Ep 122 | 5 Step Pitch To Win Doors At 2x The Fee

Host Pablo Gonzalez shares two client stories from Pennsylvania showing how AI-driven maintenance triage helps property managers win investors even at double the fee. 

🌟 Stay Connected with Us:
🎙️ Connect with Pablo Gonzalez on LinkedIn
📬Subscribe to Vendoroo's Weekly Newsletter
💼 Follow Vendoroo on LinkedIn
🌐 Visit Vendoroo's Website

00:00 Trip Setup and Teaser
00:56 Podcast Intro
01:25 Ravi’s AI Maintenance Story
02:56 Live Demo Wins the Deal
04:24 Chris’s Sales Playbook
06:26 Why the AI Demo Works
07:45 Chris Explains the Pitch
09:02 2 AM Sink Call Roleplay
12:25 Behind the Scenes Triage
14:03 Beating the 5% Competitor
15:39 Wrap Up and Results

Transcript

 (Put your intro below)   📍 So I land in Philadelphia on the way to do an event in Lancaster with Jen Lins. And, uh, my first stop is in Ton to visit Ravi Vai from Real Property Management, Vai. And I'm catching up with Ravi shooting some content with him like I like to do when I visit clients. And, uh, and then he unleashes this story on me about being up against somebody with a 5% fee.

He's got a 10% fee, and how he overcame the objection, and I have to share this with you because not only did that work for him, but I heard a very similar story.  Three days later from Chris widely, uh, from Redwood Property Management in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and he's actually systemized this approach. So here's what I'm gonna do. 

I am gonna play Ravi's story so that hear it straight from his mouth. 'cause we were recording when this happened. Uh, then I'm gonna share with you Chris's actual approach and then I'm gonna share the recording of Chris talking you through his pitch. You're gonna love this. Check it out.

   

Welcome to the property management frame breakers podcast. I'm your host, Pablo Gonzalez, and I am here to introduce you to the folks in the property management space that have broken the frame of what you may believe was possible. This podcast is presented by Vendaroo. It is your all in one AI solution for resolving your maintenance needs.

Let's go.



Okay, so here I'm dropping you in on. Me and Ravi are having this conversation. He starts, uh, he says something in passing, and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you just close a deal at twice the price? Explain that. And this is what he says.

That's funny. This is the investor. We are telling them that, yeah, we use, AI for our maintenances. 

Yeah.  

you said, look, what do you mean by that? Yeah, I mean that, yeah. When the, you know, when the work order is initiated from the tenant, our AI called [VENDOROO], the, the, the ROO jumps and talks to them.

And does the triage and decides whom to dispatch. And it'll talk to the dispatcher, the vendor, and adjust everything and schedules.  

And when this estimates come, if it is over the limit, then you, the investor will receive a message, Hey, we have estimate for over $500 and this is the work to be done.

And, and this is the property obviously. And, would you approve? Please approve kind of a thing. 

Yeah. 

Then you will.  The, you have two again. You have two options. Approve it or chat with my maintenance. Can you gimme more details? Yeah. Here we go. Yeah. This is exactly what we are trying to fix over there kind of a thing.

If you don't like that, you'll tell. Yeah, I wanna talk to somebody. Call our office. This is the number, it provides everything to you. And no where I don't think things exist like that. He said, what do you mean? I said, yeah, no, that's what I meant. I don't think, uh uh, ai, AI is that far, that smart, that cannot talk to people, collect data. 

Assign to vendor and then inform the owner? No, no, no. I think it's your team doing it. I said, why should I lie? Where are you? I said, he said, I'm in office. I'm gonna send a link of my zoom meeting. I'll, if you don't mind, I can show a couple of our work orders. What happens. Exactly. 

Yeah. 

And I had one work order that, that morning with a very lengthy discussion I about, you know?

The way our [VENDOROO] triaged and collected 20, 30 questions were asked in that flow. 

Yeah.  

Did you type that? Yeah. No,  not me. Typing. You see the little or the kangaroo sits on the corner, right? Did you see that? That's, that's him. 

Yeah. 

He is, his name is ROO and he is the one doing everything for me. Yeah, he did all it and then he then assigned the job to this particular plumber here, and then I opened the plumber, Chad there, plumber accepted immediately there was no chat in between work order and ru and the. 

Vendor he accepted, and, the in, within the next four hours, I'll get an estimate. Now if the estimate is below 500 as required Then the owner is not informed and the rule will take a decision and it'll tell the vendor to  schedule the work. I said, crazy. You are really crazy. He said, no. I said, this is not his.

We, we are even crazier than, than this.  That's when he really instantly fell in love with the systems. And started loving us. We wanted, he got two properties and I, I won the deal with him. And, we, we actually, 

I love to hear that, man. 

So I about, about fell outta my chair when I, when I heard Ravi say that. Um, and I, you know, it stayed with me. I thought it was unique. Um, of course I was gonna tell the story, but then two days later,  Chris widely, uh, at a Redwood Prime Realty in Altoona, in Altoona, pa after the General Ruins event, I'm visiting him and he tells me he's using this similar thing, but not just that he walks me through this like.

Way of doing it that I think is really genius, right? So when he has an investor, he, he'll, he'll build a relationship with the investor, and as he's wrapping up, he'll be like, oh, and we use ai, right? And then the investor's like, what do you mean you use ai? So he is like, all right, check this out. Whips out his phone, calls his receptionist, front desk, puts it on speaker phone, whose name is Alex.

Roles play role plays with Alex.  This like leaky kitchen sink. Um, and, uh, and Alex talks him through, uh.  Uh,  basically just tightening up a couple things to, to fix it, but then also confirms to make a work order, you know, like, and that they're gonna like, check in that they did it right, but the problem gets solved, right?

So he does that explains, he then turns to the investor, goes, see what happened there, you know, like, if this would've happened at 2:00 AM you know, and, and, and there's a, and there's a after hours. Service just doing it. All they're gonna do is assign a plumber. You know, that could cost you 300 bucks. That didn't have to like, cost you $300, right?

Doing this with AI allowed us to, um, handle it immediately. You know, like to mitigate any damage, troubleshoot it away in this instance, um, but also, you know, like save you that trip charge and make sure that it got it right.  So basically turns the, the investor's biggest fear into a competitive advantage.

And then he's like, listen, man, you know, just, it sounds like, it, sounds like we're doing well. I, I encourage you to check out anybody else but, um, you know, ask him how they're gonna like handle maintenance at 2:00 AM and see, see how they handle it. See if they're looking out for you. And he is just like, you know, that pitch for him works often. 

Right. And there's like a real genius to this idea of the AI voice plus the AI troubleshooting in the background, um, doing this thing, right? Like we see this all the time. AI voice is kind of like this like flashy, tangible thing that you can show people, but the real value is the operational capacity in the background.

And the problem with that, it's, it's kinda like selling your property management services, right? Like it's hard to, it's hard to sell. Um, you know, your operational capacity, but if you can like, have this like visceral experience that people experience and then show like what happens in the background, like Ravi did by popping open his, um, his, uh, uh, doing a Zoom and showing him the, the PMS and you know, Chris does after, you know, the.

AI starts texting with him. That's a super, super powerful way to really differentiate, um, the technology and the process. So, you know, something to think about if you're thinking about adopting ai, you're thinking about these troubleshooting solutions. Um, what's the sizzle, right? Like, how can you, you know, like if you're only selling sizzle, which is usually an AI voice.

That's just sizzle. But if you tie it to this like, operational outcome in the backend, that saves them money, like AI troubleshooting. Um, it's a really, really interesting way to sell. So, wanted to share these stories with you. Uh, but without further ado, let, uh, Chris widely himself talk you through his process. 

you got a Randy Johnson slider? 

I do. I do. 

Tell me more. 

I do it, uh, it's called the VENDOROO,

that's what we call it. 

And, uh, starts high, just drops in. Yeah. So obviously, uh,  business is relationships, so.  I'm not gonna just show a cool new tool and somebody's gonna trust me mm-hmm. To manage their property, which most likely is the most valuable thing they have. Mm-hmm. Okay. So as a property manager, you develop the relationship.

Obviously on my end, I own doors and, and, and we're very good at what we do and we got very capable people in this office here mm-hmm. That are just wonderful. But, um, normally towards the end of the, the conversations, especially, you know, uh, if I feel like we're in the running, I say, Hey, and we use ai.  Uh, do you know what that means?

Like, no. I'm like, okay, this is what I wanna do. I want to call in and have a conversation. Mm-hmm. All right. Uh, with our, our AI tenant and pretend that I've got something wrong in my apartment. Right? Because one of the big deals is not what you pay me, it's what you pay all the maintenance people. That's the real cost of, of property management, right?

Mm-hmm. If I'm gonna charge you market max here at 10, which is double what others are gonna charge mm-hmm. I need to have a reason for that. And that's because whatever you're. You're, I'm charging you extra here is gonna pale in comparison to the maintenance tickets. I can save you. All right. And that's where vendor root comes in.

So what I do is I say, Hey, Siri call widely properties. 

And, uh, so it's just touchless. I don't even type in a, a number. Right? 

 Put a mic. Thank you for calling Redwood Prime Realty. This is Alex. How can I help you today? 

 Hi Alex. I, um, my name's Chris. I'm having an issue with my sink. 

  I'm sorry to hear you're having an issue with your sink. Chris, let me help you with that.

Could you please provide the address for the property where the issue is occurring? 

 Yeah, sure. It's 1318 19th Avenue, Altoona.  I'll give you the unit here too.

  Great. Chris, could you please provide the unit number for your address? 

 Yeah, it's 4 0 2.

  Thank you. Chris. I found your unit at 4 0 2 13 18 19th Avenue Altoona, could you please describe the issue you're experiencing with your sink? 

 Yeah, um, hey, it's, it's 2:00 AM right now and, uh, I just noticed there's some water dripping underneath my sink here.  And, uh, I'm concerned about it and I want it. I wanted to call on and get it fixed.

  Chris, I understand your concern. Could you let me know if the leak is actively flowing or dripping in a way that you cannot contain, such as water spreading or risking flooding, or are you able to stop or contain it by turning off the under sink, shut off valves and catching it in a bucket? 

 Oh, well, you are not, it, it's not overflowing, that's for sure.

It's, it, it's a drip. It was getting the, the, uh, the bottom of the sink wet though. Uh, so you're saying I can just put a bucket underneath there. Uh, and you want me to turn the, the, uh, the valves off, uh, underneath? Is that, is that what you're telling me to do? If it's just dripping?

  Yes, Chris. If it's just a drip and not actively flooding, placing a bucket underneath to catch the water and turning off the under sink shutoff valve. Would help contain the issue for now. This will prevent further water damage until maintenance can address it. Let me know if you're able to do that and I'll proceed with logging your request. 

 Yeah, um, uh, actually my wife just did that here. We're both up and, uh, boy, we were just worried about person downstairs getting wet or, or us being  liable for this. But yeah, we got a bucket underneath there and, uh, we were able to, there was some knobs there. I guess that's the, the supply lines. Uh, we turn those and, and it seems like it's, it stopped.

So, um, I Is that good,   

 Chris? It sounds like you've done a great job containing the issue by turning off the valve and using a bucket. Based on this, it's not considered an emergency, but I'll still log a work order for maintenance to address the problem as soon as possible. Can I get your full name, including your last name to include in the work order?

Yeah, it's uh, Tom Smith.  

 Thank you. Chris Smith Is the number you're calling from? 8 1 4 6 0 0 1 6 1 8. The best number to reach you for follow up? 

 Yes ma'am.    

 Your work order has been successfully submitted. Chris Maintenance will reach out to you shortly to address the issue. Is there anything else I can assist you with? 

 No, that's fantastic. I can't believe you guys answered the phone at 2:00 AM I was like just hoping to get somebody here tomorrow and I was just really, I hoping I wasn't gonna be liable for this.    

Thank you for calling Redwood Prime Realty. Have a great day. 

Hi, you too.  So what I explained to them then is like, that's real time. That just created a ticket in our system. Mm-hmm. We have record of it. Right. So what it also did was that tenant was able to call in no cost to you actually kind of triage that.

Now what's gonna happen next is there's going to be a, a reu, I believe they call it. That will text me. Now, it takes about five minutes, so while we're talking here, you'll see it pop up and they'll actually try to triage it further. So they'll be like, Hey, do you mind just tightening those nuts underneath there, seeing if it, if it starts again, and they'll go through that whole thing.

Now, if it was an emergency, there was water coming down, it would've called one of our emergency staff that we have set up in our system so that no matter what happens at, at whatever time of night, we're only getting the calls that are emergencies, and she's great at that. And then everything else is getting logged into the system.

And ideally. Ideally, one, you're not paying for an emergency plumber to come out for a little drip in the sink, which, let's be honest, that's what would happen if they called into emergency line and it went straight to a plumber. Right? That's not happening in vendor room, right? Mm-hmm. She's able to discern it, figure it out.

It's way advanced on that front as. As advanced as that is. What's coming with the text messages is like 10 times better. They're gonna ask questions, ask for pictures, ideally solve the problem, and you don't even get charged for anybody to come out and see it, let alone an emergency plumber, which, how much would that cost, man?

Right? Yep. 500 bucks to come out at three in the morning. Mm-hmm. To fix a drip. Uh, and I know my building isn't going to have any water in it. I'm not gonna be liable as a property manager for missing it. She's gonna handle all that whatever time of the day, and it is a game changer. So whatever you are going to receive an extra charge for me for being excellent, right?

You're gonna save and maintenance costs because she's doing that 24 hours a day.  And it is, uh, so you go ahead, you talk to the guy that's gonna do it for 5%. And you and ask them what happens if someone has a drip in their sink at 3:00 AM Or ask 'em what happens if it's overflowing, pouring down into three units below it at 3:00 AM  and tell me if I'm worth the extra 5%. 

And it's just like, you know, the jaw hits the floor. I'm like, I can't believe it. I'm like, and I say the best part is it gets better every day. Like that's systematically better than it was last month. Mm-hmm. Certainly last year. And every day it gets better. And we haven't even gotten the text messages yet that are like the next level, like.

You know, Alex was a little wonky, paused a little bit. Mm-hmm. You could tell it wasn't a person. Mm-hmm. Although I've got a building with 55 plus people here. Yeah. And a lot of them think Alex is like, they're, they'll like tell her stories and clue her in and, and, uh, and they love her. So, um, it's a game changer.

That's, that's the Randy Johnson slider and it, it, it, it blows away and there she is.  You know, so she's going in and she's gonna triage this. We won't spend all the time going through it. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's that much better. You can ask her questions. You can even say, Hey, I got it stopped. And it'll actually close out the work order in our system.

So we won't even send a maintenance guy out there if it stopped. And then she'll check back in to make sure it's okay. It's a game changer and it doesn't cost you anything that's in the 10%. Mm-hmm. So am I worth it or am I not? And and they're just like,  oh my gosh. Right. 

Yeah. 

So that's, that's the power of VENDOROO.

So that works. Yeah.  Does that close deals or do they then go check and then come back to you and be like, yeah, you're right. These people do it. Like what's the, what's the hit rate on 

that? We've had, it's, it's, um, it's hard to walk away from that.  Right? And, and I encourage people go talk like, I'm not, this isn't a pressure situation.

Yeah. This has to work for both of us. You have to like us, we have to, like you, we have to feel comfortable with your units. You need to feel comfortable with our excellence. But anybody you ask, say, Hey, what happened at 2:00 AM.  The other thing they're working on is the, uh, rental application side of it too.

So like you'd be able to call in and say, Hey, I'm looking for a property, be able to scan our website, which goes back to our source of truth, which for us is Red Vine. Mm-hmm. And then they could, they could call in at 2:00 AM asking for what's available. Right. And.  Get pre-approved, have a, as showing for 10:00 AM that next morning.

Mm-hmm. Right. And flawlessly, seamlessly. Where someone's at 3:00 AM looking for a, an apartment and they're able to actually see it the next day. Like when it comes to sales, it's how fast can you get to a Yes. 

Speed to lead  

with? VENDOROO, it's now it's not. Well when somebody gets back to 'em or Hey, we'll have somebody call, there's nobody's getting called back.

It's just done. 

Yeah. 

And it's seamless. What's the value of that

    



 (Pillar Content)