Photo of Lacy Hendricks

Lacy Hendricks

Director of Marketing/Associate Broker — Hendricks Property Management & Triple Win Mentor - Second Nature

Lacy Hendricks is the Director of Marketing and Associate Broker at Hendricks Property Management in San Antonio, TX. She’s also a Certified SEOSpace Expert and in 2025 co-founded ClearLead Digital, a website agency for fellow property managers.

Hendricks Property Management

Creating content that gets cited by AI and creates leads

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been an essential part of building business websites for decades. It's especially important for local businesses like property management companies. That's why I started ClearLead Digital with Alex Zweydoff. We help property managers get more out of their websites and capture more business. But as more people turn to AI tools to answer their questions, and traditional search engines like Google start offering AI answers, the SEO process is changing. In this article, I'll walk through how AI search works, what factors play into how your website performs, and how you can create content that ranks well, gets cited by AI, and creates leads for your company. How AI search works What is AI search? The most popular AI search tools today are all what we call “large language models,” or LLMs. Chances are you’ve heard of at least a few, but the most common LLMs are: ChatGPT Gemini Claude Perplexity These tools let you ask questions and get full answers in plain, written language. As they get more popular, SEO specialists and business owners are shifting away from targeting keywords and toward targeting prompts. People use these tools to find answers to questions, so we need to create content that answers those questions. Understanding fan out queries When you submit a prompt to an LLM, it has to go find the information to put together a full answer for you. Fan-out queries are how LLMs find that information and decide what belongs in the response. They're basically related searches the LLM uses to piece together an answer. For example, you might ask an LLM, "How often do I need to service an HVAC system for a 2,000 square foot house in Texas?" The LLM would then run a list of fan-out queries like: What is the average temperature in Texas? What is the right size of HVAC system for a 2,000 square foot home? How do temperatures affect the life span of an HVAC system? What factors impact the life span of an air conditioning unit? What are the standard preventative maintenance tasks for heating systems? It would then gather all the information to answer those questions (and more) and combine it using a natural language processing model. Natural language processing is how the model puts all that information back together in a way you can read, giving you the written answer you see. When you create content, your goal is to answer the initial question someone types into an LLM and as many of the fan-out queries as you can. Updated ranking factors Just like with traditional search engines, the way AI algorithms rank content is always changing. With multiple LLMs trying to capture the market, they're constantly tweaking the formula to try to be the best. The way ChatGPT ranks content is going to be slightly different from how Gemini does it, for example. That said, there are some broad factors that affect how your content ranks across LLMs, and they're not too different from the ranking factors used by traditional search engines. Expertise, experience, authority, and trust Expertise, experience, authority, and trust (commonly abbreviated E.E.A.T.) is used to measure how reliable your website is as a source of information. In other words, how can you show your expertise and authority online? What makes you a more dependable source than any other website? To build E.E.A.T., anyone creating content on your website should have an author profile page that shows who they are, why they matter, what their relation is to the company, and why they're an expert. Include a headshot, a short biography, any certifications they hold, and links out to other professional websites or profiles, like LinkedIn or NARPM. Topical authority Topical authority is all about how well you cover a subject. This is where those fan-out queries come in. The more of them you answer, the better you've covered the subject. Writing one article on a topic won't cut it anymore. Cover the topic from several angles. For example, if you're writing about eviction in San Antonio, you might want to write about: How long does the eviction process take in San Antonio? How do I give notice of eviction in Texas? What's the average cost of eviction in San Antonio? What are the legal reasons for eviction in Texas? When you start covering topics in more depth, with consistent, well-structured content, LLMs and search engines start to see you as more of an authority on those topics. Citations Citations are all about how the rest of the internet sees your website. This is probably the area where there's the most variation between different LLMs, but here are some of the elements that roll up into citations: List mentions: Are you included on trusted lists across the web? Think about the Better Business Bureau, your local Chamber of Commerce, or industry publications. All of these help show LLMs that you're a trustworthy source of information. Online reviews: How do customers rate you across sites like Google Business, Facebook, Yelp, and more? Strong reviews help your reputation with prospects and with LLMs. Awards, accreditations, and affiliations: If you have industry credentials, like CPM, RMP, or others, make sure you're listing those on your website. LLMs will absolutely notice them and see you as more credible. Google web authority: If Google thinks your website is authoritative, so will LLMs. All of the authority factors from traditional SEO still apply, like backlinks and content originality. Social sentiment: This looks at how people talk about you on sites like Quora, Reddit, or Instagram, beyond a simple 5-star score. Managing your reputation on those sites can help your other content get cited more often. Get more insights like this every two weeks! Is blogging still relevant? This is one of the most common questions I get when talking to people about SEO. Blogging has always been an effective way to create content on your website that ranks well in search results and drives people to your site. But in the age of AI, is it still relevant? The short answer is yes. Your goal now is to train LLMs on who you are and what your brand stands for. Your blog is still one of the best ways to do that. Look for topics that are relevant to your target audience and your geographic area, and start writing about them. Tackle one topic per article, structure your posts well, and you'll start seeing LLMs cite your website. The great news about blogging is that, even if you haven't started, that's fine. There's no "too late." You can get started today and still see great results. Writing high-ranking content In many ways, writing good content hasn't changed much with the arrival of AI. Most people still use traditional search engines, so AI search just sits on top of traditional SEO. All the core principles of SEO still apply today, including content structure, technical SEO, and more. Identifying pain point keywords Pain point keywords are search terms that focus on a problem the searcher needs help with right then and there. A lot of these searches start with "what do I do if…" These queries perform well with LLMs because they get treated a lot like transactional keywords instead of informational ones. Because the user is looking for an immediate solution, LLMs treat it much like someone searching to make a purchase. Look for topics that solve common pain points in your market and write about those. Frame them with a problem/solution structure that makes sense to both readers and LLMs. Technical SEO Technical SEO has always included things like making sure there aren't broken links on your pages, your site loads quickly, and everything works well on mobile. With AI, technical SEO is more important than ever. We're talking to robots, so sometimes we have to use robot language. That's where schema comes in. Schema is a script that helps AI agents understand the content of a webpage faster. You can learn more at schema.org, but here are some of the schema types I recommend including on all your blog posts: Article Person Organization WebPage BreadcrumbList FAQ There are plenty of tools to generate schema, and you can even use ChatGPT. Give it the information about your post and it will format the schema the way you need it. From there, drop it into an HTML code block on your page, and you're good to go. Now LLMs can understand your content faster. Structuring content The structure of your content in each article also helps robots understand the information. By using different header styles, you can divide your content into sections so that LLMs and readers can quickly skim and find the most relevant parts. H1: This is the title of your article. As a general guideline, the H1 should be between 40 and 60 characters and 5 to 12 words, including your primary keyword. There should only be one H1 per page. Having multiple H1s can hurt your ranking. H2: These are best used as section titles. They organize large topics within a page, and at least one H2 should contain your primary keyword. H3: These are used within H2 content to break up larger sections. Think of them as subsections. If an H2 section is short, you may not need an H3, but if it's long, H3s help with readability. Here are some other tips for structuring content that will rank well: Add a summary at the top or bottom of your content so that both LLMs and people can quickly understand the key points. Use bulleted lists where it fits, which makes it more likely that LLMs cite your content. Organize information in tables within the page. LLMs read and cite tables very well. This applies whether you're writing a blog post or any regular page on your site. All of it still counts. Don’t be intimidated by SEO SEO is part art and part science, especially in today's AI-focused world. It can seem overwhelming, but you can take it step by step. Perfect is the enemy of good, so even putting a few of these tips in place across your site can help you get noticed in your market. SEO also creates a flywheel effect. When more people come to your site and spend time there, search engines and LLMs see you as more reliable, so you rank higher. Start small, find a few topics that are relevant to your market, and start creating clear, insightful content. For more, watch our full webinar, Maximize your SEO in 2026!

Calendar icon July 23, 2026

Read more

Why Knowing your Market is Every Property Manager’s Most Important Task

The biggest mistake that so many property managers make is trying to be everything to everyone. With their eyes set on growth, they take on every investor and every property that they can. But that can be a counterproductive approach if you’re not careful. There are two fundamentally different types of property owners: the deliberate multi-property investor, and the accidental landlord. One wants a hands-off experience, while the other needs more hospitality and handholding. Your whole business strategy should be based on the type of client you’ve decided to serve: how you communicate, what you charge, what you educate on, and how you staff. Two clients, two completely different businesses In a lot of areas, multi-property investors are common. These are deliberate investors who set out to acquire a portfolio of investment properties and use them to build longterm stability. These are people who probably already speak the language of ROI, tax strategies, and what it means to be an investor. More importantly, they also know that it takes investment to keep a property running well, and that it’s a long-term game. They tend to want performance data from a property manager who can run their portfolio on autopilot. They don’t want to hear from you unless their house has burned down. Accidental landlords are typically people who inherited a property, or moved and didn’t want to let go of their first property. I work in the San Antonio market where we have a large military population. Oftentimes they’ll find that they really love the city, purchase a home, and then have to move because of military orders. They’ll hang onto the home and plan to retire in it, but want to rent it out in the meantime. These are people who didn’t set out to be real estate investors, and they probably aren’t thinking like one yet. That means that they usually want someone who can help them navigate the process and educate them at each step. What serving the multi-property investor actually looks like With portfolio-based investors, they often come to you with properties ready to rent. They have a good understanding of what their rents might look like and what their ROI will be, and they’re concerned with finding a property management company whose approach matches their goals. Some property managers that I know fully cater to this type of investor. They have whole programs about goals, asset management, and revenue projections, and that’s what they lead with. These kinds of clients want to see financial results, operational sophistication, and scalability. That’s what will win the deal, and it’s what will keep them happy as your clients. What serving the accidental landlord actually looks like With smaller landlords, what we call the moms and pops, education is one of the core services. These are going to be people who don’t know what owning rental property really entails. Part of our job is to show them what to expect and help them think like an investor. We should be telling them how 1031 exchanges work or what a preventative maintenance cycle looks like. We should be showing them what it takes to get a vacancy filled so that their expectations are realistic. Smaller investors are also commonly emotionally attached to their property. Maybe it’s the house they grew up in that they’ve now inherited from their parents. Maybe it’s the first house they ever bought, but now they’re moving in with a partner. Having strangers living there can generate some anxiety for that owner, so it’s our job to talk them through it. These new investors need reassurance alongside information. It’s not all about dollars and cents; it’s about feeling supported. Above all, we also have to teach them how to weather the storm. There will be ups and downs in the market, and accidental landlords will be quick to want to sell when things get tough. We need to help them understand that real estate is a long game, and that if they stick to it, it will pay off in the end. Why misreading your market is so costly It’s important to know which type of investor is common in your market and which one you’re built to serve. If not, you’ll face challenges at every step: Operational mismatch: Portfolio investors expect different things from you than smaller investors. Automated dashboards and owner reports might be great for portfolio investors, but don’t give the personalization that mom-and-pops want. On the other hand, low approval budgets might work for small investors who want to be involved in each decision, but not for larger investors who want decisions taken off their plate. Communication mismatch: Reaching out quarterly when your client is looking for monthly hand-holding can damage trust. At the same time, calling monthly when a larger client just wants to be left alone creates friction. Outreach cadences will serve one group or the other, but not both. Marketing mismatch: The content, keywords, and messaging that attract portfolio investors are different from those that attract accidental landlords. Trying to speak to both means you’re not going to resonate with either. If you want to grow your business, you have to do it deliberately. The hard conversations: When you don't truly know your client's situation, you're not equipped to counsel them through the moments that matter most — like when they're cash flow negative and weighing their options. When you work with the same types of clients who are facing the same types of challenges, you get more comfortable having those conversations. Can you serve both? In theory, sure, you can serve both portfolio investors and smaller landlords. But in reality, you almost need to different staffs with two different sets of operations and tools. You would essentially need to different service models running in parallel. Trying to blend processes together means that you weaken the experience for everyone. The small investors will start to feel like they’re just a number, not getting the personal experience they want. Meanwhile, portfolio investors start to feel like you’re not meeting them at their level when it comes to reporting and strategy. Ultimately, my advice is to pick the type of client you’re already good at serving. Then, build your processes, tech stack, and staff training around serving that client. Over time, you’ll come to own that niche entirely. Your ICP is your strategy We tend to think of ideal customer profiles in terms of sales and marketing, but in reality, your ICP is the foundation your entire business is built on. It should be a part of every decision you make. Your staffing, your tools, your service model, your messaging, and your communications should all be shaped to meet the needs of your ICP. If you get it wrong, you’ll spend years trying to serve the wrong clients, giving them a below-average product, and struggling to grow. Get insights like this in your inbox!

Calendar icon June 9, 2026

Read more

Topics

Why Community is Key for Property Managers

With over a decade of experience in property management, I can confidently say that the community in this industry is one of our greatest assets. If you’re looking to learn from others to strengthen your business, advocate for change, or make meaningful impacts on people’s lives, there’s a community out there to help you do it. In this article, I’ll talk a little bit about my experience in property management communities, why it’s important for PMs at all experience levels to find their community, and how you can get involved today. Community was core to my experience from day one I was extremely lucky to be thrust into the property management community as soon as I started at Hendricks Property Management. I was sent to my first NARPM conference, the NARPM Annual Convention, just three weeks after I got licensed, so in a lot of ways I’ve never been a property manager without NARPM. My first conference was more than a little bit overwhelming, but it was also incredibly exciting. I met so many influential property managers there, like John Bradford, Tracey Norris, Mike Mumford, Bart Sturzl, Kevin Knight, and Stephen Foster. I walked out realizing that everyone there was probably a little bit odd, but so was I, and it was a place that I belonged. Finding my community locally Pretty much immediately after that conference, I signed up for my local San Antonio NARPM chapter. I’m fortunate to live in a city with one of the strongest chapters in the country, and we also have a Texas state chapter on top of that. My father in-law was involved in our chapter for decades, and he actively tried to foster the next phase of leadership in our chapter. My husband and I were both part of that, and we’ve since each chaired our chapter, served on national committees, and chaired the National Governmental Affairs Committee. Joining committees is the fastest way to get involved Being so involved in committee boards was one of the most important things I did to grow my skillset. I gained so much knowledge and built so many relationships. In particular, being part of strategic planning for NARPM National introduced me to great leaders. It was equally rewarding to get to know the staff and the inner workings of the association. These planning sessions aren’t just about logistics and business; you get to know people on a personal level, too. You just naturally have downtime and meal breaks together where you talk about business, family, and life in general. NARPM also organized some planned activities like escape rooms, which really builds camaraderie. Chairing a national committee is more of a time commitment, but as a committee member it’s often as little as an hour per month. It’s a pretty small investment with a huge return. There’s a community for every interest If you’re not interested in NARPM specifically, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of opportunities to find a community. PM Systems Conference is one great example. What started as a mastermind of about 10 people has grown into a fantastic annual conference. It’s probably the closest thing in the industry to a true proptech conference that isn’t focused on one specific product. It’s designed as an opportunity to have a fireside chat about technology and how to use it for your business, and a lot of those conversations continue long after the conference. There’s also Crane, which is focused on helping property managers work on their business rather than in their business. It’s all about making your business less dependent on you as an individual, and putting processes in place so that the business can run smoothly without you. Even within larger organizations like NARPM, NAR, and NAA, there are specific subcommittees that might fit your particular interests. I’ve been most involved with the governmental affairs committee through NARPM, Texas REALTORS, and the San Antonio Board of REALTORS, all focused on helping to shape policy by working with lawmakers, but each with a unique perspective and new group of people to learn from. Whatever your interest is, find your community and get involved. Communities make a real difference In 2020, I had just had a baby and decided to step back from the board of my local NARPM chapter, but continued serving on the governmental affairs committee. During COVD, the federal government started sending money to states and cities to disburse for rent payments. The city of San Antonio had an established process for disbursing payments to residents in need, but it had never handled the volume that we started to see in 2020. That’s when I started to have regular meetings with Lorena Jáuregui de Birdy (San Antonio NARPM Chapter President), Governmental Affairs Director for the San Antonio Board of REALTORS, the city manager, and CEO of the San Antonio Apartment Association, and others about how we could improve this program and make sure that our clients—mom and pop landlords—were actually receiving rent payments. The city had originally been sending money directly to residents, but when we looked at the first month of payouts, we realized it wasn’t actually being used to pay rent. Together, we rebuilt the disbursement program in about six weeks, directing that money straight to property managers and landlords on behalf of those tenants, making sure rent was paid and residents remained in place. To me, this was one of the clearest examples of community. A group of people who had met through various local and national associations and events making a real difference in people’s lives. Community is about finding solutions and supporting each other At this point, I’ve met so many people through property management that if I got a flat tire anywhere in the country, I could probably have someone to call who could be there in an hour. The people I’ve met through this industry are my colleagues—and in some cases my direct competition—but they’re truly my friends. The people that I’ve served on boards and committees with will be my friends forever. They’re more than just people that I can commiserate with when things are tough. They’re people who can provide solutions and actually help me through those tough times, whether it’s business or personal. The truth is, you don’t become a property manager without being a helper and a problem solver, so the people that you meet in this industry are all the ones who will be there to help you when you need it, too. My advice to all property managers, no matter how new or how experienced, is simple: get involved in any capacity. Whether it's NARPM, Crane, PM Systems, or something different entirely, find your community. You’re only going to make your business better when you have the resources to talk through your problems and help each other.

Calendar icon March 24, 2026

Read more

Bringing Key Conversations Back in Person

I’m often asked what I see as some of the biggest trends in the property management space, and this year I have one particularly clear answer: I see 2026 as a year where property managers are going to have to bring a lot of their toughest conversations back in person and over the phone. We’ve survived in this industry by automating everything that we can, including a lot of our communications. But now our owner clients are expecting more face time with us, and scheduled email blasts or auto-replies just aren’t going to cut it. So how did we get to this point, why are owners changing their expectations, and what kinds of conversations do we need to bring back in person? Let’s dig in. Why in-person connection has declined We’ve seen a huge shift from in-person connection to online, text-based, automated messaging in recent years, both in our professional and personal lives. For property managers, who are always seeking more efficient ways of working, this has been a huge blessing. But as automation has made things faster for us, and COVID made face-to-face interaction more difficult, the change hasn’t always been positive for our clients. Technological innovation allowed more automation Advances in technology have made it easier than ever to automatically schedule and send communications to our clients. Whether it’s delivering statements or providing updates on key maintenance tasks, task management systems and property management software can automate it. In a lot of ways, this has moved the needle on how often things are communicated. Owners have come to expect immediate updates on all different projects, but that doesn’t always translate to a better experience. A lot of property managers made the mistake of replacing meaningful conversations with templated messages because it was just so easy. And for those who hadn’t automated a lot, when 2020 hit, they had to get up to speed quickly. COVID changed the market COVID-19 completely shifted how we communicate. It made “Zoom” a household term. But it also hugely impacted the rental landscape. For one thing, the macroeconomic conditions that the pandemic created have led to an increase in “accidental landlords.” These are people who never intended to own rental properties, and don’t necessarily understand the requirements of owning a rental property in the same way as intentional investors. There’s a whole wave of people who bought their first home when interest rates were low, intending it to be a starter home. Here we are five or six years later and those people are having kids and outgrowing their homes, looking to move into better school districts, or moving into new jobs. But they’ll probably never buy another at an interest rate that low, so they don’t want to let go of their mortgage. A new generation of investors Other people have inherited homes as part of the great wealth transfer, some of which were already rental properties. It’s created a generation of people who never planned to own real estate investments, so they’re left figuring out how to manage. They need instructions, education, and expertise from property managers like you and me. This is all paired with a very specific shift in how real estate investments are seen. For many millennials (of which I am one), real estate investment has been seen as a far off dream. Something completely unattainable for so many. This is a generation who graduated college into the 2008 recession, who carried more student loan debt than anyone before them, and who didn’t see owning property as a realistic prospect. But then interest rates dropped, and they were able to buy into the market, finally. Now, with rent growth slowing and maintenance prices rising, their investments aren’t seeming like the magic solution they were pitched. It feels like Student Loans 2.0, if we’re being honest. However, this is another opportunity to educate, support, and reassure our clients. These investors are understandably a bit skittish, which will require additional hand-holding. Why are investor expectations changing? It’s no secret that markets are becoming tighter. There’s more competition, but our property owners are still expecting more. To me, that’s reasonable; with the amount of money that they have on the line with these assets, there’s a higher level of service expected. Changing markets As markets shift, we’re seeing a lot of newer investors—especially those that fall into the “accidental investor” category—experiencing some of their first real downturns, and they’re struggling to react. Most property owners are being tough on lowering prices. They’re keeping properties on market longer, at a higher rent price, rather than dropping rents. Even builders aren’t lowering prices, they’re just offering incentives. In my conversations with investor clients, it’s clear that even those who have been with us for a long time are feeling the pains of increased maintenance costs, higher property taxes, and slimmer margins. All of this is creating an increased sense of anxiety. Newer investors who have never ridden out a market slowdown are getting anxious that they’re not seeing the returns they expected, and long-term investors are getting frustrated with an increase in expenses.People are stressed out. And when they think they’re at risk of losing the thing that was supposed to fund they’re future, they don’t want to just receive an automated email about it. It’s a delicate situation. In a lot of ways, our clients’ expectations don’t seem unreasonable; they just expect someone to answer the phone when they call. That was true a dozen years ago when I started in property management, and it was a consistent conversation before that. But that doesn’t make it easy to have the conversations when you do pick up the phone. What conversations do we need to be having? A lot of the talks I’ve been having with our investor clients recently have been around markets, especially about the realities of holding through a slowdown. One of the biggest lessons for investors is simply, “Expect to have some down years and prepare for it in advance.” The truth is that in almost all cases, holding is better than selling, but that doesn’t mean that owners want to hear it. Focus on educating Investor education is one of the biggest opportunities that we have available to us as property managers right now. As investors get nervous, we have the opportunity to lead with our expertise and help guide them through it. We want our owners to start thinking about their properties as investments, and themselves as investors—not just property owners. Help them understand what it takes to be forward-thinking about big-ticket maintenance items, renovations, and more. Maybe that means making short-term concessions to secure a long-term lease. Maybe it means investing a little bit more in property updates to keep rents competitive. It will depend on your exact market and your exact audience, but these are the kinds of conversations you should be having with your clients. Here at Hendricks Property Management, we have a lot of small investors with only a couple of properties. A lot of them are folks who moved to San Antonio because they were in the military, fell in love with the city, and bought a home that they plan to move into to retire. In the meantime, they’re renting it out while they’re stationed elsewhere. These are the exact kinds of investors that need consistent education and reassurance, so I’ve had a lot of practice at it. Be proactive, not reactive The key to this is not waiting around for your investors to call you. Instead, you should be picking up the phone and reaching out to them. Proactive outreach helps your investors know what to expect and to develop the right mindset to navigate the current market. Not only does it help to reduce churn by showing investors the benefits of holding, but it also creates more value and trust. By delivering valuable insights and information, you position yourself as invaluable to your investors and develop deeper relationships with them. Obviously it isn’t realistic to call up every one of your owners every week to have a conversation and calm their anxieties. But you can try to connect with your highest-risk investors once a quarter. Give them a call and leave a voicemail if they don’t answer. Even if they never call back, you’re making it clear that you’re there for them if they need it. Work in tandem with automation As important as real conversations are, I’m not saying you should turn off all your automations. I think automation is great! Task management tools are incredibly useful, and I couldn’t do property management without them. I’m just saying that there are situations where they aren’t the right solution. It’s not about removing automation, but about interjecting when necessary to put more of a human touch on things. Personal connections build trust The reason that personal conversations (whether they’re over the phone, on Zoom, or in person) have such an impact is that they’re like giving your investors a big hug. Your goal isn’t to solve all their problems in a single conversation. Instead, you’re just trying to let them know that you’re there to help when they need it. They’re not floundering alone out there. They have your skills, your experience, and your expertise on their side. Interested in hearing directly from other property managers on how they're navigating tough conversations? Join the Triple Win Property Management Group!

Calendar icon March 3, 2026

Read more