Mining The Diamonds Under Your Feet: The 8-8-3 Strategy For PM Profits

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As I've gotten to know the property managers, I kept hearing that growth is the perceived answer to everyone's problems.

Over and over again, I hear:

“If I get more doors, I’ll be able to afford X.” X could be:

- a material possession

- an employee to the job they don’t want

- to chase a real passion

But I just don’t buy it.

That’s why, as we were about to cross the Grand Canyon together, I found myself challenging my good buddy, Mark Brower.  Mark had shared with me that he was fixated on growing 100 doors a month, breaking past the 900 door threshold, and becoming the biggest PM in Arizona.  So I asked him why.

Are you trying to win the door count contest, or generate real wealth?

Because to me, real wealth is the ability to choose to work on things that truly bring you joy, instead of things you have to do.  And I was deep into exploring the idea that property managers would be better off building their own portfolio of properties than building a company to manage other people’s portfolios, if what they wanted was time freedom.

Well as they say, “the Grand Canyon changes a man.”  Actually, I have no idea if anyone has ever said that.

But I can tell you that a month later, I found myself with Mark again.

This time in Colorado.

And in classic Mark style, he had done a bunch of introspection and was coming up with a concept that felt really in line with what I was challenging him with.

It’s a better way to build a property management company.  A way that leads to more moments of loving your job while also generating wealth. He gave it the perfect name:

“Mining the diamonds under our feet.”

He told me, “You gotta go deep.”  Mark went so deep in it, in fact, that he put together a whole presentation on it… and it was SO GOOD that Jeremy Pound invited him to speak at his upcoming Strategic PM Summit alongside an incredible list of speakers (check it out).

Mark Brower’s concept of "mining for diamonds" is perfectly aligned with something I’ve long believed-property managers should focus on building their own real estate portfolio (at least) as much as they focus on helping others build theirs.

So before I get into Mark’s full framework, let’s talk about someone who’s built his own diamond mind already- Tracy Streich.

He’s mastered the art of mining for one diamond in particular: off-market deals.

Diamond Drill #1: Turning Frustration into Fortune

My conversation with Tracy Streich crystallized a powerful idea.

He showed me that one of the biggest diamonds in this business is frustration.

The “golden goose” of real estate is off-market deals. And he showed me that as property managers, we have an exclusive source for these deals…not through analysis but by listening to what he calls the…

“…twinge in their voice…”

That ‘twinge’ can be the owner grumbling about a $9,000 HVAC replacement or the sigh on the other end of the phone.

Tracy taught me that this isn’t just a complaint to be managed; it’s a signal that an owner might be ready to sell (signals that can be monetized).

He built a system where his team flags these signals, allowing him to step in not as a salesman, but as a problem-solver.

Tracy’s real estate portfolio serves multiple purposes. It helps him sell his PM services as a fellow investor, bolsters his relationship with his contractor base as their direct client, and adds stability to his business.

It will also pay for his retirement when he decides to hang it up. He’s not just building a business and hoping for an exit - he’s already set for life…because he mined what was right in front of him.

Tracy had found his own better way to play this game and it’s not too different from what Mark Brower is proposing: a different path to the same destination: more wealth, more freedom, and a business you actually want to run.

Diamond Drill #2: Lifetime Value Over New Client Volume

Mark Brower’s "different path" is a direct challenge to the entire industry's obsession with growth.

This is his central thesis: the ultimate goal isn't growth…the endgame is going deep in the relationship. It is Lifetime Value (LTV).

He argues that the entire property management industry is stuck chasing the wrong metric: doors per month. This forces companies onto a treadmill of frantic acquisition and high churn.

Mark’s model flips that on its head:

 "8 new clients per month that stay 8 years each, and transact 3 times leads to a $2.5M profit engine.”

Mark calls it the 8-8-3 framework: 8 new ideal clients a month, keep them for 8 years, and help each transact 3 times. That adds up to a $2.5M+ profit engine — not from chasing doors, but from going deeper with the right clients and keeping them for the long haul.

Mark Brower’s 3-Layer Mining Strategy

Mark’s mining process has three layers of opportunity, moving from quick wins to the most strategic plays.

Surface Mining: quick wins you can pull out of the ground today.  Get clear on your ideal client profile, remove the ones who drain your team, hire an operational right-hand so you are not the bottleneck, raise prices to match the value you deliver, tighten your sales script, and make sure every call gets answered live.

Core Veins: the systems that turn your company into a true business machine. Empower a dedicated BDM, capture content that builds your community, install training, scripts, and scoreboards, design a client education journey that shifts landlords into long-term wealth builders, and level up property management skills in high-impact areas like crucial conversations.

Deep Diamond Zone: the heart of Mark’s 8-8-3 engine and the most valuable layer of the mine. Rockstar onboarding makes you impossible to leave, you adopt an asset-management mindset by tracking the age of every major component, you reposition capital with strategies like 1031 exchanges, and you create owned media and investor communities that keep your pipeline full for years.

The first step toward all of it is knowing exactly who your best client is. That is the map to your mine, and the next step is identifying your richest veins: the superconsumers who drive the majority of your profit

Diamond Drill #3: Superconsumer Data

The first step in Mark’s mining process is getting radically clear on your Ideal Client Profile. But that is not where it ends. Once you know exactly who your best clients are, you can serve them like no one else can.

That is the essence of a superconsumer. They are not just “good customers.” They are the small group who love what you do, buy more than anyone else, stay the longest, and will pay for a deeper, better version of your service.

In his book Superconsumers, growth strategist Eddie Yoon found that in the average business, 20% of clients can drive up to 70% of the profits. Imagine deliberately building your business around them.

This is the third diamond in Mark’s mine. It hides deeper than the others because superconsumers are often disguised as ordinary clients until you notice the patterns.

Michael Lee sees those patterns as pure gold:

“I know your credit score. I know how much you make. I know when your lease expires. I know how many kids you have.”

To most PMs, that is just “operations.” To Michael, it is a map to hidden opportunities:

• The tenant whose rent history and income make them a perfect buyer in six months
  
• The owner whose repair history signals they are ready to sell before they say a word
  
• The investor in your network who would happily fund another client’s acquisition
  

When you see these patterns early, you can move first to create partnerships, bundle services, and connect the right people at the right time.

The challenge is that these diamonds are invisible to the naked eye. You cannot rely on memory or gut instinct to spot every subtle signal across hundreds of clients.

Which is why the next evolution in mining your superconsumers is putting AI to work as a 24/7 prospector.

The Diamond Mine That Runs 24/7

Once you know who your superconsumers are, the real challenge is spotting the signals that tell you what they need next, and doing it at the exact right moment. These are the glints of gold most property managers miss because they are buried in hundreds of conversations, work orders, and data points.

This is where AI becomes the master prospector. It works the mine around the clock, never misses a sparkle, and hands you the most valuable opportunities without you having to dig for them.

Its first gift is sight. AI can track signals no human could possibly see at scale:

• A tenant’s lease date, credit profile, and payment history lining up into a perfect first-time homebuyer opportunity
  
• An owner’s repair history quietly signaling they are ready to sell
  
• A water heater replaced six months ago showing up in a new work order, triggering a vendor recall and saving your client hundreds
  

Humans cannot hold all of that context in their heads. AI can. It remembers everything, connects the dots instantly, and delivers insights the moment they are actionable.

Its second gift is capacity. By catching and triaging operational work, AI frees you to focus on high-leverage moves. That means designing creative partnerships, bundling services, brokering off-market deals, introducing investors to opportunities, and showing up for your best clients in ways no competitor could match.

That is the compounding effect. AI does not just make your business smoother, AI does not just make your business smoother. It multiplies your ability to mine more diamonds from the same ground.

When the mine runs 24/7 without you grinding yourself into it, you get to focus on the part of the job that brings you the most joy. The relationships. The strategy. The moments when a client says, “I could not have done this without you.”

That is the deepest diamond of them all. The joy of work. And AI’s role is to protect it.

—

Pablo Gonzalez,

Chief Evangelist at Vendoroo

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