Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Stacey Salyer Show, the podcast for property management leaders ready to think bigger about growth. I'm Stacey Salyer and the only acquisition strategist in this industry who sat on all sides of the m and a table. I've been the buyer acquiring a 370 door competitor during COVID using seller financing.
I've been the seller building and exiting a seven figure business. And I've been the corporate evaluator as director of acquisitions, assessing over hundreds of companies nationally. That means I know exactly what you're thinking, what you're missing, and what actually works when it comes to buying and integrating in this space.
On this show, we dig into acquisitions as a real business tool. Not luck, not someday. You'll learn positioning, strategy, numbers, and integration from someone who's actually done it all. Let's go.
Stacey Salyer: welcome back my friends [00:01:00] to the Stacey Salyer show where I talk about while Boomers Retire, you Acquire. And today I have on my show a really good friend of mine. We've been friends for several years. A guy with two first names Ian Joseph out of Washington State. Oh, you have three first names?
Ian Joseph: Ian, Philip Joseph. Yes. Ian, I heard that as Philip Joseph.
Stacey Salyer: Ian, Philip Joseph. are you also a, a second, a third, or is it just
Ian Joseph: I was almost Jimmy the fourth. Okay.
Stacey Salyer: Okay, awesome. So you're a first, you're the og, you're the original in Philip Joseph from Washington State. And I wanted to bring you on the show because you started a property management company and you have built it through acquiring.
And that is what I talk about on my show is how to give up the growth door by door and instead go out in your market and acquire. So, welcome. Why don't you give us a little bit of a introduction. [00:02:00] Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Ian Joseph: Yeah, thanks Stacey. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Gosh, what do people want to know?
I started in 2008, got my license. My then ex-mother-in-law was like, Hey, if you're gonna marry my daughter, what are you gonna do with your life? Okay. And I was like, no idea. And she was like, all right, we'll get your real estate license. I've been in property management for 20 years, I'll train you.
So I did that a little bit as portfolio manager and then. You know, from there kinda moved on and then, yeah, in 2017 started a company. So yeah, we can kind of dig into that. How I started it was through it actually in acquisition, so.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Yeah.
Ian Joseph: Touch more there, but,
Stacey Salyer: okay. So you started
Ian Joseph: I love it. I love real estate.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Oh, it's fun. I love it too, obviously. So you started in oh eight during the crash, so that
Ian Joseph: Yes. September oh eight. So I think it was the day, probably the day the market crashed I got licensed.
Stacey Salyer: Sweet. Yeah. And you're like, yay. So now did you go in with the intention of real estate sales or did you go in with the intention of property management?
Ian Joseph: Property management. She had been with a wind mirror up, you know, wind mirror, John Scott, the two of our kind of bigger state brokerages. And she had done [00:03:00] relocation and sales for 20 years, and then she had been in property management the last 10. And so she was like, come do property management with me.
And they were kinda a portfolio style, you know, commission base. Yeah. And so it was a small John Scott office in downtown Seattle. Michelle Rasnick, I, I think, you know, knows her office.
Stacey Salyer: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Ian Joseph: So her and Yvonne Bruder and a couple of people kinda mentored me and, and, and kinda got me started.
So, yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Very cool. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay. Well, and then so you fast forward to 2017 now, were you still in that family or had that since commenced
Ian Joseph: 2012? I was thinking I was ready to maybe do more, and so I had approached the broker Michelle at that point you know, just to kinda see, hey, hey, what's the future look like, you know?
Mm-hmm. She was a little older back then. When I got started, I was, I was 25 and it seemed like everybody was. 50 plus. And so it had, it had skipped a generation much like a lot of the, the trades. And so that was kinda the first thing I noticed is I had skipped a generation, nobody was really using [00:04:00] technology this two, 2008, this was before any, you know, prop tech was any a thing.
You know, like VAs were in real estate, you know, not even in, in, in property my way back then. And, and carbon paper. And so, because I was younger and I was a little tech savvy, I was able to get online and generate some leads and, and have some really success. And so in 2012 I approached her and, and she's Hey, this is kind of the gig.
You're portfolio manager. It is what it is. And I was like, eh, that's probably not the end of my journey. And so I had, you know, thought, Hey, I gotta figure out what's next. I had been talking to a company in Bellevue and they were the number one REO brokerage in the state. And so they had gone on a huge run and landed a lot of accounts in REO.
And so they had a lot of investor buyers and they wanted to spin up the investment division and property management. So we talked, they recruited me in 2012 to kind of build out property management for them. And so I switched there and went on a really good run for five years. We got connected to progress residential and invitation homes and Okay.
Did a bunch of acquisitions and we scaled pretty [00:05:00] good. You know, we got to about 400 units, you know, and in the first three years mainly institutional, and it was just me and a bookkeeper. Wow. And so I learned a lot, like we were in at least three counties back then, so,
Stacey Salyer: okay.
Ian Joseph: I learned. Yeah. Just a lot how to, how to work a lot, how to get divorced. 'cause you work a lot, you know?
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. I feel like our, our journey is kind of similar there. Yeah. 'cause I started in oh four also portfolio. Hundred percent commission learned really quick. The higher price point units I bring on, the more money I make.
Right. And then, yeah, in 2010 opened a PMC for a home builder. Yeah. And then 16 went out on my own. So you went out, so then you went, you're like, okay, I just
Ian Joseph: right behind you. Yeah,
Stacey Salyer: yeah. Right. I know. Yeah. So we're kind of like, same. So 2017, you go out on your own, you're like, okay, I'm done.
Ian Joseph: So in late 2015, early 2016, a lot of the institutional level players, especially progress residential, were leaving Washington.
We were thinking we were gonna be handling their dispositions and then we kind of [00:06:00] got an email and they're like, Hey, we sold all our properties to American Homes for rent. and like just so overnight, you know, our portfolio shrunk down to under 200 units.
Stacey Salyer: Oof.
Ian Joseph: And so it was gonna be kind of a rebuild and, and at that point I had felt, I had learned enough to kind of go outta my own.
And so I approached Ed the owners of Miller Lane Properties and said, Hey, I'm, you know, I wanna go. Outta my own and we worked out a deal. And so I bought that small portfolio, I think, yeah, I was, it was just under 200 doors. And so February, 2017 is kinda when I started the Joseph Group and it was with kind of the starter pack from Miller Lane that I had brought over.
So I brought my one employee teammate over Pia, she was my bookkeeper, and found an office in Edmonds and had no idea about commercial real estate, but somehow I found a location and, and remodeled did all the tis myself in six weeks and, you know, wow. And launched. Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Dang. Okay. 'cause you started, when you started your own, you were Miller Lane, right?
Was that
Ian Joseph: Yeah, I had bought the rights to the name. So I had a trade name agreement for five years a licensing agreement. And so we ran, I knew I was gonna rebrand, but we, we ran with that. Washington's kinda weird contractually, you have to have [00:07:00] signatures on both by all parties, any change. And so it's just easier to kind of delay.
All of that.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. And that one was a, I bought the entity, so that was a stock purchase.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Ian Joseph: But yeah, I, I didn't have to change anything.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. So your very first acquisition, so basically, I mean, you did, what I try and teach people to do is hey, you don't necessarily even have to start from the ground up.
You could literally just buy an entity. Of course, I mean, there's pros and cons to that, but sounds like it was a big pro in your point, and also you helped grow it, so it's not like you didn't know it. I mean,
Ian Joseph: I knew where all the bodies were buried,
Stacey Salyer: you
Ian Joseph: know, so I was okay with it. I also knew I was gonna wind that down and move the assets into my new entity over a period of time.
But yeah. Yeah, because I was there for four years at the beginning all the way through it. I, yeah, I knew everything. And so I was, I was very comfortable doing that. Right. I've done I think only one other stock purchase other than that they've all been asset purchases, which I do prefer now.
So yeah, get to start out, honestly, I like the equity purchase to start out.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: You skip [00:08:00] the piece of the house and move in, you know, so, you know, it's pretty easy.
Stacey Salyer: Well, and it is, I mean, to your point, I mean, you know, if you have a strategic plan to wind it down and move everything over that's what I did in 2020 when I did that acquisition up in Skagit County was I bought the whole thing and it was just because he ran so completely opposite, there was just no way that I could have done an asset purchase.
But yeah, same thing. I mean, I just moved contracts over every month and
I think there's a lot of like negative connotation around the stock purchase, which I get, but at the same time, you know, sometimes it just works in your favor, so, yeah.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. I mean, I probably talk to your attorney, but I don't, I mean, I think it for, it's just the risk, right?
Of, of what you're inheriting or whatnot. But honestly, no matter what type of purchase I've done.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: If an owner or tenant's suing, they don't care what kind of purchase I did, they're, or they don't even care if I'm the landlord. You know how that, so it's
Stacey Salyer: I know,
Ian Joseph: I mean,
Stacey Salyer: that is true. They're like, oh wait, you, [00:09:00] you touched this I'm,
Ian Joseph: excuse me, this was asset purchase.
Please go sue the other entity that no longer exists. That's not, that's so, I don't, I don't know.
Stacey Salyer: It doesn't,
Ian Joseph: I've not had any, I've not really had, knock on wood, big issues, you
Stacey Salyer: know. Okay, cool. Okay. So for our audience how many acquisitions have you done so far since 2017 to now? Well,
Ian Joseph: during, right when we were about to start this you had brought that up and I was like, crap, I have to think about this.
So I wrote some down. So 2017 was our starter year and. I think like any kind of entrepreneur that first gets their chance, you feel like you're unchained or the handcuffs off, you're like, I'm gonna go do all the things, you know? Yep. I'm gonna destroy every area of business. And so we did three acquisitions in 2017, started the construction company and started the real estate company.
Wow. All in less than nine months. And so,
Stacey Salyer: wow.
Ian Joseph: I had bought a co company down in Tacoma, Washington right after about two months later. So in like March, March, April. And then I had bought Keystone up in Marysville Cherise.
Stacey Salyer: Oh, yep, I remember that. Yeah. Okay.
Ian Joseph: So those were the three. and all three were small, so they [00:10:00] were all in kind of that 200 level or whatever. So that first year, because of the three small acquisitions that put us around 500 units which was kinda a , healthy company within the first year. And that was enough to, feed a real estate division and the construction and maintenance division. And so within that first year, because of kind of the acquisitions and the strategy, I felt like we, we had a really, a big head start. I've done two other, what I would call acquisitions, you know, bigger, bigger ones, and they get bigger every time, which is kinda interesting. And I've done a ton, I think I've done nine to 13, but I don't track the small ones like we've bought in portfolios off of agents, we, or other real estate companies. So anything under a hundred units, I don't even think of that so much as an acquisition.
Stacey Salyer: Sure, that makes sense.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. But I bet we've, you know, we've bought portfolios from, you know, 20 units up to 500 units, you know, probably 13 times.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. Wow. And that's a lot.
Ian Joseph: yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. So you definitely have some horror stories and wins, I'm sure.
So for somebody listening who [00:11:00] has never done an acquisition, and I think there's, you know, it's kind of like this big thing in our industry where people are like enamored by it.
Right. It's like a super sexy topic.
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Which it is fun. I mean, once you do one, I think it does become addictive,
Ian Joseph: like deal makers.
Stacey Salyer: Right, right, right. I know, right? And you're like, wow, I'm a baller, I'm cool. But, but people are kind of like, wait, what? Like, how do you get the money? Like, how do you know what's good to buy?
What I, I think people like to put out there a lot of well, what ifs? What if this happens? What if this happens? And, you know, at the end of the day, I will tell people, yeah, shit is gonna happen. I don't think an acquisition necessarily goes as planned. Like you can, you know, the whole point is to have strategy and.
You know, have as much planned out as you can, but there's always gonna be some sort of hiccup. So do you mind sharing maybe like a couple learnings that you've had, like maybe some major hiccups if, if you feel like sharing that?
Ian Joseph: Yeah. I'm happy to, I, I hate people that play the what if game.
Stacey Salyer: Yep.
Ian Joseph: As soon as anyone in my life or team or anyone, what, what if this, [00:12:00] I'm like, what if it's amazing?
what if it's the greatest deal of all time, it's like I, whatever man. I just go execute and buy companies. You play. What else? And don't buy companies. That's fine. You know, whatever's good for you. And
Stacey Salyer: there's the end that we all know and love.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. And I love the old I don't know who, where it came from.
It was Mike Tyson. He was like, Hey, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. So it's man, I, I don't make big plans on these. I'm. I don't even do a bunch of due diligence. I'm probably the worst person as far as strategy goes, but I'm really good at I've done it. And so just like real life, how, how it played out,
Stacey Salyer: right?
Ian Joseph: I also, I've never taken a dollar from a bank until this year, and it wasn't, wow. It was to leverage into something else. And so I've never, yeah, I've bootstrapped every piece of this and I have, no one in my family has money. So there it was not even that. And so when I was at Miller Lane in 2012 to 2017, I treat it like a job.
I go to work every day. And in real estate people treat it, you know, as a lifestyle. I, you know, packed my lunchbox and I drive to the office and I'm there [00:13:00] from eight to five, Monday through Friday. And there was only, it was a hundred agent office and real, and there was only one other agent that did that.
And so him and I became very good friends and he, was the little Bank of Italy. And so we became friends and he funded some of these as on a partner deal. And we started flipping some houses. And so we, started a little company called GRG. We, we were the get rich group, LLC.
Stacey Salyer: Okay, love it.
Ian Joseph: We each put $15,000 in the bank and we tried to buy a house for six months to flip and, and were unsuccessful. But for me, life is all like my, one of my secret skills is consistency over time. And so we stuck with it nine months after doing this and every day and, and getting up Friday to go to the auctions and stuff.
We finally bought our first little dumper flip for $60,000. And so we used our 30 K and leveraged hard money and we flipped this house. And then over the course of four or five years, we ended up flipping about 30 homes. And then that money we were able to take to buy Miller Lane on a, on a seller contract.
[00:14:00] So every deal I've done. Except for one. The, the, the five big deals I've done, all of them except for one, were seller financed. And so that's typically, you know, 20 to 30% down and then the owner will carry the contract on kind of whatever you work out, typically three to five year contract.
Stacey Salyer: Right?
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. That's cool. And what, what was that saying that you said you have consistency over
Ian Joseph: consistency over time? Yes. I like I love one liners, so, it's a war of attrition from John Rambo, so,
Stacey Salyer: okay. Okay.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. I just believe, I really believe given enough time I can do anything. I just need enough time to, you know, to learn the skill or whatever it takes so I don't get bored.
I, I'm highly focused on my, you know, end goals and I'll just get to work every day and, and do it.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. No, I love that. I think that is really important as well. That is something that I love to teach people as well because you don't go out and acquire 13 different companies or books of business if you're not like, [00:15:00] consistently having conversations.
Right. And doing all that. Do you have a method that you use as far as like contacting people? Or are you just like building relationships? have you ever used a business broker?
Ian Joseph: There is one business broker I noticed.
I don't really have a system.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Ian Joseph: Which is terrible. But what, that's
Stacey Salyer: okay.
Ian Joseph: What I here is, here is my success. I'm deeply ingrained in npa. I will help anyone. And I, I have no secrets. I'll, you can have everything, you know, my entire playbook and business and life.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Ian Joseph: And I'm very involved locally , with my friends and, you know, like you.
And so I'm just, and because of the age gap all of our mentors and people in this
Stacey Salyer: mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: Industry that Haveve been in it for 20, 30 years. If they're not gonna sell to a national player, you know, for a big bag of cash, then I'm the local guy. And I can compete with them too. It's just how, sort of, how we structure it.
And so. If they don't need all cash up front, then I can definitely compete on pricing. definitely compete on legacy, keep the [00:16:00] team. And so, I'm attractive to , the local companies, but it's just through networks. Everyone I've bought is kind of through networking or I when I'm laying in bed and people are doom scrolling, TikTok or whatever they're doing to zone out, I'm on a LoopNet or biz buy and searching for property management companies for sale.
And when they pop up, I ping them. There was a business broker that was doing most of the business and so I kind of did get in touch with him And then he had brought me one that he was taking live, so I was able to get that one. And then, yeah, just referrals. So I've done a couple that I found online listed and then a lot of referrals.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Very cool. I love that. Yeah, so just consistency. So instead of yeah, doom scrolling on TikTok and watching dumb reels, you are using your time to doom scroll on business networks.
Ian Joseph: And I knew when I was young yeah, you have to find your slight edge. Like, how can you compete with other people, right?
Of success? You're like, I have no money, no experience. I'm very young at 25. And I was like, well, I got a lot of time. I got a lot of life ahead of me where others maybe don't at that stage. And so I [00:17:00] just play the long game. I have people that I've been purposely staying in touch with, I mean, they're friends of things, but like purposely staying in touch with on a business, you know, relationship once or twice a year, whether or not that's going to lunch or checking in.
And then, and then you have to ask, you have, you have, you know, at a certain point I'm working on writing right now and it's, you know, someone that I've known for a very long time. That I've had on kind of the list like, Hey, this would be something I'd love to do down the road. I like to move with momentum and energy.
And so since I was, I just did the acquisition the last one here last month. And so I've been working on that for about 90 days. And since I was in acquisition mode, I had kind of gone back and so I'd just shoot a couple texts and I just straight up asked Hey, would you ever be interested in talking about a you know, a merger or selling?
And they were like, Hey, it's always worth it. We had lunch the next week and, and then we're exchanging term sheets, you know, so, yeah, there's, there's no secrets. It's just work hard and, have a plan, I am, I am very good at casting vision , and seeing strategy and understanding, you know, I pay attention to other PM owners like.
Do they have children? [00:18:00] what's their succession plan? Is it legacy? Are they community driven? One of 'em, a good friend of ours during COVID, was really struggling and then having some, personal stuff going on.
And we had talked about maybe someday doing something. And I had just reached out and I was like, Hey, you know, if things are tough right now, don't wait until there's nothing left. if the business was shrinking, we had lunch and, and talked and I was like, well, whatcha waiting three years for?
And they're like, well, it's just, 'cause the number's in mine. I was like, well, tell me the number. They told me the number and I was like, well pay that tomorrow. Let's just do it now.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah,
Ian Joseph: I don't need a, I don't need a paycheck on any of these. Is it an advantage? I have a paycheck from my first company that I bought, so these are all for me, wealth building or,
leverage strategy.
Stacey Salyer: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think it's important too that keeping up , those relationships and you know, whether it's like our boomer friends or our, I mean, I'm Gen X, our elder Gen X friends, because I'm still a young Gen X. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Keeping in, in mind, and I love that you mentioned legacy, that you're able to carry on legacy because [00:19:00] that is something that.
You know, while you can go out and grow door by door, and I'm not against growing door by door, I think you should have a funnel for that.
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: I think it's so cool that people in the community can go out and help our friends who don't have, you know, children that wanna buy their company or take it over and carry on that legacy.
I think that is one of the coolest things about it. And it's not about oh hey, you know, I'm gonna talk to you and talk you down and give you hardly any money for your company. It's no, I wanna honor your legacy and like what you built. I wanna honor the relationships you've built with your clients and your residents.
And I know, I think it's really cool that you're focused on that.
Ian Joseph: I turned off all my social media accounts recently 'cause I just was over it. But it was, it's, it's so interesting how people are just always talking about acquisitions and this, and valuations and, you know,
Stacey Salyer: yeah.
Ian Joseph: X revenue or EBITDA or this or that, and I'm like, I don't really care about any of that shit. Just, you've had, you've built a great business, you're a great human. Mm-hmm. I've probably known you for a lot of years.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: What's a win for you? And that's it. And then [00:20:00] they just tell me and I'm like, Hey, well this is how I can do that then, you know, or whatever.
And I just, I can structure with terms and conditions or whatever and I mean, I've not paid crazy numbers or anything, but yeah, I don't, none of these have been like, I've gone in and negotiated hard or done this. , My mentors in sales were like, you gotta get their wire numbers first and so I just find out what's important to them and it's a long game. I mean, some of these I work on for years and years and years.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: And so again, I think people get bored or look for shiny objects, and that's just my trade. That's not me. Right? I'm not looking for anything else. I'm gonna just keep my little list of people I'm gonna, you know, stay in touch with and have lunch with and seven years from now I'll buy their company when they retire.
And I'm okay with that.
Stacey Salyer: yeah. No, I think that's great. And I think that that really hits home again, what I say. It's not, you know, of course, the main program I run is like a 12 month program. You may or may not acquire something in the 12 month program, but it is a relationship building long game.
You know, letting people know that this is what you do. It's no secret. And again, [00:21:00] it's not with bad intent, it's with great intent. You know, like Cherie, when she retired, oh my gosh, I saw her face when she retired. When you bought that one in Marysville. She was so happy. Yeah. She was happy to move on.
And our other friend Christina, over in Kitsap. Yeah, same thing like. They built a great business, they wanted to exit and you were able to to help them. So I think,
Ian Joseph: yeah, it'll be done. And we make it easy too, one of my good friends someday he might retire, but like business is tough and there are skeletons in the closet too, I think people can come to me knowing I'm gonna take care of 'em, you know?
And it's, I dunno, it's not business to me. It, it is relationship, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, it's been good. I do have a couple pitfalls, you know?
Stacey Salyer: Yes, please. Yes. I was just gonna ask Yes, please share the dirty laundry. Let's, let's get to that part of the episode.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. Gosh, where do we start?
I guess the biggest thing for me right now I'm currently dealing with is and I, I knew it was coming, but, I don't quite have the solution yet, but just have [00:22:00] awareness of when you're buying companies and growing, , you're gonna grow faster. And so if you don't have, like you said, the organic or paid strategies or other things to kind of get those monthly units coming in when you buy a company, you will a trip pretty aggressively.
And so you need to be mindful of your growth outpacing your attrition. And when you're buying companies, I think a lot of these national companies, they can buy so many so fast that they can outpace that for a long time until they stop buying. And then that, I believe churn can kill companies.
And so it gets harder and harder. We're not huge, but you know, at 2000 units,
Stacey Salyer: right?
Ian Joseph: I think. Peter's newsletter said good attrition in our industry is like eight or 10% or something like that. I don't know. A a good company,
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: If it's 10%, I have to grow by 200 units naturally every year just to not grow, just to, just
Stacey Salyer: to break even.
Right.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. So I'm very aware of that because rent scale and stuff now, there's a lot of great BDMs, but man, back in [00:23:00] the day it was like onesie, twosies. If you were getting one or two a month, you were doing good and then it was like, oh, four or five you were doing really good.
Stacey Salyer: Right?
Ian Joseph: And then the last three years we, you know, we brought on you know, 20 plus a month organically, but. That's not even good enough anymore.
Stacey Salyer: right.
Ian Joseph: You know,
Stacey Salyer: so, yeah. Yeah, because at 200, so to be net let's say 200 doors this year, what is that per month? That's I don't do math in my head, so tell
Ian Joseph: me.
Yeah. Less than 15. Yeah,
Stacey Salyer: less than 15. Okay. So 15. So yeah, which is still
Ian Joseph: 15, 18. We're both probably
Stacey Salyer: 18. Okay. Yeah. I don't, yeah, we don't, we do. Yeah. I use a calculator people that no, we can't be good at all the things. So yeah. That's a fair amount.
Ian Joseph: That's aggressive. Yeah.
Right. It's
Stacey Salyer: aggressive. Yeah. And that's hitting it hard and having a really good funnel for that. But I, I have seen your stuff online and you do Facebook ads or meta ads. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think in the, in our area, you're probably like one of the best, if not the best for that marketing channel.
I don't think a lot of property management companies have dialed that in yet, or [00:24:00] even necessarily get it to an extent. You know, so I, like I said, I mean growing door by door, of course there is a strategy to that and I'm not against it, but, I do think acquisition is obviously a quicker way to grow.
Ian Joseph: A hundred percent.
Stacey Salyer: But to your, point, if you're not really doing the math of okay, if you're gonna turn 10% of that acquisition, you know, and I don't know, do you have churn numbers or have you ever tracked that on what you've churned
Ian Joseph: churn? Yeah, we track it. We suck. We're not, we are not excellent at churn because, and we're also buying companies.
So churn is worse. We're, we're dialed in right now. 'Cause that last year we, we lost 80 homes last year just only to selling eight 80.
Stacey Salyer: Oh, okay.
Ian Joseph: 80 units sold last year.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Ian Joseph: We lost we brought on 430 units or, or but we lost 2 97, so we did grow. But yeah, 80 sold, which, so that was crazy.
Stacey Salyer: That's a lot. But do you, did you capture some of the sales? Do you track that as well?
Ian Joseph: yes, we do, we had 24% , recapture. Okay. So we sold four homes. And so we're, and then we're, I'm trying to, that's my focus [00:25:00] this year is to get that to 50%. This is going down a rabbit hole, but I'm obsessed with the ecosystem and the flywheel , of it all, , not just the units.
So, you know, we use that. And then, so for every unit loss for sale, we want 50% of those recaptured. Right. And we list it. That also drives revenue for the construction company. I take in theory commissions from the sale, and then reinvest it into marketing. Once you prove your marketing, it's just a slot machine.
You put in X dollars, you get X units, and then, and so that's kind of the rebuild. I knew this was coming. I knew that we were gonna get to the point. For three years we were growing at 20 units a month just with our BDM. And I was stoked. That was amazing. When you were at like 600 units, 800 units, 1200 units.
Sure. Then I saw it, I was like, this is actually not good in the near future, especially if we buy more companies. And so we do have a marketing division now, and I'm trying to think more from a corporate level how to build kind of the C-suite. And I think that small businesses get very tonal, visioned like for us, I think a lot of companies are just [00:26:00] in the NPA vendor floor, and that's that, nothing against any of the marketing agencies , on that floor, but I just don't think the best marketers in the world are at bums convention.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: And so I was like, how do I think differently? Where do I, we live in a global economy. Yep. Where are the best humans in the world for these things? And so that's what I'm trying to build, you know?
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. I will say one thing that if I was to do different, which I will when I launched this business, 'cause it's online, B2B is basically what, mm-hmm.
What I'm doing now is online business to business. I had no idea how important like marketing and copywriting was. If I knew now what I knew then. Like, when I own my PMC and I will, I will buy another, yeah. Probably not in Washington state, but I will, I would have cleaned up. I mean, it's amazing to me how much opportunity there is in the property management world.
'cause to your point, there's amazing copywriters and [00:27:00] marketers are out there that will really teach you, that like truly or just do it for you. that are really good. And I think really looking at their stats, you know, if you're looking at somebody to run your marketing and their views on their videos and stuff, like on Instagram or Facebook are really low.
And I mean, we're talking low, like a hundred
Ian Joseph: Yeah. Views,
Stacey Salyer: or they have zero engagement or they have zero, like virtually no followers. That's really probably not somebody you want to use. But I don't think in the, like the world that's really been introduced yet, I think there's a few players starting to come in.
That are gonna start teaching that and actually offering a few different things. But I think as of now, we haven't really had the best. I just don't think it's been a focus. I think in fact this week's episode that I dropped, I talked a little bit about that as how everybody is just so operationally focused
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
On
Stacey Salyer: property management, which makes sense. I mean, obviously if you don't have your shit together, it's gonna be a mess. Yeah. But we really haven't even talked [00:28:00] about like growth so much or the marketing piece behind it. I mean, it's like there's a wide blue ocean, which is why I'm so passionate about hey, you can grow by acquisition.
But there is you know, to your point, you gotta work on the marketing too, so you're not using like a specific property management marketing group. Somebody else
Ian Joseph: I have in the past and they were great. And again, so it just depends kind of what size of where you're at, you know? Mm-hmm. And so, it kind of ties back to what, what machine are you building size.
Mm-hmm. So there are good ones that got me to certain levels, and I do believe in outsourcing at certain phases, but my goal is always to get to a point where I can back insource. And so I just, I reached that level where I wanted to bring it back in. Perfect.
Stacey Salyer: And when
Ian Joseph: I was bringing it back in, I just didn't wanna make the mistake with marketing.
I need a marketing machine that's gonna consistently bring me 30 to 50 units a month in the next, you know, 12 to 18 months. So that's just a different problem to solve than probably other companies. I feel like I'm in nowhere's land because you know, a lot of companies in that, you know, three to 800 land mm-hmm.
Or the big players. And I'm, you know, [00:29:00] I'm sort of just. In this little spot, And marketing, you can go broke in marketing.
Stacey Salyer: Oh yeah. You can really quick.
Ian Joseph: How much money , on vanity metrics and all this other crap. And then get nothing. Luckily as an entrepreneur, small business owner, , you know, some marketing they can't bullshit you.
So, you know, some stuff. So last year throughout the year, I built a team of three freelancers and for different one was performance paid ads, one was rev ops and one was kind of SEO content strategy, like more generalist. Mm-hmm. And and then we're on HubSpot for our CRM.
I knew two years ago I went to the HubSpot conference by myself 'cause it's just literally a, a marketing conference for it is B2B, but I was like, I just wanna immerse myself. And there was like 3000 marketers there and stuff.
Stacey Salyer: Yep.
Ian Joseph: So last year, that's when I made my hires and then I took one of them to HubSpot with me last year.
And then I made her an offer to come on full-time as my head of marketing. And then freelancers beneath her and yeah, she's been great. It's not through the lens of pm it's through the lens of marketing and growth, you know? [00:30:00] Right.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: And so, I don't know, it's just different, I guess.
Stacey Salyer: Right, right. And I think that is maybe, and I don't know if I wanna use the word mistake, but that I see like in property management world is thinking that the person who's doing their marketing has to have a background in property management. And really, in my opinion, I don't think that that's actually necessary.
I think in order to call in the client that you want. 'cause have you guys determined like what your client avatar looks like?
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: We have two. It is hard to generate property management leads though for us.
Stacey Salyer: Okay. '
Ian Joseph: our slogan's.
It's not just a rental, it's a home. I hate any one that says eh, it's just a rental. You know? I hate, I just hate
Stacey Salyer: ah, I hate that too. I hate it when you talk to somebody and they're like,
Ian Joseph: it's
Stacey Salyer: just a rental.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. It's just a rental home, you know? That's fine. It's just a rental. No, it's not a rental.
It's a home. Somebody's home. Someone lives here. Right. And so, we're also the most expensive company locally. Our fee structure, our top package. And so we want people that have an emotional attachment to the home that believe in preventative care over long periods of time.
Trap number two back to like, hey, the skeletons of the [00:31:00] closet. One of the biggest traps that I've found in buying other companies and even experiencing it myself is that. And you've experienced this, if you've taken it over most property management companies, in my mind, over a 10 year period, that home is just going like down to deferred maintenance crap.
and so I think people are afraid to ask clients to spend money to take care of their home or do preventative care, let alone repair something broken. I mean, heaven forbid, ask them to spend money like proactively, right? And so,
we want to grow fast with investors, but investors that are okay spending money on their assets and care that there's a human living in their home that is probably not the best avatar for this business.
Those are the humans I wanna work with, right?
Stacey Salyer: Right, right. Yeah, I know it, that, that is hard. And we can talk a minute 'cause I have a question about that, regarding position, but. It is hard to find that, that avatar. I know, like when I owned my PMCA actually worked with a lot of home builders and thankfully the home builders were on that [00:32:00] trajectory.
Yeah. Like they did believe in that. Yeah. Because they understood, okay, it costs X amount to build, it costs X amount to Yeah. You know, sell it, whatever. But it is really hard, especially the onesie twosies, sometimes they just are like, well, what do you mean? You know, that light switch, I've always had to flip it up and down five times for it to work.
You know, just put a note there. It's well, no, that's not really how we want someone to be living in a home. And there's obviously a lot of like psychological things, right? Like I'd always do Yeah. But the better you take care of it, the more they're gonna take care of it. That kind thing. Yeah.
But
Ian Joseph: yeah.
Stacey Salyer: And
Ian Joseph: that's hard one people Yeah. Asking people to spend money. I, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I remember when I first started, I was nervous calling a, a client to spend $400 on like carpet cleaning and maid service, like at a turn or whatever.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: I mean, this week alone, I've spent $200,000. Remodel bits to clients like, you know, prepping for sale. And I'm like, like it's nothing like, Hey, just sign this. We, this is what happened. Right, right. And our average turn actually is like nine grand on rental.
Stacey Salyer: Is it? Okay. Okay. And that's after what? Somebody living there three [00:33:00] years, five years? That
Ian Joseph: could be when the owner moves out.
Stacey Salyer: Oh, when the owner moves. Okay.
Ian Joseph: I don't track that. Like we,
Push for full reset when the combs come to us. Like we, we push heavily for like fresh flooring, fresh paint.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Ian Joseph: We don't touch up, we paint full walls instead of touch up. Like we don't, we mess around with stuff like,
Stacey Salyer: yeah,
Ian Joseph: they're all traps.
This is what people don't understand like that are, haven't been in this long, it's all a trap. If you don't set the property up today correctly, the client gets to amnesia and it was a bit of a dud now. And then three years later, the tenant moves out. They're like, what happened here? I'm like, you didn't do anything three years ago when I told you to refresh it.
And so now it's just a little worse than it was back then, which was not great anyways.
Stacey Salyer: Yes. They never remember. They think that they left it the Taj Mahal most beautiful. And you're like, no,
Ian Joseph: that cabinet, that cabinet worked fine when I lived there. You know, so. Right.
Stacey Salyer: I know. What, what do you mean that builder grade carpet's 15 years old.
It should last another five.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. So we need, need clients that are like good over time, you know? Okay. They're gonna invest in their home. I like testing different things, [00:34:00] so for like our, we have a field team for all of our move ins and move outs and stuff like that.
Mm-hmm. And so last year we were kind of changing that department and I was like, what's my dream hire for like person to do, move in, move into move outs? And I was like, maybe, you know, I came up with professional inspectors. I was like, Hey, a licensed home inspector would be like a really good.
Person to do a move out report. And I was like, how would that ever work, man, those guys. And, but I recruited one and I highly paid individual. And, and then with that I was like, Hey, I don't want just moving the move outs, that's your day job. But we developed what we called healthy home audits. And so we were selling to our clients, like going to homes , and doing these big reports on preventative care and then offering how to budget and prepare over the next three to five years of whether or not you need roofing or, you know,
Stacey Salyer: yeah.
Ian Joseph: Water heaters, things like that. So, I mean, these are investment properties. You have to invest in them. And I think that a lot of property managers are. Yeah. I don't know. They just, we inherited a lot of crap homes.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, I was gonna say. So. Right. So I was gonna [00:35:00] ask you, I mean, 'cause I know, you know, doing acquisitions myself what it's like, so what do you do when you buy a book of business and let's say it's 200 doors and a hundred of 'em are like, super crap.
I mean, what do
Ian Joseph: you Well, I don't look, I don't, like I said, I'm the worst. I don't do due diligence. I don't drive the homes when I buy 'em. I barely look at the leases. I look at a lease template, you know, I just assume it's a shit show.
Stacey Salyer: Okay.
Ian Joseph: And I'm gonna fix it. my gamble is within a year, you kinda go through a full cycle on properties. Yeah. If you're set up right. And so my gamble is, I got one year to sort of like, clean it up and figure it out, you know, and go,
Stacey Salyer: okay.
Ian Joseph: And then here's a perfect example. And actually we kind of suck on this one too. I bought a company in Tacoma in 2017.
Okay. The tenant had already been there for a long time. Tenant just moved out in January after 10 years of living there.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: The, the, there was no fi move in file. The deposit was $500, no move in report. The [00:36:00] guy had been smoking in his house for 10 years or soot everywhere did you know, unreported maintenance.
We've been managing it since then too. So I'm like, man, we sucked. Did we not go check on this fricking house? You know,
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: Other issue with scale, like you think you're a good company and then you're like, oh, fuck you know, we grew. Right. A lot of things fall through the cracks.
Stacey Salyer: Yep. That happens.
It's real. Yeah.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. That's real. And so I was like, well, we kind of fucked this one up too, and then. By not maybe catching it earlier , doing something about it. 'Cause I did see, we did a, a couple walkthroughs and it noted, it was like, sit everywhere. I'm like, okay, well what did we take? We didn't take action.
So because I have the vertical integrations, this is the gamble I make, that house is fucked. I'm not gonna argue with a client or try and push blame on the old company, or I just take full ownership. I'm like, you know what? I bought that company. it is what it is. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna handle it.
And I use that to then try and get them to, you know, hire us to sell the home and remodel it and then I can use that revenue to solve some problems, it's been 10 years, so we can't do paint or flooring and stuff anyways.
Right. But the [00:37:00] damages, were like two grand. The deposit was seven 50. What are we even arguing about? I would pay seven 50 or two grand to get like a sale referral anyways. You know, so, I just look at it like that. So there's a lot of those. I just know that my business model will allow me to cut checks or fix issues when they come down the road.
Right. And we'll clean up as the annual cycles going through renewals and inspections and things like that.
Stacey Salyer: Right. Well, what I'm hearing is that, you know, you know that you're gonna encounter challenges and you just know that you're gonna deal with 'em. I mean, I think that's kind of, but it kind of goes back to the original well, what if this happens?
What if that happens? Well, yeah, shit is gonna happen. And nothing is ever perfect. I know when I did my acquisition, there was a ton of deferred maintenance. It was a boomer who owned it. He had set it up like a job. And I think those are amazing companies to buy, but they also do require a lot of work.
So like nothing is easy, you know, work free either way. Yeah. And yeah, and then I ran into [00:38:00] problems like that too, and I was like, well, okay, well, I'll make it right. I'll fix it. You know, we'll do what we need to. Because in, end, everything that I gained way outweighed that one little situation.
Like it's, you know, that's what I always look at. And it sounds like you do too. It's okay, well I'm gaining like all this then. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple like hiccups here, but it's worth it. The,
Ian Joseph: the bigger you get, and or the longer you're in business, all of the what ifs will probably come true.
A buddy of mine, Kevin Glenn in Tri-Cities
Stacey Salyer: Uhhuh,
Ian Joseph: I met him a couple years ago. He's a project management company. he was a teacher then he worked for this company, then he bought it, now he's grown it and he bought it like 80 units. He was at one of the Friday legislative updates with Jim Henderson and afterwards he pinged me outta nowhere and he said, Hey man, I just had a question for you.
'cause we were talking about lawsuits or whatever, and he started playing all these what ifs. And I was like, time out buddy. If you can't stomach getting sued, then get the fuck out of this business.
Stacey Salyer: Mm-hmm.
Ian Joseph: Yeah. If you can't stomach your what ifs, then go get a fucking job somewhere.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: Don't own a business.
Stacey Salyer: Right.
Ian Joseph: Don't even buy other [00:39:00] people's businesses like you're
Stacey Salyer: Yes.
Ian Joseph: I mean,
Stacey Salyer: yes. Motivational talk by Joseph and that it
Ian Joseph: is fear driven, go do something else.
Stacey Salyer: And I think that is one thing is yeah, you can't really have fear. I mean it's, you know.
Yeah. It, it,
Ian Joseph: it
will happen. It happen. Yeah. But the pros, the pros outweigh the cons, like you said.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Especially in property management. And honestly, I don't even. I mean, I have been to court so many times. I can't even honestly tell you all the times I've been to court and I don't even, I don't, it is what it is, man.
I have not lost any sleep. I just don't even, we
Ian Joseph: got that muscle now.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, right. So, no, that's awesome. Well, before we wrap up do you have any words of wisdom for somebody who is like, I really wanna acquire you know, what should they do besides, of course, join my program?
Ian Joseph: Words of wisdom. Yeah. though, again, I don't have any silver bullets. The only way I know how to do it is to get out there and do it. So it's just like anything else, when I wanted to flip houses, I had to get to work. I had to get up [00:40:00] earlier and everybody else and get out there and drive foreclosures or go to their auctions and make offers so.
You just gotta get out there and do it. You know, start calling some PM owners, taking 'em to lunch, and come from a place of either you're learning or you wanna be helpful, and then just get to know 'em and, and talk to 'em, you know? I'm sure that you probably have some systems that you can help them deploy.
I, I'm just not that good. I don't, I don't, you know, I just know people and kind of get to know 'em and hang out with 'em. And now I've done it. I mean, gosh, I've now done it. I mean, I've, we're almost at 10 years with the Joseph Group and I've been in real estate now since 2008, nearly 20 years is, which is crazy to me.
I don't think, I don't feel that old, but,
Stacey Salyer: right.
Ian Joseph: It's consistency over time. Everyone thinks it's overnight success. It's I don't know. I've been doing it the same thing for 20 years. That's why it feels like overnight success, you know? I mean, and so we bought 13 companies in nine years.
I guess that feels like a lot, but. If you can't work harder, do things to have a win annually, then [00:41:00] yeah. Maybe it's not for you.
Stacey Salyer: Maybe you, if they're in Washington state, they should reach out to you. Yeah.
Ian Joseph: And
Stacey Salyer: move on and Yeah.
Ian Joseph: Hire, yeah, hire, hire you to get coast or, or retire and call me.
Stacey Salyer: Right. Right.
That's awesome. Yeah, no, I love that. And I, I couldn't agree more. I think that yeah, you just gotta put the reps in and I think it is easy for people to probably look at people and be like, oh my gosh, you know, they've done so much. Well, yeah, I'm in year 22. If I had accomplished something, then there's definitely a problem with that.
Life equation. Yeah. And
Ian Joseph: Go network. Go network. I bought a bunch from agents.
Stacey Salyer: Yep.
Ian Joseph: I bought
Stacey Salyer: a,
Ian Joseph: every time there was a cycle change, you know, I don't know if if we're gonna go into a downturn, but back in. oh eight to 2012 when agents were, you know, not making any money, they, they started leasing homes and things, and then when, in 20 11, 12, you know, and now we've been on a, mm-hmm.
A big up cycle. Well, now they're making money. And those were all pain points for them. I would look for agents that were listing homes for [00:42:00] rent that weren't companies. And I was like, what are you even doing? And then I would network with them, or I would go to agent events and, and eventually you, you know, they're like, yeah, you know what, what, what would that look like?
You know? And you know, they're managing 13 homes or 20 homes, you know, or whatever. I think people like to talk about the big wins and everything like that. It's man, no, you just build little by little. My earliest mentor in real estate was like, it's baseball. Everyone talks about the home runs as big swinger man.
All you want is singles and doubles. Yep. If you have singles and doubles, the home runs come. And in baseball you fail more than you win. Mm-hmm. And so just, just go get the reps.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. I love that. That's great. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on and I really appreciate it and this has been super fun.
I love chatting with you.
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: And it's always fun to chat with people at the same mindset and who just go out and make shit happen and get it done. Put in the reps. It's baseball. I love baseball. It's probably one of the reasons I love that game so much.
Ian Joseph: Yeah,
Stacey Salyer: I know. And we're not even into our ninth inning yet.
I think that's the most, [00:43:00] right.
Ian Joseph: Is it, are we in the seventh inning stretch, do you think? Or are we still, where are we in life, Stacey?
Stacey Salyer: No, I think I'm actually still in my first or second inning now. There you
Ian Joseph: go.
Stacey Salyer: I started over, I started a new game. And every time you add something new to your business.
I think we're in multiple games at the same time, right?
Ian Joseph: Yeah.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. There we go. That's my words of advice. So thank you again. And we will put in the show notes where people can find you, but is there anything that you are offering or that you want to offer any contact information or how people can find you if they're looking to sell their company or
Ian Joseph: I prefer to be a ghost, but you can find me.
I, I'm happy to help anyone that needs anything. I have zero offerings. I do no coaching, consulting, paid advertising, gimmick things, whatever. Just get to work. I, I have a job. I'm, I'm not, I'm not lucky enough like you to sell an tire and chase your dreams. I gotta go to work every day.
Stacey Salyer: Yes. Well, trust me, it's still work.
Hey, I sell myself on Instagram every day. Be there, [00:44:00] Stacey Salyer.
Salyer.
Ian Joseph: I love it.
Stacey Salyer: Well, cool. Well thank you again for coming on
Outro: thanks for listening to the Stacey Salyer show. Here's the deal. You can read about acquisitions anywhere, but you can't learn acquisitions from someone who's done it the way I have as a buyer, a seller, and from the corporate side evaluating hundreds of companies. That's why I need you to subscribe and share this with someone in your network who needs to hear it.
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