Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]
You're standing outside a boardroom door. You can hear them deciding things in there. None of it includes you yet. You walk in anyway. You've got 15 minutes to show the numbers don't lie. Even when nobody in the room actually wants to hear it. You know this feeling. The room where what you see isn't welcome. Where you are the one saying the hard things nobody asks for.
That tightness in your chest right before you speak, it means you are paying attention. I'm Yvi Heimann, and this is She Is A Leader, the show for women building businesses on their own terms, where we talk about the parts of leadership nobody puts on a slide deck. Today's guest stayed in rooms that didn't want to hear until the data did the talking.
Stick around by the end of this, you'll know what to do with a room that doesn't want you in it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:00]
Meet Tina Larsson, the co-founder of the Forson Group, New York's premier co-op and condo consultancy. After organizing a board coup in her own building and saving $340,000.
She and her husband, Mark Foley, built the Folsom Group to help New York City co-op and Condor Boards run their buildings like businesses. A former Wall Street analyst, Tina brings financial discipline to an industry that really sees it. She's the author of Living the High Life, an LEED greet associate, and a frequent podcast guest and speaker. Tina is on a mission to prove that smart co-op and condo boards don't do it alone.
Girl, girl, that's all I have to do with this. So tell me, tell me about this haul. You lead a full-on coup in your building and suddenly save 340k. What the fuck?
Tina Larsson [00:02:00]
Yes, exactly, right? We had initially we said, let's let's take over the board. They're doing a terrible job. Let's take over the board and let's see. And board.
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:15]
It's a board. Let's be honest. Ninety percent of the boards are just Yes. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I'm like, yeah, boards. Boards. my god.
Tina Larsson [00:02:23]
Yeah, volunteer boards, should I say, yes. So we said, wouldn't it be fun if we can save $10,000? And then we went like, that was easy. Let's see if we can find 30,000. Yeah. Yeah. We saved 340,000. And that's in the first three years.
It's millions by now, but we stopped counting at two million because we had already started our business and we said we need to help other co op and condom boards do exactly
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:55]
Okay, so you pretty much just walk into a room of vol a volunteer board. The whole volunteer part doesn't help either because we all have seen too many TikTok videos, let's be honest. And everybody is I'm assuming here, everybody is just in there to get their own best out of this whole situation. And what did you do?
Tina Larsson [00:03:18]
Not all not always.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:20]
Not always. There there is always exceptions for the rule. For everybody listening, yes, Yvi likes to generalize things. There's always exception to a rule, right? So what did you what did you do? I'm assuming you went into the numbers. You went into, okay, where is our maintenance money going? Where is this going? What are we doing? And what did you do?
Tina Larsson [00:03:40]
Yeah. So what we did. We did a lot of things. So first sh should we back up and explain to i in case anybody doesn't know what an HOA is? Okay.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:50]
Yeah. Go for it. Especially because we have international audience listening. HOA is such an American thing. Let's let's give a quick rundown what that is, what that means, and then dive into what you did.
Tina Larsson [00:04:00]
I yeah. So an age there in in United States there are sixty six million Americans that own in an HOA. That can be a gated community out in somewhere. It can be a a golf community. But in New York in many large cities it's an apartment building, and that apartment building is tradition most places in the United States they're called a community association or a condo. In New York City it's a cooper con.
Approximately three million New Yorkers own an apartment. So that means that they own a co-op or condo. So they so let's just give an example for simplicity. So one building has a hundred apartment owners. Those a hundred apartment owners they vote in five, six, seven or so people who are apartment owners to be on their board. They're doing this on their spare time.
And a building is actually very complex. so it's very complex. There are regulations, there's safety issues, there's unions, there's aging buildings that need repairs. So their technical expertise normally is not it's normally with not not within their technical expertise. And they're doing it on their spare time. And many of them have never made multi million dollar decisions on the behalf of other people, right? So there's so and they are the ones who make the decisions. And you'll see, RHO board, it took forever for them to decide on it. They've been working on it for years. Well they are doing it on theirs. No. And then they rely on a property manager to actually act on their decisions. The property manager they don't know.
Yvonne Heimann [00:05:55]
You have somebody leading a decision that has no material expertise on this. They are just owners, they are just living there. There is a chance that they have never managed a multi unit, right? And then they're just telling the property management agency what to do. And chances are, yeah.
That's that's that's just trouble. That's just trouble waiting to happen
Tina Larsson [00:06:21]
Yes. And then the property manager has too many buildings or too many condos or associations. So they don't really have time to and they probably get very discouraged too because very often it's taking so long that they're like, Yeah, these people they can never make their up their mind. Or they're asking too many questions. Of course they're asking a lot of questions. So there's they're i they're just very underserved. The whole dynamic is underserved.
Yvonne Heimann [00:06:50]
And then you also talk about how also the property management industry just doesn't want to have an outside consulting telling the boards they're being overcharged, right? Because the management company just runs with it. It's the yeah, cool, our bills are being paid. They tell us what to do. Who cares if it's a good or a bad thing? We are getting paid either which way. So now you have a board that doesn't know what they don't know, and you have a property management agency that's like, I don't want you here because you potentially tell the board that we suck. So you're pretty much in a room full of people that doesn't want you there. How did you get past that?
Tina Larsson [00:07:30]
It's a little tricky. And when we started, we didn't realize that this mirrors exactly. If you think about a corporation and the CEO says, you know what, we're going to hire PwC. They're going to come in and they're going to improve our processes and set up our, see if they can find some savings.
The CFO team, think that they're going to get fired, right? And I believe that that's how the property managers feel. But once we're there, they realize that these people are just here to help.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:15]
yeah, that's that's like one on one of change management. When I come into a business, it's the same thing, right? The the managers think we're gonna take their jobs away. The project managers, I'm like, my god, you're gonna just AIFI everything we do and the workers are like, Yeah, you're just gonna automate what I do and everybody thinks they're losing their jobs. And I'm like, No, I wanna make your job easier.
How did you approach that? So how did you I know what we do with project management. Now you have a whole different dynamic. You can't just suddenly tell the board this is what you are supposed to be doing, right? Where with employees you have a little bit more of a potential to push and and be a little bit more pushy to get them across that limiting belief.
You're working with a board. You are you are working with quote everyday people that volunteer their time and somebody else that's getting paid to do what you potentially come in to do. How how did you push past that? How did you get over that hurdle and that limiting belief of you were just there to screw everybody for lack of better wording?
Tina Larsson [00:09:21]
And it's a great point and it's a great comparison. And I hadn't thought about it like that because in your case, if the CEO hires you, the employees work for him or her and they have no choice but to listen to you, right? They might not like it, but they have to listen.
Yvonne Heimann [00:09:40]
And it might take a little bit of work, but I do there is a little bit more of power behind it. They have to.
Tina Larsson [00:09:47]
But in my case, so in my case, some boards that just like probably in your case, some boards they don't hire us because they don't because it takes it's not for them. But the people who do hire us, they are the ones where they trust us. So they listen to us. So therefore, they follow our recommendations and let us implement the the processes that we recommend. So I don't know if you do that too. So we both recommend and then we recommend alternatives. There might be several alternatives. And then we actually facilitate the implementation of it too. So we do the project management if that's what they want us to do.
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:35]
And I'm curious, as you mentioned, and as everybody listening or watching can hear, you always lead with data. I don't know if this is just our European thing. where it's like, let's get down to data rather than just opinions, right? and also you've seen it work and you've learned it on Wall Street, right?
We know that data doesn't have an opinion, data doesn't have limiting beliefs, as long as data is showcased right and presented in a way that is objective, not subjective. That's a whole nother story, people. There is business intelligence behind this. We can take this a whole nother route. Not gonna go down this route today. What I would love to know is what was a moment where data told a completely different story than
What everybody in the room thought was happening or wanted to hear and how did you how did you make that delivery so they can hear you?
Tina Larsson [00:11:40]
I have a great example. So we had a board who was worried they couldn't get the buy-in from all the owners and they would need to do a large investment from each of the apartments to do these renovations. And they were really worried about it. And they had had the engineer there several times, but you know engineering drawings, it's you and I might understand engineering drawings, but a lot of people they can't really see what that means and it's very difficult to understand. And so we went out, took pictures, this is what we thought that it was going to be, this is what the engineer initially told us, and this is what they discover when they open it up.
So we were actually on a balcony taking pictures and then using that in our meeting. And when we held the meeting with the owners and the board, everybody was on the call, we were showing this is the initial and this is the revelation. And every single person said, where do we send them?
Yvonne Heimann [00:12:54]
Which what I'm hearing is you were translating. You were using a language that they could understand. And for everybody who's like, what the Yvi, what the fuck are you talking about? what I mean by that is, and I'm pretty sure you were speaking different languages too, as I already hinted. when I came to the States with German language, I've realized the connotations, the the impact, the words we use often mean something completely different. Where it's perceived different, it's just I dove deep into that language. Now, language doesn't always just mean words. Perception doesn't always just mean words. What we hear doesn't always just mean those spoken words. What you took is an image that somebody couldn't read.
Because they don't have the knowledge. I happen to be also a former electrician, so yes, I can read those plans. And also a lot of other people can't because they simply don't have the language, the knowledge to read them. And you turned it into a language, you turned it into a visual that they could understand. So what I want you what I want you ladies to pull from this really is language is not just words and what we say.
So figure out how your message best can land. Maybe it's a video, maybe it's a slideshow, maybe it's just a different way of showing information. Maybe it is turning an architectural plan into regular iPhone pictures of this is what they said we're gonna get, and this is what's actually happening.
Yvonne Heimann [00:14:52]
And translating it in what your people really can hear and imagine. And that's where I love coming back to data, right? Because we could fall into a trap of, my God, they're just not hearing me. what else am I supposed to do? And you just stepped away and collected the data of okay, 99% of the people in the room simply can't understand this thing.
How can I present that data for them to hear it? And you also talk about. my God, sometimes I'm way too much about data. I promise I have emotions too. I promise. You also talk about protecting your own mindset because you are talking you're going into rooms with a lot of people with a lot of limitations and limiting beliefs and perceptions.
Where we easily can take it as our fault or we are doing something wrong or whatever it is, it can really chew on us and our mindset and our emotions. So you're talking about protecting your own mindset and your own peace by staying anchored in that data rather than opinions.
So walk me through a specific time where somebody told you this thing couldn't work. They're telling you you're not gonna get this done. There is no way you can make this happen. What did you do in that moment?
Tina Larsson [00:16:30]
I am not in the convincing business. put numbers. This is how much it's going to cost you. This is how much you're going to save if you do this. This is the payback. These are the proofs. And here it is. And this is what we recommend. We can give you two examples. here, ROI here. We have historical proofs of exactly that this works. We have the data points and suggestion A is what we recommend. If you go with suggestion B, that's pretty good too. Not doing anything, not a good idea.
Yvonne Heimann [00:17:17]
And I love how you already pretty much answered my next question. Because leaning with data works when people are willing to look at numbers, right? And again, you kind of already answered it, but I still want to ask the specific question: what about the rooms where people aren't interested in being right? They are just.
They're interested in not feeling exposed. They're interested in not being called out. It's a room where the data approach simply fails, right? So what do you do instead?
Tina Larsson [00:18:00]
A question, whether it's the right partnership. We had a building, a condo in New York City, that we were in the first three or four months, it's quite a few years ago, three or four months, we were able to provide them with a recommendation between three different items of quarter of a million dollar savings per year.
Yes, yes. And they voted against every single of the three eyelets.
Yvonne Heimann [00:18:33]
I'm curious and maybe maybe you have some insight, maybe you have an opinion. Why? Why would I vote against that?
Tina Larsson [00:18:41]
In my opinion, they had too many attorneys on the board.
I am nothing against attorneys, but attorneys tend to be not all of them. I'm generalizing, so of course this is not really true. For all attorneys who are listening in, I have nothing against attorneys. I love attorneys, but these three particular attorneys, they were very risk averse and attorneys tend to be risk averse. And yeah, they voted against us. And then they said, but you know, we love saving money, so keep on bringing recommendations to us. And we went like, yeah, I think it's time that we end this partnership.
Yvonne Heimann [00:19:15]
Like I pres we presented you a solution that saves you a shit ton of money, and every decision comes with a risk. I'm sorry, every decision comes with a risk. And you yes, there is a gray zone between this is a calculated risk and well worth it, or this is just fully fucking dumb. However, yes, I have.
I have seen some legal counsels that are going with the we are not taking any risk. I'm like, where are we gonna go? I'm like, I'm taking a risk by the time I step out of my front door. So yes. That is that is that is really interesting because what I wanna make sure for everybody watching or listening, risk aw risk averse doesn't mean
You are building something or you are offering something or you are recommending something that has a high risk of me stepping in front of a train. It's it's just simply and I've seen the same thing with some legal advisors and lawyers. Fortunately, mine is not quite that that crazy. Where even the slightest hint of risk, which I'm sorry, if you are living, you always have a slight risk of anything going south.
They're going to block it. They're going to block it. And with a lawyer being on the board and them having actual stake in that too, because they are living in that HOA property. And yeah.
Tina Larsson [00:20:40]
Yvi do you want me to share one of them, one of the three items, because it's so it's so ridiculous that there, I mean, there's no yes, yes. Okay. So they have a full time unionized staff of 22 or 24. Those individuals have to work all day, they can't fire them, they probably don't have that much to do. I mean, they have.
I take that back. They have a lot to do, but they probably have a little bit of time. They also paid $50,000 a year for a marble polishing company to come in and polish the marble and the brass in the lobby, small lobby. So we suggested to them that they cancel the marble polishing company and our contract and instead have the staff polish the marble and the brass. the machine, the marble polishing machine is like 1800 bucks or something. And they come in and the company that sells it to them, they will train them on how to use it. Okay. And we asked the resident manager, would you be okay? Do you feel that your staff would, and he's like, of course we would love to be able to do that. That would be make it our lobby, I suppose to someone else cleaning the lobby, Yes, yes, yes, they wanted to do it and they said no.
Yvonne Heimann [00:22:15]
So even the team says yes.
Which my God. yeah. So thank you for sharing that part of it because it just shows just how dumb it is. I'm sorry. my god. It's yeah, and that's that's a perfect lead-in actually to my next question, right? You have this room, and I love that you were like, yeah, we are not doing this, because not every client is the right client, not every client you want.
To work with or need to work with. There is something freeing. And I might get a little bit voo- here with saying no to a client because now you tell the universe, we don't work with this kind of bullshit. Because I'm sorry, especially with that specific example. It is bullshit. It is a simple project management. It is a simple math. There is no risk, especially if this team says, my God, yes, that means.
We can actually own this area. We are already doing the regular cleaning. Why not do the polishing too? It it would have even grown the ownership of the team you already have. So it's not just that you are saving money. You are making your team more happy, which is going to own their work much more and work even harder because of it. And you are in that every everything speaks for it, and the room tells you no.
Just no. So for every woman that's listening right now that's standing outside of a room like that, where she knows she isn't wanted, it might be a fight to get the data and the story to be heard. What's the one thing you would tell her before she walks in?
Tina Larsson [00:24:12]
What's the one thing that I would tell her before she walks in? Take a deep breath. And if you don't know what to say, smile, take another breath, be nice and polite and empathetic. Empathy has gotten us very far away with force. Yeah. And...and really listening. I'm not saying just hearing or just listening, but really listening to what is their hesitation, what is their objection in her case, what is...What is their needs?
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:00]
I would say I would sum that up with just be human. Just be human. As is especially looking back at my experiences with boards. They are all just humans. They just want to be heard. They want their their fears and concerns validated. And often enough, just simply by that, as you said, you can turn this around. And data simply doesn't do panic, right?
It's it's that line that I keep coming back throughout this conversation. We all have emotions, we all have potentially a panic attack here and there, been there, done that. Data doesn't do that. So if you are standing outside of a room right now where you know you are not wanted, you don't need to feel ready. You need the numbers, the data, and you just need to walk in anyway. Share this with a woman in your life who is standing outside a room right now. The one who keeps waiting to feel ready before she walks in. And we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for joining me today.