From Classroom to Keys: Building a Balanced Property Management Business with Brad Swensen

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners.

0:45I'm excited to have Brad Swenson with PMI Soda City as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast episode today. So Brad, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community. Yeah, great. Thank you for having me on the show today. Brad Swenson, as you said, I'm part of a franchise, a PMI franchise, and our local owned businesses in Columbia, South Carolina, PMI sort of city. Really the focus for us when we first started was short-term rentals. So we do a lot of guests traveling here for government work, Fort Jackson, and then of course, SEC football games and parents coming and visiting their students here at the University of South Carolina.

1:41We have expanded into the residential and commercial long-term rental properties as well. We manage those, but really the largest portion of our portfolio is the short-term rentals. Great, perfect. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, so if you had to start from square one in your business, what would you do differently? That's a great question. I think I made a good decision as far as a franchise because I was not a previous business owner. I was in the education business for 23 years as a teacher and a coach. I think probably the biggest thing that I would change up is that I wouldn't spend so much on outside marketing and third -party vendors trying to get leads.

2:41I would spend more time networking and trying to build relationships within the community and grow the business that way because I found more success that way rather than with those third-party leads vendors. It just wasn't very successful, and I spent a lot of money on doing that. Gotcha. So that would be the main thing that you would do differently. Anything else? Yeah, I think to start.

3:15You know, I think probably also in the first year, I think it would have been more advantageous to talk to more property managers, especially short-term managers outside of the PMI franchise, and get their perspectives and really kind of learn from them a little bit more about the industry and get a different perspective rather than just a one-sided perspective from PMI about how to run short-term rentals. Gotcha. No, I love that. I love that. That's good advice. So what would you say have your biggest learnings been as a franchisee owner since you started it? Well, at least for me, I would say the biggest learning curve for me would be that the franchise is a great thing for me because of the coaching background that I came from and the teaching.

4:18So you give me a playbook and I go after it. So, you know, I think for those of those, for those people that are not, you know, business minded or entrepreneur minded, it is a good alternative to get into a franchise and let them show you kind of the way of how to get into business and kind of working. So at least for me, because I didn't have that business background, I think that was huge for me. and I've learned a lot about business in the last three years, not only from the franchise, but also from the B &I networks chapter that I'm in and talking to having a one-on-ones with those people and learning more about just how to operate a business and understanding of being an entrepreneur and getting out of that small-mindedness and really growing and thinking bigger.

5:18Okay. Now you threw out BNI out there. Are there any other networking groups that you attend that you would recommend for small business owners? I haven't gotten too involved in too many. We have a couple other, you know, BNI members that kind of started, you know, kind of some things that brought other, you know, BNI chapters together and try to help that networking. But really BNI has been so successful for me personally that I really haven't had to do much more than that other than the BNI chapter. That's awesome. That's awesome. So what are some common misconceptions, would you say, about running a business?

6:02I mean, I guess that kind of my misconceptions going in was, and this may seem, I guess, contradictory, is that it takes a lot more time than what you're used to. In my case, coming from the coaching education, you know, especially like during the season, I was spending 100 to 110 hours a week. And so, especially at the beginning, trying to grow my business and build it, I was like, man, I mean, I'm home by like 435 o 'clock, 6 o 'clock. You know, should I be out there doing more? I mean, I feel like there's, you know, other things that I should be doing. So I think if you are efficient and you're organized, then I think that it's not as difficult to start your business as you might think it would be.

7:04Now, don't get me wrong. There's definitely, you know, I had lots of late nights where I'm doing, you know, back office work at, you know, 9, 10, 11 o 'clock after I put my daughter to bed. But if you are organized and you're efficient and you really take advantage of the time, you don't have to work 80, 90, 100 hours a week to grow your business. You don't have to. Okay, okay. So do you think you are a better entrepreneur or employee and why? I think I'm a better employee right now. I think I'm getting to the point where I'm going to be a better entrepreneur. But right now, I have a couple of decades worth of being that employee and just, hey, just tell me what to do.

7:53I got this. I'll be great at it. I'll take it to the next level. So I'm still learning on how to run the business and be better at it and that entrepreneurial type thing. But I say, If I'm saying right now, I would say, yeah, I'm kind of, you know, that good employee and I'm working towards being a better entrepreneur and understanding, reading books, listening to podcasts, those type of things. Listen to people that have been doing this much longer than I have, you know, for just a few years. Yeah, no, I appreciate that honesty. That's really good of you to be completely honest with that answer.

8:34um so how do you handle taking vacations while running a business yeah that's uh that's a great question um you know i feel like i have more free time now than i did prior so you know for instance you know last year my wife had a um a conference with her work in minneapolis minnesota so basically I knew leading up to that. And I could see like my bookings, and I can handle so many things, you know, remotely. And then on the long term side, at that point, you know, I only had five or six long term, and a couple commercial properties. So anything that would have come up during those four or five days that we were in Minneapolis, like I can pretty much handle everything, make a couple phone calls, whatever, and get it through until I get done.

9:35I have good housekeepers in place. I had good inspectors that could inspect the properties before, you know, pre-arrival inspection before guests came. And then of course, when guests left, they would get there, make sure the asset is safe for the owner. I had already walked them through that. So I'd kind of put those pieces in place. So when I do go on, you know, vacation, We go up in the mountains on 4th of July. I'm able, I'm going to have some bookings here in Columbia. So I'm just able to get those things out of place and kind of, or into place. And then when I leave, be able to run things from all my software remotely.

10:17Oh, very nice. Very nice. What part of the mountains are you heading up to? We usually head up to Asheville where my in-laws have a place up there. very nice very nice beautiful beautiful area yeah all right so how do you balance your personal life with the demands of running a business are you um are you the type of person i mean you said you got more free time now so i think you might have answered this a little bit earlier but are you typically a 5 p.m i'm done shutting everything off or are you working late you kind of answered this a little bit uh you know prior but let's dig into that a little bit more how do you balance What's your first life with demands of running your business?

10:54Yeah, I would say that the reason I got into the business is because, you know, my daughter was born. And for the first two years, I never really saw her. So I wanted more freedom. So work-life balance is really huge for me. She's five now. And, you know, I would have been a good dad as a teacher and coach. But I don't want to be good at anything. I want to be great. So I knew like I needed more time. And so right now, like at six o 'clock, like I have, you know, my watch, my phone, everything, it goes into, you know, silent mode. So I can spend that time with my daughter, you know, we have dinner, you know, all that stuff.

11:41We put her to bed. Now, after I put her to bed, I can, I can do some work or whatever. but I'm much more aware now with my daughter about the work-life balance and you know obviously being an entrepreneur you want to make you know you want to make a good amount of money that's what we're in for right but at the same time like I don't take on certain owners now and I'm not very big you know I'm kind of a small property manager comparatively but there's some owners that I won't take on because I know they're going to micromanage, right? They're going to be calling me at eight o 'clock, nine o 'clock.

12:18And in fact, I did have some of those. And my wife was finally like, hey, you're falling back into the same things of, you know, you're sitting here prepping for practice tomorrow, you know, prepping for games and stuff. And I'm like, you're right. So I kind of tweaked that pull that back and so i just really um i get about 60 percent of my referrals and stuff from bni so i really work that and then during the day i work hard and then i tell people you know if they call whatever i say hey look you know i'm spending time with my family whatever i haven't had anybody ever owner whatever have an issue with that now when you have guests right some of those things come up you know an airbnb or vrbo you got to respond at like nine o 'clock or 9 30 and i'll say hey just a minute guest is having trouble with x y or z i gotta go take care of it usually it's like five ten minutes and then i come back but it's not you know taking you know 30 40 minutes out of my time.

13:23So, um, I think to me, the most important thing is work-life balance is why I got into it. If I get super rich, great, you know, but I just want to be able to have a nice income and be able to spend time with my family and not be working a hundred, 110 hours and have some freedom, um, with that work-life balance. I mean, you're exactly right. I mean, I don't think anybody on their deathbed ever says, you know, Hey, I wish to work more. when I was younger, right? You always say kind of, I wish I spent more time with my loved one when they were younger or whatever the case, went to more of their games, went to more of their events, you know, whatever events they have going on, if they're in dance class or whatever, you know, that's what you want more of, not so much more of just working more.

14:09So I totally agree with you on that. Yeah. Yeah. It feels good to be able to do that, but at the same time, you know, to be able to, you know, provide for your family. Like I said, I'm still in the, in the early stages i'm in year three now and so a smaller property management is i'm not you know think in 2024 we brought in you know just under 300k in revenue but you know i have a lot of expenses too with you know franchise and whatnot but um you know i'm not making you know millions of dollars but at the same time like it's just no i just have such a better work life balance than what I did before.

14:51So I love it. Yeah, no, get it, get it. So what, you know, in getting into this and kind of, you know, personal life and business and everything, what have you attributed to the gross of your franchise so far? I mean, I would say there's several factors, of course, right? I would say one, for me, the franchise was a good fit like I mentioned B &I B &I the membership fees and what I pay for that is so much less than you can pay for the advertising that I would get in return as a return on investment so those are great I think what I bring personally is because I had in the education and coaching field so much so many different things on my agenda that constantly moved up and down in the priority list i got really good at letting that be fluid and being efficient with my time and saying this is going to have to be put off till tomorrow this is going to have to be put off until you know later on today and so i became really efficient and organized and making sure like these are the processes I can do and I can control and I've got you know 13 things that have to be done by this time but I can get those things done and then of course being one an athlete and then a coach the drive for me to it it's not to succeed it's I don't want to be a failure.

16:35I don't want my family. I don't want friends. I don't want to go look at me and be a failure. So the drive to not fail, it just is always in the back of me and that competitiveness to what I can do to be better. You know, who can I talk to? Who can I learn from to get better? So what qualities do you look for in potential employees? Do you look for any personality traits or anything like that? I think in property management, for me, when I get to the point to where I hire my first assistant property manager that I'm going to be in there and helping me manage, they're going to have to have good soft skills of dealing with people and being able to build relationships.

17:24Because what I see in the property management is property managers who don't return calls. Property managers who say, hey, this is the way it is, tough. If you don't like it, go somewhere else, right? I feel like if you can find someone who really does care about residents, who really does care about owners and has those soft skills to kind of work through, hey, there's all these different parts and pieces, is you're going to have to be a really like personable person and be patient to work with and those, that's what I would be looking for in my first hire. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. So for those employees or for those people that you'll be working with, you know, how do you go about fostering a positive and productive work environment for them?

18:15I mean, I'm going to have to go lean back on to, you know, what was successful as a coach, right? You build those relationships, you're constantly like teaching and coaching them on in a positive way. The negative way never is really helpful. It just isn't. If you can be positive and you can encourage it, you can get those employees and make them feel like they are an important aspect to what you're doing in your business, then they're going to want to show up every day. They're going to want to help you out. You're going to be building a strong relationship. And they were like, man, I got to be there for Brad today.

18:59You know, it's not just a paycheck. Like, hey, man, I've got to be there for this president is having a problem with, you know, forming or whatever. I want to make sure that that person is taking care of. So I really think like strong, positive relationships is the best way to be a leader. No, I agree. I agree with that. Because I mean, it's you always Let's go back to like what you just said. You know, you think about, man, you know, I want to work hard for this person. I like working with this person. I want to work hard for them. And you go a little bit more of an extra mile for a person you actually enjoy working with, right?

19:32Rather than somebody who, I don't even want to come to work today. You know, I'm just going to do what I need to do to get out of here. And that's it. But if you enjoy working with the person, you'll probably put a little bit of extra work and a little bit of extra effort into actually getting the job done correctly, right? Because you actually are trying to make that person look good. that's that that's your leader so i definitely agree with that yeah 100 i you know the head coaches that i worked the hardest for were the ones that were you know they trusted you to do your job and you know obviously if you did something wrong they come to you and they talk to you but they were positive and you had a friendship with him the worst ones the worst head coaches to work for were the micromanagers and the ones that always had something negative to say.

20:21They were never happy, horrible to work for, you know? Yeah. No, I definitely agree. Agreed. All right. So yeah, I appreciate you answering those questions. Now we're going to head into what's called the quick fire round and how this works basically is I'm going to, I'm going to say one word and basically you're going to respond with the first thing that comes to your mind in regards to running your franchise business, um, in regards to that word. So yeah, got it. The first word is education. I think education is crucial. Um, you know, even after, you know, 23 years in coaching, I would go to clinics and I'd always try to find like one nugget, something that some coach was teaching or talking about that I could grab onto.

21:12I was always looking and reading. So same with your business. Always continuing to educate yourself means you're going to continue to improve and stay up on the trends. If you're the person that says, hey, I know everything, you're going to get left behind. You should probably get out. Next word is planning. Planning. Yeah, planning is so important. You know, every day, you know, every week, actually, I kind of look at what my next week is going to look like. You know, I plan out, I've got my schedule, I try to fit things in and make sure that I'm efficient and give myself enough time. But, you know, I'm consistently looking at my calendar throughout the day and seeing, hey, where can I plug and play in these things and get this next thing accomplished or, you know, finished up.

22:06Next word is inspiration. inspiration i draw a lot of inspiration from you know my my daughter i want her to see that there's a better way to live your life you know like we talked about work-life balance and then also i want i don't want her to be the person that's working 80 hours a week for somebody i want her to see that you know she can build something with her own two hands and i want her to have that entrepreneurial, you know, ideas in her head. If she doesn't want to, that's fine. But I want her to have her dad, I want her to see that in her dad and be able to say, you know what? My dad did that.

22:49I could do that. Yeah. No, no. I love that because yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. And I have to, I have to actually say something in regards to this, because, you know, for me growing up, I didn't have that right. Both my parents, I grew up in actually low-income neighborhood. And both my parents work 50, 60 hours a week just to make ends meet. And it's tough. And it's like, I would have loved at a younger age to have seen more ways out, like entrepreneurial and stuff like that. And it gives you a sense of that earlier on in life, rather than you having to come up and then learn it the harder way, kind of go through some bruises, get set back, get back up and then learn that way.

23:29so yeah I totally agree with that so sorry I didn't mean to take the thunder from you but uh yeah that kind of made me think of my childhood and how I would have loved to have seen that growing up because I feel like I would have gotten far ahead in life a little earlier me too me too yeah it is what it is but yeah the last word is a commitment commitment you know when you're running a business it's a commitment you know uh you're just never really some time off you know you're constantly are thinking about how i can grow the business and it really is a commitment to where hey i've i've invested so much in it that now hey what can i do now that i've committed to this what can i do to keep keep committed and keep educating myself Be persistent and keep growing the business because, again, all that you've invested in it, you don't want it to be for naught.

24:30And in my case, I'm scared of failure. I'm scared of failure. Perfect. Yeah, I appreciate that. And you can be as candid as possible on this question here, but what words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow? I have to fall back on you know what I know is you know B &I network green and if you really want to grow and you want to get out there and network and you really want your business to achieve whatever goals you have set you have to have that giver's game like you really have to be willing to help out other people And when I first started, I was like, really, people are going to help other people out.

25:20And I have a lot of great referral partners with property managers. There's enough business to go around, right? There's enough business for everyone to go around. You just have to be willing to make those connections and be a trusted referral partner and be willing to give. And those people are going to want to help you out. And they're going to want to help you grow your business. Okay. Okay. All right. So what would you say is the next big thing for PMI Soda City? That's a great question. Thought about this. And I really want to grow the residential side and the commercial side because it gives me much more of a steady income.

26:02And it's not as labor intensive as the short term rental. but there is a lot of intrigue especially in the commercial side and managing that because I think that's where I think that's where the growth can really be I thought it was short-term I thought it was long-term and those are great but I think for me like I really kind of want to get into that niche of commercial because you know one there's a lot more money in commercial and two, I don't think that there's a lot of great property managers that are in the commercial. They're taken over by big corporations. So I think if I can get in there and really show that my strengths and the personality and the personal care that I can take for your commercial property, I think I can really help some people out, grow their business as well.

27:02So. All right. Perfect. And lastly, what's the next, what's the best way for someone to find you or get in touch with you if they need to? Yeah, I would say just go to my, my website. That's probably the best way at PMI soda city.com. And you go on there, you can, you can reach me. You'll have myself. We'll be on there. Our office phone, email address, all of those things. You can also, you know, So book vacation rentals if you're or, you know, short term rentals as you're coming into Columbia. Those are all ways in which, you know, you can get in contact with me. All right, perfect. Any social media?

27:43I mean, I do. I'm on Facebook a little bit. I really don't do a lot of social media. I know it's an area that I need to grow, but on Facebook, you know, I do post on my, I do have a PMI sort of city one. and then my personal, but my personal one, I just basically do kind of the business stuff. So it's not any of my personal stuff. It's just geared more towards short-term rentals and property management, same with the PMI Soda City Facebook account. Okay, perfect, fantastic. Well, yeah, thank you so much for being a part of the community and for all that you're doing. We certainly wish you continued success and I really appreciate you coming on the podcast today.

28:22I felt like we had a great heart-to-heart conversation. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I really appreciate you having me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. All right. Have a good day. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. the more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach.

29:06It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com that's my personal email that i read no one else reads it first there's it's not screened it's my real email just send it to me i can't wait to talk to you hey and until then all the best