In an engaging interview with Kerry W. Kirby, the Founder and CEO of 365 Connect, we delve into the ever-changing landscape of property management through the lens of automation and artificial intelligence.
Automated Leasing Platforms: Kerry Kirby introduces us to an automated lease signing platform that promises precision and ease for multifamily owners and operators. By harnessing the robust legal framework of Blue Moon's lease documents and integrating with screening services, 365 Connect is reducing the margin for error.
The Fight Against Multifamily Labor Shortages: With a strategic blend of AI and automation dubbed Intelligent Automation, Kirby outlines how embracing technology can offer a stark solution to the industry's pain points regarding labor shortages and the grind of repetitive tasks while emphasizing the pivotal role of compliance in this journey.
Streamline with AI:
The pressing issue of bureaucratic red tape, especially in light of new regulations like the junk fee bill, cannot be overstated. With compliance at its core, 365 Connect has placed systematic guardrails to ensure operators stay within the bounds of the law without compromise.
Personalization vs. Personal:
An intriguing contrast highlighted by Patrick Antrim emphasizes the shifting paradigm from traditional personnel-heavy operations to a personalized, technology-driven approach. Integrating technology, he suggests, does not detract from customer experience; on the contrary, it elevates it by providing team members with tools to enhance their capabilities.
Starting Small:
A nod towards cautious optimism is given as Patrick suggests a parallel adoption strategy, ensuring validation at every step in favor of large-scale, untested changes.
Multifamily Customer-Centric Innovation:
Both Antrim and Kirby agree that any technological integration must prioritize the customer experience. It’s about a delicate balance between tech and touch, where augmented human interaction remains paramount.
The 365 Connect Promise:
Kerry W. Kirby proudly notes 365 Connect's commitment to personalized, no-pressure service – truly a hallmark of their customer-centric ethos.
Enthusiasm for 365 Connect's Technological Advances:
As the conversation nears its end, Patrick Antrim applauds Kirby's forward-thinking vision in the creation of a lease signing experience that is not only seamless but a substa
About the Multifamily Innovation® Council:
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is the executive level membership organization that makes a difference in your bottom line, drives a better experience for your employees, and allows you an experience that keeps demand strong for your company. The council is uniquely positioned to focus on the intersection of Leadership, Technology, AI, and Innovation.
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.
To learn more or to join, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/council.
For more information and to engage with leaders shaping the future of multifamily innovation, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/.
Connect:
Multifamily Innovation® Council: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/council/
Multifamily Innovation® & AI Summit: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/
Patrick Antrim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickantrim/
Welcome back to another episode of the Multifamily Innovation
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Podcast.
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We're here with an exciting guest, an industry innovator.
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This is the founder of 365 Connect.
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Carrie Kirby has, I'm almost.
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100 Technology Awards.
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He's been a developer, multifamily developer,
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understands technology and real estate, and is chair of
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technology for the Multifamily Innovation Council.
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Kerry, welcome back.
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Patrick, excited always to be here with you.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So the reason why I'm having you on is recently, and like last
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week, Jimmy Lancaster on stage at the Multifamily Innovation
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Summit, as part of the Multifamily Innovation Showcase,
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launched something Remarkable.
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I know that you've been on that platform before, but this is the
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idea around automated leasing for multifamily owners and
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operators.
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Let's set me up.
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What happened for those that are listening and we're in the room?
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Patrick, there's a lot of chat or people use the word leasing.
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I call it loosely in our industry.
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And in our world, it means a sign lease.
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So we've spent about two years and what we did is we built a
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completely automated platform.
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When I say automated, I'm talking about no, intervention
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from your property staff.
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And the way it works is you go through an application process
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being self service platform for someone applying on a unit.
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We have some technology here that we actually have patent
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pending on.
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Basically, we take that unit and put it almost in a eBay kind of
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mode.
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We remove it so no one else applies on top of it.
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Which is a flaw we've heard over and over in the industry.
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Somebody else's applying and the first guy that gets to the end
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wins.
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So that unit comes off, nobody can apply on top of it.
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I like the pricing psychology there too, though.
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Yeah.
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It brings them into an environment.
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They verify their ID documents.
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We can now verify over a thousand different IT ID types
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across the world.
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Passports, military ID foreign driver's license.
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So we have a very robust back end running there.
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We have some things we can move around, so it's not this
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industry has never been one size fits all.
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So we built our application, what's called Legos and we can
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make it however you would like it.
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All the way down to, if you look at a screener, they need about
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four or five pieces of information.
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We can deliver just that, get them approved, and capture the
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rest of it on the way to the lease.
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Very robust app, sign it, date it, stamps our IP address on it,
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you name it, we've got it.
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Pays that app fee, triggers to a screener say they're approved.
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We then completely build out a lease.
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We build out an invoice, of course, you give us those
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parameters for any onboarding fees.
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Now, when I say build out a lease, I also want to point out
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that we've built this on top of Blue Moon, which is an NAA click
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and lease platform.
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So we are using Blue Moon lease documents, addendums, custom
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addendums, you dream of it, we've mapped it, put it in
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there.
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Worked with the guys at Blue Moon, they are in total awe of
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what we have created.
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It will deliver it with an invoice to everybody that's got
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to sign it, pay the app fee, that lease is delivered back
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securely on all sides, along with payment back to the
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property, and we just delivered them a Signed lease with money
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could be 2 a.
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m.
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on a Sunday morning.
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And we can trigger that within nanoseconds of getting an
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approval from the screener.
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So tell me why now?
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I know that there's a lot of conversation around automation.
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We're living through a transformation where some have
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opened up and recognized the opportunity and some are trying
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to figure out how to move through it.
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And there's also executives that are trying to message and engage
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teams and give them some level of certainty and awareness
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around these different investments.
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So tell me why now, why is this important now?
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What's interesting, we started on this a couple of years ago,
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and, actually, we mapped it out before COVID, so I don't want to
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say this is a COVID driven thing, but where it stemmed from
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was just the turnover rate that people have at properties.
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And it's not just a turnover rate of employees, but it's
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training, and at least as a complex legal document.
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And the errors that can occur in the level of training to fill
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one of these things out is pretty extensive.
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So we started there and then as we kept going things like AI we
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use a combination of things.
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We've actually coined it intelligent automation to do it.
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sO I think we were answering the call of, some skill gaps.
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What's turned into a labor shortage and what's now turned
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into a better way to utilize people.
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I saw something the other day and somebody was talking about
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AI and they called it, they said that people don't want to do
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soul crushing work anymore.
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And data entry is soul crushing work.
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And that's really what building a lease is.
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But you have to put the right things in the right places.
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And with automation, we do that every time, all the time, we've
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actually been able to overcome a couple of things that you really
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have to manually put in, such as how many keys does someone get?
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What's the calculation in a Blue Moon lease is a calculation if
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they want to get out of the lease.
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What's the buyout on the lease?
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There are also certain states, we're now seeing a lot more
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regulation pop up that want certain terms on the lease going
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to Maryland.
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You have to offer a 24 month lease.
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So we're able to put those things in there that, Hey, it
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was offered and this is what was there, there's an admin to that,
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what they settled on the other thing that, that we did Patrick
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along the way.
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So if you get into the user experience side, we do a
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complete summary of what that is, all the fees, all the move
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in fees.
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So fast forward today, and they got junk, junk fee bill out
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there, and it's about disclosure.
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And we've been disclosing these things before the junk fee bill.
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So we're, we've now laid some compliance pieces.
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And these are things that are prone to human error.
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So I think it's a combination of things that pushed us to do it.
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Look, there's no secret.
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I'm an employer, you're an employer.
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In the world of work.
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It's difficult to get somebody anymore in a world of remote
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work to show up at a place every day, unlock a door at a certain
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time, leave at a certain time, be there behind a desk.
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It's, look at the office market.
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I think that's the telltale sign of people don't feel like they
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need to be somewhere anymore.
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And that's how our industry has gotten more into centralization.
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How can we serve more units with less people?
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lOng story short, we're breaking the 1 to 100 model, in a big
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way.
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We're like smashing glass on the floor now.
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Yeah, and you mentioned the idea of how we've always done it
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around, having somebody unlock a door and meet the prop, meet at
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the property and hopefully not get sick and not have certain
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days of the week they want to experience life.
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There's this concept of being personalized versus personal.
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And in other words, it's what does the customer even expect
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today?
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But I like how you keyed in on uh, not just change for the sake
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of change.
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Hey, try something new in the business.
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You're solving a big problem, which is that turnover rate.
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And you mentioned training errors with, these are lease
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contracts that can commit to 12 month, 18 month terms.
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And if you've got salespeople involved in the process, they're
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usually.
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More expressive and in, in their world of personality and work
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skills.
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And so they're not necessarily, due diligence and analytical and
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amiable in terms of accounting, right?
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So the details of a contract and managing that, I just start to
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think of the errors.
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You mentioned the skills gaps, in terms of the labor shortage
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and then being a better way for people to utilize their teams.
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So this is something that could, I think about the CFO who is
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looking for, okay, how are we going to operate with all the
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pressures upon us?
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How are we going to save some money here?
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I think clearly this is an opportunity to say, yeah, we can
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scale faster, take on more properties and not have to worry
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about.
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Certain elements of hiring in those civic roles also maybe
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even testing the assumptions about the one to 100 and
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operating a little more efficiently.
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And then for like the VP of operations, I start to think
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about that around how they're trying to create an experience
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for the employees and.
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They don't want to be in doing redundant work boring work work
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that requires them to ultimately get a writeup someday because
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they did a contract wrong and not even being properly trained
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just because, we're hiring at such accelerated paces.
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And then I think about the leasing team, which is like,
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how's this going to impact me?
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What is my role?
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And, I also see that as a better support for that role and a
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better experience for that role.
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But Probably more deals because, you're moving people through the
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full end to end cycle.
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And smart operators will figure out how to really reward
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repurpose some of those efficiencies to reward, Real
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growth in revenue.
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Cause ultimately that's all, that's what we're all trying to
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do.
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So anyway I I like your approach to it.
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You mentioned it's not necessarily new but it it's, it
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may be new for somebody to try this new process.
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How do you suggest beginning this journey?
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They get on, they get in touch with you guys.
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You do a demo, you demonstrate what you've talked us through
00:10:42
here today.
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And then after that.
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This is something that kind of comes on top of what you're
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working on.
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And then you get comfortable with the process and then they
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can make a business decision.
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So they don't have to make any concrete business decisions off
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the bat.
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They can just get set up with you, become a customer,
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experience it.
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And then they're making.
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The decision off of their own, investment objectives and stuff
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like that.
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And my suggestion to anybody, and we don't, want to get in a
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spot where it's like, Oh, wow.
00:11:13
Give me a hundred of these.
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Take one, try it, test it in the community and see how it works
00:11:19
out.
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The other side of this coin, Patrick, that I think properties
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are more and more looking at is customer experience.
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Look, I'm an employer, I'm a job creator, an innovator, I'm not
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saying get rid of people in any way, shape, or form.
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But maybe someone's much better, maybe you don't have smart
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locks, or you can't do it all with zero humans.
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People might be good at showing that apartment, selling that
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apartment.
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Do you also, do they need to be good at that?
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They need to be good at taking an application?
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Writing, creating a lease document.
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How great is it that somebody could say, Hey, come on over.
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I'll meet you at this property.
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Show my unit.
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Do you look, yeah, I love this unit.
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Great.
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Let's take the next step and apply.
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Boom.
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Here comes soon as you leave, here comes an email.
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There's a link, or you go to the properties website.
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Apply, get an approval as soon as you're done.
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If you let us fully automate this thing and then get a lease,
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60 seconds later, there's also a journey we took to doing this.
00:12:31
And one of the things was we wanted to talk to people we
00:12:34
didn't do business with, and we wanted to talk to people in a
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property that did leases.
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And we sat out on a journey and talked to quite a few of them.
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And there's a loss ratio.
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And I don't know.
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Nobody could really stick a percentage on it, but if you
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don't turn something back around quick enough to a renter, you
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can lose them and think about your own transactions.
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This is a transactional piece.
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This isn't where a leasing agent, in my opinion, should
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really be involved.
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We're signing legal documents.
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We're collecting money.
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We're screening people to make sure they're qualified to live
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in our communities.
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Let's take our people and better utilize them to sell those
00:13:24
vacant units and then let the tech do the talking, not only do
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the talking, but create a great experience.
00:13:32
And we have prided ourselves in doing it would make it simple
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when at least it's delivered as a pin code for them to get into.
00:13:39
And we've, we recently just built a system where we can
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deliver documents.
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Before they signed the lease, because we're more and more, we,
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as an industry, we have all this regulation coming in and cost us
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money to regulate.
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We're in a falling rent market.
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So automating is a great way to combat some of that, but we
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built a system where they, you can load documents down to a
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unit, we have a document system.
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We built, I could put a document only on unit one Oh one, if
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that's where you want it for somebody to download preview,
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great place to say.
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Hey, here's our community policies, any regulatory things.
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Here's our pet policy downloaded.
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They have to check a box they've read and downloaded to hit the
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next button to get to the lease.
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So we're trying to solve problems with this and we have
00:14:32
battle tested it.
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We're very confident in it.
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That's why you saw us pitch it at the show leading up to this.
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We have built several things to completely automate.
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Marketing processes all the way from automating social media
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posts, automating SEO, which is probably unheard of, but we do
00:14:52
it automating reviews and answering reviews, utilizing AI.
00:14:58
So we're continuing to build out a suite of automated products
00:15:04
that we don't think your property staff.
00:15:09
Should be tasked with doing that.
00:15:11
You should be able to utilize them better.
00:15:13
If you need to run leaner, you can because you don't have
00:15:16
somebody bogged down sitting there trying to figure out a
00:15:19
lease or post on your social media accounts.
00:15:22
So we're work.
00:15:23
That's basically where we're going to continue is to automate
00:15:27
more and more processes in this industry.
00:15:30
And one other caveat is we do have renewals built into this as
00:15:35
well.
00:15:36
And renewals is, we're putting some guardrails in it.
00:15:41
So renewals currently is not fully automated because, we
00:15:46
don't want to just pull market rent and, hey, this guy's on his
00:15:49
fifth lease renewal.
00:15:50
Let's raise his rent 200 a month and lose him.
00:15:54
So we're setting some guardrails that can be set on the renewal
00:15:57
offers.
00:15:58
And then we can do the same thing and deliver a lease.
00:16:02
So that will be the renewal.
00:16:04
Automated renewals will be rolling out soon, but it exists
00:16:07
today.
00:16:07
You could certainly renew a lease in our platform.
00:16:11
Yeah.
00:16:11
And that's great.
00:16:11
And so tell me a little bit about, or tell our listeners how
00:16:14
they get in touch with you to learn more about this.
00:16:17
We'll put the links in the show notes, but.
00:16:20
Simply go to 3 65 connect dot com.
00:16:24
And you'll see demo basically on any.
00:16:26
You can go to our product pages, go to leasing.
00:16:29
You can read about any of our products and on every single
00:16:32
page is schedule a demo.
00:16:34
It'll bring you to a page where you can put in your information
00:16:38
schedule a time with us.
00:16:40
And when we demo, you basically get a, an engineer to walk you
00:16:47
through it, tell you how our integrations work with your PMS
00:16:50
systems, everything.
00:16:51
So we're, one thing I think you and I consistently hear Patrick,
00:16:55
especially in the innovation council.
00:16:58
I don't like being sold to, I want to be educated.
00:17:01
We're not a salesy organization.
00:17:02
You're not going to have a sales guy chasing you.
00:17:04
We're going to, we're going to show you what we do.
00:17:07
And I think you'll love it and you'll want to try it.
00:17:10
And certainly can try it under no obligation with us and and
00:17:14
see if it works for your, for what you're doing, where you see
00:17:19
the future going we're.
00:17:20
We're following trends.
00:17:22
We're talking on a large scale along with you and the
00:17:26
Innovation Council across properties all over the country.
00:17:30
And I think we're hearing some common things and following the
00:17:35
news, following the demographics, following rent
00:17:37
trends.
00:17:39
So just trying to bring something to the market that I
00:17:43
think is desperately needed.
00:17:45
We have the technology, let's do it.
00:17:48
Let's make this business not only run more efficient.
00:17:52
But give people better opportunities to do the things
00:17:57
that only humans can do.
00:17:59
What did you say?
00:18:00
There's a difference between personalized and
00:18:03
personalization.
00:18:05
And that's what we can do.
00:18:06
Personal.
00:18:07
Yeah, too.
00:18:07
Even personal.
00:18:09
So I love what you shared there.
00:18:10
And what, and even at the summit Jimmy, when he was doing a
00:18:14
showcase, you mentioned around.
00:18:17
You're going to be on a call with an engineer like this
00:18:20
isn't, 40 layers of depth to get to the product innovation.
00:18:25
You're on the, you're on the call with people that can get
00:18:28
you answers instantly around how it may integrate, how, what
00:18:33
would happen after the sale, what support would look like,
00:18:36
what onboarding would look like.
00:18:38
And then also you mentioned show, show.
00:18:41
You'll get an opportunity to, the customers will get an, or
00:18:43
the prospects will get an opportunity to see what you do
00:18:46
and see how it all visually the workflow.
00:18:49
And it's never done, right?
00:18:51
So I love your feedback loop, how tight it is around you're
00:18:55
building alongside of customers instead of just going building
00:18:58
something and trying to figure out how to just.
00:19:00
hire a bunch of salespeople and go sell it.
00:19:02
I love that approach.
00:19:04
At the same time, I've seen this product.
00:19:06
It is pretty interesting.
00:19:07
And you do have at some point as a solution to a big problem, you
00:19:12
do have a, you do have an obligation at some point to tell
00:19:15
people about it.
00:19:15
And that's what I'm doing here on this call here, but yeah.
00:19:18
So 365 connect.
00:19:20
com in the link in the show notes for this episode, you can
00:19:23
follow that as well.
00:19:25
Reach out to Kerry and his team and learn about how really a
00:19:31
better way to sign to leases.
00:19:33
It's really exciting times to be in multifamily.
00:19:36
And I think if you're an operator out there and you're
00:19:38
looking for one way to be a hero within your organization and
00:19:41
create a better experience for your employees, but also get
00:19:44
some financial lift on cashflow.
00:19:47
This is something that you have to sit back and say, I have an
00:19:49
obligation to at least look at this.
00:19:51
Yeah.
00:19:51
All right.
00:19:53
I think it's definitely something are, worthy of coming
00:19:57
to take a look at and, Patrick, a lot of the demos I love to get
00:20:00
on, cause I love to hear the feedback on it as well.
00:20:04
But it's been an exciting product.
00:20:06
The feedback loop on it's been great.
00:20:08
And definitely.
00:20:09
A ton of interest in this being deployed in communities across
00:20:13
the country.
00:20:14
Yeah, that's great.
00:20:16
It's great having you on again.
00:20:17
We'll be back.
00:20:18
I'm sure for some other thought leadership stuff around what's
00:20:21
happening around technology and innovation.
00:20:23
And hopefully by then you'll have your hundred and first
00:20:26
award.
00:20:27
Who knows?
00:20:29
I'm chipping away at it.
00:20:30
So we've we've been here 20 years and 90, 97 technology
00:20:35
awards.
00:20:35
So we're working to a hundred.
00:20:38
coNgratulations on all that.
00:20:39
For those of you that want to learn more, go to 365 connect.
00:20:43
com again, in the show notes, you can click through probably
00:20:46
within the app.
00:20:47
If you're on Spotify or Apple or anywhere else, you're listening
00:20:50
to music.
00:20:50
You can probably see the link in the show notes.
00:20:52
So go ahead and check that out, get a demo booked with Kerry
00:20:55
Kirby and his team and learn about the opportunities that you
00:20:58
have for your business.
00:20:59
And we'll see you guys in the next show.
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