owner’s true happiness, right? Am I happy with my maintenance expenses being, you know, 15% or below? And does that only occur on properties that are, you know, newer or, you know, more solid, that have been renovated recently, right? So there’s a lot of good stuff in there that I love, just like playing around with. Tell me, as a partnership manager, what do you look for in potential company, in a potential company or technology to partner with.

Ben Nemecek 29:03

So we do things uniquely here at Blanket so partnerships, it could also be sales manager, I guess you could say, but partnerships, we truly want to develop partnerships with property management companies and be with them every step of the way to help them achieve their goals. So in a potential company, we want someone that is looking to help their owners think more like investors, to be more of that trusted advisor versus just a service provider. Hey, make sure my rents paid in my maintenance. We want them to look to property managers as their trusted advisor. We want to help them do that. And we also want companies that are looking to add doors and help their clients add additional assets that will hopefully benefit everyone at once. Now, when it comes to other companies, technology partners, we are constantly vetting folks and meeting with folks to add additional value to our current platform so lenders, insurance providers, financing options, as I just mentioned, I. Services, cost segregation, any partners that can help our clients and ultimately your clients add additional value, whether it’s by getting financing on the platform or performing a 1031 exchange via the platform, any partner that can help our clients and your clients achieve a quicker sale or more streamlined process throughout that transit is who we’re looking to potentially add to our platform and with and with PMS, anyone that’s looking to add doors and help their owners think more like investors.

Yoni Schmidt 30:31

Yeah. I love the direction the platform is headed, especially the new stuff that was just rolled out, I guess, like a couple weeks ago, really well within the last two weeks, and so I’m not going to give it away. So if you want to see it, you’re gonna have to call Ben and sign up. And if you’re an owner and you wish to have access to the platform, you can tell your property manager to call Ben. Yeah, it’s all the best. Yeah, tell me then, what advice would you give a new property manager that’s just starting out today in today’s industry?

Ben Nemecek 31:09

Yeah, so I will kind of speak on my experience. As I mentioned, when we first started, I was totally just thrown into the fire. Um, knew nothing about property management. I started on the front lines at a multi family property, and then kind of work my way up into the SFR space. And so what I would do is always follow leading voices on LinkedIn or Twitter. There’s some really good folks that have been in industry a lot longer than I have, and have very successful companies, and being able to just listen to their podcast, follow them on LinkedIn, see their their newsletter posts. There’s about 50 names I could I could share, but don’t want to leave anyone out, I think, also joining company, or, excuse me, organizations like NARPM and attending conferences. You know, we love conferences because we get to see a lot of our clients and hopefully prospective clients, but it’s great for at least it was for me when I first started. Is going to those conferences, sitting in sessions and just learning, absorbing as much as possible, because you know, you think you know a lot, you know year one or year two, and then you go and see, oh my gosh, I need to totally revamp all of our operations. Yeah. So being able to have a mentor or a person that you can stay in touch with, or mastermind groups, or just folks within the NARPM space or other organizations that work with property managers, I think is a great way to get started and also lean on other folks. This industry is great about you know, you may have competitors, but everyone ultimately wants folks to help, help folks succeed. And so at these conferences, you’ll see a lot of folks that get together and have dinner, and then on LinkedIn, a lot of good conversations, just talking about operations. One other thing I would say is, on Facebook, there’s a lot of really cool mastermind groups with a lot of question and answers. You may have 10, 15 questions. Top of Mind, you go there and you can find it very quickly someone is prompting a question. So just being able to absorb a lot of information via LinkedIn, Facebook, newsletter, podcast, that’s how I first kind of gained knowledge into the space and hopefully continue to find out industry trends.

Yoni Schmidt 33:03

And yeah, love that, and that’s how we connected. Right through Facebook. You just saw an ad that we put up for self managing landlord seminar, and you knew Hannah Hendricks on my team reached out, and then, you know, you were like, Oh, our CEO is Israeli, and this guy, and she was like, Oh, our team lead is Israeli, and that’s how the love story began.

Ben Nemecek 33:32

Yeah, ultimately, that would say too. I mean, I because I didn’t know Hannah. I mean, I knew Hannah well, from college. I didn’t know Hannah was doing property management, so I saw it on Instagram, and I was like, Oh, this is cool. Let me show you a tool. And then she really led the charge to meet with you and then move forward. So very, very thankful for you guys doing great advertising and constantly working with local investors, or I probably would have never, you know, had this relationship here.

Yoni Schmidt 33:54

Yeah, yeah. That was a great first demo too. You know, I was immediately bought in. So love it. Tell me finally, what are your long term goals at Blanket, and how do you plan to achieve that?

Ben Nemecek 34:08

Now, a sub question, is this Blanket as a company, or me personally?

Yoni Schmidt 34:13

I would say, you know, you could take it in any direction that you want, really? I’d say your long term goals at Blanket?

Ben Nemecek 34:21

Well, we want to help every property management company reduce churn. I know that sounds cliche, because that’s our tagline, but we want to help every property management company across the country, help their owners be better investors, buy and sell more properties, and ultimately achieve the same dreams that we all have. You know, property managers and owners have the same goal, and that’s to provide financial freedom for their future and hopefully for future generations. So there’s a lot of goals that mix in there, but if I could just put it like, what’s a long term goal for us at Blanket and for me personally, is to help these property managers, help their owners themselves, and potentially even some tenants that ultimately buy with them. Achieve financial freedom through owning real estate.

Yoni Schmidt 35:03

Love that. Yeah. Beautiful Ben, thank you so much for being here and just giving us a little sneak peek behind the curtain of Blanket. And if anyone wants to reach out to you, LinkedIn is probably one of the best ways to get in touch with you.

Ben Nemecek 35:21

Yeah, LinkedIn is great. You can also send me a personal email. My email is pretty simple. It’s [email protected] feel free to reach out. We’d love to connect with any of you guys, any of you guys that are listening, whether you want to use our service or not. I’m always looking to build relationships and help folks where I can, so feel free to reach out at any time. And Yoni, very thankful for the invite. It’s been great talking with you today. Thanks for your thanks for your friendship. Thanks for all the things you’ve done for Blanket and for the property management industry as a whole.

Yoni Schmidt 35:47

Love that. Thank you so much. We’ll put your email in the, I guess, link below, or in the comments below, so anyone can reach you. Thank you so much again. Ben, we’ll be in touch.

Ben Nemecek 36:01

I’m sure. Thanks, Yoni.

Outro 36:07

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