#81 - Stephanie Graves on Starting Her Own Woman-Owned & Led Property Management Company
If you’ve ever dreamt of starting your own property management company, This episode is for you.
This week on the Marketing Home, Marketing You podcast I interview my friend and colleague, Stephanie Graves, founder of Q10 Property Advisors.
Hold on to your seats because Stephanie is an incredibly accomplished woman in the multifamily housing industry and has so many insights to share.
Stephanie Graves is the founder and president of Q10 Property Advisors. She is an executive-level property management professional who has held titles from Director of Education to Senior Vice President of Operations, overseeing over 22,000 units in six markets nationwide. Stephanie has earned her CAPS and CAM designations through the National Apartment Association and is an education faculty member for the National Education Foundation. Stephanie is on the Executive Board of the Houston Apartment Association (the largest apartment association in the nation) and is slated to serve as President in 2023. She is a sought-after speaker and facilitator nationwide and can be seen at many of the National Apartment Association education conferences.
Stephanie oversees corporate communications, acquisitions, due diligence, and various day-to-day activities that directly impact the profitability and success of Q10 and its assets.
Stephanie has over 20 years of experience in multi-family development, management, and operational oversight. She has a keen eye for identifying and diagnosing issues through the due diligence process. Stephanie has a Bachelor of Communications from St. Edward’s University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Are you ready to learn from Stephanie Graves? Let’s dive in.
Here’s a glance at this episode…
>> [00:45] - A little about Stephanie Graves, founder and president of Q10 Property Advisors and incoming Houston Apartment Association President for 2023. What does her typical day-to-day look like and more.
>> [09:20] - What skills prepared you for launching your own property management company?
>> [11:42] - Why is it so important to train your teams?
>> [12:55] - How can property managers balance the demands of their role without burning out?
>> [18:30] - How can onsite teams make decisions that ownership/management would approve while still giving consideration to their residents?
>> [25:28] - What advice would you give someone just starting in the multifamily industry and unsure of their career path?
>> [36:15] - What is this Immersion Cruise we’re hearing about?
What skills prepared you for launching your own property management company?
I started on the development side versus on the management side of multifamily housing, which is different from many people. I started with budgets, proformas, and running numbers for lenders. That gave me the necessary background to understand what my owners were looking for. Understanding that it all comes down to distributions and how they will make that lender profile work. Looking back, that was super helpful in launching my own property management company.
I’ve found that you need to be a little bit good at many things to have longevity in the multifamily business. A mentor early on brought to my attention that certain things were “red line” items on the budget. That meant that when things got tight financially, they’d get cut. So even though my focus at the time was marketing and training, I had to be versatile enough in my skillset to have a job if those items got cut from the budget.
Having breadth in your knowledge makes you more marketable as a multifamily professional. It allows you to manage, own and understand all aspects of the business. That’s the key. You can have a great property manager, but if they don’t know anything about rent collection, they won’t be successful in the long haul.
I’ve found these lessons to be true also as a business owner. You have to be adaptable and understand a little bit of everything.
Barbara’s Thought: A great reminder from Stephanie. You are your own brand. Wherever you end up in your career, you’ll always take along the skills you’ve acquired. So pick up whatever skills you can to have a stronger personal brand and be more marketable as a multifamily professional. It opens up a lot of opportunities along the way.
Why is it so important to train your teams?
The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay. — Henry Ford, Founder, Ford Motor Company.
We are firm believers in educating our team members. We pay for education. We invest in finding out what skillsets you can expand on. We want our team members to look at this as a serious career.
We know that they may eventually leave, but that is a risk we are willing to take. We would never sacrifice education to try to “keep” employees.
How can property managers balance the demands of their role without burning out?
You have to put in the work to make your job successful. If you’re not creating a routine of things that need to be done and putting your own systems in place, you will always be chasing your tail as a property manager. Simple things add up. If you open your desk and it’s a disaster or you can’t find your pen, how can you even expect to have a successful day?
90% of the time when there is an occupancy problem, it’s really a people problem. It’s someone that has not set up their environment to be successful.
The other thing that property managers need to understand is that sometimes the things you want to do are not the most important things you need to do. For example, I might want to go help set up a model because that’s fun. But I might not necessarily be the person that needs to do that. If I put my time there instead of tackling what needs to be done, it may make things more stressful in the long run.
I’m not saying to cut out all of the fun parts of the job, but there has to be a balance to ensure the right things are getting done. Figure out the parts of your job that are causing friction and address them head-on. Slowing down to do that will help you not burn out.
How can onsite teams make decisions that ownership/management would approve while still giving consideration to their residents?
This may not be a popular opinion, but some of it comes down to abandoning ego as a property manager. We might never want to be seen as wrong with our residents or our team members. Instead, we should focus on defusing conflict as much as possible.
Here’s an example: Car insurance. It’s the law to have car insurance. You know that. Residents know that. Here is where an unnecessary conflict could arise. I’ve seen cases where a property manager doesn’t want to issue a parking permit because the resident doesn’t have proof of insurance. Here is where I see that situation differently. It’s not up to you to enforce car insurance. It’s their responsibility. Pick your battles.
I realize that not every property manager has that level of freedom, so it’s important to figure out what is acceptable in your property management company. The goal is to find the best solution where both the resident and owners are appeased.
“We like to empower our property managers to make decisions that support our overall goals even if they sometimes conflict with a rule or policy. We have a term called flexible intelligence that we use frequently. And I’m always advocating that we use flexible intelligence in challenging situations. Making the best call in the moment.”
Barbara’s Thought: I love the term that Stephanie used of “flexible intelligence.” I think it’s so important to train our teams that TWO things can be true simultaneously. You can have an owner's and resident's best interest, and there can be a middle ground.
What advice would you give someone just starting in the multifamily industry and unsure of their career path?
I may be biased, but the apartment association gives you a well-rounded approach to property management, and it is so reasonably priced for the value it delivers. Whether you attend a basic Leasing 101 class or just attend mixer events, you can meet the multiple levels of supply partners, owners, property managers, and leasing agents. You get an overall idea of what apartment management is through these events. That has become instrumental in my career because I could network with people and make firm connections. It's an open industry too, so people are willing to share what the challenges are. It’s not uncommon to chat about traffic patterns and trends within certain neighborhoods. That is a tremendous value.
Stephanie is the incoming Houston Apartment Association President for 2023. Celebrate with her at HAA’s 2023 Installation Gala. Register here.
Q10 is Sponsoring an Immersion Cruise
December 8-12
Dare to immerse yourself in multifamily training at its finest. Never before have you had the opportunity to turn off ALL the noise of your day-to-day property challenges and immerse yourself in learning, growing, and expanding your knowledge of your profession. We are frequently distracted by the noise of our property operational issues. Even when we are at a training, we are breaking away to take an emergency call or answering an email because it just can’t wait. All those interruptions hinder our ability to challenge ourselves and expand our knowledge of what we do day in and day out. Click to learn more.
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