Transitioning Multifamily Housing Operations from Centralize to Autonomize

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Multifamily Tech Gurus podcast series. I am Kerry Kirby, the founder and CEO of 365 Connect along with my esteemed co-host Jimmy Lancaster, software engineer extraordinaire and chief product officer here at 365 Connect.

[00:00:24] Today we are talking about transitioning from centralized to autonomous and what it takes to make a multifamily community operate hands free.

[00:00:36] Jimmy, we have been playing in the sandbox a little bit and have seen more and more interest from multifamily operators looking for ways to move to this type of model.

[00:00:48] People training a lot of different things and just running their properties more efficiently.

[00:00:54] So let's walk through the pieces to a puzzle to get there from, we call it search to sofa over here.

[00:01:08] So let's start at the tip of the spear. Let's talk about getting people into the funnel and taking a prospect and bringing them all the way to sign an lease.

[00:01:22] So let's talk about how this process is fully autonomous.

[00:01:24] Okay, I love it. Yeah, well as you said I guess marketing is where this whole journey begins at least for our prospects and I think what we do here we try to aim for that as much as possible.

[00:01:39] And at the end of the day a lot of marketing for a community can be autonomous and automatic.

[00:01:48] And the things that you're doing aren't really sitting there creating very unique strategies.

[00:01:54] No, these are proven strategies that work for every community no matter where they're at.

[00:02:00] And so once you know what that strategy is you don't really need to sit there and analyze and invest lots of stuff and time into creating a marketing strategy.

[00:02:10] No, you just need to turn it on. And so I think for us in our industry creating an automatic strategy for marketing is an option.

[00:02:22] Yeah, and I think that a lot of tools obviously have emerged over time.

[00:02:29] I call them a marketing manager's best friend now because you can do so much more but if you kind of start off and say okay we've got to get leads into the funnel.

[00:02:41] So I think kind of a strategy we've maintained over here is we take the community website and as we call them we don't have websites with marketing machines because they have feeds coming in, feeds going out.

[00:02:58] You know look pricing availability feeds, ability to move a lead to any system out there including your own.

[00:03:09] If you're running a CRM like we do I think that's very commonplace but it's what you do from that point forward to move it along.

[00:03:21] So like I think syndication is pretty much a norm but it's also how you do it.

[00:03:25] I mean I think we do a little twist on it where we're building the entire listing out.

[00:03:31] Yeah, again you know it's why not. We have all the information, we have all the data and it's standard stuff right?

[00:03:40] All the ILSs are taking the same information from you so why do you need to be in every ILS tweaking it?

[00:03:49] No it's all the same stuff so why not create a system that automatically takes it off your website and puts it right there in the ILSs.

[00:03:56] And that's kind of where we landed with it.

[00:03:59] One thing that's really important when it comes to marketing is consistency of message at least for SEO it's very important.

[00:04:08] And so we just take exactly what you're telling people on your website, we put it on those ILSs and it hands off experience.

[00:04:16] Yeah and I think the critical part is that becoming that, I call it a data hub where you know it's like you say change a picture on your website.

[00:04:27] It changes across all the ILSs you're on.

[00:04:31] And you know a lot of people that are still doing it are providers out there like well I'll update your pricing and availability but why not update everything.

[00:04:40] So you know I think our roots come from I call it building listings from ground zero out on sites obviously the playing field has decreased out there,

[00:04:53] Apartments.com or whatever has bought everything on the planet right but I think our strategy came from all these different sites that were out there at one point that we were integrated into and building listings out on from ground zero.

[00:05:11] And we just carried that forward into you know Zillows and Apartments.com and apartment lists that were able to just come in and create the whole thing hands free for somebody.

[00:05:22] Yeah the there's just a lot of moving parts going on here.

[00:05:27] I know ILSs is such an important part for us but you know I think about some of the other things that you can do to reach people and potentially find those leads.

[00:05:39] And so we even take that past ILSs and go to things like social media or you know automating even some of your reviews and generating reviews and doing these different things that just help you find and acquire more leads.

[00:05:58] And so it's really fun at least for me as a technologist being able to try to tackle these things and say well what can we do to really automate this because at the end of the day everybody's falling the same recipe anyway.

[00:06:16] Yeah and it's you know reviews so awesome.

[00:06:21] You know most other providers you know pull the I guess the bones of it as we started off just pulling it into a dashboard.

[00:06:29] Hey here hey you got a review go read it go answer it and then fast forward today.

[00:06:35] It's like we could do the whole thing right totally automated using a I to read it write it even able to flag if there's a violation on it.

[00:06:47] You know if there's something bad on it and trying to have it removed.

[00:06:52] So you know part of it's just the movement of technology has helped us to get there.

[00:06:58] But you know one of the most powerful channels to market in is just anything that you can get out there for that you're I call it not writing a check for and everybody says well social media is free.

[00:07:13] And I guess the question is maybe access to the platform is until you start feeding it with content and that's that's where the cost comes in.

[00:07:24] That's right your time surely is not free.

[00:07:28] You can come over to my house and I got some stuff for you to do.

[00:07:32] But the you know creation of images and you know what are you posting it.

[00:07:38] What's the value of that post to getting people through the door right.

[00:07:43] Oh yeah like what's your mission.

[00:07:45] Yeah so it takes a lot of time and then on top of that it requires some sort of strategy that goes behind it and then think about like making sure that the people doing that actually understand.

[00:07:58] The strategy behind how you want to leverage those channels because there's really different things you can do such as you know create content to engage residents or you can use it to market your community.

[00:08:12] I know we've talked a little bit about this before in the past where our philosophy is use it to market your community at least more so than maybe engaging with residents because it is a channel that you can use to get leads which is really the name.

[00:08:28] And the game at least from our perspective and so yeah.

[00:08:33] And there's other facets to it right so we have you know Google which is evolved over time all the way to now you have Google Post that live in your knowledge graphed on the right side which is kind of holy grail right that's where all your reviews and everything go.

[00:08:51] So maintaining that you've got you know the ex formerly known as Twitter.

[00:09:00] I keep calling it Twitter Jimmy I can't I can't make the transition.

[00:09:04] Come on Elon so Facebook Instagram threads you know I don't know if you want to put effort into it only see threads because they force you to and Facebook and Instagram.

[00:09:19] Right that's how that's how we ended up with one and that's something else to maintain.

[00:09:24] And then of course there's Tick Tock and you know that's the rising star out there that everybody wants to be on but there's also post walls stories there's all these different little outlets in the in these channels.

[00:09:42] It's almost overwhelming and to think that you've got to create content and put it in all those places I mean that's a lot of work.

[00:09:50] And but you know the other thing I think about with social media is I think I think some people kind of sleep on it.

[00:09:57] I think they don't put a lot of time and effort into it but really I think those channels sometimes might not be the originator of leads but when you have somebody that's on your website and then they go check out those places

[00:10:11] and they see something that's completely dead. It looks like you're a community that that puts very little effort into everything you do.

[00:10:19] Yeah and we actually had a conversation about two weeks ago with a very large operator and that's their whole strategy is just to keep it up so it looks like everything's alive and current and you know it's an actual community.

[00:10:35] So they're using it kind of a strategy I like that it looks like hey I'm active right. I care. That's right perception man perception is everything.

[00:10:46] But you know there's some some tricks to the trade and I think we've without disclosing too much we have a few things in the works over here but we've been updating social media just as of today for quite a while through our platform.

[00:11:01] That's right. Hands off hands off and we have something more interesting that's going to be emerging so so let's let's move that lead down the funnel. So so what do we know we can automate syndication.

[00:11:15] We can automate pricing and availability. We can automate where the leads have to go. We can automate social media. We can automate reviews.

[00:11:24] We've actually been able to automate SEO which will I think we have some it's a whole nother subject one day and I think we've talked a little bit about it in some prior podcast but we've been able to automate SEO.

[00:11:37] So pretty much hands free so far. So let's talk about OK the whole you know some of the steps to what I call the Holy Grail. So you know I've got somebody and they say hey I want to come see apartment one two three you know it's I'm interested in that one.

[00:11:58] So let's talk about that that lead comes in. Let's talk about the you know a self guided tour which a lot of data out there on those are higher conversions so somebody comes in and they want to do self guided tour.

[00:12:14] Well I think I think it's important to find a provider that can can take care of that. I think there's definitely a lot of them out there. Some do it better than others and one of the things that I like and what I look for is somebody that has the ability to plug and play

[00:12:32] and meet your community in whatever situation it's in whether it already has smart locks or maybe is an older community and doesn't have that and you're not looking to sink that type of money into it.

[00:12:46] And so but if you can use their solutions out there to automate you in whatever situation you're in and I think it's very crucial and important to give people that opportunity especially now that we live in an age where

[00:13:02] a lot of people want to do things on their own. They don't want to have to talk to somebody. I know that's not everybody but you know we want to make sure that we're meeting the demographic demographic of you know whatever might be out there.

[00:13:16] Yeah and you know it's there's a thing out there you know it's like people don't like going shopping for cars because they hate this being attacked as soon as they walk in a lot they feel like they're attacked by salespeople so did you know and I got the status from some research and some car dealer information.

[00:13:38] Their highest day of traffic is on Sundays when they're closed people will walk around a lot and go look at the cars are interested in.

[00:13:46] You know I'll go a little bit beyond that personally I only look online.

[00:13:51] I really steer clear of them.

[00:13:53] Yeah you have that you have that too but if you want to go look at it and touch it and kind of get a better feel for it.

[00:13:58] That's their highest day of people on their lot.

[00:14:02] Yeah is this Sunday.

[00:14:06] So so just looking at that that model and obviously coming back to you need a hub and we've got some things like we basically handle tours and scheduling and in the communication automated communication pieces.

[00:14:27] With a prospect or somebody looking to tour or an applicant.

[00:14:34] So you're right right provider and we have somebody and we're working on some things where it's just seamless and the main sources which would be awesome that scenario would do all the communication.

[00:14:46] Hands on the.

[00:14:49] The keys will call it to go tour the digital key they go tour they walk out we know that they walked out and then all of a sudden our systems like hey thanks for touring.

[00:15:03] You know like what you saw click here to apply.

[00:15:08] And now I kind of say that we bring them what's an application everybody's got applications no magic there but it's kind of that self service piece right.

[00:15:17] So you don't need somebody in the room with them so we go through the self service part of them applying and everything from there pretty much as an app fee that's automated screening built in triggers.

[00:15:32] Hey I got payment and we do this automated goes to the screener comes back and says hey they're good.

[00:15:40] Yeah what what next we got we got to get to the Holy Grail I need them to I need to paper them up Jimmy and get them in the door.

[00:15:50] That's right I'm looking to that next step the lease the most important piece to this whole equation right everything we're talked about so far is meaningless if you can't get to that lease.

[00:16:00] That's right.

[00:16:01] And so yeah and and I think you know you hit on it's like we can just send them to screener as soon as they pay and we have the money why not just kick off that process you know you're supposed to anyway.

[00:16:14] So let's send them to the screener we can get that result back all that can happen while you're I don't know sleeping taking a nap on lunch break whatever you know whatever is going on.

[00:16:25] And so at that point you know it comes back and we've been really busy with you know figuring out what it really takes to generate that lease automatically and and we are actually.

[00:16:42] And so one of the cool thing one of the great things about a lease is like building out a lease has to follow your your procedures and in your your guidelines like there is a set way to do it.

[00:16:58] You don't randomly decide on the fly how certain fields need to get filled out if you did you probably get in trouble by fair housing right so there is a set way to fill out a lease and it has to follow logical instructions.

[00:17:11] So because of that we can automatically fill out a lease and we can automatically have it sent to somebody to be signed.

[00:17:21] And so that's that's one of the really cool things that you can do and I'd say most people are afraid of it but in reality I'd be afraid of letting people touch leases.

[00:17:31] And we've actually seen that when we got in the just fully automating leases and addendments and you know hey you know when they're and hey I have a pet.

[00:17:42] Well we know to hey based on that trigger we give them a pet addendment but as we were going down that that path which was a long path.

[00:17:51] You know we spent two years you know doing that and taking it apart and how does this all work and between research and building and delivering the product in the market.

[00:18:03] But what we learned along the way is the amount of just human error and mistakes things getting left out of leases if they're just generated because they just generate and I think we built some safety rails where that's not filled out it doesn't leave.

[00:18:20] It doesn't it doesn't go anywhere. It's going to sit there. So if for any reason our stuff failed because technology you know it's not not always not always perfect little things bleep but it would come back and try to fill it out.

[00:18:35] But if it's void of some piece of information it's not going to it's not going to leave and I think we had somebody we talked to that had a bunch of leases and they remain nameless.

[00:18:47] And the termination fees were all zero. Yeah. Yeah they had a I think they had a special way of determining what that bio fee is supposed to be and because of that you know there's no way for it to just show up automatically.

[00:19:04] And they've required somebody to fill it out. And of course that leads for a chance of error where a computer probably isn't going to make that mistake.

[00:19:18] I think a little bit about like self driving cars. That's something that people were really worried about as far as you know self driving car like they're going to hit everything right well turns out like self driving cars are less likely to get in accidents

[00:19:33] than you. And and you know now I think people are afraid because they're saying well you know if I get in an accident it's my fault but if the car gets in an accident like I have no control over that thing it's like yeah but it's

[00:19:47] but it does a better job than you do. And and I know that even today even with the statistics that that they're going to they're less likely to get in an accident than you.

[00:19:58] You're still you're still cautious and you're still worried about it and you don't fully trust it. When the truth is you you you should trust that Uber driver less than you trust the Tesla driving you around.

[00:20:13] That's right that the autonomous car never takes its eyes off the road. And the automation we built never takes its eyes off the lease. That's right. So kind of the same thing so so anyway we can get a lease done.

[00:20:28] We can build a invoice and collect those onboarding fees. So so now we've gone from marketing all the way to assign lease. We haven't had a person touch anything yet.

[00:20:45] So so now we got them in the unit. Some people might want to have a personal touch at that point. You know hey somebody's assigned lease or moving in because at the end of the day it's it's a home and it's a people business right.

[00:21:03] But theoretically you could then go if you know you're smart locking it or whatever we're doing here. You could actually say hey on a day of moving at midnight boom hand in the digital keys. Yeah.

[00:21:17] So why not. You could you could trigger it off and if you have someone and you want to meet them and do that personal touch to it you could.

[00:21:26] But you could get there without it. So so now they're living there. Jimmy so let's let's put on our service hat. So it's OK. We've certainly been in the in the portal business are in the portal business.

[00:21:41] So what do we know. We know that we got self service tools from the pay rent set up recurring payments communicate with the property in a kind of way they want. We can automate lease renewals send them notices and give them options.

[00:22:01] And once they pick something out we can automate that lease back to them for renewals. So I think the thing that people are trying to figure out how to automate is maintenance. Yeah.

[00:22:14] You get that service call maintenance is a big issue in the industry right now. A lot of turnover hard to get people you have a smaller property hard to compete to get maintenance.

[00:22:27] So that's kind of the missing link out there right now or is or is it.

[00:22:33] I think I would say most things that need to be repaired probably do take some physical hands that belong to somebody that hopefully knows what they're doing and that can go in and actually make some of these repairs.

[00:22:51] So I you know probably not there yet. I know Elon Musk is working on some some robot that looks like a human and can do a lot of things like human.

[00:23:03] You know they show it folding folding clothes or you know loading up your dishwasher or whatever it may be. I don't know these if it's ready to you know swap out a toilet or you know go troubleshoot in AC unit.

[00:23:19] Hey man you had me at folding clothes. I know right dishwasher so it's like I'm in.

[00:23:25] As soon as that thing's ready I'll be I'll be making a strong case to my wife that we need it.

[00:23:32] But you know there's some some options out there are you know instead of you being responsible for it as somebody that that is trying to operate a property.

[00:23:44] You know using some sort of service I'll call it like an Uber like service for getting those repairs done so that again it's not something that you have to put on your plate and you have to worry about.

[00:23:57] Yeah and you know there are some companies that that have emerged in the market that have maybe kind of been there for a little bit you know but but have grown and grown and grown and we're actually working on integration with one as we speak that that service request actually goes to that party right

[00:24:18] and then and then they have a network of service tax and for different things so that that service requests categories and as we know it's this and this is here and that's there.

[00:24:35] And and the cool thing that I like about the people we're currently working with is they're constantly vetting refining.

[00:24:46] It's like they have a giant maintenance team in there and they're you know tweaking it I call it constantly right.

[00:24:55] Right. It's like we know this this company in our ecosystem has 50 tax and do a C work this other company has 10 it's summer so then they do they have load balancing algorithms and different things like that.

[00:25:12] So it's you know when you look at stuff like that you can pretty much optimize and and probably get a better level of service because it's more specialized depending on what the problem is then trying to find you a jack of all trades which is very difficult to find today from what I'm hearing

[00:25:37] you know through talking to customers innovation group I'm in. Yeah it's a very difficult task so there are companies rising to occasion so it's still hands on but it's not hands that you have to hire so we're still in that

[00:25:55] autonomous system where we're kind of you know I think the thing is how do we operate a community hands free. Yeah I think about the jack of all trades comment you know when I hear jack of all trades I instantly continue it with a master of none so do you want somebody

[00:26:14] that's good enough at doing certain things being responsible for maybe doing some electrical work or maybe they're not allowed to probably show my ignorance here but like let's say they're they have to go do something that they're really not qualified

[00:26:31] for or maybe they're going to do sheetrock but they're going to do a horrible job at it and so I like the idea of getting somebody that is an absolute professional that can guarantee their work doing some of those things especially those more specialized

[00:26:48] things. Yeah and things have certainly moved that way over time but back in the day there was always that guy. That's right. You know that's where you would find him as apartment communities he could do plumbing he could do electrical he could fix air condition units

[00:27:01] but as I say that's kind of a dying breed now and it's more specialized so it's or you maintenance guys more like I can do a few things but they're troubleshooters. Yeah so I think Jimmy to kind of bring this one home we have fully

[00:27:20] autonomized the property here you know we brought in some third party but with some technology built around it as far as somebody that's got to show up but I think we've got somebody all the way into an apartment we're able to collect money which is probably the most important piece

[00:27:39] and have someone show up to serve something and we basically kept the operator hands free at this point so I think we took this one all the way around the bin. I love it. So we're going to have to debunk this one later and get a little further into it and then we can you know add some things as it goes but I think it's getting there

[00:28:06] I think centralization is going to be a ton of eyes and I think there are communities doing it. Yeah well I'm excited to see some people really take this and run with it and see how far they can really get with it. I'd love it if you could run a large community with pretty much nobody full time.

[00:28:30] Well I think Jimmy prediction in about six months we will have a special guest on here that will tell us how their property is being completely autonomized. I'm not sure who you're talking about but I can't wait.

[00:28:45] Alright well we'll leave it there and I want to thank everyone for joining us today you can find us streaming everywhere be sure to visit us online at multifamilytechgurus.com until next time I'm Kerry Kirby along with Jimmy Lancaster and we are the multifamily tech gurus.