EW 062 – How To Build A Strong Leadership Team with Open Communication, Trust and Hard Work – Winning with CFO Milka Vujanic and CEO Geoff Spero from Servis Realty

Gordon Sheppard (00:01.014)
Milka and Geoff, welcome to the show.

Milka Vujanic (00:04.447)
Thank you so much. Thanks for having us, Gord.

Geoff Spero (00:05.737)
Thank you.

Gordon Sheppard (00:06.892)
Well, so good to have you here. It's one thing for me to be out in the world, you know, meeting regular folks. And then I run into people like you who are doing things that are not just work things and building a great company, but also doing things in the community, doing things with your families, so many different things to talk about. And it's just sort of going to be so great to hear about your win here on the show. But there's a lot of people that haven't met you. So Milka, if you had to introduce yourself first, what would you say?

Milka Vujanic (00:32.486)
I'm Milca Mojatic. I am CFO and a managing partner of Servis Reality. I've been doing this for about nine years.

Gordon Sheppard (00:43.246)
Unfair for a second, you gotta give us a little bit of feel for how motivated you are. Now you're not your regular sort of CFO. Like tell me a little bit about some Milka secret sauce in there.

Milka Vujanic (00:54.773)
Professionally? Yeah, so I have, well I'm a designated accountant. I have been doing that for just over 20 years. I have worked in oil and gas service industry and yeah, like I said, I've been doing this for nine years.

Gordon Sheppard (01:14.21)
And give us a sense of your board work as well. Just a couple, name a few just so that we get a feel for that pedigree too.

Milka Vujanic (01:20.209)
Yes, so I have been on the board with Junior Achievement since 2019. I am the incoming chair next year, so I'm really excited about that. I'm also the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee there, and just recently I joined Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, which I'm also a board member and the Secretary-Treasurer and Chair of Audit and Finance Committee there too.

Gordon Sheppard (01:42.592)
And we, if we had to describe sort of some of the physical feats that you've done and so you're training, people are gonna have to take you aside and find out what that is. But we have a highly motivated person. I'm not sure if you've slept in the last 20 years, but there's something about what you're doing that's getting a lot of good results. Geoff, if people had to meet you, what would you say?

Geoff Spero (01:43.912)
Thank you.

Milka Vujanic (01:53.641)
Ha ha ha.

Geoff Spero (02:01.15)
About Milka or about me? Because Milka's crazy. She's crazy. About me, well, I've been with service for, I don't even know now, 14 years, I think? I don't know. I'm a bit of a mutt. was an IT guy way back in the old days and then I was slinging houses for a while and now I'm here doing this, working with Milka. So it's been a...

Gordon Sheppard (02:03.17)
About, yeah, I guess about you. There you go.

Milka Vujanic (02:04.923)
You

Geoff Spero (02:28.586)
It's been a nice little adventure for us.

Gordon Sheppard (02:30.87)
and tell me about your title and tell me about service.

Geoff Spero (02:33.968)
title I'm the CEO and I'm the real estate broker on the property management side and the real estate broker on the condo side. I am the son of one of the founding partners of Servis Realty. And we've been around for 26 going on 27 years. So we've been around. Yep, second generation and

Gordon Sheppard (02:56.632)
Second generation, 26, 27 years, I mean that's pretty remarkable. That's not an easy feat in family businesses, but here you are and you've got Milka, your CFO, and the two of you are on here to talk about it. And service, give me a feel for the scope and scale. If you had to describe service, Milka, and you were talking out in the world, how would you describe service and the services that this company delivers?

Milka Vujanic (03:18.613)
I would say we are a...

like as Geoff mentioned, it was started by his dad and him and I took it and tried to take it to the next level. So we've been working really hard in the last nine years. I would say we provide exceptional service. We really love and care about our employees as well as our clients. We are highly motivated, hardworking and I would say perfectionist too, aren't we Geoff? I know it sounds cheesy, but actually we are.

Geoff Spero (03:49.195)
Yeah, we tried to be. We tried to be as much as...

Gordon Sheppard (03:52.11)
And this is in a full spectrum of real team management. Like this is with the expertise that you have. And in fact, there's been a multiplier effect since you all kind of came together. That's really cool. So, and there's something about the two of you interacting. Milka, when did you get started in the business and what kind of impact do you think you had when you got started and since you've been here?

Milka Vujanic (03:52.567)
Thank

Milka Vujanic (03:57.556)
Yes.

Milka Vujanic (04:15.067)
So I started in 2016 working. just got hired by Geoff's dad and I kind of started on board. The books were a bit of a mess and they needed someone to clean it up. So I started and it was just me and another lady. Just started working really hard, cleaned everything up. We clients were really happy with what I was doing and

Then Geoff's dad approached me about a year and a half later and said, hey, would you like to be a partner of this company with my son? So that's kind of how that came about. I just worked really hard, proved myself, and clients loved what I was doing, I suppose, and the rest is history.

Gordon Sheppard (04:59.853)
Well, it's funny because with your skill set you could work many places. Why choose here to invest your energy?

Milka Vujanic (05:03.967)
Yes.

I think the biggest reason was Geoff's dad. I guess he's got two sons and I was a daughter that he never had and there was just something about a relationship that him and I developed and he did tell me the job interview if you take this job I'll take care of you and he really did. So I just kind of am one of those people I am loyal, very very loyal if you do something good for me I will be by your side forever. So I kind of

just went with it and then Geoff and I took over and then Geoff and I get along really well. We figured our little dynamic obviously was really tough at the beginning. We were butting heads, you know, a lot of kind of agreements, disagreements. And now we kind of found the flow and things are working really well for us. And he's not only my business partner, he's my brother, he's my best friend. We're together all the time every day and we make

very sound decisions. He's my biggest supporter. mean, every time we're at an event, you've probably heard him. He just talks about me and I'm kind of feel really bad, but he really makes me shine. He lets me do my thing and I do it well. He trusts me and we work really well together and I'm really, really happy and proud of partnership that we have developed.

Gordon Sheppard (06:28.813)
Well, and how lucky to be in there, because this is a complicated thing to get it from one generation to the next. Geoff, you can attest to that because there's sort of pre-Milka days and then there's when she came in. So give me a flavor about, I asked her about when she arrived and you're there and what was it like for you when she arrived?

Geoff Spero (06:38.147)
Okay.

Geoff Spero (06:44.361)
I think we talked about this before. The best hiring decision that we've ever made in the history of service reality was the decision to hire Milka on. I think that what she's brought to the table is what allowed service to go from where we were. And, you know, we weren't in a bad place.

but we were a smaller shop. had a very specific clientele and that was kind of where we were at. And that's allowed us to now grow this, to take on things and clients that we may not have looked at five or six years ago if we hadn't done that. So it's been a great addition. And like she said, definitely had some, we had some fireworks early in the relationship as it is. And that's not because one of us was not

Milka Vujanic (07:32.594)
Yeah.

Geoff Spero (07:39.486)
you know, pulling our weight or doing the right thing. It's that you have two people that are very passionate about our side of the house, let's call it, right? We have accounting side of the house and we have the building side of the house. And we're both passionate about our respective, you know, areas of influence. And it just took us a while to hammer it out. And it's funny, we'd have these discussions and we'd be in either her office or my office and

voices will get raised as we're passionate about what we're trying to sell the other person on or whatever it is. And then one of us would walk out and we just turn back and go, hey, we do want to, we're just going to go for lunch. Like in an hour. And we're like, yeah, let's do lunch. like, it's not like it was nobody walked away going, my feelings are hurt or, you know, she's mad at me or whatever it was. It was just a thing that had to get addressed and hammered out in a way. And now we have them far less.

They still come up occasionally because we still are both passionate. And how things you do it from the property management side versus the proper true accounting side don't always line up the way the textbooks show you.

Gordon Sheppard (08:52.621)
But thank you for going through the nine years. mean, it's so funny to hear father, son, new daughter, new brother, new work partner. I mean, this is a complicated relationship that's turned out for the better. Because the chance to have a mature working co-leadership scenario is quite remarkable. And again, interesting to hear about the multiplier effect of getting those right people in place to make the business thrive from a business that was doing OK. And then.

actually doing exceptionally well now with sounds like even more runway if you're in that kind of growth opportunity as you're kind of going forward. Well, we've got a good sense of who you are, which is great. And it makes me lead to the first question that I was asking these interviews, which is if you had to describe your biggest win, what would that win be? And how would you describe it? Milka, don't you start us off?

Milka Vujanic (09:40.243)
I think our biggest win would be obviously the way we have managed to get along and

grow this company together. That's probably the biggest win. The second biggest win, I would say for him and I is the team that we've built. Because without the team that we have, we wouldn't be where we are. We're very loyal to our employees. We care about them and they show up for us. So I would say those two things were equally important to us. We worked together and we have established something really great. And the rest, now when the issues arise, it's really easy.

to fix them because we have such a great team and employees that really believe in us. I mean, I know this is going to sound cheesy, but when I come into the office in the morning, everyone is looking at me like I've got a million dollars to bring, but I just bring energy and good morning and you know, I'm always chipper and I crack jokes and they just...

I mean you can come here at 7 p.m. on a Friday and you'll find someone working. It's incredible and I'm so proud of that. I honestly am very proud of that. Not to say that I want them to work over time but the fact that I don't have to ask and that they show up for us is honestly it's like when you raise kids and they turn out amazing you know it's equally rewarding.

Gordon Sheppard (11:04.62)
So we've got a real story of leadership here, co-leadership in a sense, and working that out as a big part of the win, and then this chance to then bring on and build a great team. And the leaders had to kind of work things out first, and then that team would be part of that sort of development along the way. So we know what the win is. Anytime I hear about a win, I always like to jump into what I call the anatomy of a win. So we want to explore the strategy, the work plan, the people, the operations and results behind the win.

So I'm gonna jump in with you, Geoff, and say, strategic highlights, strategy, typical things are vision, mission, values, goals, this kind of thing. Strategically, I'm just gonna pick it up where Milka got hired. Were you looking to hire somebody and grow things? What was sort of the strategy behind that moment in time?

Geoff Spero (11:51.265)
the history of accounting at service. So prior to when I first started at service, we had a third, we had a partner that was part of the company that had an office in Toronto and they provided all the accounting for us. That accountant wanted to retire and that was kind of our motivator to say, hey, maybe we should just have accounting in our own shop and we'll just take care of it that way. So we did that and that was great. We brought in someone

to be an accountant who was not the best accountant. And her and I, we were like fireworks daily. And it was not good. And then we started to find errors and we've got some of our clients that are professionals by trade and some of them are accountants by trade who are not practicing accountants, but they are accountants and they would find these errors and then we'd have to fix errors. And it was a giant...

pain. And so we let that accountant go, hired a new accountant. And on the day she was supposed to start, she called and said that she didn't want to leave the nonprofit she worked for to come to the private sector, which I get it. It's, you know, it's the devil, know, versus the devil you don't. And she was doing good work within the in that nonprofit sector. So, you know, no hard feelings. And so that's

She put us on to milk and said, you got to talk to this young lady. She's looking to make a change. And so that was sort of the, that's the lead up to Milka. I didn't get to meet her until she was already hired. My dad is kind of like that. He was always kind of on his own track. so I met her and then, yeah. And then we had to sort of figure out our footing and, and it took a bit, but we, we have a much.

Gordon Sheppard (13:46.445)
And we're sort of here now. What I mean is just jump in there and say, strategically, your accounting was not going well. So the strategy was, we need some good accounting. We're going to figure it out. We've gone through two people. We're going to try a third. You didn't know if Milka was going to work out in those early days. You had to get on board and get those things starting to work together. I'm going to ask, Geoff, are there some common values that carry on from your dad? Or did you have to reinvent?

Geoff Spero (13:53.127)
No, we need a good accounting.

Gordon Sheppard (14:13.152)
the values in your company? what was, if we had to comment on sort of the overall tone that you were setting around that time.

Geoff Spero (14:15.561)
Mm.

Geoff Spero (14:20.409)
no, we're trying to wherever we can honor sort of my dad's fundamentals, right? My dad was, you know, he was a low tech handshake kind of guy. So we've had to get rid of some of that because contracts are important that have signatures and not just handshakes and the amount of work that we're doing now from an accounting and a PM side.

We need technology. can't just rely on Excel spreadsheets and things like that. So we've gone away from some of his low tech handshake things, but our intent with the company is to still, we care about all of our owners. We know who they are. We know their families. We know their kids. We know what their designs are for their properties, whether it's just a pure asset hold. Is this a dynasty that they're trying to build for their kids and their kids' kids?

So we know all those aspects and that's how we manage it. still, while we have technology, we still believe in face-to-face. Like when we meet owners, we generally meet in person. We don't hide behind phone calls and emails and teams, although teams and those types of apps are great, nothing replaces sitting down face-to-face with an owner or a client or a tenant or an anybody, right?

Gordon Sheppard (15:41.069)
Yeah, that makes total sense. it's interesting. I'm hearing that your dad set up the business and got it up and running and did a good job and came at an era when handshakes were enough. And then, you we're in that evolution of how things kind of go. He makes this hire, we get, you know, milk it into the situation. And then we start to sort of get into what's happening, but we know why. The strategy was we've got to get this accounting thing figured out.

But there's so much more that's occurred, I think, since there, when we look at that sort strategic highlights along the way. Anytime we have a strategy, we always need a work plan. So there's kind of day one of like, let's make this accounting better. We've gone through two people. You know, it's been nine years, and we've gotten to where we've gotten to. Milka, how would you describe the highlights? Was it easy sailing when you got in there, if we had to get the timeline out and mark all the major moments along the way? Or how would you describe big moments on the timeline to get this sort of thing to pull off?

Milka Vujanic (16:35.733)
No, I'm just thinking I came from like a really big company. had, I think staff of 35 and then I just showed up and I was like, oh, back to trenches. I had, I'm like, oh, I have a check printer. I'm beyond that. So anyways, I really started literally back coding invoices from things I was doing when I was in junior roles. And I just got into it.

I just started looking at papers, reconciling everything, figuring everything out. You have to remember I had no one to train me and I had no commercial property management experience. I just knew accounting and accounting principles and rules. I just sat there day after day, day after day. And the lady that I did have, she wasn't allowed to do anything but just kind of open mail with the previous boss. So I was thinking to myself,

Geoff Spero (17:23.772)
Thank

Milka Vujanic (17:32.981)
wow, you don't know how to do anything? She's like, no, the only thing I was allowed was to actually write a GL code and an invoice. So I thought that was interesting. So basically I just learned everything and did everything myself and then figured out what the processes are going to be. Then I taught one employee I had how to do some of the things. And as we grew, I kind of pushed more and more work towards her.

I would, till this day I have this rule where when we get something and something is new, I will do it myself once, teach myself, know how to do it. So I understand when I'm asking something from an employee what to do, and I also understand what it takes to do it and how long it takes, then we can get out kind of when the hiring needs to happen, if it's kind of like a training issue or we need more people. So.

I understand I can do everybody's job here when they're on vacation. I know our software really well, so does Geoff. Actually, both of us know ERP systems really well. And then we just kind of grew from there. So now the challenge is we've grown so much in the last year. I'm trying to make sure that we stay with the clients, get the quality of service that they are used to. Emails are answered within 24 hours. Everything is always clean. So yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (18:55.743)
We can really hear the hands-on element there. So it's early days and you're sitting there in a big pile of something and you got to figure it out. And how long did figuring out take? Figuring out take two years, a year and a half, a month? Like how long did figuring it out take?

Milka Vujanic (18:59.219)
Yes.

Milka Vujanic (19:03.508)
Yes.

Milka Vujanic (19:08.885)
I know I'm gonna sound like I'm like too good to be true, but actually around six to seven months I had it all handled and from there it was just a matter of just Geoff and I sitting there as he mentioned we didn't have proper technology in place and trying to figure out how to kind of keep up with times and making sure we don't fall back from our competition. But yeah, that's what it took. But I literally learned everything.

Gordon Sheppard (19:32.105)
Yeah, and it's early days and Geoff, you're looking in on her office and she's doing her work. You've seen other people in managing the accounting before. What was different about what was happening? Do think what you were observing in those early days?

Geoff Spero (19:39.368)
Mm-hmm.

What was different was the attitude, right? When a client would call to challenge Milka on a balance sheet or the statement of recoveries that we had done up for the property or whatever it was, Milka didn't take it defensively. She was just like, yeah, let me just walk you through it, tell you how we got to it. And if you see if I made a mistake or I missed something, just let me know what it is. And she was able to be very collaborative with our ownership groups.

knowing that they had been abused by the former accountant who took everything very defensively and was reactive and yeah, just very hard on our ownership groups. knowing that they needed a little bit more white glove, a little softer touch helped her to make inroads with our ownership groups. So then they would look at her and go, okay, I've asked the question, share the answers. Now I don't have to ask again, because I know

she's got it and then I get the feedback from the owners on the other side going, hey, we're getting what we need. We're good. we're gonna, like our concerns have been.

Gordon Sheppard (20:49.703)
That's a big shift for your company in terms of being able to sort of get there, right? That's really, so we got sort of, again, we're hearing a lot about Milka there and then you guys mentioned you had to work some things out in early days and you smiled earlier on. I just have to sort of dig in and say in that first year, in some of those closed door or open door or whatever those conversations were, Geoff, any memorable ones that you're allowed to share publicly?

Geoff Spero (20:52.924)
I'm Seth.

Milka Vujanic (21:07.899)
Okay.

Geoff Spero (21:13.032)
There's nothing that stands out. There's not one that was an argument that was always ongoing. We were still trying to figure out who we are, right? My dad, like the one I learned from my dad, to put some color on my dad, my dad was, everybody knew my dad, he was a good dude, but he was known for being a little bit of a hard ass.

And so when, when we made the offer to milk, I took milk out for lunch and I just said, Hey, just so you know, this offer has two sides to it. Right. The first side, a side is we love what you're doing. You're doing a fantastic job. We want you to be part of the company. The B side is my dad's like a mafia dawn and he wants to nail your feet to the floor. So you can't leave us. So you buy in, we kind of own you, right. It's, know, so that's kind of how my dad operates. And so that's how we're stubborn.

And Milca comes from an accounting background where it's very black and white. And so she has to be stubborn. And so we had some issues around, you know, the gray areas of accounting where it's like.

Gordon Sheppard (22:21.565)
And what's that like for you in your internal voice? mean, you're supposed to be running the show and you've got this person on as black and white. Were there moments when, like what was going on internally for you? Because you've had to grow as a leader through this time yourself, right?

Geoff Spero (22:35.847)
Yeah, I believe that as a leader, I don't have to be the expert on every subject that I'm leading on. We have, like, there's always somebody that knows more than I will ever know on a topic, whatever it is. So I know enough accounting to be dangerous and I can balance, I can do things and help out. But when it comes down to the, when it comes down to black and white, this is how we have to do it, or this is what the law states, then I have to always defer to what Milca tells me we have to do despite my, you know.

Gordon Sheppard (23:07.115)
Well, it's funny, you're saying it with the earned humility that comes along with growing together, right? Like this is a really interesting partnership because you've talked so glowingly about that as it's gone along. So we hear early days, figure things out, and then we would talk about if we really got the full timeline out, we would hear the growth or growth moments that create their own types of pressures. would you say you've doubled business since in nine years? Is it double, 50 %? Like what's the percentage, Milka, that you would say since you arrived that's increased?

Milka Vujanic (23:36.007)
I would definitely say doubled. Yes, it doubled. In the last year...

Gordon Sheppard (23:38.006)
So you've the company in this nine years. That's not easy to do. And you said we had to put in systems first, and then we had to do this, and we had to do that. At those inflection points when revenue is coming in, that can create its own sort of tension. Well, what are we going to do? We could do this, or we could do that. Any sort of comments later down the road on some of those other bigger moments when things are starting to increase? Milka, that you sort of can give a highlight along that timeline?

Milka Vujanic (23:42.74)
Yeah.

Milka Vujanic (24:04.757)
Yes, so we did have a bit of a setback during COVID. So we lost one big account and that was not due to, you know, portfolio performing. Partly the client just decided that they were going to take it in-house just to keep, you know, give their employees opportunity to work on things. So that kind of became a bit of a challenge. then so, but we managed to kind of come back even.

better and greater after that we learned some lessons. think the biggest challenge has been, well, in the process of growth has been just you making money, but you also now need to reinvest in technology, resources, people, just to put back. So it's kind of a never-ending circle. I'm pretty sure all the entrepreneurs are facing the same issues all the time and yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (24:56.095)
Well, and I'll just jump in to say on the consulting side in my world is you're coming in and you're like, well, we need, you know, 50 grand or hundred grand for marketing. And then we need, IT wants a check. And Geoff, you've heard those asks before. What are those asks like when it comes in? you're not, are you budgeted for it? Are they new or what was going on?

Geoff Spero (24:57.35)
Thank

Milka Vujanic (25:03.423)
Yes.

Absolutely.

Geoff Spero (25:12.105)
You know what? We try, obviously. We try to budget for it, but...

As the demand changes, right, like we're looking at it now, we've got this giant ERP software. I'll plug them with my mug. We've Yardi is our big software provider for our ERP. As we've been working through with that software package, we've been throwing bodies at problems. Cause that's an easy, it's an easy thing. And now we're at the point now we've got, we think we have enough bodies.

So now we're trying to put the money instead of its salaries into technology because the technology knock on wood, according to the sales rep from the software company, the technology will do greater things than just throwing bodies at problems, right? software is never cheap. And we budget for it and then we make a decision going, well, we should do this. And we're like, well, that didn't make the budget, but it's still gonna happen. So it's been...

Gordon Sheppard (26:15.103)
Yeah, these are tough moments. Scott Castles was on the show. He runs General Body and Equipment. They got about 100 employees. They had manufacturing operations in four different locations. He gets there, and within seven years, they consolidate into one big, like, almost 100,000 square feet to do it. But boy, go talk to the ownership group about what that's going to look like. Line up your leases and get things done. So when we get big things done, that's another moment when we have sort of this interactive leadership.

Milka Vujanic (26:33.62)
Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (26:39.445)
where we've got to have some pretty healthy discussions. And it sounds like you laid in the foundation together in a sense to be able to have those good discussions and then make these investments that allow for growth as you're kind of going forward without super certainty necessarily, but you know you're headed in the right direction. Well, strategy, we had to get this thing figured out. Work plan, let's get somebody good in play and let things go. And then we're going to actually, it's good enough that we're going to be mafia about it. We're going to chain them to the floor, but we're also going to...

work it out with each other as we kind of go forward to build out this team, which then allows us to build out this other great team that you've got, great strategy, plan. People are always important in any win. We heard a little bit about your dad getting things up and running for the chunk of time that he did. Then we hear this transition piece into your world, Geoff, and then we bring on somebody like Milka, who's a key player to the partner level. And in fact, to be able to get this to kind of go forward. And we've heard a lot about the attitudes that you both had along the way.

Who are some of the other key people, Milka, that you would say influenced this win outside of you two folks that are important to mention and what were their attitudes in helping this win to occur?

Milka Vujanic (27:43.145)
side of the organization? Yes.

Geoff Spero (27:44.168)
Okay.

Gordon Sheppard (27:44.299)
Outside of you too, outside of you too, it could be people in your group, it could be clients, like who are some key players that help you to make these things happen?

Milka Vujanic (27:53.237)
I'm just trying to think. I'm like, Geoff, you want to step in first? I'm trying to think who would.

Geoff Spero (27:55.698)
you

Geoff Spero (28:01.292)
Sure. Like we can talk about a little bit. One of the things that we made a change of right as COVID hit us, we were losing that other client. We hired a business development manager because we've lost a client. It was a major client. We lost his client. We need to replace the revenue, we need to replace the buildings. We brought in this individual, his name is Vernon. We brought in Vernon to take over and so he's been

a real good addition to the team from the fact that he understands business and he's got some software skills and he can do all that online. He understands the SEOs and all those, you know, it's all French to me things, but he's also been, for Milka and I, he's been a great sounding board, being that he's been in a number of different high level roles in various organizations. So he comes in as sort of the

the third in our decision-making process when it comes to a lot of things. So we're looking at technology, he gets very involved because he's got a technology background. We're talking about revising some of our policies and how we do some of our approaches, because he's been in customer service type industries before, he's been very helpful in helping to define those kinds of things. And he's also just a foil for the two of us to bounce things off of.

Gordon Sheppard (29:28.702)
Yeah, that's great. it's yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Milka.

Geoff Spero (29:29.166)
Because it ends the echo chamber.

Milka Vujanic (29:29.365)
And sorry, and I'm going to add for me, I wanted him because I knew he was going to talk about Vernon first. I would like to say there's a couple of key clients. Not sure if they would be okay sharing names. I guess I won't. They have been key players because I have developed such a great relationship with them that they are my biggest cheerleaders, just like Geoff is. When I'm out and about in business events, they're like just nothing but great things and

They have been praising us and recommending us to everybody. they've actually, most of our clients have helped us grow as well. Just,

Gordon Sheppard (30:08.372)
Well, that's interesting. I'm hearing continuity from the handshakes. Do you know what I mean? There's something in there that's there and it doesn't, I know that you're proud of the two of you and the team, but now we're starting to hear about the team, starting to hear about the clients. And isn't this sort of the suit mix for growth? you know, it can be one and then it can be two and then it can be three. And then, you know, if we cracked out your revenues on the board, we would see that the need is, and there's going to be somebody new coming into your world that you have to onboard if you grow anymore. And you know, that's going to come up too. And I'm sure you're headed in that direction, but interesting about then,

Milka Vujanic (30:11.092)
Yeah, yes.

Milka Vujanic (30:21.674)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (30:37.034)
retaining these core values, this core culture that you've built together that then get to this success level. Well, that's really super. So we got strategy, work plan, there's people involved. Operationally, you've already talked about some of the improvements you're making. You've invested in technology. You're telling one of those Alberta stories. Handshakes for, you know, if you're born in the 60s, you're doing work through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, handshakes did fine, except you pass the year 2000, you better do something about it, and then AI becomes a factor, and then there'll be something else.

that you've got to invest in as we kind of go forward. So we hear that investment in sort of technology, any other operational components, was there processes and procedures, policy following, regulations, anything that's sort of a highlight, that you would point out to say, yeah, operationally, this was a big contributing factor to this win.

Milka Vujanic (31:22.053)
Yes, we definitely when we were starting I was dissecting every process and then streamlining it very tightly so that it has to be followed. So whoever was not following that I would go back to that individual and say this is the process you have to follow the process. It's not broken it works really well clients like it please stick to it. So we developed these processes in place. Geoff and I ourselves

Geoff Spero (31:45.928)
.

Milka Vujanic (31:50.677)
accounting and property management side for him, accounting for me. And it just worked really well. The clients were really responsive to that. this is amazing. you know, and the biggest challenge now is because the certain processes, I'm sure you're aware of this too, work just until you grow and then you start growing and you start thinking, well, wait a minute, this is not working and it's keeping me now up at night because we've grown so much. It's now time consuming.

But before it was excellent because it worked. You triple checked everything. The clients are getting amazing books. It's so clean from the auditors. I get one journal entry and it's amazing, right? So now we're at the point where we have to regroup, rethink and kind of figure out what our next steps are. But every single process here has been streamlined so that it does not fail unless you, it will fail only if you don't follow it.

Gordon Sheppard (32:48.618)
Congratulations, that takes forever getting those processes down. I was interviewing Doug Griffiths, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, and he's turned that place around in a couple of years, and he said that very thing of like, it's not his cup of tea necessarily, but they dug in and they're doing the process work. Geoff, are you a process guy? Do you enjoy it or are you glad that Milka's here?

Milka Vujanic (32:51.006)
Yes it does.

Geoff Spero (33:00.52)
Thanks.

Geoff Spero (33:07.315)
No, I'm like as an ex from the IT world, everything's process driven. So for me, it's always been about like, I like checklists and I like flow charts and I like Visio diagrams so that people can just look at the thing visually and go, yup, I know what I have to do. And it keeps it simple. The one thing that when we talked about our people earlier, the one thing that the one piece of feedback we've gotten from our teams

Gordon Sheppard (33:12.638)
Okay, great.

Geoff Spero (33:34.631)
thus far is that they're all concerned that we're gonna replace them with AI. do I have, like, you're gonna, we're gonna, our new version of software comes with some AI. We have Verna looking at some AI stuff and our staff, the one consistent across all departments, all levels is, will this replace what I do? Right? And so a lot of the work we've been doing is it's like, we're not trying to replace you. We're just trying to make life easier.

Gordon Sheppard (34:02.184)
isn't that interesting? And that's that big boogeyman that most companies are facing now. And you've got people, you know, they want to have their life and their job and they'd like to know that it's going to be there, of course. And so not only are you having to install the, you know, to be competitive, you have to install the IT aspects and upgrades that are needed. But you've also then got to manage expectations along with being realistic about what that is. And funny enough, there will be evolution in your business for sure. And that high touch, high client care aspect.

Geoff Spero (34:11.144)
Thanks.

Gordon Sheppard (34:31.578)
is a real differentiator, I would think, for any company that goes too far into automation. They might lose that touch that you've had there for so long in terms of what you're doing. Interesting. Strategy, work plan, people, operations. Finally, there's results. Quantitative results and qualitative results. Quantitatively, Milka, I think I'm talking to the right person. I don't need to crack open your books. You hear me saying percentage of or this kind of thing, but there's sort of a, how would you describe your key metrics that you like to share out in the world about how you folks are performing this nine years later?

Milka Vujanic (34:50.281)
Yeah.

Milka Vujanic (35:01.749)
Well, we have, we just finished our 2025 with like year record. It was our year record year in revenue. I would say we've grown about 20 % in the last year. Yeah. So it's, I'll leave the percentage at that. As I, yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (35:20.092)
Yeah, the percentage, and then if we look at sort of people, like a number of people grown as well, take me through the nine years, like we had this many and now we have this many, what can you say about that?

Milka Vujanic (35:24.435)
Yes, absolutely.

Milka Vujanic (35:31.349)
We started with four Geoff, right? Four, five, five. We're at 14 now. So yeah, so in nine years, so employees, now we are running out of space in the office. We're gonna have to look for something else. So there's that. And as we mentioned, just making sure that we stay on track and that we keep growing and keeping clients happy and adding.

Geoff Spero (35:34.344)
Bye.

Milka Vujanic (35:58.013)
You know, another thing that we love to do, it's not just about clients, it's not just about making money, it's actually adding same people to our team. Because that's actually always every time we have to hire someone, I am the one, I'm really big on mental health and making sure everybody's happy here and they come to work and they enjoy being here.

So adding a team member is always really daunting for me. And I spent a lot of time asking different interview questions because I want to make sure that they fit a culture. We've worked really hard to develop it. Everyone here gets along. Everyone works really hard. And so I would say when we're adding people to, right, Geoff, we're always so cautious who comes to the team. And one or two times that we've hired someone that doesn't fit the mold, you can tell in a week or two.

Gordon Sheppard (36:50.878)
Yeah, and you've got this sort of culture and process in a sense that's really, really tight and it really speaks to your growth in terms of what's out there. Geoff, I don't know if we missed any quantitative. If you had to describe some of the qualitative things that you like to point out, Geoff, what would those be?

Milka Vujanic (36:51.55)
Yeah.

Yes.

Milka Vujanic (36:58.515)
Yes.

Geoff Spero (37:11.74)
Think now. Like on our side, Milk is always worried about the numbers and we're always worried about the number of buildings and how many PMs, like how many buildings per PM we can sort of task with. And so part of the expansion we've had over the last nine years, we've had to add a number of PMs to the slate to take on properties and was what we did last year and what we sort of got coming up already this year.

We're probably looking to increase again our PM count because they're getting to the point where we worry that they're not able to be as building centric or client centric, tenant centric as we would like them to be. They're getting bogged down with office paperwork and the other necessaries of the business, but they're not actually on site.

Gordon Sheppard (38:06.374)
Nice trouble to have, right? You've done something right in these nine years. This is nice trouble to have in terms of what that's gonna be. And yet, and you're taking on that leadership sort of leveling up. You can hear it along the way. You've worked yourselves out. You've got a third person in there that's a significant input in their key area. We've got team members into the 14 zone now, probably going on, sounds like 20 or 25 sometime in the next couple of years, depending on which way you wanna steer things and how you wanna grow.

your work because you've got it all kind of dialed in. That's great. Well, I just have to ask, Milka, how's this all feel?

Milka Vujanic (38:39.603)
It feels incredible. To be honest with you, I know this is gonna sound cheesy, but I am very humble. Both Geoff and I are actually very humble. We come into the office and we're here, we're working really hard. Unless I'm doing my amazing work for JA that I love so much, and being part of Chamber now too, I am here all the time in this office, sitting, crunching numbers, just like everybody else. So is Geoff, we're here at 730.

We're here until the end of the day. We're part of this whole vision and I think the employees see that and so they show up for us every day as well.

Gordon Sheppard (39:18.378)
That's super exciting and you can hear the pride in your voice in terms of what you're doing. For you, Geoff, how's it feel?

Geoff Spero (39:25.675)
you know what? I think it's been amazing. Honestly, it's been, it's been an incredible ride thus far. I think that my dad would probably slap us a little bit just for our, our, reliance and our, the amount of technology that we've brought in since we took over. He was on the old sneaker net model and we are now on a, on a whole different level from that. So I think he'd be, I'd probably get a smack for that, but I think he would be really happy with what we've done.

despite the fact we put our toes into some areas and some fields that he wouldn't have normally gone into if he was the one running the company.

Gordon Sheppard (40:03.252)
Well, it sounds like second generation taking on the company to meet the need of the time. You know what I mean? And that's sort of reality. And isn't that interesting to hear where it's come from and that sort of legacy that's there too? Well, whenever I get a couple of great leaders on, just thank you so much for sharing your win about how you folks have built together, the team that you've built together being the big win, the success of your business, and the growth just on the employee count and the percentages. That's just remarkable.

Just to, if you folks had a few sentences to leave for future leadership partnerships, because you're in a unique position to comment on this, Geoff, if you were talking to somebody, you know, who was kind of you, pre-Milka, what would you recommend to them as they get into getting to know somebody and setting them up for success from a leadership, either inner voice, outer voice, whatever you want to say perspective, what sort of would you recommend?

Geoff Spero (40:56.913)
I'm not sure I have an inner or an outer voice, right? Milk, I just kind of have one voice. I already got cautioned about our, we have a thing on Friday that she's like, don't say anything. I'm like, it. You know, when it comes down to the partnership, I think that you have to.

Milka Vujanic (41:00.597)
you

Milka Vujanic (41:06.133)
I

Geoff Spero (41:15.397)
you have to push that person a little bit to find out how they react to you advocating for yourself or your department or whatever, just to see how you can navigate that transaction, right? That the disagreement, because that tells you a lot about somebody. And I just, I read people, so.

It's natural for me to when we talk, I can figure milk out most of the time. But it's about that and just being direct and honest. And when we did all of our, the partnership agreements, we made sure that we sat down and we worked through them all to make them as fair as you can make a legal agreement between two parties, right? So that it not one of us taking advantage of the other one or putting them in a position where if the sheep hit the fan,

one of us would feel like, I didn't do well in that. So it's about making sure that you set the playing field so it's very level for both parties, for both partners, and just learning how to navigate difficult conversations.

Gordon Sheppard (42:28.882)
I've been in partnership settings where they hadn't read the unanimous shareholder agreement and it sounds like you did it the right way. how, like, thanks for that insight into sort of how you, how you do things the right way to allow yourself to then come together and then create this kind of growth scenario. Milka, if you had a chance to speak to people that are getting in partnerships from a leadership perspective, what sort of tips would you have for them?

Milka Vujanic (42:51.861)
I would say...

Building trust is really important, knowing that that person's gonna be there for you. Like, if God forbid something happened to me, I know he would take care of my family, vice versa. I think having uncomfortable conversations and not taking them personal is a big one. That's how you solve problems is by saying what you need to say and then the other person listens without judgment and then you solve the problems. You have to understand that you're in this together and you want it to

drive. I would say those two things are really important is trust and communication.

Gordon Sheppard (43:29.78)
Wow, well, we could talk for another nine hours. I can hear it right now. I just so appreciate that you both took the time to share your leadership journey and then your great leadership suggestions and congratulations on all of your success. Milka, Geoff, thank you so much for being on the show.

Milka Vujanic (43:45.971)
Thank you so much for having us, Gordon.

Geoff Spero (43:48.007)
Yeah, thanks, Gwyn, it was really great.