Do you speak your staff member’s language?
Iven Vian sits down with us to stress the importance of incentivizing your team and being able to align with their interests for them to work more efficiently. Iven has 3700 units in his portfolio and about $185 million in real estate assets under management. As a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, he operates with military precision as the Lead Operations Manager at Anthem Capital. His advice is to have a steadfast commitment to your vision and see that every opportunity leads to another opportunity.
[00:01] – [07:52] People Are the Greatest Asset
- Iven shares how he stumbled into real estate
- His experience working in an operational environment in the military
- Applying this to his current role
- Placing targets and letting his team execute
- Providing resources and incentives to his staff
[07:53] – [12:05] Setting Your Priorities Straight
- How he was able to do his full-time job and real estate at the same time
- The value of partnerships
- Figure out your end goal and commit to it 100%
[12:06] – [17:18] Persistence and Taking Massive Action
- Leveraging relationships and developing a marketing platform
- Having the right mindset when raising capital
- “What you have, investors need”
- The hardest part is getting the first deal
- Once you achieve that, you already have your track record
- Always know your why
[17:19] – [18:55] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Iven!
- Links Below
- Final Words
Tweetable Quotes
“Lead people and manage processes. Don’t micromanage. You cast the vision, you set their eyes on the target where you want them to execute.” – Iven Vian
“One of the key differentiating factors I think is persistence and taking massive action. The process will test how committed you are.” – Iven Vian
“‘What I actually do is this is that I help people invest passively in deals to maybe meet or exceed their income, to earn passive income, and to save money on taxes.’ If you go out about your day with that mentality, it changes your perspective and how you approach your day when you talk to people.” – Iven Vian
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Connect with Iven through the Anthem Capital website. Follow him on LinkedIn as well!
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
[00:00:00] Iven Vian: If you want to scale and grow, well, treat that first one, like all of, actually treat all of them like they’re your own child. And you know, they’re babies that need a lot of attention. If you don’t have the bandwidth to do so, put together a team that can provide the correct oversight you need. Again, to answer your question, it’s just persistence, persistence, digging deeper. What is your why? You know, and really check yourself and understand what is that you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
[00:00:28] Sam Wilson: Iven Vian is a retired air force. He is a 20-year veteran. He’s a multifamily syndicator, has 2300 units under management, about $185 million in real estate assets under management as well. Iven, welcome to the show.
[00:00:54] Iven Vian: Awesome. Thanks for having me, Sam. Looking forward to the opportunity to be able to share.
[00:00:58] Sam Wilson: Hey man, pleasure is mine. Same three questions I ask every guest who come to the show: in 90 seconds or less, where did you start? Where are you now? How’d you get there?
[00:01:05] Iven Vian: What did I start? Stumbled into real estate. Mother-in-law said lady’s going through a divorce down the street. Why don’t you buy that single-family house? Bought the house.
[00:01:13] Iven Vian: Then I bought a second house, tanked me. I realized I need to get mentorship through a mentorship program. I learned about multifamily. My eyes are opened to the possibilities of multifamily, and I set my target on that and went through those long journey to be able to get to where I am today. But as you said in the intro today, we have done roughly 2300 doors, around 17 deals in about six years time.
[00:01:34] Sam Wilson: That’s a lot, it’s a lot of moving pieces. Today, your main role is what?
[00:01:39] Iven Vian: Yeah, my main role in Anthem Capital, there’s two of us, my business partner, his name is Tariq Sattar He’s focused on the transactional side, so acquiring and disposing, and I handle everything in between, operations side.
[00:01:51] Iven Vian: Given my background of 20 years in the air force, I live in an operational environment, very dynamic environment my entire career. So it kind of suits me well, focusing on that piece with the multifamily business.
[00:02:04] Sam Wilson: Wow. So you handle all the asset management sides of things. Can you tell us, kind of break down what that means for you? Let’s just start with that. Maybe just tell us what an asset manager does and then, you know, what it looks like.
[00:02:17] Iven Vian: Yeah, absolutely. So, given the fact that I flew B1 bombers and the air force, I kind of understand things that way still, right? And so in the flying world, you have to understand the target and then build a plan, working yourself from the target backwards, and how are you gonna be able to achieve the overall end goal and objective?
[00:02:33] Iven Vian: So in this case, a multifamily investing, our overall end goal and objective is to realize the return on our investor’s investments. So if we have a target return schedule of say, 8% cash on cash analyze and 90% total return over the course of five years, that’s my focus. And then I am leading a team to ensure we meet or exceed those return numbers, right? And so working from the target backwards, then from day zero all the way to day of exit, I’m making sure we stay on path, right? But the way I put it is like this. I lead people and manage processes. Don’t micromanage. You cast the vision, you set their eyes on the target where you want them to execute.
[00:03:21] Iven Vian: And in this case, we work with a third-party property management company. We give them the expectation and provide resources for them to be able to execute and perform. And, you know, we do in a way where if they’re able to hit their numbers, pocket management numbers, we’re going to be able to hit our numbers when it comes to setting budgets for the property management company.
[00:03:41] Iven Vian: And then we have weekly calls. I mean, you know, practically speaking, we have weekly KPI calls. They go over the performance numbers and we make real-time adjustments along the way as needed to ensure again, we hit that big picture angle of the return on investors investments.
[00:04:01] Sam Wilson: When you say that you give the property management company the tools and resources they need for execution. Can you break that down a little further for us? What tools do you feel like they need from you on a consistent basis?
[00:04:14] Iven Vian: Well, first of all, you need people to manage these assets. So how do you view that? So, for me, I view people as my greatest asset, my greatest resource. So are you going to men run the manning or you, if you have a 200 unit property, 150 unit property, you see, I’m only going to allow in a budget for one manager and one maintenance guy, and then you let them work 12 hour days and including Saturdays and maybe, you know, on holidays and then you burned them out, right? And then your property suffers as a result over the long-term or do you say, you know what, we’re going to build a healthy budget when it comes to allocating proper money towards a labor line items and like, listen, you’re going to go out and do it the 18, you’re going to have a manager, at least an agent, a maintenance guy, and also make ready guy.
[00:05:07] Iven Vian: And we’re going to pay them market rate. We’re going to take care of them and we’re going to incentivize them for performing well. So if they were able to hit certain numbers, if it comes down to physical occupancy or hitting a certain income level, Or decreased in our delinquency by a certain percentage, over a specific period of time, then we’re going to incentivize them.
[00:05:28] Iven Vian: We’re going to give them bonuses or we’re going to give them what they want. We’ve got to be able to speak their language. And this is where leading people comes in to play because one particular managers didn’t really care about money. She just wanted a time off to go to stay in her cabin on the lake. So that was her language. So like, okay, if you hit these numbers, you’re going to get extra days off to go to your cabin and spend time on the lake. Where other managers, you know, they’re motivated by money. So the way I see like this, we have alignment of interest. If the property’s performing well or, and we’re exceeding our baseline numbers that we need to hit, absolutely, we’re going to give them bonuses. We’re going to incentivize them to do so.
[00:06:07] Sam Wilson: Yeah. It sounds like a lot of that, like you said, managing the people and figuring out what it is that they want and then trying to set targets and goals such that they want to work towards getting the things that they want.
[00:06:17] Iven Vian: The other side of this, I was going to mention as well, is when you take on like value add projects, there’s a capital improvement plan that you put in place and that property needs improvements. And you have a lot of ways to dissect that. Are you going to do in-house turns or are you going to hire third-party contractors to do the in-house, to do the interior improvements, right? And so on these calls, for example, asking them, we’re asking the question, how much rent-ready product do you have? Do we need to bring in additional help to be able to turn these units at a timely fashion to drive our revenue growth?
[00:06:52] Iven Vian: If so then yeah, let’s go out and get estimates to see how much it will cost to bring on a third party contractor, to be able to turn these units in a timely fashion. So that, to me, that’s the other side of resources. You know, we’re giving them approval to go out, hire third party again, not to overwork them and to create efficiencies in the overall process.
[00:07:14] Sam Wilson: Right, because those are things that the property management company is not going to have just the green light to do as they see fit. I mean, those are things that you guys have to go add additional expense that maybe you weren’t counting on, right?
[00:07:26] Iven Vian: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and things change all along the way. You know, maybe we had an influx of notice to vacates where more people are leaving the property than you originally expected because you tighten down the controls a little bit more.
[00:07:39] Iven Vian: And they reacted, you know, they kind of overreacted. So now you have like 20 vacancies in a particular month. Like, listen, this, find a way to get this ton and bring it again, you know, a third party to be able to turn these units.
[00:07:51] Sam Wilson: Yeah. I love that. Thanks for taking the time to kind of give us a little bit more color on what an asset manager does. Let’s shift a little bit here and talk about me working a full time. And growing 2300 units at the same time. I mean, that’s pretty impressive. And a lot of work how’d you do it?
[00:08:08] Iven Vian: Partnerships, hands down, partnerships, my business partner, Tariq Sattar. He and I have been working together now for, going on eight years.
[00:08:18] Iven Vian: We started in a single-family space. I was a hungry investor and I wanted to buy houses. I ran out of capital, got a realtor license to sell houses to earn additional money, to put back in the houses. Tariq was my first client. Tariq ended up buying 45 houses through me over the course of two years.
[00:08:36] Iven Vian: So to get to 45 houses, we looked at about 600 in the course of two years, like five a day kind of thing. So we developed a very good relationship. And it turns out Tariq is an all-star kind of individual, very financially astute man. And he and I had created this vision together that we want to pursue multifamily.
[00:08:56] Iven Vian: And so I leveraged his experience from his corporate days. He was in construction business. So he was the one that was handling the calls with the attorneys, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, while I’m flying my airplane, 24,000 feet, right? And so, but you know, when I land or on my way to the gym, or, you know, in between one place to the next, I can use to make a call like a pullover the side and, you know, send out a quick email, things like that.
[00:09:24] Iven Vian: Or I can have, you know, late afternoon calls with the property management company and still lead people that way. And so that’s how we’re able to build Anthem Capital from ground up through our partnership.
[00:09:37] Sam Wilson: Got it. Yeah. I mean, that’s a lot of moving pieces and you’re flying, you were based stateside or you were based overseas?
[00:09:44] Iven Vian: Stateside. My last half of my career is in the reserves. That’s the other piece too, is that I didn’t pursue a lot of opportunity in the military world or I could have, right? Because that requires more commitment time. And first of all, you know, committed to my career ultimately, and I had to make sure I kept arms length distance between my personal aspirations and my military career.
[00:10:09] Iven Vian: But, you know, I found a way to have a somewhat flexible career while doing that. And so you have to ask yourself, what are your priorities in life? What is your overall goal? Do you want to make it big in the corporate world? You know, we’re speaking to some other investor looking to jump into multifamily, or are you willing to like, not be on the corporate ladder, you know, promotion track so that you can have time to focus on multifamily. For me, I gave up the idea of being a general someday or a Colonel, you know, I was fine with that because I wanted to do this.
[00:10:39] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. It sounds like finding what it is that you wanted. And then, like you said, find it, what’d you say early on there, you found the target and worked your way back.
[00:10:47] Iven Vian: Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just wanted it and like, you got to have passion about this thing. And you got to commit. A hundred percent, you got to commit. You cannot be one foot in one foot out. And, you know, for those that are married, have families or significant others, like it has to be like, you know, a solidified front across the board, right? You got to have those difficult conversations with your significant other and make sure there’s continuity there because you know, involves a commitment, which means traveling a lot or going to conferences or being on late-night meetings.
[00:11:18] Iven Vian: Or not being available for certain family functions, things like that, right. That’s where the rubber really hits the road, right. But, you know, once you start seeing the result happen, you realize there’s something to this business and there’s that scary interim period of like, I’m not pursuing military, multifamily hasn’t quite taken off yet.
[00:11:37] Iven Vian: And I know money’s coming in right now and I’m exposed. Like I have a lot of money out there in the market and very little on capital right now. I think it’s the commitment, the steadfastness, the clear vision that allows you to get through that moment.
[00:11:50] Sam Wilson: No, I think that is great. I think all of us have been there at some point.
[00:11:54] Okay. Yeah. We’re figuring this out. There’s a lot of moving pieces. I like the way you put it. That was so poetic. There’s a lot of money out there that we’ve put out in the market and it’s like, okay, we’re pulling something on that faith and confidence to move. Keep moving forward. I think is the key. Talk to us about the finances side of things. It’s, we’re talking about that. Are you responsible in any way for raising capital or is that all on the business partner side?
[00:12:15] Iven Vian: We’re always raising capital to everywhere, every day.
[00:12:18] Sam Wilson: Tell me about that process for you guys. What have been some things that you feel like you’ve done really well, that kind of helped you guys raise capital for your opportunities?
[00:12:26] Iven Vian: You know, I started out with the multifamily mentorship network and mentorship program that had an ecosystem. You know, I didn’t know a lot of people with millions of dollars, right? So I joined the ecosystem in my case is Brad Sumrok based out of Dallas. And that’s where I started raising capital. Then again, through relationships because real estate, like anything in life, is a relationship business.
[00:12:47] Iven Vian: I found people who already had an investigative database and developed a partnership with them. And they came into our deals as Co-GPs and they provided their network to help raise capital for the deal. You know, on my first investment, my first deal was a three-property portfolio, about a $2.6 million raise, you know, nine months into this program.
[00:13:09] Iven Vian: We raised $2.6 million to take down a first transaction, leveraging relationships. As you get more experienced, you realize you have to develop a marketing platform. So I have a marketing platform back then that I’m building. I have a marketing team now, you know, I’m not quite there yet, but I’m working on the newsletters, social media posts, Instagram, LinkedIn, all of those things that you need to do to be top of mind when you’re out there raising capital. You know, it starts with the mindset of you’re always raising capital.
[00:13:40] Iven Vian: You know, it’s not compart, you’re not, you don’t compartmentalize that. You never know who you’re going to run into, right? And so part of that is like, what it is you do? Do I buy my own apartments? No. What I actually do is this is that I help people invest passively in deals to maybe meet or exceed their income, to earn passive income and to save money on taxes. So like, if you go out about your day with that mentality, it kind of changes, your perspective and how you approach your day when you talk to people.
[00:14:11] Sam Wilson: Right, I like that a lot and it, you know, it’s often been said, and I’m not sure if I agree with it or not, but it’s a nice idea is that, Hey, you know what you have, investors need and or they say that the investor needs you more than you need the investor. I’ve heard that phrase as well. Yeah, I think it is good to a point. It starting out though, for people who are looking to scale their business. It’s not exactly any comfort, cause it’s still like, man, that just seems like that’s a tall hill to climb, you know, starting out whether or not they need you or not, it’s finding and locating them and then like you said, like you gave away the key, there was that, you know, you joined a group that had an ecosystem that already kind of understood this process out of the gate and people like you coming in that maybe didn’t have the deep bench of capital raising experience could get in there and kind of figure out a way to flourish early on. It sounds like that was a key for you.
[00:14:56] Iven Vian: A hundred percent absolutely would not be here today. If it wasn’t for the ecosystem that I joined immensely, shortened that timeline for me to get up and running.
[00:15:06] Sam Wilson: When you see people, and I’m sure you’ve seen them inside of that group, cause there, you know, there’s always successes and there’s always failures. What do you see some of the keys are for the people that join a group like Brad Sumrok’s group or another one. What are some things you see them do that help them scale? Maybe that when you see some others, you know, potentially coming in languish, what’s the difference?
[00:15:27] Iven Vian: One of the key differentiating factors I think is persistence and taking massive action. Again, it goes back to what I said earlier. The process will test you how committed you are. You can easily get discouraged when you put in 50 offers and you get zero. LOI is out of the process, right? While you’re driving in a submarket, you know, days on end looking for opportunities and nothing comes up around. The same time.
[00:15:57] Iven Vian: Those people that don’t give up, that stay persistent eventually over time, they will get the first deal. And now they’re on the map and that’s the hardest part is getting to that first one. But now they have a track record. Now they have some credibility and brokers now, you will now be on the brokers radar for the next opportunity.
[00:16:16] Iven Vian: Okay. And then that first opportunity is your opportunity to the next opportunity. That’s one thing that, for me, it’s important. Like I want to make sure I’m handling homebase before I go and go find another opportunity, right.? And so like, if you want to scale and grow, well, treat that first one, like all, of actually treat all of them like they’re your own child and you know, they’re babies that need a lot of attention, right? If you don’t have the bandwidth to do so, put together a team that can provide the correct oversight you need. Again, to answer your question, it’s just persistence, persistence, digging deeper. What is your why? You know, and really check yourself and understand what is that you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And once you have clarity in that, the action piece takes care of itself. You will take massive action, right? You will push through the terror barrier if you will, and keep at it, knowing that it’s yours.
[00:17:14] Sam Wilson: I love it. That great and well earned and hard-earned advice you’ve just given. Iven, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today and tell us about your business. Tell us about your history there in the air force and how you scaled to 20, 2300 units, you know, finding partners to raising capital, to really how to the gate, hit the ground running and, you know, not give up. So really appreciate you taking the time to share. And of course, talking about the asset management side of the business as well, which is a piece of this equation. I think that obviously that’s the part that really matters. That’s the part that makes this business either work or not work, but it’s oftentimes overlooked. It’s the position that most people don’t really think about on their team. Like, oh, we don’t need an asset manager. So obviously you are extremely valuable in what you do and how you do it. So thank you for taking the time to break that down as well.
[00:17:58] Iven Vian: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Sam. It’s been an honor. It’s been a pleasure. You have a great rest of the day.
[00:18:03] Sam Wilson: Absolutely, you as well. One last question for you, if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you and deals that you guys are working on, what is the best way to do that?
[00:18:10] Iven Vian: Absolutely. Yes. Come find us at our website. anthemcp.com Anthem as in like National Anthem, C as in cat, P as in papa.com anthemcp.com. Connect with us. Fill out a contact form there, we’ll stay in touch.
[00:18:27] Sam Wilson: Awesome, Iven, thank you again. Have a great rest of your day.
[00:18:29] Iven Vian: Absolutely. You too.
