John Fahmy is the Vice President of Operations and Sales at Planned Companies, a conglomerate that provides industry-leading janitorial, maintenance, security, and concierge services for commercial and residential properties. With over 10 years of management experience, John is an expert at senior level negotiation, project planning, and scheduling.
Before joining Planned Companies, John was the Director of Operations at 39th Avenue Holding LLC. He has a consistent track record as a team trainer, relationship builder, and operational leader.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- John Fahmy talks about how his organization, Planned Companies, has pivoted during the pandemic
- John and Greg reflect on the differences between working in California versus New York
- How COVID-19 has changed the way facility managers conduct business
- The various industries that have transitioned to remote work—and why many companies aren’t going back to the office
- Working in San Francisco with increased security issues and unrest
- How John’s sales strategies have evolved over the past year
- John’s advice to people who are interested in facility management as a career
In this episode…
What is the secret to achieving success in the facility management industry? According to John Fahmy, the Vice President of Operations and Sales at Planned Companies, the answer may be simpler than you think: start from the bottom.
John first began his career as a front desk agent for a hotel in New York. After transitioning into sales, and then back into hospitality, John eventually joined Planned Companies as an Executive Director. As he says, it was his early experience that taught him the empathy he needed to be successful in his leadership roles. So, what is John’s advice to listeners looking to break into the industry? Start small, and work your way up.
Join host Greg Owens in this week’s episode of Watching Paint Dry as he interviews John Fahmy, the Vice President of Operations and Sales at Planned Companies. Together, they talk about how Planned Companies pivoted during the global pandemic, the impact of remote work on daily business operations, and what it’s like to work in California right now. John also shares his sage advice to listeners looking to join the facility management industry. Stay tuned!
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- John Fahmy on LinkedIn
- Planned Companies
- Robert Francis on LinkedIn
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
Hello again, this is Greg Owens with the Watching Paint Dry podcast. And we’re continuing our series here where we’re talking to building owners, facilities, managers, property managers, and all the people that support those types of services and buildings. And this podcast is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting. We’ve been in business since 1969. My uncle started the company, I started working for the company when I was 16 years old. And that’s like 35 years ago, I think now, which is unbelievable amount of times, lots of things changed in the painting industry in that time period. And we do a tremendous amount of residential and commercial painting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. And some of the companies we work for have been Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, Chase Bank, we just did some work for them. Some of the Autonomous car companies, we’ve been doing work for them, which has been super cool to see they’re like unbelievable cars that they’re coming out with on a regular basis here in San Francisco Bay Area. Super excited to have John Fahmy on our podcast today. And he is the Vice President of Operations and Sales at Planned Companies and Planned Companies is a janitorial, security, concierge, and building maintenance experts. So this is going to be a fun conversation. We also have Katrina Stevenson on the call and she jumps in she works for McCarthy Painting, and she sometimes jumps in with questions too. Welcome John, thank you for being on the podcast.
John Fahmy 2:04
Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here.
Greg Owens 2:07
Yeah. So I personally I check in like, how are you doing, your company and during this looming, we’re still in the midst of a shutdown here in California, you know, pandemic numbers are rising, although Sacramento just opened up, they going up, but another couple of levels, you can actually go eat out again.
John Fahmy 2:24
That’s what I hear. I’m actually heading out Sacramento this weekend. You know, it feels like to be normal again. Yeah, just for a quick time, but things have been great. I mean, obviously, you know, just like you guys have, we’ve had to adjust and, you know, audible and pivot and change budgets and do all kinds of fun things. You know, we didn’t have a pandemic Handbook, you know, I still remember going back and, you know, March when it all happened and all the uncertainty and talking to our clients. And we’re like, what, like, how do we do this? Like, wait, they’re gonna shut down the bar, you know, they’re gonna tell us we have curfews, our employees, and they get to work. So it was really interesting, you know, being on the phone with attorneys, and are we essential employees? Are we not essential? You know, where do we fall in all of this? So, you know, my running joke is let me get my pandemic handbook and, you know, look that question up. And so I think we’re good for the next pandemic, which I hope we’ll never see. But honestly, things have been great. We’ve all doubled quite well, our company spans from Boston all the way down to the Atlanta market. And then I am the lonesome you know, person out here in California, which we started our California office about almost five years ago. It’s been a fun ride. And for us, California, its own country. Right. It’s got its litigiousness and so it’s really interesting for me coming from New York City and talk different we walk different we we do a lot of things different, but it was I mean, it’s a great state, of course, we have our gripes with with certain things, but in the end, you know, business has been pretty good, can’t complain, we have a lot of loyal, loyal clients, and that really lean on us, you know, experts standpoint to partner with and to help them with their properties, whether it’s cleaning, maintenance, security, and front desk concierge, which is predominantly more in San Francisco proper. Right, right.
Greg Owens 4:13
And yeah, it’s interesting. I’m also from New York, and I spent my first 16 years there, and I like to sing because it’s so true. For me, if you spend too much time in New York, it’ll make you too hard. You spend too much time in Northern California, it’ll make you too soft. I knew tone down my New York-ness at times being here in Northern California, because like you sometimes can hurt people’s feelings and that kind of thing. And I’m just like trying to be efficient and get things done and do it kind of fast, you know?
John Fahmy 4:42
Well, I mean, I agree. I mean, it’s definitely I’ve officially like it will be four years that I’ve been living here full time. I think it took me about two and a half years to soften up a little bit, you know, and it’s I mean, it’s great. Honestly, I you know, a lot of people ask me, but I moved back to New York and what is working In New York, like, I think it’s working with a gun to the back of your head, we’re here. I think our clients are much more just chill, right? I mean, I do believe that I don’t want to get into any examples in case our east coast clients hear us But no, it’s
Greg Owens 5:12
I think it’s it’s a different, a different culture, right? Like, here, it’s like, everybody’s more, there’s definitely a laid backness like, there’s not the suit and tie thing, very little of that, right. Like, you know, you can show up in a T shirt to companies, and it’s totally fine. And you’re normal. That’s normal, right? Whereas New York, downtown New York City, yeah, that would be weird.
Katrina Stevenson 5:31
Then you gotta be bundled up in New York to you know, during correct.
John Fahmy 5:37
First moving here and going to my first meetings, and I’m in, I don’t wear a tie. And when Rob Francis, our CEO hears that he’ll, he’ll tell you, you know, he always wears a tie, you know, our company, you know, back, he is very buttoned up, you know, you’re very typical type of New York, New Jersey, you know, corporate office, right. And so when I moved out here, I’m in, you know, a suit, no tie. And then finally, one of our biggest clients, she grabbed me and she said, Can you do me a favor? Can you not show up for our property, sir, in a suit and tie, you know, like, dude, like, this is a little less like, I started getting into the whole jeans and blazer and a button down. And then you know, maybe when Rob comes into town, I’ll throw on a suit, depending on the meeting we’re going to and now I feel like I’m in jeans, a T shirt and a blazer. Yeah, man, you know, and it’s totally acceptable. So I can tell you my nordstroms bills are way less now. Right? So
Greg Owens 6:32
what did I say now that now you’re on zoom a lot. You just need like a nice shirt from here up.
John Fahmy 6:39
I did put on a pair of jeans for this just in case I have to get up.
Katrina Stevenson 6:45
Good call.
Greg Owens 6:46
It’s definitely interesting that way, culturally. And it’s interesting that we’re taking the conversation this way. Cuz I do find it fascinating to see the different cultures, right. And even my own salesperson like he came started working. And he was wearing really nice button down shirts and that kind of thing. And then I saw him like the other day as it’s been warming up. And he’s like, shorts, cargo shorts, flip flops and a hoodie. And I’m like, Man, you transition to the dark side of this, maybe we need to reel it back in a bit, right? Because he’s in sales. And there is something about sales where you sort of have to be a little maybe just like a slightly a little bit more than what the clients wearing or something like that.
John Fahmy 7:25
Well, I mean, you know, for the past year, we’ve been in shorts and a T shirt. I swear, it’s like, you know, right, mother, Lulu Lemon must have made a fortune. They’re all I mean, women are in their yoga pants, guys are in the gym shorts. Right. And that’s, that’s sort of how we’re working from our homes now. And it was weird The first time I you know, when we had the first when they really like opened us, I guess a little bit here in California. So excited to get out there and you know, go to meetings again, and like put on a blazer. Oh,
Greg Owens 7:53
us too. We didn’t even have like we had our first office meeting. I think it was like October, September, October, the end of September. And it was so great to see everybody. You know, we had it outside and we had coffee and we were all wearing our masks and that kind of thing. But it was so good. And even like safety meetings and things like that. We’ve had to go back to zoom and it is not the same feeling of connection to the employees and to the staff.
John Fahmy 8:15
The question is, is this you know, a lot of companies have figured out we can now they can sustain and do pretty well, remote right is this, I hate using this term, the new normal, but I’m going to just use it because it feels like the right thing to say right now. But is this going to be somewhat the new normal is zoom, you know, just a quick way instead of just you know, getting in the car, again, sitting in Bay Area traffic, which if you’re not from the Bay Area, ladies and gentlemen, is the worst traffic and sitting in that traffic to go from like East Bay to South Bay? Or do we just jump on zoom and just have the conversation? Right, right. I mean, in our business, we you know, I do have to go out we don’t throw out blanket type of you know, proposals or anything like that every buildings different every all the expectations are different within each buildings. Every manager has a different personality, you know, in what really is the scope of work for what we do. So for us, we do have to, you know, but it now it’s weird. It’s like, Hey, you know, go grab a fob and see yourself around the building, right? Yeah.
Greg Owens 9:16
But for me, the same for me, like go and get a fob and then it’s eerie to kind of and walk in this building. And if there’s nobody in there.
John Fahmy 9:23
there’s nobody in there. And you know, but we were coming out of this, I believe strong. You know, that’s my belief, I think but it’s also exposing certain things of how companies can cut expenditures because with all the technology that’s out there, right, so is the future going to be virtual leasing on the multifamily side, how are we getting all the data of the cleaning of the building and such you know, are we disinfecting, you know, the right amount of times in life So for us, we Planned has a actually we we have an entire Technology Division at our company, and we created this QR code where you can just go up and scan it whether it is a resident or the client and see when that gym was last disinfected, or the restroom was disinfected, so we got innovative, you know, we had to and so within multifamily Hoa commercial, who knows what’s happening commercial, you know when that’s gonna happen but I think that through all of this I’m trying to I’m gonna be an optimist here I really think some good and positive is gonna come out of all of this.
Greg Owens 10:26
Right, right. That’s interesting. So you Planned Companies does residential apartment complexes in any way condominium complexes and then also commercial buildings and that kind of thing.
John Fahmy 10:36
Correct. Correct. So we’re, yeah, that’s back east. You know, we definitely have I mean, it’s 100 year old company, you know, it was started by the Francis family, many moons ago. And now it’s led by Rob Francis. And just a growth when with Rob’s tenure has just been dramatic. And we got so, so much more into the commercial side, he always we obviously, you know, are wonderful. And then for me here, though, it’s been more HOA and multifamily we did had, I’ll be honest, we did have some tenant work. But if I can tell you how many calls, I got that were just going fully remote, we don’t want to spend $50,000 a month on rent, you know, so we lost a few, you know, we definitely lost a few of those. And I know, there’s a lot of pauses in service when this offer started in March and stuff like that. But it’s coming around, just who knows what’s gonna happen now on the commercial side? I mean, again, people can work have been doing well working from home,
Greg Owens 11:30
right, some of these companies have been doing really well. I know, friends of mine that have smaller companies, you know, in the 30 to 40 employees, they’re talking not coming back to San Francisco rents were also craziness, as you knew, and they were they were also only like some of them. I heard the number the other day from another podcast. But it’s true with some of my friends. It was like 60 to 70% of the workforce was coming in on a daily basis anyway, right? So they were ready not seeing like using utilization, full capacity before the pandemic, right, and then how they’ve learned a lot. And so they’re an even legacy companies, right? Can you imagine it imagine, like, we’ve done work for some big companies that are in the accounting industry, right, that they always came to work, they didn’t have this, like Google work from home splitting, you know, all that kind of stuff. And now they work from home, and they’re like, hey, this and their bean counters, right? They’re looking at this going, whoa, we don’t need those floors anymore.
John Fahmy 12:23
I never thought I hear the day that hedge funds ended up going, working from home, you know, so I have family and hedge funds. And when all of this happened a quick audible get the IT department, the CTO go to the homes of the traders set up, you know, the secure network, you know, on their in their homes, and then they’re doing everything from there. And then they have their resume or their whatever up with the rest of their desk. And they’re trading. Yeah. So I mean, you’re right, why do I need $200,000 a month, you know, rent, if it’s all working, so and a lot of these companies still have not gone back. Right? Right. So we’ll see how this plays out.
Greg Owens 13:00
We’ll see how it plays out. Because it’s interesting, too. I was talking to some friends the other day around, how does this end? What does that look like? Right? And it won’t be like Victory Day. And you know, we won’t be maybe we celebrate five years from now or something like that. But it’ll be more like a slow transition, you know, and there’ll be half the culture still wearing masks, even though like the government saying you don’t need them. Right. And that will be normal. Right? And then it’ll be interesting to see like two years from now, four years from now, five years now even just this year, right.
Katrina Stevenson 13:33
I wonder if it’s gonna be like the roaring 20s like the 1920s, you know, after the the Spanish flu and then there was the roaring 20s. Is that gonna happen this time?
Greg Owens 13:43
I think there could be and I think there will be another mini baby boom, right?
John Fahmy 13:48
Is there gonna be a baby boom, and a boom in divorces too like? Oh, right. Like, I mean, think about it. You have folks, everything now? I mean, I don’t know I should have studied law on the side and then done divorce. I mean, it’s tough. Right. You’re, you’re you went from going to your office every day to now homeschooling your kids, right? And, you know, being in front of your spouse or significant other, you know, seven days a week. 24 seven, you know, like, that’s hard is it takes a toll on people. But I think if you look at the bright side, how much are we going to appreciate being able to just give somebody a hug or shake someone’s hand? Man, if I do one more elbow? I mean, come on. It’s like or like, you know, you shake your head at somebody. It’s like, you know, nobody can see my smile behind the mask. Like how do you know if I’m smiling or not? Yeah. facial expressions? Yeah. My eyes. Yeah.
Greg Owens 14:46
Besides my missing tooth, I’ll just scare the living daylights out of people right now. So
John Fahmy 14:53
you know, just not having mask. I don’t care if you have any teeth at this point. That’s just the blessing there. Just see what it’s like to go got to do. You know, I remember jack, what was it? So January we were with our biggest national client in Florida for their, you know, biannual event. Yeah, they did every two years. Yeah. That that they do. And it was wonderful. Were in Epcot. And we’re, you know, just having a wonderful time. And then, you know, I even myself, I said, Well, since I’m in South Florida, you know, I’ll go to South America for a few days. And then you know, you come back and you’re like, Holy smokes, this just happened. What we were just all drinking around Epcot, like I was in Germany, drinking beer. Yeah. And then you got to this. So I’m gonna be really grateful to just be able to see family again and be able to travel and you know, go back to New York and see, see friends and family. So we’ll get there though. I’m optimistic.
Greg Owens 15:46
Yeah, yeah. Especially the vaccine is, is coming out rapidly, right like this. I actually know more people now that have gotten vaccinated then have had COVID. Right. just happens to be a lot of friends that are in the healthcare industry, right?
John Fahmy 15:59