Why Education and Mental Health Matter More Than Ever in Multifamily | Featuring Victoria Cowart

On this episode of The Associated, we are

talking with the legendary Victoria Cowart. We recorded

this episode in DC, while we're Advocate. This was actually the

second of two recordings that we did at the studio, and to be

honest with you, by the time we recorded this episode, the

secondary smoke from the Bong hits that the recording engineer

was taking was quite, how would you say it, aromic,

yes, and set the tone for the studio, for sure. I

mean, it, as we discussed post show, it was very.. it is

reflective of our experiences at a variety of studios around the

country, that either these podcast duties are in, let's

say, less desirable locations of the city, or they have

environments that encourage the free flow of thought, let's put

it that way.

Yeah, it was, was this in Chinatown?

It was close, it was close to it, it was

adjacent, Chinatown adjacent.

Okay, and it was in the basement, so he went to

the basement, and it was a nice little studio. He had good

rooms, good setups, but the engineer had a bong next to him,

and it was, it was just happening. It obviously was not

a no-smoking building,

correct? Or if it is, he is completely violating

the terms of his lease. The Victoria did. I don't know, she

mentions on the episode, but she mentioned it right when she came

in. She's like, 'Wow, it's happening here. Self did indeed

in DC. Jeanie, great food. What'd you do? Oh, I mean, this

is one, always one of my favorite conferences of the

year. Just because of the, you know, apartmentalize can

sometimes be overwhelming. Advocate sets kind of the right

balance between, for us, we've kind of grown our network from

the firm over the years to where we now have friends all over the

country. I think, you know, this one somewhere hits somewhere

bit easier to get around to see everyone. So it was great to

attend some committee meetings. Did get a good meal or two in

place. The our friends at the South Carolina Apartment

Association hosted a state dinner at a lovely restaurant.

It was a long meal, it was either four or five courses, so

it took a number of hours, but it was a very enjoyable meal,

spent around the table while watching some aspect of the NCAA

tournament on my, my Apple phone.

Well, I didn't make it that South Carolina

dinner, but I did end up having this new tradition that I've had

now, like three or four years in a row, where I've gone to one of

the Jose Anders restaurants, and so I was there again this year,

and it's, I believe, it's called Halaho, and that is, I, it's

Spanish, so it's J A L E O, but the food is so good, and we got

to sit outside again, because the weather was great, like you.

I really enjoyed this conference. I think what's

interesting this year is we didn't do the Mexican

restaurant.

Yeah, I really miss La Fiesta. I mean, Court

Furniture, and their partners that usually host that event do

an excellent job. The hospitality that's normally

extended to just about anybody who is at the conference who can

attend. I love the bottomless margaritas, frozen margaritas,

and chips that just come out for days. The way, if you ever want

to kill me, just lock me in a room and have it bendless,

bottomless chips, because I will probably eat myself to death.

Yeah, I guess the thing that was different

this year is live karaoke. So, unfortunately, someone stumbled

on a bar that was near us that was doing live karaoke, so we

ended up over there.

That was a double dose of karaoke this year. I

will, I will say we did, I did not, admittedly, I did not stay

for the entire period of walk and roll, but I did stay long

enough to, I would be remorse if I did not give Bo Heath a shout

out, because he embraced the, you know, room karaoke to a

certain level that had maybe not been seen before.

Yeah, it was. It was a fun bow that night, and

well, you know, everyone's having fun that night. That's,

that's, that's how the karaoke night's supposed to be, right?

That's correct.

It's there, and the live karaoke was a little

bit more professional-ish. Those people were singing. Yeah, it

was great. I was watching basketball, watching that

Arizona game, so it was a, it was a nice time.

It was indeed. Congrats on your Michigan

Wolverines winning the national championship.

I know that was a fun one. It was a fun one. So,

alright, so let's listen to a little cousin, Josh, and talk.

Victoria sounds great, all right. Bye. welcome

to The Associated, the podcast for the multifamily industry

from the association's perspective. I'm Brian Holliday,

the principal of CLT PR Management, and one of the

podcast hosts with me today in Washington, DC, recording this

in a studio in a basement that has some potpourri going on

here. Todd is like co-host Todd Whitlow. Todd, hey Brian, how

you doing? Apparently this evening I've been invited to

Whitlow's on the water. Have you on the wharf? Have you kicked up

residency here in DC?

You know, I have not. We talked about on the way

over here. I've got to ask the owner of the establishment if

there is any family relation, because I'm not aware of any

Whitlows in DC, but it is not a very common last name, so there

may be some affiliation. Good afternoon, everybody. I am Todd

Whitlow. I am your co-host on the associated podcast. I'm a

partner and principal with Brownlee, Whitlow, and Prate

Brian. I'm super excited today because we have a dear friend of

mine on the show, Victoria Cowart, who is CPM NAEI faculty.

She's vice president of education at pet screening and a

seasoned property management professional with experience

across HOAs, manufactured housing, and multifamily

communities. Victoria helped launch the Charleston Apartment

Association, served as its president, and then became

president of the South Carolina Apartment Association and an NAA

regional vice president. She has chaired four NAA committees,

was recently inducted into the South Carolina Apartment

Association Hall of Fame. She holds a degree in the management

of human resources and industry CPM and has been certified to

facilitate adult mental health first aid certification

training. That's a mouthful. She is a passionate advocate for

industry education, pets, assistance, animals, and team

wellness. Welcome, Victoria.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Wow, that is a

lot. So, thank you for having me. I'm excited. Yeah, this is

very potpourri-ish down here.

It's a nice, it's a nice vibe. The longer you

hang out, the better the vibe feels.

And I mean, I can't say.. I mean, we've been

now in at least six different studios, and they all have some

interesting story.

Personality, everyone has a personality. It's

yes, it's been, it's been fun. We, we picked this up, I think

we did it first in Denver, and now this is our new stick to go

and test out new studios and bring in the guest and have a

wonderful conversation.

I love it. Thank you for the invitation.

Super excited.

Well, where do we gonna start? I'm so excited

about so many of these different topics we're gonna..

well, I mean, I think we always have to start at

the beginning. How did you start in the industry?

Oh, that's a fun one. I'm a unicorn, so I was

an 18 year old kid, worked in the neighborhood I lived in, and

you know, and I met a couple fellows who were in maintenance,

and they liked their jobs. They were smiling. So, what do you

guys do? And they chatted it up, and I got to thinking about

that. Well, I'm not going to go directly into college, I'm going

to go to school at night, that'll be a minute, I'll have

to get to that. But meanwhile, how do you get out? How do you

get enough skills, get on the market, get an apartment, and I

kept going back to my maintenance friends, and so we

talked a few times, and two great guys, John and Ed, and

they put me in touch with the owner of the apartment

community. He owned four communities with his father and

his brother-in-law, and they're in the Charleston, South

Carolina area. So I called up gentleman's name is Norman. Love

him to this day. And asked him if he had any openings.

18-year-old kid, you know, getting ready to graduate high

school, or maybe I'd call them at the point I'd graduated. And

he said he didn't have any, and I had learned a little bit about

his operation from the maintenance guys, and said,

well, what do you do when you're managed every day off, because

your office is open six days a week, right? He said yes, and I

said, well, when they're off, what do you do? Well, they

handle the work when it comes back. I said, so they kind of

get punished for taking a day off. Like, don't you want

somebody who can float in for every one of them on their days

off? Like, somebody who can work in all four other communities

and just be there to help and keep, like, leasing apartments

is a big thing for you, right? He said, yeah. I said, well,

don't you think you should have somebody who does that? It

sounds like you guys are big enough to have someone who does

that.

She pitched at an angle. 18 years old,

I did pitch at an angle. Yes, and I.. and it

was still in the box because it worked. I said, so do you think

you should have that? And he said, well, maybe. And I said,

well, can I come meet you? And he said, yeah. So I met him and

convinced. Him, that that job was what he wanted to create,

and then he said, Well, here's the keys to the model, go take a

look at the model and come back and sell it to me. Then I came

back and convinced him to give me the job I had convinced him

to create. And later that year I turned 19, and before the end of

the year, I was moving into one of the apartments, and off I

went. And then I started going to school at night, and you know

the journey continues from there, but I'm a unicorn. I got

in on purpose.

Which part did you, or did maybe you realize in

the beginning, but when did you realize that it wasn't a job, it

was professional in the industry that you were going to pursue?

That I'll say that took a minute, because I

was going to school at night, and I thought I wanted to be in

somewhere in hospital administration, so I was going

to school at my technical college, I ended up taking like

19 classes with them before I switched to a four year

education, but somewhere in there, as I was educating myself

to do something else, I realized this was pretty great, you know?

I got to help people, I got to do things logistically, not my

favorite thing to do, but it's important, right? You still got

to know how to handle the details, and, and I ended up

loving all the legal aspects of my work. I was in front of a

judge, like 20 years old, arguing Service Member Civil

Relief Act in an eviction situation, right, and it was

very interesting. So, every day was interesting, was never the

same, and so probably along that time, as I was educating myself

to do something differently learned, now this is it. Yeah,

and now you've transitioned, and you're on the

supplier side, and you're with pet screening. Why pet

screening? I think I know this answer, but why pet screening?

Well, I did. I did the same thing 18 year old

operating now, doing something else. I call it the fun side.

Some people say dark side, don't know why they say that. I call

it the fun side, but I had met John Bradford, our CEO and

founder, when I was an RVP, a mutual friend who was working

from at the time. Pat Patterson introduced me to John at an at a

region meeting, and it was great meeting him, he's such energy,

and then I sat down with another friend during my pivot period,

John Michaels with Watchtower, and he said, "I want to

reintroduce you to our mutual friend John, like I just keep

thinking you and John, and I looked up what Pet Screeny was

doing, and I thought, "This is brilliant, because I did all the

reasonable accommodation work in my portfolio with 20 assets,

that was a function I took on all legal things, and anything

fair housing wise, that was a function for me. Your site team

members shouldn't have to bear the weight of those things, so I

handled all of those things, and when I read what Pet Screening

was doing, and I remember John's energy, and our mutual friend

John, you know, just kind of voted confidence, I thought,

"Oh, okay. Then I called John Bradford, and had the same

conversation with him, like I did with Norman. And here I am.

There you go. For those who don't know, John,

he's probably starting a new business right now. I think

every six weeks he has a new idea, he's pitching something

new, he's always on. God has so many ideas, so much fun.

He's fabulous, but

yeah,

yeah, I mean, he's one of the most genuine people

as well. Not only is he thinking consistently as an entrepreneur,

but he is exactly who he is to you when he, when he's talking

to you, that's who he is. And you can't find a more genuine

person.

Absolutely, and I think his ideas are all

centered around pets nowadays, because he did pet screening,

and then he did Phyto Tabby Alert, and now it's about how to

break into the other verticals, right? You know, we got into the

manufactured housing, and the military housing, and the

student housing, and single family, multifamily, and now

vacation rentals, so he's taking this particular idea as far wide

as it possibly can go, and I don't know where his limits are.

When we sat down, and he first brought me

the idea, man, I can't. Was in Charlotte Phillip Apartment

Association doing some work there, and he says, "Here's

we're gonna do, and he goes, "And then the beautiful thing

is, is that once you're in the system, then you go get your

rental home, and then you go check in your hotel, and your is

already in your verified and the whole system is built and it

builds upon itself. I'm like that's a really great idea. And

then here we are,

and to have had that fourth foresight at that

time before we had 70% plus of homes, about 72% now with pets

or animals in them. Right now the numbers are so high, like

his idea, the market and the pet ownership in the country is

catching up with his idea, really is, and it's just

brilliant.

Yeah,

yeah, I mean, we mentioned this in the opening,

we definitely want to spend some time here. Let's talk about the

Charleston Apartment Association.

So excited for this conversation. I

mean, how did that come about?

That is an interesting conversation, and

I'll preface this all by saying we are all friends now. I was a

mid 20s vice chair of the Greater Charleston Apartment

Association, and NAA was coming to town and. And we had had a

couple internal conversations, and they just seemed to be at a

deadlock. There were people who really wanted us to consider it,

and there were people who just did not want it to be considered

whatsoever. And so those of us who wanted to entertain the idea

and listen, you know, ended up resigning from the GCAA after

hearing everything that that NAA offered and brought to the

table, and knowing that this was like the next several steps, if

not leaps forward, and a the charter was signed, and off we

went running. I remember, like it was yesterday, you know,

going to the print shop, and because everything was print,

you know, getting the membership application, getting the logo

laid out, you know, starting to, you know, track everything, and

I was managing apartments at the time, and myself and two other

ladies, you know, essentially did the work of putting it

together and lifting it up, and there were several people who

came before, though, with the really kept keeping everybody

warm to the idea and kept pushing the idea, but their

jobs, I think, took them elsewhere, so you know, we were

the three that really kind of got it across the line, and then

two of us, my former mentor Linda Johnson, who's now with

our father in heaven, she brilliant gal, she was my boss,

she and I became friends during that, that's how I ended up

working at the company with her, because we had had so many great

conversations, I worked for a company out of New Jersey, she

worked for a company out of Charleston, and we got together

and did the heavy lifting, and got it lifted up, and now Katie

so that's the Columbia Apartment Association,

or Chaplet Petra, that

no, no, so we're, you

were,

no, we were the Greater Charleston Apartment

Charleston,

but don't confuse your acronyms, that's AAGC,

okay? Who about GCAA, which is also the acronym for Charlotte,

but it's also the acronym for the Greater

Columbus Apartment Association in Georgia,

but maybe Cincinnati didn't too. So, no,

the Greater Charleston Apartment Association was a standalone, it

wasn't affiliated with anything, and then, like I said, NAA came,

came up, and then they came to town, and we all went to, I

think, it was Charleston Place Hotel, then, and went and sit

and sat and listened, and then we all went and had lunch, and

said, What do we do? How do we do this? We don't have any money

to do this, like, how do we, like, how does this move

forward. So we ended up finding our way forward, and you know, I

remember being managing 352 section eights at the time, not

long after that, still working on all that. I managed, I went

to work for the same company Linda worked for. I managed one

community, then I got transferred to another

community, then I got transferred to the section

eights, and through that whole period, we're standing it up,

we're tracking membership, we're creating committees, we're doing

all the things.

So it was unaffiliated at the time, and

then NAA came in, and then you guys actually affiliated through

NAA. What year was this? We

created the new affiliate, so it could be

affiliated, because the old affiliate would not agree to,

not agree to it,

would not agree to. We had to resign our

positions and walk away from all the membership that we'd help

raise, and all the money we'd helped raise, and just kind of

step out new. And we did.

What year was that? It

was in the 90s. Yeah, it was in the 90s,

probably 94

That's interesting. One of the things

that is not on this list to talk about, but these conversations

taking place is when do new associations kind of come

together, and what it's interesting is if you look

historically, a lot of associations come over together

over advocacy issues, local advocacy issues, and then the

locals get together and create something. Well, the world's

changed, and it's not operating under that. And so I'm always

kind of curious, what are the most newest affiliates when they

come on board? Because a lot of, if you dig in, black people are

celebrating 30 and 40 years. I don't know how many are

celebrating 10 and 20, right? And so, where is that? Are lines

permanently set? Is that it? We're done. How do we create new

ones? I think that's always an interesting conversation to hear

about Charleston, which is obvious now, one of the one of

the younger ones.

Well, to your point, I just learned this year

about the Minnesota Multi Housing Association.

Yeah,

didn't know they existed, and didn't know

NMHC had any affiliated associations in the country, but

here comes Minnesota, and they're 340,000 units strong,

and I'll be heading out to their conference here shortly, and

speaking, be doing two or three sessions for them, and then

we're going to do mental health first aid certification training

as well. I didn't, you know, couple months ago, I didn't know

that they existed. They were not on my radar,

and I don't know now, but there used to be two

Kansas City departments associations, one affiliate and

one not. So, I don't know if the second one still exists, but

interesting.

Yeah,

what I guess what prompted the change is just the

additional support that NAA could provide to the new formed

affiliate

support and advocacy and education. I think

that's really what resonated with the group. There was a

group of people who went and listened to, you know, NAS

presentation, right, and some of the folks who had, who had

spoken to the association about this, and the wisdom. Some of

this, who came to Charleston from other areas, Tammy James

was one of those people, and she was ardently in support of this,

and so, and Tammy was very smart, you know, you could tell

Tammy had been in other places and learned other things, and I

had only been in the Charleston market, and so when folks like

that step into the room, it's intriguing, right? You want to

hear about this, and then we, you know, kind of listened, and

I think those were the things that the leadership, the

advocacy, and the education.

When you look back at that, so your biggest

challenge is obviously the forming, storming, and then you

got to sounds like you're norming and now performing.

Yeah, hit all those keys, but as you're kind of up and up and

going and growing, and you're starting to work on that

building engagement, where we're kind of similarly now, kind of

up and growing, kind of building engagement. Where do you see

similarities between that new startup there and where we kind

of are now post-COVID in the association workout? Are there..

do you see similarities, or is it not really true? No, I see

it, because there's always the question of how to keep folks

engaged, right? And you don't always want there to be 20% of

the people doing 80% of the lift. How do you get people

engaged? And you know, how is it there's there's a percentage of

folks who are willing to do things after work, after hours,

because they're passionate about it, and how do you spread that?

And there's so many things, and we, we all probably have other

things in our lives we're doing outside the property management

world too, and you see the same thing

there, right? I have another passion project I

do outside of work, and you see the same thing. There's there's

five or 10 people in the room who are doing the lift, and

other folks who are very smart and energetic, and they're in

the room, but as you break up after the meeting, and you're

dividing up the work, all of a sudden you look around, there's

a lot less folks, you know, engagement is right then and

there, when you're dividing up the work, attendance is what you

have before that, right? So you know there's attendance and

there's engagement, I think in my mind, and so that's the

challenge I think you have continuously, and that's because

we're all busy, not because anyone's lazy. There's no

pejoratives here to use. We're all running very hard. I don't

know how many friends I have whose kids are in travel this or

travel that, and multiple sports for multiple children in their

homes, right? But again, attendance and engagement are

two different things, and that's always going to be the case.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a - as a parent of

two children and two different types of - we will call them

competitions, because they're in gymnastics and cheerleading,

which are not.

Are you not using the word sport on

purpose? I don't know that it's necessarily a

sport,

you know, the

gymnastics is a sport,

it's a competition.

Oh, we're gonna have it talk about this later.

I'm calling your wife.

Well, she knows my positional field

record. I didn't say anything on this. Eric, will

you chase it on?

I mean, transitioning from from

Charleston, okay, that's kind of up and running, and then moving

into the role as president of the South Carolina Apartment

Association. What kind of lessons did you take from

Charleston and carry into that leadership role, and how did it

come about in general?

So, Mike Holmes, I call him my rabbi,

Mike Holmes called me up one day and started talking to me about

the SCAA and the folks I had worked for, Norman and his

brother in law and his dad, Norman and his brother in law,

his brother, especially Howard, was really the key to forming

the South Carolina Apartment Association, right? And so it's

wonderful when you start something like we did to

Charleston, and then South Carolina is formed out of that

same breath, right? You know, of members and invested people,

truly invested people. These are owners we're talking about.

Howard formed, I believe, you know, was probably the key to

the formation of SCAA at the point I got involved. Mike

Holmes called me and said, 'We'd like you on the board. And SCAA

is really about, at that time, especially, and still today,

especially about the legislative advocacy, you and I were on a

call yesterday talking about legislation, and I have an

appointment with one of the senators on that negligent

security bill for next Monday. In fact, scheduled that today on

the plane, so you know that's my passion, is in the legislation,

you know, what's good for the industry, and I come from the

North, where there's a lot of trade unions, and we don't have

to pay dues, you know, in the South to a trade union, but I've

always thought of the apartment associations as our entity that

fights for our industry, so that we all have, you know, great

opportunity in our professional lives. I've always thought of it

like the union, and I'm paying my dues, and so that's, you

know, when Mike Holmes called me, I was excited, and I said,

yeah, and that was just a wonderful journey, and he and I,

you know, and many others tried many times to hammer out some

different things unsuccessfully on the biggest things that we

wanted, because we learned one state. Senator can stop the

entire United unanimous vote out of the House on a bill. One

state senator stops it, and the next time he trades up with an

ex-senator who stops it, and they just like pass the baton to

beat us with.

For those not familiar, South Carolina

politics - it's not only confusing, but it's scary.

Yes, yeah, and it's a - it's a little bit of a

blood sport for some of them,

yeah, yeah,

yeah. I mean, I think I learned that lesson in

the last couple of years, just trying to get something pushed

through, and, and just some one person puts their name on it,

and everything comes to a screeching stop,

yeah, yeah. And for folks who are not bent, I'm

going to call us all bent, there's a thing called special

order, when they put their name on it. Your bill has to get on a

special order calendar, and it's a very short little calendar,

and somebody's got to be really willing to fight to get you on

there. And I had one senator, they did a tag up from the first

senator who would stop us to the next senator who would stop us,

and he interrupted my testimony in the middle of a hearing

committee hearing about it to insult me and asked to have his

name put on the, you know, on record as being against the

bill, and then said I can't stay for the rest of the meeting, but

I can, can I go ahead and put my name, you know, oppose the bill

now, I gotta go, I insult you, and I want to put my name on the

bill and stop it,

scary, confusing, and sometimes rude,

it was quite rude.

There's a handful of presidential

candidates that will tell you those three things too. So,

South Carolina is the reason that it's kind of figured out

who's going to be president, not president, because that's very

tough politically.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of my passion

project that I awaited to before.

Well, we talked a little bit about your role as an

educator and an industry leader. I mean, in my conversations with

you, I've sat on a number of panels for pet screening with

you, done a number of other things. Legal

Beagle,

I know that you are traveling the country like

nobody's business, so we are wondering, this podcast is

called The Associated. Yeah, what association trends are you

seeing across the country? Who's doing things well, and where,

where can that benefit others who may not be doing it so well?

So, couple things I've seen that stand out.

I'm not going to say, you know, how to utilize this information,

but I'll tell you a couple things that have stood out to me

as being really cool in the country. I just got back from

Wumfa, Washington Multifamily Housing Association, Seattle,

Washington

Association of the Year, because they're still

they're great folks up there, Sloan and Tricia

and Jason, great folks, and I really like the size of the

rooms that they give you when you have sessions at their event

space. Their event space is gorgeous, it's all their event

is all one day, the trade shows open the whole time because not

everybody's going to find something in every session that

they want to see. They had four session time slots, seven

sessions in each, so 28 sessions for the day. But they had a

fabulous trade show. They had a ton of promotion leading into

it. They have a great app for it. They have great

communication about it. The facility is brilliant and

fabulous, and the room that we were in was really great. I have

to say, as a speaker, I wrote and researched and wrote a

session on personal and team wellness. It's a mental health

session, it's about mental health in the country, our

industry, and then it gives folks actionable takeaways for

themselves and how to help themselves and how to help

others. And I brought three of the my friends who we all got

certified together to teach mental health first aid, think

CPR, but for the mind, and so we do that as a panel. It's got

picked up three times so far this year: South Carolina

Apartment Association, Apartmentalize, and WOMFA. And

so we all went out and did that, and the room didn't feel

cavernous, but it easily handled, I think 210 people in

that room, 220 people, and so the room, and it had a nice

stage. They had great acoustics, the equipment was set up great,

everything was very seamless, very smooth, and we probably had

170 160 170 plus people in the room, because both sides, 110

capability on either side, both looked, don't touch anything

metal in this room. Both sides looked largely full, and it was

a great session. So, they just, the app is great, the space that

they're working with, it's generous. You're not sitting in

a room with just like 30 or 40 chairs, right? And I thought

that was great. And then having the trade show open all day, but

one thing that stands out to me, I saw, I think it was SoCal RHA

did this. They had an event, and I think this is great for

smaller to mid associations, especially. They had their

entire event on the trade show floor. They pipe and draped two

very large sections of the trade show floor for educational

sessions, and they held a couple of sessions. In each of those

two sections throughout the course of the day, in the middle

of the floor, where all the trade show booths were, and

where lunch was served, so everything was done on the one

floor. There was nothing to go look for or find. People weren't

leaving the floor, and then maybe not coming back, and you

know, trade show participants, i.e. sponsors who essentially

are there to help you know make it affordable for everybody to

attend, so they get that education and help form those

relationships, right? Nobody had to leave the floor for anything,

and they did this with what we've seen at NAA, toyed with a

little bit on the trade show floor, which are the silent

headphones.

Yeah, I've taught one of those before.

Yeah,

no one showed up to this session, that was a

regulatory session, but I did teach one on a trade show

before. It was..

I hate to say this.. I was about to say this,

and I hate to say this after you said that, my friend Brian, but

I broke the booth. They took chairs from the nearby lunch

area to enlarge the booth. They used up every headphone they

had, and then when there were no more headphones left, they sat

on the stage where they could hear me audibly without use of

the headphones. The session was great. The audience was amazing,

but I really thought it was brilliant to control costs,

especially if you know your attendance is going to work. And

they created two really generous seating spaces, pipe and draped

it, so you're walking into what feels like a classroom, silent

headphones. All the conversations around you are not

impeding your session, nor is your session impeding the

conversations around you. I thought that was quite

brilliant. And there's

no yelling,

yes.

And you get people to attend the trade show because

they're getting value, they're not just getting sold, and so

you're getting something that gets them there, which then

benefits all the suppliers and sponsors that are actually

exhibiting on the trade show floor, because you got more

bodies, more traffic, it's a win-win, really.

Yeah, I've been to events where they say, okay,

we're in Vegas, and supplier partners are going to get a ton

of time, you're going to get there at breakfast, and you can

get, you know, booths are open at 730 nobody in Vegas is, we're

a trade show booth at 7:30am Nobody in Vegas almost has their

eyes open at 730 There were 25 people in the room, max, for

like the first hour and a half. Nobody showed up, so they're

counting all this time for the trade show participants and

partners who are helping them afford the event, and it's not

really accruing to their benefit, these folks in SoCal

RHA made sure every minute was potentially of benefit to their

supplier sponsors, their partners, as well as to the

benefit of the attendees. Do they want to work on those

relationships, ask about those products, and have those

questions answered? Do they want to attend an education session?

Do they want to bounce back and forth between them both? It's

easy, they're not traveling the halls and hoofing it, because

some of these places are huge now. The one vet facility is

stunningly fabulous, but you are, you're hoofing it around,

right? Yeah,

yeah, they're one of the larger associations

in the system. Well, education talking about that has changed a

change, not just from the different associations you're

working in, but from the audience you're working with,

and then the managing companies that you work with? So, you see

it from all different, different angles, and we don't think

there's a right way and a wrong way. We just realize that times

are changing and things are changing, and the associations

we have to move with that change. Well, I take it back

just a quick, for just a quick moment or two. I said, I want

the audience to think that, you know, I'm a.. I went to college

to become a teacher. I have a degree in the management and

human resources. I was educating in the industry, you know, team

members as they were coming and going all the years I've been in

the business. Love helping people have light bulb moments

and have clarity and confidence, because I think clarity breeds

confidence when you feel like you know the answers, and you

can. I'm going to use the words of my friend Stephanie Thornburg

at Avenue Five, when you can match the confidence

of the people you're speaking to, i.e. your

renters, not their energy, she says, match their confidence,

not their energy. I love that so, so much. I think that

confidence, you know, gives people a great deal of comfort

and enthusiasm for what they're doing. But I do want to say what

happened, really briefly. I got an invitation from my friend

Judy Wolk, who was handling membership for the Charleston

Trident Association of Realtors, she had her own boutique

property management firm. She was teaching for the

association. She asked me to become her teaching partner. So,

for nine years before I left the direct side of the industry in

so, a dozen or more nights a year teaching from 6o'clock at

night till 10 o'clock at night, helping people gain entry into

the industry by going through the property management

licensing course. 30 hour course required in South Carolina. You

sit for the course exam, then you apply and sit for the state

exam, and once you pass both successfully, you get your

license, and you can call yourself a property manager, an

assistant property manager, or even as a leasing agent, you're

not. Supposed to explain the lease package without a property

management license, right. And so I did that for nine years.

That's where my education light bulb really got totally lit up.

I always loved helping folks be consistent and confident.

Knowledge is no good, just keep it to yourself, but that really

taught me that I liked, really liked teaching and facilitating

education. So that's how I came to John and said, here's what

I've been doing in the industry. I've been an educator for nine

years now, and I love educating in the industry and being part

of the discussions, and always learning and sharing what I

learn. And so that's how I came to be a salesperson and educator

for pet screening. So I did that for five years, and now I'm the

VP of Education, so I'm not selling and educating now, I'm

just doing the education. So this year, there's more than 75

things already on my calendar. I'm educating in person, I'm

educating via sessions, you know, whether it's a session at

a dinner meeting, or whether it's a session at an education

conference, or whether it's a webinar, whether I'm hosting

webinars, like Todd has joined me on legal beagles, because we

have puns at pet screening. We do not apologize for them. We

think it's quite perfect, and so all the different areas I've

gone out and done education for these, the mid-sized companies,

five to 10,000 units. They don't have a dedicated L and D

director, learning and development, usually sets a

sweet spot for me. I've gone out and done like three sessions in

a day, and spent time with these companies, and I go out to the

associations, or I do webinars with associations, and you know,

the industry seems really hungry for education. I have seen that

I'm also like the real estate investors association,

manufactured housing folks, women advancing manufactured

housing. There's so many groups, and they're very, very

passionate, especially the ones who have that entrepreneurial

bend that you talked about earlier. You know, Todd, that's

folks who feel that way about their work, even sometimes more

hungry, right? Because it's all accruing to their family's

detriment or benefit. And so there's just such a hunger out

there for education and for the confidence it brings, people

really want to be confident, and I think they really do embrace

the fact that that comes from knowledge, and so I'm seeing

differences, but I'm also seeing great similarities. Right,

people want education that gives them valuable takeaways, and

when I was going to school at night as a property manager,

full-time property manager during the day, and going to

college full time at night, I was, that was rough, pun

intended. And I, but I remember feeling sitting in the

classroom, I can still remember this. The professors were so

good, they were giving us information that had next next

day value, that was not champagne that we were popping.

Y'all will think that's what it was, I will wish that's what it

was, but that was not what that sounds. But I really loved, then

the professors gave us next day value.

They were teaching me things at night I knew I could put to work

the next day, because it was a management, human resource

degree, but really business management. So I really loved

being able to learn something at night and put it into practice

the next day. And so that's the one thing that I am seeing that

really is consistent. People want value, they want next day

value, and they may just not have known to call it that, but

that's really what I think people are hungry for. Teach me

how to be more consistent, confident, and graceful in my

job tomorrow, because I've been here today, and so that's my

focus now.

I mean, I think that answers one of the next

questions, was, you know, how has professional education

actually changed the career trajectory of someone, and I

think you know you've said it, I think multiple times in that

answer to Brian's question is that it just breeds confidence

in their ability to do their job and carry it out. I mean, we

talk our firm, the reason I'm so usually raising my hand to

participate in webinars is because we believe in educating

and empowering our clients, and we tell them all the time, if we

educate ourselves out of a job, we'll find something else to do,

that is not a problem, we will find something else to do, but

if we can walk you through a case, so that you know how to

answer the question the next time a similar case pops up.

Then we're saving you money, you're paying us money now, but

we're saving you money down the long run, because you can answer

this question on your own the next go round.

In 35 years in property management, I can say

with complete assurance, you will never work yourself out of

a job, because there will always be people wanting to believe

whatever bad has happened to them, and it's someone else's

fault, and that there's some way that they can teach the world a

lesson or gain personally from bringing that to the courts. So,

you will always have a job to do, but you will have folks you

are more proud of by the day from your contribution, you

know, to sit beside. I think you'll just, you'll just be more

confident in the cases, because you're always going to have

folks who are, you know, trying to ask your clients, what did

you know, what should you have known, what'd you do about it?

Those are always the three questions, right? And they're,

they're always the challenge, because if. Of what did you

know, I didn't know, and well, what should you have known?

They're always going to pivot to the question that illuminates,

you know, their thought process that pays somebody. So you won't

teach yourself out of a job, but you'll just have clients you're

even more proud to sit next to, and clients who appreciate

sitting next to you even more, as I did for a number of years.

All right, well, with that,

we're gonna take a quick break. Yes. The Associated is presented

and produced by CLTPR Management. CLTPR Management

works with associations, nonprofits, and startups,

providing part-time fractional employees. Our services are

customizable and can be developed around your

association's needs and budgets. We offer fractional employee

services or shared employees. Fractional employees are a great

way to hire high-qualified employees at only a fraction of

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check us out at CLT PR management.com Do right, we're

back. We're gonna dig into mental health, the industry, the

association. How all of those collide probably is the wrong

mental health word to use on that, but maybe it's the correct

mental health word. Mental health is all the buzz, but it's

more than a buzz. It is a good reality that we should now live

in. Probably should have been something, a reality we should

have been more open about the last 100 years. We can go 100

years in that state. Oh, right.

Absolutely.

So, tell us about some of the work that

you're doing around mental health. You mentioned that you

have this course, it's a full day course that you've now

taught it at WOMFA, and bringing it to apartmentalize, so those

who are going in can actually see this firsthand. So, but tell

us a little bit about that, but what the work that you're doing

around that.

Well, let me, let me not falsely advertise.

There's a little false advertising in there. I have a

mental health session that I've written and researched, and

that's what we gave at one phone. That's what was picked up

at Apartmentalize and at South Carolina Apartment Association.

So I facilitate a session called Renew Your Lease on Mental

Health, double entendre and tendon, and it's about personal

and team wellness, you know. So folks who attend that session

will get an idea of what's going on with mental health in the

country, what's going on with mental health in our industry?

report, because their report is brilliant, and so happy to

partner with them, and sharing that information. And then folks

will have an understanding of, you know, a three step process

to kind of help themselves evaluate themselves across five

areas of personal wellness. And then I'm going to take them

through a framework I created called Miles to help them

understand how they can be equipped and to help others,

whether it's their friends, their family, you know, their

folks in their workplace. We do it from the lens of a supervisor

going the extra miles, the MDI, the L, the E, and the S, all

standing for something, and so that's the session, that's a one

hour session, I do that May is Mental Health Month, Mental

Health Awareness Month, so I'll be doing that quite a bit. I do

it throughout the course of the year, but I imagine I'll be

doing a little bit more of it in May than other periods. That's a

session. Now, that session came out of the fact that I was

invited to Virginia with 12 other people to become certified

to facilitate mental health first aid, so if you've ever had

a CPR course, just lengthen it to a day and think CPR, but for

the mind, and that's mental health first aid. But mental

health first aid is more than that. It came out of Australia.

It's a, it's a research-based program. It's wonderful. You'll

spend a hard pound a day from 830 to 530 on this it will be

facilitation. There will be videos to help make the point

clear, and they're very high caliber and very on point. There

will be group activities. I can work with a class of nine to 21

before I'll probably bring in a teaching partner. And that

mental health first aid curriculum is the only thing, as

the VP of Education at Pet Screening, that I charge for

every other bit of the education that we offer is offered free of

charge to associations and to companies. So, when the company

says, Victoria, will you come to Dallas, I'm going to have 30

regional managers and spend a day with us and do two or three

year sessions, and we want to add this on to our leadership.

Yes, absolutely, I will. In June, I'll be heading down to

Panama City for 21 members of the Royal American team who are

going to sit for the mental health first aid training, and

then you know, God willing, I'll go home and within the next day

or two become certified as mental health first aiders, and

so there's the edge, the certification curriculum, and

then there's the one hour course I, I created and researched that

course, because I realized not everybody's going to have access

to a full day certification training, either because I won't

be granted that time off from work, or nobody, maybe in their

team will, you know, folks in their leadership won't spend

that money, because that is the one I do have to charge for to

honor the curriculum and the other facilitators around the

country who naa. Help to become certified in this. Right,

there's 12 others of them. I can't give it away for free and

still have leave room for them. So, there are folks who are not

going to be able to do that. So, I created the one hour session,

so everybody could have it.

It's kind of working out really well, because what associations

are doing, and or companies to test the waters, they'll do the

one hour session, and we'll go ahead and pick a day,

tentatively, that we're going to do the mental health first aid

certification training, and then we promo that while folks are

sitting for that session, appreciating that and deciding

if this is of interest to them, and something that they can

become even more impassioned to spend a day doing instead of an

hour, you know, a full eight hour day, and so that's kind of

what's going on right now, so Minnesota multi housing folks, I

mentioned just a little while ago. I'm going to head out. I

just learned about them not long ago. I'm going to head out to

their conference. It's a working together conference. It's really

unique how they bring other stakeholders in the housing

world and subsidized housing world together for their

conference. I'm going to do two or three sessions for them, and

we're going to go ahead, and we've already gone ahead and set

the date for the mental health first aid, and so they're going

to do it exactly that way, you know, do the session and promote

the certification through the session, and so that's kind of

how it's all working together, but the certification training

helps people recognize the signs and symptoms of a mental health

or substance use crisis, you know, and or worsening symptoms

and or emergent symptoms, and gives them a framework and an

education, and how to deal with that, so when you train for CPR,

you know, or the Heimlich maneuver, and you spot a need,

and you address that need, the EMT show up, and you step off,

you're not their EMT, you're not their cardiologist, you're not

their ear, nose, and throat person, you know, from the

Heimlich maneuver, whatever the case may be, you're just there

at the right moment to make a difference, potentially a

life-saving difference. Same thing for mental health first

aid.

Why is this conversation so important right

now, or has it always been important to Brian's point, for

the last 100 years? What, what's what's brought the level of

focus on mental health and well-being that currently exists

post Covid, let's say.

Well, I think Covid did a lot for us to help

really bring this full circle. But to talk about the

association for the interconnected

interconnectivities, here I was an RVP for Region Four, was

after our region meeting, and I had somebody come over and say,

"Hey, I'd like to get involved. Can I give you my business card?

And it was John Sons. And John Sons, we put him on a committee

because he said, you know, he was one of those people who got

engaged, wasn't just in attendance, but got engaged, and

he wanted to serve. And he raised his hand, and we, of

course, put him to service, put him into service right away. And

through his work with NAA helped create the mental health

subcommittee, and then we started studying it as an

organization, and it grew from there for NAA, but as a country,

are we is chicken and egg? Has this always been a problem, and

people just didn't talk about that cousin, that family member

with that problem? Are we just more aware of it now, or has it

always existed at the current levels, but as our population

grows, so too do these needs grow. But you, you look at the

Swift Bunny research, and it's stunning. It's stunning. The

numbers are some of the numbers are hopeful this year, but

really we are scoring well below average, an average being 71 and

above of their 21 questions on the Swift Bunny study. For our

industry, there's only a handful of those that are 71 and above.

The rest of them are in red flag and warning answers, and these

are questions or statements that you're scoring. I think of it

like a test score, like 100 is great. Like, what do you want

your kids come home from class with, would you consider an

average and accept? I think most time we think average, we think,

okay, it's acceptable, it's not great, but it's average. Would

you consider a 71 from your kids when they come home as

acceptable and average? And so that's the number that's average

in this. So it's really important to kind of put this in

perspective, and more of the questions are red flag and

warning than our average. So why

are we saying that is it because residents are

more mean after COVID? Is it because there's less employees

working in the office and there's more stress? Is it

because what, what are we identifying as one of the

reasons our industry is struggling?

If we're trying to turn this study into BI,

which, of course, every study should be turned into business

intelligence, you know, I will say that the sector or section

of this study that looks acceptable, or average, if we're

going to say average is acceptable, is the information

and the scoring about relationships in here that I get

along well with my co-workers, that I'm treated with respect by

my supervisor. Those scores are actually good, right? I just

think we're all so compressed, everything's moving so hard, you

know, like Todd said earlier, and I know my friends, you know,

their kids are in travel ball and they do it all year and

never get a break. Honestly, my personal, if I had to, just a

non-scientific answer, we're all trying to do all the things at

all the times. We're never giving ourselves a break, you

know, including the kids. We're wanting to keep them busy,

because it's better to have them busy than idle, right? And we

want them getting physical fitness, and we want them

excelling and enjoying life. But I just think we're trying to do

all the things all the time, and we're all so compressed, and our

renters are that same way, you know. This business, if you

could kind of put a picture, if somebody could just paint a

picture of this. Tony Blake, are you listening? Paint a picture

of this. A glass box with some people in the middle of the

around that glass box. And this is the property management

people are in the box. We are living in the middle of a glass

box, eight to 10 hours a day, around people who are living

their lives. This isn't the grocery store they come and go

from. This isn't the mall, you know. This isn't Target. This

isn't the movie theater. They are coming and going their whole

lives. They're coming home from a funeral, they're coming home

from a wedding, they're coming home from a hospital with a new

baby. They're coming home from a hospital where they did not

bring the new baby home. They are living their lives walking

around that glass box, and I call it a glass box, because

they have access to our site teams all day, every day, right.

And so this is a different customer relationship, right.

This, this business to customer relationship is very different.

This is not Target or the ice cream shop or the restaurant.

They're coming and going through the best and worst days of their

lives, surrounding our teams. Every conversation has a

possibility of being a much higher level conversation than

anything you have in passing at the grocery store. For instance,

that's interesting. I often said

multifamily living is different than single family living. Yeah,

but we refer to it, we kind of think the same way, but like the

way you interact with your neighbors, we interact and

always stuff like that. Customer service at the multifamily is

different than customer service and other areas in the field. I

think that's something that's an interesting point that you're

bringing up, because we're living with people and we're

engaging with people as they're living, versus, you know, it's

not just transactional.

I remember when I worked for Linda, who I

mentioned earlier was my mentor, and I had crafted the

newsletter, which I used to type, you know, on my computer,

and then print and give to the renters, and I welcomed a new

baby that I knew was about to be born, and she said, What did you

do right here? Right, you're welcoming a new baby next month,

and I said, yeah, the mom and dad are gonna, they're expecting

a baby next month, don't do that again, and she had to explain

that to me, and I was like, heartbroken, I never thought

about that, what if that doesn't go well, and this is on their

door, right, that's no, don't do that, and so they're, we're,

they are living their lives, walking around us, circling us,

and or coming in contact with us at all times. We're, we're the

first responders for 40 million homes in the country. We're

often the first responders, you know. I remember being first to

a home with a criminal domestic violence situation gone, first

to the home to find someone who's passed away, first to the

home that just got caught on fire. You know, these are these

are housing heroes out there, and they are surrounded by

people living their best and worst days

in rental housing and property management.

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Whitlow, and Pray, driven to act quickly, authentic in our

advocacy, innovative in our strategies, united as a team,

and committed to service that delivers results. Begs the

question, so how does how do the leaders of those management

companies create an environment that is oriented around

healthier teams, not just from the standpoint of their physical

bodies, but also their emotional and mental states.

I've heard a number of people say a lot of

different things on this, and one thing that I've, I've heard

that resonates with me is how the leaders are communicating

with their teams, you know, if you're, if you're dealing with

folks on site and you're sending them emails at 9o'clock at

night, and they see it cross their phone, they're going to

feel obliged to answer that email. So, maybe not

communicating with people after hours, maybe not just not doing

that. People are answering my emails as a supplier partner,

offering them education and other services, you know,

helping them with their pet screening services. As our

clients, I see people in the industry all the time answering

me at nine and 10 o'clock at night, and so back to the

question of why is this so much a topic today is because we are

burning it from both ends, all ends, 25 eight, with our

families, with our jobs. Yes, and we're not giving ourselves a

break, and so that's why Renew Your Lease on Mental Health was

written, because not everybody's going to get to the

certification class, and I wanted people to consider their

wellness across at least five spectrums, and then understand

how to think through those, the action items from those, and

then create a worksheet with their own plan for themselves.

We're just, we're burning it at all times, and my renewal

release on mental health session has a little clip in there from

Emily in Paris, and if you're an Emily in Paris fan, she's a

fabulous marketeer and a fashionista over in Paris from

America, and she's living her best life, and she's showing up

to work, doing all the things early, often hard, busy, and her

co-workers say cut it out, you Americans live to work, we work

to live, and contacting us after hours in France is illegal,

illegal. I haven't researched that to know if that's actually

a fact or if they just put that in there for fun, but to your

question, Todd, I think it's the example the senior leadership

set. What type of deadlines are they giving people, what type of

leeway are they giving them when they are, have to live their

lives, and there's an emergency of some sort in their whole in

their lives. How are they met on the job? Do their companies

offer mental health services and mental health benefits? I'll say

not so much services, but the benefits, so that they can avail

themselves of services of others, you know, and are they

communicating that wisely? Because people have to be

connected to hope. If each day feels longer than the one

before, and you're getting beat up on by more and more clients

who are also living their lives so compressed, it that's that's

that downward slide. And does it lead to burnout?

Well, I think our takeaway from this is for

those who are listening to this before apartmentalize, you can

go check out your session on

mental health,

and then figure out how to bring the full one

day class either back to your association or into your company

or into your market. If you're listening to this after

apartmentalize,

not ironically, I am also sitting on a panel, but

I am the moderator, because you don't want to talk to an

attorney about mental health. I'm the moderator for a panel

with John Sons and Stephanie Lloyd and another lady from

Matrix Fitness, oriented around wellness components, and the

importance, not just from the owner operator side, but also

from the supplier side, and looking at it from the top down,

so from the leadership of a company, How do you create a

culture that is oriented around wellness and well-being as a

holistic approach? Because it leads to, and what you'll see,

and what we see as attorneys, is when you're, when your staff,

especially on a site level, if your staff is extremely stressed

out. It's frequently resident claims or complaints don't

worry, they're not oriented by what was said, they're oriented

by how it was said. And so, when you come at a resident with

their same energy, not confidence, you're going to lead

to this perception, and you create liability, or at least

the headache of potential liability, where there need not

be any, so we've got some legal components to that wellness, and

to why, as an employer, you should care about the wellness

of your employees.

Oh, absolutely, and I'll say this to close that

section out, is 63% of adult Americans in this country, work,

so if employers were consistently offering mental

health benefits and wellness benefits, right, because mental

health is also physical health, it's spiritual, it's emotional,

it's social, right, you, you've got five to eight areas of your

wellness that you could sit and ponder, right, and we'd go

through five in the renewal lease session, but if employers

offered wellness and mental health benefits, 63% of adult

Americans are working right, and so if they were offering those

and making it very clear that's the other problem, people don't

often know what their companies offer and how to avail

themselves of those offerings, right, and they're shy about

asking about that, so it has to be something that's not answered

when asked. It has to be something that's spoken to often

and liberally, right? So, salt all your conversations with

that. But that's that's a huge thing for employers to offer

those benefits, and it can be a linchpin in solving or

improving, at least improving the personal wellness, you know,

both mental and physical in our country. To your point, though,

thank you for sharing that, Brian. That the thought process:

come see, renew your lease, figure out how to get a mental

health first aid training done. But I do want to say to close

that part out, when we get paid for this, the mental health

first aid training, it's about $200 a student when you consider

books and facilitation fee, but I don't want that money. I work

for Pet Screening, and Pet Screen doesn't want that money.

So, when we work with associations or companies to put

these on, they're writing a check to reimburse for the

books, but the facilitation fee is going to Entry Way South

Carolina, so that we can help the industry through what

Entryway is doing to help the industry. Me, so there's a lot

of great things going on that that we've put together at Pet

Scanning, and that they facilitate and get behind, and I

just, I couldn't be more proud than to work for,

and we'll be sure to put some information

regarding the entryway and what it does and how it does it in

the show notes.

Yes, we're always told to check the show

notes, I don't know where they live, but they're very

important. Found the website somewhere, CLT PR management.com

Anyway, well, our linchpin is the lightning

round.

Oh,

yes. So we have a handful of questions that we're going to

ask you. We ask that you stay quick and relatively brief,

because that's the definition of lightning round, but Todd, you

want to kick us off?

Yeah. Most underrated role in the

multifamily industry,

groundskeeper.

What's one thing every association member should

do this year?

Attend every meeting they can. One

word to describe the future of multifamily

brilliant

cat or dog,

both, but I have cats, because I'm lazy. I

used to own a horse, that's you can't be lazy with that.

Favorite conference

advocate, this will be my 26th year.

Really, yeah, wow, I right. Back on track.

What

gives

you the most optimism about the industry?

Watching the faces while facilitating

education, watching people who are eager to learn and excited,

and hearing their comments afterwards.

Who was the most influential mentor in your

association career,

it would have to be Linda Johnson, you know,

because we formed a Charleston apartment association together,

Tammy James and a couple others really kind of kicked that off,

but Linda and I worked side by side to do that, so that taught

me a lot.

All right, to close us out to sort of find who

you are as a person. Todd and I have different answers on this.

Early morning meetings or late night networking.

Oh, I have to pick. It's

hard to, if you're doing both right, it's

hard to do it that way.

Yeah, so yeah, early morning meetings,

early morning meeting,

yeah.

Todd's more early morning meetings,

I mean, yeah. Here lately I am, but at one point in

my life I was probably doing, yeah,

okay, yes,

yes, that's why I'm getting this. I'm giving you the out on

the early morning meetings this week. You're going to be, uh,

late night networking for sure,

but yeah,

down at his wharf, I mean, Whitlow, yeah.

Where it's, are you gonna get us a discount? Because we're one of

your sponsors, so you're giving us a discount. Like, I think

that wish

I wish I could. I'm not even responsible for

finding or choosing the location. Just think it's a joke

from Norm. He said, 'Oh, look, this has Todd's name on it.

I can, I can verify that, because I talked to

Norm when he was setting up. He's like, I'm so excited about

the name of the place,

Norm is fabulous. All

right, well, we're gonna wrap it up, and when

we do this, we like to end with understanding you as the guest.

What is the one thing you want the leaders, the leaders of the

industry that are listening, and also referred to as the

listeners, to take away from from this podcast today.

Well, I have to say Pet Springing is brilliant,

because it just is, and John Bradford, you know, in the team,

Arlene Mayfield, David Stunion, Andy, amazing team. But as far

as what they, you know, if I had to say one thing, education,

education, education, you know, let people have the

opportunities often as possible, facilitate that to help them be

consistent, confident, and graceful. That's what education

will do for them. Oh,

you, Ryan.

Well, uh, Todd and I talk about the one thing we learned, the

one thing that I learned today. I'm going to lean back in on the

fact that the customer service that we provide for at the

multifamily level is different than the customer service that's

provided in other retail, more transactional places, and we

have to understand that and recognize it, and to your point,

train and facilitate around that. So, I think that's mine.

You know, I'm going more

practical. I really did not know that

Victoria helped found the Charleston department.

That is another, that is, yes. And I did not

realize at one point it's called GCAA, so that is a fun fact in

itself, too.

Yeah, Victoria, I mean, we again, we can't thank

you enough for coming on the show. We, we knew you would be

on the list of potential guests because of your prominence

within the industry. It's an honor to have you on the show.

Been great having the conversation. For those who have

listened all the way through to this point, we want to make sure

that you subscribe to the Associated on your favorite

podcast platform. That way you'll be notified of new

episodes, while you're also there. Go ahead and leave us a

five-star review, because the more reviews we get, the more

people can find the podcast. Brian, do you want to tell them

where they can find?

Yeah, if they leave a five-star review and

they write a little comment, we'll read it.

Yeah, it's great

on air, right? We'll do that. So, all right,

you can check us out at CLT PR management.com backslash p o d,

you can send us an email at podcast at c o t p r.com We

talked about the show notes, you can find that on the website,

and we're looking forward to future episodes coming up. So,

stay tuned, we record some fun stuff here in DC,

that's right.

All right. Thank you so much, Victoria.

Thank you, guys, for having me. What an

honor and a delight to spend time with friends this

afternoon. I appreciate you.

It's great. Absolutely,

you