From Groundskeeper to Multifamily Leader

[Darron Bethea] (0:00 - 0:08) You should look like a professional. That's number one, even if you're the groundskeeper. I mean, if you're the groundskeeper, many times you're the face of the company.

[Adrian Danila] (0:09 - 0:17) Yes, although we want to have employees the long term, that residents know them by the first name, but the reality is most companies don't.

[Darron Bethea] (0:18 - 1:17) Everybody shouldn't go to college, and you don't really need to if you don't want to, especially in this age. So people leave apartments because of crappy maintenance. With the PropTech smart water software, we get an alert.

So that very next day, we're knocking on your door. Hi, Mrs. Jones, you have a water leak. You need to take care of it.

It's probably that toilet. When I check into my hotel, right, I get a digital key. I don't have to bother with losing that card or leave it in the car.

You know, I'm not going to leave my phone. I'll go right up to my hotel door and, boom, I'm in. One guy takes 35 minutes to change out his garbage disposal, but this other guy takes seven.

Why is he doing it faster than this guy? Where's the disconnect? Is this seven minute guy skipping over steps?

Is the 30 minute guy playing on his phone for 20 minutes?

[Adrian Danila] (1:17 - 1:39) Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Multifamily X podcast, Masters of Maintenance. I'm your host, Adrian Danila. Before we introduce our special guest today, I want to thank our sponsors from Kairos and AppOrg for making this broadcast possible.

Our special guest today is Darren Batia. Darren, welcome to the show, sir.

[Darron Bethea] (1:40 - 1:42) Hello, everybody. Welcome. Thank you.

[Adrian Danila] (1:42 - 2:01) Darren, let's start by introducing you to the audience. Tell us a little bit about your journey in multifamily. Let's start with the very beginning.

How did you end up in multifamily maintenance? Was it a choice? Did you get there by choice or was it just something that a happenstance that just happened?

[Darron Bethea] (2:01 - 3:01) I don't think anybody chooses to be in property management or property maintenance. I think it kind of finds you or you find it. Just been my experience in talking to other people.

So the way it happened for me is I was going to junior college and I had a little odd jobs, but I got put on academic suspension. I was more worried about partying and meeting women than actually doing what I needed to do as far as academics. She passed away, but my aunt, her name was Laura Hayes.

She ran a small property management company. She did consulting for HUD. She helped write the 4350.3, the manual that HUD uses for occupancy. And she called me like the day after I got put on suspension. And she's a really pious lady. She doesn't curse or anything, but she was livid.

[Darron Bethea] (3:01 - 3:13) And she's like, Darren, if you don't do what you need to do in school, you could just leave school and come work for me, but you got to choose something and hung up the phone.

[Darron Bethea] (3:13 - 6:04) So at that point, I really thought about it. And I checked out of school and went to go work for her. And I used to work for her in the summers as a kid, just helping her with papers.

She would go around the country and do seminars. And I would go with her. I would pass out these training documents.

And then I got to explore whatever city that we were in. I thought I'd just be her assistant, but no, no, no. She had a property in D.C. We got in the car and roll up to the property. And I still remember to this day, there was a guy outside with a broom and a dustpan. We pulled up and she's like, all right, we'll go with him. And he's like, hey, my name is Jimmy and you're my new groundskeeper.

So that's how I started my career in apartment maintenance. As a groundskeeper working for Monty. And this was back in 2002.

Yeah, 2002. So I worked as her groundskeeper. I did that for about a year.

And as I was a groundskeeper, I started seeing the process of apartment terms and fixing things. So I wanted to be more involved. I would hurry up and I'd finish my grounds.

We had eight hours to finish them. I'd finish them in four. And then at other four hours, I would do other things.

Started out small, just changing outlet plates and getting ready for paint or changing light bulbs. But soon I saw that there was other things that I could do. And I really enjoyed the personal satisfaction that I got when someone you walk in to someone's home and they say, hey, my light stopped working.

And you replace the light switch and it works again. And they say, oh, thank you so much. I mean, that personal feeling reward.

I really kind of got addicted to it. And I just wanted to learn more. So I did a year groundskeeping.

I became a punch out tech. So basically, you just get my apartments ready for painting. You do other small stuff to unstop a garbage disposal or learn how to snake a toilet.

But of course, I wanted more. So I did that for about a year and a half and really study under this guy, Jimmy, who I give credit to and became a maintenance tech. You know, just working under him, learning from him and got my skills up and got too big for his britches.

And my auntie said, all right, well, it's time for you to get some advanced training. So I went and got some air conditioning training. Got my EPA license and I was off to the races.

And I've been loving this industry ever since.

[Adrian Danila] (6:05 - 6:12) So, Darren, how long did it take you to move up from groundskeeper to service manager for the first time?

[Darron Bethea] (6:13 - 6:44) Yeah, that's a great question. For me, it took about six years. So 2002, I was a groundskeeper.

By 2007, I was a maintenance supervisor. But that was really putting my head down and being aggressive and wanting to learn any advice I give to any of these guys out here that may be a groundskeeper or maybe a maintenance tech. Keep your head down and learn as much as you can so that you can move up.

[Adrian Danila] (6:45 - 7:09) So when you became a service manager, maintenance supervisor, what were the top challenges, the hardest things that for you to transition from a person that mainly did work to a person that actually does, you know, manages like an asset, a budget, they manage people? What were the top challenges that you had, the hardest things to within this transition period?

[Darron Bethea] (7:10 - 9:17) Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about the question as you were asking it. So it's two big challenges really come to the top of my head.

One is that I was a younger service manager. You know, I was in my mid-20s at the time and my maintenance supervisor, excuse me, my maintenance technician was probably 50 something years old, a Vietnam vet, had a career already, but he didn't want, he wasn't into being a supervisor. All he wanted to do was run that property.

He didn't want to do anything else. But taking direction from somebody, you know, who could be his kid was difficult for me. And for me, it was just, you know, keeping the confidence that I knew what I was doing.

I might not have known everything mechanically, but administratively I was really sound. So working out a relationship with people that were older than me, because I, you know, it kind of came out, you know, in my career. That's kind of how it's been.

And then the other challenge I would say is really making sure you keep that big picture in mind about how the whole property is running, right? Because when you're a maintenance tech, you just keep your head down and you do work orders, right? Bang out work orders.

All right, what's next? Let's get it. What's next?

Let's get it. But at the service manager level, it's not just doing tickets. You got to worry about the cost of getting that work order done.

You have to worry about other people, managing these other people and seeing the bigger picture that, hey, we're whatever your goal is on that property, as far as occupancy and gross potential rent. That's the bigger goal here. Yes, we're running a maintenance department, but we need to keep the bigger picture.

So those were two challenges that I would say, yeah, definitely had to get over and conquer.

[Adrian Danila] (9:17 - 9:38) For individuals that are now in a lower positions at the site level, whether they're groundskeepers or maintenance technicians or migrated technicians, what are the top pieces of advice that you have for them when they aspire to move up and become service managers? What are the top three or five tips that you know you want to give them?

[Darron Bethea] (9:39 - 11:03) So the number one tip I want to give them is look the part, right? As a groundskeeper maintenance tech, sometimes I see people that they don't really take as much care as they should, as far as their appearance. If you have a uniform at work, it should be neat, clean, your shirt tucked in, you should look the part, look like a professional.

That's number one, even if you're the groundskeeper. I mean, if you're the groundskeeper, many times you're the face of the company, right? If I'm a prospect and I roll up to that property and I'm like, well, where's the office?

All right, I'm usually that person I'm asking is the groundskeeper, you know? So if you're professionally dressed, that's a really good thing for the company and yourself because you present well. And the second thing I would say is stay aggressive about learning.

You know, in this world, it's not like it used to be when I was a kid, if you really wanted to know a deep dive into anything, you had to have an encyclopedia. You couldn't just jump on YouTube University and get the information. I mean, there's so much information at your fingertips about anything that you could be aggressive and create your own learning plan of what you'd like to learn about.

So those are two big tips. Stay neat and professional and be aggressive about learning new things.

[Adrian Danila] (11:04 - 11:31) You'll go far. Darren, we as an industry have been facing labor shortages for a very, very long time, for a very long time. So I want to ask you, what do we do as an industry to do better, to just kind of overcome this challenge or at least alleviate the pain?

What are some things that we could do as an industry to bring more, you know, new blood in, to grow our own, to overcome this challenge?

[Darron Bethea] (11:31 - 11:40) Man, I could, I could just, you asked me a question, so I could just give you tons of complaints about, you know, the trouble that we're having in the industry.

[Adrian Danila] (11:40 - 12:14) I didn't ask you about the complaints. That's right, that's right. I like for you to focus on the solution, right?

Yes, right. I think that was the most value. I think our audience here kind of like shares with you and I, you know, what we know.

As far as the pain, how do we alleviate the pain, right? We're trying to find that, you know, solution or the solutions, maybe it's not just one solution. So if you could share some of your thoughts on how we could overcome that, that'd be fantastic.

[Darron Bethea] (12:16 - 15:12) Sure. Yeah, that was a joke about the complaining, but yeah, I think that we just have to really think outside of the box on how we find people now, right? Because there's lots of competition and I won't get into that part too much, but there's lots of competition for skilled workers everywhere, you know, from warehouses to hospitality.

Texas, we got the oil and gas industry. Yeah, they're pulling left and right. But I think that getting people early, right?

You know, everybody ain't going to college. I mean, the math just doesn't math like everybody shouldn't go to college. And you don't really need to if you don't want to, especially in this age.

So, you know, going to high schools, picking up, you know, just fresh talent that they don't even know how to turn a screwdriver from left to right and training them in-house. I think that's a really good avenue to go. Also, you know, giving people second chances.

There's a whole market of people that maybe they got in trouble early in their life and, you know, it has hindered them a little bit. Of course, you stay away from the nonviolent stuff. But yeah, if somebody had a bad thing happen to them or they did something bad, you know, that was nonviolent five or six years ago, why not give that person another chance?

I think those are two avenues to kind of go through to find new people. Job programs. You know, many municipalities have workforce development or redevelopment of skills.

Sometimes people get laid off. Maybe you were in one industry for 20 years and you get laid off and now you find yourself without a career. Maintenance is a great career to get into.

So I think that's another third tier. Don't forget about our 50 and older population. Maybe they're doing second careers.

I've got several maintenance technicians that are over 50 and thriving, you know, and this is a new industry for them. I'm thinking about one of my maintenance supervisors. This guy was he worked for Union Pacific, the railroad for 30 years, you know, kind of consolidated and he was laid off.

But he didn't want to sit around, you know, the house. So he came and applied with us and he is awesome. He's one of my best maintenance supervisors.

So that's three. Get them young, get them older and don't forget about people that, you know, maybe messed up a little bit in life. You just really got to be unorthodox with looking for people, but poaching from other industries, you know, they're poaching from us.

So we're just finding fresh talent in other places.

[Adrian Danila] (15:12 - 16:39) Then one of the things that are happening in a current world in the world is the gig economy is real and it seems like it's something that grows every year. I travel a lot and then I like to talk to my Uber driver. Just kind of feeling about how they're feeling about doing a gig.

And I haven't heard a single one of them expressing that they will kill someone to go back to a full time job. They'll do whatever it takes. It's actually the exact opposite.

They prefer this fact that they could set up their own schedule, they could flip that, you know, switch on and off and determine when they want to work, at what time or how long. The fact that, you know, they don't really have a per se boss, right? So they love that independence.

So I want to ask you, do you see any value or do you see that we would adopt some sort of, you know, platform or system to take advantage of the gig economy to where there's going to be a platform where individuals qualified to do maintenance work will kind of sign up for and then companies like yours, operators will just kind of go and match their needs with available talent, kind of like Uber for maintenance. Do you see that as happening in the future at all for our industry?

[Darron Bethea] (16:41 - 18:11) Yeah, I don't really see that happening. I could see where maybe people try it, but I don't think necessarily it would be super effective because one of the things about the industry is it's all about relationships. You know, a lot of people, they renew their lease based on, man, I got a great maintenance team here.

That Jerry guy, I love that Jerry guy. If I call him, he takes care of me. You know, I've known the manager for five years.

They really enjoy being with this manager. People leave apartments because of crappy maintenance. They leave apartments because maybe the manager puts a bunch of fees on them that they don't necessarily need.

So I don't think the gig economy would work for that reason because the most successful companies, they have long term employees. They have long term maintenance teams. People feel because you're entering somebody's home.

You know, there's a level of comfort and trust needed to go into somebody's home. As a gig, you know, you could, you know, if it's set up like a like an Uber or something like that, and it's just, oh, you know, some random, you know, Jimmy's coming to go fix my thing. You know, I don't know this Jimmy guy, you know, so I don't know if that would work.

That's just my perspective.

[Adrian Danila] (18:11 - 18:47) Yeah, I just want to play a little bit the other side that you said one of the things that, you know, people have to trust you. Right. You have to build a level of trust.

I don't disagree. I'm actually agreeing 100% with that. Now, think about, you know, the cable guy.

Think about a plumber, someone that doesn't belong to the property. They still have to enter people's apartments to resolve issues, right? It's not a trust, but, you know, they still have to enter.

Why not just someone working as a, you know, as a gig person to fell into the same category as your external contractors?

[Darron Bethea] (18:48 - 19:06) If there's an emergency, you know, Jerry's coming to save me. You know, it's not just some random person, you know, hey, somebody on this maintenance team that I know will be here at 9 or 10 o'clock at night to take care of me. So I think that's where the difference is.

[Adrian Danila] (19:06 - 20:45) I'm not saying that there's different optics. I'm only making the case for we already use like, you know, external help, right? And a gig economy will fell into that category, obviously.

They're not going to be the company's employees. The other argument is that, yes, although we want to have employees the long term, that residents know them by the first name, but the reality is most companies don't. That was the premises of, you know, the initial conversation.

We're suffering a lot as a, you know, as an industry. And then we have the option to keep hurting, struggling and looking to become fully staffed, which in reality, most apartment communities will not accomplish, you know, will not accomplish more often than not, way more than that, or to look at alternatives and see how can we bring labor's labor in the repair is still got to be done, regardless whether they're employed by a certified contractor. Like there's especially emergencies, right?

Not to mention like, you know, the routine of the asset preservation repairs, the ones that are holding the asset together, preventing maintenance and such. So that workforce, like that labor is still needed, right? Whether we have the employees or not.

So I was thinking about this other model as just being an alternative. I know that there are hurdles, right? How do you vet those people and everything?

But think about it. Uber had the same challenge. They had the same challenge when they started hiring drivers.

[Darron Bethea] (20:46 - 21:39) Yeah, you're right. You know, and now you don't think anything to jump in an Uber. So maybe, you know, maybe the other we did discuss in this, maybe a hybrid model of that, but I still think what separates this industry from a lot of other ones is the personal factor that there's a sense of community when you do have a property that's fully staffed and maintenance and the front office, everybody's on the same page.

I mean, there's a big sense of community, but I mean that you can't really, you can't manufacture if it's just somebody coming to take care of the job and they don't have any ties or affiliation to the property other than I just need to get, you know, this job that I have a ticket for done.

[Dean Fung-a-Wing] (21:39 - 22:30) And now a word from Dean Fungawing, founder and CEO, Kairos. I started the company in 2017. We spent three years in research and development talking to multi-family owners, talking to commercial real estate owners, getting feedback on pricing and the technology and how they want it to work, talking to maintenance teams one-on-one.

And it wasn't until 2021 that we actually launched product. And from our very first customer to now over 15,000 multi-family apartments, I think we'll be in over 30,000 units after the end of next quarter. It's growing very fast.

And all of our customers, about a hundred properties that we're in, not a single customer has experienced water damage post installation of our technology. We've seen a quick ROI and with thousands of sensors, not having any insurance claims post installation is kind of unheard of in this space, right?

[Adrian Danila] (22:30 - 22:37) Darren Technology, in your opinion, how is PropTech reshaping the way maintenance is done in multi-family?

[Darron Bethea] (22:38 - 26:26) I love it. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. All right.

You know, and there's a big divide. My maintenance techs under 35, they have no problem with PropTech. They're ready to rock and roll.

The ones over 35, not all of them, but a nice section of them, you know, they're a little bit resistant to it. But I love PropTech. I mean, it helps us in every way.

Air conditioning. You know, you go into somebody's apartment, you need to analyze the air conditioner, you check your thermostat and you check your electrical controls. And then when it's time for airflow and to check the gas, you can use digital equipment.

You know, I've got digital air meters, temperature gauges, refrigerant gauges, and everything loads right up on an app. So I can see all my readings and get a diagnosis within minutes. Work order apps.

There's no more losing paper. You know, the old days, walk into the manager's office and there'd be the inbox, outbox, and then pending. You know, maintenance guy walks in there and he grabs his tickets and he's off.

With digital devices and digital software, you just load up your phone or your digital device and bam, you got your work order within seconds. You can clock in, do your work, you know, fill out whatever you did, close the work order, and boom, the manager knows the moment you close it, okay, Jimmy's done with that work order. So, I mean, you know, so many areas, PopTech, utilities.

If you're paying your own utility bills, I know at Dominium, we pay most of our water bills, so even the residents' water bill, you know, so what we do is we install smart meters on everybody's end. So going into everybody's apartment, there's a smart meter, and this smart meter will tell us if there's a leak. The number one leaking thing is a toilet, all right?

So if you're not paying the water bill, there's not much skin in the game to report a leaking toilet at two in the morning, you know? You're going to wait and go use the bathroom and jiggle that handle and, oh, yeah, it's fixed, you know? But with the PropTech smart water software, we get an alert.

So that very next day, we're knocking on your door, hi, Mrs. Jones, you have a water leak, we need to take care of it. Well, it's probably that toilet, and we go and we're able to take care of that toilet. I mean, so many areas, leasing, you know, that's outside of maintenance a little bit, but we need people to fill these apartments.

Most companies, they have online applications now, you know? Ten years ago, you'd still have to fill out the paper application, you know? So maybe, I mean, we can get people in in five or six days.

From the time someone moves out on the 31st, about six months, somebody else is in there. So PropTech has really created efficiency. You could do more with less.

I can tell by my voice, I'm super excited about the future of PropTech and how it will help shape our lives and help this industry. It's been, and even with the other question on labor, more efficiency means a little bit less labor. So, yeah, I'm all with it.

I could spend this whole podcast talking about PropTech.

[Adrian Danila] (26:28 - 26:43) I could tell that you're excited about the opportunities PropTech creates. Now, on your smart water metering, when that mirror, like, starts spinning, do you have that option to actually cut the water off for individual apartments?

[Darron Bethea] (26:44 - 28:34) No, no. No. So the one we use, which is a company called Ion Energy, we use H2O meters.

But no, you can't turn the water off, but you'll get an alert. You can see, you know, they have a platform that you can log on. You can see, you know, an hourly reading of the water, but no, it won't shut off right away.

And this would not be for like a explosion or something like that. You know, it's maybe a water tank burst or something like that. It wouldn't be for that application.

This would be just leaks or perceived overuse of water. For example, maybe somebody has a hot water. They have a hot water tank that's leaking.

I wouldn't know that the hot water tank is actually leaking. That the system would tell me, oh, yes, you have a leak, but it wouldn't necessarily say it's the hot water tank. Now, it does have an algorithm.

You know, you think about it. How many water appliances can just run and run and run without being reported? If that hot water tank busted, the resident would, you know, most likely their home, they're going to call us and say, hey, I got water on my floor.

What appliance is there out there where the water can just run unchecked without the resident knowing about it? It's only really one, which is the toilet. So we center most of our focus there, but yeah, catastrophic.

It wouldn't, it wouldn't turn it off, but hopefully the idea is that the resident will let you know right away. Um, and then also if I got an alert that I got 200 gallons of water and it's been running for three hours, like that transforms to an emergency. I don't care if you're home or not.

I'm going to go see why, why am I losing 600 gallons of water?

[Adrian Danila] (28:34 - 29:02) Darren, I want to go to a different area next. One of the top conversations that I'm hearing to our industries about centralization. I'd like to get your thoughts on this, on centralization in maintenance, right?

Multifamily maintenance. What are your thoughts on this? Is this a, is this a real thing or is just a buzzword that's, you know, it's coming and it's going to become a fad?

Or is this something that, you know, is not either one of them is somewhere in the middle type of situation?

[Darron Bethea] (29:03 - 31:16) Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's somewhere in the middle. I don't think we can totally just go to centralized maintenance.

Every company is set up differently. Maybe you have a larger company and you have a cluster of properties where you can kind of make it work. But if you're scattered sites and you got 30 sites across, you know, a hundred mile centralized maintenance is a little bit harder to do.

So I think we'll probably end up somewhere in the middle with a kind of a hybrid system. So maybe properties that are not as staffed as, you know, they were before. And then there's like a roving team here at Dominion.

We do a lot with roving teams. We have a property operations team where we kind of land on a new acquisition or a property we're just starting up. And we have a whole team of people that get to this property and they'll do the maintenance and do everything we need to do until we get a full staff.

We also have a position called regional maintenance specialists, which it's not centralized, but they have a cluster of properties that they're kind of supporting. So it gives you that feel of centralized because you know what's going on with all of them, but it's not exactly centralized. So I think there'll be a hybrid.

There's a lot of talk at a lot of companies about preventative maintenance teams, you know, instead of having your site team do it, you would just have a roving team of people that just do your preventative maintenance. One of my buddy works for a company that they do specialize HVAC teams where they have a HVAC team that does high level HVAC issues only. So, and they have a portfolio, so maybe it's five properties and they're responsible for changing filters, plus any service work on those five properties when it comes to AC, to which that takes the burden off the site team when it comes to HVAC.

And then it also gives you the ability to have less staff there.

[Adrian Danila] (31:16 - 32:50) If you want some sort of a centralization, before you could make that work, you have to have something else in place. And in my mind, that's access control. Imagine one technician, right?

One technician that has to service three different properties. I'm just making up a number of properties. Imagine for every single property they have to go to is picking up a key, going to the apartment home, returning the key, going to the next property, going through the same process.

And I'm thinking if they forget, and people forget all the time, like they're leaving this particular property with a key in their pocket and they're going to the next property. By the time the property realizes that key was misplaced, they haven't returned the key. Imagine them having to go back, return the key and just, this is like worst case scenario, but best case scenario is that they never do that.

They never forget a key, but they still have to go back and forth to and from the office, picking up keys, returning keys. And this is just one more thing added to their list. Instead of having the ability to actually access where the parts are, the main and shop, go to the apartment.

And then once they finish one service request using the app on their phone to complete it, they can take the next assignment. And this way, the day keeps flowing and that there's a lot of efficiency. So I'm thinking automation and access control should be in place.

Modern access control and automation before you even consider centralization. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[Darron Bethea] (32:51 - 35:18) You absolutely got to have advanced access control before you even think about doing something with centralized maintenance, because if you just have the regular hard keys, you kind of laid out what the predicament would be. And I love my maintenance people, but everybody's not bringing that key back. But yeah, if you have smart keys at Dominion, we use Salto, which we really happy with those so far.

But it's basically a key fob and you can get a key fob for every property that you are at. The same key fob will work for every community that it's programmed to. You go touch the thing and you're in either that NFT technology where you use your phone as a Bluetooth, maybe those.

There's a bunch of different ones when it comes to smart access control. But yeah, definitely you got to have some smart access control if you're thinking about even the hybrid program, because keys, I'm telling you, but I'm a big proponent of that. Some people are still call it the dinosaur age where they just want regular keys.

You know, maybe they're using like the quick set smart keys. Maybe they can't afford the access control technology. You know, cost is sometimes a factor, but I think it is totally worth it to upgrade to smart access control.

Residents love it. I mean, they love it to be able to use your phone to let one of your, you know, a lot of our communities have gates to let your visitor into your community on your phone to give the delivery guy a temporary code that they can use to get in and around the community to not have to fumble with your key or lose your key. I mean, you and I travel Adrian a lot.

You know, when I check into my hotel, right, I get a digital key. I don't have to bother with losing that card or leave it in the car. You know, I'm not going to leave my phone.

I go right up to my hotel door and boom, I'm in. So I think, yeah, in order to do centralized maintenance, the big key is having smart access before you try to do something like that. Because, yeah, there'll be a key lost.

[Adrian Danila] (35:19 - 36:22) I love that you mentioned traveling and using the hotel locks. They've been around for decades. This is not new technology.

And someone made an argument the other way around to me when we were talking about this. And he was saying, well, yeah, but those locks are checked daily to make sure that they're functioning and we're not actually having the luxury that every day we could check. I think that there's ways to mitigate that.

You know, one of the ways would be to monitor the battery levels, right? And secondly, they're making batteries right now. They're guaranteed for what, like 7, 10 years for cars, for vehicles.

I think that that technology is available also for double AAA batteries to have like a 10-year battery. Actually, it is. They're coming with the batteries encapsulated.

They're like 10-year batteries. Why not just use some of those on the locks? So for 10 years, you kind of have a guarantee that or, you know, for the most part that you're not going to run into like, you know, changing batteries all the time using the cheap ones that only last like three, six months.

[Darron Bethea] (36:22 - 37:24) Yeah, I've heard that argument the other way too, Adrian. And I think the same thing, there's technology and systems in place to where you can still preventatively make sure that that lock is working. You know, for example, we use Salto.

There's a battery health section of the software and I have a recurring work order. And once a month, they're supposed to do my maintenance tech or maintenance supervisor. You go into the Salto system and you look at the battery health.

Anything that's 20% or less, just go ahead and replace the battery. And that way, we don't have any trouble with, you know, dead batteries. You could do it that way.

There's a bunch of different ways to do it. But long life, like you said, the long life batteries, I mean, that lithium technology, yeah, you know, 10 years without a battery, yeah, that's not super hard preventive maintenance, you know, make a note, my calendar changes battery in 10 years. So don't think it's a hard thing to get around.

[Adrian Danila] (37:25 - 37:29) Yeah, nine and a half years from today, you know, change all the batteries. That's it.

[Darron Bethea] (37:30 - 38:40) That's it. I mean, there's a resistance to it because there's resistance to every new technology. If you look through history, I'm a student of history.

Every new technology had its naysayers. I always give a good analogy about seatbelts. Seatbelts were made long, late 1960s or early 1970s, I believe.

But the technology has had been around forever. And the government figured out like, hey, if people wear a seatbelt, you're like many times likely not to die in an accident. So they signed a law and made it mandatory.

And people went ballistic at the time. You know, oh, this is going to mess up my driving experience. And they had all these other things around this technology.

But eventually they adapted to it. And now it's just nothing to put your seatbelt on. Like, no, who doesn't put their seatbelt on?

Like, they will look at you like, hey, something's wrong with this guy. He stopped putting his seatbelt on, you know. It's just kind of so I think that's where the technology will go eventually.

People will just be used to smart locks.

[Darron Bethea] (38:40 - 38:44) And now a word from Sean Landsberg, co-founder Appwork.

[Adrian Danila] (38:44 - 38:58) Most prop tech companies are built this way. We're hiring people that could write code. We're hiring people that are selling the product.

But the end user is nowhere in this picture. How's Appwork different than the scenario just described?

[Sean Landsberg] (38:58 - 39:30) Well, we're fundamentally different because we are the end users ourselves. We meaning myself. I am an end user of the product.

I use the product myself on a daily basis. But something that we're a little bit different that I always like to look at us we're almost like a community of people. Us, Appwork and all of our clients, we leverage everybody's feedback, collective feedback to help make Appwork the incredible product that it already is and to help continue improving it.

So we're constantly innovating. And all of our innovation, all of our pipeline really comes from the feedback and the ideas that our clients are giving us.

[Adrian Danila] (39:30 - 40:11) I love the fact that you brought up that this is an age-old challenge. Since the industrial revolution, when the steam engine came to the market, people were against it, right? Because they were using the horse on a buggy.

And they were afraid about losing jobs. And it's very true that some jobs were lost in the process, maybe a lot. But a lot of jobs were created for people that are manufacturing the engines that are actually maintaining, have to keep them running.

This takes me to another question, to another thought just came to mind. AI, right? What are your thoughts on artificial intelligence?

How do you see this? What is your take on this?

[Darron Bethea] (40:11 - 43:47) I lean into technology. So that's kind of where my head is with AI. I've been using AI a little bit already.

I use Microsoft Copilot. You know, just how we have, I mean, nobody thought about Siri 20 years ago or hey, Google, you know, but it's just second nature. You know, I'm so busy.

A lot of times in the morning, I'll say, hey, Siri, what's my schedule for today? Right? And just like a little human, see, I didn't mean that.

I don't know if you heard that in the background. But it'll tell me, yeah, see, right on cue. What do I have going on today?

With AI, I think it will help revolutionize finding parts, researching a topic. Researching a brand. Maybe you got a little weird mini split and it's got three control boards.

And you have no idea. You can just pop in and copilot. Hey, I'm having trouble with this Fujitsu mini split.

Model number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Tell me about it. And boom, you get tons of information about this mini split from multiple sources.

I mean, yeah, I think AI will be awesome. Also, identifying patterns. You know, these companies, Yardi, OneSite, Entrata, all these big property management companies, they're just getting started.

But the analytics side that AI will be able to provide will just help you a lot. Worker efficiency, right? Man, one guy takes 35 minutes to change out his garbage disposal, but this other guy takes seven.

Why is he doing it faster than this guy? Where's the disconnect? You know, is this guy, is this seven minute guy skipping over steps?

It's the 30 minute guy, you know, playing on his phone for 20 minutes. It'll help with those kind of analytics. How much, you know, money does it cost per unit per year?

Projecting, budgeting. I think AI will help out predicting patterns in appliances. You know, this particular stove, it tends to have this tendency.

The year three, maybe, you know, the left burner goes out. I mean, you can get really granular in, like, analyzing all of this data. In our field, we don't really have anything like that that grabs all this data and gives us workable output that we can use.

But I think AI is the key. Absolutely. And they're just getting started.

They're going to come out with, you know, this is just Darren Bethea speculating, but, you know, I don't have any yardie or one-sided entrada magic balls, but it just makes sense that they're going to put out, like, smart IQ kind of software. Hey, we'll map out your whole property. And all your refrigerators, the average years are five years old.

Your stoves are two years old. You know, just, I mean, there's so many things that you can use AI to help incorporate. So I'm really high on AI, where I'm intended.

And I think that it's going to really help our industry. I do.

[Adrian Danila] (43:47 - 44:14) I'm of the same opinion, too. I think that there's so much potential for AI and applicability. Just think about the training that, you know, we try to provide to conventional ways right now.

Think about creating, like, a profile, an avatar that knows all that training. And all this, you know, all this employee had to do is to access that avatar and ask them questions. And the avatar would just tell them.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Darron Bethea] (44:14 - 44:44) I didn't think about that part, but yeah, you know, and like an answer. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, there's so much potential, Adrian. I mean, I'm really excited about AI. AI in general, it's like the next things are moving so fast, you know, we're in the internet age.

But AI has really we have made a leap in technology because, you know, not just in our industry, AI is shaping the whole world. It's a world changer. Yeah.

So our industry will be in there with it.

[Adrian Danila] (44:45 - 45:10) There's probably a lot of folks looking for sure. There are looking up to you. They want to become you one day, right?

How do I become a regional manager director? So tell us, share with us some practical advice for those that are looking up to you and they want to become you one day. They want to become their own.

They want to manage, you know, a portfolio of properties, not just one property at a time.

[Darron Bethea] (45:10 - 48:09) The two tips I gave to that young or new groundskeeper still hold at this level. You want to look the part, need trim and clean, dress yourself appropriately, getting to learn as much information as possible, staying up on industry trends. Now, right now we have the ATL refrigerants coming out.

So that's kind of where my focus has been as far as new learning and get to know people. You know, don't don't be shy. Make sure you know who the principals in your company are.

A lot of times I go to a site and the VP shows up to the site and, you know, everybody kind of scatters to their work. You know, all the VPs here. I don't want to really deal with the big wig.

I got work to do. Well, spend five minutes. Introduce yourself so that they know who you are.

Participate. Go to other functions. A lot of times there's company sponsored functions.

The local apartment associations have events. Get out there and go to these events so that you can meet other people and kind of network and then make sure you network within your own company as well. Maybe you're a maintenance supervisor at a property and assist the property.

Just lost the maintenance tech or the maintenance supervisor. You know what? Raise your hands.

Hey, I want to go help those that site. You know, I know you guys don't have a maintenance suit there. I'll go help take the initiative to to do leadership kind of stuff like that.

Also, make sure that your home life that you you live the same way you do at work. And what I say about that is if you like to network and talk to other people at work, you know, try to be the same way at home. You know, go the extra mile and give an extra hand whenever you can at work.

Do the same at home. And you can get that done through volunteering. I'm a real big proponent of volunteering.

I've met people in the maintenance industry doing something that had nothing to do with maintenance. I'm a big volunteer at Herman Park. I live in Houston, Texas, and Herman Park is like the biggest park we have.

It's centrally located downtown. It's beautiful. It's hundreds of acres.

But I go down there to reflect and I also volunteer there. But I've met a couple of people there that are in the maintenance industry. So that's that's some advice I would give is keep your head down, work hard, make sure you stay clean, look the part and network.

And don't be afraid to put your hand up to help somebody else out because it's remembered and it's recognized. And it tells people, oh, this guy wants more or this guy wants more.

[Adrian Danila] (48:10 - 48:27) Biggest challenges that you had when you moved from managing one site to managing a portfolio of properties. It's definitely a different skill set. What were the top challenges you had when you moved from the side role to the multi-side role?

And how did you overcome?

[Darron Bethea] (48:28 - 50:04) Top challenge is not to get pin and hold on one particular issue. You have to kind of float up into the clouds and kind of see an overview of what's going on. Making sure that you look at things that way.

Make sure you use your calendar really well to schedule yourself out. But that's the biggest challenge, not getting pin and hold on one issue and to make sure that you extract yourself because, hey, I got stuff to worry about. It's not just one property.

You know, when I first started out multi-site, I had two sites. You know, I can't just focus on this one. You know, I got to focus on both of them.

And then they expanded to six sites. I got the experience from the two, but the six was much harder. But still, don't get bogged down on one thing.

Make sure that you use your resources. Nobody's Superman. You can't just run around and fix everything on all six of those sites.

Sometimes your time, it is worth your time to bend the job out. Sometimes it's worth your time to pull in somebody. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Sometimes it's OK to pull in somebody else because you have to keep the bigger view that you're running the property and just keep your people motivated. That's another thing. Your maintenance technicians, your maintenance supervisors on those sites.

Just got to keep them motivated to work, to want to work. You know, sometimes they're having a bad day. Sometimes they just need you to listen to them.

[Adrian Danila] (50:05 - 50:22) Then you spoke about, you know, inspiring people and leading people who are or who is the person that made the biggest positive impact in your life and your career. And if there are two different people, one for life in general, one for career, you could definitely name more than one person.

[Darron Bethea] (50:23 - 51:47) Man, this is so many people. And it's really hard to name just a couple of people. Well, for one, I would say my aunt who passed away, her name was Laura Hayes.

She helped to raise me. She taught me about honor and ethics and being a stand up person and doing what you say you're going to do and communicating if you can't. She gave me my start in the industry.

She saw my potential. So I would say her. And then you always keep a mentor.

Yeah, I have to give her a shout out to one of my mentors. Her name is Nanette Patrick. She works for HUD right now.

I don't know what she does for HUD, but she used to be a VP at another company that I worked at. But she saw my potential as well. And she always told me to to work hard and to do my best.

Whenever I have some tough career decision, that's usually who I call to kind of hash out the pros and cons. So I'm sure she'll see this podcast and hopefully I make her smile. But yeah, those are the two.

I would say there's many others as well. I just can't name them all. But that's great advice to anybody can be a mentor.

Somebody who has had the experience and you haven't had it. That's a mentor. So you need to talk to.

[Adrian Danila] (51:48 - 52:03) One of the things that I'm contemplating quite a bit lately is a legacy. So I try to ask every single one of my guests about the legacy. How would you like to be remembered when it's all said and done?

What would you like your legacy to be?

[Darron Bethea] (52:04 - 54:49) Man, you touched a really sore subject for me personally and professionally. I'm 45. OK, so some people, they get midlife crisis and they run out and buy a sports car.

Some of them, they run out and go make some weird purchase or they just change their lives. For me, it's really been spending a lot of time kind of thinking about what is Darren Bethea's legacy and what does he want it to be? And what I've come up with is I want people to, for one, on the industry side, I want to have been able to bring up even more people into the industry.

I want people to say, oh, man, that Darren Bethea, he really, really helped me in this industry. It's one of the reasons I like to do the KMT. You know, you go through all these modules with these men and women and they get their certification.

You're friends forever. I got people that I did classes with three years ago and they still call me to this day. Hey, Darren, you know, when something big happens in their career, I got a guy I call the other guy the other day.

God made supervisor. He said, I just want to thank you so much for everything that you did. Another guy, he didn't even work for us anymore.

He used to work for Dominion and I would walk into the guy's shop and he kept an impeccable shop, but I would always get on him about his shop. Like, hey, keep your standard of your shop. Keep it up.

Keep it up. And he went off to work for some other company. He sent me a message one night.

I was like, hey, thank you for staying on me about my shop. Apparently he won some award in the company he works for now for best maintained shop. You know, but he remembered me enough to send me a little note.

So that's that's where I want my legacy to be on the professional side. I would love it to where, man, Darren helped all of these people. I mean, I'll help as many people as I can.

So that would be my legacy. And then personally, just that Darren was a good person that again, he showed his helping hand. It's one of the reasons I really volunteer is I really love to help people.

And I get energy from helping people. If I'm at home for three or four days, I'm by myself. You know, my energy is down.

I'm down to like, you know, my battery gets depleted. My battery gets full from helping other people. So that's what I think my legacy.

That's what I would want it to be.

[Adrian Danila] (54:50 - 55:05) Darren, it's been an amazing conversation. It was so great to have you here today with us. Share your thoughts and your expertise, your wisdom, and also taking an hour out of your busy day to spend with us.

What are some final thoughts that you have for us and for the audience here?

[Darron Bethea] (55:06 - 56:00) Two things. Well, one, I want to thank you, Adrian, for your piece and making this industry better, promoting people in this industry. You are a big factor for us in this industry.

So I really appreciate you. The other thing I'd like to say is anybody out there listening and you're thinking about getting into this industry, maybe you just started into this industry. It is a wonderful industry to be in.

And you see you got people like me in it. You know, you got people like Adrian in it. Like it's a great position to be in.

And just like several other positions, OK, you're not going to get a robot to be a maintenance person. This is just not OK. You got the ultimate job security.

If you like helping people, if you like making a difference, if you like learning something and then you're able to apply it right away, you know, come on in. This is the industry for you.

[Adrian Danila] (56:00 - 56:08) Darren, for those in the audience that want to reach out to you, seek advice or want to connect with you, what are the best ways to get in contact with you?

[Darron Bethea] (56:08 - 56:33) You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm very searchable. You search my name, Darren Bathia.

I add everybody. So you can add me, shoot me a question. Like I said, I'm really genuine about that.

I don't mind helping people at all. So if you got a question for me about the industry, about making a move or whatever it is, I'm happy to help you because maybe I'll see you later on in life somewhere. You can help me, you know.

[Adrian Danila] (56:33 - 57:00) Once again, Darren, thank you for being generous with your time and sharing great stuff with us today. Everybody, thank you for watching us today or listening to us. If you're on a podcast app, I'm Adrian Danila, your host.

This is Masters of Maynards Multifamily X Podcast. I want to thank our sponsors from Kairos and Appwork for making this broadcast possible. And we hope to see you back here soon.

Until next time. Take care.