A Podcast | Jake Brooks

Pete Neubig: All right. Welcome back, everybody. I have Jake Brooks here with Kentuckiana Property Management. Jake, thank you so much for being here today.

Jake Brooks: Yeah. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Pete Neubig: All right. So I reached out to, uh, my, my good buddy Bryan Hughes. I said, give me a really solid bdrm that I can that I can interview on the radio because I always talk to these business owners, but I haven't really talked to anybody who's kind of in the thick of things. But before we get into that, let's tell tell me a little bit about your journey. How did you become a bdrm? Um, and, uh, what would you do before that? So just give us just a quick little journey and then. And then I'll start hitting you with the with the hard the hard questions.

Jake Brooks: Yeah, gladly. So I actually got my career out of college at Quicken Loans, now known as Rocket Mortgage. So I was in the mortgage lending space for for a good bit there. I probably put in about two years at Quicken Loans. Then I switched to a different company called Cardinal Financial. Um, so Quicken Loans pretty much, you know, told me taught me everything about sales, you know, kind of how a mortgage works, what the loan process looks like. And then I switched companies from there. Um, towards the end of my career, though, at a company called Cardinal, I started getting into a little bit of business development, so they did some pretty interesting loans. A lot of, you know, chapter 13 bankruptcy loans, which a lot of lenders won't touch. But another avenue they explored was manufactured lending. So mobile or manufactured homes we could lend on. But towards the end of my career, you know, we were pretty heavy in the refinance space. Rates started going pretty high. So I had an idea, you know, rather than trying to refi all these mobile or manufactured homes, what if we went right to the source here and try to help out with the purchase process? So we found out we had a pretty cool construction loan that could fit the mold is through FHA for mobile or manufactured homes. I reached out to a dealer in our area and we kind of got an agreement in there.

Jake Brooks: So that's kind of how the business development role played a role. And from there, I really had a passion for finding new opportunity and kind of trying to bring in the business rather than sit behind a computer and outbound dial day after day. Right. So I found a passion for connecting with someone, figuring out their pain point and trying to bring them in to provide a solution. So that's pretty much how it started. Um, weirdly enough, I was on, um. Indeed. One day I saw a post for Property Management Company for Business development. You know, I've always wanted to stay in real estate. I love real estate. I was more on the loan structure, but I've always wanted to grow and have my own portfolio. I had an interview, found out the guy I'm working for now, Travis Thomas, he's his own portfolio. He's an active investor. I thought, hey, you know what? I love the BDM side. I love sales, and worst case scenario, if I learned something about investing myself, this is a pretty good deal, right? So I took the job. Um, Travis has been awesome. I love everything our company does. Um, it's been a great experience though, and I have absolutely zero, uh, look back or regret for any single move I made.

Pete Neubig: So tell us a little bit about what what you, um. So it's like 109 contracts, uh, from January to mid, mid April, I think it was. Is. Yep. Right. So, uh, so obviously you're very good at what you do. So tell me what, um, what do you think some of the attributes are, uh, like, if you were going to hire another BDM for Kentuckiana, what are some of the what would some of the things that you would be looking for?

Jake Brooks: Yeah. Great point. So I would say one building a connection is going to be huge. So large part of the role isn't only just dealing with, you know, the investors you're trying to sign on, but also within your network, you know, meeting people, shaking hands, leaving a good first impression not only for your company, but for yourself as well, to try to bring in the business. Um, I would say persistence is key as well. Um, you know, I came from a big background in cold calling. One call closes, but I learned a lot of persistence where to never give up. You know, always pick up the phone, look for updates, and follow up with people. I think that's going to be key in any kind of sales position as well. Um, but above all else, I think accountability plays a huge, huge role. So, you know, there's certain KPIs that, you know, I'm accountable to hit that's realtor calls, that's going to be new sales, outbound text, any kind of marketing, social media, whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, if I'm not holding myself accountable to consistently hit, those metrics might not show month 1 or 2. But flash forward six months from now. If I'm not consistently doing the things to drive new business, it's going to reflect later on. So I have to be accountable each week. You know, a lot of calendar blocking, making sure I'm dedicating time to the appropriate actions. Again, whether that's realtor calls, looking for new business, trying to talk to title or financial advisors, getting coffee. You know, all these small little metrics, if you hit every single piece down the road, will start paying dividends. You'll start getting that new business to drive in.

Pete Neubig: So you guys look at so the KPIs you're looking at are actually, um, action item metrics, not like, um, conversion rates. Or are you guys looking at that as well?

Jake Brooks: Yeah. I mean, I would say internally I look at my conversion rates because I like to know, you know, how many quality conversations do I have to have to get maybe a signed deal or an in-person appointment? You know, how many of those does it take for actually the in-person appointment to convert to a signed contract? So I track that. But internally, you know, what our organization cares about more is how many outbound calls I had, how many follow ups, how many texts, how many realtor referral calls, how many in-person meetings with investors. How many in-person meetings with realtors? How many brokerage presentations? Those are more so the metrics that we track and overall as an organization, you know, the bottom line here is what's the revenue? That's the KPI that really matters, right? Is our revenue growing or not? So I think it kind of trickles down. But yeah, my metrics are that I'm held accountable from uh, I guess our owner standpoint is more of the action based items.

Pete Neubig: Right. But I guess that makes sense, though. You're just looking at if I do these, these metrics here, if I hit the number of calls, number of text messages, number of meetings, I don't have to worry about that. The one on the the back end. Because if I do the front end stuff, the back end is going to work its way out. It'll work itself out.

Jake Brooks: Correct. If I if I can get enough people in the door now, we're confident that the closing is going to happen. But it's about driving that business my way to be able to have, you know, the next step, the quality conversation, the in-person appointment, you know, those, I'd say is almost the easier part. The harder part is trying to get that that business to come to you. I mean, don't get me wrong, lead source is online are great, but if you get a referral, they're probably just talking to you, maybe one other company. They're not going to call from ten property managers in your area, right? So those are kind of the leads where your conversion rate. I don't want to say doesn't matter, but those are highly going to convert. That is coming from a referral.

Pete Neubig: Much higher rate. So um, tell me what what kind of like what a day to day looks like for you for like what is what is a BDM? What's a day in the life of a BDM?

Jake Brooks: Yeah. Hey, I would say a great day would be I'm not stepping foot in the office. And what I mean by that is I'm either getting coffee with a realtor or I'm driving around meeting actual investors, either at the home to take a quick look or meeting them for a cup of coffee to talk about the contract. Right. So the best day is actually the day where I'm not in the office. Now, of course, it takes certain steps to be able to be out of the office. You have to book those meetings. Um, I would say it's a lot of, you know, call blocking or calendar blocking. So I'll dedicate an hour in my calendar, let's say 1 to 2 p.m.. I know that's usually not a lot of inbound calls are coming in. So that's the time I can focus, start making outbound calls. So I'll pretty much block off an hour for. Hey, let's reach out to a couple realtors in the area. Quick introduction who I am. Tell them about our referral program. Next step from there is do you work with investors? Great. If you do, you're now a qualified referral source. If they're qualified referral source. I want to try to get in front of you any way I can. Let's go get coffee. Let me drop off donuts to the office. If I can't get the in-person meeting, you know, kind of on the phone, I'm going to add them to a drip campaign. And over time, there's going to be proper steps. Hey, check in, offer to bring coffee or lunch. Ask them for a coffee appointment. Right. Um, the other ones are going to be, you know, kind of just prospecting.

Jake Brooks: So Facebook groups are huge. A lot of areas will have a dedicated Facebook group. Ours is called Louisville, Kentucky Investor Group. Right. So it's pretty much a group primarily of investors, realtors, maybe accountants, anyone that's going to be looking to connect with investors as well. You can easily make simple posts. You know, I had a I had a great one the other day. It was what's your pet policy? Do you allow for dogs? Do you allow for cats? Allow for both weight limits or no pets. Does the answer really matter? No, but what I'm trying to do is see who's going to respond to that. Because now I have a list of the investors in the area who do have a pet policy, right? Odds of a realtor responding to that pretty low. If an investor does respond. I don't allow pets don't really care about your answer. I care about you. Let's talk about you. Send them a quick message, right? Hey XYZ, saw your post, saw your comment on my post. Just curious, have you? I saw you don't prefer pets. Have you thought about how allowing pets actually increases your tenant pool? What that means is one more competitive rental rates, but two also a quicker turnaround time for the rental process or the vacancy. Right? Trying to, you know, bait the carrot a little bit to have them try to drive that conversation forward. Um, but I'd say most of my day is going to be a lot of referral work. And then if I have additional time, you're kind of going on social media as well to try to prospect.

Pete Neubig: So what do you say to those that say, well, it's not my job to get to get leads. That's the marketing people's job. And my job is just to close those leads.

Jake Brooks: I would say, if that's what you think your job is, you're not a BDM, right? You're a sales rep. So I remember when I first started as well, and I had our owner gave me a couple names of old leads that didn't work out. And he was like, hey, go ahead and call these people. Okay, great. Week two I'm like, so where where am I going to get all these leads from? He's like, what do you mean? That's why we hired you, right? You go find the leads. So yeah, you'll have referral sources. Those are a great source of leads. You can pay for leads online. That's great too. But the main job of a BDM, it's not just closing it. It's going to find that new business that you can close. So if you're a BDM with the mindset of, hey, I just want to focus on just closing the deal. Unfortunately, that's not part of the gig, but the gig is is you have to go drive that new business forward, right?

Pete Neubig: So tell me a little bit about your sales philosophy.

Jake Brooks: Yeah. Great question. Um, I would say I'm more on the consultative sales approach. So what I mean by that is when you know someone's going to entertain a conversation with me, I believe truly in my heart, it's not a matter of price, it's a matter of a pain point. So what I'm trying to discover is what is the pain point? What is your issue that you're experiencing, and what kind of solution can I bring to you? It could be something as simple as, you know what, my current property manager, I've had him for five years. There's great, but we've never seen any kind of rent growth. Okay, understood. I know that's mostly what you care about. So what I'm going to tell you is this is how we run our renewal process. Now, 120 days before lease expiration, we're going to contact you to see if you want to renew the lease. If you've liked your experience, it's been a good tenant. Our next step is we're going to run a new rental market analysis. Right. That's going to tell us what the market looks like today. And we're going to come back to you with what we think is a fair market price.

Jake Brooks: And you'll give us the yes or no. Once you give us the yes, we're going to take that right to the tenant. Offer them a lease renewal for that higher rental value. Right. So I'm going to walk them through our rental analysis or how we run a renewal. On the flip side, I'm going to walk them through how we run our vacancy. Right. We're going to run a market analysis. We're going to put the market, um, kind of on the higher end up front. We're giving it a two week notice. Right. So what I mean by that is we'll leave the home on market for two weeks. We're not having many showings, not many applications. We can consider a price decrease, but you can always go down in value. It's really hard to go up in rental value. Right? So I kind of walk them through what our process is internally. Essentially our solution to their pain point, because someone's going to want to sign up for you when they know that you're going to take care of whatever's bothering them the most. They want to entertain a call with a property management company unless there's something there that they're missing or lacking.

Pete Neubig: So like a pain point?

Jake Brooks: Yep. Exactly. Exactly like a pain point. And sometimes I even ask, what are the pain points you're currently experiencing, right? What can I do? What solution can I bring you? What does it take for me to earn your business? What's your issue? Let me know. Let's talk it through and see how I can help you.

Pete Neubig: You, uh, you put down when we're in the green room. You talked a little bit about the different types of investment owners. What do you mean by that?

Jake Brooks: Yeah, I would say one. There's going to be different types of investment owners depending on what we call like an accidental landlord. There might be someone who's a couple homes. There's going to be people that are getting into multifamily space who maybe it's a syndicate, maybe it's a capital group, or maybe it's someone that just has a boatload of money that wants to passively invest, right? So essentially, I view it as there's some people who ended up buying a home to live in, and life happened one way or another where they now have this asset that they don't want to sell. So they never planned to be an investor, but somehow life happened where they are now an investor. I would handle that kind of client much differently than I'm going to handle. You know, the the pro in the area who has ten investment homes, who's continuously trying to buy and grow their portfolio. It's two different kind of ways, or two different kinds of a process or a conversation between someone who's a first time or never thought they'd be in this position. To someone who maybe does this full time or is a large part of their life, is actively investing.

Pete Neubig: What, um, what CRM do you use? And then do you have different drips for those different investment type of owners?

Jake Brooks: Yep. So we use what's called lead simple. It's fantastic for any BDM or organization. I'd highly recommend it. But yeah we we we do qualify drip campaigns essentially based off of what bucket they fall in. So I mean we have essentially one that'd be like a nurture drip campaign. But I go a step further. I'll have one depending on, I guess, what personality or criteria I think they'd fit. Whether it's a first time investor, those emails are going to read much differently compared to someone who's an active investor, where maybe they're more cared about unit turns. But the first time investor does never even thought about a unit turn right, or doesn't even know what the word CapEx means. So they're going to be written out differently depending on, I guess, what style investor they are or what the circumstance is.

Pete Neubig: When, um. So when you use your CRM and you have these you have these, um, drips. How how far out do you typically do a drip before you just say, okay, they're they're kind of close lost.

Jake Brooks: That's a great question. I would say ideally we're looking at six months minimum. I mean, at this day and age with ChatGPT all these resources, it's not too hard to build out six different emails 30 days apart or 12 emails two weeks apart. Right? I don't want to overload someone non-stop communication, but I want to make sure I'm on their mind in case they ever do want to make the flip right. That's the main point. But what I'll do is once I see someone who I. There's going to be periodic check ins built into the CRM as well. So maybe after the first two months, call the check in a month later, text them, see if there's an update. Right. So we kind of have different communication. There's different drip campaigns as well for the stage. If someone's, you know, hey they just wanted to call talk about price. Never heard back from them. That's going to be a different campaign for someone that I talked to, but there are just 3 or 4 months out because they're not going to move for a couple of months, right. So it's going to depend on how active I truly think they are. But I would say that someone's usually on a drip campaign for six months, but there's drip campaigns built out much longer. I feel like that is going to be an active lead. I think no matter what, when it's property management, you might not have a deal right now. You might not have a need right now. But if someone has an investment home, there's always going to be that opportunity no matter what. If that home is actively being rented out, might not be today, might not be next year. But at some point, stuff could hit the fan with their current property manager. They might get tired of self-managing at some point. There could be a need and you don't want to waste any kind of opportunity.

Pete Neubig: Would you say is the most common objection that you, uh, that you run into on? I'm going to go I'm going to go with three different like personas, right. So the the main objection on a seasoned investor.

Jake Brooks: I would say for a seasoned investor, the main objections are usually going to result on how you do maintenance or costs at turns. I would say pricing really doesn't matter all that much for a seasoned veteran with 510 plus homes, and they know that they're going to get what they pay for. They've likely been through property management before. They know the cheap routes, not the right route. I think more so what they care about is that their asset is being protected, well maintained, well cared for and at a unit turn. You're being transparent of what needs to be done. You're letting them know up front what the costs are, not just signing a blank check. I think those are the things, you know, the steps and procedures for how maintenance looks and how unit turns look. I think that's probably the biggest deal breaker for a seasoned investor.

Pete Neubig: What about one for the accidental investor?

Jake Brooks: Yeah, I would say for those it's going to be pricing to be honest. It's easy. That's going to be more so what I'd call a smoke screen objection. Or hey, you know I love talking to you, but the guy down the street offered me 1% less. When you think about it, that's $10 a month off every 1000. That shouldn't be an objection. So when someone says, and that's why you kind of got to dig deeper, you know, any time someone does give me a no, I politely ask and just tell them, hey, you know, I'm always continuously trying to get better. Would you mind providing me feedback on what influenced your decision? I think that's a great line to ask anyone, no matter what. If you ever get a no. So it creates mutual understanding. But if someone says, hey, you know, the issue was was price, you know, they're giving me a better rate. Hey, no problem at all. Are they charging you for an inspection? What does it look like? Are they marking up maintenance? Do they allow for.

Pete Neubig: So you're looking for those other hidden costs that.

Jake Brooks: Exactly. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, one 1% difference, even 2%, you're talking ten, 20, $30 a month. We can make up those costs and other aspects. So I would try to do, you know, again consultation approach and go look at the end of the day we can if they're charging you $100 for an inspection, ours is free. Boom. You just saved ten months of.

Pete Neubig: Management.

Jake Brooks: Fees. Management fee right there. Right. So it's kind of about making that mutual understanding, building trust, but just trying to figure out truly where that objection is.

Pete Neubig: And what the last one, what about that accidental landlord? You know, maybe they're getting shipped out for a year or to, um, to to another, you know, to another part of the world or whatever, and they're going to come back, but they, they want to go ahead and lease the property. What's what's the major objection for there?

Jake Brooks: You know, I would say the biggest objection for someone that happens to fall into being an investor is going to weirdly fall along the lines of when we take that initial walk through what we would recommend to have done to the home before we put up for rent. Now, a lot of these people don't have a bunch of money set away. They don't have a CapEx budget, right? They just happen to be in the situation. But you go to the home and there's stains all over the carpet, or some of the walls are painted pink. We're going, hey, let's get new carpet. Let's get neutral colors. This is going to help you. But they don't have that budget or reserve to be able to put in the work. They thought this was going to be an investment to make them money, but it's trying to talk them through, okay. If we get, you know, neutral colors, that's going to appeal to more people. Larger tenant pool means more competition. More competition means a better quality tenant all around. All around. Right. Um, on the flip side, though, if we get the home in perfect condition before we lease it out, well, now, when we do that moving inspection, if there's any kind of difference that move out, it's going to be much more, much easier to pinpoint and take that away from the security deposit, the homes in disarray. When you rent it, it's going to be hard to protect it and move out, because that move in inspection is not going to be as clean because we're not having as much of a clean slate. So I would say the biggest hurdle for someone that just happens to be now, an investor is going to be kind of along the lines of, what does it take to get this home rent ready and get you on market?

Pete Neubig: I would also say another big one for that is that they're they're emotionally attached to the home. And, uh, they think the home's perfect or they when they get the home back, they want it to be exactly perfect the way they, they, they had it. Um, and I think communication and safety and security, all that stuff rolls into it for sure.

Jake Brooks: Yep. Totally agree.

Pete Neubig: Um, do you have an assistant? Do you have an assistant that helps you out?

Jake Brooks: I don't. We do have two CSRs who kind of answer incoming calls CSR. Yep. Customer service rep.

Pete Neubig: Thank you.

Jake Brooks: So we have we have two of those that kind of handle like any kind of inbound calls or generic company number. But personally I don't really have much control over what they do or don't do. I'm mostly on my own.

Pete Neubig: The lone wolf.

Jake Brooks: And honestly, I kind of like it that way as well because it allows me to build a stronger and better connection. I feel like in a way. And they're constantly hearing my voice. They know who they're going to talk to. They know who they're going to get. I feel like that does also help as well. But the the cost associated, that is also my time. Right. I only have so many hours in a day and a week. So what? I'm trying to track down people on the phone getting voicemails. That's time lost. That could be spent on other areas, right?

Pete Neubig: Yeah. Um, do you do all your CMAs, like when you go to an appointment or you getting ready to meet somebody? What are some of the things that you're going there with?

Jake Brooks: I you know, I've changed this part of my structure multiple times. So I used to come fully prepared with a property management agreement ready for signature. Right. Because I used I like kind of more of a hard close, you know, we do a quick tour, maybe I give you some recommendations, what we should do to the home. You know, we talk about the the rental analysis or the market price. We discuss our fees, go over the agreement. And I used to love the line. All right. So the next step from here is going to be sign the contract. Do you want to sign that in pen or want me to go home and send it to you sign. You know that was my way to close, right?

Pete Neubig: Okay.

Jake Brooks: What I figured out, though, is a lot of people, if they want to move forward, they do prefer an E sign. And I was wasting a lot of paper. Right. So what I do now is I bring like a quick little I call it an onboarding sheet. It's like one page generic information. Who are your utilities? How many bedrooms, how many bathrooms? What's your rent expectation that's.

Pete Neubig: Gathering property info?

Jake Brooks: Yep, pretty much just gathering some basic information. I go the next step if you want to move forward, fill out this quick document. We'll get the process started right. So I think if you can get them to put in some kind of action, literally sign something, even if it's meaningless in their mind. They started the process. They're starting to work with you. So that's something I come prepared with. I used to bring a computer and do a whole PowerPoint presentation. I feel like for some people that works, some it didn't. I kind of prefer now just the more of let's sit at the table, you know, let's just talk face to face. What questions do you have? I'll tell you right now. And if they're asking, hey, how do you lease? I'll pull up my phone real quick. Hey, here's all of our listings. Look through them. Look at the pictures we have. Look at our marketing descriptions. So I'll kind of try to make it a little bit interactive, but I've kind of strayed away from like the full PowerPoint. Try to make it a little bit more personable.

Pete Neubig: And do you try to meet all your, um, all your clients at the property, or do you try to do everything through, uh, through zoom?

Jake Brooks: 100% at the property if possible? Um, I think if you get in front of them face to face, your closing rate goes exponential. You know, if I'm there for 45 minutes to an hour. They're not gonna want to do that 2 or 3 times with other companies, right? So I think if you do, if you have the ability to get in front of someone, you're going to build a lot of trust right there, and it's going to help your closing rate go up. Um, of course, though, some people are busy, some people live out of state, so there's always phone in zoom. Um, but usually I try to flush that out kind of on our very first call. You know, what's your timeline? Why are you looking to rent? You know, do you live in the area? Right. So that way, I know if they don't live in the area, I'm going to try to make that first call last as long as I can answer any kind of questions. Because after that I want to send out the contract. So it's going to vary a little bit person by person. But if they're in the Louisville area, in our market, my number one goal is how can I get in front of this person and meet them face to face?

Pete Neubig: All right. So let's dive more into that sales process. So somebody somebody is interested. So they've uh they've reached out to you guys. You get the your CSR gets the call, they forward it over to you and, uh, you have a good conversation and then you're trying to meet them at the property. If not, then you're trying to keep them on the phone as long as possible. Build that rapport. I love it. Sure. Uh, and then, um, um, let's just say they don't sign that day. They're like, hey, I need to think about it. What's the what's the next step at that point? Are you scheduling another meeting with them? Another call? What's what? What are you kind of take me through that until you get the. Yes.

Jake Brooks: Yep. I would say it does not matter on the phone in person. If someone gives me anything other than a flat no or a for sure. Yes. I'm going to have more questions for you. Right. So a great objection. You know what? I need to think about it a little bit. My next question would straight up be no problem at all. I can totally appreciate that. Is there anything in particular that I didn't clearly communicate to you or anything? You're still curious about any kind of hypotheticals? My goal is I want to make that what seems like an objection. Let me think about it. I want to turn that into a true objection. What really has you on the fence? Right. So that way, for our next call, I know exactly what to harp on what my pitch is going to be. Um, but one way or another. Okay? You know, you need to think about it. Great. I get the objection. Whatever it may be.

Pete Neubig: I gotta I gotta run it by my wife. Right? That's the big one, right? You gotta run it by my significant other.

Jake Brooks: That's a great one to run it by your wife, I would say totally understand it. Don't want you sleeping on the couch. Right. Let me ask you, do you and your spouse share the same goals when it comes to rental property? Oh, yeah, we do. Great. If your spouse was here, think they'd have any additional questions that I might not have answered today? Uh, yeah. You know what? Okay, great. When do you think you're going to talk to your spouse? Okay, great. Do you want me on the phone when you do that so I can answer any kind of questions? You know, again, I'm trying to kind of fish out, if that's a true let me talk to the spouse or is there an objection, uh, but nonetheless, on the phone, in person interview or sorry, in-person meeting, if there's going to be any kind of lapse between that meeting and sign the contract, we're setting a firm follow up. Great. You want to think about it? I'm not here to push any, any by any means. Do you think you need a day? 2 or 3. When do you want me to follow up with you? Oh, you know what? Next Wednesday.

Jake Brooks: Great. Perfect. Do you prefer mornings, afternoons or evenings? What's the best time to reach you? Uh, you know, actually, evenings after five. Perfect. So I'll call you next Wednesday after five. Anything changes, just give me a quick text. I'll let you know that same day it's going to pop up on my calendar. Follow up with XYZ, send them a text. Hey, I know we got a couple hours. I just want to make sure you're still free to talk this afternoon. So just kind of, you know, trying to stay in front of it because I want to get them back on the phone to see when they thought about it. All right. What came up, is it a concern? Is it a hypothetical? Do they talk to someone else? And now it's pricing. You know what's going on in their head. But you got to set that firm appointment. So that way I'll even send them a calendar invite. Right. Put this on your calendar, make it official. We're following up. We're touching base. But that's huge as well. You have to have a firm follow up. Don't leave.

Pete Neubig: Do you send do you send them any any data or do you send him anything as a follow up?

Jake Brooks: Yeah. I mean, after we've had the in-person meeting, I'm more than happy to send a breakdown of the pricing. Make sure you know that's black and white for transparency. I'll send them. You know, it's like a quick little document. It's like a page. It's our scope of services. So it literally has bullet point by bullet point. Here's everything we're going to do for you Depending on how the conversation went with the rental analysis or price point, I might send them a rental analysis as well. Say, hey, here's the window or low end, high end what we're probably thinking for market rent. But yeah, I definitely try to send them something immediately after that in-person appointment or first phone call.

Pete Neubig: All right. I'm going to ask you to put on your sales manager hat on now. So you went from bdrm to sales manager. You got promoted. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, so tell me, what do you think is a a good compensation model? Don't, don't let's not do numbers, but like, a, like percentages or like, what is a good compensation model for a BDM?

Jake Brooks: Fantastic question. I'm going to go with I mean, if it's a new hire bdrm, they got to prove themselves, right. So I think a little bit of base for maybe some security. That's great. But you have to have some sort of commission or revenue bonus to have it as an incentive. Right. Any sales position, if it's fully just salary guaranteed, especially in the first couple months or a year, there's little incentive to do your best, right? So I would say for the first year you want to have an incentive based off transactions. If you close X amount of units in a month, you're getting paid for those and it resets. I would say moving forward, if someone's proved themselves, they're valuable. You can't lose that person. Their incentive, you could definitely switch that to more of a reoccurring revenue because that's not going to incentivize just new business. It's also going to incentivize to make sure you're not losing any business. Right. If they're getting paid, maybe a smaller upfront commission. But that's going to compound year after year. They're going I need to bring in more people. And I can't lose those clients we already have. Right. Except you're just basically purely transactional. Not that I wouldn't say I never care about what happens to our clients, but what's my incentive to make sure that Joe down the street I talked to two months ago is still happy with our services? I would do it because I want to support our company. I want us to grow, but the incentive isn't always there. So I think it would be important if you do have someone that's seasoned professional, they're doing a great job. Try to bake in something about either revenue growth or retention as well.

Pete Neubig: What about what's your take on incentivizing the activities? Like if you do so many activities, then you get something in, you know. Something like that along with some back end, you know, get it all the way through. Like this kind of lets them something just in case. Like something doesn't. You know, close you at least get something. Doesn't have to be a lot, but you get something for at least you did all the activities.

Jake Brooks: Yeah. That's a that's an interesting thought. I've never really thought about that, to be honest with you. I think that would be great for a ramp up or training period. Sure. Rewarding them for, you know, pretty much good behavior.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. Especially. Yeah, exactly. You training them correctly and you train them by by giving them like little treats right here. Every time you do this, you get a little something. Uh, I like your idea about the about the commission, but the challenge that I've seen in, in the past with, with the commission for long term is that, um, how long do you think that the BDM would get commission for that for that client. Is it one year, two years, five years in perpetuity? Because what happens is that commission gets so big now that now there's no incentive to to basically grow any more, any more business because you're living off the, the old business.

Jake Brooks: So sure, yeah, I would say it depends on, you know, what your, your compensation would currently look like. If you want to go to that model, you know, if you're saying let's, let's say you're paying 12% of the total management fee upon signing. Well, if you switch that to, let's say, um, 4% over a four year span, sure, you have more risks. You'll pay more in the long run, but the BDM is also going to have more benefit by retaining those clients. But I do agree, I can't be here for ten years, and I have this huge book of business. All of a sudden I'm making more as the owner, right? That doesn't make sense, but I think you would have to put a timeline on it. But I do think it is important for to have someone in your organization also focusing on your current clients. I know property managers are speaking with them, but I think it means a lot when you're protecting someone's asset or portfolio and they get a call out of the blue. It's not because a tenant broke the dishwasher. It's not because there's a maintenance charge that's going to happen. It's because someone's just reaching out and going, hey, look, just wanted to check in real quick. How's our service been? Anything we can improve, anything we can be doing better. I think that would speak volumes because you are protecting a big asset for these people at the end of the day. So I think every organization has to have someone checking on these people.

Pete Neubig: In theory, that should be the property manager. If we're running a proactive company and you have all your. You have the assistants doing most of the work and the property managers just doing the escalations. So listen man, I love it. We're up against it. We're going to take a quick commercial break and I'm going to come back and I'm going to put you on the the lightning round.

Speaker4: All right.

Pete Neubig: We'll be right back with Jake Brooks. Bdrm Kentuckiana. All right. All right, Jake, we're back. Are you ready for the lightning round?

Speaker4: Let's do it.

Pete Neubig: All right. All right, let's see. What software do you guys use? Lead. Simple. But what? Property management software to use.

Jake Brooks: Appfolio.

Pete Neubig: Appfolio. Do you happen to know the current organizational structure? Is it, um, pods or departmental or or portfolio based?

Jake Brooks: Uh, we're currently a pod structure.

Pete Neubig: Pod structure? Okay. Do you all use virtual team members?

Jake Brooks: Uh. We do. Yes.

Pete Neubig: Okay. Um, what is one piece of advice you would give a BDM just starting out in the PM business?

Jake Brooks: Do the right things upfront. You know, make your connections, make your referral calls, but stay accountable and consistently do that. Like I touched on earlier, there's all these great things you can do and that's going to start seeing business come in. Once you stop doing those things, you're gonna start to see business not come in as much. So stay accountable. Do the right things and do them consistently.

Pete Neubig: I love it. Stay accountable. Do all those small things and do them consistently. I love it. Um, does pineapple belong on pizza?

Jake Brooks: Yeah, definitely.

Pete Neubig: Oh, okay. Well, we were we were buddies until that question. Just kidding. Um, what is your ideal vacation?

Jake Brooks: My ideal vacation is going to be sitting at a pool with a swim up sort of setup where I can maybe get, um, sodas.

Pete Neubig: All right, I love it. What's, uh, what's a book or a podcast that you would recommend?

Jake Brooks: So I just finished one yesterday. It's called The First Time Manager. Um, by Mike Weinberg, I believe. Pretty much walks you through. If you're going to become a sales manager, here's all your nerves. But your old job of being salesman. That's over. Here's what you need to do to become the best manager possible. I thought it was very, very impactful. I thought, it's great to hear it from the other side. Someone talking to a sales manager of how to be better to their salespeople. I thought that was very impactful.

Pete Neubig: Nice. And are you a dog or cat guy? Would you prefer.

Jake Brooks: Dog?

Pete Neubig: Dog guy. All right. If somebody, uh, let's listen to this podcast, just maybe had a question or two. Wanted to reach out to you. What's the best way to get in touch with you?

Jake Brooks: Call, text, email if you need anything. I will find a way. I'll be responsive no matter what it is. I'm here to help you.

Pete Neubig: And, uh. What's that? What's that number?

Jake Brooks: Uh, (502) 515-0603 or Jake j a k e at k y for Kentucky, PM for Property Management, LLC.

Pete Neubig: Com and, uh, if you're listening to this and you're not a member, you can go to or give them a call at (800) 782-3452. And uh, if you are looking for remote team members, go to vpm solutions.com or email me directly at vpm. Solutions.com. Jake, thanks so much for being here, buddy.

Jake Brooks: Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you. Pete.