In this episode of the Multifamily Innovation® Podcast, host Patrick Antrim, Chairman of the Multifamily Innovation® Council, sits down with Brad Robins, Principal Product Evangelist at Flex. Flex, a financial tech innovator and official partner of the Multifamily Innovation® & AI Summit, offers a unique approach to providing financial flexibility to renters.
Brad dives into Flex’s mission-driven approach, which empowers renters, reduces pressure on property owners, and contributes to the overall financial wellness of the multifamily industry. As Principal Product Evangelist, Brad explains his role in storytelling and building customer understanding of Flex’s mission, differentiating his focus from the product engineering team. His work emphasizes communication, helping both industry partners and renters understand Flex’s value.
Flex’s product is designed as a financial wellness app, giving renters the option to pay their rent flexibly by splitting payments into two smaller, manageable portions each month. Brad notes that this approach meets renters' needs, especially for those with irregular income or sudden expenses. This unique product-market fit propelled Flex’s rapid growth, reaching over 8 million units across 2,000+ management company partners nationwide. Brad highlights the importance of this growth, emphasizing how Flex’s offering reflects a larger trend set by leading consumer brands, such as Amazon, which now provide diverse payment models to align with consumers’ financial situations.
Collaboration with partners is central to Flex’s product development. Flex is continuously iterating based on feedback from clients in the multifamily industry, such as the suggestion to create a rent payment flexibility option specifically for employees of management companies. This co-created solution reflects Flex’s commitment to its partners and to enhancing its product to better fit the needs of multifamily clients. Patrick and Brad discuss the impact of Flex’s product on multifamily operators, detailing how Flex streamlines rent collections while improving the resident experience.
Flex’s mission extends beyond payment flexibility, encompassing a culture of genuine support and understanding. By empathizing with renters’ financial challenges, Flex strives to make a difference in the resident experience.
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/
Speaker 1: All right, welcome back.
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So, as part of the Multifamily Innovation Council, we spend
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time with our partners that are building great stuff, and how
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this typically works is, you know, throughout the year, you
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know, as chair of the Multifamily Innovation Council,
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I'm spending time with multifamily owners and operators
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and they're telling us what the challenges are and what
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problems they want to solve, what opportunities they want to
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create in their business unit and also prioritization of
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solving those problems.
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And then what we do is we look out into the industry and we ask
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well, who's building stuff that can either make a problem go
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away or create a bigger and better opportunity for
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multifamily owners and operators ?
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And so we brought on our guest, Brad Brad's, here with us,
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Principal of Product at Flex and excited to bring him on the
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show.
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He's going to join us at the Multifamily Innovation and AI
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Summit and we've got him in here in the Innovation Lab talking
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about how he's creating value for multifamily companies.
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So, Brad, welcome in.
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Yeah, thanks for having me.
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Yeah, so, Principal of Product, I want to know what's that all
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about?
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Let our viewers know who you are, what you're working on.
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Let's start there.
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Speaker 2: Well, I'll start by just making sure our product
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teams aren't going crazy.
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So product evangelist, to be clear, as opposed to head of
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product.
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I don't design the product, but I love talking about it, and
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I've been at Flex for a little over four years and, honestly, I
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love telling our story.
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I love our mission, I love what we're about.
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I love this industry.
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I've fallen in love with it very quickly, only having been
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here, like I said, for a little over four years, but it's
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something that I and everyone that I work with are deeply,
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deeply passionate about.
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Speaker 1: You know it's interesting you mentioned the
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evangelist versus the product engineers and those building and
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innovating.
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You know, through the customer experience and things like that,
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you know a lot of the companies with AI and sort of the way
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that pace of innovation is happening.
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Some of these brands are coming into industry with literally
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product-led growth or just building something great.
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You think of, like ChatGPT right, we learned about that
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because they built a great product right.
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And here you are evangelizing great products that you guys are
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building and you guys are into some units, right, yeah, you
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could say that We've had some success.
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Speaker 2: We had what I call the unfortunate good fortune of
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coming to market at a time where not only did we have great
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product market fit, which obviously is just crucial in any
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business, but coming to market at a time where there was a huge
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need.
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I mean, we were a pre-COVID solution that really kind of
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gained traction and awareness more broadly during COVID,
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during the pandemic, when the need for financial flexibility
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became immediately apparent across the country.
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It didn't matter who you were I mean even me.
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I have a very personal story myself of needing financial
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flexibility really for the first time in my adult life and
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having very few options, nowhere to turn.
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And so you know, fast forward to March of 2020, to September
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of 2020, when I found and started to flex for me it was a
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no brainer.
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I was like man, like um.
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There are people out here that need flexibility, sometimes due
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to no fault of their own and sometimes due to the fact that
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things are just tough and tight.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's talk about that.
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What is the product, what is it solving and how are you guys
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bridging that gap in that marketplace?
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Speaker 2: So Flex, a New York-based company, financial
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tech company, in a kind of broad strokes picture, we're a
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financial wellness app that provides solutions to empower
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the lives of renters to really prioritize and pay for the
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things that matter most, to give them flexibility over their
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largest, most significant recurring expense, which is rent
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, and it's traditionally a payment that's been due upfront,
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in full at the beginning of the month, for all the reasons that
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we know why.
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That's just the way the model works, but there's been
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relatively little innovation around how to make that more
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flexible and do it in a way that works not only for renters but
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also for operators as well.
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Speaker 1: You know, we experience so much software in
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our day-to-day life.
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You know and you have.
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You can pay annually, you pay monthly.
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There's different ways that subscription services scale
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operations and capture payments through innovation, and now
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there's even discussions around even like performance models and
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consumption models and things like that.
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And you're right.
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I mean apartment rentals have been a subscription business for
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as long as ever.
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Right, like they've got this recurring revenue and we kind of
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take for granted some of the things that have been in place
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for many, many years.
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They've worked for us and things like that.
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And there's, I imagine, pressure in the world today,
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just not even in control of the multifamily owner and operator.
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It's just.
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Costs are going up, it's getting harder and harder.
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Work is changing, pressure on the renter and you guys are
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coming.
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I like how you positioned wellness.
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You mentioned it as wellness.
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How much does that part of the value of the organization?
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Speaker 2: You know, I think it plays a huge role.
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I mean, you know we are.
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I can honestly say we are a mission driven organization.
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This is a very unique company with a very unique culture.
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In fact, one of my favorite things to observe more broadly
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is, you know, just like any any go to market or sales
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organization, we have a big kickoff at the beginning of the
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year and inevitably, you know you have new faces, you know new
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hires who are there experiencing it for the first
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time and to kind of sit back and observe their experience as
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they see this group of folks that, like I said, are fiercely
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passionate about this idea of empowering renters with
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flexibility, with optionality, providing a better rent payment
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experience for operators and residents, but also to be around
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people that just have fun, that are kind, that are genuine.
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I think a former boss has put it best.
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He said I don't know that I've ever been around a group of
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people that are more talented but more wonderful to be with,
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and I think that translates into uh, just what we do.
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You know and and you know chances are, folks listening to
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this or watching it have seen flex in our booth at one of the
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big trade shows and people are kind of like sucked into it, and
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I think it's a combination again of just great people but
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also a product that, that is, is honestly making a difference.
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One of my favorite things every Monday to wake up to is one of
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our sales leaders will post the most recent reviews in our app
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store, and you know, it's not just like oh, flex is cool, flex
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is awesome.
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Like you know, flex is a really nice design.
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It's like no, I was.
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I'm a single mom.
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I was literally at at wit's end this month and this flexibility
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made the difference, allowing me to do this for my child, or I
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unexpectedly lost my job, or I mean there's a million
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variations out there.
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Right, it's just, it's crazy and it's very fulfilling work.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I always look at you know, sometimes it's not
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that they don't want to pay.
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They may not have the ability to play, to pay at that moment
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in time.
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And you start to think about how work is, even the gig
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economy, and how people even structure their, their income.
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They do need more flexibility in that aspect.
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You know, you're a, you're great at the marketing side.
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You came from outside the industry and the ability to do
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storytelling I imagine that is part of your role.
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And products the more complex they are, the more time it takes
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to transfer the knowledge in terms of, like, this is
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something we haven't done before .
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Maybe they haven't even known about this.
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How do you take that approach to communicate messaging to get
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people to?
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I mean, you kind of have this conviction and you know that and
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you're in the app store, you're seeing all these value that's
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being created.
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But for somebody else out there that maybe hasn't heard of this
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or maybe would be considering it like, how are you going about
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communicating those things?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know it's an interesting question.
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Like I said, like you alluded to, I have a really unique
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journey to get here.
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So I like to tell people I'm a performer first and a
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professional second, and what I mean by that is the majority of
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my professional experience is actually in entertainment live
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entertainment, performance, singing, musical theater.
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You know movies, film, like all those different things, and you
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learn a lot about the professional world of presenting
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by being on stage, for a couple of reasons.
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Number one there's, you know the old saying goes like there's
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just nothing like live theater.
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You can rehearse until you're blue in the face, but at the end
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of the day, once you get on stage, whatever happens happens,
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and you need to be ready to kind of roll with the punches
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right.
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The other thing that you learn really quickly is that it's not
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so much about how good you do something, but more what do you,
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what do you?
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What kind of emotional experience are people having
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with you?
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Um, my first professional experience we were talking about
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this before we went live is I spent six years working for
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Adobe.
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They have a headquarters, you know, just south of Salt Lake
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City, and they were all about empowering the largest
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enterprise brands in the world to bring digital experience to
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their customers, and I think that we live in an experience
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economy.
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I think that the best brands in the world, regardless of size,
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industry, whatever they play in, understand that experience
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matters and they focus on it, almost like with a level of
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obsession that there's a constant innovation, like it's
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never perfected.
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We can always be doing something a little better,
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tweaking this, and I think it comes down to performance and
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marketing one-on-one.
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Do you know who you're selling to?
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Do you know who your audience is?
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Because if you don't, uh, you're gonna the market will
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tell you, and sometimes that won't be so forgiving.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I love what you keyed into on performance,
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because we have performers even on our team here.
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Lauren's a performer, I think everybody's a performer and with
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storytelling today, I mean you can pretty much tell your story
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in more places and more ways than you've ever been able to,
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more places and more ways than you've ever been able to, and I
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feel like I feel like it's going to more of like a vibe than the
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story, like the vibe is what you know.
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You're in our innovation and AI lab, right, and that is an
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energy that can't be produced other than like, let's say,
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you're face to face in the moving.
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I like what you said about the live performance on a stage.
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I mean you can watch it, but say you're face-to-face in the
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moving.
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I like what you said about the live performance on a stage.
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I mean you can watch it, but when you're in there, even if
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it's a championship game, wherever, it is like be where
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you are and be with the people that you're with, and it seems
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like today it's the opportunity to differentiate from all the
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other things going on.
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And so you mentioned at your trade show booth, when people
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can kind of just kind of they're just drawn into the energy you
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know is that the culture is at the team.
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It's the way people feel and you mentioned emotional in there
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.
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I, uh, I think there's more to these products and these
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innovations and these things that we're trying to tackle
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where we've got to live, leave people feeling a certain way, uh
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, vibing a certain way, like knowing, like I want to feel, I
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want to be around people that are prepared, showing up to win,
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doing the right things, putting in the effort, caring, doing
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these types of things.
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This reflects in the product, I imagine internally.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know I talked about, you know,
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living in an experience economy.
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We also live in an era of authenticity and I think that
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you know people, they see through the fluff.
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I think your mission can be pure but if it's not portrayed
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in a genuine, authentic way that people are going to see right
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through it and we'll be the first to admit it's like you
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know, innovating around the world of flexible rent payments
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is well, it's very simple to explain.
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Right, it's like we allow residents to split rent up into
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two smaller, more manageable payments, while helping the
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operators get paid upfront in full at the beginning of the
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month.
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Like that's not hard to articulate.
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But putting that together has been wildly complex.
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You know, we started out, I think, when I joined in
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September.
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We were somewhere between 25 and 30 employees, I think, if
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we're not already on track to be north of 300 here very soon.
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I mean the growth has been phenomenal, you know, in over 8
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million units across the country , 2 management company
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partners across the country.
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So the intricacies that are extremely complex and I think
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it's just a matter of learning, growing, testing, evolving,
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iterating and, like I said, just being authentic along the way.
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Like you're not going to get it right every time, and you know
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what.
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That's okay.
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Some of our best innovations have come because products have
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or partners rather, have come back and said this doesn't work
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for us, this doesn't work for our industry.
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Here's how you can do it better .
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Perfect example.
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So one of the things that we offer that you know we get to
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talk about in these product demos and sales pitches to these
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management companies is that we offer an employee benefit, so
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anyone that works at a management company gets to
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utilize the service, you know, at no cost.
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And what's really cool about that is, you know, inflation,
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the cost of living you know just the realities of today's world
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Like they're not immune just because you have a job Right.
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It's like everybody feels the pressure of it and so it was a
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really cool way Again was, I believe the story goes like it
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was brought to us from one of our partners saying, hey, have
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you ever considered offering this as a, as a benefit?
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Like that's brilliant.
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Speaker 1: Like why didn't we think of that?
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Right yeah, build with them, right, like.
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So that's where the innovation goes and it's never done.
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You guys are constantly working to make it better with the
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customer, not just here.
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We made this use it.
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You know that type of thing.
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What are you hearing inside these conversations, both in
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marketing or even in sales, where they're trying to
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understand, because you kind of serve both customers right, so
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it's a huge benefit to the property owner they're getting
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their rent payment up front right and obviously a huge value
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add for the resident.
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How do you manage the messaging with both of those audiences?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
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So we have dedicated teams that market specifically, you know,
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to partners and operators, and then those that market more to
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the consumer or the end user, which, of course, is the
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resident.
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And you know, this B2B2C model, which, you know, in and of
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itself isn't by nature revolutionary, right, many
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companies have found success doing it.
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I think it was a really interesting approach from our
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perspective because, again, not not coming from this industry,
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right, not even knowing what I didn't know coming in here, it
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became very apparent to me early on, though, that that
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relationships in this industry really matter, and I think that
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if it's something that, if you're just coming in from a
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tech standpoint, because you're awesome and you know, can
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blindside you and probably one of the harshest ways possible
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because people in this industry, more than others that I've
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either worked in or been involved in, they simply do
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business with people that they know, people that they like,
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people that they trust, and so you know if you can combine that
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with a great product that also provides value, addresses pain
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you know remedies and managing a plus luxury um housing in
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downtown Manhattan where rents are five, six, $7, or it's
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it's a rural part of Kansas, you know subsidized housing, like,
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whatever the case may be.
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Um, financial flexibility is something that that everybody
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wants, needs or prefers either in some way or at some point in
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their life and, like I said, sometimes it's not simply
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because someone's bad with money or because they're living
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paycheck to paycheck or you know something on that end of the
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spectrum.
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Sometimes it's just because it's convenient, it's preferable
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, and so, like that's been.
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The thing that's been awesome about working in it for me is
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just being able to, like you said, learn from these partners,
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understanding how we fit in this complex puzzle of
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technology in this industry and being able to continually
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innovate and provide value to those that need it and want it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about this
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whole process?
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Are there people that even hesitate?
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Are they pushing back, or what would you want others to know
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that maybe they don't already know?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that question.
00:16:49
So we especially initially, our very first public trade show
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presence was NAA Chicago 2021, which was, again, my first trade
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show in this industry, and and at that time, it was less about
00:17:06
telling people how it worked, but having to even educate the
00:17:10
market in terms of like, why this was a thing.
00:17:13
It's like, well're not revolutionary, we're
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evolutionary, and if you look back, it's like we've evolved
00:17:18
from cash payments to check to ACH, debit and credit, and now
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we're not discounting any of those other payment options,
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we're simply expanding them, offering the flexible payment or
00:17:44
the split pay, the alt pay I mean, there's a million names
00:17:47
for them out there right?
00:17:48
The?
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Speaker 1: point is like this is working.
00:17:50
We're collecting our rent.
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But I love the idea when we're talking about Adobe and these
00:17:54
other brands that have done really creative things and
00:17:56
interesting things in the world.
00:17:57
You know I follow a lot of brands like that and I can pick
00:18:01
on a couple here.
00:18:01
But if you picked on Tesla and you looked at vehicles, if you
00:18:06
ask the smartest people, industry insiders in the
00:18:09
automotive industry, you know they're thinking like how do I
00:18:13
make the customer pay more?
00:18:14
Right?
00:18:15
Like, how do I get financing terms and sell more?
00:18:17
And sell more cars?
00:18:18
They're units, like multifamily units, and you have Elon Musk
00:18:22
who's like hey, we have a customer relationship here.
00:18:25
How do I increase the value of the vehicle?
00:18:28
Not just the relationship with doing things?
00:18:32
I mean, this thing is driving itself now.
00:18:34
So I like the idea of a real estate owner and manager
00:18:39
disrupting dominant logics, which means habits that they've
00:18:43
formed over success.
00:18:45
So there are patterns of how it worked and why do you want to
00:18:50
mess that up, right?
00:18:51
And two, something as innovative as like, yeah, we
00:18:55
have a way to collect rent now and it's working, but wait a
00:18:58
minute, let's increase the value of the resident.
00:19:01
Like, make renting more valuable.
00:19:03
That's what you guys are doing.
00:19:04
You're making it more valuable because you're giving them more
00:19:08
options, more flexibility, more.
00:19:09
Maybe they can do other things with that money and that time.
00:19:12
I don't know, I'm not going to make those assumptions, but I
00:19:15
love that people are making that shift in conversations with you
00:19:19
, where they're like this is working, why would we do it any
00:19:20
differently?
00:19:21
Oh wait, a minute.
00:19:22
Now we're increasing the value of the renting experience, not
00:19:26
just taking away purchasing power.
00:19:36
Speaker 2: Let me give a great example.
00:19:37
People are willing to pay more for great experiences.
00:19:38
So anyone who's talked to me for 10 minutes knows that I will
00:19:40
only fly Delta Airlines.
00:19:41
Like I'm an unabashed travel snob, it is that the is second
00:19:49
to none, at least, at least domestically, when I fly Um and
00:19:52
I think that that's something that people often underestimate
00:19:55
it's, it's, it's less about how do I, how do I try to like,
00:19:58
force or or or extract more money from someone as opposed to
00:20:02
like?
00:20:02
How do I just make sure that the things that I'm offering are
00:20:05
actually meeting their needs?
00:20:06
And a great example of this is we released a report with Jay
00:20:11
Turner Research a few months ago and the whole report was around
00:20:14
this premise of is there a disconnect or a misalignment
00:20:18
that exists between what operators think residents want
00:20:23
and what residents actually value and prioritize?
00:20:25
And one of the takeaways from that, among other things, was
00:20:30
that they want flexibility and optionality.
00:20:32
And we're down here in beautiful Scottsdale.
00:20:35
I'll quote one of my all-time favorite industry folks, linda
00:20:38
Coburn, vp of Asset Management at Next Metro here,
00:20:42
arizona-based.
00:20:42
That said it's about so much more than just offering a box to
00:20:46
live in.
00:20:47
It's got to be an experience.
00:20:49
Are you providing flexibility, optionality the basic things
00:20:53
that, frankly, we've come to expect in every other aspect of
00:20:56
our lives.
00:20:57
I mean, I remember 20, I think it was 2020, 2021, when I had
00:21:01
first started.
00:21:03
A colleague of mine shared a kind of a funny anecdote.
00:21:05
She was online shopping for like a face cream.
00:21:10
It was like $200.
00:21:11
Why we're shopping for $200 face creams, that's another
00:21:15
discussion for another podcast.
00:21:16
But the thing that was interesting is she said, check
00:21:19
this out, and she sent me this screenshot.
00:21:21
There were 12 different ways to pay for that face cream and I
00:21:26
just had this light bulb moment.
00:21:28
It's like we live in a country where you have, you know, four
00:21:33
to six times more ways to pay for a luxury item than to to
00:21:39
meet your basic monthly obligation of paying for rent,
00:21:42
and you know that, among other things, we're just like man,
00:21:44
like, like we need to get this out there.
00:21:46
People need more flexibility, more options and, like I said,
00:21:50
even the research is proving that is of great value to people
00:21:52
.
00:21:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the consumers being trained by even
00:21:55
like an Amazon or even like a PayPal, even the checkout,
00:21:58
commerce, e-commerce stuff.
00:22:00
They're giving them different models for that, like you
00:22:03
mentioned, in terms of getting what they want, want when they
00:22:06
want it and how they want it.
00:22:12
Speaker 2: Well, and to use Amazon as a perfect example of
00:22:14
that, I think it was two years ago or something around that
00:22:15
time they offered a firm as kind of their flexible payment
00:22:18
option of record or whatever the correct term is there, but
00:22:21
meaning like if anything over around like 50 bucks, I think,
00:22:24
is what it is you had the ability to split it up into
00:22:27
smaller interest-free payments and and the example I love to
00:22:30
use all the time for people that that maybe hear about flex and
00:22:33
this option like well, I don't, I don't like have a collection
00:22:36
issue, or like I don't even know if people are going to use this
00:22:38
.
00:22:38
It's like well, two things to consider.
00:22:39
Number one there's a high likelihood that that people that
00:22:43
are renting at your communities are probably utilizing some
00:22:47
form of flexible payments in other aspects of their life to
00:22:50
to travel, to pay for everyday essentials, to to pay for
00:22:53
electronics.
00:22:54
I mean, even certain charges on your credit card can now be
00:22:57
paid over time in a more flexible manner, right, and then
00:23:00
when you consider kind of at a at a bigger level, uh, that that
00:23:04
again this, this research report kind of talks about that
00:23:07
it's Gen Z and millennials that are leading this global demand
00:23:13
for flexible payments.
00:23:14
And when you boil it down to the rental housing industry, I
00:23:20
mean that's a demographic that's projected to be the largest
00:23:24
demographic of renters maybe in history, and so if they're
00:23:28
leading this outside of the industry, it just stands to
00:23:30
reason that they're going to want, and at some point start to
00:23:33
expect, that level of flexibility with their rent
00:23:36
payment.
00:23:36
Speaker 1: I love the way you tell that story because it's so
00:23:39
important, because we're making parallels to other things that
00:23:42
people already experience in life.
00:23:45
And for example, alana, if you're building a car today and
00:23:49
you make a car company, you're probably in a car every day,
00:23:53
usually in some aspect, or you'd see one.
00:23:55
I mean, go a day without seeing a car right, and so it's pretty
00:23:59
easy to get to the product, knowledge and the fit and how
00:24:03
you'd make it different.
00:24:03
But if some of these owner and operators have been so
00:24:06
successful with the purposes to create wealth right and then
00:24:10
protect it, and if they're the ones making the decisions and
00:24:13
yet they're not living in the apartment, they may be a little
00:24:15
disconnected from this flexible payment kind of need, because
00:24:18
maybe they themselves don't need it right and so they're not
00:24:21
prioritizing that, they're not asking that question in the
00:24:23
meetings and it just kind of flows through, and so I love the
00:24:26
way that you're, but you can.
00:24:28
But most people are buying things around the world and
00:24:32
they're getting stuff to their home and and these types of
00:24:35
things, and so that gives that's a great trend to follow, and it
00:24:40
stands to say that multifamily is a wealth creating engine, but
00:24:44
also it has a lot of payments flowing right through that
00:24:48
business.
00:24:48
I mean I can't believe it's been this long.
00:24:52
Speaker 2: Well, and again, I think that's what makes Flex a
00:24:55
really interesting company.
00:24:56
It's kind of like it's payments meets real estate, meets
00:25:04
consumer finance, right, and so we have a really interesting
00:25:08
perspective on a few different areas that not everybody does.
00:25:13
And I like to say, you know, just to put it in my own words,
00:25:16
like the best brands in the world, make it as easy as
00:25:19
possible for you to give them their money, yes, or for, yeah,
00:25:23
you give them their money, and I think that that is something
00:25:26
that we don't always consider.
00:25:27
Some of my least pleasant shopping experiences have been
00:25:33
going to a store or paying for a good or a service with the
00:25:36
expectation of I'm going to use this payment option because
00:25:39
that's what I want, or I get this benefit from it, only to
00:25:43
find out I have to use the other one, and it's frustrating.
00:25:46
I mean, I'm a guy that loves my points, I love to travel and I
00:25:49
try to maximize them in my own way, but when I don't get to pay
00:25:52
with my Delta American express, I get frustrated, right, and I
00:25:56
think that's something that we can all learn, regardless of
00:25:59
industry.
00:25:59
Uh, is that like?
00:26:01
At the end of the day?
00:26:02
Again, people want options, they , they want choice, they want to
00:26:05
be able to dictate what works best for them and want options.
00:26:07
They want choice, they want to be able to dictate what works
00:26:09
best for them.
00:26:09
And going back to your question about misconception, I think
00:26:11
again, oftentimes we'll come into this conversation where
00:26:13
it's like well, again, I don't have a delinquency issue, my
00:26:17
renters have no trouble making rent payment.
00:26:20
If they did, I probably wouldn't want them in this unit
00:26:22
anyway.
00:26:22
And they don't step back and consider well, maybe people want
00:26:26
more control over their cash flow, or what happens if they
00:26:31
are part of that 60%, 70% that couldn't come up with $1 in
00:26:35
the case of an emergency, or have no emergency savings at all
00:26:38
.
00:26:38
And life happens, because, if the last five years has taught
00:26:41
us anything, life happens and it happens to all of us.
00:26:44
Life happens and it happens to all of us.
00:26:46
That's just one of a million reasons why at least considering
00:26:50
or having the conversation around an expansion of payment
00:26:53
options is a really, really, not just good and sound strategy
00:26:57
but, frankly, an easy way to enhance the experience which, as
00:27:01
you so eloquently put it, will ultimately lead to return value
00:27:05
in the long run.
00:27:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, who do you want to spend time with?
00:27:10
Is it the CFO, is it the marketing or operations?
00:27:13
Because I mean you kind of hit all of them really.
00:27:15
What's the ideal conversation you want to have with somebody?
00:27:20
Who's that in the organization?
00:27:23
Speaker 2: I mean, look, you're talking to someone that sits on
00:27:26
customer calls and sales conversations, right, or
00:27:29
partnership conversations as we would kind of put it with our
00:27:32
model.
00:27:32
But you know, I mean the short answer is, of course you want to
00:27:36
be in the room with a decision maker, someone that can, you
00:27:38
know, make this work.
00:27:39
But I think that the correct answer is you want to make sure
00:27:42
that you have the buy-in from anyone that could influence that
00:27:47
decision, anyone who was affected by that.
00:27:49
And what's interesting, specifically about rent payments
00:27:52
.
00:27:52
I mean it's the lifeblood of the industry.
00:27:54
Like you shut rent off or you affect rent, like everything
00:27:59
goes with it, right.
00:28:01
But think about some of the indirect consequences of you
00:28:06
know, if rent doesn't get collected, all of the time and
00:28:11
energy that's spent, you know, serving late notices, following
00:28:14
up, having uncomfortable conversations.
00:28:16
I mean again, even more indirect things that we don't often
00:28:19
consider just the strain and the stress that comes on the
00:28:22
landlord-resident relationship and just the toll that that can
00:28:27
take and play into the resident experience.
00:28:31
So it's a combination of executives, it's a combination,
00:28:34
obviously, of technical folks.
00:28:36
On the implementation side.
00:28:38
You know it's not a large lift to get Flex implemented but it
00:28:42
does require a little bit of work that you know takes us all
00:28:45
of a day or two to get set up and running in the background.
00:28:48
But you know you want to make sure your accountants are happy
00:28:50
and making sure that the integration is reconciling in a
00:28:54
way that doesn't add burden to them.
00:28:56
So again, kind of a bigger answer, but all that to say is
00:29:01
you know, we want to make sure that everybody's on the same
00:29:03
page and understands how you know offering a tool or a
00:29:06
solution that ultimately, you know serves the residents need
00:29:11
of wanting flexibility, complements everything that
00:29:14
they're already doing today and doesn't add additional strain,
00:29:17
additional workflow and in some cases even create some great
00:29:20
efficiencies, which I think is probably the buzzword of the
00:29:23
decade in this industry that everybody's looking for.
00:29:25
Speaker 1: Right, right.
00:29:26
So you have that executive.
00:29:28
You're in that meeting.
00:29:29
Maybe they're walking into your trade show booth, maybe you're
00:29:33
just walking into their boardroom, whatever that may
00:29:35
look like.
00:29:35
What do you want them to know?
00:29:37
What's the high level?
00:29:39
Just short pitch product offer?
00:29:41
What do you want them to know if you have that time?
00:29:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I always start these discussions with
00:29:46
like, look, this is a simple product, it's pretty
00:29:49
straightforward.
00:29:50
We allow residents to split their rent into two smaller
00:29:54
payments, while doing it in a way that's operationally
00:29:57
efficient for you.
00:29:58
Once we get that out of the way , you know we've got 29 to 59
00:30:03
more minutes left in that conversation.
00:30:05
Well, what are we going to fill it with?
00:30:06
I think goes back to what we talked about earlier.
00:30:09
It's it's painting the story as as to why, because if you don't
00:30:13
know why, it's like you'd have the coolest best thing in the
00:30:16
whole world.
00:30:16
No one's going to care about it .
00:30:17
So it's like what's the relevance?
00:30:19
To me and I talk to my teams about this every every day it
00:30:22
seems like it's like we, we buy and we make choices based on
00:30:28
things that don't just like look good on paper but actually
00:30:34
solve a need, provide value, and so, again, it's an education
00:30:39
opportunity to help them understand what are your
00:30:41
residents actually dealing with.
00:30:43
Even if everything's great they've got stable jobs, they've
00:30:46
got good savings the reality still exists that there is a
00:30:50
fundamental misalignment between when rent is due and when the
00:30:55
other 15 to 20 expenses are due, or when cash flow comes in, and
00:30:58
how that all aligns, and and our financial situations are
00:31:02
unique and they're constantly changing, and you know I mean
00:31:06
you, you could be a high earner, uh that that suddenly gets
00:31:10
affected by tech layoffs, or maybe you're you're at the mercy
00:31:13
of a commission check and it's feast or famine anyone that's
00:31:15
ever worked in the world of sales right.
00:31:17
So I think that's where I enjoy spending the majority of my time
00:31:21
is just informing and educating people across the country of
00:31:27
the many, many different situations.
00:31:29
And I know it's a long answer, but I wanted to say one more
00:31:31
thing real quick.
00:31:32
I think the best multifamily executives that I've had the
00:31:34
pleasure of networking with, learning from and speaking to
00:31:39
are those that started out leasing apartments, which seems
00:31:43
like a very common way to break into the industry.
00:31:46
Yeah, you know, I mean the story goes.
00:31:49
It's like, well, I was 19 and I couldn't afford rent, so, like
00:31:52
I just started leasing them and slowly, over decades, they
00:31:56
gained experience, they rose in the ranks and, like you said,
00:31:59
they have become not just experts of their domain that
00:32:03
understand this industry from all levels, but they are
00:32:06
empathetic, like they understand what it's like to be on the
00:32:10
front lines, both as a community manager who is having an
00:32:15
uncomfortable conversation with someone who's struggling and,
00:32:17
frankly, having been that resident that was struggling
00:32:19
themselves.
00:32:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're asked to do so many things in the role
00:32:24
and and you know, I don't know that that's changing at all
00:32:28
anytime quickly, but the skills required to be on site are
00:32:33
really fundamentally impressive to be able to, on one end, do
00:32:36
sales and and other now you're collecting and then you got to
00:32:39
deal with, you know, issues on site and things like that, and
00:32:42
so, uh, yeah, having access to the experience your customers
00:32:46
actually go through is really interesting and I like how you
00:32:49
have this sort of you mentioned the bdc part this sort of
00:32:52
consumer behavior stuff that you can bring into these
00:32:54
conversations that maybe you know we're so heads down in the
00:32:57
industry that we may be missing some of those insights, you know
00:33:01
, and so that's.
00:33:02
That's a nice value.
00:33:03
Speaker 2: So a friend of mine just relocated back to Salt Lake
00:33:05
city, um, where, where he's from, he was.
00:33:07
He's out in Boston for a couple of years and, uh, I was out in
00:33:11
San Diego a couple of weeks ago and I shared this story cause I
00:33:14
thought it was kind of funny but also really insightful.
00:33:16
The first couple of weeks that he had moved home, every time I
00:33:20
would talk to him I'd say so how was it to be back?
00:33:22
I was expecting to be like oh, I love seeing the mountains, I
00:33:25
love being close to family.
00:33:26
But the first thing out of his mouth for, I kid you not,
00:33:28
probably four of the five times I spoke with him on the phone
00:33:31
was man, my management company is frustrating and I was like
00:33:36
that it was so interesting to me and here's why because it it,
00:33:40
it, it was something that was was just so directly affecting
00:33:45
his life.
00:33:45
Now I've become very defensive and protective of management
00:33:49
companies, having like working with them Right, and, and what I
00:33:52
tried to explain to him is like they have so much on their
00:33:56
plate, they're going through so much and you use the site staff
00:34:00
as a perfect example.
00:34:01
They are often the face of the industry to the general
00:34:08
population, and so we want to make sure we're equipping our
00:34:11
teams with things that are efficient, that are streamlining
00:34:13
, that are making their lives easier and more manageable, so
00:34:16
that they can ultimately provide the service that.
00:34:19
I think that's what my friend was trying to communicate.
00:34:20
He's like I just want to be heard, I want to be seen, I want
00:34:23
my needs to be addressed because I chose to live here,
00:34:27
because I was clean, but you know, they just want to feel
00:34:33
valued.
00:34:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a true story, no-transcript how stuff
00:35:10
works, what it costs, what the customer has to go through, what
00:35:13
the resident has to go through, the employee, the investor
00:35:16
everybody has a different perspective.
00:35:17
You know one person's looking at their yield and their cash on
00:35:20
cash and one's looking at you know, is this property going to
00:35:24
sell and where will I be next week?
00:35:26
And then you got a resident.
00:35:27
You got all these different dynamics going on and it goes
00:35:30
back to that vibe feeling that you know it sounds, if I can
00:35:34
feel it I've just met you within the organization that you guys
00:35:37
have a can feel it.
00:35:39
I've just met you within the organization that you guys have
00:35:41
a nice energy about coming in making life better for people,
00:35:43
right, and then ultimately winning is helpful financially
00:35:47
because then you have the resources to do what you need to
00:35:49
do to take care of your customers.
00:35:50
So I appreciate all that impact .
00:35:53
I know it's a lot of work.
00:35:54
Eight million units, a lot of customers there's a lot more to
00:35:59
go.
00:36:00
Speaker 2: You know, that's, that's the beauty of it.
00:36:01
I mean, our, our internal mantra is, you know the old, uh,
00:36:04
the old, late Kobe Bryant quote uh, jobs, not finished.
00:36:07
It's like.
00:36:08
You know, our mission is is to empower every renter across the
00:36:12
country with, with the option of financial flexibility, and so,
00:36:16
yeah, it's, it's something that that we're going to continue to
00:36:19
iterate, to evolve, to innovate around.
00:36:21
And you know, if I could leave, if I could leave anything, um,
00:36:24
it would be with this message is that, like again, we, we get
00:36:27
better by collaborating together .
00:36:29
And you know we're we're going to continue to do our best, but
00:36:32
we're going to, we're going to listen and we're going to listen
00:36:34
to our customers, we're going to listen to our partners, we're
00:36:37
going to try to make sure that we are providing the best
00:36:40
possible flexible rent payment solution out there, and we can
00:36:44
only do that by innovating together, by learning and
00:36:49
understanding from each other, and I think that, as a general
00:36:52
rule, is what makes this industry so awesome.
00:36:54
Like I say, it's a relationship-driven industry.
00:36:57
Speaker 1: People care about each other and I think, if we
00:37:03
can continue to foster that like we'll, we'll all be better for
00:37:05
it.
00:37:05
Yeah, so those that want to get in touch with you, how do they
00:37:07
go about doing that?
00:37:08
What's the best process there?
00:37:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
00:37:11
In terms of reaching out to flex specifically, I mean, so
00:37:14
it's get, flexcom is the website , and you know that that's a
00:37:17
should to tell you at a high level pretty much everything
00:37:20
you'd need to know around who we are and and what we're about.
00:37:24
Um, obviously, ways to to, to reach out via the website, um,
00:37:28
you know, as far as me specifically, I'm I'm always
00:37:30
open to to if there's not something I can answer
00:37:32
specifically making sure you get put in the right hands.
00:37:35
Linkedin, um, but, yeah, check us out.
00:37:38
Uh, if there are any questions around, you know, is, is this
00:37:41
something that I should be thinking about, or why should I
00:37:43
be thinking about it?
00:37:44
Or, you know, I mean, I mean, challenge me a little bit, come
00:37:47
out and say, hey, like, well, actually I offer this type of
00:37:49
housing, you know, in in in this area, um, because chances are,
00:37:53
we we probably have partners that operate in in kind of a
00:37:56
similar space and learn from their experience and what
00:37:59
they've seen and, you know, ultimately take that experience
00:38:02
and value back to your residents .
00:38:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so before we wrap here, I always ask you know
00:38:06
what's the question?
00:38:06
I should be asking that I'm not asking.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: I think, as it relates specific to what we do
00:38:27
in the realm of multifamily and rental housing, it's consider
00:38:31
this Ask yourself this question Do you fully understand the
00:38:37
reality of what your residents are dealing with in their
00:38:39
financial lives specifically, do you truly understand their
00:38:43
needs, their wants and their preferences around how, when and
00:38:48
where they spend their money?
00:38:49
And I think that starts to open up a conversation even beyond
00:38:53
just a flexible rent payment option.
00:38:55
But it causes you to question well, how do they think about
00:39:00
this aspect?
00:39:01
You know, another, another takeaway from that report was
00:39:03
around.
00:39:03
You know, package lockers came in.
00:39:05
Second is like a really important thing to residents and
00:39:09
it's like people are ordering stuff all the time, of course,
00:39:11
and you start to take that framework and apply it to
00:39:13
different areas and all of a sudden you've got this, this
00:39:17
experience centric way of viewing your business, that that
00:39:20
again provides a better experience and ultimately comes
00:39:24
back to you and in in continue to help educate the industry on
00:39:28
some of the things that people are working on to create not
00:39:31
only more financial stability for the properties, but also a
00:39:34
greater experience for our customers.
00:39:47
Speaker 1: So I appreciate what you're working on and glad to
00:39:49
have you as a partner and, yeah, we'll leave it at that.
00:39:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much, Great experience.
00:39:55
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
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