Real Estate Management Simplified | Justin Mann from StoneLink

Ernesto: PathMonk is the intelligent tool for website lead generation. With increasing online competition, over 98 percent of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show your value proposition and support visitors in their buying journey separates you from the competition online. PathMonk qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments with relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos, and much more.
Stay relevant to your visitors and increases conversions by 50%. Add PathMonk to your website in seconds. Let the AI do all the work and get access to 50 percent more qualified leads while you keep doing marketing and sales as usual. Check us out at pathmonk.com.

Welcome to today’s episode. Let’s talk about today’s guest. We have Justin Mann from StoneLink. How are you doing today, Justin?

Justin Mann: I’m doing fantastic. Really happy and honored to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Ernesto: It’s great to have you on today’s show. And we’re curious — and our listeners as well — they’re tuning in to figure out a little bit more about what StoneLink is all about. Let’s start it off with that. In your own words, Justin, tell us a little bit more what StoneLink is all about.

Justin Mann: Sure. Stonelink Property Management, at its core, is a property management company, but we really look at ourselves as asset managers.

For our clients, these investment properties that we manage for them are more than likely their single most expensive, most valuable asset — maybe outside of their own personal home. So we take that charge very seriously.

We go to market a little bit different than everybody else out there from what we’ve seen, and that was based on myself and the other two founders of the company and the experiences we had in the history of our investment journey — what we learned along the way — and we brought that to bear in everything that we do every day with Stonelink Property Management.

Ernesto: Awesome. And so that way our listeners could get a good understanding of Stonelink and property management here: is there a key problem that you guys solve for clients out there?

Justin Mann: Yeah, a hundred percent. Property management is an integral part of what we like to think of as a link of service providers when you own a real estate investment property.

Managing that property in an effective, efficient way drives revenue because at the end of the day, people buy these investment properties not for philanthropic exercises. Generally, it’s because they want to generate passive income.

But anyone who owns real estate investment can tell you it’s anything but passive. To do it right takes a proactive approach.

The problem we’re solving for our clients is giving them back the time so they can focus on more highly leveraged activities while we focus on what we do day in and day out. We think we do it the best in the business in the most efficient and effective way.

So they’re getting results and they’re getting back time. The problem we solve is allowing them to focus on where they want to put their time, not where they’re being demanded to put their time.

Ernesto: Definitely. Everybody thinks it’s passive, but it’s more than that — you’ve got to work on it a lot. As far as your vertical or segment, are you focused just in Rhode Island or somewhere else as well?

Justin Mann: We actually started in Rhode Island, but we’ve now branched out into southern New England, and we keep pushing our territory to cover more region.

We get inquiries all the time from areas we don’t currently cover, so we’re looking at expanding into other markets and opening up other offices.

You mentioned vertical integration, and I’m really glad you brought that up, Ernesto. It’s a key part of our strategy from day one. Before we were managing any other properties for clients, we knew we wanted to be a vertically integrated company and really diverge from the traditional property management model.

Ernesto: Definitely. That way our listeners can get a good understanding — what are some ways that you’ve applied that?

Justin Mann: Vertical integration for us means we’re trying to bring as many services as we need to provide under one roof — meaning under our control.

In the traditional property management model, if you needed maintenance done, they call a third-party provider, and you’re beholden to their schedule, quality, and operating style. We didn’t want to do that.

From the beginning, we knew we’d be held responsible for the services we deliver, so we said we might as well control those and control the entire service and supply chain.

So with Stonelink Property Management, we now have plumbing and heating services from licensed plumbers and heating specialists. We have landscaping, snow removal, and a full-service maintenance team.

When you have a leaky faucet, it’s our person going out — not a third party. We control the whole supply chain, and that’s how we deliver a higher level of service.

Ernesto: Great to hear that. Now let’s switch into some marketing efforts. What would you say is your top client acquisition channel?

Justin Mann: Inbound lead generation is really high for us, as well as referrals from existing clients and service partners and providers that we work with.

That could be real estate agents we build relationships with, title people, or others in the real estate sphere. Referrals are a huge source for us, and inbound leads from our website are an integral part of our business development program.

Ernesto: Great. I’m here on the website, stonelinkpm.com. What role does a website play for your client acquisition?

Justin Mann: Oh, it’s huge. We went through a name change a little over a year ago, which was a big hit for us because we lost all the traction and domain dominance we had built over six years.

So we spent the last year building it back up with a brand new website. We put a lot of time, energy, blood, sweat, tears, and money into the new site and into SEO — and that’s ongoing.

Our website is part of our foundation marketing-wise. It’s the portal through which many potential clients find us. It’s integral to everything we do from a marketing perspective.

Ernesto: Awesome. Now let’s switch gears and talk about you as a leader. What are some key tasks you focus on day to day?

Justin Mann: From a personnel standpoint, I look at my number one job as removing obstacles for the people that I’m blessed to work with so they can do their job.

My number one goal is identifying roadblocks and impediments preventing them from executing with excellence, and working with them to remove those.

From a marketing perspective, it’s looking at how we can work with our marketing team to develop strategies, bring more content to bear, bring more value to potential clients and people in the marketplace interested in real estate investing and property management.

It’s identifying channels and filling those channels with the best quality content we possibly can.

Ernesto: Awesome. You’ve got a full plate there. Let’s jump into rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

Justin Mann: Absolutely. Fire away.

Ernesto: First off, Justin: what is the last book that you read?

Justin Mann: Last book I read — I would say I just finished up Vivid Vision. Fantastic book. I’m on the last couple chapters as we speak.

Ernesto: Great read. What is one single thing your company is focused on most right now?

Justin Mann: Process and procedure, automation, and integrating AI where we can across those domains.

Ernesto: If there were no boundaries in technology, what’s one thing you’d want fixed for your role as a marketer today?

Justin Mann: Seamless integration between all of our platforms and channels, and automating it as much as possible. We work across a couple domains and platforms, and that’s exacerbated because we have several companies under one roof.

Ernesto: If there’s one repetitive task you could automate, what would it be?

Justin Mann: Answering emails.

Ernesto: Definitely. And what is one piece of advice you’d give yourself if you restarted your journey as a marketer?

Justin Mann: Engage with more experts in the space earlier on. I’m a big DIY person — pull yourself up by your bootstraps, school of hard knocks.

Looking back now, being engaged with awesome partners and having experts on our team, I wish I had done that earlier.

Ernesto: Great advice. Justin, thanks a lot for being on the show with us today. Last word: if someone forgets everything, what’s one thing they should remember about your company?

Justin Mann: Investing in real estate is not a passive exercise. It’s an active exercise, and it’s best to engage with experts. Find a professional property manager, and at least engage with them enough to learn from them. If it’s the right fit, start that journey — it will allow you to do more with less.

Ernesto: Awesome. You heard it here from Justin. You can always check them out at stonelinkpm.com for property management. Thank you so much, Justin, for being on. And to our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Looking forward to our next episode at Pathmonk Presents.

Justin Mann: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Really enjoyed this time.