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Joining Team Lally in this episode is Michael Killilea, the General Manager of PODS Hawaii. Mike tells the story of how he made the move back in 2007 from the East coast to Hawaii. He talks about what PODS means and how they operate, what sets them apart with other moving and storage options. He also discusses the customers that PODS Hawaii caters to and the areas they service all over the US. Also in this episode: Quotes of the day, Tips of the week, special events, this week’s Open houses and Coming soon listings.
Team Lally Show with Mike Killilea
General Manager, PODS Hawaii
Announcer: It’s time to enter the world of real estate in Oahu with Hawaii’s only true real estate radio show, the Team Lally real estate show. Grab a pen and get ready to take notes! For the next full hour, Hawaii’s premier real estate leader, Adrienne Lally and Attilio Leonardi will bring you the latest in real estate news and real-world strategies on how they can guarantee to sell your home at a price and deadline you agree to! Or they’ll buy it! Now, here are your hosts, Adrienne and Attilio!
Adrienne: Welcome to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it. If you have any questions, just give us a call at 799-9596 or check us out on the web at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Well hey everybody this is Attilio! Alright, so if you hear anything on the show sounds like uh, tax or legal advice, we’re not providing any of that type of advice! If anything were edu, we’re edu-taining you. What is that?
Adrienne: We’re educating you and entertaining you all at the same time.
Attilio: So, at this part of the show, we like to give the, you know, we, the label we give it is the life coaching time of the show. Where we share with you information that we’ve learned because we’re always in a constant state of growing and we know that if you’re not growing, you’re dying. And that uh, if you truly want to have fulfillment, happiness, and success in your life, you’ve always got to be seeking uh, new ways to do things or maybe, maybe just even just tweaking a little bit what you’re already doing. For example, I think it was, I don’t know who it was, we’ll just say Steven Jobs, any time you don’t know who the quote came from, just say it came from Steven Jobs or Steve, you know, Zieg Ziegler, Tony Robbins. Any, one of these three people had a high probability of—
Adrienne: Of saying these awesome things.
Attilio: Of saying this one thing is that you know, uh, big massive changes do not occur overnight. But what you can do overnight is small changes. Small changes, so the small change I want to talk to you about is being a good listener, a lot of people have the misconception that if you, you know, we are sales people, we’re a professional sales team and I’ll define that for you. A good professional sales person or anybody providing any kind of product or service to anyone, you’re all in sales. And even if you, you know, do some type of job where it’s the same thing over and over and you’re not even interacting with people, you do have a personal life, right? Adrienne, do people have personal lives outside of work?
Adrienne: I hope so!
Attilio: Yeah, and so, if you’re interacting with other human beings, you’re selling, the product you’re selling, if not, if you don’t think you do it in your day job, is yourself. And, are you the type of person that, if you were, your personality was the product or service, would you have any takers for it? Well I’ll teach you real quick the art of listening. Pretty much we could talk for the entire show just about the art of listening, but there was a TED talk I was listening, uh, listening to the other evening and, and, these people talk about listening being important. They were uh, negotiators, they had come up with uh, peace accords between the Palestinians and the uh, between the Palestinians and the, and the Jewish people there and talk about uh, a conflict that’s been going for hundreds of years. And these were diplomats, I think they came from Norway or something like that, but anyway, they talked, uh, they gave some uh, some quick strategies on how to be a good listener because being a good diplomat is not telling people what they want to do, right? So, one of the things he talked about is that when you go to sit down with someone, don’t have the expectation that they’re going to automatically accept what you’re proposing or what you’re sharing with them, so it helps you be more open-minded to—
Adrienne: So, remove those expectations.
Attilio: Yeah, remove those expectations. If what you’re sharing is something that you present in a way that definitely meets their needs, and provides a high level of service, are you they going, are they going to want it?
Adrienne: Sure!
Attilio: No selling at all! And so, how we do that is by being a good listener and, and the very first thing is, we do, Adrienne, is do we ask more questions or talk more?
Adrienne: We ask a lot of questions.
Attilio: Ask a lot of questions, so one of the things that they talk about before you even open up your mouth, it’s what you’re doing when you’re not, when you’re listening. And one of the things they talk about is being one hundred percent present and I think people are like, thinking that okay I don’t have my phone on, I’m taking notes, and I’m making eye contact, those are your basics for listening. But what he talked about is if they were to tap into your brain, and to see what you’re thinking about, are you thinking about that conversation you had with your wife before you left for the office that day? While in that meeting with that particular client. Then, even though, on the exterior, you look like you’re being present, mentally, inside your head, you’re not being present and we, and we know this from the Body Language Boss, who we’re going to hear from in a little bit, is that what, what do people pick up on?
Adrienne: The nonverbal cues.
Attilio: The nonverbal cues, so they will know, they will know, whoever’s receiving your, whoever you are listening to, that you’re not, they may not know on a conscious level, but subconsciously they’re going to know that, and they’re going to pick this up from you on your nonverbal that you’re not being 100% present. One of the things we do is we just, we don’t bring phones into the meetings. You know, don’t bring a phone into the meeting, uh, ask permission to take notes and then when we take notes, what does it tell the other person when we’re taking notes?
Adrienne: That what they’re saying is important and you know, what we kind of keep track of what it is that we’re discussing so that you know, we can visit later.
Attilio: And the other techniques here, so be present and use that, that 100% focus present type strategies, listen, do a lot of listening, and then what we call active listening is by asking questions. They’ll say something and you’ll say like, oh, so basically what you’re saying, if I’m hearing you correctly, is this. Is that what you’re saying? And really emphasize or repeat back to them that you understand or you’re really, you’re getting that. So, listening, listening, literally is the way that you can improve your sales and improve your personal relationships. So, there’s your life coaching tip for today.
Adrienne: Okay and I have some, some quotes for today. From uh, Hawaii Pacific Property Management.
Attilio: Oh yeah, and what are they?
Adrienne: So, uh, the first one is from Tyra Banks. “Take responsibility for yourself because no one’s going to take responsibility for you.” So, own it!
Attilio: Yeah, does uh, does a uh, so what is that, what’s the, what’s a non-victim do? Take responsibility or just blow it off?
Adrienne: They’re always going to take the responsibility.
Attilio: Yeah. What’s the next one?
Adrienne: Next one is from Arnold Glasgow. “Improvement begins with I.”
Attilio: Oh yeah?
Adrienne: So again, taking responsibly, yeah, take responsibility for yourself. Be a winner.
Attilio: Is there a theme to these quotes?
Adrienne: You know, this last one, it’s kind of a fun one.
Attilio: Just say yes.
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: Okay go.
Adrienne: From Bob ____. “You can’t make footprints on the sand of time by sitting on your butt. Who wants to make butt prints?”
Attilio: Nobody wants to make butt prints.
Adrienne: No, no butt prints here.
Attilio: Unless you’ve got a big butt, no, so the, I, what I was hearing, the common thing, theme there through those three quotes is that, we’re ultimately responsible for where we’re at in our lives—
Adrienne: So, own it.
Attilio: The relationships we have, the money in our bank account, the job that we have. And, you know, and I’m going to leave them with this last one from Mike Row, he’s the host of Dirty Jobs. He says, we go through this life with this bad advice. Find what you’re passionate about and go do that. Well, what if you uh, you know, you like collecting dried up olives and you’re just going to go do that because you’re like super passionate about it. Well how is that going to pay the bills or get your kids through college. So he says the better advice, whatever you’re doing, whatever you are doing, bring passion to that.
Adrienne: So, speaking of someone who’s brought passion to what they do, we’re going to hear from R.B. Kelly, the Body Language Boss. She’s very passionate about body language. So, she’s going to give us her, her tip of the week.
R.B.: Well hey Adrienne, hey Attilio. Thank you for having me. So, here’s your body language tip of the week. When you first meet someone, they automatically look at your hands to see if you’re trustworthy. So, if you have your hands in your pockets or behind your back or folded or if they just can’t see your hands, there’s a part of their brain that’s wondering what you’re hiding from them. Maybe you have a weapon, maybe you’re not telling them the whole truth, so when you meet someone and you want to make a good first impression, you always want to make sure that they can absolutely see your hands.
Adrienne: So, would be like reaching out to like shake their hands—
R.B.: That would be prefect, yeah, reaching out, shaking hands, waving, even flashing a ___, all of this shows them your hands and says, I’m, I’m upfront, I’m’ trustworthy, you can come closer.
Adrienne: Well thank you.
Attilio: Thank you!
R.B.: Pleasure to be here.
Adrienne: Awesome tip.
Attilio: Alrighty, so, we’re trying to get ahold of Duke.
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: For the property management tip of the week but he is not, he’s not available right now, because he’s busy serving his clients. But the good news is—
Adrienne: That he’s serving his clients.
Attilio: No, the good news is, we do have a property management tip of the week that we want to share with you.
Adrienne: And that too. Yes.
Attilio: Alright, so here’s uh, the property management tip of the week. Uh, there is a lot of uh, you know, one of the things, there was uh, and I’m not going to give you the specific details because I’m going to entice you to get professional property management but one of the topics that we had talked about with Duke last week was uh, you know, if somebody’s month-to-month, what happens with the deposit, can they use the deposit to pay their last month’s rent. And the answer is?
Adrienne: No.
Attilio: The answer is no. They cannot use that deposit because then if they use the deposit to pay the last month’s rent, what happens when you do the final walkthrough and we find damage.
Adrienne: Uh, you’re going to be stuck with having to take care of that, that damage on your own. And how are you going to hold the tenant accountable?
Attilio: Yeah, there’s no leverage, there’s no motivation for them to like, leave the property in good shape, professionally cleaned and all of that, so, those are one of the little, little traps that the uh, for-rent-by-owners fall into, and you know what, there’s probably 50 of them out there that you’re not aware of and even if you googled it and looked it up, it’s that first-hand experience of managing a ton of properties, so right now, Hawaii Pacific Property Management’s managing over 400+ properties. They’ve got a whole team, trust me, it’s not worth the liability to save on property management fees by not having a professional between you and all the risk that comes with uh, investing in real estate and having tenants.
Adrienne: Now the nice thing that Duke also does is he does a video and he sends out this video with different property management tips. And uh, you can—
Attilio: Subscribe to it.
Adrienne: Yeah, you can subscribe to it and get his tips every week. If you go to www.hipacificpm.com, that’s you know, you’ll find the website but then there’s also a link to the video blog, so, they’re usually like between 1-2 minutes of just very helpful information if you are a property owner, investor, or, you know, you’re looking for property management services.
Attilio: So, let’s go through real quick, some of his guarantees. Because then it, this is your elevator pitch, this is the reasons why you want to call up Duke and his team and do business with them. One of them is the rent guarantee. What is that one about, Adrienne?
Adrienne: So, basically if they can’t get your home rented, in 30 days at the agreed-upon rental price, then they will pay the rent.
Attilio: And I think that’s how confident they are about assessing your property, marketing it.
Adrienne: And marketing, yeah.
Attilio: And putting the right tenant in there. Speaking of putting the right tenant in there, they’ve got an eviction guarantee. What’s that about?
Adrienne: So, basically if uh, Hawaii Pacific Property Management places the tenant, they’ve screened them and they place the tenant into the home, and if for some reason that tenant stops paying or is becoming destructive and needs to be evicted that, they will take care of that whole eviction process and cost. So, but they, they have to have prescreened and they’re so confident in it because of the kind of screening that they do for the tenants.
Attilio: I tell you the reason why I propose they’re successful with that is they’re emotionally unattached to the, to the actual property or the situation, and that’s a good thing, and I’ll tell you why. When you’re the owner and you make, and you’re sweating it because you’ve got to make those mortgage payments on that empty property, you’re more likely to jump and take, and not do the due diligence, you’re working, you don’t do this full-time, you’ve got kids, you’ve got everything else going on, you’re more likely to make a big mistake by going with the first renter that’s willing to pay you the rent and then paying for it down the road when you have all kinds of issues with that tenant, so having someone unattached to the property emotionally will actually save you thousands of dollars in potential lawsuits. So! Speaking of saving money, getting educated and raising your IQ—
Adrienne: We have the Mortgage Genius, uh Jodie Tanga from Pacific Rim Mortgage with her mortgage tip of the week.
Attilio: Hi, Jodie.
Jodie: Hi!! Okay so, I, okay, today’s tip has to do with FICO scores, which we’ve all heard uh, a lot about. I, I think that uh, I make a lot of assumptions because it’s, it’s what I live and breathe, is, you know, FICO scores and credit reports and whatnot, uh, and I, I just wanted to dial it back, I met with someone that, you know, really had no idea, I mean a very educated person, and successful, so, but had no idea about the direct correlation between FICO score and the potential interest rate that one can get and how big of a factor it plays on uh, potential points associated with the, with an interest rate. Uh, and so, I just wanted to remind everyone that having credit cards or revolving access to revolving debt uh, you know, like your Hawaii Airlines, Bank of Hawaii credit card or, I mean the Amazon, Chase card or what, what have you, it, it’s a must. If, if you don’t have revolving tradelines or if you don’t have credit cards, your maximum FICO score has a ceiling. You will not, you pretty much will not get above like a 660 or a 670 until you have access to credit. So, he had uh, he had an auto, two auto loans, uh, and he had a student loan and his FICO, no lates, and his FICO scores was a 670 and I, you know, I was saying, well you know, due to the fact of your FICO score and he was like, my FICO, my FICO score should be excellent, I never make late payments, uh, I, you know, why wouldn’t my FICO score be excellent and then I went and I looked at his credit report and I said, well, you only have these two, two auto loans and a student loan and they’re, they’re all installment loans, which means, just, just, so you know, the, the way the algorithm works is that once you pay off a, an installment loan or like an auto loan or a personal loan, that perfect payment history is no longer utilized in the algorithm that, that creates your FICO score. Every time you successful pay off your, a car, uh, or maybe trade it in and therefore that auto loan is paid in full, that entire 36-month or whatever, however many months of beautiful on-time payment is no longer even feeding into, into your credit score.
Attilio: I, I think the analogy is, is they’re looking at behavior. And, and revolving credit is a behavior that you can watch. And so, if you don’t, if you don’t have any type of, of that revolving credit going on, there’s no behavior for them to track. You know, it’s funny because I was, when you said it, I was like, oh by the way, next time you said, I think next time when you talk about this topic, I want you to say this, today we’re going to talk about the f-word.
All: (laughing)
Attilio: FICO score!
Jodie: Yeah, the f-word.
Attilio: So, the f-word is, today’s f-word of the day is FICO score and it is a company that specializes, I looked it up, in what’s known as predictive analytics. Which means they take information and analyze it to predict what’s the likely to happen. In the case of credit scores, FCIO looks at the range of credit information and uses that to create scores that help lenders predict consumer’s behavior, such as how likely someone is to pay their bills on-time or not. And that’s what they’re looking at folks, so yeah, you’re absolutely right, Jodie, what else do we need to know, anything else about this FICO score?
Jodie: So, the goal would be, having you know, like an auto loan, or some sort of other installment loan, uh, because that proves that you have the ability to get the credit and to pay it on-time. Uh, the other goal would be of the two to four revolving tradelines, a.k.a. credit cards, that you’re utilizing them monthly uh, because gain, if you just have it and you never use it, it goes inactive and then you’re, again, it’s not feeding in to the algorithm that produces the score, so, utilization matters, meaning using it monthly like one for groceries, one for gas, one for when you go out to eat at a restaurant, and then you wouldn’t want the, the limit, the balance to be greater than 33% of the total available credit.
Attilio: Yeah, because that’s, that’s the little pitfall that you fall into right, you have the credit—
Adrienne: And then you just spend.
Attilio: But then you’re, what is it? Your, your debt ratios are messed up. I have a high credit score, but I have no, I have no credit left available!
Jodie: Yeah, and the, the other thing is, you know, the way the algorithm looks at it, let’s say you have one credit card that has a really low limit, like only $500 and you have a $500 balance and you know that you’re, what’s like, well what’s the big deal, I’m going to, I pay it off in full anyways, and so that’s great, but the credit uh, card institution, they only report to the bureau once a month and so, if I happened to review your credit in a moment of not matching up to when that credit card has a $0 balance, then the way the algorithm reads it is, they, he has access to $500 and he’s utilized $500 so he has access to $0 and so I’m going to ding him for that.
Attilio: So, you know, it’s all about—
Adrienne: So, don’t max out your credit cards.
Attilio: Don’t max out your credit cards. So, Jodie, give us, help us wrap it up here, give us two things that we should be doing regarding increasing our credit score, and two things that we should not be doing that reduce it. Two and two.
Jodie: So, okay, one is please use credit cards, I know there’s a lot of cultures in our beautiful mixed pot culture of Hawaii that don’t really believe in credit cards. It’s, if you want to buy a house and if you want to get this excellent credit score, which is going to help you to buy a house, you need credit. We can’t just, you can’t just be cash, uh, be in cash, right? So, get a credit card, get two credit cards, if you can. Of those two credit cards, don’t use more than 33% of what you have available. Yeah, and then, two things, not to do, don’t close your credit cards.
Attilio: Don’t close them.
Jodie: So even if it’s like, okay, one’s a 0% and now it’s 19.99%, they’re ripping me off, I’m not doing it, I’m going to screw them by closing my credit card and then I’ll have the last laugh, no you won’t have the last laugh because it’s going to negatively impact your credit score when you close your tradeline.
Attilio: So, don’t close them, and what’s the second one?
Jodie: Don’t close them and then, don’t max them. Don’t max them out.
Attilio: Don’t max them, okay. Alright.
Adrienne: Thank you, Jodie. Excellent. Excellent.
Jodie: Thanks guys, have a great day!
Attilio: Thanks, Jodie.
Jodie: Bye.
Attilio: So, folks, just a real quick thing, disclaimer there, she’s not telling you go into debt up to your eyeballs so that you can buy a home, what she’s telling you is just redirect and be smarter with your cash flow.
Adrienne: She’s giving you a strategy.
Attilio: Strategy!
Adrienne: Strategizing. So, yeah you can give Jodie a call for more strategies at 488-5510 or check them out at www.pacrimmtg.com.
Attilio: Hey, you know, we talked about Duke and his awesome team, but we never gave them contact information. How can we get ahold of Duke and his team?
Adrienne: You can reach them at 445-9223, that’s 445-9223 or www.hipacificpm.com.
Attilio: Hey, do we want to bring Janyce on?
Adrienne: Sure, let’s, let’s bring Janyce on.
Attilio: And then we’ll take a break.
Adrienne: With her tip of the week.
Attilio: Hey, Janyce are you there?
Janyce: Yes, I am, good morning.
Attilio: Good morning, what’ve you got for us today?
Janyce: Well many are surprised to learn that alterations that don’t enlarge your home require building permits, things like you know, kitchen updates, bathroom updates, new windows, new garage door, so it’s always good to check because when it comes to your home, and a building permit, the cost is always good to ask permission first because the cost of forgiveness can be steep.
Attilio: Yeah, that’s you don’t want to, you don’t want to go to Adrienne’s permit class where she tells you to ask for forgiveness and then permission second. You go to Janyce’s class, ask for permission first.
Adrienne: Well you could, but then it’s going to cost you a lot more money. And heartache.
Attilio: And here’s, yeah, here’s the big negative downfall, listeners. You think you’re saving money, a little bit of money upfront, you know, a couple thousand dollars here, but literally you’re costing yourselves tens of hundreds of thousand dollars when we go to sell the property and we cannot include that in the value of your appraisal. Because it’s not permitted. Like it doesn’t exist. Right, Janyce?
Janyce: Exactly.
Adrienne: But the good news is that Janyce helps with after-the-fact permits.
Attilio: And, and, if anything Janyce, they could at least give the initial phone call, just to have a conversation with you, uh, a pre, initial phone call, consultation.
Janyce: Sure, and I can, during that phone call, advise them if they can get a permit for what they’re describing. Or give them ideas as to how long the building department is taking, etc.
Attilio: Alright, thanks, Janyce.
Adrienne: Thank you, Janyce!
Janyce: Thank you! Take care.
Adrienne: You can reach Janyce at 206-7107. That’s 206-7107 or check her out at www.dreamhousedrafting.com.
Attilio: Hey, we’re about to take a break, but stay with us, when we come back, we’ll be talking with uh, Michael Killilea and he’s the guy from the mainland with the Hawaiian-sounding last name, he’s with PODS Hawaii, he’ll be telling us about moving and storage and more conventional and less, and how to make it more convenient and less stressful, so stay tuned!
[Music fades to commercials]
Announcer: The Team Lally real estate show continues.
Adrienne: Welcome back and thanks for listening to the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed sold program, or we’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne—
Attilio: And I’m Attilio.
Adrienne: And if you have any questions just give us a call at 799-9596 or check us out online at www.teamlally.com.
Attilio: Hey, real quick, before we bring on our guests, uh, if you’re a realtor, come close. Come a little bit closer, no, even closer, put that radio, that speaker, put it right up to your ear. Would you like to learn how to be more profitable? In your real estate business?
Adrienne: Who wouldn’t?
Attilio: Okay, so we have a class, you know, I know you have that there, but let’s just talk about it. It’s going to be on Monday at the MyGoCenter. It’s in Kapolei in the Kapolei shopping center and if you guys know where the Safeway is, it’ s across the way from the Safeway. In the other half of the shopping center, right by ____, El Mariachi Mexican restaurant. Anyways, it’s called MyGoCenter, and what is MyGoCenter?
Adrienne: It is a, like a shared kind of work space office where different business owners, entrepreneurs can, you know, use a professional environment to do business.
Attilio: But anyways, we’re going to be, so we’ve been in business for 10 years, last year we did $82 million in business, in gross sales, we did 172 transactions. The average realtor, there’s 6,000 licenses, couple thousand licensees here on Oahu. The bottom half do 0, the upper half, how many?
Adrienne: A handful.
Attilio: A handful, 5-7 transactions. Last year, we did 172. Begs the question, how the heck did we do that? Well for 2 hours, we’re going to share this with any realtor. Any realtors, any licensed realtors that want to come to this class and find out what our little secrets are, we’re going to share 10 of them and we’re going to go through them quick, so take notes, pay attention and we’re going to share with you all the things that we’ve learned to help us generate this high volume of business so that you can make money, when Adrienne?
Adrienne: Right now!
Attilio: Right now, definition of insanity, doing the, doing the same thing year after year, but expecting different results. So, we’re going to help you be not so insane with your real estate business, go to what website to RSVP, Adrienne?
Adrienne: You’ve got to go to www.kwhonoluluevents.com.
Attilio: That’s www.kwhonoluluevents.com, so listen up realtors, if you want to bring some profit, make money in real estate, now! As a realtor, hope to see you on Monday between 6 p.m. and 8 pm. Be ready to take some notes. Alright. Our guest today is from PODS Hawaii. PODS stands for Portable On Demand Storage.
Adrienne: Our guest was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He started with PODS Boston and was offered the opportunity to help open PODS Hawaii. He started back in the day as a delivery driver with PODS and then working his way up to manager then operations manager and is now the general manager of PODS Hawaii. Let’s welcome our guest today, Michael Killilea.
Michael: How are you doing, guys?
Attilio: Yeah, say your last name for us one more time.
Adrienne: Welcome back!
Michael: It’s Killilea.
Adrienne: Killilea. Oh.
Attilio: Killilea. Killilea, that’s like I don’t want to give you this lei, so I’m going to kill it.
Michael: There you go.
Attilio: Killilea. And you know, and I mentioned in the beginning, we’ve got to address it, it sounds Hawaii but uh, what’s the ethnic origin?
Michael: It’s Irish.
Attilio: It’s Irish. Okay. It’s like when people hear my name, Attilio Leonardi, I tell them it’s a good Chinese name. Anyway, so uh, go ahead Adrienne.
Adrienne: Yeah, so how long ago was it that you made your, your, your big journey from the east coast here to Hawaii?
Michael: It was 2007.
Attilio: And what brought, so, is PODS what brought you out?
Michael: PODS brought us out, as soon as they started expanding west of the Mississippi, they were asking people if they would be willing to move and Hawaii came up and I was like alright, I have family in Maui, so I decided to go over.
Attilio: Yeah. And so, that’s pretty cool, and then uh, was there a bunch of people like, vying for the position or they just needed a whole bunch, like a couple of people to come out?
Michael: They needed a coupe people to come out, uh, Hawaii was one of the markets, as well as Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Dallas.
Adrienne: So, when you came out here to Hawaii, what was your, what was your role?
Michael: I was uh, a trainer, I was going to be a trainer, I was only supposed to be here a year, two years, to train and then go back.
Attilio: Now were you married at the time, did you?
Michael: We were not married at the time but my, my girlfriend at the time did move out here with us and we are married at this point.
Attilio: Alright.
Adrienne: With a new baby.
Michael: With a new baby.
Attilio: Alexander. 5 months old, congratulations!
Michael: Thank you!
Attilio: I know, you’re committed now, you’re here man, you had uh, you had a baby uh born in Hawaii.
Michael: Yes, which I think is cool.
Attilio: He’s going to have that on his birth certificate forever and ever and ever. Born in Hawaii. Alright, so, okay, so, PODS, let’s talk about the uh, the, the company itself. It’s kind of a unique thing, right, I don’t, there really isn’t anybody that duplicates or does something similar.
Michael: I don’t know of anyone else that does mobile storage here in Hawaii so we’re kind of, we’ve been the industry leader for a while now, uh, we’re the first ones to come over here in Hawaii in the market to do it, uh, we’re still I believe the only ones to do it, uh, I haven’t seen any other mainland company or anyone here to do it yet.
Attilio: Now when I think of PODS I think of how like Superman came to that little farming town in the middle of nowhere, he landed in the middle of a field and he came out of a pod, so I can’t, I always, when I hear that word POD, I think of like science fiction, you know, like Body Snatchers, you know, they throw you in the pods or like aliens. So, tell us, that’s obviously not the kind of PODS that you guys bring out to, to someone’s house where an alien jumps out of it and then—
Adrienne: It’s an acronym, Attilio.
Attilio: Beats them up.
Adrienne: It’s an acronym.
Attilio: It’s an acronym. So, tell us the acronym again.
Michael: It’s Portable On Demand Storage.
Attilio: Alright, so let’s talk about the features and uh, you know, radio is like uh, television for the mind. We have to describe what exactly is this POD going to look like and what’s bringing it out to their, where they’re, to their home!
Michael: It’s uh, it’s a 16-foot container, it’s a big white box, I’m sure most people here in Hawaii have now seen it in their driveway. Uh, and what brings it out is the POD-zilla.
Attilio: POD-zilla.
Michael: Yeah. It’s a patented lift system that we use to, to deliver the container out to them.
Attilio: Oh, wow, I thought it was like four Samoans.
Adrienne: That might work. In case you run out of POD-zillas or maybe the POD-zilla’s broken.
Attilio: Four Samoans and they get tattoos on their arms that says POD-zilla.
Michael: There you go, I like that option.
Attilio: Yeah, no and then if you go online, I’ve seen like the YouTube videos with somebody’s done like a, you know, like a fast-forward type video of it, I think it’s on your website. It’s pretty cool how it, and, you know, and then, one of the unique things and correct me if I’m wrong, people, you can get it pretty close.
Michael: We can get them pretty close, I mean they go right in the driveway, we can, we’re about a foot to 2 feet off somebody’s carport or driveway, so I mean it gets pretty close so if it’s raining out, I mean, it’s a quick transition from the driveway into the actual container itself.
Attilio: And for anybody that’s moved, if you ever counted how many times, trips you take from the house to, it’s like a million and literally, if for every foot that you get it closer, it’s probably saving a bunch of time and energy.
Michael: It’s saving a lot of time and a lot of energy when we get it that close and I mean, the great thing about PODS is, is that we’re delivering the storage unit to you, so you don’t have to rent the U-Haul or you know, a truck, load everything in, then get to the storage facility, unload it, I mean there’s just, you’re handling your product so many times, there’s so much more chance that it’s going to break or damage. With this, it’s put it in, one time and then take it out, so you’re only handling it twice.
Adrienne: So, could you guys, I mean, if people use you for moving, make homes, like if they wanted to move from one home to another, they just load it all up?
Michael: Yeah, we do uh, we do home, uh, we do homes, uh, you know, house A to house B, we do mainland to Hawaii, Hawaii to mainland moves, we also do inter-island moves, so I mean, people use us for a lot of different.
Attilio: I think the key is, you know, you just imagine the, two brothers going down the H1, they’ve got the mattress on the roof of the car and they’re holding it with their arms.
Michael: Yes.
Adrienne: Don’t do that.
Michael: No.
Adrienne: That’s not safe.
Attilio: So, you either get your two, your two uh, IQ-challenged cousins to help you take your mattress down, all away across the island, it’s going to end up on the freeway anyway, or you just get one POD. You know the other thing I like about the PODS is that it’s ground-level.
Michael: It is ground level. That is key, I mean there’s, you don’t have to go up the ramps, so if it’s raining, especially in certain parts of Hawaii, if it’s raining out, you’re going to slip down the ramps, it’s just, it’s only 4 inches off the ground, I mean, it’s just amazing.
Attilio: Yeah, because I, I can imagine you’re like, I’ve got Grandma’s chest of drawers from 1760 and I’m taking it up the ramp and oops! Fall off the ramp but uh, with your ground level things, it’s, and again, that’s time and energy uh, a lot of people probably now, I think your friends, they’re going to appreciate, they appreciate the pizza and beer but they’re going to appreciate the ground level POD that they get to put everything in.
Michael: Yeah, whatever makes it easier.
Adrienne: So, how many of these POD-zillas do you have?
Michael: Currently on Oahu, we have uh, 6 and then we have 1 in Maui as well.
Attilio: And what your guys’ lead time if you had to order up a POD?
Michael: Uh, right now we’re booking about a week to two weeks out. But we do accommodate based on, you know, availability so I mean, there’s times where we can do, deliver the same day, even the next day.
Attilio: And you know, I’m the, and, those have been, we call it like, if there’s, a bell curve. Most of your customers are within the, the, the arch of the bell curve if you imagine.
Adrienne: And they plan ahead.
Attilio: And they plan ahead because nobody’s like, oh, I think I’m going to move this weekend, on a Friday. I know some people od and you’re getting those calls and those are our procrastinators, but in general, uh, you know, a couple days or a week lead-time, that’s more than enough, especially if people are giving 30-day notice.
Michael: Correct. And I mean, a lot of times I think, when it helps, especially with, for agents uh, is a lot of people have a lot of stuff here in Hawaii and you can’t truly show the house, so the best thing about PODS is, is we can deliver the container out, you can declutter the home, so it shows better, and then when you’re ready to move, we just bring it back out to you, fill the rest of it up and then we move it to your new home.
Attilio: Yes.
Adrienne: That sounds so easy! And not, and not as stressful. As people make it, you know?
Attilio: So, let’s talk about, you know, what’s the cost looking like for, give people an idea of what, what kind of investment they’re going to be making, and we say investment because when you clear your home and declutter it and get it ready for sale, you, there is an ROI, you make more money. Bottom line, we know! For a fact. So, talk about the cost, this investment. With these PODS. What are we looking at?
Michael: So right now, it’s $79 for the delivery, it’s $289 per month for the container, uh, for the first month and then it’s $289 additional every month, and then it’s $79 to bring it, you know, to bring it, once we bring it back from the warehouse, we bring it back out to you so there’ll be another charge of $79. For redelivery.
Adrienne: That’s very reasonable.
Attilio: Let’s do the math, let’s say it goes for two months plus the delivery. What are, where, we’re under $1000. With my rough math.
Michael: It’s about $740.
Attilio: Yeah, $740, $740 and what if I told you folks, listen up, you’re selling your home, literally, so here’s our rule of thumb. Adrienne, do you remember what we tell our clients, what’s the uh, the fractional amount or the percentage that they should remove from every single room in their home?
Adrienne: By one-third.
Attilio: One-third. So just imagine, go off to your home, take one third of whatever the contents are in your room, that really ugly-looking uh, whatever fine collectible that you know, your, your uh, Halloween collection, your, it’s great during Halloween but that’s not, that’s going to detract from people wanting to buy your home, so you reduce, take a third of those items, put it in one of these PODS and literally I would say at minimum, by decluttering your home, you know, even if, let’s say it’s the basic $300,000 townhome or an $800,000 single family home. In uh, on the golf course I would say at minimum decluttering your home gets you $10,000. Adrienne, would you concur?
Adrienne: I would agree.
Attilio: Easily, so, if there was an investment out there and I told you, if you invest $740 and you’re going to get guaranteed $10,000 back, would you do that investment? All day long.
Adrienne: You’ve got to move the stuff out anyways.
Michael: Yeah, you have to move it.
Adrienne: So, might as well.
Michael: Right and start early, I mean why not start early. At your leisure.
Attilio: And it allows you to, what’s the other thing we tell them to do? Declutter?
Adrienne: Depersonalize.
Attilio: Depersonalize so hopefully some of the, you know, take the velvet, the velvet purple painting of Elvis, you’ve got to go put that in the POD. Make more money, depersonalizing and decluttering, and then when you get the stuff out of the way, that allows you to do what?
Adrienne: To clean!
Attilio: To clean!
Adrienne: You’ve got to clean.
Attilio: And you do those three things and you will make a lot more money and even if you don’t make, even if you don’t make more money, you would agree that you’d want to get it done sooner than later, right? Yup! Especially if you’ve got a job relocation, if you’re PCS-ing or you just have to get on with your life to wherever you’re moving to. Okay. Alright, what else about PODS do we want to talk about?
Michael: Uh, well we, we, it was a pretty exciting year for us, we finally finished our new facility up in ___ Tech Park, so that is 100% up and running, operational, we have fully moved up there, 100% which is awesome. Uh, PODS just released a brand-new type of container that we use, so that just came out, we ordered 150 of them so those are on-island, deploying all over the place.
Attilio: What’s unique about those new ones?
Michael: Uh, they’re, the roof, uh, before they were more like a plastic translucent roof, these are almost hard, so, I mean they’re, they’re pretty, they’re a lot more weather-proof compared to the other ones that we have. Easy to stock, they’re just overall the, the structure, the stability of them is just amazing, I mean they’re just, they’re just great containers.
Attilio: So, and I think loading ground level is nice, but unloading ground level is nice when you’re on, on the receiving end too.
Michael: That’s correct.
Attilio: Taking all that stuff out of that container and putting it back in your home. So, I know one of the big benefits too is that you pack it. So, if you want to wrap grandma’s you know, cedar chest that she gave you, you can put that extra care into it, you can also put stuff inside it if you want and wrap it and, so tell us more about the other benefits of using this uh, your guys’ moving system.
Michael: Like I said, it’s time, it’s, you do this at your leisure, it’s not like hurry up, you know, like get it for one day, you, you’ve already paid for the month so if you want to take 30 days to load it, 2 days to load it, it’s at your leisure, so, you know, and it’s there, it’s in your driveway, so you know a lot of times it’s like, oh, you know, we have to rent a truck just on a weekend, hurry up, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. And you don’t take care of your product, I mean that’s what we’re trying to do, eliminate is, being able to take your product from your house and safely put it into the container. That way it makes it from point A to point B.
Adrienne: Now how does it work with like the apartment buildings?
Michael: We actually have, we have a good relationship with the apartment buildings. And the container fits into one parking stall, which is amazing, so as long as the parking stall is not covered, it will fit into one parking stall, so, you know, your neighbor might see it and be like okay, but at least it’s in your stall, so it fits just into a parking stall.
Adrienne: So, if you have a covered parking stall, then, you’ve got to—
Michael: It’s a little bit tougher, yeah.
Adrienne: It’s tougher or maybe you’ve got to switch with somebody. To get an open one.
Michael: Switch with somebody and a lot of the complexes too, they understand, they’re like, okay, people have to move in, they have to move out, here, here’s’ a guest stall, you know, I mean as long as you’re proactive and you let the association know, or the condo complex know, I’m’ planning on moving out, you know, I’m going to get a PODS container, where can I place it and usually they’re pretty accommodating.
Attilio: Have you ever had a POD towed?
All: (laughing)
Michael: Not yet. Uh, not yet. Not here at least, I mean, luckily uh, the best part about Hawaii is uh, street permits are free here. Where I’m from, Boston originally, they were $80 a day, they’re free here! So, you just go—
Attilio: What do you mean, street permit?
Michael: So, what you do is a street usage permit, so you go down the ___ building down at 650 south king street, talk to Irene, she’ll get you the permit, they loo k it up. The cool thing is, they have this like virtual map and they tell you exactly where you can put the container, they have like all the streets measured down, and they’re free, and you get the armpit that day!
Attilio: And then what, so, so this, this keeps you from getting ticketed or something or?
Michael: Well it’s liability too, if somebody hits it or anything like that, I mean, both the company and the customer are going to be liable if anyone hits it on the street but you know, what you do is you get a street permit, it’s just like putting a dumpster, anything else on the side of the road, you put the permit on the outside, you know, when the police pass by, they see it on there, and it, yeah, everyone leaves it alone.
Adrienne: Nice.
Attilio: They might be able to stop by and maybe help load some stuff up, right? HPD, they’re real nice.
All: (laughing)
Attilio: You need help with Grandma’s uh, chest of drawers, well we can help you. Okay. So.
Adrienne: So, Mike, tell us about this whole like Amazon thing that’s happening, it sounds like it’s keeping you guys busy.
Attilio: Yeah, business application.
Michael: So, uh, UPS has the account with Amazon to deliver most of the packages. I know they’ve split it up a little bit but I think the majority of the packages go through, funnel through UPS. So, UPS as well as even the condo associations and everything, they’re just, they’re inundated with packages from Amazon, especially during the Christmas season, so what’s happening now is UPS is uh, they’re strategically deploying containers at apartment complexes so what they do is they back up to the truck, they load all the packages into these PODS containers and then from there they use the drivers’ helpers on either golf carts or bikes to deploy them throughout the complex.
Attilio: So instead of having the truck sitting there, they’re having one of your PODS sitting there and the truck’s way more expensive than a POD.
Michael: Right, exactly, and that’s kind of, I mean that’s kind of why PODS was invented, it’s, you know, be, the traditional movers, the truck would just sit there all day, now you have a truck tied up, you know. With PODS, you drop the container and then the truck can do other jobs for the day.
Attilio: Gotcha. So even Amazon is using PODS.
Michael: Everyone’s using PODS.
Attilio: Well online ordering is certainly taking off, I think it’s like half of all the consumer businesses that are out there, now doing stuff online so, interesting. Alright, and then, is this like patented technology?
Michael: Oh, it’s patented. Absolutely.
Attilio: Who is, who invented or was it the founder of your company?
Michael: It was uh, yeah, I mean the founder, Peter Warhurst, uh, was the original guy that owned the PODS uh and he patented a long time ago, he was, he was actually, he originally owned traditional self-storage companies and he was looking for a way to kind of get more business and, and kind of, you know, do, you know, change the market in terms of mobile storage, so.
Attilio: Now you guys do storage too. Tell us about that.
Michael: We do do storage, so, like I said, any container, you know, if you don’t have, if you’re from an association or apartment complex and you’re in-between homes and you just don’t have anywhere else to place it, we do have a secure storage facility up in ___ that we can place the container in.
Adrienne: And that’s, that $270 per month, fee?
Michael: Yup, that’s correct.
Adrienne: Very nice.
Attilio: Give visually, I, I’m trying to imagine what this container looks like. How do, how do you describe it so people can get what it looks like? Like capacity wise?
Michael: So, the 16-foot container fits about a 2-3-bedroom house and it, it’s a rectangle, it’s 16 feet long, 8 feet high, 8 feet wide, I tell people it’s almost like the size of a large F150, with like the 8-foot bed on it, you know, just imagine like how long that, that’s exactly what the size it’s going to look like.
Attilio: And but, eliminate your two friends holding the mattress to the, to the, onto the roof of the car though.
Michael: Absolutely.
Attilio: Eliminate that visual.
Michael: We have enough traffic in Hawaii.
Adrienne: So, so, so PODS is like, everywhere right? All throughout the U.S., so—
Michael: We are, throughout the U.S. uh, we’re not in North Dakota and Alaska currently but they just opened up Europe uh, we are in Canada, fully operational in Canada as well as Australia.
Attilio: Is it a private, private or public ___?
Michael: It is a private company, we are owned by the Ontario Teachers Association, so we’re owned by teachers.
Adrienne: Wow!
Attilio: Ontario Teachers Association.
Michael: They own everything.
Attilio: So, they were like the investor group that put up the money to?
Michael: They purchased PODS, so Peter Warhurst sold the company, yup, he sold the company and teachers took it over.
Attilio: Cool, so hey folks, if you’re going to order a PDO, you’re helping educate kids! Because you’re funding these teachers. Yeah, helping these teachers with their retirements and, so they can go out there and so, anyway, that’s a good cause.
Adrienne: So, if you’re using the POD to move, as long as you’re moving to a location where—
Michael: We service—
Adrienne: You service us no problem, just don’t move to North Dakota.
Attilio: Or Alaska.
Michael: Or Alaska.
Adrienne: Or Alaska.
Michael: Or Alaska, correct, yeah.
Adrienne: Is there plans to expand into those, those two locations?
Michael: There has been plans, I mean, I believe somebody was looking to buy the Alaska, especially since there’s such a big military presence up there, I think it’s just the weather. You’re probably going to be shut down for a certain portion of the year so it’s going to take, I think you’re going to have to strategically align yourself with probably another delivery company up there or maybe a warehousing company up there to kind of, you know, get those containers out.
Attilio: Gotcha.
Adrienne: That makes sense.
Attilio: Okay, any other questions? Any other questions we should ask you?
Michael: Uh, well I mean like our, we, we also do, I mean, not even just business wise, we do a lot of donations as well and we just actually donated two containers to the ___ Aquarium for the coral reef uh, expansion project. I mean, it’s just kind of being good stewards to the island out here, I mean that’s, I mean it’s really important to us to, we find something that we like or people bring things to us, like hey, you know, if you donate this, this will help, you know, help us out. We look at those opportunities as well.
Adrienne: Yeah, I know that you guys have been really very helpful with Project Hawaii.
Michael: We do Project Hawaii as well, yeah.
Adrienne: And they’re very, they’re very grateful for that extra storage because it helps.
Attilio: If you guys are wondering, Project Hawaii helps support our homeless uh, ___ right here on Oahu and uh, so if you’re driving out to the west side, looking and you see those tents out there in the bushes and you see the kids running around uh, Megan and Cliff been doing this, they’re extremely passionate about it and been out there handing out backpacks in the beginning of the year for school, taking them to, to summer programs in the summer, really trying to break that cycle of uh, homelessness.
Adrienne: So, so PODS is helping them. So, you’re helping the homeless ___.
Michael: We do, and I mean, it’s important.
Attilio: Yeah, alright, so if people, people are hearing it now, if they want to uh, go online or call you guys, what’s some good contact info?
Michael: So, uh, you can contact, well our website is www.pods.com, that’s www.pods.com. You can contact us locally at 808-682-7637, once again that’s 808-682-7637 or you can email us uh, at pods, that p-o-d-s, pods@podshawaii.com.
Attilio: Pods@podshawaii.com.
Adrienne: Nice, well thank you so much for, for joining us today on the show!
Michael: Absolutely, it was great! I love coming back here!
Adrienne: Been a while. Thank you, Mike.
Attilio: Alright, so we’ve got a couple of announcements or things we’d like to mention, which are? I think, you know what? Let’s talk about that Monday thing again.
Adrienne: Yes.
Attilio: Because you know us realtors, we’re all busy, we tune into the show, we tune out, we tune in.
Adrienne: We might be showing homes.
Attilio: Might be showing homes.
Adrienne: Who knows.
Attilio: Might be taking, might be doing some prospecting, taking a hot lead. In-bound phone call. So, uh, the MyGoCenter in Kapolei, just google it, actually, you know, what, go to the website, www.kwhonoluluevents.com. What’s that website again?
Adrienne: Www.kwhonoluluevents.com.
Attilio: Okay, you’re a relator out there, you’ve been a realtor for a long, many years, maybe just a brand-new realtor and you want to know what to do, been a realtor for a long time and you’d like to improve your profitability of your business. Adrienne and I, are personally teaching a class, it’s a 2-hour class, we’re going to cover 10 things that we use in our business every day, day in and day out. The nuts and bolts of what we’re using, no theory here! No University of Phoenix stuff! This is the stuff that we’re using to do what? Give them some, give them an idea! What are we talking about?
Adrienne: We’re going to be talking about expireds.
Attilio: How to, what to say when you call.
Adrienne: What to say, when to call them, uh, how to, how to get the phone numbers.
Attilio: Yeah, talk about seller lead generation, buyer lead generation. Now you get the—
Adrienne: Open houses.
Attilio: You get the leads you need to know what to do with them, so we’re going to talk to you about conversion.
Adrienne: Follow up.
Attilio: How to stay in touch with your database so that you get referrals. We’re going to talk about all the systems and checklists that we use for transaction management. For getting a home ready for marketing. All of that stuff, we’re going to share with you and give it to you so that you can use it immediately.
Adrienne: To make money now.
Attilio: To make money now! In your real estate business. Come on folks! Definition of insanity, dog in the same thing year after year and expecting different results! Stop the insanity! Go to www.kwhonoluluevents.com. RSVP. It will fill up and I guarantee we’re going to be turning people away because we can only seat so many people in that room and so, if you don’t sign up, uh, you snooze, you lose.
Adrienne: And get there early. Don’t show up late, because we will give your seat away.
Attilio: We will give your seat away. So, here’s, there’s only one catch—if you’re going to sign up, you’ve got to show up. and I, here’s our guarantee, if you execute on everything that we teach you in that class, your success will be certain.
Adrienne: That’s right.
Attilio: Guarantee it.
Adrienne: Guaranteed.
Attilio: Okay, what else?
Adrienne: Well we also, we have a Career Night as well coming up November 13th, and that’s really more for you know, if you’re just interested in—
Attilio: Checking it out.
Adrienne: In the real estate industry and the career, maybe just got licensed and you’re not sure where to start, what to do. Uh, you can come out to the Career Night, that’s going to be on November 13th.
Attilio: Where do they go to RSVP for that?
Adrienne: They can go to, I believe it’s www.jointeamlally.com.
Attilio: Click on the Career Night button. Three, three areas of the real estate industry we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about sales, we’re going to talk about administrative roles and we’re going to talk about property management.
Adrienne: And then also there’s other industries that are connected to real estate like loan officers, uh, escrow, that kind of thing too, so if you’re interested in the real estate industry, you want to come check out our Career Night.
Attilio: Now we are always looking for some great team members to join our team, so check out, still go to www.jointeamlally.com, if you think you’re a superstar top-producer, just need to be in a different vehicle, the vehicle you’re in, you’re Mario Andretti but you drive in a 2003 Toyota Corolla with 230,000 miles on it and you just want to get in the Formula 1 race car, we have the Formula 1 race car, okay Mario Andretti?
Adrienne: That’s right.
Attilio: So, check out www.jointeamlally.com, come to one of our Career Nights, if you are a licensed agent ready to go, oh, we’ve got Abby.
Adrienne: But we’re ending the show now. Time to end the show, yup. So, too late.
Attilio: That’s okay, Abby’s got an open house, go to www.teamlallyopenhouse.com and you’ll be able to track her down, where she’s going to be at.
Adrienne: Well thanks for listening and thank you to our sponsors.
Attilio: Jodie Tanga and Derek Tanga of Pacific Rim Mortgage!
Adrienne: Bradley Maruyama of Allstate Insurance!
Attilio: Nathan Baker of Pillar to Post Home Inspections!
Adrienne: Ben and Tony Mamood of AAA Roofers Hawaii!
Attilio: Janyce Myrland with Dream House Drafting!
Adrienne: John Speed of Kilauea Pest Control!
Attilio: Duke Kimhan with Hawaii Pacific Property Management!
Adrienne: Mike Metts of Kama’aina Plumbing!
Attilio: Thomas Pattison with Pattison Land Surveying!
Adrienne: Myron Kamihara of Kamihara Law!
Attilio: And we want to thank Michael, coming into the studio to talk about PODS! If you want to get ahold of any of our sponsors just go to www.teamlally.com.
Adrienne: We also want to give a big thank you to Lea, our producer here in the studio.
Attilio: Chi-hoo!
Adrienne: Make sure to tune in next week, we’ll have an awesome guest talking about something that’ll change your life—
Attilio: Forever! This is the Team Lally real estate show, home of the guaranteed—
Adrienne and Attilio: SOLD PROGRAM!
Adrienne: If we can’t sell your home at the agreed-upon price and your timeframe, we’ll have it bought for cash.
Adrienne and Attilio: THANKS, AND ALOHA!