Maximize Your Property Profits: Expert Insights

Stephen Schmidt (00:02.83)
Welcome to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host, Stephen Schmidt, and we’re back at it again here on this fine Monday. I got Kevin Gardner in the house today here in the studio. We’re going to be talking about his background, his experience. He’s a tech guru is really what he is. He spent 20 years with Comcast and was actually responsible for managing the team that negotiated agreements with most multifamily property owners.

We’re going to kind go into this. is a really interesting niche that I haven’t been able to discover so far. And he’s got some really interesting insights for all of you that are investing in multifamily property. just before we get started, remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate professionals, service providers and real estate investors, 2 to 5X their businesses so they can build the businesses they’ve always wanted in order to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Because that’s what we get into the real estate business for in the first place, not to just have.

job. We want to live the dream. So with that being said, Kevin, welcome to the show today.

Kevin Gardner (01:05.547)
Steven, thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

Stephen Schmidt (01:10.156)
You bet man. So give us a little bit of a background for our listeners sake. Tell us kind of how you got started and what you’re doing. I mean you spent a know seasoned time I would say with Comcast. Most people don’t spend 20 years with the company anymore. That seems to be something that’s kind of going out of style real quick. And so give us a little bit of your background and how you got into exactly what you’re doing now and what you do it through.

Kevin Gardner (01:33.867)
Well, believe it or not, I started selling cable door to door. I had need for a job. I had a young family starting.

Stephen Schmidt (01:39.371)
No kidding.

Kevin Gardner (01:48.725)
And I started selling cable door to door for Comcast. I learned the business and I was lucky enough to find the right opportunities and grow. And after 20 years, I was a vice president of sales and marketing. And one of those areas that I oversaw was the multifamily property agreement, commercial development department was part of my team. And so I learned a

a and you know Comcast was small at that point and I really liked that ability to grow with them. I really enjoyed that entrepreneurial spirit but like with all companies when you get large it’s you become I think a little less entrepreneurial and you know there’s more guidelines there’s more you know structure and it just I don’t know I love that entrepreneurial spirit that that that seemed to

fall away. And so I started my own company and we were able to identify that a lot of people in the apartment, mobile home community,

especially new investors didn’t realize that there needed to be an agreement in place with the providers that are on your property. The most common thing we get is somebody that says, well, we don’t pay for their service, even though that’s a whole other discussion we can have about the fact that you can pay for that service and offer it as an amenity. And so we really saw an opportunity to not only

Stephen Schmidt (03:01.87)
you

Kevin Gardner (03:29.387)
to provide a service, also just to educate people about the fact that there is an added value opportunity for revenue that exists in this area of the business that a lot of people just didn’t realize was there.

Stephen Schmidt (03:45.818)
Now, how big of a deal is this from your perspective, especially with the multifamily stuff? Because it sounds like something that maybe people don’t realize, like, there’s actual value that I have, especially as an investor. There’s actual value that I have to get more so than just rents, for example.

Kevin Gardner (04:07.177)
Right. Well, it depends because the type of deals we can get done depend on the property, depends on the providers. Some are more aggressive in this area than others. You know, it depends on whether or not there’s an agreement in place or not. So I hate to not answer your question, but it’s, you know, you’re probably going to pick up.

$20 to $30 a unit per year plus a one-time incentive, that’s the ongoing revenue plus a one-time incentive. depending on what your cap rates are and how big the property is, it could have a rather significant impact on the asset value of your property.

Stephen Schmidt (04:59.543)
Well, mean, shoot, man, 30 bucks a year per unit, if you got 300 of them, mean, that’s still not, nine grand is nine grand, do you know what I’m saying?

Kevin Gardner (05:08.681)
Right. then if you’re, if you know, we find a lot of investors, we find them early and they may be syndicators and they may be only planning to hold the property for three to five and move the needle on it and then re refinance it or sell it. And so that asset value has a significant impact on their decisions and on what they want to, you know, where they want to focus. And our model is really turnkey, right? We do all the heavy lifting. We need a little bit of information.

But if they’re trying to do a lot of things, you know, this isn’t something where they have to go out there and supervise anything on site or commit a lot of hours to the process. So we find that it’s, know, and you know, the one, one of the great lessons I learned at Comcast was when I was traveling with our CFO one time and the owner of the company asked for a senior discount as we were checking into a hotel and he turns to me and looks at me and he says, you know,

He gets it and the one lesson you need to learn is a million dollars is just a million one dollar bills So you got to take care of everything along the way and that’s what we contribute, right? We contribute because there’s no out-of-pocket cost for our service. We’re commission We get a percentage of what you get. So the more we get for you the more we get so our goals are aligned

And as a result, you know, you don’t pay us until we generate revenue for you and then it’s a small percentage of it.

Stephen Schmidt (06:48.109)
Yeah, absolutely. So let me ask you this, know, you’re kind of in an interesting position where you’re already, you know, seeing things other people are missing. What are you seeing in the market right now that other people might be missing?

Kevin Gardner (07:04.257)
I think more than anything is just that awareness that I talked about initially, just that education. And if you talk to the providers, right, the AT &T, Spectrum, Comcast, the providers, they prefer a certain kind of contract over others.

Stephen Schmidt (07:12.493)
Mm.

Kevin Gardner (07:25.601)
And what we find is that because they’re sales people, right, and they want you to have this agreement, the agreement they recommend is a bulk agreement, right? And that absolutely makes sense for some properties, but not for all.

Stephen Schmidt (07:26.06)
Mm.

Kevin Gardner (07:42.227)
And what we like to do is we like to educate, we like to, first step we want to know is we want to learn from our clients. What are your investment goals? Are you looking for, are you creating generational wealth or are you trying to, you know, buy and flip this property and you have money to pay back? So, cause those goals can dictate what type of agreement makes the most sense for your property at that time.

Stephen Schmidt (07:50.082)
Mm.

Stephen Schmidt (08:08.973)
How is that? Out of curiosity, I don’t mean to interrupt, but how is that? How can that affect things, change things, et cetera?

Kevin Gardner (08:14.165)
Well, the two primary agreements are bulk contract. And a bulk contract is where you pay for service for all your units and you basically offer it as an amenity. Okay? But it’s an expense for you.

And not everybody wants to have that expense liability unless they’re certain that they can charge more in rent or an amenities fee to offset and cover that cost.

And if you get into a bulk agreement, the providers typically don’t want to leave that bulk agreement because that’s the one they prefer. They, you know, they get to count 100 % of the customers. It’s one bill. It’s easier operationally for them. And they’re trying to streamline their operations. And in some places, especially A-class properties in a highly competitive market, it makes a ton of sense. But I always tell people, you got to look at that like you’re, you’re

Stephen Schmidt (08:45.805)
you

Stephen Schmidt (08:56.097)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (09:13.101)
Mm.

Kevin Gardner (09:14.915)
investing in that for five years, right? You have to see, it going to pay back? Because you’re paying for everybody that, every unit, regardless of whether or not it’s occupied or the person wants or uses that service. You have to think about it the same way as, hey, I bought a property. It doesn’t have a fitness center. I want to invest and put a fitness center on there, but you’re paying the same amount regardless of how many people use it. So you really have to dig in.

Stephen Schmidt (09:41.165)
Mm.

Stephen Schmidt (09:44.685)
All right.

Kevin Gardner (09:44.908)
and see if it makes sense for your property or not.

Stephen Schmidt (09:50.253)
sure.

Kevin Gardner (09:50.593)
We’ve got some that are seniors, lot of senior properties where they don’t want internet as an amenity, but they still value video services because that’s what they’re used to and they don’t use the internet as much. So the value isn’t there as much. So, you know, that’s why we want to find out what’s your property, what’s the class, what’s the occupancy, are you doing renovations, are you looking to sell out in three to five years, or are you going to hold this and pass it down for generations?

Stephen Schmidt (10:06.541)
Hmm.

Kevin Gardner (10:20.547)
You know, because that five-year obligation for expense, what if you’re trying to sell in three years to somebody who doesn’t want that agreement and sees it as a negative, but there’s another property down the street that’s comparable that doesn’t have that type of an agreement?

Stephen Schmidt (10:33.069)
Sure.

Stephen Schmidt (10:40.045)
Yeah.

Kevin Gardner (10:40.093)
So those are a lot of the things and that’s why I hate it when somebody says, well, what can I get, right? What can I get? Well, the answer is it’s different for everybody. Just like when you’re trying to buy a property, 100 unit property here and 100 unit property there don’t have the same value, the same goals, they’re not the same. What you’re willing to pay per door here and what you’re willing to pay per door here are different based on the property. Same holds true with what is the right contract.

the best contract and what kind of deal we can get, it’s going to vary by property.

Stephen Schmidt (11:16.429)
How do you find most of your deals or clients?

Kevin Gardner (11:20.513)
Well, thankfully we’ve got a good referral program. We also do podcasts. We’re active on LinkedIn. We solicit people that sign up for our newsletter and things like that. it’s a combination of things. And we’ve got a lot of stuff out there.

Probably the best thing is that there’s a lot of educational forums out there and we like to do business with people that are new to the business and then we stay with them and we grow as they grow. I went to one of these conferences and I met a guy who at that point had 20 some units and quite frankly that was too small for us to do anything with.

And I forget how many years ago this was, probably five, maybe six years ago. And the guy’s up to over 2,000 units now. So we needless to say, we’ve grown with him and that’s been very satisfying for us and for him.

Stephen Schmidt (12:24.951)
Yeah, absolutely. What’s mistake that costs you time or money and what did you learn from it?

Kevin Gardner (12:32.097)
mistake.

Kevin Gardner (12:42.613)
I mean, spend a lot of time, we spend a lot of time, but I look at it as an investment, not necessarily a mistake, because some of our clients are actively shopping for properties and they’ll say, hey, we were looking at this one property, what can you tell us about this? And we might be able to go in there and we spend time investigating what their options might be, and then they walk away from the deal for one reason or another.

Stephen Schmidt (12:50.763)
Mm, sure.

Kevin Gardner (13:08.105)
Right. So we spend a lot of time that doesn’t necessarily turn into an agreement, but we’re their business partners. we feel long term. We’re trying to develop long term relationships, not do short term deals where we, know, we’re not looking in this for the short term check. So in some ways it does take some of our time that could be used for getting deals done. But at the same time, it’s an investment in our relationship with our

Stephen Schmidt (13:09.1)
Hmm.

Kevin Gardner (13:38.029)
clients so it’s hard to say that that’s really a bad thing overall.

Stephen Schmidt (13:44.715)
Yeah, for sure. What’s something you wish more investors were honest about?

Kevin Gardner (13:54.987)
I don’t think they’re intentionally not honest about this, but we get a lot of people that come in and say, we tell them about our service. yeah, we want to do this. We want to do it as soon as possible, right? I had somebody on the phone three weeks ago on a Friday evening. We got to get this done. I need the money. I need the money. I want to get this done, right? I got these two properties. We’ve got to get these deals done.

Stephen Schmidt (14:00.203)
Sure.

Kevin Gardner (14:23.475)
And so I, you know, I did everything to, and we’d been working on them already, but we needed to do some, some groundwork. And so I put everything else behind me. And by early that next week, we had deals that he only had to agree to, right?

It’s been three weeks and numerous phone calls and messages and things like that. And for whatever reason, something else became more important, changed his mind, whatever. know, the urgency sometimes comes across as this is the most important thing in our world. I need you to do this ASAP. And then when it actually comes to doing it, there’s a delay in it. So, and again, I don’t think it’s

Stephen Schmidt (14:56.562)
Sure.

Stephen Schmidt (15:11.723)
Hmm.

Kevin Gardner (15:13.347)
Intentional I mean things happen, you know, this is business. We all know that that things happen and and so I don’t again I don’t think it’s intentional, but that’s that’s one of the things that You know is delays the process a little bit

Stephen Schmidt (15:28.265)
Yeah, 100%. What would you say was the biggest turning point in your business?

Kevin Gardner (15:34.209)
You know, it’s interesting. There’s a book by one of my favorite authors called The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, right? And he talks and he uses a bunch of examples and it’s always like slow, slow, slow, slow, slow and then boom, all of a sudden it just takes off when you get this certain amount of a certain volume. And you know, several years ago we hit that tipping point.

And we found out what things worked for us, you know, get on podcasts, send out newsletters, offer a referral program. We’ve got a, for all new leads, we’ve got a four week email process. We do one post a week, usually on LinkedIn. So we got the system down and it seemed like it really hit. And we did some other things to create some efficiency so we could handle.

with our existing resources, more agreements and get more deals done. And so we kind of hit that tipping point a few years ago and now it just seemed to have accelerated. We’ve got a lot of these people that we invested time in early and they’ve grown their portfolios. So that just is like, I mean, I don’t go through a week without somebody, one of our clients saying, hey, we just, or we’re looking at this or we just bought this or you know,

can we do for this? So we’ve got a number of a significant number of clients and they’ve got a significant number of properties so we just hit that tipping point and it’s been it’s been it’s been good solid growth since then.

Stephen Schmidt (17:18.763)
Hmm. Yeah What does growth look like for you in the next 12 to 24 months? Let’s say

Kevin Gardner (17:26.177)
I expect within 24 months we’ll be double what we are today.

Stephen Schmidt (17:33.963)
In terms of staff or revenue or how do you quantify that?

Kevin Gardner (17:38.497)
Well, I think we have to double in everything, almost double, right? It’s not exactly double. But revenue should be double. Our clients continue to buy properties, so the number of properties we’re managing should continue to double.

Stephen Schmidt (17:50.315)
Hmm.

Kevin Gardner (18:02.751)
You know, we’re getting more efficient as a staff, so we wouldn’t need to double our staff, but we’ll certainly need to add staff. You know, so yeah, it’s growing.

Stephen Schmidt (18:09.962)
Mm.

Kevin Gardner (18:16.351)
I don’t know, I regulations could change things. The business has already changed several times since we’ve been in it, but sometimes it changes one way and sometimes it changes back. it’s our job to figure out the solution for our clients to monetize their broadband rights.

So when it changes, all that means is we have to change a little bit. And the most recent change by the FCC in 2022 didn’t impact our clients significantly. And in some cases, it impacted them positively.

Stephen Schmidt (18:39.563)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (18:55.541)
Yeah, well Kevin I’m super appreciative you took some time to come on the show and share your experience with us today Is there anything else that you would want to? Leave it all on the table for our folks

Kevin Gardner (19:06.913)
Again, we’re in it with them, right? We want to be a business partner. And even though I’ve used the word client several times, we’re in it together. If they don’t win and benefit from our service, we don’t either, right? And I think that says a lot about, you know, the kind of company we are. And also, we can, yeah, we can provide our service in all 50 states, correct.

Stephen Schmidt (19:27.179)
Yeah. And you’re in all 50 states?

Stephen Schmidt (19:34.699)
Sounds awesome. So where should people go to connect with you personally, not necessarily just like for business, but if somebody wants to learn about what you’re working on, like your social media for example, what would be a great place to connect with you for more?

Kevin Gardner (19:46.197)
Well, as a hobby, I’ve also written a couple of books. So I’m on Facebook, Kevin Gardner. I’ve got our…

Stephen Schmidt (19:54.015)
Nice.

Kevin Gardner (20:00.851)
on LinkedIn, I’ve got all my books and everything listed on there. I use my middle initial J when I write just to kind keep things out. I’ve written several self-help books that have lessons I’ve learned from business, lessons I’ve learned from life, as I shared with you, and I don’t hide this. I’m nine years sober, lessons I’ve learned in sobriety,

I’ve learned helping other people, you know, with their sobriety. yeah, I’m on LinkedIn and Facebook. We’ve got a website, multifamilyutilitiesolutions.com. My book is Change Your Thinking, Ignite Your Life, and there’s a website for that as well.

Stephen Schmidt (20:51.805)
We’ll go connect with them for more folks. Sean, from the Real Estate Pros podcast and Investor Fuel. We appreciate you coming on, Kevin. We’ll see you guys on the next episode.

Kevin Gardner (21:01.493)
Thanks, Stephen.