Meet Erin Stock | Property Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Erin Stock and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Erin, what is the most important factor behind your success?
My definition of success is ever-changing. When I first started my company, success was being able to pay my bills and feed myself with the money left over. After some growth, success looked like finding employees and lessening my work load. Today, success is my clients being happy with the services we provide them, and my employees feeling empowered to work independently towards a common goal. Their wins are mine as well.

The common thread is courage. It is scary to quit your job, start a company and never look back. It is scary to hire employees, learn to trust them, and watch as complete control slips out of your hands. It is scary to allow yourself to hope for a time when you can step back and watch the team you’ve built run your company. For me, it is necessary to compartmentalize my fears from the tasks at hand and the future of the company. Let logic be queen. Once this is done, I press onward into the unknown.

The next key ingredient is the ability to work hard enough to complete the “push”. Compartmentalization takes the power of fear out of the equation, but the work itself will follow, and it will break you if you allow it to. As entrepreneurs, we have to be able to work harder than everybody around us. Our success is dependent on this.

I’ve been so scared, so many times, and done “it” anyway, that it’s now habit, and the final push isn’t nearly as difficult. In fact, it gets easier every time. Creating that habit and embracing the muscle memory of it is the single most important factor behind each of my successes.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I started West Elk Cleaning & Property Management 4 years ago as a way to breathe fresh air into a tired rental management industry that was struggling to adapt to new age tools like AirBnb, social media, and savvy travelers. The “tried and true” way of doing things never made much sense to me, and I had no interest in dragging the old-timers along with me. I reinvented the decaying wheel and embraced the new technology and changing priorities of travelers right from the beginning.

Although it seems counterintuitive, I am most excited to see how this massive change in the travel industry will correct itself. Currently, short term rentals and remote workers are having a major, and often negative, impact on the towns they’re located in. Short term rentals are here to stay, so I am looking forward to the day when major corporations like AirBnb, Vail Resorts, etc. will have to answer for their “ask for forgiveness, not permission” approach to expansion. This industry, if leveraged correctly, can work FOR the communities it impacts, and I want to be a part of making that a reality.

I am proud to be a property manager of short-term rentals in a resort town who actually cares about her community, her impact on it, and the education of her clients. I tell it like it is, give people the information they don’t necessarily want to hear, and use my success to give back to my community – fight the good fight from the inside, as it were.

I started this company as a way to not have a boss, and still pay my rent. I started by cleaning houses – any houses: crusty locals crash pads, big mansions that hadn’t been used in 6 months, my friends boss’ girlfriends apartment – anything. I didn’t even know how to clean professionally, I sometimes asked YouTube things like how to get wine stains out of leather, how to clean cork flooring, what chemicals will be toxic if mixed – all while at my clients property. I cleaned houses for next to no money until my fingers were bleeding, and my clients noticed. Before too long, one of these clients offered to be my first “Management” client. She handed me the reins and said go girl. I didn’t want to go anywhere, I was exhausted and hurting, I had no support and no help. The first “Push”.

I closed my eyes, hoped for the best, and dove in. I quickly realized that if you can work yourself into the “bleeding fingers” stage, you can work yourself into the “invoicing and responding to emails at midnight after a full days work” stage. No matter what, don’t stop until you’re proud. Word of mouth brought me my first handful of big-money, full management clients and I devoted my life to their properties. Night and day, for years. I was starting to get traction, started thinking about expansion – logo t-shirts, an office, employees – and then COVID happened. Another 18 months of pure grind mode. Just stay afloat, just do 1% better than the next property manager, don’t stop until you’re proud. Businesses around me dropped like flies – people gave up and were totally justified in doing so. At a certain point, I realized it couldn’t get much worse – so the only way to go was up; queue the second big “Push”. Fighting for air while everybody around you is drifting slowly towards the bottom was one of the hardest challenges I have ever had to face; the loneliness made an island out of me.

Once the masses started to recover, I was looking towards the next challenge – life after COVID and the influx of the biggest travel boom we have seen in decades. The idea of Remote Work was introduced, everybody was dealing with a fresh wave of anxiety, and quitting was not an option. Pure adrenaline and work ethic got me and my town through 2021. We made it – and made a lot of money in the process. Now, we try to adjust to this “new normal” with grace, respect, and as much patience as possible. The next “Push” is right around the corner!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Crested Butte, Colorado is Narnia! We start at Paradise Cafe for the best breakfast in town. Here, you can pick up a local paper and educate yourself about the issues facing our town, funny happenings, job postings, (the lack of) for rent ads, what not to do, etc. From there we head down to Gunnison for a helicopter flight with West Elk Air – you can’t fully appreciate our slice of heaven until you’ve seen it from above.

To wrap up the day we’ll take dogs to the river in town where they can play off the leash with other dogs, kids, humans, etc. Dinner is served at Ryce Asian Bistro – hands down the best food and value in town!

The rest of the trip is spent in one valley per day – exploring 4×4 drives, hikes, swimming holes, and the stunning mountains all around us. Our little town is home to many ways to spend an entire day without seeing another human (if you know where to look)!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
To my Mother, Patricia Stock, who made all of this possible by literally showing me it can be done (and by answering my 5-10 daily phone calls along the way). Thanks to her leadership by example, entrepreneurship was always an option for me, maybe even inevitable. My mom started, built, enjoyed, and sold her company all while raising me, by herself. She showed me that when you are chasing something, you do not stop until you’re proud.

Website: cbwestelk.com

Instagram: cbwestelk

Image Credits
Connor Scalbom