Attract. Hire. Win: Pete & Tony’s A-Player PM Playbook

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As AI continues to get better at handling the repetitive, burnout-inducing tasks, we're reaching an inflection point- no longer “just needing a body” to push a button or check a checklist.

This shift presents the opportunity leaders have always wanted: to build a team full of A-players. Since you don’t just need bodies to do tasks and can scale with fewer people, you get to be truly selective and hire for the best, something every business owner has always dreamed of.

To seize this opportunity, we've drawn from two recent, powerful conversations with industry leaders Pete Neubig and Tony Cline. Together, their insights provide a complete playbook on how to attract A-Players and then enable them to win.

First, let's talk about how you attract them.

Attract A-Players with a ‘Bat Signal’ (Pete Neubig’s Hiring Strategy)

When it comes to attracting A-Players, Pete Neubig advocates for a radical shift in thinking. He explains the fundamental mistake most leaders make when trying to hire: 

Stop posting boring job descriptions. Start creating compelling job ads that act as a ‘bat signal’ for top talent.

He believes people get the job description or job posting confused. They think it's the same, but it's not. The job description is internal and boring to look at, but it tells you exactly what you're supposed to do. The job posting should be written to attract the type of person you're looking for - like a bat signal.

The goal, as Pete puts it, is to attract the 10 perfect candidates instead of 100 random ones. 

This "bat signal" is the start of a deliberate system. 

Pete stresses filtering with systems, not hunches, using assessments and self-interviews to vet candidates before the live interview.

He also makes a strong case for hiring early and mathematically to avoid crisis-mode decisions.

Most critically, Pete hammers home the point that you must protect your A-players by cutting D-players- a lesson he learned when one of his best employee quit, not for more pay, but because the company failed to deal with an underperforming colleague.

This reminds me of something that has become very apparent to me in my career:

In all the talk about ping pong tables and unlimited PTO, we tend to underestimate the fact that the greatest workplace perk is to be surrounded by A-players. 

We owe it to our best employees to do everything we can to surround them with talent. 

Once we have them, we need a system where our top performers feel a constant sense of progress and victory. This is where we turn from hiring to empowering.

Turning A-Players Into Champions (Tony Cline’s Winning Formula)

Hiring an A-player is just the beginning; the real magic happens when you empower them to thrive. A-Players wake up every day wondering how they can win the day. It’s your job to answer that question for them. This is the exact challenge Tony Cline’s framework is designed to solve. 

“People wanna know that they're contributing. People wanna know what does it look like for me to be successful in my role and, and what am I being measured by?” — Tony Cline

Tony's solution is a company scoreboard, but its power isn't just in the numbers, it's built on a non-negotiable foundation of clarity and fairness. Before you can even define a metric, Tony stresses that it must pass his Ownership-Authority-Autonomy filter. The principle is simple: you can only hold someone accountable for an outcome if they truly own it, have the authority to influence it, and the autonomy to act on it without getting stuck waiting for approval.

With that foundation of fairness established, the scoreboard is built with actionable KPIs, metrics that empower your team. This is where Tony's most game-changing rule comes in: track the exception before it becomes a failure. 

For example, tracking security deposits not returned by day 20 gives your team a 10-day window to be proactive heroes, not reactive firefighters. 

It transforms the job from putting out fires to preventing them.

This entire approach turns the scoreboard from a judgment tool into a diagnostic one. It gives your A-players the tools to win: they can track fair, meaningful metrics, and if they’re off-track, you triage the issue together.

Is it the system? The training? Or performance? This gives A-players exactly what they crave: a clear, fair, and winnable game where they wake up every day knowing exactly how to succeed.

This system for attracting and enabling A-Players does more than just solve internal challenges like retention and performance. It’s the engine that will reshape the entire future of property management, which is why this matters more than ever.

The Big Picture: Property Management as a Career Path

Now, let’s step back and talk about the big picture here. Why does this matter more than ever?

For too long, property management has been seen as an “accidental” career. We have an opportunity to change that perception today. While AI has made once-glamorous roles like computer programmers feel like commodities, it’s creating better roles in property management.  AI isn’t replacing us, it’s right-sizing our roles to help us flourish . 

This brings us to a larger, national trend… one that we explored in our "National Mission" article.  As the nation embraces AI-first manufacturing and industries like property management, we’re seeing the rise of the “new-collar” workforce. These are jobs that don’t require Ivy League degrees but are crucial to our economy’s future. 

The “new-collar” boom, driven by AI and automation, is a critical part of keeping the American economy competitive and healthy. Property management fits squarely into this future, offering roles that bring long-term job security, a clear growth path, and real career fulfillment.

This new boom can take us from the old narrative of scarce talent, to a new future where you can build a company with the types of people you’ve always wanted to surround yourself with.  This is why we choose to run our own companies, isn’t it?  To do work we love, with people we love, for people we love?  

If that hasn’t been your goal before, it can be now.

Make Property Management a Destination Career

If we focus on recruiting A-players (as Pete suggests) and giving them the tools to succeed (as Tony outlines), we’ll raise the entire profession to new heights. But this isn’t just about reducing burnout or turnover; it’s about transforming property management into a career that competes with the likes of tech, finance, and healthcare for top talent.

The golden era for property management is here.  It’s time to reshape the industry, recruit top talent, and empower them to thrive. Together, we can make property management not just a career, but a calling.

The opportunity to shape the future of property management is ours, but it’s up to us to take it.

You can listen to the full, unedited conversations that sparked this playbook with Pete Neubig and Tony Cline.

—

Pablo Gonzalez, 

Chief Evangelist at Vendoroo