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 to [00:01:00] the Stacey Salyer Show, where I teach everyone how to buy and sell. It's all about buying and selling property management companies. And of course, my favorite tagline is, while Boomers Retire, you acquire. Oh, I know. See, look, I already got my guest to laugh. That's why I was just telling him before the show that that is like my, my one aim in life.
And anytime I'm talking, I love it. When people laugh. So today I have a very special guest talking about banking. And so now before you go away and think, oh my gosh, banking and accounting and money, that's not that exciting. It really truly is because what we're gonna talk about today is a lot of new era banking and property management, how that can affect.
What you're going to acquire as far as property management companies and AI and all this stuff in between. So welcome George from Column Banks. So tell me a little bit about yourself.
George Cheng: Happy to kick off with a quick intro, give folks a little bit more context and then we can dive kind of straight into the week. So first of all, I'm George Cheng. [00:02:00] I head up the Vertical Solutions Business Unit here at Column Bank, which is our fiduciary banking division with the focus on trust escrow, FBO accounts for fiduciaries, including property management companies, title and escrow loan servicing, and so forth.
Before this, I was on the investing side at a growth equity firm called Summit Partners, $45 billion fund, where we actually invested a lot in real estate technology. And real estate companies, including companies like Associa, where we were the first institutional backer, for acquiring HOA management companies and other kind of, technology companies like by lo o and Foxton that's focused on the real estate space.
And so excited to be here, happy to kind of get into more about column who we are how we're focused in the space and get right into.
Stacey Salyer: Sounds great. Okay, so I know why trust accounting is so important because I've been in the business forever. But tell me a little bit about kind of why you guys are different and, well, maybe we should preface a little bit about trust accounting in case there's people listening who, aren't super familiar with property management world, but you wanna kind of dive into that a little [00:03:00] bit.
George Cheng: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't wanna answer this in two parts. So first is let's talk a little about trust accounts and what that means for property management. Second is, I think it'd be helpful for folks to kind of hear the context a little bit about the history of column and how we even, enter the property management space and how we're investing across the industry today.
So, to answer your first question around trust accounts, so why are trust accounts so important? So property management inherently is a regulated industry. Property managers, especially on the long-term side, have to get licensed as brokers or have specific property management licenses depending on the states they're in.
And as part of that, also required to maintain kind of real estate broker trust accounts for holding funds because property management's actually unique industry where you are actually manage a fiduciary managing funds on behalf of your. They're not just managing their properties, but also folks are managing the funds flow by collecting rent on behalf of their property owners, holding security deposits on behalf of the tenants, doing vendor and owner distributions on behalf of the owners as well.
And so that's why trust accounts become so important, because they're inherently a [00:04:00] fiduciary account. For managing and holding funds on behalf of others, and they have very special protections such as pass through FDIC insurance. So each of the owners who are beneficiaries in the trust accounts are properly FDIC insured versus the entire account being only insured up to the standard FDIC limit.
There's other legal protections with trust accounts too, where if there was ever a lawsuit or a legal proceeding, trust accounts are. Essentially a sacred class of accounts where they cannot be held as lean or frozen, any sort of legal proceeding because again, the money belongs to the property owners as the beneficiary.
And so that is kind of a simple reason why trust accounts are very important for property managers.
Stacey Salyer: So I think one big thing that gets kind of thrown around in the industry is the word trust account. Or I guess two words. But what you guys offer is very different than maybe what like a local bank would offer, right?
Because if I walk into my local bank and I say, Hey, I need to open a trust account. It's not the same. And kind of for those reasons that you just described. And I don't know if a lot of people [00:05:00] know this, but again, if you don't own a property management company, when I had mine, I mean, I had millions of dollars that I was holding right.
Every single month. I mean, if you think about that, that's kind of insane. Like how much money flows through and, and how much we were holding security deposits because that is our, our job as part of property management like professionals will hold the security deposits for the tenants.
George Cheng: Absolutely.
Stacey Salyer: Money. So how is your bank different than like maybe just a, local bank that I could walk into and say, I need to open an account.
George Cheng: Yeah, so couple components to that question. The first, and probably the most important one is the fact that we actually deeply understand property management and fiduciary banking, as an entire space.
And what I mean by that is it's really important exactly to your point where for folks that actually have an understanding of the industry and the types of responsibilities a property management company is taking on, a lot of times if you walk into your local branch and you ask for a trust account.
They're gonna say, do you want a replicable or irreparable trust account? They get a little confused because they think it's like an estate trust or something [00:06:00] like that. Or, even worse, they kind of set you up with a business banking account and they label as a trust account, but it's not a proper trust account coded on the backend in the banking core, and that exposes.
PMs to a lot of liability from a legal perspective. One is if there was ever a legal proceeding and assets are frozen, if it's just a regular business account, those funds are frozen and now your owners don't have access to the rent that's being collected on behalf of the properties. Huge issue. Two is FDIC insurance.
Let's say there is a million dollars in a kind of checking account. Mm-hmm. The standard FDIC insurance limit is, 250,000 for that entire a million balances. However, if it's a proper trust account, each of the owners within that trust account gets up to 250,000 in FDIC insurance. So that's a super important distinction.
So taking it back to your question, the first part is actually understanding and having the regulatory and legal teams at the bank that deeply understands property management, the regulated nature of the industry. And two is getting back into a little bit the history of column, right? In terms of how we're different.
So to answer that question, [00:07:00] maybe kind of going back to the start. So column, we really started building our bank in 2019 when our founder William Hockey, who's also the founder of Plaid, the $13 billion financial technology company. Right. And we actually acquired a bank in California that had been around since the nineties.
Stacey Salyer: So for anybody that's listening who's maybe not familiar with Plaid, can you explain a little bit more what Plaid is, because I think this is a huge thing.
George Cheng: Yeah, absolutely. So Plaid is actually the connector that basically connects your banking information from, your bank account at Chase Bank of America, wherever else, to any sort of financial application or kind of, like tax filing kind of preparation software that you're using.
So if anyone has used Venmo or PayPal or any of these kind of financial technology apps or Chime and Affirm when you're logging in, it's actually powered by PLA and that's how your bank information is securely transferred. To the financial technology companies where other applications that need that sort of information.
So Plaid was famously acquired by Visa for 5 billion and then because of antitrust [00:08:00] reasons, the DOJ sued and then blocked the acquisition. And then afterwards Plaid ended up raising at a $13 billion valuation, which is more than double what Visa was gonna acquire platform. So why that was Williams kind of first company, but he decided he wanted instead of retire and go off to an, island in Hawaii or something like that. You wanted to pursue something even bigger. And that was the foundation of column with where we acquired a bank and we actually built the entire core banking software and our own direct connection to the Federal Reserve. And we can, get to that point.
Stacey Salyer: No, I think that's so cool, and I think it's really important for the listeners to hear that and understand that, you've got somebody who's a founder of, I mean plaid is huge, and that that's a huge thing.
And then to turn around and then acquire a very well established bank. Right. And then I'll, I'll let you kind of go more into the history of, how you guys are online and all that. That is a huge deal because that's a true visionary as far as like putting all those pieces together, especially for the property management industry.
George Cheng: Yeah. And so, kind of getting back to the history a little bit on like why, William would even wanna do [00:09:00] this and think the easiest reference I can make is what William discovered was, with Plaid, he essentially built the plumbing and the infrastructure for financial technology applications and, software to talk to each other with banks.
But what he realized as he was building. There was a limit to that because if you're only fixing the pipes, so to speak, and you don't own the building, there's only so much you can do. And so that's why he decided that in order to really make a difference, we actually had to be a bank ourselves. And hence we acquired a bank kind of, that had been around since the nineties.
So we are a nationally chartered, OCC regulated, FDIC insured bank, just like Chase, bank of America, Wells Fargo. But the big thing we did was we actually rebuilt the entire technology from the ground up in the sense that we built our own core banking software, our own ledger, our own payment processing, and our own direct connection to the Federal Reserve.
And why that actually matters for folks is it's cuts out the middle man. With traditional banks, everyone is using FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry as the core banking software, as a technology that's holding their ledger and processing their payments. But what that comes with is a lot of added fees because [00:10:00] the bank does not control their own fees.
They have to pay a fee to their core banking software. FIS, for Fiserv, that controls 90% of the banking market. And so that's why, wires cost 15 to $25. Aach is cost like a dollar or two, and why payments are slow, whereas with column, instead of using a middleman. We cut out all that technology and that's why we're able to offer zero fee banking to our property management clients.
That's why we're able to offer much faster payments, a lot more visibility into each transaction, which really matters when our property management customers getting audited, for example, by the DRE. Mm-hmm. And with column you can definitively prove that. When you got the check, you deposited it within three days.
Because not only did we show you when the check settled, we also show you exactly when that check was deposited at the bank, just as an example there. And so, kind of bring it back a little bit. Originally, our core customers are some of the largest financial technology companies today, like bill.com, avid pay.
Brex Ramp, mercury, a lot of tools that property management operators are already using today. So whether that's using WISE for [00:11:00] sending international payments mm-hmm. Or using, Brex or RAMP as their spend management platform. But also tenants we're powering the bill card that allows tenants to pay rent via card.
We're also powering Flex behind the scenes that allows tenants to split rent into installments. So that was our, initial kind of core customer base. But what was really interesting was we actually got a bunch of inbound demand about three years ago. From technology enabled property management companies, and that was a bit of a light bulb moment for us where we realized.
Exactly as we talked about earlier that property management is actually physical financial technology companies in the sense that property managers are actually fiduciaries not only managing properties, but also managing the funds and the money and the money movement on behalf of their owners as well.
And that's why everything we built that column that was. Initially, targeted towards financial technology companies, it was actually perfect for property management as well, because just like with financial technology companies, they're also managing money on behalf of their consumer customers with their business customers.
Similarly for property management, there is a notion of trust [00:12:00] regulated accounts that are really important here, and so that's when we decided to build out a dedicated business unit, vertical solutions to be focused on the property management industry. Build out great integrations and partnerships with the property management softwares folks are using like AppFolio, rent, vine, Buildium, Entrada, Yardi, et cetera.
Combine that with a deep nuance, understanding the 50 state, state by state trust accounting rules and regulations to protect our customers. And lastly, and most importantly is having that relationship banking model where all of our customers have a dedicated relationship manager. They can call up with any questions that deeply understands their business versus talking to a 800 chat bot or something like that, right?
And so it is really about combining that amazing technology with great customer service. And then we can also talk about how that's actually impactful in this AI era that we're moving into in the future too.
Stacey Salyer: Oh yeah, no, that is really huge. I mean, that relationship, especially when it comes to money and I, I think that is a lost piece in the property management world.
I mean, of course operations is huge. We talk about operations all the time. We've beat that [00:13:00] horse to death. 50 times over, but we really don't talk a lot about banking and the money aspect and the responsibility of our jobs. And every state has its own regulations. You only have so many days or hours to deposit funds and make sure that you've done it right.
I've been audited. So in Washington State, they actually audit every three years or they're supposed to. And I've been through several audits with. my company and everything, and everything always came out really good. But it is very nerve wracking as well because you're dealing with so much money and other people's money and, and all that kind of good stuff.
And I think people forget that. Like when the security deposits come in, that's not even. The owner's money. That's the tenant's money, right? I mean, I think owners are like, well, am I gonna get my security deposit? I'm like, that's not your money. So, yeah. So, and I, and I've been in your office.
I've seen all the people. You guys actually have a really large team and a beautiful office in San Francisco. So I know that you guys have very dedicated team to the property management sector. [00:14:00] So. Obviously we'll talk a little bit about acquisitions and why banking matters for that, but I'd love to talk a little bit about your guys' AI features and we can probably tie that into some of the acquisition stuff too.
But tell me more about what you guys are working on. Obviously the relationship piece is huge, but kind of the AI stuff too.
George Cheng: Yeah. So before I start talking about AI, just to reemphasize, relationship banking is absolutely core to everything we do. I think no matter how amazing the banking technology is, if the trust-based relationship isn't there, there's really not much to talk about.
'cause we're not talking about a chat application here. We're not talking about a random widget you're downloading from the internet. We're talking about banking, and it's not just millions in deposits for the property management company. It's millions for their customers who are the property clients.
And so that is a responsibility that. Everyone who does trust account banking needs to take very, very seriously. And we absolutely do that here as well. But maybe pivoting a little bit to the fun part and where column is truly differentiated is really around our technology and how that's relevant, especially in this AI era that we're moving into.
[00:15:00] So. We don't have to look very far to see all the headlines with what's happening. Jack Dorsey at Block Square announced like a 40% layoff because of, AI tools and how good they've gone today. You look at the pure home river kind of merger. One of the core things that, the Pure CEO talks about is we have built like an AI native operations platform, and we're using that to really scale very quickly.
Even look at, folks that, I respect a lot with Todd Ed and Peter Loman, what they're talking about in their newsletter as well, and, and including yourself, Stacey, on how AI is a step function change for property management, where folks are still talking about fees this, fees that, but AI is actually like a true game changer that could be a true teammate that a lot of folks haven't really started thinking about yet.
And so. What we wanna do here at Column actually is be more than just a banking partner to our property management customers. We actually want to be that partner that helps our customers transform their business with the best possible banking technology, with the best possible integrations into their property management software.
Leveraging ai, leveraging [00:16:00] agents to really transform and create a property management company for the future. And another way to think about it is. What we're doing here at column is giving that technology to any operator in the property management space, regardless of whether they're 50 doors or 20,000 doors.
We have customers across the gamut there, so everyone has the same technology. So you're no longer at a competitive disadvantage to the pure home rivers of the world, where even if you're a 200 door operator. You also have the technology that you can use with AI to really streamline, automate the business, give your existing employees the tools to massively improve their productivity so they can focus on what they actually enjoy.
Yeah. And so that is the high level vision of what we're doing, where column is really a bank built for the future, not just the past. And we are the only bank that is natively integrated into ai, whether it's Claude or GPT, or Gemini. And happy to get into specifically what we mean with very tangible examples of what that actually looks like in property management operations.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. No, I love that and I love that. It's accessible to all, I think that is, and can be a frustration in the property management [00:17:00] world of, oh, you don't have enough doors On this platform, or, oh, if you want to up to this particular platform, then it's gonna cost you extra. And it makes it really challenging, especially when you're an owner, 'cause you're always in this. Cycle of oh, I need more doors to get this. But then, it's ridiculous actually. So I love that it's all equal for all. And yeah, and I do strongly believe that AI is our next teammate and actually is our teammate. Not replacing the humans necessarily, but really taking a lot of the, like the tasky stuff away from the humans or using it kind of like, I know, like what you showed me the other day on.
Yeah. What, what you guys are kind of working on building. Yeah. Different things out where it's like they can kind of be your internal chat bot. That's probably not what you call it, but um, to really get you be able to help your team so that it just saves time and 'cause time is money.
So,
George Cheng: yeah. I think on that point specifically, Stacey, so we've actually seen a lot of our existing customers use our API banking technology, build [00:18:00] a lot of custom software applications that are really benefiting their operations. And so just to flag some very tangible examples. We have customers that basically use our technology.
User APIs and APIs are basically a way for machines to talk to each other and communicate, and software can communicate with each other in a real time programmatic way. And so using our banking APIs connected with, their APIs at Red V or AppFolio, or Buildium, because all these softwares have APIs.
'cause again, the PM operator. You're the ones who own the data, right? Not the company that's like owning the data, for you. So you should be able to access the data how you want. What they've been able to do is really create automatic reconciliation assistant, and what that means is it's not just connecting, like for example, a $500 a CH.
Journal entry and AppFolio match that up to a subtle transaction at the bank. That's pretty straightforward. Existing products have like bank feed solutions to do that, but what's really unique is really those edge cases and those exceptions when there's not a specific match or when there's a missing journal entry in, your property management software.
But there was that subtle transaction in the bank. And [00:19:00] so one thing that was really powerful that some of our customers built was leveraging ai. They basically built an assistant that can reference historical reconciliation. Historical bills and journal entries at AppFolio Connect that with, like historical transactions at column, and build out like an application that helps them handle exceptions, where the AI agent can say, Hey, I noticed that this was a $75 refund from Home Depot.
That hasn't been captured in AppFolio yet. You should search your AppFolio for any bills associated with those, any expenses. Create that offsetting journal entry and then you're done. Or Hey, this is a recurring payment that I noticed that hasn't been added. Outflow is recurring. Bill, click the button here.
The ADD is recurring bill. Then you're reconciled. And just imagine how much time that actually saves an accountant at a property management company when you actually have an assistant who deeply understands the historical context for every reconciliation that was done to really help you and point you in the right direction.
So instead of taking hours at the end of every month to complete a reconciliation, it's done in minutes. Where you still have full control [00:20:00] because you are managing essentially like your reconciliation assistant, but now you actually have that power to free up your time so you can do things that are much more impactful, like budgeting for the next quarter, budgeting for the next month, forecasting, seeing where the cash flows are, like what are the analytics, which by the way, can also be kind of generated by AI in terms of very intuitive dashboards and all of that.
So I think that is just a very tangible examples of a application that one of our customers and a couple of customers built leveraging our technology and also leveraging AI agents that is really powerful for this era that we're moving into.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, no, that's so cool. I mean, I, so bookkeeping is not my thing.
So I always, hi. That was
George Cheng: not for many PMs. I don't think any PM got into property management to be a bookkeeper.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah, I know. PMs didn't even necessarily get into property management on purpose. So that's a whole nother podcast story. But yeah, so I, that was one of the first positions I hired was somebody to come in and do my property management bookkeeping for sure.
how amazing is that, that you're able to kind of create that internal, and then there's of course checks and [00:21:00] balances. I think that's one thing that people should understand when they're listening to this. It's not like AI is taking over all your program and
George Cheng: Exactly.
Stacey Salyer: All of a sudden, doing all this stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, I have no idea. It's not like that at all. But so how have you seen, like your banking help people, like if they're gonna go acquire a property management or maybe sell a property management company? what kind of things that maybe differentiate you with like how, like within that work, that world?
George Cheng: Yeah. It's a really good question Stacey, and I know this is an area where you are the foremost expert, right? When it comes to acquisitions and, acquiring your, portfolio and growing your business. So for us, what we've seen that's been really impactful because of technology that we have here at column is one, a company is already banking with column and they're acquiring another property management portfolio.
The inherent integration. Becomes much quicker because the fact you're no longer doing manual operations to get the GLS and get all the banking information all connected, everything is just an API call with column where you can programmatically actually leverage AI agents to help you with a lot [00:22:00] of that transition, with a lot of that data migration with the new company required.
And when it comes to setting up new trust account. Or new individual kind of trust accounts for like larger institutional property owners. We also make that like a click of a button to do if you no longer have to be drowning in like manual paperwork to get new accounts set up in order to onboard like a new entity that you acquired.
Let's say you bought a vacation rental management company to supplement your long-term management business. It just becomes directly in the dashboard ui. You also have the technology, the data that's already integrated because of our APIs. Especially since we have the ability to integrate with all these different property management softwares.
So when you're doing that data migration, everything is now connected between your property management software and your bank as well too. And this is where beyond the technology piece, we also can support acquisition kind of financing for our customers. We also have great partnerships, other banks for SBA loans, if that's the.
The route that, some of our customers prefer to handle an acquisition. So, those are just some two examples of how we support customers to acquire companies much more quickly, get them [00:23:00] integrated much faster, and so it becomes a more seamless experience and opportunity.
Stacey Salyer: Very cool. Do you guys have any tools that people can use?
So if they're like looking at a portfolio, maybe it's, 250 doors and something where, you know, like maybe me, I'm not necessarily the best at bookkeeping, but you know, I know lots of other great things and maybe some sort of tools where I could say, oh, go in and investigate their trust accounts.
Did they actually triple tie reconciliation, do all that kind of good stuff. Do you guys offer anything like that?
George Cheng: That is a amazing question, Stacey, and the short answer is yes, and we're only building more because what's really powerful is because of the fact you can access APIs for the property management software for the company that you're acquiring.
You can actually build software applications that leverages AI agents to analyze a lot of that data for you and essentially come back to you with a CEO dashboard. On, Hey, have they been doing reconciliation properly? Right? Two what does the actual cash flows look like? Because now you not only have the information from the property management software with what the rent rule is telling you, you can also have the [00:24:00] information at the banking level to verify that information as well by comparing like the bank statements, like comparing the actual kind of cash at the bank that you're, acquiring sorry, the property management who's banking with the like another bank that you're acquiring the business of.
And so that alone is actually a huge time saving where instead of you having to manually. Do all of that work because of the fact, our bank and our APIs can be integrated into any software, essentially, you can actually build very custom applications with the agents that understand your context to help you do a lot of that analysis, and then now you have a dashboard, you can ask it more questions, come up with other cuts of the data, other cuts of the analysis to give you that deep insight into the property portfolio that you're acquiring.
Stacey Salyer: Oh, very cool. I love that. That's awesome. That's very helpful. So yeah, what other cool things do you guys have going on this year? I mean, obviously you have a lot you're building out. Anything that you would like to share that you're working on?
George Cheng: Yeah. I would say couple things that are really exciting to us.
I think one is actually deepening our partnerships across the industry with great folks like Aply, for example. There's a lot of great [00:25:00] products that we're gonna be launching together with them since they actually are one of the forefront in terms of leveraging agents for maintenance, leasing, coordination, all of that.
Really having a robust kind of platform for doing so, and very excited about that. In terms of the new products we wanna launch together with our partners, I would say two is. Deepening our relationships with industry leaders and thought partners like yourself too. Mm-hmm. Stacey, where by being on this podcast, sharing some of the things that we're seeing, sharing where we see the industry kind of trending towards and how we can be helpful, that's also really impactful for us.
Three is being a long, more engaged in the community as well. So, for example, this year we are a official 2026 NPA partner, and so we're very active with the single family residential community. Sponsoring all the events, being there, meeting folks where they are. That is also especially important to us on the technology side, that's where we have so many new products that are coming out.
Whether it's very custom kind of card programs with, spend management cloud and tied in where all your transactions gets automatically synced back to your general ledger. You can create virtual cards. Since we built our own issuer processor and [00:26:00] our own connection to the, the cart networks, there's all sorts of kind of fantastic technology products that were coming out when it comes to financial operations, banking.
And really being that bank that deeply understands AI and can also help our customers transform their business using the latest technology in AI when they're ready as well. And so one thing we talk a lot about is even without all this technology and AI and all of that, column is still a great bank. We deeply understand property management.
We do trust accounts. We have a earnings credit program. We, understand, like the regulated nature of the industry and the pain points that folks have. But now what's really unique about us is you have all this technology on the backend that really helps you futureproof your business that you can use whenever you're ready.
And so that is something that is a really powerful narrative and a really powerful value proposition differentiator, which is why we've been able to grow so quickly in property management in the past two and a half years, three years.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. No, I love that. So tell me a little bit more about your earnings credit program.
And I believe if I'm correct people could use those credits for even like [00:27:00] coaching services. Mm-hmm. Like my programs, that kind of good stuff. So do you wanna share a little bit more about that in case?
George Cheng: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say is we definitely have a competitive earning. Credits program that allows folks to get reimbursed for their coaching services, accounting fees, property management fees and all of that.
But really where we drive massive value for our customers is actually not on the earnings credit side. It's really with the technology that is unlocking massive margin improvement, where instead of being a 10% or 15% EBITDA margin business, folks are seeing expansion to, 30% plus because of the savings that they're seeing on the operational efficiency side and also additional revenue opportunities they could even unlock with some of our products like instant payments.
For example, that a lot of vendors are willing to pay extra to get their, kind of payment faster, essentially. And so that's where, we do have an earnings credit program, but actually for most of our customers, it's very much an afterthought because they're so excited about the technology they're using, the technology where.
Let's say you have a million in balances, the earnings credits is, two or 3%. That's 20, $30,000 a year. With our technology folks are saving kind of [00:28:00] multiples and that earning multiples more. And so that is really where it's like a fundamental reframing of what a great bank should be in property management.
When it not just becomes, Hey, what's your earnings credit rate? It's, Hey, how can you actually help me? Build and transform my property management business, especially for this next, agentic AI era that we're moving into. Right. And so that's really kind of where we have a a strong differentiation and a strong market position.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Well, I love that because that actually opens up your customers to actually have time to go out and acquire. Right. So, I mean, 'cause that's what I think
George Cheng: precisely.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. Instead of growing door by door you already own A PMC, then it's important that you have a good baseline and then go and acquire.
And so if you're able to also help them get the EBITDA and the, revenue significantly higher, that is amazing. So that's really cool. I love to hear
George Cheng: that. Yeah, and for our customers who I'm maybe looking to sell their business down the line too. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Then there's also a fundamental reshift and rerating in terms of how much the business is valued too.
One, the business is a lot more profitable, so you can sell even at the same multiple for a higher [00:29:00] amount. But two is when there is a narrative and a proof point of being kind of AI with technology able, that also changes the exit multiple for, you know what? Our customers can sell their business if they so choose to, but in general, they're just building a much more valuable business that they can be passing down to the next generation, their kids, grandkids, or decide that they wanted to sell to a larger acquirer like a peer, for example.
So. That is where like it becomes a mindset ship almost when it comes to, yeah. What can my bank do for me where it's no longer just a bank that understands property management, it's a bank that understands property management and also has the technology to help our customers take the next leap forward too.
Stacey Salyer: Right, right. Well, I think it makes a big difference probably being founded by, somebody that's a huge visionary, right? Absolute. I mean that, visionary mindset is going to kind of pass down that mindset into the business. It's not just a, oh, we're a bank. This is what we do, you know, really looking at, how can we be creative?
Yeah. How can we create programs for our customers to better, their business and yeah, make it a a lot better all around and make it [00:30:00] easier. Yeah. And, and making the accounting fun.
George Cheng: It can be becoming fun, seedless, give you time back so you can spend more time with your kids, with your family. Take that ski trip, take that national park trip, let the back office essentially run itself pretty much.
And so, so yeah, that's absolutely kind of the goal. And what we're already seeing a lot of our existing customers realize in value. And to your point, Stacey, in terms of the vision behind column as a whole, where we're not just building a bank, right? Mm-hmm. That is like any other bank. We're actually, what we're, our goal is to build the global financial services operating system where, you know.
Everyone from property management companies to title escrow companies, the largest financial technology companies to both domestic and foreign banks are building on top of column our technology for moving the US dollar globally around the world. And so I think it's definitely a big and exciting vision and we're seeing a lot of growth.
Towards that, but we're really, really excited to double down on our investment and focus across property management and banking fiduciaries, and making sure folks are [00:31:00] staying compliant with the trust account regulations, but also having the technology to really take that next step.
Stacey Salyer: Yeah. I love that.
Well, that's awesome. Well, yeah, I'm so glad that you were able to come on and share all the exciting things. I know everything moves so fast, so I'm sure by the end of the year you'll have lots of other new exciting things I'll have to have you back on. Yeah. So let's see. Tell me which events you're going to be at next.
George Cheng: Yeah, so two quick plugs. Oh yes. We have partnered with Aply to launch the Ascent community, which is a free community. Exclusive events, including two city tours we're hosting. The first is in Phoenix with Deb Newell as the keynote speaker to talk about a lot of the, how to kind of think about property management operations in the AI era essentially.
Second is another event we're doing the third week of March in Dallas. So for any folks in the area, we would love to, kind of invite you to kind of come join. It's actually gonna be with the chief Economist at a company called LeaseLock to talk about, retention in this kind of new age that we're moving into.
So I'll be there and my team will be there for those two events that we're hosting [00:32:00] with, along with Aply and other folks as part of the Ascent community. Two is, we're gonna be at the ca, California Bum trade show as well end of this month. And then of course, broker owner is coming up just around the corner.
So we'll be there. And obviously Stacey, as we have a, bunch of customers kind of in your area, and so I'm sure I'll see you even before then.
Stacey Salyer: Yes. Hopefully. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Come hang out with me in Bellingham, Washington. Nobody ever could.
George Cheng: It is a beautiful city. It's a beautiful city, right on the water.
So it's it is, it's almost a hidden gem in that
Stacey Salyer: way. It, it's, it is. Yeah. We have lots of, yeah. Hidden gems around the area. Lots of great hiking and boating. Yeah. All the things. So yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And I love that you've partnered with Aply. I think that they're a visionary for sure. And I.
I'm excited to see what they do this year with their road shows. That's what I'm calling them. I don't know if that's what they're calling them, but it's pretty
George Cheng: cool. Road shows, city tours. Same
Stacey Salyer: concept. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm so glad that you came on. Thank you again so much. And I look forward to continuing to learn more about banking in 2026 and beyond.
George Cheng: Absolutely. Thank [00:33:00] you for having me on. Stacey, thank you for being a gracious host and very excited to continue building the relationship and partnership with you and the team, and also seeing you in person again at other events, but also in Bellingham.
Stacey Salyer: Yep. All right. Alright, well thank you friends for listening today and if you would like to reach out to Collumn Bank all their contact information will be in the show notes or you can always reach out to me and I would be happy to introduce you.
So Alright, well,
George Cheng: you're too kind.
Stacey Salyer: Well, we'll see you next time. Have a great day.
George Cheng: Bye everyone.
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.
And if this episode landed, leave a five star review. It's how more PM owners find the only acquisition [00:34:00] expertise in the space that comes from all sides of the table. And while you're at it, grab my Acquisition Readiness checklist on my website at staceysalyer.com. Then when you're ready to move from Growth Thinking to Growth Building, explore the Built to Acquire program.
Don't leave it on the table. See you on the next episode.
