Should you be automating more tasks as a business?
Using tech to automate processes in your PMC is not just a question of how, but also how much. Wolfgang Croskey is an expert on the topics of tech, AI, and automation, and he joins host Andrew Smallwood to break down the how, the why, and the when of tech automation in property management.
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Season 4 Episode 9 features Wolfgang Croskey
The Triple Win Property Management podcast is produced and distributed by Second Nature
Wolfgang Croskey
The reality is it just takes work to build out a process. But when you start building it, you're actually now you're actually building your business. You may have been operating, but you haven't built your business, and now people can feel a sense of accomplishment because they built processes. They're seeing them, launched, they're tweaking them, and they're starting to realize like, yes, this is me now working on my business, not in my business.
Andrew Smallwood
Hello, professional property managers Andrew Smallwood here with the Triple-Win Podcast. I'm joined by my friend, an industry luminary Wolfgang. Great to have you here. thanks for joining us live.
Wolfgang Croskey
Absolutely. I thank you for the opportunity. It's always good to chat with you and see what's new and exciting.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah, well, Wolfgang, I'd love to start this way because I know a number of people know you. As you know, you've been a PM operator, family business, taking over running. A number of people have seen you on some of our Triple-Win lives or travel leadership conferences that we do where you're focused on educating and giving back, but I don't think everybody knows yet about this. Like an on your shirt. Yeah. And that is what you and Peter have been up to. So, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to a little bit of your story. For those who are newer, maybe me for the first time, what they should know about you. And if you can share also what you guys have been up to recently, that'd be great.
Wolfgang Croskey
Absolutely. So, born and raised in real estate, third generation. But I decided I was going to do education and try that. I want to, you know, teach. That's exciting. I did that for eight years. Probably close to ten. Classroom teacher, school administrator. Really enjoyed it. But the political side, the busywork, the nonsense. I was like, not for me. I had already gotten my license in real estate because when school's out of session, real estate is booming, and it works out well and supplements teacher salaries. But then I was like, I'm done telling my dad, hey, I want to come to the family business full time, so let's do it. So that's where we are, the San Francisco Bay area. We mostly do single families and a little bit of commercials. We do master leasing, and we are probably going to be doing more master leasing inside of what's going on. So that's that in a nutshell. The pin is actually a crane. It's a professional pave community for property managers who are looking to go above just best practice. And we're really focusing on how we help people connect and get their business to the place where they can have freedom of time and help people, not just how to make more money. Because, well, why do you want to make more money? Well, it's because I want to do X. We'll just help you do x o and use your property management company as a vehicle for that. So we've been really focused on that. We have monthly calls. We bring in guest speakers. We connect our members with other people. For example, this morning, we had several members who wanted to get in touch with App Folio. So we organized a breakfast and got them connected. And it's just been a real pleasure doing that. I also work with Paul, and we attend the p m systems conference. So, for me, it's how we can help people accomplish what they truly want because I've yet to meet somebody whose life's work was tenants and toilets.
Andrew Smallwood
So, you know, it's something I like, Wolfgang. And I feel like we share a point of view on what I love about the systems conference that's so unique about it is it's not just lecture content for eight hours in a row. There's really like actively applying. You get a lot of times. You will come to a conference, get a lot of great information, and make a lot of great connections with people. But then there's a long list of things to do and not a lot of momentum to actually put that in place. And it seems like the systems conference is organized in a way where you're actually starting to do the work and put things in motion. So when they go back, they got a couple of things. They're feeling the energy and confidence actually make some change happen. Is that a fair characterization?
Wolfgang Croskey
It is. Paul is a classroom teacher administrator as well, and I was a speaker there. That's how I got started with it. And he was already in this format. But the format is not just going to a conference and leaving with a bag full of great ideas. You show up on Monday, told him, look, we're going to roll out X, Y, and Z. And they're all kind of like, yeah, I don't think so. And that friction caused you to say, well, maybe we'll implement later. So we have people who are in the trenches, professional program managers who teach, and then they, in the same session, transition into, okay, let's roll up our sleeves. I just showed you my ten-year university education. I showed you my KPIs and my scorecard. Here's a template. Let's start building it so that when you leave the conference, you actually have left with something that is ready to implement. And we keep it a very small group. We're in a kind of family room environment where, in groups of 2025, you work, you implement, you learn best practices, but you're actually doing something, not just sitting and listening because the attention span of adults is about 30 minutes at best. These multi-hour sessions just, yeah.
Andrew Smallwood
It seems like attention consideration spans are...
Wolfgang Croskey
I mean, TikTok's not helping with that.
Andrew Smallwood
Exactly. So and then on Crane for a second like what strikes me as unique and different about this is it's not kind of like a wide, broad based offering. No, it's focused on like a specific group of property managers who are looking for a specific outcome and a different way of, again, connecting, kind of like going on that journey. together with, you know, experience guides and people kind of facilitating that. How many people are like involved in that.
Wolfgang Croskey
Right. So we have 64 members, and we're looking for members that have at least 100 doors. They're doing third-party. They have at least one employee. That's pretty much our main criteria, obviously a good reputation and all that. But it's not for beginners. There are other groups and opportunities for people if you just want to start or you're I've already started, and you're trying to learn the basics; NARPM is a great place for that, but we're not looking for people that okay, I implemented good practices, but I want to do better. I want to do more. And I'm actually building something so that I can have freedom. That's who we want to connect with and help them connect with other people.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. So I'd love to kind of transition to that in our conversation here. Yeah. A word that I hear you saying a lot that I hear other industry leaders say a lot is definitely like in the conversation, which has been for many months. Is the word process right? This is something that more and more people are talking about. Yeah. I'm just curious, like, what's your perspective on why a couple of years ago, like process, maybe it sounded like a word to people or something that a lot of you like, I, I don't know if I really want to dig into that or I'm focused on other things. Why do you think that's building up right now? It's a conversation people are having right now.
Wolfgang Croskey
Well, I think if you go back to the book, the S right classics, everybody's read it, and you start a business for a reason. And whether that's so you can not have a boss, you can have more time. Whatever that reason is, you go into it, and you quickly learn that I'm not achieving that reason. And so the talk was around profitability. Oh, that must be. If I had more money, the business was making more money. I could then really get to X. Then, the accounting standards came out, and everybody needed all that great work; we needed standardization. But people say, well, I'm still working too many hours. I haven't been able to reach X, so now we're seeing people who have implemented great processes that are achieving X. Oh well, maybe that's it. Maybe that's what I need to do. They seem more relaxed, they don't have the stress, they seem to be working better, and basic accounting is not as sexy as nobody. You know, I do lunch and learns with my chamber hat on. And insurance and accounting are the hardest ones to sell. But I can see that processes are tangible like I can be part of them, and don't require math. It's whatever it is. So I think the barrier to entry is lower, but it is work that that's the thing you could technically buy somebody to process well, but that's not their company. The reality is that it just takes work to build out a process. But when you start building it, you're actually now you're actually building your business. You may have been operating, but you haven't built your business. Now, people can feel a sense of accomplishment because they still see them launched. They're tweaking them, and they're starting to realize, like, yes, this is me now working on my business, not in my business.
Andrew Smallwood
So, wait, is it fair to say a lot of property managers want to have a certain income? They want to have a documented process that reliably gets there, and they know there's work to do in designing that process and executing to the c or finding a what do you find gets in the way of property managers getting into that. You're getting getting through that. And have you helped people make progress in doing that work?
Wolfgang Croskey
So I think that does require a certain mindset, you know, whether you're an engineer or whatever. I don't think you have to have that professional designation. But some people's minds just think in a very process-oriented way. Unfortunately, that same mindset you don't tend to see in the visionary role, and that's perfectly fine. So you have a visionary that knows where they want to get to, but they're here. How do they do that? And they know they need processes, but they're, you know, having lots of entrepreneurial brains. So let's try this. Let's do this. We're going to do this. We're going to get more business. So, some get an integrator. Let's see if you're doing EOS, if you get a number two if you get a consultant, or if you get whatever it may be to fill that. But, the companies that aren't getting traction are because they have not found somebody who can just focus solely on let's let's build these out, doesn't mean that the the owner of the company can't be part of that. But usually, they're not the best person for that. We need a combination of your different stakeholders. A person who's actually going to be doing that work, the person who's going to be managing the people doing that work, and the owner all need to be part of that process and get input from clients. And, you know, it's not a weekend project. This takes time. But when you do it, and you see it, it's just extremely rewarding now.
Andrew Smallwood
And so I think you were actually invited to speak here about the topic of process automation. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But what are a couple of like taxable practical things that you are seeing that are exciting you and exciting other people? I'm like, wow, this could be an exciting impact on my business.
Wolfgang Croskey
Well, when it comes to AI when people finally understand the key is the prompt learning how to write a prompt, there's an endless number of tools that are AI embedded, whatever. Those tools are just a user interface to write a prompt because writing the prompt isn't a normal way of writing; you know, you don't think that way, and the amount of detail is needed. So we create these tools that you feel in the wizard and whatever, and it writes a prompt. Helping people be able to write a prompt, I think, is a 22nd-century skill. Teaching people is really exciting. The second piece is using AI. So you got your process. It's being built out. You're now collecting data and using AI to help you analyze that data. Because unless you're a really large company that can afford either, you know, some number crunchers or some really advanced BI tools, business intelligence tools, you're stuck with Google Sheets, Excel, and whatever you can get them out for. YouTube AI can now fill that gap and help you. So now, the little guy can still compete at the same level. Someone is really large, a rolled-up property management company.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. Can you share 1 or 2 examples or specific use cases that you're seeing that are exciting for you and that other people are in?
Wolfgang Croskey
So the one that was exciting for me is actually, I remember flying to a systems conference, and that's when a ChatGPT you can now upload files. I was like, all right. So, I was literally mid-flight. I went to App Folio. I was like, okay, what should I download? Let's take a year's worth of maintenance data from all our work orders over the last year. Let's throw it in there and see what happens. Threw it in there. The first question I asked was, what am I looking at? And it was able to interpret that it was some type of maintenance data. I said, okay, what questions should I be asking? Because a lot of times, okay, I have data, but I don't know what to ask, so I ask AI what I should ask about this data. And it gave some, you know, some questions. And one of them, I was like, okay, let's identify some trends. So, by the end of these different prompts, it was able to tell me which months I probably need to have more staff covering maintenance and what specific traits I already had kind of a gut feeling about. But for it to take a year's worth of Excel, analyze that, interpret that, and give me the answer is huge. Not because it's like earth-rattling data. I mean, any person probably knows that, during the summer, I probably need more HVAC techs, but that it got that because then you could take the prompt of what was created in the job description, or let's advertise. Or, you know, you just keep going and going, and it's helping you find answers to your questions. But just the fact that I'm going to fly on Southwest with a laptop nothing special. Here I am, using AI to help me. So, anybody has access to that.
Andrew Smallwood
Do you see, or do you anticipate there's a lot of applications with AI as it relates to communications and what do you what's your kind of vision, what you see ahead.
Wolfgang Croskey
There? I think what we're going to see a lot in software is getting away from menus, and you just say, hey, I'm going to use the word Siri because that's just coming to mind. But hey, Siri, can you help me identify which tenants are late rather than going to this report or this file to this file menu to then get to actually the report or whatever? Or, hey, Siri, can you tell me what my churn rate is or what your occupancy rate is? Or hey, can you, you know, make a move-in for one, two, three Main Street? Rather than going through wizards and menu structure, you're just going to give natural language. Tell it what you want, and it's going to do it. I think we're going to see a lot of that because a lot of the AI we're seeing right now is fun. It's hype, but it's not really moving the needle for your company. So this type of stuff is going to make it easier to interact with your software. And then on external communications, especially when you have remote team members, and you know, making recommendations on how to respond to, you know, communications that came in, you know, attendant's upset and you're like, oh, yeah, well, let me give it right back to you. It can make a recommendation of here's a good response and not just a ChatGPT response, but based on all the users of this software that have received similar types of communication, we have found that this one got the best response rate. And that's what the AI is doing.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah, I've seen where people will put something in, and then they'll say okay like that, but a little more like this. Yes. Yep, that communication. But you make it a little more empathetic.
Wolfgang Croskey
Shorten it.
Andrew Smallwood
Make it formal or a little shorter. Yeah. Right. And in some of this natural writing tone, it's like, hey, I'm trying to work on this; AI can kind of be a coach or a partner working through that. Yeah.
Wolfgang Croskey
So for example, we use Grammarly and we have the business account whatever. And so you can set your tone as a company. And so now as the whole company, you know, how how do we communicate? What's her tone? How do we do abbreviations all that. It can often be consistent. So when you're doing like a shared inbox it's it's just a much better experience.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. Well, AI is certainly a hot topic. So I'm glad when your hands touch on it. You know, I guess it's a little different than automation. Correct. And you know, automation is definitely been a topic for a long period of time. But what are you kind of seeing again? You and the group seem like you're in here kind of thinking of, hey, that's just what's common practice or like a good practice, but what some of the leading and kind of innovative practice on the automation side is.
Wolfgang Croskey
Automating the mundane. So, not just automating, okay, at this specific time, we should send this communication. But let's in this communication insert like an actionable link will schedule a meeting. Or do you want to renew yes or no? You know your owner clicks. Yes. That then moves a process to the yes track. And now we're doing this, taking information that comes in from a form and using that to drive the rest of your process where we go. So, you know, for example, let's just hypothetically say, you know, somebody is making a move in, and they give a form to the ten to fill out based on those answers, will determine, oh, we need to turn on pool service. We need to do this. We need to do that. That's going to be, I think, the latest and greatest thing that is out there. But I think it's just actionable communications, not just me telling you something, but giving you the option to respond. And I don't just get the email, say, oh, you know, the owner responded, let me go. Update. However, their response automatically drives the automation further down the line.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah, I think a follow-up on this, like I hear sometimes, Wolfgang, people say, okay, like I get this conceptually, I'm getting more specific use cases, things like that. What's some of the toolings I'm in, the Facebook groups I see there's people who have built things out in Monday and sure, horizontal tools like that and really invest into that, there are zaps, and you're, you know. Obviously, there are vertical solutions like lead simple in the space. Do you ever get an opinion on, you know, how to think about different options? So what happens there if they're getting into this or looking at really the best answer?
Wolfgang Croskey
I would say for the average person that's just getting started, look for a vertical solution, meaning a solution that is specific to the industry because they're already going to do, you know, some of the fields that are universal, like bedroom count, square footage, owner tenant that are universal, that are already in there, you don't have to spend time creating that in addition to your process. Then also the integration with your property management software. You know, your process is powered by data. Well, if the data is over here. And so we use that for what's in that folio; I then have to take it and type it over here. That's a huge time suck. So, if there's an integration that syncs my data now, I can take that data. It enters my process, and it goes, for example, the delinquent rent process. We don't have to do anything human-wise until we actually have to tape a notice on the door. Everything else is 100% automated, so on a certain day of the month, it automatically starts because of the integration between that full and lead simple. And it starts sitting out communications. It's doing whatever; it's updating the owner. As soon as a tenant makes a payment, the system knows, and it stops. I don't have to go and turn it off. So it's it's going all the way to the point where we've done everything. We're now at the point where we need to start eviction. And that in California requires somebody to physically go to the door. And so that's when we step in. So now I'm consistent. I don't, oh, shoot. You know, the fifth was a Saturday. We forgot the star or Monday was a holiday. It starts every single time. Units. Everybody in the office. If we all got COVID-19 and we're sick, lay rent will still be started. Lease renewal still started. So that really comes because of vertical integration. The downside of the horizontal is it's so generic. You have to do a lot of building just to get it to be PM. Then, you can add your process. So I think if somebody is just starting to find a vertical solution, I prefer really simple. I think it was the best one out there, but there are some other ones that people can try to start there because they're you're just gonna be able to launch a lot quicker. If you feel that you need more, I wouldn't go horizontal. I would start going into Zapier. Okay, how can I get my leads? Simple to talk to Calendly. So when it sends an email, it's a pre-filled calendar invite. And when they complete that invite, how do I bring it back to lead? Simple. Those are the next-level conversations to have. If you've already got the basics, that's where you can go next.
Andrew Smallwood
What I'm hearing you say is that the key difference in the value prop is if you're going horizontal, it's kind of like carte blanche, like there can be power. Yeah, it's software workflow automation there. But you've got to build all of the contacts on your own. A vertical solution knows that context understands your business. And so the time to value, to get it set up and start getting a benefit from it's going to be faster with a vertical solution is at least from.
Wolfgang Croskey
And I can speak to that because before lead simple, we used Podio, which is horizontal. Literally, it could do anything. The problem is, well, who's going to build anything? And that was me. Well, how do I get it to sync with that photo? I'm taking my scheduled reports. I told it how to parse it. Oh well, then I will change the format of the report. Oh, now I have to retrain it. It's like I'm trying to be a property manager, not it. So yeah, I had some pretty amazing stuff that isn't doable and lead simple, yet I did not slam on lead simple just because I could really customize it, but I know exactly how many hours and days it took to build that well. And if I didn't build it, I would have to pay somebody to do that. There is no template to download.
Andrew Smallwood
All right. Yeah, well, let's do this. Wolfgang, I'd love to ask you 1 or 2 more questions before we wrap wrapping. One is we didn't have a chance to cover everything as it relates to process automation. Right. What's something we didn't cover that you wish we did? Or that if you're sitting in the audience, oh, man, this would be something really valuable on this topic. They didn't have a chance to touch on that.
Wolfgang Croskey
I think with AI, you really need to be careful who the creator of this tool is. AI has the ability to really screw you over big time because of what it can do. And if you're not aware of, well, who created this tool, where's the data going? And you just upload an Excel file to be analyzed? I mean, it could get bad real quick. So it is the wild, wild West. I don't say that to scare people. Well, I'm just going to wait and don't do that. Go and explore. But just be very mindful of who created this tool. So now it ChatGPT they have an app store that's totally unvetted, you know, you you don't see the steps that are involved where, where things are. So just be really careful because, you know, I talked about the upload of an Excel file, and it's going to analyze it. And people like, all right, let's do it. You need to put in some safeguards not just for you but as a company. So, if you're going to allow your company to use ChatGPT, I highly recommend that you determine your policy. What are the procedures, and what are the safeguards you put in place as a company to protect your data and yourself you're going to allow? Because if you don't create a policy for your employees, you're still going to use the tools. They're just not going to tell you about it. So have the conversations, establish the policies and safeguards, and life will be much easier for you.
Andrew Smallwood
I'll always share that we've actually been doing this a Second Nature. Like we we want to encourage people to.
Wolfgang Croskey
Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew Smallwood
Across all different departments, do so thoughtfully and responsibly. It's easy to see someone getting excited about a tool, using a free version, uploading proprietary data into, you know, an open version versus, hey, there's a paid version of this, we can do this. Yeah, thoughtfully and safely. The other thing I wanted to ask about this is what you're thinking about, like, hey, here's some things that think about, not just run full speed blinders on is what's your thought or like opinion out of this philosophical question or not, but just about these language labs are really kind of like next word predictor that like the way it's built is probabilistic, not deterministic. Right. Not if this then that. You know, it's kind of like here's the highest probability, highest confidence thing. What should be next? And so they talk about hallucinations and bias. How do you think as a business owner thinking about communications with clients and other decisions being made where it's a probabilistic thing and not a deterministic, okay? What do you think about that?
Wolfgang Croskey
So it is a problem we've had, I told my team jokingly, but somewhat seriously, if you ever send an email, it starts with I hope this email finds you. Well, you're fired, right? Like a dead giveaway. You didn't write it. So we are struggling with that because a lot of these tools, I don't have the ability to control the data set that it's pulling from. And it is a problem, you know. So now our training is more, you know, as a team. Let's have some training on how to decipher if that really is the best answer to give. And are we confident in that answer? Not only will ChatGPT spit out, but it must be right because I would say 80% of the time it is right, but in those times, it's not. And if you're a team member, that is, let's say, a resident success coordinator, and you don't really know PM well, and the tool that your boss gave you said, this is the answer. Okay, then I'm sending it in. So we're having to change, you know, almost kind of like when I was a middle school teacher, I taught a business on the internet. Computer stuff. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true. Right. And so we went to these exercises. We're kind of having to do that again. The other one is finding tools that allow you to control the data set. So, for example, we're using notion. We're building out both internal and external faxes. Because there is a component that allows an employee to say hey, what is our policy on pets. It's only going to look at what we've put in that notion so I can control that. And that's been really helpful. So, I would say if you're trying to build a knowledge base for your company, find a tool that allows you to control what data it's using. The notion one is, I think, phenomenal. I mean, like it's we're now we're putting in a different vendor so that a team member can say, who do we use for painting? We need not just paint, but we only need partial paint. Here's the vintage for partial paint. Here are the ones for full paint. It's able to tell them now so they don't have to ask me or a PM or whatever, or, you know, policies that don't really get talked about that frequently. When an owner asks, they can now just type it in, oh, there it is. And not just here's the answer, but then here are the points in our documents that it used so you can go right to it further.
Andrew Smallwood
I added two things I like and love that I'm taking away from what you said. Is one teaching the team that this isn't a 100% rule, that if the stakes are high enough right away, we should be scrutinizing, using our human discernment, right, to look at this and say, is this right sentencer does it need some adjustment if the stakes are high and there's some error rate with me anyway, hey, maybe that's us, you know, more leaning, you know, leaning into it. Other things, there may need to be some checks and balances there, and then to know what you were just describing, like hey, here's the training set and the data set, right, that we want to train this on. It reminds me. So, the tool I've been using the most recently that I really like is called perplexity. And it's a chat UX. But the way it works is as opposed to ChatGPT, where I'm getting my answer, and I'll get an answer. But then there are links and references. Yes, there. And I've found that that just be me as a user and consumer, reliable. Hey, is this right? Or is this quite right? Actually, let me click on it. Right-click here.
Wolfgang Croskey
That's a six. That's huge. Then I'll share openly that sale that we had. Our maintenance coordinator is a remote team member, and the owner asked for more details on the scope of work and involved systems in a property that he just doesn't have in his area. And rather than asking me or whatever because he's like, I hate interrupting you because I know you're busy, he threw it in and got some answers. And so he sent it off, and I was like, what is this? Like, you know, we don't have this, and this is crazy. You need a different plumber. And it just blew up into a big problem. So not now because I was too busy. Now I'm really too busy. But it's on fire, right? So, that was an example where we. How do we teach you not to over-rely on AI, and how do you check your sources? Does this make sense? Does this picture look like that? I mean, this all those questions because it's not. I wouldn't say that it's not accurate because what it gave is accurate. It just doesn't fit. The context is off. Misalignment.
Andrew Smallwood
This is a problem I feel like property managers have faced for too long. And this is something we're trying to work on as Second Nature. But I think a lot of other vendors, there's an opportunity to do better here, and service in the industry, recognize that the reality property managers encounter all day, every day, is that fewer and fewer people read everything. Like, what percentage read a lease? What percentage? Read a play in detail? What percentage? Read up? I mean, I've seen these like elaborate handbooks. People write like a 30-page kind of handbook or the owner hit. And I'm like, they're incredible, thoughtful informational resources. The idea that, you know, people are going to take that and digest and internalize it, and it's probably better. But a lot of problems also seem to be caused by this kind of act. Yeah, yeah. Point to if and when something goes wrong. And we tried to communicate this and work with you on it. That seems like a good use case for like, if you have this owner handbook or tenant handbook, you know, you've got like your notion and.
Wolfgang Croskey
That's actually what we're building.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah.
Wolfgang Croskey
We're, we're getting away from a handbook. But now it's just a single-page disclosure that says, here's a URL. Here's how you get to it. Here are some examples of questions you can ask and sign here. And because you're absolutely right, nobody reads it. And PMs, in my opinion, if you have to defend, you lose. So if you have to, if you're already at the point of, well, we sent you this, why didn't you write? You already lost; you're gonna have to write a shut up, go away check, or end up in core or whatever it may be. You're already lost if you're in that position. So how can we prevent that? You know, for a while, we've been doing lots of videos because nobody's reading. Maybe we'll watch videos, but now we're finding all the videos. They're not 32nd videos, and now they're not watching the videos. So I think we're always gonna have this problem of people, especially in the States, people not willing to be accountable for the actions and passing the buck. PMs are great people to be a fall guy for when the owner makes a bad decision. And so CYA is always gonna be part of it. So I think the beauty with AI or using a tool like notion, or even maybe perplexity, is if I update just one place, I don't have to update all these other different documents. I don't have to update the team version of it; it's the public version. I don't have to update the website. I have one spot. I made the change, and now it's accessible to all these different stakeholders. AI is going to help craft the message. That's the best response to that type of stakeholder.
Andrew Smallwood
Interesting. Okay, final question. I guess as you look to the future of what's happening in this industry, where do you see things going? What excites you most? What gives you the most optimism? What do you see for professional property?
Wolfgang Croskey
Next to the optimism I see is because of all the legal mandates, it's almost going to create a whole new profession. And so for me, that's really exciting because we're now at a point where a lot of the old ways are becoming illegal, not really favored upon anti-landlord whatever. So now we have to create what Property Management 2.0 is in this new landscape. And yeah, it's a lot of work, but I like building things. And so, for me, it's really exciting that we are at the forefront of creating what Property Management 2.0 is and building that path.
Andrew Smallwood
Just as a follow up on that, can you say more about like if you were to describe kind of like the big difference of shifting the 2.0? I mean, you talked about, you know, it sounds like more renter friendly, you know, how would you kind of characterize the transition in kind of like what's being built there a little more specific.
Wolfgang Croskey
So, personally, Wolfgang speaking here for Maxine is not going to cut it; there has to be genuine value and not me as a property manager. Seeing it as value, the tenant has a genuine feeling of wanting it. That's valuable to me. And if you can't create and deliver that life, it's going to be a little bit challenging for you. Owners and tenants are going to want it. I think vendors are going to want it. So, really, I don't think we're in property management anymore. We're in value management, and our job is going to be creating value and communicating it. And people accept it. And we're we're going to be managing that relationship. So, I think we're VMs now.
Andrew Smallwood
And I also love the spirit that speaks a lot about Second Nature. Right. Or, you know, I think it's, it's interesting the conversations we've been having with people recently, if you just think about, hey, what's leased at risk are the things that everybody's getting value from, right? If somebody is getting value from it, they're not going to want it to be taken away. Right? Exactly. They're not going to be complaining to the company or to regulators who it might be. And so that becomes a lower risk. The things that are most impactful in a negative way, or could have the most harmful effect or seem, you know, less valuable, right, that that's going to be the stuff that's more at risk.
Wolfgang Croskey
You don't see regulators knocking on Disney stores about all their fees. Nonsense. Yeah. Like I took my data. I had to schedule an appointment to get a Dole Whip. I couldn't just walk up and buy it. I went, and I said I didn't need to go to the Dole website. Well, did you schedule an appointment? It's freaking ice cream. This here's my money. Give me my ice cream. Like we got to schedule an appointment. Where's the hidden camera? But, like, no, that's. You gotta get on the app and schedule Dole Whip. All right, so we did it. There's no regulation. There's no Senate Bill 22 coming down saying you can't schedule Dole Whip because people want it, and they're willing to go to that. We're gonna have to do the same thing. What would a tenant genuinely value and be willing to pay? You know what? I'd rather pay for that than pay for movie tickets. And I don't think that that value has been identified yet. There's a lot I think we're getting close to that true value has not been identified. Once it has, the regulators are going to chase somebody else, and we'll be property manager 2.0.
Andrew Smallwood
Yeah. It's still feels like early innings. And there's more more work to do there. And share your excitement and your passion for just making something that works for everybody.
Wolfgang Croskey
Yeah. Appreciate you sharing this.
Andrew Smallwood
Absolutely. Thank you, Wolfgang.
Laura Mac & Carol Housel
And that wraps up another episode of the Triple-Win Property Management podcast. Thank you for pressing play. We hope you've gained valuable insights and inspiration.
The Triple-Win Property Management Podcast is proudly produced and distributed by Second Nature, where we believe in a Triple-Win, building winning experiences for your residents, investors and your teams with the only fully managed resident benefits package. Visit SecondNature.com to learn more and talk to an RBP expert in your area. If you have any questions or comments or want to weigh in on the conversation, we'd love to hear from you. Email TripleWin@SecondNature.com. That's TripleWin@SecondNature.com. Stay connected with us beyond the podcast. Visit our website at SecondNature.com to stay updated with upcoming property management events and articles. And don't forget, you can keep the conversation going in the Triple-Win Property Management Facebook group. It's exclusively for property managers. To receive even more valuable insights and updates, subscribe to our newsletter. You can find the link to that and much more in the show notes. On behalf of the Triple-Win community, this is Laura Mac, thanking you for tuning in. And on behalf of Second Nature, this is Carol Housel. Check back soon for another exciting episode. Until then, keep striving for that Triple-Win.