Platform Archives - J Darrin Gross Podcasts

Reach Real Estate Investors as Podcast Guest with Matthew Baltzell – CRE PN #366

Matthew Baltzell 0:00

It’s the same thing with raising capital. If you just go on one podcast and expect people to hear you one time, and after that they’re going to come and give you 1000s of dollars, you’re probably wrong. Like American Express says they have to have seven different touchpoints. So if they hear you on Rod Khlief’s podcast, and then they hear you on Darrin’s podcast, and then I hear you on Joe Fairless as podcast. Now, all of a sudden you start to become a thought leader, you start gaining some credibility. And then over time, people are going to reach out to you. They’re going to get into your funnel, and then they’ll be like, Hey, you have a deal in Houston. Why don’t you add me to your mailing list? I’m interested now you have deal flow. Now you started attracting capital capital now that comes to you before you’re chasing capital.

Announcer 0:44

Welcome to CRE PN Radio for influential commercial real estate professionals who work with investors buyers and sellers of commercial real estate coast to coast whether you are an investor, broker, lender, property manager, attorney or accountant we are here to learn from the experts.

J Darrin Gross 1:04

Welcome to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks CRE PN Radio. Thanks for joining us. My name is J. Darrin Gross. This is the podcast focused on commercial real estate investment and risk management strategies. Weekly we have conversations with commercial real estate investors and professionals who provide their experience and insight to help you grow your real estate portfolio.

Today, my guest is Matthew Baltzell. Matthew is the former host of the real estate journeys podcast, a top 400 business podcast. And he is a real estate investor with a portfolio of 743 units and four years of asset management experience. And in just a minute, we’re going to speak with Matthew about how to attract capital like a boss with podcasting. But first a quick reminder, if you like our show, CRE PN Radio, there are a couple things you can do to help us out. You can like share and subscribe. And as always, we encourage you to leave a comment. We’d love to hear from our listeners. Also, if you want to see how handsome Our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel. You can find us on YouTube at commercial real estate pro network. And while you’re there, please subscribe. With that I want to welcome my guest, Matthew Welcome to CRE PN Radio.

Matthew Baltzell 2:26

Darrin pleasure, thank you for having me.

J Darrin Gross 2:29

On pleasures mine and I’m looking forward to our conversation today. But before we get started, if you could take just a minute and share with the listeners a little bit more about your background.

Matthew Baltzell 2:40

Yeah. So you know, we spoke a little off off air but So currently I’m located in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We’re halfway around the world. So yeah, basically, people always ask me, How do I want to Thailand? Do I plan on staying in Thailand. And so basically high level overviews. I left the States back in 2016. And I attempted to move to Germany and I had a failed attempt there. So I wanted to travel the world, moved to Thailand, fell in love, got married, got married in 2018 had a kid 2020 COVID happened, stayed having another baby have a house. So in the meantime, while I was abroad, I you know, wanted to get involved in basically multifamily commercial real estate, right. And this was back in like 2018. Once things kind of started picking up for multifamily people were doing podcasts. And I was thinking of my next move and how I can basically get in the industry. But I’m still halfway around the world. So what I did is I started I went to bigger pockets, I went into forums, and I basically created a digital meetup. And I had anywhere from six to eight members at the time. And one person who didn’t join the meetup just was following my progress. And after about two or three months, this person reached out to me and said, Hey, I like what you’re doing. Why don’t I introduce you to a principal at a private equity firm, who’s basically starting from the ground up. And that’s how I got my foot into the door. And then I basically worked for that company for years, and was doing investor relations working with the asset management and was basically able to get my foot in the door. I started a podcast while I was abroad that had on 14 episodes as well. It’s no longer syndication. But that’s a little bit about me and how I got into commercial real estate and how it started a podcast and business as well.

J Darrin Gross 4:35

Awesome. I love the fact that being abroad didn’t keep you from doing it. I think there’s a old school traditional real estate was always no invest within you know X number of hours or time or miles from from home kind of thing and and clearly the the you know the tool the internet had the ability to connect with others and and make things happen is not, you know, kept you from being successful in investing in real estate? Or unless maybe I’m missing something or your units, or did you invest in Thailand? Or

Matthew Baltzell 5:15

did you? No, no, no. So I invested in the syndication deals through the company. So we had properties, or we still do have properties. And we have four, we have properties in Orlando, we have two or three properties in Atlanta. And yeah, basically, all the properties are located, or that I’m invested in are in Georgia, and they’re in Florida.

J Darrin Gross 5:37

Got it? Got it. So you said that the company you’re working with was doing this indications?

Matthew Baltzell 5:43

Correct? Yeah. So that, so I was working with I was working with a company, and I was working with him for four years. And while I was or why I’m currently still abroad, right, so I decided to start a company called Lead podcast bookings, which basically helps facilitate real estate investors getting on industry, leading podcasts, helps them attract more capital deal flow and become thought leaders. And so when I was on, excuse me, so when I was when my when I used to have my show, right, I’d be going on other people’s podcasts, I would have my show pitched. And I was just seeing this, basically, this broken, broken down in the industry, that it was basically been very done very poorly. And I thought I could start, I can basically create this business. So may 2020, I created elite podcast bookings, were able to get one or two clients. And then from there, we started to build the company. And then just recently, I decided to transition to elite podcast bookings, and make it my full time employment and scale the business.

J Darrin Gross 6:47

That’s awesome. I the whole podcast world, I mean, there’s tons and tons of them, but the ability to niche into a specific genre or an audience. For sure, I think is definitely the the cool thing with podcasts on the internet as a total just to be able to, to find and attract an audience, that you speak to this looking for what you you have to present. So that’s, that’s definitely different than buying an add on, on, you know, Superbowl or something like that you can really niche down to who exactly he’s looking for and provide her, you know, once the information you’re providing. So let’s talk a little bit about, you know, your experience as a podcast host in your experience as period on others, and then what you’ve seen with, you know, the clients you have with a lead, and what their journey has been in kind of the success that they are are seeing in their efforts to raise capital. Did you? Did you try and raise capital when you were a host? On your, your own podcast?

Matthew Baltzell 8:08

Yeah, I mean, so when I started my podcast, I think my podcast was in syndication from, I could be wrong exactly the years, but 2018 to the middle of 2019. So that’s when I was just kind of joining the company. So I was more. So just trying to get the, you know, my foot in the door, trying to get my podcast up a little bit. But I basically started help raising capital from like, 2019 onwards. And so, you know, the assets under management we had were around like, anywhere between 75 to like 90 million, right. So, going from zero to seeing all the way basically started building up in getting progress. I saw investors coming through the door through multiple deals, helping raise capital, and, you know, basically saw how the process was done, right, and saw how we were doing it. And podcasting was one of the great ways we did it. For like one for us, right? We had a client who went on a podcast, and they were able to raise $250 from one investor or $250,000, not $250 $250,000, from one investor from being on the podcast, right. And so one of the beautiful things about being on podcast, I saw you you had a bunch of episodes, how many episodes do you have now is over 100 or something? Like two

J Darrin Gross 9:35

in an hour. We’re just shy of four hours or an hour to check but this

Matthew Baltzell 9:40

Okay, so Exactly. You’re over. You’re over 100 Right. So you basically you put in the reps, right? So people that are going out, and they’re going on podcast, right? So let’s say you’re selling a book or you’re trying to promote your business, or whatever have you the first time somebody hears you or the first time they hear Darrin as podcasts, they might like it, they might not like it, but they’re not gonna probably they might come back, right. But then if you have a second podcasts are more likely to come back third, and then you started training people and people started listening to Darrin’s message. It’s the same thing with raising capital, if you just go on one podcast and expect people to hear you one time, and after that, they’re gonna come and give you 1000s of dollars, you’re probably wrong. Like American Express says they have to have seven different touch points. So if they hear you on Rod Khlief’s podcast, and then they hear you on Darrin’s podcast, and then they hear you on Joe Fairless, his podcast, now all of a sudden, you start to become a thought leader, you start gaining some credibility, and then over time, people are going to reach out to you, they’re going to get into your funnel, and and they’ll be like, Hey, you have a deal in Houston. Why don’t you add me to your mailing list? I’m interested. Now you have deal flow. Now you started attracting capital capital. And now it comes to you before you’re chasing capital. So it’s kind of an upward trajectory spiral. And as you know, like you were just saying earlier, that, you know, podcasting is a great way to basically niche down if you wanted to find people that are going to be real estate investors, or you want to find somebody that’s going to be lawyers, right, lawyers probably listen to lawyer podcasts, or maybe they don’t, dentists, right, or high net worth individuals. So you can basically, really fine tune your niche that you want to target. And podcasting is a great way to do that. For me, I was in the private equity space, podcasting space, so just kind of had a good crossover. And I was able to help people facilitate and raise more capital. And that’s what we’re currently doing with elite podcast bookings.

J Darrin Gross 11:44

So you mentioned the reps, kind of thing that the seven touches, do you in I’m kind of curious, a long, long, long time ago, when I was in college, I remember, I was trying to sell something to car dealers, I’m like that, and I’ve talked about them about and you’re on your hands are on all the time. And he says, you know, it’s funny, everybody thinks that. But the reality is there was like, some sort of sequencing that they went that they knew that if they were on, like, three times one day, or I don’t know, a bunch in one day, that the saturation point would hit as opposed to having, you know, like, one ad per day, kind of a thing. And I’m kind of curious, you mentioned the the seven touches, is there a number of of shows? Or is there any kind of math that you find that is more beneficial? For one of your clients? If they’re looking to get the word out? Is there? Uh,

Matthew Baltzell 12:44

yeah, there’s no, there’s no, necessarily there’s no necessarily concrete number, right. So, you know, we’ll just put it in probably more of more layman’s terms, like some something that everybody can relate to, or something like that. So if you’re trying to run a mile, right, and you’re trying to run a sub 10 minute mile, now, if you were 20 pounds overweight, or 30 pounds overweight, or whether, you know, you have come from an athletic background, like everybody’s gonna have different progress before they get to the sub 10 minute mile, right? So the way I would explain it to people is that basically, the more reps you put in over time, the more likely you are to see success. So I can’t tell somebody, Hey, you know, after you’ve been on for podcasts, you will raise $300,000.04 is the sweet spot. So what I typically tell people is, the longer they stay in, the more likely they are to see success, right? So the longer you go to the gym, you know, over if you do that for six months, while you see six pack abs, you might see some tone muscles, you might feel better about yourself, you know, it’s basically a lagging indicator, you go for two years, you go for a year, now suddenly come back and tell me like that’s what I used to be right. It’s like, after a year, if you haven’t seen results, like something, something’s wrong, right. And all of our clients, we have a retention rate of, we’ve only been in business for two years. And the average client has been with us for a year and a half. So the people that just come and go, they don’t usually see results, because they’re not that committed, but the people that are committed to the process, do see results.

J Darrin Gross 14:17

Got it. Got it. And as far as the I mean, your businesses to get the, your client on other people’s podcast, do you work with them about you know, how to message and you know, how to be on point where they they’re more effective or is that left? Yeah, so

Matthew Baltzell 14:42

So one of the main things right is everybody always wants the biggest exposure. Right? They will Hi, can you get me on Joe Fairless. Can you get me on? Don Joe Ferriss, I’m sorry. Joe Joe Rogan Can you give me on Joe Rogan? Can you give me on Tim Ferriss podcast like it throughout the day? to three 30 million downloads per episode, like they’re like, I want to be on those like, Okay, I understand it. But the way I explained it to people is if you were to go on Joe Rogan’s podcast and let’s say one person were to enter your funnel, and or you go on Darren, his podcast, and now all of a sudden five people into your funnel, and you get three investors, like, which one would you think is more successful? And people would probably say, like, Oh, it went on Darren. So I was able to get five people on my mailing list, and I got three investors from it. And Joe Rogan was great. It was cool, but I only got one investor. Now what I tell people is that when they come in, and they usually around these podcasts, where the where the, where what’s broken down is the call to action, typically. So like on your show, you might say like, Hey, you know, Matthew, where can people best find you or connect with you? And typically, when people go on a podcast, they say, oh, Darren, thanks for having me. You know, here’s my number, you know, 303965, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Oh, also, my email is Matthew at elite podcast bookings.com. I also really love to find a talk real estate, and I’m also on LinkedIn. Now you see, it’s like I listened to the whole thing. Podcasting is a very intimate experience, right? You don’t it’s not like a song where you can pick it up in the middle, and you’re like, Oh, I love this song. Oh, this is catchy here. Now, the demographic of people that listen to podcasts is usually more sophisticated. They’re usually gathering information they’re working at working out at the gym, they listen to it in their car. So if they listened to 30 minute podcast, by the time they get to the end, that’s almost a reward. And then when you deliver a long drawn out call to action, they’re less susceptible to go into your go into your funnel, right? You want them to basically sit down everything they’re doing, and take action as soon as possible. So if your call to action has scarcity into it, you could say within the next, you know, with the first two people to listen to me and say that they email me and said, I listened to Dan’s podcast, we’ll get a free ebook or free book, autographed by me, or a free 30 minute coaching, or an exclusive offer to my Bootcamp for the first two people, right. But it has to have basically scarcity to it. And you have to have a strong, clear call to action. And we basically help people facilitate their call to action, what they should be looking for what they should be doing. And a lot of times that helps real estate investors because, excuse me, real estate investors, right? It’s almost like a good old boys club. They know how to close deals and stuff. But as far as like the marketing aspect is concerned, they don’t necessarily know they just kind of like, I know how to like, underwrite, raise capital, get new deals, I know nothing about marketing. I know nothing about social media. And that’s where we usually come in.

J Darrin Gross 17:52

As far as, excuse me, as far as the promotion of the episode that the individuals on Do you do anything? Or do you recommend that the guest have their own kind of a platform? Are they active on social media, as well? Or any kind of?

Matthew Baltzell 18:12

Yeah, so I mean, as the more platforms you have in general, right, the better it is. So we are actually in the process of building out a social media management for our clients. And one of the things that we’re going to start to be doing is breaking down their content on podcasts into micro content, that they’re going to be able to push out to the network. So usually, if you’re on a podcast, let’s say your podcast or different podcasts, they might say, Hey, your podcast episode is live. And maybe they give you some deliverables, maybe they’ll give you a little infographic with a sound wave, that might have like a 22nd sound clip, right? But one, nobody will listen. So those little sound waves and everything is very visual nowadays. So we’re gonna start doing is breaking down like a 32nd clip of a soundbite having a high quality audio, high quality captions, writing that and so when people start getting that there’ll be able to push it out to their network. So if you had 1000, if you had 1000 followers, I’ll just make this up. 1000 followers on LinkedIn, 1000 followers on Twitter, 1000 followers on Instagram, and 1000s of followers on Tiktok. Right. And now all of a sudden, you as a guest are perceived as more valuable, because you now offer exposure, right? It’s a it’s almost like a give and take relationship. I’m on Dan’s podcast. Darren has 50,000 downloads per episode, I get exposure, I offer my information to Dan’s audience. It’s a give and take relationship, right. But if I also have 1000 followers across the board, you know, having me on a guest will be beneficial for your show as well, because I will promote it to my audience. And I’ll push it out to my network. So the more will say you For social score, the more and perceived value you have across your different accounts, the more likely you are to be able to reciprocate that message. So it definitely does add value. So if I wanted to get on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and you’re gonna say, Okay, I have, you know, 100,000, Twitter followers, 100,000, Instagram followers, these are more likely to die. I mean, they’re vanity metrics, but they’re going to perk people’s ears up, and they’re going to be more likely to let you enter the Golden Gate, right? But if you say, oh, like, I don’t really promote, I don’t have a newsletter. I don’t have a website, right? These are all things that you’re not taking serious. If you’ve had 400 podcast episodes. I mean, you’re doing something. Right. Right. So people already know you’re taking serious, this is guy that’s going to show up, he’s going to deliver, he has a great podcast, and he probably has an audience who would listen to him if he doesn’t have 400 episodes, right? You’re not doing it for fun. So it’s a great way to basically push your message out there.

J Darrin Gross 21:02

Now, it’s interesting how the, the value of the guest and and I’m not saying that we are are looking for a man, we’ve had plenty of guests that haven’t been it’s more about the topic that they are the the story they have, or you know, whatever it is that we want to talk with them, but but just in in kind of the bigger scheme, and you know, like the Rogan’s and, and some of your bigger platforms, how, and not just it’s not limited to that. I mean, I think I’ve seen like getting more models and, and stuff, anybody that has a following on whatever the platform is, is has more value than somebody that doesn’t. And the ability to get more exposure for kind of like said the kind of the trade off there. So it’s an interesting dynamic, how it’s changed. Yeah, for sure. And, and how easy it is for one to get a following. It’s not necessarily limited to your budget or the Capitol, just more a matter of some effort, or, you know, whether you employ somebody to do it or whatever, but, but, you know, to get to get a following, to grow an audience, and to be on point where they know what you’re going to be talking about. It’s fascinating to me how that all works.

Matthew Baltzell 22:27

Yeah. And this can also include, you know, blogs, you can also includes newsletters. So if you’re listening to this, and I have zero followers across the board, okay. Maybe you’ve been writing about entrepreneurship for two years now. And you have a newsletter of two or 3000 people, right? Or you have a blog, and you receive, you know, 5000 unique visits per month and a zero bounce rate. Right? So there’s definitely like, you have to kind of think outside the box, right? Like, when I live in Thailand, I wanted to get involved in real estate in America, like, how easy would it be for me to say, well, I don’t live there, right. But now all of a sudden, I have 700 plus unit portfolio. People are living in San Francisco, and they’re afraid to, you know, invest in Oregon, right? Like, they don’t want to drive two hours because they think oh is too far. But now that basically COVID is happening, right? Like you have to basically almost in a sense, think more creatively, you have to think outside the box. So if you’re like, Okay, I don’t have any followers, like, Do you have a newsletter? Do you? Do you have a blog? I mean, do you have a following at your art? Do you have a meetup? Right, a local meetup? How many people are in your Meetup? 30? Like, what if five people listened to your episodes or wherever you’re trying to promote? You just got to think about that. How big is your network? How big is your network? At the office? How big is your network at, you know, the football soccer club you’re in, you know, everybody has a network, it’s just a matter of using that leverage to gain more access to what you want. And then from there, it’s just about growing it and nurturing and cultivating it, and just over time, it’ll grow. And that’s why there’s no exact science to it, it’s more of a was more of a science or sorry, it’s more of an art not a science, there

J Darrin Gross 24:15

we go. So, let me ask you, you mentioned several different platforms and types of, of ways to communicate, whether it be a newsletter or or, you know, one of the the trendy platforms. Is there a baseline minimum that you encourage people that are looking specifically in real estate investing? That they they shoot for or work or, you know, work to have so they can, can grow?

Matthew Baltzell 24:52

From what in what sense? You’re saying like a number of followers or what

J Darrin Gross 24:55

uh, well, if somebody I’m just saying somebody’s trying to raise capital, you know, in And, you know, because I, my curiosity is is more, you know, the Tick Tock kind of thing. I know, it’s a trendy thing, but I’ve seen a lot of people, you know, have, you know, put in commercial real estate or whatever. And there are people on there that have a message and stuff. And And I’m curious if that’s more of a, like a bait that then you get them to go to the website? Or is where’s the bolt? So on any one platform,

Unknown Speaker 25:30

it’s all it’s all how you looked at it, right? So tick tock is usually by tick tock a shorter form content, right. And usually the demographic for LinkedIn is more professionals, right. So if your target demographic was, let’s say, high net worth individuals now, that’s not to say that there’s there’s not going to be them on Tik Tok. But let’s say they hire demographic like that is going to be on more LinkedIn. So if you’re targeting doctors, lawyers, you know, business professionals, entrepreneurs, LinkedIn is probably going to be a better avenue to go and target. Now as Oops, my camera turned off. As, as far as sorry, the other party, I lost my train of thought,

J Darrin Gross 26:23

when you were talking about LinkedIn. And I was just asking, is there an ideal number of platforms? Or is there an ideal platform specifically for the real estate investor?

Matthew Baltzell 26:35

Yeah, so what I what I would what I would say like if you’ve, if you’re raising capital, right, so basically, with any with any raising capital, capital preservation is going to be number one, people want to make sure that you’re not going to be losing, losing their money, right. So when you’re initially starting out raising capital, who are you probably going to turn to, you’re probably going to turn to people that already trust you, like, know, and trust you, which are probably gonna be friends and family. So initially, you’re probably not going to be able to raise $500 million $3 million dollars, whatever it might be $200,000. So what I would say is piggyback off your most recent successes. So if you raise one deal, and you raise $100,000, and you’ve taken the property and the property is gone, gone full cycle, you can say, look, I invested 100, we raised $100,000, with my a couple of my investors. And like, let’s say I’m talking to you down, and I can say I helped raise $100,000. Now, do you know that was from my mom? And from my brother? No, it’s true. I helped raise $100,000, right? And then you’re like, Okay, and what was their returns? Oh, after three years, it was a 2x equity multiple, so their money doubled in three years. Oh, wow. That’s great. Now I’m raising money for a new property. And this new property is located in Austin, Texas. And this is the sponsor we’re working with this is what we’re doing. And Alison next deals, you’re able to raise maybe $300,000. And then a third deal, you raise $700,000. And it keeps snowballing from there. And as long as you have, as long as you’re, you know, basically being ethical, right, you’re putting yourself out there creating content, you’re expanding, growing your network, whether you’re going to meet ups, virtually, or you’re going to meetups in person, right? You’re basically growing your network and when you’re growing, people say your net worth is your network, your network is your net, your network is your net worth, right. So as long as you kind of curating that that’s probably the best way to go about doing it. But as far as which platforms necessarily choose, I was gonna say if you’re looking for high net worth individuals, LinkedIn is probably the best bet but not to say that there’s not other high net worth individuals on other platforms. That’s where I would just initially start

J Darrin Gross 28:51

I don’t know I am always kind of amused I was talking to me with my son told me about when I was a little gamer friends that was like, you know, doing tick tock and, you know, had created some YouTube channel that has like exploded because of his Tiktok activities. And I’m like, this cross pollination and how to use them and stuff is, is interesting, but I think to your point, knowing who you’re looking for, is, I think the first thing and then having the message and messaging to those people that you’re looking for and and again, you know, if you’ve got experience telling your story and and, you know, especially if you’re trying to raise capital, like said preservation of capital, that’s got to be an important part of the message. Yeah, when

Matthew Baltzell 29:40

you mean if your brother’s friend was trying to, we just want to reverse it your brother’s friend. I’m sorry, your your son’s friend, your son’s friend if he was trying to do the same gaming thing on LinkedIn. Right? If he’s trying to get those people that were like, there’s not many gamers here at midnight, online, like finding play call duty or whatever like So they probably know exactly who their avatar is, as well.

J Darrin Gross 30:04

Ya know, and, and I, you know, it’s, I think the, the challenge I think anybody has, when you’re staring at the computer screen or the, you know, you’re trying to do this, and you’re being bombarded by all these messages and, and, you know that one is, you know, understanding who you are trying to attract, and then recognizing where they are, and then tailoring your message. So that it lands with the audience you’re seeking is, is crucial. And, and then putting in the reps, you know, I mean, if you try something, it doesn’t work, and, you know, modifier or change or whatever, and, and, you know, keep doing it. As far as your, your, your guests, we’ve talked about kind of one of the big things, the call to action, I love that, because it is amazing to me, and I am guilty of and I think everybody is is, is providing too many opportunities, as opposed to just the one point, here’s the one thing I want you to do, you know, go to this point. Is there a we’ve talked about kind of the the stain with it. Is there any kind of a measure of success that you would that you would expect? I mean, we’ve talked about, like, you know, Jim reps and that kind of thing, but is it? Is it if somebody is putting out more content, meaning with more people doing more, more and more more is going to equal more? Or is there a? And I don’t know if there’s even a way to measure it,

Matthew Baltzell 31:45

I guess. I think I think I understand where you’re going with that. I mean, as far as you know, I would say the most successful capital raisers that I know. They are always building their network, right. And so when you do not want to start building your network, when you need your network, right, so if you already have an established network, and let’s say you lose your job, and then those people that lose their job finding a new job by, you know, the month end, right, it’s like, how do they do that? Right? Because they’re, they’re just constantly staying on top of people’s minds. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be from a capital raising standpoint, right? Like, think about like your own family members. Like, it’s not that hard to reach out to your cousin who you grew up with and say, Amen. Like, Merry Christmas, I was thinking of you like, Here’s an old photo, right? It’s like, oh, wow, like you were thinking of me. That was thoughtful, like, Yeah, we haven’t seen each other in two years. But I can’t wait to get home this next Christmas, and we see each other. And then you guys see each other, and then you reconnect. And it’s just like, it’s just like you never left, right. But all of a sudden, if you get that call from that cousin, who you haven’t seen since high school graduation, it’s been 18 years. And it’s like, I bet Jordan wants something from me. And it’s like, Hey, how you being like, I’m great. Like, what’s up? It’s like, yeah, you know, lost my job. And it’s like, okay, you want like, you wanna say, my house? Like, you want something I haven’t heard from me, right. So I would say the most successful people, like we’re kind of saying is, they’re putting in the reps. So if you are not curating your network, or you’re someone that’s just not trying to really make that effort, it’s gonna be a lot harder to raise capital. So I guess in a long, roundabout way, it’s probably more about consistency and putting in the reps. But, you know, it’s up to you to, you know, when we speak, right, we kind of help set the benchmark of what your, what you determine as successful. So, if you’re saying, Hey, I have a deal coming up, and I’m looking to close, or raise, you know, $1.5 million, or $2 million, it’s like, okay, all right. Well, I would recommend we get you on this many podcasts before they usually come out like a month or two later. And this will help you gain a lot of traction and momentum. So also, once you’re pushing it out to your network down, I’ll push it out to my network. If it’s raising capital for three months, and I’ve been on a podcast, now sudden, I can consistently push out content on my end, I can break it up. I can say, hey, look, I was featured in this. Now I’m procedures as thought leader, maybe I’m featured in a couple other articles. Maybe I’m also doing a couple of guests speaking appearances at some conferences. And now all of a sudden when I’m going into raising capital, I’m perceived as that much more of a hot commodity as opposed to somebody that’s starting to build their newsletter. Two months before they need to raise cash. approval. And now I’m somebody that is trying to build a website and build a business, before I need the money, right now all sudden, the person that’s doing that is becoming a needy person they need they need, they need, they need they need as opposed to person that’s providing value to their audience, providing value to their potential future investors. And now it’s a give and take relationship. And now they feel more comfortable, because they put in the reps, and now they’ve been seen, and it’s just a cycle that goes around and around.

J Darrin Gross 35:29

Yeah. Now, definitely something you don’t want to be, you know, appearing as a somebody in need, kind of thing. But, you know, put in the wraps, and, like you said, always be growing your network, and, you know, create the content and, and have that kind of base and, and, you know, grow I think it’s pretty sound strategy, you look at anybody, and anything they’re doing, if you start with zero, you gotta get the first one. And once you get the first one, then you go to the second one, and, and you keep building that way. But I think that that consistency message to I mean, about, you know, it’s not just the you, you know, Sprint, trying to get to where you’re going but, but people see your progress and, and know, they can find you and your you keep showing up whether it be you know, you’re you’re saying hey, I was thinking about you, or they saw you on something or the you know, there’s there’s just this constant threat of, of you putting out your your content. And, and I would think that’s a lot more successful or oriented rather than like said, the, hey, and he need this need that or, you know, trying to get it all at one time, as opposed to just kind of staying with its own, for sure. Hey, Matthew, if we could like to shift gears here for a second. By day, I’m an insurance broker. And I work with my clients to assess risk and determine what to do with the risk. And there’s three different strategies we typically look at, we first look to see if there’s a way we can avoid the risk. And when that’s done an option, we’ll see if there’s a way we can minimize the risk. And when it looks like we cannot avoid nor minimize the risk, then we look to see if there’s a way we could transfer the risk. And that’s what an insurance policy is. It’s a risk transfer vehicle. And as such, I like to ask my guests if they can look at their own situation. It’d be clients, investors, tenants, the market politics, however you would like to identify what you consider to be the biggest risk. And for clarification, while again, I’m an insurance broker, I’m not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer. And so if you’re willing, I’d like to ask you, Matthew Baltzell, what is the biggest risk?

Matthew Baltzell 38:02

Yeah, so I thought about this. And I didn’t know I was formulating this thought. I mean, I’ve had this thought before, and it’s always constantly stuck with me. And so, you know, there’s a movie called Schindler’s List, right. And in the movie, somebody asks Schindler, and they say Schindler, like why do I never? Why do we never see you drink? And he says, You know, I never drink. Because the reason why I don’t drink is because when I drink, I give up all my power. And when I first heard that, I was like, Whoa, I was blown away, right? And so when you have your power, right, you have leverage, you actually have power. And when you say things, like, I can’t go to the movie, right? It’s like, you’re giving up like, your power instead of like saying, I choose not to go to the movie. Like, I don’t want to go to movie Hey, can you come over for dinner tonight? I can’t make it like you can make it but you choose not to make it right. So basically, giving up your power is one of the greatest risks. So if you’re giving up your leverage within your business, you’re giving up your risk, right? If you’re, if you’re, if you’re giving up, you know, cutting corners on underwriting deals, you’re you’re giving away you’re giving away your risk, you’re giving away your power. So I would say giving up your power is the greatest detriment that a person could do. And giving up my power, my voice, my opinion, my skill set. That to me, would be the greatest risk.

J Darrin Gross 39:38

I like it. I just even though the way you position, the situation, the same outcome, but it’s the way you position it. You know, either you retain the power or surrender the power. That’s That’s good. Matthew, where can listeners go if they’d like to learn more connect with you?

Matthew Baltzell 39:58

Yeah, Darrin, I appreciate it. So if people want to learn more about me, they can go to Elite podcast bookings.com. They can go in the upper right hand corner, and they can schedule a call. And if they enter in the promo code, Darrin, they will get 50% off their first month of service with us so they can go there.

J Darrin Gross 40:18

Awesome. Matthew, I can’t say thanks enough for taking the time to talk today. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Learned a lot, and I look forward to doing it again soon.

Matthew Baltzell 40:28

Likewise, Darrin appreciate it.

J Darrin Gross 40:30

All right. For our listeners. If you liked this episode, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember, the more you know, the more you grow? That’s all we’ve got this week. Until next time, thanks for listening to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks. CRE PN Radio.

Announcer 40:51

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Free Easy Property Management Platform with Dave Spooner – CRE PN #315

Dave Spooner 0:00

It’s a big hassle to call them up and say, Hey, you got to get this to me, etc, etc? Or do I just kind of wipe my hands of it and say, Okay, I got the rent five days late, it’s not the end of the world, I’ll move on. Most people choose the latter. And when they do, the tenants learned a few things. One, they don’t have to pay late fees, right, they’re going to skip them every time from now on to the landlord is going to call and remind them to make a payment and three, the landlord’s threats are empty, right. And those are all bad lessons to teach a tenant. With automated software you’re not involved at all right? The late fee just shows up is now on the rent, the tenant cannot pay the next month’s rent until they’ve paid the late fee and the principal rent do so even if they skip it this month, next month, they’re gonna have to pay it and they understand that Oh, these these threats have teeth now, right? If I get a late fee, I gotta pay a late fee. And that’s a huge game changer for landlords, suddenly, you’re collecting more late fees than he did before and then quickly thereafter, rent is coming in on time more effectively than it ever did before. So it’s, that’s a huge feature that it seems small seems subtle, but it’s a big game changer for landlords that are first experiencing it.

Announcer 1:06

Welcome to CRE PN Radio for influential commercial real estate professionals who work with investors, buyers and sellers of commercial real estate coast to coast whether you’re an investor, broker, lender, property manager, attorney or accountant We are here to learn from experts.

J Darrin Gross 1:25

Welcome to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks, CRE PN Radio. Thanks for joining us. My name is J Darrin Gross. This is a podcast focused on commercial real estate investment and risk management strategies. Weekly we have conversations with commercial real estate investors and professionals who provide their experience and insight to help you grow your real estate portfolio.

Today my guest is Dave Spooner. Dave Spooner is the co founder of Innago, a property management software designed to simplify life for small to mid sized landlords. He’s been involved in the real estate technology space since 2013. Working to enhance the way landlords and tenants communicate. And in just a minute, we’re going to speak with Dave about property management software and how it can make your life better.

But first, a quick reminder. If you like our show, CRE PN Radio, there are a couple things you can do to help. You can like, share and subscribe. And as always, we encourage you to leave a comment, we love to hear from our listeners. Also, if you want to see how handsome our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel. You can find us on youtube at Commercial Real Estate Pro Network. And while you’re there, please subscribe. With that, I want to welcome my guest, Dave, welcome to CRE PN Radio.

Dave Spooner 2:52

Yeah, I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

J Darrin Gross 2:55

I’m looking forward to our talk today. Before we jump into it, if you could take just a minute and share with the listeners a little bit about your background.

Dave Spooner 3:04

Yeah, no problem at all. So as you mentioned in the intro, I’ve been involved in real estate technology since 2013. My first foray was helping a company build a listing platform specifically designed for student housing. And through that venture, I got a lot of exposure to small to midsize independent landlords that’s predominantly who makes up student housing, who owns portfolios and student housing. And we just kept hearing over and over again, how much these landlords felt that they needed tools that were better suited to them to their portfolios. The existing tools were too expensive or too cumbersome, too difficult to use. And we kept hearing it and finally me and another another guy that was working at that company said, Hey, we keep hearing this, let’s, let’s go, let’s go give them what they want. And we formed Innago in 2017. And we’ve been working hard on it ever since trying to deliver just that tools that are easy to use for landlords free to use for landlords and just make management of their portfolio easier than it has been in the past.

J Darrin Gross 4:06

No, I’m guessing when you when you hear the the, you know, the problem over and over again. If you can make a solution that fits that problem. That’s that’s a an audience that’s, that’s happy to hear from you.

Dave Spooner 4:22

That’s right. Yeah, even an idiot like me can can can can get the message if if you hear it hundreds and hundreds of times.

J Darrin Gross 4:29

Right, right. Well, so let’s talk a little bit about it. And I apologize. I think I might have missed spoken when I said it before, but he called it Innago is how you pronounce that correct?

Dave Spooner 4:41

Innago, yeah, that’s right. No problem. It happens all the time. Okay.

J Darrin Gross 4:46

So let’s talk about some of the the elements of the platform. I know I looked on it a little bit before getting on this call with you and Can you describe some of the capabilities and in the nuance or the, you know, what, what can help a landlord do?

Dave Spooner 5:08

Yeah, absolutely. To kind of orient the audience, it’s rental management software, right. So the tools that you’d expect to find in those rental management software exists in an algo. That’s things like managing your collection, accepting rents online, signing documents online, you can do that through our platform, storing information, like lease details, automating reminders, handling, maintenance, tickets, screen tenants, all that stuff is included in the inaugural platform, kind of differentiating factors for us or one that we’re free to use. That’s a big difference maker. To that we were really designed to work with landlords of various sizes of various portfolio types. It’s not just student housing, it’s commercial real estate, it’s multifamily. It’s it’s general residential, we even work with, there’s a lot of folks that use us for they manage salons, there’s a lot of people that own salons, and then they rent out chairs within their salons to hairdressers, and they use an algo. To manage those, we have tons of those folks. So if we wanted to build a platform that was more flexible, that was easier to use. It had more features that landlords really, really needed. So the traditional features you’d expect, but kind of packaged in a way that’s easier to use and flexible enough to work however your your business operates.

J Darrin Gross 6:21

Got it. Now I know one of the things I saw when I was looking on the website is it does have the capability to integrate with QuickBooks or Quicken or Yeah. So can you talk a little bit? I mean, obviously, there’s there’s multiple facets to it. And I know in the intro, I talked about communicating between landlords and tenants, and you’ve, you’ve mentioned a few of the things that are natural in the communication with landlords and tenants. leases, I mean, that sounds like that’s, that’s a What do you have a digital signature platform or the ability to do the digital signature on that?

Dave Spooner 6:59

Yeah, exactly. If but most folks are familiar with like DocuSign, for example, or Adobe has an echosign platform that allows you to sign very, very similar those two, you can do digital signatures through our platform, create multiple templates, not just a lease, but anything like a pet addendum or a renewal agreement or anything like that. You can generate templates, reuse templates, and signed documents through Innago

J Darrin Gross 7:23

Got it. And then repair requests. I mean, assume that’s the pretty standard that does a tenant have a a login, they create a login for themselves, and the landlord has log into where everybody is going into the from outside of the inside.

Dave Spooner 7:38

Yes, exactly. So tenants have their own separate login. And you know, one of the things that we realized when we were looking at the market is a lot of the platforms that existed before would put all their emphasis and focus on the landlord side of things. But you know, landlords often forget, and certainly the companies that develop those software platforms often forget that ultimately, the customer is the tenant, right? They’re the one paying the rent, they’re the one paying the bills, and you want to give them a really good clean experience. And you want to make it as easy as possible for them to pay that rent, right, don’t put any walls in front of them. So yeah, tenants have their own login, we’ve put a ton of effort into making it as streamlined as possible for those folks. They have an app they can download. And yeah, they can, you know, from the app or from their phone or wherever they’re logged in, take a picture of a broken dishwasher, take a video of the sound that it’s making, and submit that as a maintenance request to the landlord. The landlord can obviously react to that if the landlord has maintenance personnel that work for them, property managers that work for them, they can add those people as sub users in an algo and either have those requests routed directly to them, or they can kind of intercept it first that out the request and then distributed out to those maintenance personnel to handle those issues. So lots of tooling built around work orders and maintenance requests. I know that’s a big that’s always a hot topic with landlords how to how to deal with that kind of thing.

J Darrin Gross 8:56

Yeah, no, so let’s talk about the the money transfer here. So you have a lease rents due on the first Do you have the ability to to integrate the the tenant pain it or is it more matter of can tell me about the the payment, how we can do or collect or if you do, yeah, or collect or transfer money.

Dave Spooner 9:25

We do online payments are offered through an algo for rent for security deposits for pet fees, or anything else that you’re charging your tenant for. that’s related to the rent. They again, they log into their account, they can add a payment method like their bank account, they can add a credit or debit card and submit a payment directly through an algo and then we send the funds right into your bank account as a landlord and the landlords can have one bank account for all their properties. They can have specific bank accounts for specific properties and units. They can have a bank account to collect security deposits and then a different one for rent. They can do anything they need to to manage where Those funds are going and we deliver the funds generally after a single business day hold. So if somebody pays on a Monday, we hold it Tuesday, it’s in your account first thing Wednesday, so the money moves quickly, lots of payment methods available to tenants and lots of control over where that money goes to the landlord.

J Darrin Gross 10:18

So in and notices, rents due on the first isn’t here on whatever the late day is fifth, or the 10th, or whatever. Do you have the automated messaging built into this? Or is that something that the landlord Can, can augment to their own lease or other work?

Dave Spooner 10:40

We do? Yeah, it’s all built in and not not to go on too much of a tangent here. But you know, we internally talk about a Nago as tenant management software. That’s not a term that people really use in the industry. So we don’t advertise ourselves that way. But internally, we consider ourselves tenant management software, rather than property management software. And what we mean by that is, when you’re managing properties, you can control and you’re investing in properties, you can control a lot of factors, you can control, you know, you can draw up pro formas, you can do financial forecasting for years into the future, when you purchase something you typically know the the useful life of that appliance, or whatever it may be, you can forecast all these things and control all these things for inanimate objects. But the biggest X factor for landlords, for property managers for real estate investors is the tenants, right, that’s the variable they can’t control. So we’re software that’s designed to put some controls in place, right to allow landlords to automate those pieces of the puzzle for themselves. And a huge, huge, huge part of that is effective communication. We can’t emphasize enough how important that is. And it’s been a big piece of that is, of course, those automatic reminders, like you mentioned. So tenants are gonna get a reminder five days before rent is due the day it’s due. And then the day before late fees kick in. And you can of course, automate all sorts of different late fees in a Nago, you can control any of those timeframes. So if you want to let somebody know, 30 days before, because you collect semester rent at a at a, you know, off campus housing, if you want to let them know, one day before, for whatever reason, you can control those notifications. But yeah, we’re gonna automatically indicate to your tenant when rent is due when late fees are stacking up, and we’ll automate all those processes for you.

J Darrin Gross 12:21

Awesome. Let me ask you, I know, you know, a fair amount of tenants these days tend to be unbanked. they they they tend to pay with cashier’s check or money orders. Is that, does that work with us? Or our?

Dave Spooner 12:44

Yeah, it’s a great question. So you can record offline payments in a novel very easily. So for bookkeeping purposes to maintain a p&l to maintain an effective rent roll, you can track all that in and Nago, right, you can record a money order or check payment. We don’t currently have any tooling that’s built in to allow you to accept those payments electronically. There are some services out there that can do that. Pfizer, for example, has a service we’ve looked into it, I think it’s something we would definitely integrate at some point. Certainly a feature down the road that we’re very intrigued by, we just haven’t seen enough demand for it yet. But if people are paying by money order, you can still of course record those payments in and Argo to keep your your books up to date. Gotcha.

J Darrin Gross 13:29

And then what about the the platform as far as messaging the tenant, or even the the vendor that you need to help you with work? Is it strictly an email message? Or is there any option to send a text?

Dave Spooner 13:43

Yeah, currently, it’s all email based. So you there’s a whole messaging portal within a Nago, you can create email templates, though, that you can reuse. So if you have like common messages that you send to folks, and you can autofill certain pieces of it we call personalization tokens. So like, you want to send an email to all 100 of your tenants, you can still personalize them with a first name, your lease starts on putting their lease date, whatever it is, we are we do have some really exciting stuff coming in this direction, we are working on a built in chat feature, that’s going to be really cool. It’ll help even further streamline the communication between landlord and tenant and, you know, allow landlords to keep their personal contact info out of the hands of their tenants, which I know is important to a lot of folks that we’re working on those tools, they’re gonna be really cool. We’re super excited about them. We’re hoping that they’ll roll out before the end of the year. We don’t have any set timeline on it just yet, though.

J Darrin Gross 14:35

So as the product currently sets, what’s been the the most appealing feature that you’ve you’ve heard from the users?

Dave Spooner 14:46

I’d say there’s a there’s a few that come to mind. You know, the obvious one is rent collection that that’s that’s one that brings a lot of people through the door. But after using a Nago, I commonly hear how excited people are about The late fee features built into the tool. First of all hourly fees are very flexible. So I’ve never encountered a landlord who couldn’t manage their late fees, however convoluted they are within our system. They’re very flexible tools. But the thing that people love so much about it, especially if you’re coming from not managing people online and not offering them this type of tooling in the past, if this is your first time with that experience, it’s going to totally change the way that you interact with your tenants regarding rent. For example, for many landlords in the past, when rent was late, let’s say rents five days late now, the tenant has a $50 fee, right? So late rent five days late landlord calls up the tenant and they say, Hey, you know, you’re five days late, you need to send me a check for 500 bucks for rent plus $50 for the late fee, 550 total. And if I don’t get it, in the next two days, I’m going to drop an eviction notice or notice to quit or whatever their their local laws say they have to do next, then it freaks out, right? They say, Well, I got to get this money in right away, they quickly put a check together, drop it off, send it in the mail, whatever they need to do to get it to their landlord ASAP. Landlord says, awesome, I got the check, they open it up, it’s 500 bucks, right? They didn’t pay the late fee, tenant never pays the late fee. And the landlord then has a decision Do I go after them for this 50 bucks that ultimately is fairly meaningless to me. And it’s a big hassle to call them up and say, Hey, you got to get this to me, etc, etc? Or do I just kind of wipe my hands of it and say, Okay, I got the rent five days late, it’s not the end of the world, I’ll move on. Most people choose the latter. And when they do, the tenants learned a few things. One, they don’t have to pay late fees, right, they’re gonna skip them every time from now on to the landlord is going to call and remind them to make a payment, and three, the landlord’s threats are empty, right. And those are all bad lessons to teach a tenant with automated software you’re not involved at all right, the late fee just shows up, it’s now on the rent, the tenant cannot pay the next month’s rent until they’ve paid the late fee and the principle rent do so even if they skip it this month, next month, they’re going to have to pay it and they understand that Oh, these these threats have teeth now, right? If I get a late fee, I gotta pay a late fee. And that’s a huge game changer for landlords, suddenly, you’re collecting more late fees than he did before. And then quickly thereafter, rent is coming in on time more effectively than it ever did before. So it’s that’s a huge feature that it seems small, seems subtle, but it’s a big game changer for landlords that are first experiencing it.

J Darrin Gross 17:20

Now, I would concur that just even training your tenant, you know, right away that no, no there there’s, you know, their mindset changes to where it’s not like, Oh, I can pay the landlord last. Right?

Dave Spooner 17:32

I got to pay the landlord first. Exactly. It’s a mindset change. And so that’s a good way to say,

J Darrin Gross 17:37

Oh, that’s great. I know that a lot of the software or platforms, there’s a lot of iterations over time. Is there anything you’re working on that you’re you’re planning to introduce here in the near future that that you’re excited about?

Dave Spooner 17:53

Yes, very excited we are. We just launched the first version of our landlord mobile apps, we’ve had a tenant mobile app in place for quite a while, we we took a bit longer to develop the the landlord side is we really wanted to make it a tailored experience for mobile, not just kind of a smaller version of our website, but a wholly wholly different platform, you know, built for for a mobile device. So that is about to come out widely. Right now, it’s only in the hands of kind of select users existing on an algo. But in the next few weeks, we’ll have that launched live, I’d say certainly within the next four weeks, everybody can access it. And then I also mentioned the communication tools, the chat features that we’re building out to make communication even simpler for landlords. So those are two big ones on the horizon that I’m really excited about. We make regular updates, though. I mean, we release new patches and builds and features every week at an algo. So there’s small things that are coming in all the time, little quality of life improvements to make the system better, and sometimes even even full on features that come out. But those are the two big ones that I’m most expect excited about upcoming

J Darrin Gross 18:56

data. We’ve been talking about the owner operator as a primary user, do you also provide this for property managers?

Dave Spooner 19:09

Yeah, we work with tons of property managers. And like I mentioned, we have for the the ability to have multiple users access the platform, right, you can have your maintenance personnel, you can also have your property manager access it or conversely, a property manager that manages for, you know, 10 1520 100 different owners can add those owners to a Nago with their own set of access, where they can see just their properties or just the financials on their properties and kind of keep a thumb on the heartbeat of what’s going on with their with their property. So it’s an easy way to integrate those owners and to give them a positive experience as well. So yeah, lots of property. property managers use a Nago as well.

J Darrin Gross 19:49

And then we talked a little bit about QuickBooks or Quicken. Is there an accounting feature built into an algo?

Dave Spooner 19:58

Yeah, in one quick point, I’m glad we can Back to one quick but a quick point of clarification we integrate with QuickBooks Online. We do not integrate with Quicken and we don’t integrate with with QuickBooks desktop. So it is the online version that will integrate with Innago directly. It’s a great feature set. Anything that happens in Innago related to your finances will automatically show up in your QuickBooks account. So it makes it really easy from a management standpoint, you just manage collection, and even expenses if you’d like in Innago. And it’s automatically up to date on on QuickBooks, we do have accounting tools built into Innago. They’re not as substantive as QuickBooks though that is very much by design. Again, we talked about ourselves as tenant management software, right? We’re not your financial tool. I own eight units myself, and I use an algo. for them. Of course, I don’t use QuickBooks at all, I don’t use any sort of accounting software. At the end of the year, I take I export all my income data from an algo, I export all my expense data from Innago. I then export my p&l report which we generate for you in Innago, which is honestly redundant, because I just got the income and the expenses, but it combines them both in one place, I send those three reports to my CPA, he does our taxes, it takes me less than three minutes to get all those reports. He’s got everything that he needs, it looks great for him, it’s in a nice format. He generates our taxes, and we’re done. That’s it. So we do have some accounting tools. If you if you are a more substantial operation, it’s great to do the QuickBooks Online integration. It just depends on on kind of what you’re looking for and what what your your business looks like.

J Darrin Gross 21:31

Gotcha. And what about, I know vacation rentals, the Airbnb type stuff? Is there any issue with working with that that type of platform? Does that work as well?

Dave Spooner 21:44

No, there’s not an issue at all. And we work with lots of them. We’re not designed for it specifically, you know, we’re not like constantly thinking, how can we make Airbnb rentals easier. But again, it’s kind of a testament it goes back to you know, we were with barber shops, and they rent out chairs, you can, if you’re renting something, you can use an auto right? It’s it’s easy to manage it in that way, the tools are built flexibly enough to handle just about any scenario. So yeah, we work with tons of short term rentals, you just may find that you need to dig a little deeper into things to make them work for your your situation, but I can almost guarantee they will ultimately work for your situation.

J Darrin Gross 22:22

Is there a minimum number of units, this works best for

Dave Spooner 22:27

No, our range is pretty large, we work with a ton of one unit landlords and we our largest landlords have as many as 2000 units. So it’s a huge range that are using our platforms, the same platform for everybody. Our bread and butter is one to 100 units. That’s who we target with our marketing. that’s who we’re generally genuinely generally thinking about. But again, we’re really intending to build a platform that can grow alongside a portfolio. So even if you have many more than 100 it’s still is something worth taking a look at

J Darrin Gross 22:57

Got it. And the ideal opportunity set is new. Anyone from like one to 100 Yeah, I want to come back to the the price. You say it’s free. And I know my dad told me a long time ago that nothing’s free. How is it that how is it that this is is free? Or what is it that that you’re? You know, how are you being compensated?

Dave Spooner 23:23

Right, right, right. Yeah, there’s there’s no free lunch, right? We, we are not a charity. We are not a nonprofit, we do make money. We just don’t charge landlords for anything. And we truly don’t there’s no cash, there’s not going to be a surprise charge. You don’t hit a unit threshold and suddenly you get hit with fees. There’s no setup fees, nothing like that. We instead charged for three things in Innago. I think landlords will find all three are very reasonable all three are charged to tenants by default.

So when a tenant pays online, if they pay rent, they pay a deposit or pet fee or whatever it is. If they pay with a bank account, we charge them $2 for that transaction, just two bucks. If they pay with a credit or debit card, we charge them 2.75%. So a little higher, but as long as they have a credit card, they should have access to a bank account. Landlords can choose to take on either of those fees, there’s plenty of landlords say, Hey, I’ll cover the AC h v two bucks is nothing to me. Give that as a free option. But let the tenants pay the credit card transaction fee if they want to. Some real crazy landlords take on the credit card fee to it’s totally up to them. That’s one way we make money. The second way we make money is on screening reports. So you can screen tenants through an algo you can accept applications through an algo and when an application comes in, you decide as the landlord whether or not you want that application to include a credit criminal and eviction history and if you say yes, the applicant pays for those reports 30 to $35. Depending on the level of screening, landlords do have the option to add additional charges on top. If they do like betting or anything like that for their time we’ll send that excess money to the landlord. For 50 bucks you get $15 if you’re doing the full screen pack The third and final thing we make money on is renters insurance, landlords are able to require renters insurance from their tenants require proof of it, I highly recommend this to folks, it’s a nice while you’re in the insurance game, I’m sure you know all about it. It’s just another barrier for these landlords from potential liability. But in any case, they can require it. And if they do, the tenants can purchase a policy through us or just upload a copy of a policy they’ve purchased elsewhere. So you know, they can buy ours or their market rate is pretty standard price. And you’ll see we make a commission on that, or, again, they can just upload a policy found elsewhere. So the three things to recap our online payments, tenant screening, and renter’s insurance, all charged to tenants by default, but the landlord can choose to take on some of those transaction fees if they’d like to.

J Darrin Gross 25:48

Well, I would think the screening is a, you know, standard, with or without any kind of deal. In the banking fees seem to be pretty standard anymore. I mean, it’s one of the convenience fees that people are pretty agreeable to right on all sides. And renter’s insurance, I can tell you as a landlord, and as an insurance agent, I’ve got clients that had resisted, and I’m speaking as an insurance broker, they resisted requiring insurance of their tenants. And over time, they finally something changed, where they, they all of a sudden did require it. And I remember one of my clients coming to me and saying, Hey, you know, I haven’t had to call you for a long time. You know, and it was about these claims that they’ve been having, that were tenant, the tenant was responsible for, but they were able to turn them into the tenants insurance. And, you know, the tenants insurance took care of it. And I’ll remind, anybody the number one fire source in, in, you know, homes and apartments is cooking.

So until, you know, people don’t cook, you’re always going to be exposed, and usually, so the water from the fire department that creates the real big mess. But, you know, it’s, it’s a great, great tool. And also, I think that having it in your system there kind of raises your penetration as far as the, you know, people have in it, I mean, if you require in your lease, and then you also make it easy for them to get exactly. And the last thing I’ll say is that I think that you naturally by selection or or self selection, you you raise the caliber of your tenant, you know, as opposed to having somebody that’s, that’s not doing that. So that’s, that’s, that’s my take on those things. But that’s, that’s, that’s great. I mean, I think that’s those those seem to be pretty, pretty standard and and i would think that they make a hole for a better tenant, and then landlord tenant experience.

Dave Spooner 28:01

Yeah, I, I require renter’s insurance of all my tenants, we make them we make a provide it. I just think it’s such an important barrier these days. And it’s it, like you said, I think folks would be surprised how much damage it can cover if there is damage caused by the tenant. And it also covers in situations liability. Like if a dog you know, somebody, tenant attendants, dog bites somebody else. If they don’t have insurance, you can get called in Well, if they have that, that’s just another barrier from your insurance getting called in to cover that kind of stuff. So it’s it’s a it’s a great tool. It’s inexpensive for tenants, it’s really not that pricey, and it’s just another barrier protecting, you

J Darrin Gross 28:36

No, that’s great. Hey, Dave, if we could, I’d like to shift gears here for a second. And sexy name shifting gears kind of moving forward with the risk and the insurance question here. Yeah. So by day, I’m an insurance broker, and typically work with clients to assess risk, and determine what to do with risk. And there’s three strategies we typically consider. The first is can we avoid the risk? The second is, can we minimize the risk. And if we can’t do option one or two, we look to see if we can transfer the risk. And that’s what an insurance policy is. And I like to ask my guests if they can look at their own situation. It could be their clients, investors, tenants market, however you you would like to frame the question and identify what you consider to be the biggest risk. And for clarification, I’m not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer. But if you’re willing, I’d like to ask you, Dave Spooner, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Dave Spooner 29:43

It’s a great question. It’s something we think and talk about a lot, you know, especially as a small company. We were founded four and a half years ago now a little over four and a half years ago now. And we’re at an inflection point, kind of an extended inflection point where we’ve grown really Really quickly and we’re continuing to grow. And it’s really accelerating more and more people are finding us, more and more landlords are giving us great reviews online, we’re the word is out that Innago is a premier product for small to midsize landlords. And we’re growing faster than we’ve ever gone before by exponential figures, right, which is great. It’s very exciting. But the risk that comes with that is in growing the team, right and building our team internally, in finding great employees, it’s easier to have quality control on your team when it’s just you and five other people 10 other people 15 other people, but as it grows beyond that, it becomes harder and harder. And that’s where we are right now where we’re growing pretty rapidly. And we’re expanding our team and trying to find good talent and making sure that that talent is acclimated effectively, so that they’re happy so that they enjoy working here, so that they feel fulfilled, but they’re also providing great value to the to the rest of the team and to our clients. That’s our that’s our biggest risk right now. It’s just continuing to find good team now team members. And to relate that back to real estate. I think that’s ultimately a place that landlords and real estate investors get to right, if you’re purchasing your first property, your first couple properties, it’s easy to control a lot of that stuff, it’s easy to do quality control, but as you grow bigger, you have to have a great team, right? You got to have a good broker, you got to have a good a good insurance guy, of course, right? You got to have a good lawyer on your team, maybe a tax guy, a CPA, maybe you hire internally, right? You hire your own property manager, it’s the same risk that other folks have. We’re experiencing it on a bigger scale right now. And that’s, that’s our biggest risk, something we think about a lot, something we talk about a lot. So we’re gonna make sure to mitigate as much as possible.

J Darrin Gross 31:37

No, that’s, that’s pretty insightful. And I think you know, anybody who’s having growing pains, you know, that’s always a challenge. Like you said, it’s easy to manage five, but, you know, when you get beyond, you know, 50 or 100 It’s a whole different equation. So that’s good. Hey, Dave, where can listeners go if they’d like to learn more or connect with you?

Dave Spooner 32:02

Yeah, you can check us out at innago.com it’s i n n ago. That’s N as in Nancy Comm. You can also find us on all the major social media platforms, we’re typically under a Innago software. But if you just search like Innago, Twitter and Innago Facebook is better. I also like to we’re very transparent. You can call us up here at Innago you can email us I like to give up my email, please. If anyone has questions, they can email me at Dave d A v at innago dot com. I am happy to to answer them or get you in touch with the smarter folks at the company that can answer them better than I can. But yeah, you can find us on online anywhere and and reach out to me directly if you’d like to.

J Darrin Gross 32:41

Awesome. Dave, I can’t say thanks enough for taking the time today. I’ve enjoyed our talk learned a lot. And I hope we can do it again soon.

Dave Spooner 32:50

Yeah, it’s just great. Thanks so much for having me.

J Darrin Gross 32:53

All right. For our listeners. If you liked this episode, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember, the more you know, the more you grow. That’s all we’ve got this week. Until next time, thanks for listening to Commercial Real Estate Pro Network’s. CRE PN Radio.

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