I know I said I wasn’t going to have a second free article this week, but we got an advertiser, and there are several things I wanted to include in some blurbs at the bottom of today’s article, so I figured I’d write one after all.
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The Contradiction
Allow me to be blunt: if you don’t believe in the value of property management yourself for your own properties, then it’s pretty hypocritical to make a living off of selling services to professional property managers.
Let’s use a blatantly obvious analogy to demonstrate this. Let’s say you’re a doctor. A sales rep shows up from Purdue Pharma trying to sell you on the wonders of OxyContin. While they’re in your office, they start complaining about how much their back is hurting, and how they suffer from chronic severe back pain. Being a doctor, you ask a simple and obvious question: “have you seen a doctor about that? Maybe they can prescribe you a pain killer, like your own product?” If the sales rep says “oh no, I sell that to doctors, but I don’t want to take it myself, and I never go to see a doctor,” would you be inclined to think that this is the kind of person you want to do business with? Would you be listening to the sales presentation from this person who doesn’t see doctors unless they’re pitching them something to buy?
Either you believe in the value of professional property managers or you don’t. If you don’t, then you clearly don’t understand our industry, and that makes me question the value of whatever you provide to this industry. If you don’t understand the industry, then you can’t understand the solutions that this industry needs.
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But I think it goes beyond that. I think it’s also just downright insulting. Not intentionally so. I’m certainly not saying that these vendors are trying to be insulting to us. But it does come across and get perceived as “oh, professional management is fine for other people, but I’m too good for that. I can handle it better myself.” Really? You, a salesperson by trade, think that you know the laws, regulations, and best practices of managing a rental property better than someone who has practiced professional property management for decades? You don’t, I can tell you that with certainty. But just the fact that you think you do insults our profession, and I’m not too keen on buying products and services from people who insult my entire business, even if the insult is unintentional.
The Contrarian View
I do want to give a shoutout to Taylor Malkus of Lighthouse. On the LinkedIn thread on this topic, he offered an alternative view that he’s heard from some other PropTech people:
“Generally agree, but I have a different perspective on this. I know several folks in our space that do this and their reasoning is it gives them a much deeper appreciation for what PMs actually have to do, which in turn makes them better at their jobs. They've built their career in sales, not in property management—two VERY different things. This approach gives them a chance to gain valuable experience without having to put their careers on hold. That said, that's just about the ONLY reason I'd ever consider managing myself.” - Taylor Malkus, Co-Founder of Lighthouse
Now, do I buy this reasoning? No, I don’t. But it’s probably the best possible defense I could imagine. The reason I don’t buy is it is that it doesn’t actually give them any real perspective. When you own a rental property or two, you get to see only a tiny fraction of what an actual PM does, and it may actually skew your view the opposite direction and make you think that PM is easy if you happened to get lucky and end up with a great tenant. Experienced PMs know that it’s the uncommon situations that make life a living hell for a landlord. You might need to be a landlord for years before you run into those situations if you’re lucky.
In other words, these PropTech vendors who say they’re doing this to understand our industry are really just suffering from something called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Dunning-Kruger is a cognitive bias in which someone with low competence or knowledge overestimates what they actually know (conversely, Dunning-Kruger says that someone with a high degree of knowledge or competency tends to underestimate their own knowledge because they know just how much there really is to know). As a result, these vendors are getting a tiny little sliver of experience and then thinking that they understand our industry or what it’s like to be a landlord, but in reality they’re getting a skewed and incomplete picture. They would be far better off just admitting that this isn’t their core competency, and listening to and trusting the experts.
One of my favorite representations of this is the graphic below that demonstrates how knowledge grows over time as you specialize. The graphic is representing someone who goes from elementary school through a PhD, but it can really apply to any area of specialty, regardless of whether it’s formal graduate education or not. The vendor who thinks they’re getting a real picture of being a landlord is probably somewhere between the 3rd and 4th circle on the top row, while the property manager with a couple decades of experience is the red spike sticking out with mountains upon mountains of PM/landlord knowledge.
We all have our areas of expertise. Some of us have a few. I was an airline pilot, a union officer, a property manager, and now a property management consultant. Many of you, and many vendors, have several areas of expertise also. But owning a rental property or two does not make you an expert, even if you’ve had them for many years. To compare it to my prior career at the airlines, it makes you more like a private pilot flying a Cessna around. I’m sorry, that’s great, I encourage people who love aviation to get involved in it, but you simply aren’t ever going to understand what it’s like to be an airline captain just because you’ve flown your Cessna for a few hundred hours.
Most Vendors Do It Right
That all said, I want to give credit to the vast majority of vendors in our space who do the right thing and use a professional. Most of you get it, and kudos to you for that.
I also want to emphasize that this article isn’t meant to “call out” any vendors reading this who manage their own properties. I haven’t named any names for a reason, and there are some self-managers who are some of my favorite people in the industry. This isn’t about attacking you or shaming you. I just want you to reconsider. I want you to really think through what you’re doing and what message you’re sending to your target customer. And hopefully a few of you will head over to your CRM and find a property manager where your rental property is located and get signed up. It’s what’s best for you, and what’s best to send the right message about your own company when you’re trying to sign up PMs for your own product or service.
Happy Labor Day
Are you closed on Monday? I hope so. Give your team the time off. As a former union officer, this holiday means more to me than most. People literally died in the early days of the labor movement in this country to bring us things like the 40 hour workweek and the weekend. This holiday never gets the attention and the respect that it deserves. Let’s change that.
A Word About PMW
Rentvine has sponsored our newsletter before, but this is the first time that their sister company, PMW, has sponsored, so I wanted to say a word about them. I’ve been working with PMW since way back in 2012, I believe, when they rolled out our very first website for my own PM company. In addition to our PM website, they also do our PMAssist website, and the website for the NARPM Atlanta Chapter, where I’m president this year. I’ve written about this on LinkedIn before, but with every consulting client I work with, website analytics improve drastically after we roll out a PMW website. There just isn’t any comparison. PMW knows PM website optimization. If you’re not using them, you need to be.
New Newsletter!
The incomparable “Doctor” Deb Newell has a new newsletter on Substack! Deb is one of my favorite people, and she’s also an outstanding consultant for our industry. Be sure to check out her newsletter and subscribe. She hasn’t posted her first article yet, but it’s coming soon, so be sure to be on her list so you get it!
Attend NARPM National Convention - For FREE!
🎟️ 1 Free Ticket + 🏨 3 Free Nights Hotel 📍 Orlando, FL | 📆 Oct 20–23
NARPM and Second Nature are sponsoring event tickets + hotel rooms for qualifying property managers who book and attend a quick 30-minute intro call with them. You’ll also score access to an exclusive party at Universal Studios! Spots are limited, book now before they're gone!
Second Nature VIP Experience - And Harry Potter!!!
I’m a nerd, no one is surprised by that. And while Star Trek is my favorite nerd fandom, I’m also a big Harry Potter fan (Snape was the real hero!). So I was thrilled to find out that Second Nature’s VIP party at this year’s NARPM Annual Convention is going to be a complete takeover of the Harry Potter Hogsmeade attraction at Universal Orlando. Along with the party, VIP access includes airport pickup, expedited registration at the hotel, etc. Be sure to register to be a VIP if you’re attending the conference!
✨ NARPM® Annual 2025 VIP Experience The Second Nature VIP registration is now open! This year’s perks include airport pickup, exclusive swag, and a private, after-hours party inside The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ - Hogsmeade™. Property managers attend free, while vendors can join with a $100 ticket — with 100% of proceeds benefiting NARPM’s 2025 charity, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
Loved this podcast, because it’s got lots of great debate. Three amazing industry salespeople, Kristen Lopez, Ben Smith, and Eric Beckman, go through a series of “hot takes” on sales/business development. For the record, how I side on these takes:
Kristen is dead on, lots of PM businesses aren’t ready for a BDM and just need a sales assistant. And other businesses, like my own, who already have a BDM, can probably hire a sales assistant before bringing on a second BDM. Great advice from a sales expert here!
Love me some Beckman, but definitely disagree on his take (as it applies to PM sales). Discovery calls need to be 80% listening and asking questions. This helps you to weed out poor fits, although it might not lead to the most conversions, which is I think what Eric was focusing on. But I think Eric is 100% right on the kind of sales he does with PM company owners. Most of us are going to get annoyed by a salesperson asking us a bunch of questions. We’re busy, and we just want the info quick. His method is better for dealing with us, Kristen & Ben’s method is better for dealing with owners.
Hardcore disagree with Ben on not discounting. I’ve written about this one before, but this is the real estate business. Refusing to haggle over price in the real estate business is like refusing to haggle over price as a car salesman. If I walk onto the car lot and offer a grand under sticker and the salesman tells me he doesn’t haggle, I’m laughing in his face and walking away. This business is no different. I’m not losing a deal worth $500/mo RPU over a $25 discount request, and you shouldn’t either. But I do see Ben’s point that you don’t want to diminish the perceived value of your service by discounting. This is a fine line to walk, and you should work with a sales consultant like Ben to figure out where the sweet spot is. Just tell him you don’t want to be so rigid and you do want to allow discounting. :)
Open to Work
Are you an experienced PM industry employee looking for work? Or are you a PM company or vendor seeking the best talent? Send me your info and I’ll feature it here! And look forward to future editions where we’ll be featuring some of the best RTMs available!
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Debate Me
Disagree with my take here? Have a different perspective? There’s nothing I love more than a good debate or even just an intelligent conversation. If you’d like to jump on a podcast recording with me to discuss this topic, please let me know!
The views expressed in this publication are the views of the author only and not any advertisers, sponsors, partners, affiliates, or organizations that the author may be a member of.
PMAssist Industry Insights is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Wholeheartedly agree. I'm also not a fan of PM "coaches" who haven't actually worked in PM for years, if ever.