Real Estate Cycles Change But Housing Always Wins with Jeff Mayorga & Eli Miller, Encompass Property Management

19:03Jeff Mayorga:We treat it as though it's a business. And so you need that backing for you. Plus, it's a lot of work. And there's a lot of litigation and laws involved. So for instance, we had a whole bunch of new laws come down July 1st that your average homeowner isn't going to realize came through. Whereas me as part of Realtor Association and our local MLS, There's always attorneys and things. I'm always getting the new information. So we stay on top of those things that a private owner doing it themselves, they could miss that and really put themselves up for liability. So I think really anybody who owns a rental property should use professional management.

19:39Jeff Mayorga:Okay. Okay.

19:41Eli Miller:About how many hours a week are you all working in and out of the business right now?

19:46Jeff Mayorga:Jeff, you go first. Oh, my God.

19:50Eli Miller:dude probably like if i had to put an hourly amount so it's it's weird because it's very seasonal so during the winter time it's more of working on the business rather than for it you know what i mean but during the summertime like we are right now we're talking probably 60 to 80 hours a week just making sure we're taking care of the volume correctly yeah it's it's it's

20:17Jeff Mayorga:It's a seasonal business with volume spikes and drops. So one of the benefits in this business or for Jeff or for the employees is you can kind of work around your schedule. If he wants to go to lunch with his fiance or something, he can do that. If he wants to spend the morning with his daughter, he can do that. But he might also be handling phone calls and issues at 8, 9, 10 o 'clock at night based on need or when he wants to work his schedule and things like that. So there's pros and cons to the number of hours, and they can fluctuate very drastically, even from week to week. We might have a week where it gets super hot, and we've got a bunch of air conditioners that go out and just got to put in a 70-hour week dealing with work orders and things.

21:01Jeff Mayorga:But then a week later, there might not be a whole lot of work orders, and it's a lighter week where he's catching up on a few things but can get back to life a little bit. And I'd say on my end, I've been working since I was 13. I've been in this business for 24 years or so. I've been trying to cut back my hours. I've done the 60, 70-hour weeks for the majority of my career and have promised my family, at least my wife now at this point, because my kids are grown. And again, one of the benefits to this business, though, is even though I might have put in a 60-hour week while my kids are growing up, I did it strategically.

21:39Jeff Mayorga:So I never missed. I missed. My son played hundreds of baseball games as a travel baseball player. I missed, I think, three games or something like that. My daughter was a competitive gymnast. We would take long weekends to go travel and go to gymnastics. And I would drive her to gymnastics practice for her three and four hour practices four days a week. And while she's at practice, I would sit there and work and then I'd drive her home. So I was able to manipulate my schedule around my life somewhat. And now I'm attempting as the owner to grab back some of my time. and let Jeff put in his time and then hopefully get him to where I am.

22:19Jeff Mayorga:But I still have the same thing, only I push it to like 35 to 50 hours now instead of 40 to 60 or 40 to 80.

22:29Eli Miller:Okay. Now, Eli, what is your greatest strength as a business owner, would you say?

22:36Jeff Mayorga:I don't know if I should answer that or if Jeff should answer that.

22:39Eli Miller:His greatest strength as a business owner.

22:44Eli Miller:He knows... You know how some people are good at their jobs and some people are good at managing people doing the job? Eli's really good at managing people, which I think is like a really... It's a really good asset to have when you own a business. Because that's kind of your job, you know what I mean? As a business owner, you're handing off all the responsibilities to people that you trust. and you're in a way kind of manipulating their morale to make sure it gets done correctly. Because I feel like it's... Because I've owned my own pool construction and maintenance business before COVID hit and kind of decided that it wanted to do its own thing to it.

23:27Eli Miller:And I got to see the other side of that for a couple years, trying to manage people. And I got to learn that side of it so I can appreciate how good he is at it from both perspectives.

23:38Jeff Mayorga:And I would say that's something that has developed over many, many years. I have worked for the crazy, insane people. I actually almost got into a physical altercation with a broker of mine before a six, seven, 300 pound man pulled me back because he was just yelling and berating me and things like that. So I've sort of learned what not to do on that respect. And I feel like I'm a pretty personable person. And you learn that as a business owner, you have to delegate. I learned that significantly through the restaurant. Learned actually some of the hard ways. You also have to be in the job too.

24:13Jeff Mayorga:Otherwise, things can go awry. So your people are your business. and making sure they understand their job but are happy in their job as much as possible. Jeff's getting yelled at by a tenant or something like that. There's only so much I can do to mitigate that. But on the flip side of that, we talk about how to handle it, how to express it, that type of thing. And that really has become my focus here recently with the business is my people because I know that that's how I'm going to grow and how I'm going to grow the, the, the greatest is by having strong people around me who are happy. You can't, they can't be good at their job.

25:00They're not going to stay, you know, just because of the

25:02Jeff Mayorga:business. Like I said, I had a good bit of turnover early on and I was constantly having to then jump in and do the, do it myself and retrain people, things like that, which is why I took a long time to hire somebody before I hired Jeff, because I was looking for the personality that could handle the stress of the job and still be okay. And it'd still be a great career for them. But for anybody who ever, if nobody takes anything else from this as an entrepreneur, read the E-myth, E-M-Y-T-H. It's the entrepreneur myth, short book. But the main takeaway from it is working in the business versus working on the business.

25:40Jeff Mayorga:too many entrepreneurs get stuck working in the business in the weeds in the day-to-day and I kept getting stuck in that and having understood the e-myth I knew that that was not the way I was going to grow the business so I needed to develop people and put people in place to run the day-to-day so that I could work on the business and now if you ask Jeff I'm out I'm building relationships that's that's sort of always been my thing I know a lot of I've been here since 1996, went to college here. So I know a lot of people building relationships is, is a lot of what's, what's been building our business and what's going to continue to build the business.

26:14So I need to work on the business.

26:16Jeff Mayorga:We've, we've, we've added a resident benefits package that has been great for auditing insurance and things like that. So when we add things, we, you know, we're looking to improve the business, make things run better, make it easier on the, on the team. And that's actually one of the things we've talked about. We've, we've got another threshold. Once we hit that threshold, I'm working with my team to decide what the next hire would be and what that looks like and how that would best affect their life. So we're looking at probably like somebody who, like a showing agent kind of thing, because they're busy.

26:50Jeff Mayorga:They're so busy right now running around all over Hampton Roads showing properties. It takes away a little bit from the other aspects of the job that we can kind of hire that out at some point and make their lives easier, make their lives better. But I want to know that from them. I, I, they know that they can come to me with any question, any issue and any suggestion. And I may not take the suggestion, but I'm going to talk it through with them. And they're going to understand if I don't do it or don't accept it or what have you, they're going to understand why we're going to talk it through.

27:20Jeff Mayorga:I'm never going to get mad about any, any, any, and even if they have something negative, of, hey, Eli, you didn't do this. You should have done this. I'm open to that criticism and I'm never going to get upset with them. I want to sort of build this. I want to build the company as a team with strong core players. Okay.

27:39Eli Miller:Okay. Now we're going to head to the flip side of that, you know, kind of talked about what you do well. Now, what is something Eli as a business owner, you still need to improve on?

27:49Jeff Mayorga:I'll kick it back to Jeff afterwards, but I sometimes shy away from the difficult conversations briefly, not with my team, but with owners, I just, it takes me an extra couple hours to think things through. So I guess it's more so I overthink things. I'm trying to think through every way a conversation could go when I usually could handle that no matter what, but I sort of overthink the conversation. So I'll, I'll slowly, you know, instead of responding today, I might respond tomorrow morning kind of thing, just because I've spent so much time overthinking the conversation, but trying to make sure that it goes absolutely perfect.

28:31Jeff Mayorga:I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I'm not sure. Jeff, what do you think? What could I do better? Well, could you do better? Yeah. I mean... You're welcome to say I'm amazing, but... Your greatest strength is that you're so good at your job. There you go. let me see what could you improve in i try to be available a lot to my team i'm trying to think there's anything that every business owner can always do something a little better yeah there's sometimes task paralysis where i got something i need to get done and i i put it off a little bit especially when it comes to the more mundane things so i guess as systems we've built systems really really well so far but it's taken time i think maybe fine tuning some of the systems again not that i don't do it just might be a little slow to it because i don't like those those mundane tasks of going in and i don't know changing our templates and rewording contract verbiage and things like that so okay okay it's good to not hear anything from jeff though i was i was hoping I was hoping to hear some.

29:40Jeff Mayorga:No, I mean. Eli, here's what I really think.

29:42Eli Miller:Yeah. I mean, you used to hit the gym a lot more. I don't know, man.

29:51Jeff Mayorga:I do need to hit the gym more. That's number two. I need to get to the gym a few more days a week.

29:58Eli Miller:Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, if you really can't think of anything, that's a good thing. That really is. Because, I mean, if you've got to really go in your brain and think about something that you can prove on, it's probably not much. I think it helps that I've focused.

30:09Jeff Mayorga:Before, like I said, I had multiple businesses and I wasn't focused. I've now really put my focus. I got rid of my other businesses. I have this and a sales team. And even with my business coach this morning, I was telling her, look, I am mostly in on property management right now. I need to do just enough to keep the sales team going. But property management is my focus. And it has been for the last year and a half. I thought it was going to change here recently, but I've decided it's not going to change. It is still going to be my focus for the foreseeable future. And I think that helps me be better at what I'm doing because I'm focused.

30:47Jeff Mayorga:Because I have the ability to sometimes I take on too many things. I get distracted. I do other things. Having the focus on the business and really having one determined factor here. Okay.

31:00Eli Miller:Now, where do most of your customers come from today?

31:04Jeff Mayorga:Right now, it is highly referral-based. I've created a system with a large local real estate company. They actually got out of property management. They have 400 plus agents, but you really have to be intentional about property management. But a lot of businesses have it as sort of a secondary thing. And I think, number one, that the clients are hurt by that. And number two, the business could be very hurt by that. It's a very litigious business. So you have to, you know, dot your I's, cross your T's. You have to be on top of things. You have to be on top of those law changes. And so they actually got rid of their property management because they didn't have that foundation built.

31:49Jeff Mayorga:They were top heavy. They were falling over. And when I got and looked into it, there was, you know, I did analysis of the business. There was, there was a lot of issues. So they decided it was better for them to fold it and then just refer everything to us. So I've now put together a program to try and build that with other brokerages and teams who sort of do the same thing. And it makes it much easier to attract the clients and to sign the clients, so to speak, because they're coming, they're coming over very warm. So we've got a lead service, for instance, where people hit something on the internet and ask about property management.

32:26Jeff Mayorga:Well, those, like any other lead service, they're difficult closings. You know, you're paying for costs for acquisition, things like that, which is a big thing for entrepreneurs. You know, how much does it cost that acquire a customer? And you try and drive that number down. So there's effectively no cost other than, you know, maybe marketing lunches, things like that, just to get my name in front of the people who work for the company. and they're much warmer. So I've had a couple of conversations recently with a couple of agents who've gotten used to referring our business and have now gotten feedback from their clients.

33:01Jeff Mayorga:And so initially they send us one and they don't really, they don't know us, they don't know how good they are, but like, yeah, here's my person. Well, now that we've gotten to the point where there's agents who have sent people and then those people have been happy with Jeff's work because Jeff does all the day-to-day and I tell people this, I said, hey, I'm gonna work with you until we get you signed up and then you're gonna have my team on the day-to-day stuff that's going to handle things. But when I get one of these and just one of the ones I got the other day, it's basically like, hey, I'm told you're going to be my property manager because you're amazing.

33:30Jeff Mayorga:Let's just sign up. I'll go over what we do, but I'm not competing against other companies and things like that. Even though we've changed our pricing structure and things, which reduces our profit margins, But I think overall, it makes our clients happier. And I think just in the end, the ease of our pricing structure is so much better for the clients that it helps us get more. So in the margin that I'm losing, I think I'm making up for significantly in the volume. So and as a better customer service. Okay.

34:13Eli Miller:Okay. Now, when a qualified lead comes in, how confident are you that it becomes a customer?

34:21Jeff Mayorga:On the management side, very. And I might be overconfident. I'll tell people when I'm having the conversation. But if it's one of these qualified leads from a referral source, I mean, I'm 80 % or something. It's extremely high conversion rate, which is part of the reason I want to push that more. because on the lead side of things, it's more like 10 or 20%. But I guess part of being an entrepreneur and part of having a business is you need to be confident in what you've built. And that confidence is going to come out in your conversation with people. So when I have a conversation with people, most of them sign up with this with us because I'm confident in what we've built.

35:06Jeff Mayorga:I'm confident in who we have working. So I know that Jeff is going to do an amazing job working for them once it gets to that day-to-day stuff. I know that we have the systems in place. I know that we have their best interests in mind. I know all these things as having built it from the ground up. I feel it. So when I have these conversations, I think that comes out. And so our conversion rate, my conversion rate is very, very high because of that. i don't know if you have anything on that but because because they'll they'll get some of these leads and things as well sort of sort of coming in but they see that once it gets to them i've already locked it down so anything to add jeff or yeah i mean the to the previous question too i feel

35:53Eli Miller:like a lot of the the owners that are referred to us there's like two types there's either the the major ones that are coming in are the investors and people who have bought in a house in this area that are in the military and they are being stationed somewhere else and are going, oh, now what am I going to do with this house? So that's one thing. And to add to the product thing, yeah, I mean, in property management in general, just taking a look at other people's and working with them, Eli's managed to simplify the product to where if you put, But without even speaking of the people that are in the business, like not talking to anybody, just putting the product, the service, ours versus somebody else's, he's found a way to separate it from the bunch.

36:47Eli Miller:So that if you don't even talk to anybody, you can go, okay, this is a no-brainer.

36:52Jeff Mayorga:And on top of that, we do, I have the team and I do it. We know a lot of our, I know a lot of our competition. So when I'm talking about our service, I say, here's what we do. Here's what, you know, and there's plenty of times that people are talking to multiple companies. And I say, so when you're talking to this, to other companies, here's probably what you'll find or here's what you'll get. Here's how we do it different. Because a lot of companies do things a certain way and there are several, there's certain points that we do it differently. And I kind of point those out and then knowing the competition and knowing those, those differences helps significantly because then they, they get to that point, maybe that somebody else's presentation, they're like, Oh, well, I heard another person does it this way.

37:35Jeff Mayorga:And they're like, well, that's not how we do it. And most of the time they like the way we do things or the way we decided to do things better. So, so pointing those, those differences out and having made those small changes makes a, makes a huge difference in my mind as well. Know your competition. Did he mute? I don't know.

37:56Eli Miller:Yeah, you're right. You're right. Sorry about that. Let me make a note here for the editor. Sorry about that. So we can cut that out.

38:01Jeff Mayorga:Gotcha. Yeah, I was wondering about that. I didn't know if you were able to, if you were editing things out or if it was just a straight go. So good deal. No, no, no.

38:10Eli Miller:Yeah, no, I definitely make notes here just in case we do stuff, have stuff like that happen. Okay. Sure. Edit. Ouch. Okay. So, you know, tell us a little bit about the team that's supporting your business today.

38:21Jeff Mayorga:the team as in like like jeff or yeah yeah i mean do you have any other employees besides jeff or is it just yeah so we've got jeff and lilia lilia is a licensed agent so she's able to take a some of the things that the jeff's working on getting there and he'll be he'll be licensed at some point soon as well and can can do everything but i think i think we have a real good balance with with the two of them on a lot of the day-to-day things. They kind of have their strengths that play off of each other. So I think we've, we've done real well there and I'm, I'm super excited about the team I have now.

38:56Jeff Mayorga:And then I've got a, I don't know what you call him. My, my CFO, my backend, my accountant, my something. He's effectively a virtual assistant because he, or a virtual worker. He doesn't live here. He tends to travel and live somewhere three months, six months at a time. And, but he's, he's amazing. I initially found him on not Fiverr, but whatever the other one was a long time ago and looking for somebody because I, I knew what software, what software programs were, let's say the three best for property management. And I got one of them and I started digging into it and I tried to do it myself.

39:35Jeff Mayorga:And I immediately realized and very, very luckily that I don't, again, working in the business, working versus working on the business. This is not something that I need. This is not part of the business that I need to be doing. I don't need to be entering debits, charges, rents coming in, writing checks for every single vendor that we need to pay out that once you scale is massive amounts and things like that. So I went looking for somebody who knew the software and that aspect of the business and found somebody who's been with me from the beginning who does an absolutely amazing job on that back-end stuff for the team and for the company.

40:17Jeff Mayorga:And so not only do we have, let's say, my portfolio or our portfolio and that team, I also have independent agents who work for the brokerage who have their own portfolios of properties that they manage. and then they tap into those systems and those people. So Jeff and Lilia will assist with them. Hendrick is who I'm talking about, who does the backend and all the finances and everything. He assists them with their business. And so that's sort of the team in place right now. And as we grow, the team will grow. And like I mentioned before, we'll decide on which positions next are what we need.

40:58Jeff Mayorga:But that's the main team are those three key players. And at one point, I had three people doing what Jeff and the leader are doing. I didn't need three people. I needed two good people. And now I have two very, very good people, which is going to unlock opportunity for them. Not having to pay somebody else similar to them allows more money and more opportunity for them moving forward. And we've had that conversation as well. Like I want to see where they're at, where their heads are at, where they want to be with the growth of the company. And I see Jeff being a part of this company as long as it's around and hopefully filling in my shoes at some point.

41:38So, yeah, that's the main team, though.

41:42Jeff Mayorga:Okay. Okay.

41:44Eli Miller:All right. So we're going to head into what's called this or that. So, yeah, I'm going to give you guys two choices. I want you guys to choose one and then kind of explain why you chose it. Nice way to kind of get to know a little bit of your background personally and stuff like that. Some of these are personal and then some of these are a little bit more business oriented. So let's get into it. All right. So Netflix or YouTube for the both of you? Oh, YouTube. Easily. Not even close.

42:11Jeff Mayorga:I'm going to say YouTube also. I'm a huge Netflix fan, but YouTube I have learned has now become my university. So I also – I learned a lot from YouTube. I watch a lot of financial things. I've, I learned how to fix my boat the other day. Something was wrong with it. And instead of taking it in and spending a hundred dollars, I realized it was a$3 fuse from good old YouTube university. So yeah, we'll go with YouTube. Okay.

42:37Eli Miller:Beach or mountains? Mountains.

42:40Jeff Mayorga:Mountains for sure. I'm, I actually was in Tennessee for a family vacation or reunion. And we went on a summit hike, you know, five miles or something. But the first half of it's straight up. I love the mountains. I love trees. I love nature. I actually read something recently that trees give off some sort of chemical, but that actually helps heal the body. So I love the beach for the most part, but I don't like getting sand in myself. I don't like having to try and cover myself from the sun the whole time. I'm pretty fair-skinned.

43:13Eli Miller:So yeah, I'm definitely not that. And there's a time limit, you know what I mean? Like I got one hour at the beach or else it becomes dangerous. I can spend weeks in the mountains. Exactly. Coffee or tea? If I had to, like hanging off a cliff, I would say probably morning time, I would say coffee, nighttime tea.

43:38Jeff Mayorga:I was going to say the exact same thing. Morning coffee, afternoon, evening tea. There's definitely some healing properties in various teas. Polyphenols. Got into mushroom teas and things as well. But there's also mushroom coffees. So, but not, not much beats a nice cup of coffee in the morning when you really want to have a cup of coffee in the morning. So, oh yeah.

43:59Eli Miller:Apple or Android? Apple.

44:06Jeff Mayorga:The dark side. Android all day. I just, it's what I've always had. And I definitely don't want to change because I know it. And that's not, it's one more thing I don't want to have to learn is a new phone.

44:19Eli Miller:That's the generational gap right there. Speaking.

44:25Eli Miller:That's always a touchy subject. Truck or sports car? Ooh. I got a Tesla, so I'm going to go sports car. I have to say both.

44:38Jeff Mayorga:I can't pick one because I have a Tesla, and I love driving it like a sports car, and it pretty much is. But I also, my other vehicle is a Ram 1500, because I tow a boat and I go camping and I go fishing and I do stuff like that that isn't conducive to a sports car. So I guess if I had to only have one, it would have to be the truck because it's my hobbies.

45:06Eli Miller:It's practical. God, do I love driving the way the car should be driven. Early bird or night owl? How about both? like i like my i do really well in the morning because you know when you wake up you get that initial cortisol hit to where everything is functioning really really fast but then there's like the afternoon crash and then at night for some reason when the sun goes down i have like a second wind yep that's me yeah so i guess both yeah if night owl becomes like nine o 'clock at

45:42Jeff Mayorga:night but uh it used to be late nights going out having a good time but i i move slow in the morning i wish i wish it was more of the morning but i i get i get up and answer text messages from my bed initially sometimes but uh i just moving a little slow i wish it was more i i want to be early bird let's just put it that way but i am not necessarily you got to do some grounding i gotta do something

46:05Eli Miller:go outside get some sunlight in your eyes connect to the ground do a little bit of stretching move around squat and then in 10 minutes you'll be good to go yeah i just got to get from the bed to there yeah and the night owl thing could get a little weird right when it's like obviously during summer right it gets dark at nine o 'clock right so you get that second wind at nine but then in the winter time you get that second wind at five o 'clock because it gets dark early right so it's like i noticed that i go to sleep because i'm a night owl so i go to sleep earlier during the winter when it gets dark at five o 'clock than in the summer summer i stay up way too late too too often.

46:39Eli Miller:So that's kind of my thing.

46:41Jeff Mayorga:Absolutely. I can see that. Yeah.

46:42Eli Miller:Yeah. Yeah. Because I get that second wind and it's like, man, I got to wind down and in the wintertime when it gets dark at five, I can wind down and at least get to bed by a decent time. Imagine how confused I was moving here from Florida where it's the same thing year round. And I'm like, where's the nighttime? Why do I only have seven hours of darkness? What's happening? Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah, you're so far from the equator because Florida's right there. I'm actually from Florida. What part of Florida are you from? south florida originally from peru actually like i was born and raised in peru until about

47:14Jeff Mayorga:11 12 years old and then i moved to florida okay okay i'm headed to uh cape coral next week wife and i really love that southwest part of florida we're trying to figure out how to spend snowbird time there one of these one of these days so i'm a huge i'm a huge florida fan i i looked at my closet the other day to my long sleeves are on the top rope short sleeves on the bottom row and i I went to go grab a shirt and I saw the top row and I was like, I don't want to wear any of those sweaters or anything like ever again.

47:43Eli Miller:All right. Well, I know the answer to the next question then. The next question is actually gets into that summer or winter. And that's up here. Not not down in Florida. Winter. Winter for sure for me. OK.

47:55Jeff Mayorga:Yeah. I'm summer. The daylight thing, I get that sort of seasonal. I need more daylight, more time. I'm an outdoor person. I'm a physical person. And when we have the cold and the dark and I just, all I want to do is sit inside and I'm not me anymore. So I play competitive softball. I travel up and down the East coast playing my softball and stuff, but you know, especially around, especially in the winter, other than the less I go all the way to Florida, there's really no, really no softball. So I'm off from that. I'm less motivated to go to the gym. So summer, summer for sure. Yeah. I like to go skiing or something, but if it's going to be cold, it needs to snow and I need to be playing in the snow.

48:37Eli Miller:yeah i agree i agree i agree if it's going to be cold snow at least give me something to look forward to i just hate when it's cold and it doesn't snow i hate that around here it's cold

48:45Jeff Mayorga:rainy all the time like we just missed the snow be 35 and raining instead of 32 and snowing so yeah yeah dogs or cats dogs dogs all day because i'm highly allergic to cats uh so yeah pretty easy yeah cook at home or eat out oh i cook at home man i don't but for me it's like it's to the

49:09Eli Miller:point where i don't i'm a very i'm very health conscious when it comes to food like my diet consists of mostly ground beef fruit and eggs raw milk so for me i i can't get what i feel i need to stay 100 at a restaurant anymore because everything's covered in they cook everything in seed oils they cook everything's got preservatives i can't i can't manage the quality of the food if i eat out and to be quite frank if i were to eat out it'd be a steakhouse and i feel like i make a better

49:38Jeff Mayorga:steak than outback just saying which which you just influenced my decision jeff so i i was i i've i've gone out to some some nicer meals recently i went to vegas a couple months ago with some friends and we went to some really nice meals and i was i was kind of enjoying yeah i don't need to go to to your typical where you're out applebee's or something like that that doesn't interest me but i got into going out to some nice meals giadas but you're right even you know steakhouse i think my wife makes a better steak i mean she's the one that cooks most of the time but that's obviously a lot less expensive and then i've gotten into smoking meats and things so working on my smoker trying to do some more more fresh so when i go fishing i've been trying to keep fish freeze them cooking myself things like that so yeah home as well okay okay what kind of smoker do you have

50:30Eli Miller:traeger traeger okay yeah you got the good one good i got a couple good uh good recipes and

50:35Jeff Mayorga:things i've gotten recently so i got a couple specialties yeah yeah i just recently got into

50:40Eli Miller:smoking meat too myself about two years ago so i love it i love smoking meat man it's just so much better you know and like you say like you're waiting all day your mouth's watering and you Have you done a brisket yet? Yes. Yeah, we did a brisket last 4th of July, I believe. Nice. And it was great.

50:59Jeff Mayorga:I started doing my own beef jerky because beef jerky is crazy expensive. So I do my own beef jerky now. So that's a good one. On the smoker. Comes out really good.

51:08Eli Miller:Yeah. Yeah. I haven't done that yet, but I definitely have seen some recipes to do it. So it does come out good. Nice and smoky. Perfect. Like a behydrator. Oh, yeah.

51:17Jeff Mayorga:Yep. Comes out. So I give it to friends, family, and they like it better than most of your store-bought shankies. Those tend to be a little chewier. I do mine a little – I want to call it meat snack, but not quite as chewy as your store-bought stuff. And people seem to – and I include myself. I really like that better. Okay. Okay.

51:37Eli Miller:100 new leads or 10 rock star employees? Wait, what? 100 new leads? yeah 100 new qualified leads or 10 rockstar employees like 100 closed leads like new like

51:53Jeff Mayorga:100 portfolio in your lap here you go i would say even if even if it's 100 closed even if it's 100 doors i i still would go with the 10 employees because we can get the 100 doors and build around the 10 employees that the 10 employees are the hard are the harder get in my mind by my long shot but that's from my point of view from the top Jeff what do you think

52:19Eli Miller:kind of like the Winter Soldier program in Marvel you know what I mean just get 10 rock stars that can control the country but 100 leads would be good you know what I mean

52:29Jeff Mayorga:it would be great but we can land those next 100 leads

52:37Eli Miller:and then the last one is dream vacation or dream home

52:44Eli Miller:dream dream home i don't i don't go out much and i'm 100 okay with it yeah i'm gonna say dream

52:52Jeff Mayorga:home only because my home would basically be my vacation a dream home would be on the water on a canal or something in florida with a pool well i got my pool i got my my fishing boat on my dock or whatever i i don't need any i don't need to go anywhere necessarily because i have my vacation at home. I love to travel. I really love to travel, but if I had the choice, it was definitely the dream home because effectively I'd be on vacation every day.

53:16Eli Miller:Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. And like you said, we're in our home so much. I mean, that's, you know, that's a vacation is only what a week or two and that's it.

53:24Jeff Mayorga:Yeah.

53:24Eli Miller:You know, you're home, you're there for the rest of your, you know, hopefully for the, if it's a dream home, it's probably going to be the rest of your life. So. Right. And it's probably going to be there anyway. Like just put it in the vacation location. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. Now, what's next for Encompass Property Management? Where's the company headed in the near future?

53:44Jeff Mayorga:We're now working on building a door count. We've got that base created. We've got a referral program and some other programs created. So now it's getting out there and aggressively adding to the door count. So let's say we're on our portfolio, let's say we're at 150 or something right now. The goal is to as quickly get to 500 as possible. And so that's the next focus, the next push is to try and get there. That sort of changes the level and the dynamic of the company at that point. So that's the goal. That's the push. Foundation's built. People are in place. Things are good. Now it's full speed.

54:30Jeff Mayorga:Add to the business. And though I'm sure from Jess's point of view, I think we always have to stay on top of any of that foundational situation. But yeah, definitely growth. Agreed. Okay.

54:48Eli Miller:And, you know, and I want you to kind of be as candid as you can on the answer to this, you know, kind of one of these follow up here questions. So, you know, let's say, you know, because we have a we have a pretty good size entrepreneurial audience that listens to the podcast. A lot of small business owners still listen to our podcast. So let's say a small business owner is listening to the podcast episode today. And let's say they're just having a tough go at 2026, right? They're just, you know, they've unfortunately had to lay some people off. So let's lay some of their employees off because they just have a lack of work.

55:16Eli Miller:They're feeling stuck or overwhelmed. Things just aren't working with the business. What's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear from you today?

55:25Jeff Mayorga:Stay the course. Every entrepreneur has failed. Every entrepreneur has had setbacks. You can't get anywhere. You won't get anywhere. You won't be successful without them. Part of it is how you learn. So analyze why you've had to maybe let people go or why your sales are down. But build the base. Get back in and really analyze what's going on. But trust yourself. Trust your product. Trust your system. If you believe in it, then it's a good product. If you believe in it and stick with it, you should be successful. Now, not everything is successful. I can't guarantee, but stick with it. Learn from your mistakes.

56:08I can tell you, people ask me all the time how I learned certain things or got where I'm at.

56:13Jeff Mayorga:I said I've made countless mistakes that have cost me tons and tons and tons of money. And when I make a mistake that costs me money, I learn it really, really well. so if things are slow there's issues evaluate research figure it out use it as a learning experience and build back better jeff any thoughts yeah i mean i haven't built a huge business but

56:38Eli Miller:i've been around guys especially like my father-in-law i've watched him grow his i watched him sold his pest control company for i think it was 20 million dollars so i got to watch him make mistakes and do stuff. And it really is just not being afraid to make those changes, to be honest. Just from the outside perspective, watching him do it, because obviously I was on the inside of all that there. But not being afraid to... It really is that, to be honest. Make the changes necessary. Yeah, just don't give up. Get your hands dirty. If you're having that, some sort of mental problems, A lot of men, especially in our generation, they're afraid to get help in some way.

57:22Eli Miller:And if they feel like they're struggling in some way, you know what I mean? Like find somebody that you can vent to or bounce ideas off of too, you know?

57:30Jeff Mayorga:That's what they're for, yeah.

57:31Eli Miller:A big part of my father-in-law's success came from being a part of groups like with other multi-million dollar pest control companies. He would meet with them on a regular basis and say, hey, I did this, I messed up. and finding that peer group i feel like is huge for business owners especially with people that are at the same level or even higher as them agreed learn learn from others mistakes learn from other people find find those other that's a great piece of advice jeff and one that i've used

58:03Jeff Mayorga:i and that i've learned over over time and so i've i've done the same thing and not only learned from my own mistakes but now interact with other entrepreneurs and try and learn from them so i I don't make mistakes they've already made for me.

58:18Eli Miller:That's true. That's true. All right. Now, so the final thing is, you know, this is probably hypothetical, but let's say if there was one thing you could change about your business in the next 90 days. Let's say, you know, the next 90 days will probably be around Halloween. Let's say around Halloween, if you could change something about your business, what would it be and why?

58:39Jeff Mayorga:I'm thankful. You got anything?

58:41Eli Miller:The amount of hours in the day. I need that to increase significantly

58:46Jeff Mayorga:so what I'm hearing you say then is we need to work on our procedures and things to maximize our efforts so that's I guess that needs to change in the next 90 days is we need to we need to sit down and figure out how we can be more efficient as a company as a team because the efficiency would be the same effect as adding hours to the day so So hearing that from Jeff, I think that's the change. That's what we would need to look at over the next 90 days is ways to make them more efficient at the things, especially the things that are time consuming.

59:23Eli Miller:Okay. Now to kind of follow up with that a little bit more. So let's say if we spoke again in 90 days because there's obviously a difference between what you want your business to be changed, what you want to change about your business, and what actually will happen, what will be different in the next 90 days. If we spoke again in 90 days, what would actually be different or would anything be different?

59:44Jeff Mayorga:I would say we would have identified something. I mean, I can't tell you what it is because we haven't looked at it. But now knowing that we want to make something more efficient, we're going to sit down as a group. We're going to figure out what things are either inefficient or can we look into delegating or that type of thing. And knowing, again, having good people, which is what I have now. I now know that. So now I can, we can have these conversations, figure it out and implement it. I do think I can guarantee something will be changed. I don't know exactly what it is yet, but something will have changed to make the business better in that respect or that regard.

1:00:21Jeff Mayorga:What do you think, Jeff?

1:00:23Eli Miller:Yeah, that's been happening consistently.

1:00:25Jeff Mayorga:Like pretty much at all times. Yeah.

1:00:28Eli Miller:Especially with all these new laws passing, there's, there were, there's a whole reroute of how to do certain things. a lot of the things so yeah i would say we can if something needs to be changed it definitely will be

1:00:41Jeff Mayorga:100 you need to be aware that your business has to evolve and it has to change and no matter what business you're in thing things change the the technology changes people's tastes change like everything changes so you need to be able to to adapt no matter no matter what it is in our case it might just be efficiency but depending on the product you're you're selling you know for instance people have become more health conscious or, you know, maybe there are changes to legislation or, you know, there's, there's tons of things out there that you need to make sure you're, you're always, always adapting and changing.

1:01:16Jeff Mayorga:It's the only way you're going to stay, stay relevant and stay afloat. Look at technology these days. I mean, look at, look at AI. That is making things so much better. I mean, our communication to our owners and tenants and things is significantly better because we're using AI to assist us in communicating well. Jeff's done a great job implementing AI. Lily's done a great job implementing AI, trying to better communicate with people, not to automate necessarily, just to make our communications more clear. It's things like that you have to be adapting to.

1:01:53Eli Miller:It's like an email that would normally take 20 minutes to write. You just tell AI what you want it to say and you have this very well, well written out email. And now you can move on to the next task knowing that.

1:02:06Jeff Mayorga:And probably can base your point better than we would have done. Yeah.

1:02:10Eli Miller:Yeah. Okay. Okay. I love that answer. All right. So yeah, Jeff and Eli, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing the real behind the scenes story of Encompass Property Management. You know, to everyone listening, be sure to connect with our guests using the information shared today in the description. Check out all their social media. Check us out on social media and follow Epic Entrepreneurs for more conversations with people building businesses and communities every day. You know, Jeff and Eli, any last words for the audience before we go to sign off? It's a great conversation.

1:02:42Eli Miller:Stay golden, pointy boy.

1:02:45Jeff Mayorga:As an entrepreneur, you know, stick with it. Stay positive. You're going to learn from your mistakes and make sure you got work-life balance. Something I'm trying to impress upon. Jeff came into this business and is still extremely hungry, extremely driven. And like me, for 20 plus years, I was able to put in the 70, 80 hour weeks. But you have to have a work life balance and you have to do that. As an entrepreneur, you can get stuck. You can get sucked into working too much, burning out, letting relationships and family be hurt by that. So, so. Still wait for that burnout people were telling me about.

1:03:24Jeff Mayorga:Well, like I said, you're young. Give us some time.

1:03:29Eli Miller:All right. So this is Cliff McCray with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

1:03:39Jeff Mayorga: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.

1:03:54Eli Miller: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. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com.

1:04:14Jeff Mayorga:That's giftfrombill.com.

1:04:17Eli Miller: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. 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.