From Groundskeeper to Service Manager
Jason Simpson shares his journey from maintaining properties to managing a 600+ unit community. Learn about career growth, networking, and the evolving multifamily maintenance industry.
[Jason Simpson] (0:00 - 1:08) If you can't make hard decisions, this is not going to be the career path for you. You are able to do so much once you hit a certain level. It's hard in the beginning.
It's not going to be easy. If you start as a groundskeeper, it's going to suck. Managing people is hard.
That is the hardest thing to do. I can fix anything. Managing people is that's difficult.
That's where the true challenge is. I had a call for a gunshot hole in the floor. I get there and there's a hole in the floor.
I'm like, yeah, they probably shot a hole in the floor. So I go down to the second floor. I'm like, hey, you got a hole in your floor.
Like, yeah, I just showed up there tonight. I don't know what happened. They got a hole in the floor or a hole in the ceiling and a hole in the floor.
So I go down the first floor. Don't do it for others. Do it for yourself.
Continue to make the effort every day. And I promise you somebody somewhere is going to recognize that and you will be rewarded for that. Treat it like it's your home.
Would you let your front yard have cigarette butts all over it? If you have a bad groundskeeper, no matter how great of a property you have, it is going to look bad. One thing that I've learned is I can have a lot of money.
I cannot have.
[Adrian Danila] (1:08 - 1:51) Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Multifamily X podcasts. Masters of maintenance. Our special guest today is Jason Simpson.
Welcome to the show. Hey, it's great to be here. Hey, Jason, I want to share with the audience that it's 6 p.m. your time, 7 p.m. in Georgia, right? And we're recording this. So I thank you so much for making the effort to be here with me and then do this for our audience. I appreciate it.
The grind never stops. It never does. You're right.
Jason is a service manager with Graystar. Jason, tell us a little bit about your current position, like the property size, where is it located?
[Jason Simpson] (1:52 - 3:05) So to start off with, I'm just a typical service manager. We go day to day. We deal with vendors.
We coordinate work orders, coordinate make readies, just kind of stay on top of these guys and kind of just be like, hey, what are you doing? We're big babysitters. Don't tell everybody else that though.
So our ownership group has a really interesting model for how they build. Let me talk about I want to talk about my property for a second. We have a really unique property.
They're modular builds. So think of it like almost like shipping containers in a way is like they stack these units, their units already prebuilt, have everything in a flooring, all that. And they just pretty much stack them and connect them.
It's almost like Legos. I'm oversimplifying it a lot, but it's a really cool process. And right now we're sitting at about three hundred and forty something units after they we are currently building another three hundred units.
So right now we're set up to be one of the largest complexes in the Permian Basin, by far the largest one in the middle of the Odessa area. But we're going to be massive. It's a very large property.
It'll be my first experience with a with a lease up on that side of the property as well. And I'm super excited about that.
[Adrian Danila] (3:06 - 3:14) Tell me a little bit about how they connect the containers, like the electrical part, the plumbing part. I'm super curious about that.
[Jason Simpson] (3:14 - 3:59) So that's one thing that I don't have a solid answer for just yet. But, you know, we talked about actually going and checking out their plant. They have a factory where they build these up in Arizona, if I'm correct.
Really cool. Really cool thing. I don't know how exactly how everything works as they start stacking these units and building them up.
We're going to be doing walk throughs at the actual units as well before they get leased. So that's going to be my time to kind of bother the construction guys and be like, hey, how do you do that? How do you do that?
It's a it's a really cool system. It's supposed to take them only about a year to build 300 units, which if you know anything about construction, that's pretty fast to get that much done in a year.
[Adrian Danila] (3:59 - 4:12) Let's go back a little bit to where everything started. Tell me how you started in apartment maintenance. What's the story there?
It was an accident.
[Jason Simpson] (4:14 - 5:50) You know, I had been in the oil field. There's not much I haven't done. I've been a correctional officer back in New Mexico.
I did the oil field most of my life. I was a delivery driver at one point. My first job was a pizza place, but I never really kind of kind of never felt like I fit in anywhere.
And, you know, I was in the oil field and during COVID I got laid off. And I heard about a groundskeeper position. And I was like, well, you know, it's groundskeeping.
I can do that. I've done much more difficult things. I went to my first interview and they turned me down.
What you got to understand is out here, oil field comes and goes and it's very high paying. So a lot of times when the boom is down, people are laid off. They come to find jobs in other industries.
And as soon as the boom's up, they're gone. That property manager wanted somebody that she could think was going to be around for a little while, but I'm a very persistent person. So with the same company, I saw another position.
I was like, well, it's a job. It's something to do. I can make some money.
I've got, you know, I've got bills to pay and they hired me up. And I'll tell you what, the cornerstone of every property really just is the groundskeeper. And it's such a silly thing to say.
If you don't have a groundskeeper, your property just will reflect that and your leases will reflect that. The attitude of your residents will reflect that. How can we convince residents to pick up after themselves if we're not even taking care of the curb appeal ourselves?
[Adrian Danila] (5:51 - 5:59) So you came back, I mean, you came to apartment maintenance and then you didn't go back to the oil fields. Why didn't you?
[Jason Simpson] (6:00 - 7:38) So I like the joke, it's the ADHD, but I like the ability to be able to just be here, there, everywhere. You know, I've always had really good luck with using my hands. And at one point we had no supervisor, we had no maintenance.
It was just me, just the groundskeeper. And so, you know, I was talking to an assistant manager one day and she's like, we have this, this and this, all these work orders. And I was like, well, I've got some tools in my car.
I think I could figure out a toilet, a toilet issue. And so I just started doing it. And they just kept telling me to go back and keep doing it.
And I totally made some mistakes. Do not let anybody tell you otherwise. I had no idea what I was doing, but I did it and I kept doing it and I got better and better.
And I, I recognize that I really enjoy the satisfaction I get of being able to come in. I've got an upset resident. I've got to, you know, they're angry, they're mad.
I come in, I fix the problem. And by the time I'm fixed, I fixed it. I've made friends with them this whole time.
And we're friendly, but we make, we make relationships along the way. I guarantee you just about any complex you'd go to. So they have an opinion on your maintenance people and they know who they are and they could pick them out a mile away.
So, but I was able to go out there and do good and have good relationships. And I just, I felt very encouraged by, by, by my industry. You know, it's just so hard to put in exact words, but I just knew that this was what I needed to do.
[Adrian Danila] (7:39 - 7:46) Go back into way back, right? When you, when you grew up, what did you want it to be when you were growing up?
[Jason Simpson] (7:47 - 8:16) Man, we're talking about old, old days. I actually wanted to go to school. And it sounds crazy to say, but I wanted to be a scientist and I wanted to cure cancer.
Turns out I have a hard time sitting down in school. So that wasn't, that wasn't the path for me. I briefly attended college.
I was going for a degree in applied physical sciences and I'm not made to be an engineer. That wasn't in the, wasn't in the plan.
[Adrian Danila] (8:16 - 8:30) At any point in your career or life before becoming a, you know, maintenance professional, did you ever think that, you know, you could be good with your hands, you could be fixing things? You know, it, it runs in the family.
[Jason Simpson] (8:31 - 9:33) My old man, many, many years ago, he used to run a muffler shop and he was making buckoos of money back in the seventies. He didn't have the foresight to be, to have longevity. And that's the hard part.
And this is finding that longevity to finding that spark and wanting to stay into it. But I never thought I would be doing this. I thought I'd be stuck in, in the loop of the oil field for most of my life.
And that was, that was all I knew. That's all this, most of these people in this town, that's all they really know. And it's, it's a good way to provide.
It really is. There's good money in it. It's just not stable and you'll never have that stability.
What I have, you cannot, you can't replace the stability I have. Unless my property burns down tomorrow, I am going to find a job. And if my property burns down tomorrow, I'll find another job tomorrow.
It's, we are almost bulletproof right now. The skills that we have are so in demand. It's not even funny.
[Adrian Danila] (9:33 - 9:49) What would you say someone that might consider, or maybe don't, they don't even consider, what would you say to someone that you would like to, I guess, convince to crossover, to come over and join the fraternity, join the maintenance facilities world?
[Jason Simpson] (9:50 - 11:50) Oh, see, and that, that's my, that's my, that's a good question right there. You got me. So the first thing I would say is, you know, I would want to talk about what their goals are, because I'm going to be very upfront.
This is not an, we don't have an easy job. It's easy to sit here and say that I help people all day, but sometimes I have to give people bad news. I have to report things to property managers that are going to end and, you know, eviction stuff.
And in a roundabout way, I have to look at it like I am responsible for a certain amount of evictions in my life that I have caused because I am doing my job correctly. If you can't make hard decisions, this is not going to be the career path for you. As a tech, you won't always have to make those choices, but you have to be able to make hard choices.
The reward you get for making difficult choices and doing the hard work to get to where I'm at is that you have a, you have a stable life. You can drop me in any state in this country, and I will be able to provide for my family. Not only just provide, but excel.
I joke around. My wife doesn't have to pay bills. She doesn't.
And she will never have to, because I'm able to provide at that level because of what this industry has given me. You are able to do so much once you hit a certain level. It's hard in the beginning.
It's not going to be easy. If you started as a groundskeeper, it's going to suck. There's no way around it.
The groundskeepers have a very difficult job, but that is the starting point for so many great supervisors. And I've met property managers who started as groundskeepers. And really, if that's what you're into, it's not super hard to transition to an office role.
There are plenty of people who are looking for just somebody with a, with some multifamily experience. They'll run you off. They'll run into you as at least an agent, get you started.
This, there's a lot of options in this industry, and really the sky's the limit of what you're willing to do.
[Adrian Danila] (11:50 - 12:37) You mentioned entering this industry by accident. This is a story of 99% of the people I'm meeting. So how do we make this a conscientious decision?
How do we make this industry, first of all, known to people? Most people don't even know that they see the buildings, but they don't even realize there's an entire industry behind the buildings, behind multifamily buildings, first of all. So how do we make the industry know?
How do we make our trade know to where people are signing up because they're thinking it's a great career, not because just by accident, they didn't need a place to stay and the property was hiring for a technician or for a groundskeeper? How do we, how do we flip the script?
[Jason Simpson] (12:38 - 13:42) That's a big question. That is a very big question. And I've got some ideas.
I see on a lot of LinkedIn that you'll see job fairs for corporate entities, say Company A is having a corporate job fair at a local college. I feel like we could replicate that success with on-site staff. Not everybody's going to go to college and you don't need to go to college to have a good career, but we need to start with, we need to embrace the blue-collar jobs.
It's a societal thought process that you have to go to college to become successful. Does it help? Absolutely.
Is it for everybody? No, no, it's not. Make that, we have to make our industry look just as good as going into plumbing or electrical.
And that's the hard part. We ask guys to know how to be carpenters, electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, sheet rockers, painters, and managers. We have to kind of take that pay scale and make it enticing for people to want to do this instead.
[Adrian Danila] (13:43 - 13:49) How long did it take you to move up from groundskeeper to technician, and then from technician to service manager?
[Jason Simpson] (13:50 - 16:38) So disclaimer, my story is a little unique. This is not how it's going to be for everybody. It took me about three months to get a job as technician from a groundskeeper.
Now granted that was a company transfer. I transferred for a difficult property that needed technicians really bad. I knew that it was not going to be a good time because I was going from an A property, a class A property to a C property who hasn't had maintenance in about six, seven months.
I knew that it was going to be really, really bad and not fun, but I did it because I knew that it was going to be a raise. It was going to be a responsibility increase, and it was good for, it would be good for me. Not just for my pockets, but I wanted that challenge.
I liked the responsibility. As a tech, I went for another three, three and a half months. I ended up as a supervisor at a different company.
I had saw, and I joke about this career being an accident. I'm not infallible. I get in my feelings sometimes too.
And somebody had said something to me that was so obscene that I was like, you know what? I'm good on working here. I appreciate this, but I'm going to go apply somewhere else.
So I started applying somewhere else and I'm on Indeed on my phone and I see maintenance tech in the description. So I hit the quick apply on Indeed. Within 30 minutes, I get a call back from somebody saying, hey, I see you apply for the maintenance tech supervisor position.
I about jumped out of my chair. I was like, yes, yes, that was me. That was me.
And I wasn't going to go. I was not going to go because I sat there and I was like, I'm not qualified. I can't do this.
I'm brand new. I've only been a tech for three months. Well, I was convinced to just let them decide if I'm qualified.
So I went there, went to the interview. She starts asking me these questions. And I'm like, yeah, that's how you do that.
That's how you do that. Oh, yeah, I can do that. And by the time the interview was done, I realized like, wait a second, I can do most of this stuff.
I'm good. I know what I'm doing. And they hired me.
And so from start, from groundskeeper to supervisor, about six and a half months, which is not normal in any fashion. Full disclaimer, I feel like I didn't come into being a really good supervisor for a couple of years. Managing people hard, that is the hardest thing to do.
I can fix anything. Managing people, that's difficult. That's where the true challenge is.
[Dean Fung-A-Wing] (16:39 - 17:27) And now a word from Dean Fungawing, founder and CEO, Kairos. Think about it. That can't be a false alarm.
You never want water behind that wall. Because historically, they were going there to tear that wall out because it's dark, it's damp, it's cold. And you got hot, moist water with steam coming behind the wall.
It's just like the perfect recipe for organic growth. And so they just got very serious about solving that problem. And for them, instead of just having this massive capital budget request for changing every water heater, every research pump going through this massive disruption, they could tackle them one at a time.
Boom, boom, boom, boom. It's safe to say that they got an ROI very, very quick. And because our solution costs nowhere near $200,000.
So they were happy.
[Adrian Danila] (17:28 - 17:41) What are the things that you're finding different as a service manager than what you thought, how you imagined the service manager job when you were a groundskeeper at the beginning?
[Jason Simpson] (17:41 - 19:03) You know, I never understood why they were in the office so much. And I never understood why they were always on the phone. I'm like, how often does this guy get it?
Every time I turn around, he's on the phone. I realized I had about, today I took my lunch about 12 o'clock. I had eight work calls within that lunch hour.
Then I didn't get a single one for the rest of the day. But I didn't realize they're in the office so much because they're coordinating with the property manager. They are actually ordering because we let parts get low, so low that we don't send anything until we're at the last one.
Guilty. Been there, done that. They have so much more responsibility than I thought and so much stuff that if we don't do our job, it rolls uphill to him.
He's responsible for us. And it's hard because when you're at the very bottom of the totem pole and you're doing your job and you just see some guy just laughing and joking in the office, you don't realize what he's doing. There's a reason for everything.
And that's something that I try to explain to people too. I'm like, hey man, I know I've been in here for a minute, but trust me, I'm doing something. And that's the hard part.
It's so hard to see the amount of responsibility that's on our shoulders. It's a lot.
[Adrian Danila] (19:03 - 19:09) In your journey in apartment maintenance, who were the people that inspired you the most?
[Jason Simpson] (19:11 - 22:05) So I always give credit where credit's due. I'll give credit where credit's due. One of the first property managers I had as a supervisor, she's the one who hired me.
And she was terrifying. She had the brightest blue eyes. She'd stare right through you.
And she would get on me like nobody's business. And she would just bother the crud out of me. But I realized later on, she was making me better every day.
And she gave me an opportunity that I probably didn't quite deserve. But every day she had pushed me harder. So that goes out to Miss T.
That's Twanda Brandinger, wherever she's at right now. Then you've got people like you. You have been through your story.
And if you guys haven't heard his story, you need to go stop what you're doing and go listen to his story. Amazing. You have been director, VP.
You are what every maintenance guy should aspire to be doing. And I'll still I'll never forget the first time I called you because I didn't realize you were an hour ahead of me. You called me and woke me up.
And my soul jumped out of my body before my body got out of bed. But you do stuff like that. You've got a podcast.
You've got all these things, all these gears turning. And you have so much success. And everybody should strive to want to replicate that.
Sorry, I got to glaze you a little bit right there. Then, of course, you got people like Tony, Tony Sousa. Don't don't get me wrong.
I might be butchering this last thing, but I mean, that guy, he's not in maintenance, but he is just the he's just a marketing king. I swear if I didn't know better. He's the marketing king of multifamily.
I just I love his energy. I love what he brings to the table. You know, you've got people like Paul Rudd.
I mean, every time I see that guy, he's just happy to be there, dude. I mean, he is he's always smiling and he's a wealth of information. You know, we and I can't I don't you know, I couldn't tell you what where he works at right now, but I guarantee you it's in a senior role.
And it's where somebody like me would want to want to end up to. It's we have these guys. And the problem is, is we need to get y'all's name even more out because I feel like more on site people need to know need to know that people like you exist.
I mean, you were my main motivation. I mean, once I realized that I'm not ending at a maintenance supervisor, I'm just waiting my turn to move up. That has given me so much.
It refreshed my my my energy and in this industry, you know, it gave me the motivation to say, you know, I'm getting up every day, I'm grinding. And it's a slow process to get to where these these people are, but I'm going to do it.
[Adrian Danila] (22:06 - 22:28) I appreciate the shout out. Thank you so much for your kind words in saying what you just said. I'm going to make sure that Paul and Tony are both hearing this so they could respond.
Tell me about outside work, right? Who was the person that influenced your life in a most positive way?
[Jason Simpson] (22:29 - 23:39) I would have to say if we can be a little vulnerable here, I would have to say it would be my foster parents. See, if I can, you know, talk about that for a second, I grew up pretty poor. I grew up very poor.
My father would go turn the laugh about it. He would go turn the the gas back on after the technicians went and came to turn it off. So I ended up growing going to foster care.
And, you know, it was the best experience of my life. They had me out in some farm farmland out in Hobbs, New Mexico. He taught me respect.
He gave me yes, sir, no, ma'am. He taught me how to act like a like a like a man should. He he kept my life.
He kept me out of prison. He kept me from going from a troubled teenager to whatever I could have been. If it wasn't for the lessons he instilled on me, I would not be here.
Wouldn't wouldn't even got past the first interview. I was very blessed with having them. Not everybody's that lucky.
And I realize that and I acknowledge that. But James Davis, that man saved my life.
[Adrian Danila] (23:39 - 23:47) If James would watch this episode when we're putting it out, what would you like to say to him?
[Jason Simpson] (23:47 - 26:02) I appreciate everything you've done for me and my foster brothers. I mean, you you his man went and adopted a whole bunch of kids that he didn't have to. He saved so many lives.
He no matter whatever he does, he left a left lasting legacy that will never be forgotten. I, you know, I teach my stepson to this day the morals that he taught me. I'm sorry for being such a stressful teenager because I was terrible.
I'm sorry. And yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you for everything that you've done for me.
Where is James living now? He lives in Hobbs, New Mexico. And ironically enough, he just about two years ago, quit his last job.
He's retired now, but he was a maintenance man for a nursing home. And so we used to call and grumble about, oh, you're not going to believe this. And he'd call and tell me, you're not going to believe this.
We have a lot of those goofy stories. Are you still in touch with him? Talk to him at least once or once every couple weeks.
I like to call and talk with him and just chit chat and argue and complain about people and just just talk about anything underneath and anything under the sun. I'm about to go. We're going to Hobbs for Thanksgiving.
I'm going to drop by and eat some pie with him. Jason, what drives you? You know, that's, man, you get some good questions.
It's easy to say money. Everybody loves money. But then I, one thing that I've learned is I can have a lot of money.
I cannot have time. And my goal is to leave a legacy for my kids. I am driven right now.
I grind every single day and I'm putting money away because my my goal is to end up in rentals, have at least 12 units by the time I'm 50 and retire off them. It will give me a legacy to leave my kids behind. So they'll never they'll never feel that financial not burden, but they'll never have to worry about their finances.
I don't want them to ever experience poverty like I did. My goal is to give them everything I got so they never have to struggle like I did.
[Adrian Danila] (26:03 - 26:14) Did you ever suffer of this imposter syndrome when you were moving up in your career, in your maintenance career, moving up so fast? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you.
[Jason Simpson] (26:16 - 27:13) I feel that some days to this day to this day. So, you know, the first time I walked on and saw a heat pump, I didn't know what heat pump. They're not common here and it's taken some time, but I'm learning those units pretty well.
I've got them down pretty dang good. But the first time I saw them, I don't know anything about this supervisor. I should know everything.
I should I should know everything. You never stop learning. You never stop learning.
You're always. If you get to the point where you are so confident that you make no mistakes, you need to go try to go apply for a different job, try to move up, because I'm still not perfect. And so to this day, you know, I sometimes I get asked a question.
I'm like, I don't have an answer right now. And I feel like, man, if a better supervisor would have had an answer already ready. That's not always true.
We're all just people doing this for the first time in our life, trying to figure it out.
[Adrian Danila] (27:14 - 27:25) Networking. Tell me about networking. How has it been for you?
What's the importance of networking for you? Networking is an invaluable tool.
[Jason Simpson] (27:26 - 28:29) If you can utilize it correctly, it will make you friends with the people that you want to be friends with that can help you along with your career. It's not an end all. It's not the most it is not the most important thing in the world, but it helps.
You need to have your actual skills before you try to start working on your soft skills. But it will land you with people and give you opportunities that you wouldn't have dreamed of. You know, I teach an EPA course to Section 608.
And if I hadn't took the time to break out of my comfort zone, shake some hands, meet people, introduce myself and raise my hand when I wasn't really sure if I should or not and just get out of that comfort zone. Now, twice a year, I teach an EPA course and I get the opportunity to help propel other people's career along the road. And that that's the ultimate blessing right there is I get to give back to others because I stepped out of my comfort zones.
So if you're watching this and if you're wondering if you should make a LinkedIn or go to that mixer or go introduce yourself, do it.
[Adrian Danila] (28:30 - 28:46) Absolutely do it. You're also a member of the Texas Apartment Association Executive Committee and the local apartment association board. How has being involved in these organizations advanced your career or how did they help you, if in any way?
[Jason Simpson] (28:47 - 32:31) So we are a much smaller association. We're very tiny compared to others. So I was able to kind of wiggle my way in a little bit easier.
They've given me the opportunity to teach. They've given me the opportunity to meet. I haven't interviewed for a job in a while now, I want to be honest, because every time I'm if the times that I have moved, moved careers, I already know the manager.
They know that they want to hire me. I haven't had a solid interview in a while where I actually felt like I wasn't going to get the job. And the feeling of walking into an office and knowing that you're going to shake hands, you're going to walk out knowing that you've got the job is the most empowering feeling you'll ever have.
So the ability to meet people is really, it's really something your local association can really help with. Vendors, there are 14,000 different vendors out in our area. There's a million different make ready companies.
How do you know if somebody's good that you've never used? When you start building that network of contacts, in my phone right now, I've got people, there's 15 different people I could call that could answer me 15 different questions. And there'll be good answers and they'll know somebody who knows them.
There's nothing that goes on in this apartment complex industry out in our area that I don't already know about. Your network really helps you build a who's who and it helps you tell what vendors to use, which one to stay away from. This vendor just cost $15,000 worth of damages.
They're no longer, they're no longer compliant in the insurance program, stuff like that. So it really, it kind of helps you establish yourself in the local area. Other cool things that it can do is a lot of apartment associations host CPO classes, EPA classes.
Those courses are going to be 100% necessary to be a supervisor. In most cases, you are not going to be a supervisor without an EPA and a CPO. In most cases, can't say for all, but they offer those classes a lot of times.
And being in the network, being in the know, you'll know when those classes show up and they're going to help you propel, your career. Now the Texas apartment association, I haven't seen any direct results of that making my career better, but as a person, I feel like I'm a better person because I know, not that I know how to act, but I get to see, see and try to emulate some of the behavior from some of these much people that are much higher up in their career. I get to see how they operate and I like this, this is his mannerisms and this is how he talks and this is how he approaches problems pragmatically.
The guy's doing something right. And it really kind of, it gives you the opportunity to emulate some of these better behaviors that you want to see in yourself. And it's almost, I know it sounds silly, but a lot of us maintenance guys, we don't speak the best.
We like to curse like a sailor. I'm guilty of that one. But when you surround yourself with people who are where you want to be, you will naturally become more like those people.
And it was an, it was a fantastic opportunity because the people that make up the executive committee for the Texas apartment association are a group of the most humble, giving, kind people I've ever got to, I've ever got to serve with. I mean, I'm just a lowly maintenance guy and these are vice presidents, owners, you know, big shots. And not a single time was I ever put in a position where I felt like I was less than.
I was always respected. I was always treated like a valuable member. And I'll, to this day, I'll applaud them and speak highly of them.
[Adrian Danila] (32:32 - 32:50) For the green person, the person that's out there now working the grounds and, you know, looking up to someone like you, see how fast you moved up and, you know, how many great things you're doing for yourself, for the industry. Please share some pieces of advice. What would you advise them?
Treat it like it's your home.
[Jason Simpson] (32:51 - 33:49) Would you let your front yard have cigarette butts all over it? You have to treat the job like it actually matters. Believe that, treat it like it is your property, like you want it cleaned.
You should take pride in what you do because what you do, and I've said this before, is a groundskeeper is the cornerstone of your curb appeal. Your leases can be directly impacted, not only your leases, but your money, your renewals can be directly impacted so much by a good or a bad groundskeeper. Take pride in what you do that, and you know what, sometimes you may be the low man on the totem pole, but it never stays like that unless you want it to stay like that.
The sky is the limits and you are in one of the best positions. Hit your grounds and as soon as you're done, get with your supervisor, see if you can shadow somebody. Pay attention to what they're doing.
When he asks for a tool, grab it, have it ready to go.
[Adrian Danila] (33:49 - 34:19) Start trying to pay attention, be ready to give him something without him asking. We talked, we touched on your success, your amazing success, especially in a short period of time, which is amazing. I like to chat failures.
Share with us some failures, some situations that were failures, were significant failures for you, and then how did you turn them? How did you overcome those particular failures? Give me a specific story or like more, you could do more than one.
[Jason Simpson] (34:19 - 36:13) I got two quick ones and I'll make them fast for you. When I was a groundskeeper and we didn't have a supervisor, so a lady was complaining about mold over by her toilet, by the service valve, and I said service valve, I mean the shutoff. I got there and of course I see mold that's black.
My brain's like, oh yeah, you got black mold there, we'll have to cut out the sheet rock. So I go and tell my property manager that and she flat back asked me, she's like, you never tell anybody that. Never say black mold.
It's organic growth, mildew. And then I found out that just because a mold is black, it's not the black mold. Got my butt chewed out for that one and had to explain to the resident, you know, hey, I was wrong, it's not that bad, blase blase.
It's just a very humid bathroom, it is what it is. But lesson learned, we don't ever say mold, that is the forbidden word and that is something that I reverberate to this day is never say it. Never say it.
It's organic growth or mildew. Both of those sound much less scary than mold. Another quick lesson, and it's so funny because the property manager that this happened with, I actually worked for her.
I was working on the dishwasher. I thought it was working, everything was good. Closed it up, turned it on.
I was like, yeah, I'll let it finish its cycle and I'm on the way out. It never turned off and just kept filling and kept filling and kept filling. I can't remember what the issue was, but I flooded the whole unit.
Had some very upset residents about that one. So I've made a lot, I've made some mistakes. I definitely caused a carpet extraction that day.
[Adrian Danila] (36:13 - 36:23) Tell me about the most outrageous, hilarious situation that, you know, you ran into, that happened to you while being on the job in multifamily.
[Jason Simpson] (36:24 - 37:46) Okay, you might have to edit this one out, so I'm gonna tell it and then you tell me if we can use it or not. So we had a we had a mainline clog. This was about two, one in the morning, I got an emergency call saying that there's feces coming out of the toilet.
It's coming up. So a mainline clog, we know this building has this issue. So I come out there, I've got carpet extraction teams coming.
So it's about two in the morning once it's all said and done. I'm talking to the carpet fella who does the extraction. We're just sitting there chit-chatting before we're about to leave for the night.
And I hear somebody say, hey, and I turn around and I'm not exaggerating. This is a true story. There's a man in a loincloth.
That's all he's wearing. And it's not even a full-length cloth. You see everything.
And he's got a sword. He's basically butt naked. He's got a sword and he's twirling the sword pretty good, impressively.
Enough that he was like, man, he actually might swing that. And he's like, hey man, I broke my window. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, sure you did.
He was like, can you fix that? I'm like, not right now. I was like, we're going to board it up.
We'll board it up in the morning. And he was like, can you not tell the office? I'm like, they're going to find out.
He's all right. I was like, you should probably go inside, man. He's like, yeah.
So that was my naked swordsman two in the morning.
[Adrian Danila] (37:47 - 37:56) You stay in this business long enough, you're going to have each person has. I probably could write a book with stories like that.
[Jason Simpson] (37:57 - 38:34) I remember when I had a call for a gunshot hole in the floor. And I get there and there's a hole in the floor. I'm like, yeah, they probably shot a hole in the floor.
So I go down to the second floor. I'm like, hey, you got a hole in your floor? Like, yeah, I just showed up the other night.
I don't know what happened. They've got a hole in the floor or a hole in the ceiling and a hole in the floor. So I go down the first floor.
Obviously, that's where the gunshot came from. So I asked them about it. They're like, oh, no, it was just a BB gun.
You tell me a BB gun shot all the way clear to the third floor? That was a hell of a BB gun. That's what I'm saying.
[Voice Over] (38:35 - 38:39) And now a word from Sean Landsberg, co-founder, Appwork.
[Adrian Danila] (38:39 - 38:57) The ideal experience from an end user perspective is the Uber experience. What I mean by that is you put the app in the hands of anyone who would know how to video. They should be able to figure it out and order an Uber.
How is that Appwork providing that type of Uber experience for maintenance?
[Sean Landsberg] (38:57 - 39:52) We've done a lot of research behind each and every end user of the product, whether it's your property manager, your leasing agent, your regional manager, your maintenance supervisor, and your maintenance technician. And we did a lot of research behind them. And for example, the app is used by maintenance supervisors and maintenance technicians.
So we have to build a profile around them, who they are, how they think, how they're going to interact with the app, and we have to design it in a way that requires little to no training. Like you said, we used Uber as our model. Aside from incorporating features, such as reviews and other really cool components to the Uber style, it was designed behind the same concept of Uber.
Whereas when somebody goes to call an Uber to take them from point A to point B, there's no how-to videos or even instructions. So, hey, let's teach you how to use Uber. It's you download the app, you know how to use it.
So that was the same thing for us. We use that from a design perspective. We need this to be as simple as it is to call an Uber.
[Adrian Danila] (39:52 - 40:01) What are your thoughts on technology, maintenance-related technology, Jason? If we don't adapt to it, we will get left behind.
[Jason Simpson] (40:01 - 41:57) The days of R22 condensers of just gas and go, beer can gold, are behind us. I was never really part of that era, but the days of simple stuff is gone. We are continuously moving forward, and if we don't, we're going to end up as technicians that are outdated who can only work at older properties for the time being.
You see a lot of... I couldn't even tell you what sear we're on now, but the higher the sear rating keeps getting more and more stringent, we're going to continue to see more and more efficiency. The best way to have efficiency, unfortunately, is through computer technology.
More technology, more complicated parts. Our washers and dryers nowadays, the main issue I see is control boards, and if you don't know how to diagnose that, you're getting to the point you're in the wrong industry. You're going to see control boards on your condensers in the next coming couple of years once you get a lot of that new refrigerant, that A2L.
Washers, dryers, technology. As a supervisor, my goal, when I get there for the day, the first thing I do is pull up the program that I use, Yardy. I am proficient in Yardy.
I'm proficient in Trident Trata, and I'm proficient in one site. To be a good supervisor, you need to know how to actually utilize that. You need to check your pending make-readies.
You need to know how to manipulate that stuff. My last company actually had me doing the credit expense report for my P-card. That was something I've never done, and it was a pain in the butt to learn, but once I got it down, it makes me better at what I do.
Really, the technology is not going away. We're going to get to the point where you're going to be using your phone, Yardy Mobile, Yardy Mobile Maintenance. They have that, and that's a pretty good app.
I like it. It's usable. Technology is not going away, is what I'm trying to say.
We're going to have to get with it, or you will be left in the dust, for sure.
[Adrian Danila] (41:58 - 42:10) Do you have any thoughts on maintenance centralization? Man, where do you get these good questions? I ask them all the time, as long as I don't forget.
[Jason Simpson] (42:11 - 43:02) I have two thought processes. I'm thinking with my heart. I hate it.
Thinking with my heart, I hate it, because the thought of not having my full team when I need them, I don't like. I don't like, but I also recognize that it has its advantages, and change can be good if you're willing to adapt to it. A lot of guys were a little bit slower to want to adapt to a different way of thinking, so when I first heard about it, I thought it was a terrible idea.
Just like leasing centralization, using AI operators when you call a property, I don't want to get stuck in the old ways. The way we did it five years ago, 10 years ago, is not the way we're going to be doing it in 10 years. I'm leery of it, but I'd like to see how it works in practice.
[Adrian Danila] (43:03 - 43:12) Crystal ball moment. Pull your crystal ball and tell me what you see for Jason in 2025 and beyond. 2025.
[Jason Simpson] (43:13 - 44:09) Right now, I would like to have my new property that I've got that's getting built right now. I'd like to see our entire 648 units at least 95% occupancy. A good 10 move-outs a month, nothing crazy, but I'd like to have that property so absolutely whipped into perfection that my regional doesn't even know we exist.
That's my goal. My goal is for my regional to not have to talk to us. I want our regional to be like, oh yeah, I kind of forgot I have them.
They just kind of run themselves. I also own my own business as well. I'm running that.
I'm hoping to pick up even more business. I'd like to hire my first full-time person by next year, kind of let them take the reins and just coordinate the activities for him.
[Adrian Danila] (44:10 - 44:19) We're approaching Thanksgiving. We're recording on Monday evening before the Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for this year?
[Jason Simpson] (44:20 - 45:29) You know, I am really thankful for my wife. I recently herniated a disc in my back. I'm going to be honest.
I was telling you this. You don't realize how much you take for granted when you can't even walk. I am a very physical person.
I'm active. I like to do stuff. When I couldn't even physically hardly turn myself around in bed, it was the worst.
It was terrifying. I was completely helpless, just basically useless. My wife stood by.
This woman waited on me hand and foot. I mean, 14 times she'd walk in by, oh, I forgot this. She went, no problem.
No questions asked. No hesitation. No being annoyed.
This woman held it down and made sure I got some time to recover. I didn't stress myself up trying to get up, doing unnecessary things that I felt like I needed to do. I mean, props to her.
She has made, in turn, of course, that allows me to heal quicker so I can get back to work.
[Adrian Danila] (45:30 - 45:37) I want to give you the opportunity to say some things that you wish you would have said during our conversation you just didn't have the chance to.
[Jason Simpson] (45:39 - 46:28) I feel like, you know, you let me talk a lot. And the one thing I want to say is to the guy out there who may be watching this, who, like I said, who feels like he's on the low end of the potem pole or feel like he doesn't get the respect that he wants, don't do it for others. Do it for yourself.
Continue to make the effort every day. And I promise you somebody somewhere is going to recognize that and you will be rewarded for that. It just takes some time.
I'm right there. I am at a point where I move so fast in my career. In three months I made a supervisor, but now I've been a supervisor for a few years.
I keep waiting for the time when I'm ready to move up. I've had to be patient. When the time is right, the time is right.
Be patient and keep up the hard work. And I promise you, you will find a satisfying career in the long run.
[Adrian Danila] (46:29 - 48:53) Jason, I love your story. I love watching you grow. I love everything that you do in the industry.
Keep up the amazing work. Keep your head up and then stay an inspiration for us all, for me included. You too.
You better never stop. That's a promise, my friend. Everyone, I think we're going to launch this episode on Thanksgiving.
It's a conversation that's been different this time. It's not so much focused on only maintenance related issues, on the technicality part of the job. I want for all of you to know Jason as he is as a person, not just a maintenance professional, not just the person that manages a 600 plus apartment home community.
I want you to know as a person, I think I'll slide more into that in the future because there are so many great stories. There are so many great people. And at the end of the day, people are making everything happen.
It's not so much about how knowledgeable I am in a certain part of maintenance, but who you are as a person. I want for people to know them. So stay tuned.
I want to thank you all. I'm thankful for every single one of you. They're watching the show.
They're reaching out. It's been an amazing year. Our podcasts together, the four are approaching 200 episodes.
This is episode number 197, if we count all the podcasts that I've done as a host. So before the end of the year, we're going to hit the 200 number. I'm super grateful for all of you that took the time to be a guest, to chat with me, for all of you that took the time to actually watch or listen to the content and share and say good word when they had opportunity.
It's been a hell of a ride and I wouldn't change it for anything. I also want to thank our sponsors from Kairos and Upwork for making this podcast possible. Without them, we wouldn't be able to do this.
Thank you, friends, and thank you all for watching again. I hope to see you back here soon. Certainly in December, we have new episodes coming up.
This is Multifamily X Podcasts. Masters of Maintenance, I'm Adrian Danila, your host. Signing off right here.
Happy Thanksgiving.