Jun 15, 2023
In this episode of The MHP Broker’s Tips and Tricks podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, interviewed Ryan Narus, a syndicator and the owner of multiple mobile home parks. Ryan discussed the many ways that digital automation has improved the business for himself and his team.
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Here Are the Show Highlights:
· Max interviewed Ryan Narus, the owner of 74 mobile home parks, with some 4,000 total lots, in six southeast U.S. states. (Max, 0:22)
· The interview primarily focused on Ryan’s success with automation, especially with the digital application Rent Manager. (Max, 2:02)
· While some might think of automation as the technology that kills jobs and replaces workers with robots, Ryan sees an entirely different side, one in which today’s digital technology can improve productivity and even create jobs in the long run. (Ryan, 3:27)
· Ryan first got into computer programming and his appreciation for automation in pursuing his bachelors and MBA degrees at Wake Forest University, especially while studying business analytics. Therefore, he’s never had a fear of encroaching technology, and sees the multiple benefits. That’s why he embraced Rent Manager, an application that automates much of the day-to-day duties of mobile home park management, as soon as he explored it. (Ryan, 4:02)
· Ryan even found drawing up lot leases, a particularly labor-intensive park management job, to be fast and easy and more efficient with Rent Manager. (Ryan, 5:09)
· Such menial tasks as lease signings and termination agreements and recording the handover of keys are now automated, so Ryan’s park managers don’t have to knock on doors. By signing certain automated documents, residents leaving voluntarily can be reminded to turn in keys so park managers don’t have to chase them down and the former residents don’t get mistakenly labeled as being evicted. (Ryan, 5:58)
· Ryan estimates that today about 95 percent of the time spent on his company’s books and most of his accounting is automated. And he never has to handle checks or money orders. (Ryan, 6:29)
· Ryan saw the benefits when nearly everyone in his workforce came down with COVID at one time or another, and he no longer had the manpower to do the many small tasks that could be automated. With Rent Manager, his team and investors get daily automated reports that land in their inboxes every day by the time they awake. It was also during this time when Ryan came to appreciate Metron, the digital water management system his company’s mobile home parks use. Metron eliminates the act of physically reading meters, tabulating and turning in data, and billing residents. And residents benefit from the daily data by not receiving surprise water bills at the end of the month, due to the accumulated cost of undiscovered leaks. (Ryan, 7:08)
· Ryan hasn’t laid off a single employee as a result of the automation his company now relies upon. Instead, workers who no longer have to take on the tedious everyday tasks the automation can better handle now have the time to focus on their talents and the work they really want to pursue. (Ryan :40)
· The training on Rent Manager is immersive. Ryan lets his employees learn and improve on the system by doing, even though there is almost always initial frustration on his workers’ part. He mentioned that the app also offers Rent Manager University, an advanced training service if employees need it. (Ryan, 9:42)
· Metron’s WaterScope software is especially valued by Ryan and his company. With it, they get daily data on everything the water meters show, such as water usage per gallon, per minute, per unit. This immediately alerts park operators to unusual water usage, and potential leaks or unwarranted excessive use (such as from filling pools). (Ryan, 13:19)
· Ryan pays about $7 a month per meter for the new meter system, including data reading and alerts. (Ryan, 19:44)
· Ryan related an unwanted memory from the pre-technology days when he had to take a day’s drive from Spartanburg to Charlotte to physically read meters at a park in the pouring rain. He first had to pump mud and rain off of the meters so he could read them and got bit by ants in the process. This contrasts with today’s method of getting daily automated readings as an email or text message. (Ryan, 19:56)
· As for Ryan’s book reading habits, he tends to jump from book to book and read several at a time. Favorites right now include The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, by John Jantsch, and Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. And anything by Robert Greene. (Ryan, 22:09)
· Check out Ryan’s own podcast, Mobile Home Parks in Real Life. (Ryan, 25:06)
Want to learn more about automation in manufactured home communities or othere strategies for business improvement? Drop Max a line at info@themhpbroker.com or give him a call at 678-932-0200.
Power Quotes in This Episode:
“I have Metron to read the meters and automatically upload meter (data) to me and automatically tell me if they think somebody has a leak, which has saved people hundreds of dollars in water bills.” (Ryan, 7:08)
“(With Metron) “…every business day, my employees and my fellow investors and owners, they have reports that hit their inbox at 2am. So, they wake up early at 5am. Guess what? Reports waiting for them, they don't even have to turn on Rent Manager. It’s sitting there waiting.” (Ryan, 7:08)
“What (the Metron conversion) has done is made my employees happier and more productive because they don't have to do stuff they don't want to do like scan 100,000 money orders. So yeah, it's been fun. I like the robot.” (Ryan, 8:40)
“...just like learning Spanish or French or whatever, like (employee expertise with the automation) ain't happening in an afternoon.” (Ryan, 12:03)
“You're removing menial tasks, replacing that with the robot, allowing people to be more productive and more happy.” (Ryan, 17:28)