Series 8: Property Core Skills-Systems & Processes Panel Discussion

The Property Voice

We are getting close to the end of this series covering property core skills now. This week, our panelists of Jeff Unsworth, Nana Piesie, Carl Gilbert and Dominick Hardy discuss systems and processes with me.

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it, as the old song goes. This discussion looks at how we organise ourselves and our philosophy towards property management, along with the tech that we use.

For a bit of fun and light-hearted banter, we also have ‘platform wars’, where the panelists express their preference for Microsoft, Apple or Google – who will win that battle?

As well as sharing what sort of technology and applications the panelists use to manage their properties and portfolios, we also have a couple of fun sections. This includes tech we can’t live without and tech we love to hate too.

Why not join in with these fun questions as you listen to the panelists reveal their approach to systems and processes in their property business.

Resources:

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Carl Gilbert Linkedin

Nana Piesie Facebook Instagram Linkedin

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Today’s must do’s

Subscribe to and review the show in iTunes…and while you are at it please help us to spread the word by telling all your friends too!

#PropTech: A guide to how property technology is changing how we live, work and invest – a link to the latest book.

Property Investor Toolkit – here is the book link on amazon.co.uk & amazon.com in case you would like to get yourself a copy to accompany this series

Transcription of the show

We are getting close to the end of this series covering property core skills now. This week, our panelists of Jeff Unsworth, Nana Piesie, Carl Gilbert and Dominick Hardy discuss systems and processes with me.

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it, as the old song goes. This discussion looks at how we organise ourselves and our philosophy towards property management, along with the tech that we use.

For a bit of fun and light-hearted banter, we also have ‘platform wars’, where the panelists express their preference for Microsoft, Apple or Google – who will win that battle?

As well as sharing what sort of technology and applications the panelists use to manage their properties and portfolios, we also have a couple of fun sections. This includes tech we can’t live without and tech we love to hate too.

Why not join in with these fun questions as you listen to the panelists reveal their approach to systems and processes in their property business.

Property Chatter

Welcome to the property voice podcast helping you to navigate safely through the world of property investing, get the lowdown and updates, insights and outcomes on all matters property with a splash of entertainment along the way, for property, voice or voice to trust among the crowd. Now, let’s get started with your host, Richard Brown.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the property voice podcast. My name, of course, is Richard Brown. And it’s a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. Well, it’s another week, and it’s another episode in the property core skills series, we’re getting quite close to the end. So only a couple of more episodes really to cover this one-off. Today, we’ve got a panel discussion, and the topic is systems and processes that we might use in our property, business, and property investments. So I’m joined, thankfully, by some now-familiar voices, and if I was gonna say if you could see some familiar faces, but it’s a podcast, so you can’t. So some familiar voices, I’m just gonna go around the room and ask each one of us just to give a quick intro, in case people haven’t heard it before, just to sort of 62nd view of who you are, where you come from. And that will help people you know, put a bit of a frame of reference when you start talking the conversation, for sure. So I’m gonna go around in terms of Jeff, Nana, calm and onyx. So Jeff wanted to kick us off.

My name is Jeff Unsworth. I’m a part-time IT consultant working for a large multinational. I spend my time looking after my properties on my day off. I’ve been in the property game for about 10 years now. But over the last five years, I’ve really run my business moving forward. Thanks, Jeff.

My name is Nana. I’m part-time on dad leave and part-time working at Volvo. At the moment, me and my fiance are trying to escape the rat race. And that’s why we purchasing properties and doing some rent to rents at the same time.

Welcome back, Nana.

Banks are insured.

I am on hold. I have been investing in property for about 10 years now before that. I was a software developer. And as part of my interest being here tonight is I suppose it’s my interest to talk about these things. But the mechanic trade-in time dynamics. So this kind of stuff is quite interesting for me.

You were genuinely excited about this episode. Well, yeah, I

really wanted to join Yeah, you were kind enough to reschedule the recording,

we wouldn’t have had it without You’re so welcome. Great stuff. And Don,

Hi, I’m Dominic. I’m an IT contractor in the finance industry, that’s my day job. But I am also a property investor started as an accidental landlord back in I think 2012 when I moved residential properties and rented it, keep the first one, so rented that out. And then my partner moved me some time after that. So we rented hers out as well. So we had two properties and our kids done quite well maybe we should think about this a bit more seriously, and invest in property, which we did in 2017. So it’s only been about four years, four years, five years, since we’ve been investing in property. And we’ve built a small portion of portfolio in that time, but how holiday and we are looking to to grow that portfolio with the aim of being able to quit the day job and work in property full time.

Sounds good. Thanks, Dominic. No, no, you and I are the only no not at contractors software developer types here. So you know, we’re gonna have to, you know, try and keep these guys in check. In case it gets a bit gobbly goo key in terms of the discussion, so hopefully with me on that one. So systems and processes we probably work out as we go through this series, that alone within certain topics is is quite a lot of overlap and crossover. Sometimes you can’t really talk about one element without talking about some of the elements and that’s the same with you know, anything if you think about it, any business, you know, there’s a lot of crossover or the things that affect the other elements of the operation or the structure. And so inevitably, we probably touched on you know management systems, seeing early episodes, but we’re going to focus in on a little bit more in terms of processes. processes is how we do things. Really, that’s my definition, at least, how we go about things, how we do things, how we organize ourselves. Maybe we’re going to mostly I suspect, we might touch a little bit of technology and apps with the audience with the panelists that we’ve got around us. Maybe. And, and then I think the other thing is more of a philosophy. You know, I call it a management systems, but what’s our philosophy to how we organize ourselves in terms of managing properties and portfolios? That could be things like we’re doing ourselves or using an agent just very simplistically. So one way to do is just to get people’s view on this, maybe start things off with the philosophy, you know, who’s who’s the DIY or the? Do It Yourself landlord type? And who is the agent type? And is there another model that we’ve got around the panel here? So bring bring you back in Jeff, why don’t you kick us off? What kind of system or philosophy Do you attach to your property management, first of all, so my main philosophy is to do it yourself. So I keep it in house. So I live down in the southeast, I buy most of my properties up in the Northwest. I keep it in the family. So for example, my dad looks, goes out and does all my viewings and looks at it. He’s a retired plumber. So he’s got a good background in that industry. My sister, owns a cleaning firm up in the northwest, she goes out and does viewing sitters, maintenance tasks, and things like that for me, and she knows people who can get things done. So I do that I pay them didn’t pay me down. So quite well, that kind of assistance of being my managing agent. So that’s one thing I do. I like to do all my own books, mostly got accountants to cover that area. But yeah, that’s how I like to keep it.

It’s interesting, because you said DIY, but actually, you’re not doing much yourself, bear it, because you, you’re dishing a lot of those jobs out to family. So

I collect the money, then take them on. Yeah.

So that that would be sort of a contract out type of model. But most of the people who are contracting are family members, that your your father might be having a chat with the living wage people maybe I don’t know,

possibly.

Anyway, great. Thanks for sharing that. Now.

If you want to. So basically, I’m, I’m forced to make you. I’m forced to make a bit. Use remote, obviously, to use people. Because I live in Sweden, as you’re aware of. So we use from sourcing agents to letting agents to business partners to friends. So yeah, basically the only thing that we do not meet but Emily is using the zero well, because he’s a accountant by train. So he does that. But yeah, we still need to sign it off with the accountant, obviously.

So pretty much passive arm’s length using aging sin, you know, and similar.

Yeah. Sounds good.

Carl, what about you?

Sometimes my portfolio, that’s mostly arm’s length. But in terms of my main business, I am quite hands-on as probably by yourself, which I struggled to delegate. So always taking things on myself. So that’s probably my biggest challenge. Yeah, we’ve got a few challenges that I wanted to talk about this evening. You know, try and try and use systems and technologies to support me as well in making things a bit easier.

Yeah. It’s interesting, because you made a distinction between managing a portfolio and certainly the managing projects, and it could be different could be different approaches across each one. So that was interesting. And thanks for the coaching. Yes, maybe I need to delegate. And Dominic, what about you.

So the properties that I owned day to day management is mostly with agents because often around the country, so I have agents looking out for those. The holiday that I have probably has a bit more involvement. There’s not an agent of such an offer that we do have obviously cleaners, and it’s advertised on one of the big sites. But there are issues with myself my business plan on that one too, but you have to dive in denbo find someone to fix it for that requires a bit more work. But then I think maybe cause touching on this is all in the portfolio. So the portfolio I do, try and keep on top of and make sure that everything’s managed there too. So things like the gas certificates and NPCs, all that stuff. So I have all that tract as well. So whilst the agent should obviously take care of all that, I do like to get on top of that insurance and all that stuff, obviously, that’s kind of my responsibility. So I track all that my stuff, all that stuff myself, as well, in some of the systems I use to control that attachment. And

I’m sure we will to well, managing the manager, I should add my own approach, maybe just to provide a bit of distinction, because like I was saying, this kind of, could be a hybrid, depending on what you’re doing. But I think when I started, I almost use exclusively like agents, you know, as a more arm’s length, passive more utilizing other people, contractors, agents. As my portfolio grew, they got to a certain point, you know, size really, where it made sense to me, so to insource. So it’s kind of a bit like what you’re doing, Jeff, to be fair. I’m not, you know, employing my sister and my father. But basically, I employ someone who have worked for my what is effectively my own letting agency. And so I have my own small agency, which looks after my own rental properties, obviously, developments and things like that completely different things, you need to have a different approaches to that. As it happens, I’ve been buying rating agencies and property management companies recently, so that might change the game and might actually outsource to my own agency, we don’t maybe the person is managing my agency might be listening right now. So I don’t know that decision is not being major. So there we go. That’s me, my philosophy, my approach, along with everybody else’s. So I kind of just sort of frame this up last week, when I set the scene a bit, that we might talk about processes and systems. I don’t know if we can separate them, but our processes, how we might do something. And you know, whether we have policies and procedures, where we are, how we organize our time, things like that. And then the system would be like something a tool, possibly technology, which can help us to do things more efficiently, or reminders and that sort of thing. So now I think we’re going crossing over. So I was thinking of breaking the topic down into those two separate areas. But um, you know, perhaps to drill on a little bit of how we started, you know, how do you organize yourselves? What sort of approached you tend to take, insofar as, how do you go about things, and maybe what sort of tools you might use to help you with that. To come back to you, Jeff, perhaps to start us off in that direction.

Yeah, that’s fine. Time management is a key thing when it comes to property. One thing I, it obviously needs to come under a good calendar. Obviously, all the big companies use them. I use the Google Calendar link to my phone. I use an application called Asana, which schedules schedules and all my tasks. So for example, epics, gas certificates, data Commissioner GDPR, stuff like that, make sure everything’s in my calendar. I don’t go can’t go anywhere without actually viewing my calendar because my phone goes everywhere. With me. Something that I ensure I always do. My methods working on that I always make sure that key things, when before anything is due at least a week before. So for example, one of my processes is a month before the guest gets to his contract, the best supplier gets better. Make sure he’s booked in and lined up to do the task. Milton, once you have those dates lined up their attendance, so it’s all written down as a process, a checklist of things to do. I have a portfolio management list that I go through. And again, that links to my calendar that links to Asana, and that actually points out to where when tax tasks are due and when things should be done.

I think my wife was drowning in the cats. So I was on mute for a moment. That’s really interesting, because you talk about you know, perhaps taking things around with you on your mobile phone. You know, it’s a lot of apps and technology that we can now literally have on a mobile device. So I thought that was quite interesting. What about other people’s to bring you back in now what do you do in terms of organizing yourself?

So I Do a hybrid. So I do, I have a journal that I, I always write down what I want to do when I wake up before I start my reading and all of this, and then I put in the tasks that I want to complete. But besides that, I use this app or website called calendly. So if someone wants to book in schedule, a call or something investor call or whatever, I just linked the code to them, and then it simultaneously connect with my calendar, Google Calendar, so it block off the time and you can choose what time you’re blocked. And Besides that, we also use Asana, Trello. And we use mark to Microsoft Teams, to have our conversation with our VA. So we schedule and see where, where they’re, what they’re doing, and what they’re supposed to do. And yeah, giving feedback and then giving feedback to us as well. So yeah, those are the main stuff that we use and to do as well, that Richard introduced us to very good. Reminding to Google task, obviously to keep up to date with stuff that may be coming in the, in the future.

Interesting that you’re using. So I think there’s not there’s often a debate about certain platforms or apps within a certain category. So you know, people might prefer Apple technology versus Microsoft technology versus Google technology, for example. And then, you know, people be raging fans of different elements. So I think we might get into that maybe, but I was interested in and when you say you use both Asana and Trello because they’re very similar in a way Are they Asana is like a task management tool and Trello is project management, but still kind of does that task management do. Is there a reason you used to

Yeah, so I totally agree, to be honest, I like Asana more but the VA like the trailer more so I’m like, whatever suits them best for the platform and as long as they get the work done and we’re happy that that’s good, but I feel that like you mentioned it’s easier to I think the visual is better on Asana nine is much easier to track back to see what happened while on Trello you just like drag and drag. Yeah, he did. I think it’s just tasty.

I was gonna say a little bit its taste and personal preference. You know, I didn’t really get Machado for example, but I use base camp for a lot of people hate Basecamp but they like Asana, you know, so, but they’re all in the same category. So as a sort of a task management tool. So I think you know, there’s plenty out there. So don’t really have a little play around and see which one you like the best but kind of curious and interesting that you kind of have to flex a little bit that’s a that’s an interesting point. Because sometimes when you’re working with third parties, they have a preference right? And then it’s like well, you insist they use your tool or do you bend and adapt to their tool so that’s, that’s an interesting but thanks for that. Nana. And Carl

I can’t wait for this

I could easily talk about these different systems till the cows come home. But I won’t know when we quit when I saw the discussion of processes there’s what it reminds me of was this book I read last probably a year ago called traction by Gino Wickman. And it’s a really good book if you’re trying to establish your business but you don’t really have any this the processes and the ways of working in place. So it starts off really high level and talks about kind of the vision and the goals, the values of the business, and then you gradually break it down from those big, big visions down into what he termed quarterly rocks. So this first quarter, each person in the organization has two or three rocks and it’s their responsibility to focus on this. And then from then a large proportion portion of the book is based around forming the ceremonies to go through all of this, and to repeatedly go through it week by week. And this is under supported by what he calls a scorecard. So every week, everybody reports than their number, and it goes into the scorecard. That’s quite good for, for tracking kind of how you’re trending or not towards your overall goal, your quarterly rocks, that, for me, that was a really good way to break down a target click will go into process go process targets. And I find that really, really interesting the attraction by Gina Whitman.

So just elaborate on that it’s a really good point. Because, you know, we, you know, a lot of people talk about having a goal. It’s a good idea. And there’s what you call outcome goals.

I couldn’t think of the word outcome. Well, I

mean, we could give a different name. But you know, the outcome goal is like a specific number on a specific date. Let’s say, that would be an example, in one year, I want to have X 1000 pounds of income, whatever, something like that. That would be an outcome goal. But what I think you’re trying to outline in that with this approach from the attraction book, is that you can break that down into steps, which then become individual steps along the process, which will eventually get you to that outcome.

That’s pretty much it. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

So you have a way of working. You also mentioned the scorecard. I thought that was interesting as well because a scorecard is like tracking your progress or tracking the measurements along the way. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we simply use a spreadsheet that allows you to do pretty, pretty charts as well. So

yeah, he’s kind of gamified it a bit as well, because if everyone’s going to a number, you can kind of hit try to hit that. And so that adds accountability in there as well.

So it’s an overarching sort of view about how to organize yourself in and set up processes within your business, rather than diving into the granularity of specific tech and apps that you’re using? Which

Yeah, we’ll come back to,

I think,

with you no doubt. Yeah. Thanks, Carl.

So what about you, Dominic.

So I’ve used various tools. Over the years, I guess, the ones that have stuck, and the ones that I use now, the three main ones I think, are air table, landlord, and motion, so they’re the three that I am using. So I mean, obviously, having an IT background, kind of like a table emotion, because I can, I can build that myself, whenever I want. customize it, you know exactly how I want the landlord kinda like as well. Although there is some overlap between, I think landlord and some of the others. So air table, I use to, I guess, tracking my, my portfolio there attract the kind of income and everyone metrics for that. So I find it quite good for that notion I use or for managing my portfolio. So again, a notion I really like it, kind of like a notetaking application that you can customize and build out pretty much however you want and add lots to it. So I have like Canva and boards in there for my tasks that kind of have that property filter, however, I want to see what it’s doing what’s in progress, all that kind of stuff. Really, really customizable. So did like that. And then yeah, I also had like dates in motion as well. So I use that I know Jeff was mentioning about having a calendar. So I did I did use my phone calendar for tracking lots of stuff. But obviously, I found that just kind of gets very bogged down then so now I use the notion to track all the dates as well. So you can put things in there set reminders up off of those dates, so it’ll ping you obviously when those dates coming up to make you aware that you have tasks and connection. They’re kind of the three main tools that I use.

Great, and I think just maybe two Thanks, Tom. I think the current kind of draw some conclusions from some of that is that we’ve got I would say, personal management, you know, task and project management. And there may be property in portfolio management as some categories. I don’t know if that’s what We’ll have them. But you know, just looking at me, come on, Jeff. I’ve got all three, I’ve got the right three classic categories.

Yes, definitely. One of the things, obviously, when Carl was mentioning about goals, setting goals and being I mentioned organizing a calendar, one of the objectives of my current job is to see what’s what have I got to do in the next week, month, four months to 12 weeks usually. And the thing I’m always looking for is, what needs to be done. And what else can I do it all being being proactive about what needs to be done in my particular houses maintenance, what needs to be done, when was the last time it was painted, is a reason why I can get someone to look at the clean the gutters for three houses instead of one to reduce the costs and things like that I have all listed as tasks I need to do on a by year basis, for example, cleaning the gutters, paintings on a three year basis. And I always tried to tie those together and try and use a process list basically. And how to accomplish that list is a sorry, my case, but it can be any means. And always have an overview of all those tasks which are not essential, not essential to be done because the tenants gain, I’ve got a leaky tap or my toilets broken or things like that. But all those things that when something does happen, for example, a boiler breaks, I can go to the diplomat to say right, can you fix the boiler while you’re there? Actually, there’s Can you look at this, for example, I made a stopcock which broke in one house which needed fixing. So I didn’t call it a phone route. At that point, it’s but I knew a plumber would be in that property within the next three months because they needed to do some work on the boiler to service it. So I incorporate all those things, all those things into a particular task. But that property.

So as well organized, I think I was thinking through, you know, some of these technologies or systems, we can give fancy names to and use fancy technology. But I think hard, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got date-related stuff, which can be in a calendar, or paper diary. You’ve got tasks to dues, which could literally be a to-do list. You know, you could be a journal, it could be an app that you put things in. And then you’ve got, you know, talked about property management systems, that can be finite, as gives me like a lever arch file or, you know, something like that could be paper-based files. It could be a system, I think landlord was probably the only one we’ve mentioned so far in terms of property management system would correct me if I’m wrong. But that’s just interesting how we can sort of maybe overcomplicating it by talking about some of the technologies and some of the personal preferences. But at heart, it boils down to some dates and to-do’s and then how we collect stuff together in one place and file it and then have some sort of reminder system. So maybe some people are thinking about this listening and thinking, Well, I’m I’m a first time landlord, I’m not even a landlord. Actually, this is all a bit overwhelming. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be and guess what, what are people’s views, then people just dive in and try and get like, world-class technology processes, checklists galore? Or is there a different way that maybe you could start and then evolve? What do people think about that?

And it’s definitely an argument, to keep it simple from now. And you can easily get caught up with technology in different systems. And I think you always need to do like a cost-benefit analysis. Both the financial costs and time costs. I think sometimes people overlook the simplicity of a spreadsheet, this kind of putting stuff into a spreadsheet and kind of getting carried away with these fancy CRM systems, which I love using, but sometimes you need to just step back and think, how, what are you trying to achieve? You’re trying to build a fancy system that doesn’t listen does that or you’re actually trying to do business?

what’s the objective there?

And sometimes, I feel like this is probably might have felt like it. It’s the tail wagging the dog. So you end up being driven by this system. So what’s the next Podio tasks I need to look at? What’s the next email? Okay, email is a very simple, simple system, but sometimes it drives us. Okay, we’ll get a refresh my inbox again to see if I need to do anything.

I think

the fixes both I think yeah, it’s important I think just to start going to start the perfect system to begin with as long as you think about a system because if you plan to grow and manage a portfolio you will need a system but it can be just discretion as Carl mentioned to begin with or just a folder on your desktop with important documents whatever but yeah, just think about having a system in place and as you grow this you can build on that system and find what works for you. I think as we’ve all talked here, we’ve all got different kinds of systems we use similar ideas process at the end of the day. the system itself maybe is not as important as just having a process to manage and track it.

But you know, what’s your view?

I totally agree on cuz, like I mentioned, we have teams we have Podio Yeah, all of them I mentioned before and to be honest, I like it when we just go into Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft Teams, because they just put everything in a team and then we can just go in there but then obviously we need to go outside some different programs and that’s where it gets a bit of blurry sometimes. So it would be nice if we were just one but the downside of only a spreadsheet is that you don’t get any notifications. Otherwise, that will be like the best but who knows that may come soon. Well

I’m wondering if anyone’s going to tell me the solution to having notifications off the back end of a spreadsheet

spreadsheet and raising it presently if it finds a date

for Say that again cuz I’ve talked over you What can you do,

you could probably get some sort of tool to scan the spreadsheet raise a message if it finds a date but then that’s really complicated solution

you might as well just go and get an off-the-shelf does the same thing right? Because there’s the remake there’s a couple of good points you just made that I think all of you is like you know start with something simple don’t over-engineer from the beginning. But I think equally you have the end in mind. So if you bind to grow and scale What can your system grow and scale or if you’ve got to do some sort of migration, you know, some point to use the fancy word switch from one system to another, and then you’ve got to load it up. I think another thing that really came out is about the fact that you were saying that you’re using wireless technology and I don’t know what it’s like for you guys but my phone is like blowing up half the time you know 24 seven, so you know where do you what’s driving What does tails wagging? Dogs was mentioned you know, sometimes it’s hard to switch off and maybe that’s not so good for our mental health so I’ll maybe just touch on that see if anybody else to pick up on that point.

And I think the other thing is there’s a case of but there isn’t an insurance system No one said, by the way, there is one system that does everything we need no one said that you have a and I don’t know if there is so inevitably we end up layering systems or putting them you know, along with next to one another even if they’re not actually interlinked to one another. So we end up with this complex system. But it’s the one system there’s only really got a one-system solution, definitely some research over the last few days instantly with a little bit of googling around I found 14 property management tools found 11 accountancy systems which plug into those tools are found eight inventory tools, five maintenance tools then 27 other tools which I find useful in my day to day and which would integrate into those things so definitely not there’s too much choice there’s not only an industry-leading body at the moment then maybe that’s a

good thing is that all of these systems integrate so easily and so well these days. And product would be pretty unwell, pretty poorly received, and integrated into other systems. But the problem then that arises I suppose the good thing is that it allows the system to become the best it can be. In particular in a small area, rather than trying to be everything to all men, but then yes, you can start to integrate things and it does it is easy to integrate. But for me, that cost just adds up. Because you add you’ve got your your CRM, you’ve got your, your cloud system and you click on but that’s that’s one of the areas where I think they get you. Okay you pay $10 a month on this one system, but then you’ve got multiply that by five or six with Debbie Downer on tonight, I don’t know why

could we chase a car instead? steady?

No. Systems bashings?

Well, and what about just this? We kind of touched about there’s no one system. But what about multiple system? Do people link systems together? And if so, how do they do it? How do you guys do it?

alone. So, uh, so I really I know that you reached you have just dropped box. But we have the OneDrive. And then we have Google Drive that we started with. So we need to, like move everything from Google Drive to OneDrive, you know, and then at the same time we are in, we’re using Apple, and they have their system that they wanted to use while we still using OneDrive. So yeah, it’s it’s, it seems like we’re forced to use several. But as long as he know where stuff is, you should be alright.

Yeah, I love the data storage people I am now and again, I’ll get, I’ll get an email or an alert on my phone saying you need more storage, you know, can we charge you more money? And you know, and then when I think about it, I’m thinking, well, I’ve got like four devices, of course, I need more storage of duplicated everything across every single device, and it’s saved in the cloud. So you know, of course, I’m going to need terabytes worth of data storage. But actually, I don’t do I because I don’t necessarily need everything saved on every device and duplicated across devices. So there’s many signals that Debbie downers point about, you know, having multiple

subscriptions.

Yeah. The only thing that I can say is that it’s good in a way that you have several cars, because look at one dry when they got hacked, people lost their pictures and everything, you know, so maybe, and I mean, look at Facebook now. Or when was it? 123 days ago, everything was down Facebook Messenger WhatsApp. And I was like, wow, I cannot contact anyone. Right now, if I don’t like to call them but let’s say if you just have their Facebook or something. So it’s so important to like, have everything like email there, like ever. So you can get hold of them.

I think people will keep on sending. The world keeps on turning even though you can contact people 10 o’clock at night?

Yeah, I know. But if they live like Richard, it’s not 10 o’clock in the night. It’s It’s in the morning, right?

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Because you know, I don’t it’s not necessarily Facebook or Instagram, but WhatsApp. I mean, I live on WhatsApp. So when WhatsApp was down, I was like, Oh, yeah, there are alternatives, of course. But it was like, I just, I was addicted to WhatsApp. I was like, what’s the one we’re gonna do for the next six hours or whatever it was down. The harsh you have to call somebody on a telephone.

Nice. You think how it used to work?

Yeah. The other thing that comes I think that isn’t that called resiliency, the IT guys resiliency having some sort of backup.

Yeah. Is that what it is? replication resilience.

You can really leverage all the platforms. So yes to turbo, you have lots of data, but think about what data you actually need. So with properties, you need to back up the spreadsheets you need to there are a few things you need your your certificates online. So why don’t you copy them to each platform and leverage them because a lot of them are free to start with? So you can have many different backups of the same data on different platforms. So Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. Do you have any preferences? Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I don’t. As simple as I Hands up, I work for Microsoft. So yeah, but I leverage Google, I leverage Dropbox, I leverage Microsoft. I’m here to use technology. I’m a person who wants to get things for free. And I love every nice bit of free software. And all these companies do offer you something free, eventually, at the end of the day you end up paying because I copy everything to all those platforms and photographs, videos, etc. Yeah, it’s one of those things where utilize what’s there. Obviously, there can be too much, but just stop and think about what you need. Like, for example, Whatsapp is down for several hours will will happen, what would happen if you lost all your contacts, and they were, you couldn’t retrieve them? Have a think about that. And then make your backups,

Good idea. So have it saved in different clouds systems so that you’ve got, you know, if one goes down, you still got another one. have a backup from your device, you know, your laptop or whatever your phone so that if you lose it or breaks, then you’ve got you can retrieve your data. So that’s these are all good sort of practices, aren’t they? And actually, I want to go back to the whole I’m going to call it a tech wars thing, or app was that kind of brought you in Jeff because I thought you might have a sort of leaning you kind of copped out a bit by saying I use all of them. But we’re going to I’m going to put you down as a Microsoft man. Now but so what about everybody else? Are you Microsoft, Google apple? Come on, what are you What? What’s your tech of choice?

For myself example? So yeah, fully, fully embedded in Apple, Windows. And I do use Google, Google Sheets and Google Docs or the online tools, I use those. But otherwise, yeah, for my laptop and my phone, apple, and I have iCloud as well. So it’s very, very good. handy. I can just put a label on my iCloud. Obviously access from all my devices, my local copy of my laptop as well. So when you talk about if iCloud goes down in the cloud, won’t matter, because I’ve got a copy on my desktop.

So we’ve got we’ve got a vote for Microsoft, we’ve got a vote for Apple predominantly. And I know everybody uses everything, but we’re just putting scores on the doors here with the tech wars. And Carl, you piped up with something I didn’t quite hear though.

Well, Windows, Microsoft, Android. I’m no big fan of apple. I tried it before, but it’s to

to bought into it.

Rising here you can see the passions don’t.

I thought you were okay. Carl must have shown.

Nana Come on, well, you need to get your vote. what’s the platform of choice who’s going to entertain tech wars view? So

the platform of choice is actually Google. But my fiancee doesn’t like Google. So that’s why we have one bride. So yeah, she falls Microsoft. I think that’s because that’s what they work with utter danger. While I like Google, Gmail, everything Google. But I do understand that when it comes to the Google calculate calculating or spreadsheet that it’s quite different comparing to Microsoft Excel. But besides that, I think Google is much better. I like Google. That’s why I have a Google

got a couple of split votes. We got a couple of Microsoft, we’ve got a Google we’ve got an apple. Actually, we’ll if we encounter Emily as well, we got another Microsoft. Sorry about this done. But I’m also predominantly Microsoft. We’re not exclusively on my phones or Apple. But funny enough, it starts to create issues because I like the Apple phone. I love the Apple phone, the iPhone. But I don’t really like the Apple computers. But then I start to get you know, do they kind of work seamlessly together that not that I also like to believe you could you can have a lot of personal productivity on either Apple or Google, for example. And they both work quite well. But if you start to mix those different platforms that don’t work so well do they? Perhaps not.

That’s what I like about Apple is that you have to buy into their whole ecosystem or not to that if you try and make them then it doesn’t really work. I don’t know maybe people out there management

pro and con I would say it’s great obviously if you’ve got all Apple devices and everything can just work seamlessly handoff between each other and like I said, put stuff in iCloud or somewhere else, whatever. But if you have different devices, different providers, Microsoft phone, and an Apple MacBook then obviously it’s hard to get them to integrate.

Yeah, I mean Where Emily just got a new phone last. I know, this is a bit off-topic, but she got a Samsung phone. And it came with the new Chromebook. So it’s Google’s own device. And it was like being on an Android phone, but yet not signed. It’s like, Mac mac book with Apple. It’s all integrated. So very good. But then downside is that there’s hardly no progress on the desktop. So it’s a bit like, what should I do with it?

I think just bring forward, I mean, I made a bit lighter about tech wars and platforms, stuff like that. But I think you know, you probably need to pick a side, in the most part, and pick a side that suits you. I mean, Dom’s sat there with his eyes, his air pods in as he’s talking to us, so we can’t know what side he’s off. But if Apple works for you, then you can work with it, go for it. If you’re a Microsoft man, or lady, or you’re a Google person, you know, you can make any of them work. So I wanted to put that up there as the big platforms. But then contrast that with smaller technologies, like, you know, startups or smaller companies, what do you have you got any good examples of sort of the smaller companies have some good stuff they’re doing? Is the first question. And then the follow-up question is, what do you think about those smaller apps or technologies versus those big platforms? You know, what are your considerations when you’re thinking about using those smaller, you know, startups or not-so-established technologies.

Generally, the smaller companies are looking at the niche products, where the tech giants are being industry business, they’re looking for the million-dollar contracts, which are supportability, enabling technology company and enabling projects to be delivered. And all of those big things were, especially in property, you’re looking that these companies are starting up, and they’re looking at those little nice things like managing your portfolio, it’s not a huge task, we can do it in Excel, you can do it in Google Sheets, or wherever you want. But they just put that gloss on it. And they now have their cloud applications, whichever linking as you’re in AWS, and they’re storing your data in the cloud, which is something you’ve got to consider, and they give you such usability for most of the time for a free trial of the basic functionality is free. And then the fish will continue and get all the cash out by subscribing you to something.

So for me, I think like the small ones. Sabbir I think is really, really good. I don’t know how big door but they seem quite small compared to the other companies that were mentioned. And that’s a way to connect all of your other apps, our programs and make it very smooth. So I I really think they’re good, but they will basically be get snapped up of one of the big trees, I think is just a matter of time.

Yeah, I think I guess, touch on that depends on where you draw the line. When I was a big company, I guess when Google’s your Microsoft Graph was Yeah, that was massive. But then, as Nana mentioned about Zapier said, I use that table and notion of illusionists for a few years now. I guess they weren’t massive when I started using them. But I mean, I think there’s still quite big and quite well. Maybe not well known as such outsider kind of industry, but they are well used. I think even some big companies use them. I guess one concern touching back on a point you mentioned before about these smaller companies is how long they’re going to be around for too heavily embedded in like a pilot in notion if that goes undergoes bust or even if it’s bought out for somebody else and they decide to try to change the platform and monetize it further. And that’s obviously a risk. You have to bear in mind and maybe not worry about it as such but in the back of your mind, you might need to get the data at our port or somewhere else.

We are fine Some of these smaller companies, you get a better, better service from them. Find normally that you need to look at kind of how active a company is, but normally find they’re a bit more nimble and bit more responsive to raising, resolving issues or introducing new features, to see companies like polio, for example, there are ways of modifying or proxy data as a website where they’re always adding more stuff. And it’s quite kind of clear to see where the companies that invest in kind of building the building their service versus those who just kind of come up with an idea and then just let it fester for a few years. I kind of got the maybe it’s a bit harsh, I kind of got the impression with Arthur online that that doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere for a long time that looked at previous data.

Was this big enough for some tech men so you know, what, uh, one of the good techs out there, which are very useful, probably good value and, you know, making progress to take your lead their car. So what are people’s favorite technologies using that current criterion?

I think I’ve already mentioned mine, notion on-air table.

So coming from a techie background, I’ve been able to customize those and just build what I want. So have my systems exactly how I want them to be if people, if that’s kind of people’s preference, then obviously, you can use those to build your tools. But if you want something already made and enough to go with, like a prebuilt management tool like landlord insurance, I was just gonna

say landlord is probably one of the examples that Carl was talking about that they are I think I’ve noticed from a distance, at least I don’t use them directly, but I’ve noticed they invest quite a lot. And they’re great. Yes,

yes, they do. And you can track a lot with them, you can, this kind of thing, probably on the only things it doesn’t track now is about your accounting. I think you can put in your, like your monthly rental expenses, all that kind of stuff. I don’t actually use it. I think it’s a bit cumbersome. And I do have an accounting package as well to track everything. But I think you can track your property accounting, income and expenses. So not additional business expenses, but you know, property-related expenses.

So what else who else is thinking who’s going to pick up the technology then?

Well, I use landlord as well. It’s something that I’ve been using, it’s really good for tracking rents. Just giving you an overview of your profit how your profit is performing. We talked about reviewing our portfolio as a key points Well, I don’t need to anymore, I’ve got all my key, I get a weekly email measuring exactly how my portfolio is doing every week. It’s great. it automates that. And I don’t have to think about it. Yes, it lacks on the accountancy side, it does do banking. So you do get notifications when payments do commend, which is great. But it doesn’t link to an accountancy software or Excel or anything like that, which then can give to your accountant. So it’s not great with that, but everything else it’s coming on leaps and bounds and I’ve had really good experience with them with them where I’ve seen something which is not correct or hasn’t function properly. Startup the chat with them. They look at an issue and then the following day, the issue is fixed. So it’s great that landlords great often mentioned the sauna that links very well to Google via my Zapier, I use that a lot, and then the good old Excel then the key pieces of software I use and that manages my entire portfolio may not be good enough in the future. But at the moment, I’ve got a fair few properties and it’s doing really well. So if

you haven’t already, I was gonna say you haven’t fully managed as well do as well as using landlord isn’t

essential. I didn’t know I time manage them complete. Okay. So yeah. And buyer Asana as well. So I have Asana tasks, which I brought through that works very well.

Let’s just quickly touch on a point that you mentioned jack about firing off query to landlord support to second that I had a question for them or an issue a few months ago now. Send them a chat message and respond to almost instant payments, then fix that. quickly so that also touches on thinking you said Richard about larger this smaller companies that I guess approve them or smaller companies were perhaps a bit more responsive and quicker customer service or you try and message Facebook never get response try and message Facebook that was running cool I don’t have Carlo nano want to big up any tech now alright so I’m kind of thinking about drawing a conclusion and so maybe two things to think about make it a bit techie because that’s the topic so tech you love to hate then just be as random as you want with that tech you love to hate just quickly I hate this really bugs me and then he’s a tech you love to hate and then the second question would be texting Chris could not live without and you can’t not allowed to mention something you’ve already mentioned. Okay, so I don’t know if anyone’s ready to go with that. That core I could leave with it if you want a couple of more seconds to think about it

well I can’t live without and that’s my iPad

your Apple iPod Is that right? Yeah,

Apple iPad.

Okay, don’t you can’t live without your Apple iPad. Anything you’d love to hate in technology?

I think Let me think about it. Yeah.

So let’s stick with them can’t live without them for now. He’s got to can’t live without

can’t live without teams. I generally love teams that’s one of the applications there community a lot with your forcement to use zoom at the moment which is disaster but yeah. To change laptops and everything, but yeah, it’s it’s something that as none As stated before, it’s something that combines everything and puts everything together.

I think technically both of you have just mentioned stuff you mentioned before By the way, but that’s okay. Because it’s Apple based and Microsoft based but that’s okay.

Like I mentioned teams tonight that’s the first time I mentioned teams who makes teams karumba

Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.

Yeah, I’m not I’m not a massive hater of Apple but anyway can’t live without spreadsheets i think i think saying on the light data analysis he couldn’t do the analysis that I do without especially pen and paper maybe but it’s Yeah, current good.

I’m gonna be very I can’t live without Microsoft

Office. 365 you’ve just

lost a friend and Dominic. Okay, and one I can’t live with this live without one can’t live without right. So one for me Can’t live without his LastPass Password Manager. I don’t know how many passwords I’ve got on there but I couldn’t possibly possibly remember them all. Especially all the complex things you need to do these days with passwords so that’s my cart live without and then take you love to hate or I’ve gone

Lotus Notes if you use the internet exist Yes, Lotus Notes still exists. I didn’t know some businesses use it now.

day job referenced by any chance.

Now another minute. Previous jobs. Yes. I’d

love to Hey,

the biggest gripe for me is not a particular tech but when apps have just really poor design. It’s just really frustrating. There are so many great apps out there. Just learn from others just learn from others.

Get your design right.

Carlin notifications on my phone in general apps.

I’m just gonna send you a message now. I know stations on the phone and love to hate

and there’s so many I don’t want to stock but mainly am sorry Dom Apple products.

If I’m not having again,

I love I love my Mac but like the integrate is really bad. Like Carl says.

You might want to get the book How to Win Friends and Influence People

now by the way. I read that they read

it. You need to read it again. But You can get it on your mobile device so there you go. Alright so thanks guys it was a bit of fun towards the end there. What I love to hate is one time passwords they go just hate one time passwords just drives me bonkers and also by the way, just slightly off topic but why do some banks and credit card companies put blocks on nearly every transaction when that you can’t actually pay for something when you need to pay for something because they’re trying to protect you? Oh, it’s because they’re trying to protect you okay. But yeah, that just that winds me up because just want convenience right? And I suppose as somebody cleans my bank accounts out, I’ll probably complaint and

maybe it’s what you spend the money on.

Maybe I should rethink them. All those sort of dodgy websites Alright guys, well, thanks for joining the funnel and try and make it a little bit light in a topic that could be sometimes they’re dry. And if it’s only got two final thoughts, but otherwise, I’ll probably do my wrap-up. So I guess Thanks. Thanks to our panelists, Jeff, Nana, Dominic, and Carl you move position on my screen somehow. But there you go. Really appreciate you joining us today got a lot of good insights from from the conversation. The show notes will be over the website, the property voice.net if you’d like to talk to me, right even in one of the panelists about anything we’ve covered today, you can reach me podcast as property voice dotnet. Invariably, we try and tag the panelists in the social media shares, you might have noticed. And so if you want to reach out to any of the panelists at all, you can probably find them on our various social media shares. And I guess all that remains to say is thanks once again for listening, this time on the proxy boys podcast. And until next time.

Thank you for listening today. Now head over to thepropertyvoice.net. For more inspirational content, and get updates through our mailing list. Join us next time on the property voice podcast and if you enjoyed the show, please don’t forget to rate us on iTunes.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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