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 CO 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.
I am Stacey Salyer, [00:01:00] your host, talking about all things acquisitions in the third party, single family property management space. So welcome back my friends. I wanted to take this time in this episode to talk about something a little bit different than you normally hear in property management.
Now, as a lot of you may know, or if you're new here, you may not know. I come from property management space. I've been in the industry for over 20 years, which is hard to believe. Not only did I grow up in this. Space, but I basically raised my family. My kids grew up alongside of me as I grew and developed as a leader within property management.
So my niche has always been third party, single family property management. But I've also ventured out into some other things such as short term rental, midterm rental, and even hip camp, which is a new adventure that I started last year in 2025. So I wanted to touch on the new year that we're experiencing, and I'm not talking about [00:02:00] 2026.
What I'm referring to is the Chinese Lunar New Year, the year of the fire horse. So if you follow along with me on social media or you follow along in my newsletter, I've talked a little bit about the year of the fire horse and how I've become a little obsessed with it. So I'm gonna give you a little backstory on what it means.
So 2025 Chinese New Year, was the year of the wood snake. So now there's always a different element that comes with each year and each year has a different animal. So last year was the wood snake, and that really meant a year of shedding. So that meant shedding anything that did not serve you, whether it was in your personal life or your business life or whatever, like.
Your entire life. So hopefully most of us, I know myself, I did, I worked on shedding everything that did not serve me. That was, different relationships or different business things. I really niched down as a lot of you know, now I am the [00:03:00] only acquisition strategist in third party single family property management, and I teach you how to acquire a property management company.
So I came about that by. Using the year of the snake to shed things that were not serving me or didn't serve others around me. And that's the conclusion I came to. So as we approach February 17th, and you're probably listening to this as we've just rolled over into that date, it's the year of the fire horse Now.
The year of the fire horse only comes about every 60 years now, it's not the year of the horse. The year of the horse comes around I think every 12 years, but the fire element only comes every 60 years. So most of us listening probably will only experience this one time in our lives, and it is a really exciting year.
But what I've been thinking about and reflecting on is that in property management we tend to be very operationally focused, and that's fair. I have started property management [00:04:00] companies from the ground up. I have bought property management companies and added to my existing property management company.
I am an operations expert. In fact, I actually even ran. Two regions, , nationally for pure property management, , which is a huge job in itself, right? It's, over 6,000 doors. You know, helping operations managers keep all that under control. And all of us that are in property management, whether you manage, 20 doors or you manage 2000, we all know how important operations.
It can make or break your business. But I've noticed that in the industry, that seems to be the main thing that we focus on. I see webinar after webinar, LinkedIn posts and all about benchmarks and numbers and do you have this system? Have you bought this SaaS product? Have you done this or that?
And that is great. But if you feel called to do something a little bit different with your business, if you are in a place where you are now feeling like you are operationally sound, [00:05:00] because you will come to a point where you now feel like, okay, I've got my operations good. Like I have a really solid foundation.
I have the SaaS products behind me. I have documented SOPs, I've got teammates, I've got everything under control. But I'm wondering if you feel called to now grow your business. Let's talk about that. What does that look like? Because we don't hear a lot about that. We do hear a little here and there about adding a biz dev manager.
In fact, I have some amazing vendor partnerships. One with Rent Scale Jeremy Pound and Jen Merrit over there at Rent Scale. They do an amazing job of helping you source. Biz dev managers and training and everything like that, and that is great. You should have that funnel. But when you have your foundation created and you're feeling called to do something a little bit more, this will be the year that you wanna do it.
The fire horse year is a year that you should have one to two major focuses and. [00:06:00] When you use that fire and that horse, if you just think of like when I say the word fire horse, I instantly think of this beautiful like stallion horse, like just this beautiful. Animal with all this power that's on a beach, I always imagine a beach because I love the beach and I just think of this beautiful animal running as hard as it can and as fast as it can, and it's just the stride and the muscles within the animal.
So if you think of that and you think of all the power that that particular stallion has, and then you put the fire behind it. Think of what you can do in your business if you focus your intention on growth. Think of what you could do if you think beyond the business development manager.
Think about what you could do if you start thinking about becoming an acquirer, because I wanna challenge you [00:07:00] if you are an amazing operator and you have your systems down, you have the processes down. It is probably time for you to step out and step into your power and start thinking like an acquirer and look around you as far as like what's in your community and who's in your community.
Where could you have those conversations? Who could you be talking to and who could be your guide by your side in order to help you meet those goals?
So I really wanted to create this episode to talk about the fire horse year and how it can actually impact you and your business if you're thinking. The right way as far as growth and development. So there's gonna be growth and development for yourself as a leader, and transformation and growth and development and transformation for your business as well.
so many of us have been taught to scale and grow our business door by door. And again, nothing wrong with that. I spent many years growing my business door by door. [00:08:00] But let me take you back on a journey and tell you what changed my life and what changed the trajectory of my life and my business. So back in 2019, I had a conversation with a local landlord, tenant law attorney, and I just said, Hey, I'm looking to grow my business.
If you have any clients that are tired of , you know, self-managing, I would be happy to have conversation with 'em. And then he said, Hey, I actually know a guy who's looking to sell his business. Now, this was a Boomer client and most of you know, my tagline is, while Boomers retire, you acquire, and it is really near and dear to my heart for serving these boomer clients.
So that one sentence that I said out loud changed the trajectory of my business. So that one sentence led to a meeting. Which led to a conversation, which then led to a deal, and I acquired over 350 doors at the start of COVID.
It changed the trajectory of my business. It enabled me to serve clients and [00:09:00] residents within my community at a different rate and capacity than my competitors, and I was able to serve so many more people and change their lives as well. So I just want you to think about that. I would be remiss if I don't bring up that while operations is super important, and don't get me wrong, I love a good SOP, but if we're not stepping back and we're not giving ourselves permission to step back and really think about where do I wanna go as a leader, where do I wanna take my business?
What is the easiest and fastest way to get there? What is the easiest and fastest way to grow and really open our minds to acquiring? I'd be remiss for not bringing that up, and I really want to share with everybody what that looks like, what that could look like for you as a leader, and why it's so important.
So if you have landed on this episode and it's the first time you've heard me, Stacey Salyer talk about acquiring and what [00:10:00] that looks like and all the different tips and tricks and who to talk to and all that good stuff, and you're listening and you're thinking, wow, this lady is talking about the Chinese Lunar New Year and the fire horse and using your power.
Yeah, you are probably gonna get a little bit of that in my episodes. Not all the time, but to be quite honest, that's who I am. I love to help other leaders develop their leadership skills and transform their lives and transform the lives of people around them as well. I do wanna thank you for tuning in and being here and being part of my community.
So before we sign off today, I do want to just remind everyone that while operations is very important and numbers and systems are really important to your business, the number one thing that makes your business run is people. So. Obviously it's your team. Your team is people, and that makes your business run, but your clients and your residents as well, and that's who we're really serving.
Obviously, [00:11:00] we're fiduciary to our client, but we also have our customer, which is the resident, and so. I think that sometimes we kind of miss that and in all the different conferences that we have, and they're great conferences. There's NPRM and PM Systems and all the different things. They really do hit mostly on operations.
It's a lot about numbers, it's a lot about benchmarks and this and that, and that is important, but really people is what makes your business tick and stick around. So this is my call to you. If you are the leader that has their operations under control and you're the leader that feels called to do something different in the year of the fire horse, and use your energy and your power to move your business forward, then you are in the right place and I look forward to leading with you in 2026 and walking by your side and teaching all things, acquiring and transformation not only with yourself. Not only in [00:12:00] your business, but also transforming yourself and your life as well. So thank you again for joining me.
I look forward to running beside you this year of the fire horse, and I cannot wait to see what happens for you. Thank you again, my friends, for joining. As always, you can find me at www.staceysalyer.com. You can get ahold of me through email at [email protected], and I would love to hear from you.
Tell me what you think of this episode. If you loved it, give it a five star review. It helps other people who are looking to acquire property management companies. Find my channel and learn something new from the Slayer. All right, talk to y'all soon, my friends. Happy New Year.
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 [00:13:00] 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 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.
