#DoorGrowShow - Property Management Growth

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nobody else is doing the stuff at the level that we're doing. Nobody else has the Avengers team of coaches that we are building. We're building the best. And then we have our new DoorGrow Super System, which is all these software and coaches and all these different major systems you need to build in your business like the hiring system, the planning system, the process system, your sales system, all these systems we call Super System.

[00:00:25] Jason Hull: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:22] So before I go too far, let me just say, I'm going to share some news. So we've done some really cool things lately at DoorGrow, and I've had some personal changes in my life that I think are really awesome too. So I just got back from Mexico, and I got married while I was there. So Sarah and I-- Sarah is the COO and operator of DoorGrow. She was my fiance and now she is my wife. Right? So we got married while we were in Mexico. This was planned, by the way. This was a destination wedding in Cabo San Lucas at a resort, and it was very beautiful, but it was like stressful for us. Really stressful. Like getting married legally in Mexico is a challenge. A lot of people probably don't do that. They probably just do it in the U.S. Sarah wanted to get married legally in Mexico. And I was on board, but our wedding planner was not equipped to handle that. She normally just does the pretty stuff, ceremonially at the hotel and made the mistake of saying that they could do this and put things off and didn't listen to us, and the customer service level's really, really not there. Like poor communication, always putting us off. " I'm dealing with a bunch of events right now. I'll help you later. We have it handled. It'll be great. It was not handled, so we ended up getting the ceremony done, but legally, the whole week after that was supposed to be like honeymoon time was us dealing with the legalities and back and forth between a lawyer, a new wedding coordinator, marriage coordinator-- because the first one we basically fired-- and like a judge and all this communication, getting everything handled. You have to get a blood test to get married to Mexico, and you have to get your birth certificates translated and apostilled. I didn't even know what that meant.

[00:03:19] So it was a bit dramatic and a bit stressful and we eventually got it all handled, and there was a lot of stress for Sarah and I leading up to that because we're doing cool new programs and launching new stuff at DoorGrow, and then we had some like issues with our sales team and like sales not happening because we had a problem with lead generation and stuff like this, and it was just, you know, that's business. That's part of business. We are definitely not immune to the struggles that entrepreneurs go through.

[00:03:50] So, and we've been making rapid changes in the business. Lots of changes. So I recently launched the DoorGrow Code. Nobody's done this before. I highly recommend you reach out to my team and get access to one of our recordings of the DoorGrow Code webinar that we just did. It's really cool. So the DoorGrow code is basically this journey and life cycle of the property management entrepreneur, and it's how you can collapse time. We cracked the code. This is the code, and how to go from zero to a thousand dollars, if you want to, in three to five years and in as quick of time as possible, and all the different systems and things that you need to get dialed in. And so we've built our programs around this so that you can grow your business rapidly. And so our new mastermind is even better than before. It's not a fit for everybody, but our new mastermind is really awesome, so I highly recommend that you check it out. So now also it is the day before Thanksgiving as we're doing this recording right now live and, you know, I just, I'm also super grateful. So Sarah and I recently purchased a home, it's like a million dollar home in Round Rock, Texas, and so it's on a golf course. It's beautiful, really nice area. I really like this area. We're just north of Austin. The downtown area is a little bit too crazy for my taste, but this is more residential and it's a nice area. We love downtown. We like to go downtown for fun, but we're like 30 minutes away and we're out of the crazy. So, and I really like this area, so. Lots of good things. Married, new home, and we're now fostering a pit bull like a new dog. So, and Sarah's already got Parker, who's a pit bull mix. I believe pit bull with a Great Dane is what we're guessing. It's a little bit taller than a pit bull, a little bit narrower head, a little bit... beautiful dog. And now we're fostering this like maybe one, two year old. Dog that is a-- we just looked it up-- a blue nose brindle pitbull, beautiful dog named Chance. So we're going to see how that goes. Right now we can't really get them near each other. They're both kind of A type personalities and so we're trying to like, give them treats and get them near each other a little by little and get them used to each other. And so far, it's going pretty well. It's going pretty well.

[00:06:15] There hasn't been any major (growling noises), you know, fights or bites or anything like that, so there hasn't been any of that yet. So that's good. But they're a little bit nervous around each other, and they're both like kind of high energy dogs. So, so that's, that's kind of the stuff that's going on. So, Thanksgiving tomorrow, I don't have my kids this Thanksgiving, so it's a little weird having holidays without the kids.

[00:06:38] I feel like that's just strange. But I wanted like to talk about just a little bit on this call, just kind of let you know like, what's going on in my world and let you know that I'm grateful. So I'm really grateful. Life's good. I've got a lot of really awesome blessings. I've got an amazing team in the business.

[00:06:57] We've got, you know, Ashlee and Giselle over client success. They're really taking care of our clients, holding their hands, getting them access to all of our different resources and materials. That's a huge load off my plate. We've really put a lot of time and attention into client success. Those that aren't familiar with client success, it's not the same as customer support or customer service, which we have a team doing that. Client success is basically in coaching programs, this is the team that keeps track of which clients are doing really well, which ones aren't showing up to calls, which ones aren't doing as well, you know, and how can we facilitate things and help them, you know, do well, is the idea. So we've also put a lot of attention into optimizing and improving the fulfillment side. For my fulfillment team, which is run by Adam, he's been with me for... I mean, it's got to be coming close to a decade now. I don't know. But Adam's an amazing team member. He knows how to do just about everything in the business I do to some degree on the technical side and in our billing software and stuff like that. And Adam's been-- he's phenomenal. And he's always traveling somewhere else in the world. Super grateful for Ashlee and our new team member, Giselle in client success. Also super grateful for Adam and the entire fulfillment team that he oversees. We've got two logo designers. Grateful for you two. They're a husband and wife team actually. So we ended up bringing one on, and then we brought in the other's partner, and we're the world's leading property management branding and design agency. And it's because we have really great people that handle that. And so, amazing logos. We've done so many rebrands and so many logos. Nobody else has done anything like this in the industry. It's just nobody else has done this. And so, we've rebranded hundreds of companies. We are the world's leading property management branding agency without question. And we do a great job.

[00:08:52] And related to that, we also do their websites. We do their print collateral, like the business card designs and yard signs and mailer postcards for direct mail and like all this kind of stuff. And so, really appreciate our design team. We also have web designers. Mike's been with us for a while. He's our head developer, coder guy and helps with support and we've got Morgan, who's-- two different Morgans on my team: sales Morgan and support Morgan. Support Morgan is male and Canadian, and our sales Morgan is female and here in the US right? Canadian Morgan's been with me for a long time. Really appreciate him and the support that he is able to provide our clients and he helps with getting, gather, kudos, stuff set up. He helps with support tickets and website changes and things like that. Gosh, and I know I'll probably leave somebody out, but I'm just really grateful for everybody on my team. We have an amazing team.

[00:09:52] Super grateful for Sarah. Of course. She's really shifted things throughout the whole business. Operationally, she can see things that I can't see. She is intuitive. Super intuitive. She just knows things are off either in an area financially and I'm able to bounce all my ideas off of her. She's really sharp. She's an INTJ for those that are into Myers Briggs. So she's a brilliant strategist. And so I really a appreciate having her, of course, in the business as well as romantically and personally, right. So gosh who... I'm going to pull up my team so I just don't forget anybody that I want to point out here. We've got an amazing team at DoorGrow and we are expanding beyond our core team. We're also bringing in coaches, so I'll tell you a little bit about that. So it's no longer just the Jason and Sarah show, where Sarah's kind of coaching more on the operational side. So that took a big load off my plate with helping property managers implement DoorGrow OS, which is better than EOS and better than Traction and better than all that kind of stuff that's floating around out there. So she's really taken ownership of that and helping that. Also, our hiring system is amazing. So we've got DoorGrow ATS and DoorGrow Hiring. ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System, which is a system that I built out for getting really good team members. So that you don't waste time on people that are not a skill fit, culture fit and personality fit, you need all three fits. So we've really made a lot of improvements in our systems and in our program and in how we keep track of clients and where they're at in the process and making sure they're clear on where they're at in the process.

[00:11:32] And we've got roadmaps and we've got checklists and like it's-- we've just made so many improvements this year, so I'm just super grateful for the team that supports me and all the stuff that we have going on. I want to point out, you know, my gratitude today.

[00:11:47] Oh man, I'm also really grateful for Madilyn. She goes by Madi now, but Madi's my daughter and she creates most of the stuff that you see on my social media personally and at DoorGrow on any of our social channels. She creates the video, she edits all our case studies and testimonials. She makes most of the videos that you see on our YouTube channel... reels all this stuff that's Madi, and she does a great job. We really appreciate her and she just keeps increasing her skillset and it's really funny, like she's able to speak in a voice-- I did a podcast episode with Madi previously, which some of you all might enjoy. If you're curious, what's it like working with dad? You know, she shares her perspective about me on that podcast episode. That was fun. And, who have I not mentioned? Brittany. Brittany was originally my assistant. Now she just helps with like podcast setups and like some billing stuff and things like this because she wanted to focus on being more of a mom and adopting kids. Still appreciate Britney, she operates, you know, kind of quietly in the background, just consistently getting stuff done.

[00:12:50] We've also got Kyle. I'm grateful for the marketing ideas and lead generation ideas that he's brought to the table that's really helped move us to the level that we're at now. And we are also bringing on a new kind of fractional director over marketing that's really sharp named Amara. So Amara, you know, shout out to you. We appreciate you as well. We're really excited to see the new stuff that you're helping us implement and getting us shifted into. And we're getting set up on HubSpot, y'all. So we're getting that set up and so we have better tracking internally, but I don't recommend that for property managers. There's better like CRMs I think for property managers, one of which we're developing, which is coming, which is DoorGrow CRM. Pretty awesome. Really excited about that. Has like landing pages and text message automation and like voicemail drops and all sorts of cool stuff that you're just not experiencing with any other CRM in the property management space right now. And we will be building out and optimizing stuff so that we have some preset stuff that's really going to help you grow your business. So we brought in a coach that's helping us with that, John Chin, who's one of our clients, but he actually took some of the stuff that we're doing that we teach related to getting partners that refer and introduce you to investors. He's put that on steroids with leveraging these systems, and so we're really excited to have him help out with coaching clients now as well. So anyway, I get excited about our offer and our product but.

[00:14:25] Grateful for Vin. He's our web designer. He does great work creating our SeedSites. We still call them SeedSites, our designs. And I mentioned our logo designers, that's Grace and Raymond. So really appreciate them. Raymond does amazing work and we're really excited that we now have brought Grace on board. And then, who else have I not mentioned by name? I mentioned Giselle. She's brand new, really helping out Ashlee and client success, and Ashlee's having a baby. So congrats to Ashlee on the team. So really appreciate Ashlee. Brought her home for client success. She used to work in like a convalescent hospital, I think, or nursing home-- nursing homes or whatever. And she'd set up programs and create community and connection. We're like, you'd be perfect for this. And she really was. She's been a great fit. So we've just got such an awesome team. Really appreciate everybody on the team. We've also got Jane and Justin. They're our setters. So they do a lot of the follow up and outreach and nurture and stuff like that.

[00:15:25] Key point or like what I'm trying to share, I guess, is that I'm really grateful, super grateful for our team. I'm also really excited and grateful for the extension to our team. Now we're bringing in experts, people that have been really seasoned experts in the industry. We've got experts that have come from channels like Home River Group, and they're really amazing at acquisitions. We've got experts coming in that, like Errol Allen, who is going to be working with our clients on process documentation. He's kind of the expert at this. We've got Jo Olivery, who's in Australia, expert at systems and is Disney certified, which I guess is a big deal in operations. So we've got her coming on board as a coach and we've got Roya Mattis. She's a really brilliant, amazing, intuitive mindset coach. Really helping people deal with issues that are holding them back. Sometimes there's just some stuff holding people back, and I find mindset is the best thing that I can help clients with in the program. And usually all the coaching and stuff that we do, whether it comes to operations or sales or whatever-- When I ask clients, "what's the best thing you've gotten out of the program?" a lot of times I would hear "mindset." And I always thought that was so weird. It's the mindset. Really mindset-- it's throughout everything that we do, and we brought in a mindset coach who's really like helped us identify some cool things. She works with me personally, works with Sarah personally.

[00:16:51] She just did an amazing training on the basic needs, and I realized my basic need is like, love and belonging. That's why I do what I do. I want to like benefit people. I want to create this community. I want to impact the industry positively. Sarah's basic need is power and achievement. She wants to accomplish stuff and get stuff done, and that works really great having an operator that helps facilitate that stuff in the business. She's always looking for how can we like level up clients and level up things. And so we both have this drive and motivation to benefit our clients from different perspectives. Right. Which is really helpful. Anyway, and I know there's, there's probably some, there's other coaches that we're bringing on that I'm probably missing, but yeah, we're always adding more coaches. And if you're listening, if you feel like you're like one of the best in the industry, we want the best. If you feel like you're one of the best, you want to be part of this mastermind and, you know, get paid well to invest some of your time towards DoorGrow and work with some of the best clients, really the best people in the industry. Our clients are so growth-minded, like positive mindset, like they're high functioning, like we have some amazing clients ranging through our DoorGrow code from white belts up to black belts. We've got these different belts and black belts are like a thousand door plus. And then white belts are they've got their first door, right? So. We also launched the DoorGrow Code, which I mentioned. The DoorGrow Code shows these different stages. It helps you know exactly like what's that secret question that you have in the back of your head that's holding you back and like, what are the problems you're dealing with right now?

[00:18:20] What do you need to stop doing in order to get to that next belt level or that next level of growth? This really is a mindset shift for people when they just see this. You can identify quickly where you're at, how many doors you're at, what your revenue is, and very clearly see what you need to do, and you can even look at previous stages and go, "oh, I didn't do those things. That's why I can't move forward. I'm kind of tethered to this belt level way back here that I didn't solve that problem. That's why I'm so frustrated with my team or why I'm so frustrated and I can't get to that next level. That's why I'm stuck at 50 or 60 doors and can't break that a hundred door barrier. That's why I'm stuck in the 200 to 400 door range, and I'll never be able to break that 600 door barrier and get to being that red belt." Right? So I recommend: reach out to our team and check out our new programs. I think it's really awesome.

[00:19:11] This is a lot more of an informal episode, if you can't tell. I just wanted to share gratitude, tell you kind of what we're up to at DoorGrow. We're going to be launching a DoorGrow process software. It's very different than what else is in the industry, so it's going to be very visual, like Vizio or like a flow chart. And Errol Allen's going to be helping me, you know, build out some of these processes, but I said, "how do you usually build out processes?" "Like I build it out in this sort of Vizio like software. It's very visual, and then I have to translate it or help clients translate this into something like Process Street where it's linear," which is what our team's been using. Or "then I have to translate it into like Lead Simple or some sort of process system. But the challenge with those systems is that you can create maybe context sensitive stuff, but in a linear to-do sort of list, you don't have branches very easily. It becomes difficult, but on a visual flow chart, that's very easy to do. You can say: "ask a question, do they have pets?" Cool. If they have pets, we need to do all of this stuff and go down this route, and do they not have pets or are they service animals? So maybe there's like three options and you have different criteria and different things to do, but some of these might converge, right? Service animals and pets, there might be some similar things you need to do in this flow chart. So this is where processes can be really complicated and you want to map it out visually, but then you have to like take this visual map. Wouldn't it be great if you just had a visual map and that was the actual process? So that's something that we're working on as well. And I mentioned DoorGrow Flow, which is that software. I mentioned, DoorGrow CRM, and we've already got DoorGrow OS, the best operating system, strategic planning software in the industry. And we already have DoorGrow ATS best hiring process and system in the industry, completely customizable and tailorable to your business. We also have partnered with an ai assessments company. And so these AI assessments are really good at helping to identify those three fits. I mean, we used to use like disk assessments, and we used to use, Myers Briggs and like Wonder Lick and all, like some of you use predictive index and so some of these tests are cognitive, some of them are conative. All these different tests to try and figure out: are they going to be a good personality fit. Are they a skill fit? Do they have the intelligence level to be great? Are they going to be a culture fit, like with our values? And so this AI assessment tool helped us to eliminate that for all those different assessments and it's proven to be accurate. That's how we got my-- oh my gosh. I didn't mention Mar or Maricella. Mar is my assistant. Mar, I love you so much. She has taken over our event planning. Grateful for Mar, she's amazing. She like, has done our last two DoorGrow Lives and made them work and they worked really well. Clients had an amazing experience. We did one in Austin and then we did one in Vegas. We're going to continue to do them in the Austin area. But we're really excited. She's already been working on the one that we're doing in May. Y'all should be at this event. It is going to be awesome. And we've got all these new programs. Gosh, there's just so much. But anyway, we've got news, so thank you, Mar. I'm really grateful for you. She's actually the one that makes me a lot less crazy, a lot less all over the place and meets with me on a daily basis to make sure I'm being taken care of. Gets my, you know, haircut appointments scheduled, gets my float sessions booked, makes sure I'm like getting my Krav Maga like things set, you know, for martial arts. And she helps with travel and she's also our event planner for our events and she's doing a phenomenal job at all this stuff. And so we just keep adding more to her plate because she's just so good at everything.

[00:23:08] I mentioned our DoorGrow hiring system. Super cool. That's how we got Mar. We used that on our entire team. We vetted our entire team and it proved that all of them are highly intelligent. Also proves that all of them are really good for their role. And our really good culture and skill fits, and it's been proven to be very effective with some of our clients that were our initial Guinea pigs going through this. So we've coupled that with DoorGrow ATS and that's DoorGrow hiring. Really awesome system. We are also going to be bringing on a PR coach. I'm kind of cat out of the bag, but we've got three candidates that we're working on right now and they all have over a decade of experience helping local, small businesses grow and scale their businesses through public relations, which I think is going to be the next level thing for this industry. It's the new opportunity for growth. The property management industry has a couple major challenges at the present. The biggest challenge is the awareness challenge. Most people that could be working with property managers are not because they're not really aware of property management. After the awareness challenge, the next big hurdle is the perception challenge. That's what steals most of the rest of the market share away. Out of those that are aware, a lot of them believe property management and property managers are bad or not good or are shitty and it's a well deserved perception. Most property managers suck. Though there's a lot of bad property managers out there or management companies. And I don't believe they intend to be bad. I believe that's what happens when they price themselves like everybody else at 10% or less, or they do flat fees like everybody else that's not doing a percentage.

[00:24:51] They have bad pricing. They're not getting paid well enough. They don't have the right culture in their business, so they don't have good team members. They are micromanaging their staff, trying to micromanage them through tasks based systems like Asana and Monday and Process Street and Lead Simple. And so they don't have amazing team members that they can trust to think and make decisions and their team members-- is in the DoorGrow code, by the way-- they're frustrated, like, "why can't my team members just do what I ask them to do? That's one of the big questions that you have in that usually around the 300 door stage. But these are the things that we help solve at DoorGrow. So PR is a new opportunity because what it does, public relations or pr-- Well, let me start with this. So just so you understand this, there are two main channels when it comes to creating awareness and we call this main awareness channel marketing. And there's two pieces to marketing. There's two pieces to marketing. You learn this in marketing 101. There's advertising and there is PR. Advertising mistakenly is used to try and grow businesses a lot of times. But really what actually has had the most success in growing companies historically is not advertising, it's PR. PR is what builds awareness and creates brands and helps them get market share while advertising historically and typically only helps them retain the market, share that PR created. Coca-Cola, for example, was built originally through pr, and PR is a lot less expensive than advertising. The first iPhone and Apple's rise to fame was all basically PR. People were talking about it. Lots of buzz. Not very expensive when it comes to advertising, but advertising is used by Coca-Cola to keep their market share aggressively in the cola industry, for example. And so most people though, in the property management space are trying to use advertising mistakenly, which allows you to target the people that are looking for property management. But the search volume is really low, and there's very few people that are actually looking for it. And so our growth strategies for clients are in the blue Ocean. We're really great at helping clients create new market share and expand the industry and build that awareness. PR is kind of that next level, so we're bringing in a PR expert, doing some cool things in the PR side of things also with DoorGrow to promote the industry and benefit the property management industry.

[00:27:21] So that's something that's coming down as well. You heard it here first, right? So these are some of the cool things that we're innovating and doing at DoorGrow. Nobody else is doing the stuff at the level that we're doing. Nobody else has the Avengers team of coaches that we are building. We're building the best. And then we have our new DoorGrow Super System, which is all these software and coaches and all these different major systems you need to build in your business like the hiring system, the planning system, the process system, your sales system, all these systems we call Super System, the DoorGrow Super System. It's the system of systems. So we're helping to build that out with clients as well. And also a growth acquisition engine for acquiring other companies. We're building the ultimate system of systems for property managers, so our clients are going to be the fastest growing in the industry, and we're taking people from small businesses to helping them grow as large as they want. And we're doing this based on my foundational principle-- you've heard me talk about this on many calls before of the Four Reasons. So we're not just growing for growth's sake, we're growing so that as you grow and scale, you do this in a way that you get more fulfillment out of your day-to-day, you feel more freedom, and you get more of a sense of contribution that you're making a difference in the world, living your best life, contributing in your best way that you were designed to do, and you're getting more support from your team. This is the four reasons for starting a business. Most people think they just want to make more money. However, what you really want are those four reasons, because that's really what you're hoping money will give you. You can make more money and not get those four things. So we are doing all of this stuff to help our entrepreneur clients not be property managers, and instead be entrepreneurs that maybe hire property managers and do property management, but getting you out of the stuff that doesn't give you freedom or fulfillment or sense of contribution and making sure that you have a business and a team that really makes you feel supported. And we are building the team and the systems that really will make you feel supported in our program.

[00:29:28] And our program is less than it cost even a single team member. And you're getting access to all of this stuff. All the software included, the website, hostings included, GatherKudos, our reputation software included, all the different software tools that we are launching or that we have currently are all included as part of our mastermind. And then we also have been stacking bonuses. So I'm sure my competitors are like, listening to this, and they're like, "I got to start doing all this stuff." But one of the things that we've been doing is we've negotiated with some of the top vendors. My goal is to reach out to all the top vendors in the industry and get a best-in-class discount. I've negotiated this because our clients are high growth and they're adding doors quickly. Vendors love our clients. We've negotiated with some of the coolest tools and systems in the industry, best in class discounts. Discounts that they agreed would be better than anything else they offer to NARPM or anyone else. And some of these are stackable discounts. For example, like Tenant Turner and Easy Repair Hotline. And ourpetpolicy.com and Levo Secure, really cool software. We've got a list and I'm constantly stacking more. If you feel like you're one of the best vendors and you want access to our clients and you want a stamp of approval from DoorGrow. We want the best-in-class discount, and it's just as long as they're members of our mastermind, they leave the mastermind, they lose all these bonuses and discounts. But reach out to me if you feel like you're the best in the category. We've got Z inspector. Sorry if I'm missing you, if you're a vendor. We've got Virtually Incredible. We're getting the best of the best and stacking these bonuses and discounts for our clients. So it just makes the program a no-brainer to like be in because you're saving more money, making more money, and it's less than like a part-time team member to be part of our program on a monthly basis.

[00:31:25] So anyway I think that's about all I'm going to talk about today. So I appreciate you hanging out with me. I know this is a bit informal. You got a little bit of a picture of like what's going on at DoorGrow some of the new innovations. You've heard a little bit about my team that I'm super grateful for. I think a lot of people mistakenly think it's the Jason Show. It's definitely not the Jason show, and as soon as I can, like my goal is to exit as many pieces of the business as possible so I can really just focus on the stuff that I really, really enjoy more and more fulfillment and freedom for myself as well. And I really love getting to do what I get to do. I like innovating. I like coming up with ideas. We're in some of the best-- my team and myself are in some of the best coaching and mentoring programs that exist out there. We are in Masterminds as well, and Sarah and I are constantly taking trips to these different events, masterminds. We're in usually at least three major ones at a time. We spend at DoorGrow over six figures annually just on coaches, mentors, and programs. You get access to this knowledge that we are constantly curating and improving upon and bringing in. And that's one of my skills and genius I feel, is I'm able to take ideas from other coaches, other things, programs, I'm able to improve upon them, package them together in a better way, and then we're able to benefit our clients and so you get access to some really good stuff as part of our program.

[00:32:51] So anyway, with that, I'm going to go ahead and end today's podcast episode. Until next time to our mutual growth, everybody. Check us out at doorgrow.com. If you're new to us or not yet working with us, and you've been sitting on the fence, now's the time. And also, if anything I ever say on this podcast is helpful, please leave us a positive review or feedback or something somewhere online. It really means a lot to us. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:33:20] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social, direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:33:47] Jason Hull: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 193: The Renter Experience In Property Management With Ben Doherty 0

Dec 9, 2022

Leasing is one of the hardest aspects of property management. What if you had a way to offload some or all of your tasks related to leasing?

Today, property management growth expert Jason Hull chats with Ben from Sunroom. This service allows property managers to offload leasing to leasing professionals who care about property managers, owners, and tenants.

You’ll Learn…

[01:26] Offloading Leasing: What is Sunroom?

[09:01] ShowMojo, Tenant Turner, vs. Sunroom, oh my!

[016:35] Better ways to do Property Showings

[020:23] How Sunroom Vets Tenants Better

[24:21] Integrating with Other PM Software

[31:30] Net Promoter Scores for Property Management and Leasing

[37:12] Learning to LET GO as a PM Entrepreneur

Tweetables

“Some of y'all entrepreneurs are control freaks. Let's be real, and you need to let go of some of this stuff and let somebody else do it a little bit better.”

“We have a lot of egos as entrepreneurs. We think our way is the best way all the time, and we need to see that maybe somebody else could do this better.”

“Property managers tend to do best if they just convince owners to do pets. You're going to get more tenants, you're going to get more money.”

“One of the biggest time sucks for a property management company is dealing with prospective tenants.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Ben: So what we do is we partner with property management companies and become their leasing arm. So if you're a newer property management company, you're focused on growing doors and you just mainly want to focus on that, right? One of the most important things is you got to get leasing. If you don't get leasing, you're not going to lease the doors quickly, which then your owner investors are not going to be happy about that.

[00:00:22] Jason Hull: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not bebecause you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:19] Jason Hull: All right. Ben, welcome to the #DoorGrowShow.

[00:01:24] Ben: Thanks for having me, Jason.

[00:01:26] Jason Hull: Good to have you. So Ben, why don't we start by you giving us a little bit of your background, qualify yourself. You've done some cool stuff and I'm in the market where you did some of this cool stuff. We just realized in the green room that we're practically neighbors in Austin, market downtown, and I'm up in Round Rock. Ben, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the, I guess technology space.

[00:01:49] Ben: Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. First of all, I mean we-- me and my co-founder Zach, we started working on Sunroom in right around 2017. And, the way that we had originally had the idea was, just being a renter for a decade and having a lot of interesting experiences trying to look for a place to lease. But prior to starting Sunroom, Zach and I had started a company called Favor Delivery, which is a small little delivery company here in Texas that grew to become the market leader in delivery. And we sold to H-E-B in early 2018.

[00:02:27] Jason Hull: And for people that aren't familiar with H-E-B, because I moved from California just before the pandemic because I wanted to get away from California and the taxes and it's poor political culture. But anyway, so I moved here, Austin and H-E-B was all over the place. I'm like, what a weird name. What is this place? But it's one of the, like America's top grocery chains. It's consistently rated as like one of the biggest and the best. So for those that are not in Texas, they are probably not familiar with H-E-B, but H-E-B is the, like one of the leading grocery stores, and it dominates everything.

[00:03:05] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:03:06] Jason Hull: I'm sure in grocery sales, it beats out Walmart, like it beats out any of the stuff that I'd heard about before and I'd never heard of H-E-B. And they offer delivery service.

[00:03:15] Ben: Yeah. H-E-B is an impressive company. And the crazy thing is they've been around for 115 years.

[00:03:21] Ben: Wow.

[00:03:21] Ben: They are the top employer in Texas. And when they acquired us, it was the only acquisition they've ever had in their history as a company. And even crazier than that, when we combined workforces at the time, we had the largest workforce of independent contractors. We grew to, now they're at a hundred thousand delivery drivers in Texas.

[00:03:44] Ben: Oh, wow.

[00:03:44] Ben: And H-E-B had a similar amount of employees. So when we combined workforces, it just became this really massive workforce supporting grocery and delivery of all foods. So yeah, it was a cool marriage that we had there.

[00:04:00] Jason Hull: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. That's interesting history. So I've seen the Favor name when I'm doing delivery from H-E-B, so I was like what's this relationship?

[00:04:11] Ben: Yeah. So I can elaborate a little bit more too about, how we picked Sunroom. We had, like I said, I mean my co-founder Zach and I, we're actually best friends from high school and so we go way back. I think what you were saying about you wanting to support property manager entrepreneurs, I think that's a good mission because I just tip my hat off to any entrepreneurs who get any businesses working because we definitely know how hard that is. But anyways, our journey towards Sunroom was just having a lot of, I would call interesting experiences as a renter. And then we started calling-- once we were interested in the rental space-- we started making a lot of phone calls to, different rental listings. And we started asking the agents and property managers, "Hey, why are you doing this?" "why are you doing these leases?" And, we kept hearing the same thing, which was like, "oh, we don't-- I don't really want to be doing this lease. I'm just doing this lease. I'm helping this investor client buy more homes and so now I'm looped into to renting this place." And every once in a while you'd come across a property manager who really loved leasing, but a lot of the property managers we talked to too would be like, "yeah, I'm really focused on growing my door count. And these things are just something we have to do to get more properties in the door." And Zach and I saw that as an opportunity of: wow. No wonder why the experience is not that great for renters. A lot of the folks who are doing these leasing are not that excited about doing it. And so then that's how we started working on Sunroom.

[00:05:29] Jason Hull: Cool. So let's talk about then what-- you talked about the problem that you saw in the marketplace and experience wasn't super good, but a lot of owners and maybe even property managers aren't even super excited about taking care of the tenant experience. So it's not like their highest priority. Like, "I want to get more doors, I want to have more properties managed," so they're like, "what's my competitive advantage?" So when they're picking tools and software, they're usually-- they're trying to figure out: "how do I get some sort of leg up on the competition," so to speak, or "how can this lower my operational cost?" and these kind of things. One of the biggest time sucks for a property management company is dealing with prospective tenants.

[00:06:13] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:06:14] Jason Hull: These are not people that are paying them and they call them the most, and--

[00:06:17] Jason Hull: yeah.

[00:06:18] Jason Hull: --This is like the "garbage of phone calls," I've heard one of my guests call it.

[00:06:21] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:06:22] Jason Hull: So tell me about what does Sunroom do and how does it do it, and what's the benefit.

[00:06:27] Ben: Yeah, sure. So what we do is we partner with property management companies and become their leasing arm. So if you're a newer property management company, you're focused on growing doors and you just mainly want to focus on that, right? One of the most important things is you got to get leasing. If you don't get leasing, you're not going to lease the doors quickly, which then your owner investors are not going to be happy about that. And also I would argue equally as important is that renter does have a great experience because, that is really the beginning of your relationship with them, and what we've noticed of working with a lot of different property managers is that, when the renter goes into the home and they're really happy with their experience that led up to that point, they're a lot more-- how do I put this? They're a lot more quiet when they get into the home, right? They're just happy overall, which is going to reduce your maintenance requests and honestly going to make it more likely that they renew the next year, right? because that is just really first, and I would just say first impressions are, everything in life a lot of times.

[00:07:27] Ben: And so I think, leasing really is that first impression for that property manager. To come back around to what we do, yeah, we partner with the property management companies and make it so that they don't even need to have any leasing agents on staff. And we can really do the entire process of getting the home leased. But at the same time, we give the property manager the power over key decisions, right? Things like actually approving the applications, that's still going to be up to the property manager to make sure they choose the right applicant. And obviously if they want to use their lease that they prefer, there's all different ways that we allow them to customize what they want their leasing experience to be like. But at the end of the day, we're really doing the legwork for them and we have a combination of people and tech to do that.

[00:08:12] Ben: Got it. So

[00:08:14] Jason Hull: this combination of people and tech... are you able to do this in every market or is this like a local thing that needs to be done

[00:08:21] Ben: locally?

[00:08:23] Ben: Yeah, great question.

[00:08:24] Ben: So we started out just doing this in Austin and have partnered with several different property managers here. In town. But now we're expanding across the us. And I believe we're up to seven different markets at the moment. But pretty rapidly expanding to cover more markets.

[00:08:41] Ben: Got it. What's

[00:08:42] Jason Hull: the biggest limitation in expansion for those that you don't cover yet?

[00:08:46] Ben: We call ourselves a leasing only brokerage, so we're actually-- we're a real estate brokerage in each of these states. And so that's a blocker to getting set up in a lot of these places is actually establishing our brokerage in each one of these states.

[00:08:59] Ben: Got it.

[00:09:00] Jason Hull: Okay. Cool. I think a lot of property managers, they're aware of certain pools like ShowMojo and Tenant Turner and Rently and Knock Rentals and Turbo Tenant, so how does Sunroom differentiate from all these tools and these systems are already out there?

[00:09:20] Ben: Yeah, so some of those systems and tools you mentioned, I do think those-- they do improve the renter experience and at the same time. They do make it so that it's a little less work for the property manager to lease those properties. But at the end of the day, if you're a property management owner you're still going to need a leasing agent on your team. Or you're going to have to overextend the property manager that you have in order to use those, utilize those tools. Sunroom just takes it the next step where we have similar tools and systems. Obviously I'm biased, but I would argue they're better than those, but--

[00:09:55] Ben: You should argue that.

[00:09:57] Ben: We take it a step further. You don't even really need to have a leasing agent on staff in order to really execute everything you need to do for leasing. Whereas all these other tools or systems they're definitely completely reliant on still having somebody there behind the scenes catching the errors or all all the holes in those systems. And, if anybody has tried to. Integrate those different systems and tools, what they'll find is that they were built in a way that they had a focused goal. And there's a lot of different holes in that system. And I'm sure as operators see that, I think that's a big difference with what we're building, is that what we build, we actually use to operate. And so we're able to see all the different gaps and holes that those systems leave. And really between our systems and our team, we're able to fill in the gaps that those systems leave out.

[00:10:46] Jason Hull: All right. So I think people listening by now are like, "the wheels are turning a little bit," and they're like, "okay, how's this actually play out?" So could you walk us through step by step what-- how this process works with the property manager and the tenant from beginning to

[00:11:01] Ben: finish? Yeah, sure. So it usually starts within one of the property managers, property management softwares, right?

[00:11:09] Ben: We see commonly property managers are using App Folio or Buildium, so let's use App Folio for example. You have a property manager on your team that you have a home where the renter didn't renew. And it's a property that you're going to need to get leased. At that moment, if you were partnered with us, you would open up the Sunroom portal. We would already essentially have that home synced within our system. Because we're able to really pull data from App Folio and the Buildiums of the world. From there, they just really submit the property to us and say, "Hey, this home's coming up for lease." we would normally already have all of their settings. As a part of our onboarding, we're going to get them all set up in our system. So things like knowing what their tenant criteria is. Things like knowing when is this home actually available? When would you like us to touch the property? And then as soon as they submit the property to us, we actually will go out and touch the property. So we have boots on the ground. Those boots on the ground are going to get professional photography. They're going to set up a self showing lock system if that's what the property manager would like to. And then we're going to actually install a yard sign as well. And, we take pictures to really document everything that we do there. And then, we'll take it a step further, we'll get the marketing description written and then we'll get it listed online, and we do that entire process in an average about 48 hours.

[00:12:28] Ben: Nice.

[00:12:29] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah, that's very cool. So you actually have people come out-- swarm of people, and they get all this stuff done, right? In the description, getting it listed, doing all this stuff. Okay.

[00:12:39] Jason Hull: Yeah,

[00:12:40] Ben: and that's where our background in Favor obviously comes into play is that, I think if you think about Favor, there's a great consumer experience where the customer can order food, but then there's all these boots on the ground that actually go get the food and make sure that all happens in a timely manner. Leasing is similar in the sense that you need to have a great consumer experience for the renter to be able to see what they're shopping for and do the things they they need to do to see if they want to, lease that property. But then you're going to need boots on the ground to actually, handle the listing side of things.

[00:13:09] Ben: Very cool.

[00:13:10] Jason Hull: So is this totally Uber-like in that you're just pulling anybody in, or I'm sure you have criteria for the photographers and for all these different people that you're bringing in to do these

[00:13:22] Ben: little pieces.

[00:13:23] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. We don't just hire any random person. I'd say it's definitely not Uber-like in that I think, we use-- it's technology enabled so that we can do those things quickly and can measure how fast we do them, right? I think just the fact that we know we get those properties set up in an average of 48 hours, I think is...

[00:13:42] Ben: Yeah.

[00:13:42] Ben: ...more than your average property manager would know, but we know that the tasks we're doing are tech enabled, but no we care a lot about those people that we choose and we try to find folks that have a lot of experience with real estate photography and then we teach them the other aspects of what we're trying to get done at that property.

[00:14:00] Jason Hull: Awesome. Yeah. Very cool. When a property is going to become vacant, are they able to leverage a system or does it have to be totally empty and rent ready and everything

[00:14:11] Ben: else?

[00:14:12] Ben: No. So yeah, no, they're able to use the system. It sounds like you're asking about pre-leasing.

[00:14:19] Ben: Yeah.

[00:14:20] Ben: Okay. Yes, pre-leasing can be really important I think in some markets. Yeah, that's definitely something we support. And let's say it's tenant occupied and we need to act and do an escorted showing, we have different agents on the ground that we partner with that are some of the most active in the area touring homes and renters. And so we'll tap into that network to do some.

[00:14:40] Jason Hull: Got it. Okay. Now what if they want get the property listed, they want to get photos, but there's a bunch of ugly furniture in there and ugly stuff. Do you guys let maybe-- BoxBrownie I've had on the show before-- digital editors and they're like, removing all this

[00:14:55] Ben: stuff?

[00:14:55] Ben: Yeah.

[00:14:56] Ben: Take the photos.

[00:14:56] Ben: Yeah, we do have digital editing in that regard, but depending on the degree of how much that home is messed up. That's also something that we do is that if we go out to a home and we think it's not show ready we'll document that and share it back with the property manager. And I think we've seen property managers really love that aspect of what we do because oftentimes they have a tough time holding the make ready folks accountable or let's say they're doing a renovation on the property. In particular, I can't tell you how many times that a property manager said, "Oh yeah, this was supposed to be done. And then when we went out there we were able to collect evidence that it wasn't right. That's also part of our system is that if the home is not actually ready to be marketed, and then, we're going to gather that information, share it back with the property manager, and then essentially remind them until that's resolved and as soon as it's resolved, then we can make the listing active. But it's a pretty valuable system and checks and balances that we have in place there.

[00:15:55] Jason Hull: Got it. So you'll communicate with them. Then the property manager can send out maintenance, get things taken care of, dealt with, and then report back to you and you're checking in with them, "Hey, is this ready yet? Is this ready yet?" And then they're like, "we got it ready." And then...

[00:16:08] Jason Hull: exactly.

[00:16:08] Jason Hull: Proceed.

[00:16:10] Jason Hull: Exactly.

[00:16:10] Jason Hull: So you've sent up the people, you've got the photos, you got like maybe a lockbox on, you got the yard sign, you've got the description. It's posted online. It's probably pushed out to multiple channels.

[00:16:19] Jason Hull: That's right.

[00:16:20] Jason Hull: Then next come the showings, right? And scheduling and all this. So how does that work and are you doing one-off showings? Are you doing open house model? What would it be found to be the most efficient? What comes next?

[00:16:35] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So what we do is we usually set these properties up with a self showing system, and then renters are able to go tour the properties seven days a week from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM and, we also have, a support team available those same hours, so 84 hours, we're ready to quickly text back any renters or answer any phone calls if, folks are having a tough time actually, accessing the home for any particular reason. Our system is really good. I'd say renters have a really good experience touring homes. Like any system, we're dealing with real world stuff. Sometimes maybe it could be a really humid day and maybe the maybe the door frame swells a bit or something, right? So maybe the door gets a little stuck. So the renter needs a little help to understand how to get in. Those are all things that I think us, having support team there available to talk to them and actually pick up the phone. I think is a really important thing. So that's just one of the many ways that we support tours. But I'd say one of the most important pieces of tours is actually collecting that tour feedback and sharing it with the owner after the fact. And so we have a really great system in place for that as well where a lot of renters will leave feedback just right within the place that they tour. And then we're actually able to take that feedback and then give it to display it on a webpage where then the property manager is able to share that webpage directly with their owner so they can actually watch the tours that are coming in and the tour feedback in real time. And we white label that for them. So you can imagine as a property manager, you just share this white label page with your logo and the owner's able to get a bird's eye view of how their home is performing on the market.

[00:18:21] Ben: Got it.

[00:18:22] Jason Hull: So could this be a scenario that the owner says, "I don't need to do this," and like the property manager says, "you need to do this. Like it'll get you more rent. People will have an issue with this place if you don't fix this or change this," and the owner's like, "no." And then they say, "look at the page, here's the white label page. It's got our brand, our logo, XYZ property management, and it says like, consistently feedback. Like the floor is too gross, or whatever."

[00:18:47] Ben: Yeah, "I would rent this home, but does it come with a fridge?" Just one way I've seen owners trying to cut some costs is like not putting refrigerators in the home. And then they see, three out of the five renters that tour the home mentioned "Hey, there's no fridge."

[00:19:00] Ben: "have to buy a fridge and I'll go somewhere else."

[00:19:03] Ben: Yeah, exactly. And that page really helps the property manager make their case to the owner and also show to them like, "Hey, we really are showing this property and this really is what the renters are saying.

[00:19:14] Ben: Cool.

[00:19:15] Jason Hull: Yeah, that's really cool. I like the feedback loops. So then, what's the next steps? You're doing showings, you're doing tours. Then I guess people are being pushed to apply when they're doing these tours by the system?

[00:19:27] Ben: Yeah, so we have a system, both to pre-qualify renters and to actually have them apply. As soon as they apply we're able to display those applications to the property manager. And we use the same page that we use to display tour feedback and also tracking the tours and the leads and everything. We use that same page then to actually show the applications to the property managers and to their owners. Because I know every property manager seems to have a different deal with each owner, right? Some of 'em, they want to run the application past their owner beforehand, or sometimes they're just the ones reviewing it. But either way, we display that information there so that both the property manager and the owner, are able to review the application before they decide to approve or not.

[00:20:14] Ben: Got it. So

[00:20:14] Jason Hull: they can either show this white label page that has the list of all the applicants or could they just say, "here's the one we recommend," and show that person's information?

[00:20:22] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:20:23] Ben: Yeah. It's usually the latter. Because it's trying to make it simpler. Yeah. It's usually just showing the one that they recommend. And at that point, we would've already done all of the vetting for that application. Even the manual steps of doing a verification of rental history, for example or a verification of employment. And we've actually seen just our application processing service. We've seen that to be so popular that we actually broke that out as something that a property manager could partner with us just on application processing, and that's also cool because we have a lot of tech to catch fraudulent renters. I'm sure you've probably heard about how fraud is on the rise especially with us entering recession. And I think it's just more likely that renters are going to try to fake pay stubs. Even some go as far as trying to fake their identity in different ways to try to get approved for a home that really are beyond their means. And so we've really, we've invested a lot into our application processing system. Doing things like being able to get their pay stubs directly from their payroll provider instead of having a way for them to upload their pay stubs, which could be photoshopped or something like that.

[00:21:35] Ben: Yeah.

[00:21:35] Ben: And then let's say a renter doesn't even have a job, or let's say a renter's, a self-employed or something, we have a way of actually pulling bank statements directly from their bank, instead of just receiving those bank statements and getting it uploaded. All that tech helps to really reduce the amount of fraud. And as for property managers as well, it's less work to actually investigate all those documents.

[00:21:59] Jason Hull: That's just technology and stuff a property manager can't do directly. They don't have the ability to pull directly from the bank their pay stubs, and it's not going to say, "here, let me give you my login to my bank account," and to pull directly from the employer. They don't usually have that ability really effectively either. There needs to be technology involved.

[00:22:18] Ben: Yeah.

[00:22:19] Ben: So we--

[00:22:20] Ben: --so what

[00:22:20] Jason Hull: about--

[00:22:20] Ben: oh, go ahead.

[00:22:20] Ben: I was just going to say, yeah, we recognize that you know most of what we've been talking about here is called our full service leasing, right? Where we actually become the leasing arm. But let's say, you've got leasing agents on your team and you think they're rock stars. You're happy with what's going on with your leasing. We could plug in and just do the application processing. We call that service, we call that Sunscreen, is what we call it. The idea is the quirky tagline that I came up with is, "Don't get burned by bad renters."

[00:22:47] Jason Hull: I like it. Little bit of sunscreen.

[00:22:51] Ben: Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:52] Ben: Okay.

[00:22:53] Jason Hull: So one of the questions I think some people will be asking is, what about pets? It's like a whole nother beast. Outside, inside pets and running pets and having pets, all this kind of stuff. Property managers tend to do best if they just convince owners to do pets. You're going to get more tenants, you're going to get more money. How do you deal with the pet side of

[00:23:11] Ben: things?

[00:23:12] Ben: Yeah, so at this point I'm sure most property managers have heard of pet screening.com. I think they're a great company. And so we actually integrate their data into our system. So if you're already signed up for pet screening.com. You can provide the pet screening.com login, and then we're able to pull that information into the application packet. So it's something that the owner and the property manager can consider as a part of the overall application. And, obviously pet screening.com does a really good job verifying things like our emotional support animal documentation. Is that legit? There's fraud around ESA documents. And that's just one of the pieces that they do. But yeah, that's something that we recommend whenever anyone is accepting pets.

[00:23:57] Ben: Very

[00:23:58] Jason Hull: cool. I like pet screening.com that I've had them on the show. I had another company that may be interesting to integrate with too on the show called our pet policy.com and they take things a step further on the protection side of things after the screening. So they go step beyond. So that might be interesting for you to take a look at integrating with as well.

[00:24:20] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:24:20] Jason Hull: Ourpetpolicy.com, they seem like a good group of people over there as well. So real quick, going back, you had mentioned AppFolio, Buildium, do you integrate with Rent Manager? Do you integrate with I don't know, there's some other things and some of these tools

[00:24:35] that

[00:24:35] Ben: people are using?

[00:24:37] Ben: Yeah. Great question. So it's pretty easy for us to get key information plugged into these softwares. And the reason is when someone partners with us, if you think about it, we really need to touch that property management software right when the home is when the home's coming up for lease, right? It needs to be listed. And then once the home gets leased, that's when that information needs to get back in the property management software again. So usually the way that our structure is, it doesn't really matter too much, which property management software you're. The system would be the same, where you would essentially create a user for us.

[00:25:15] Ben: So then once the home is getting leased, we know who's signing the lease. We're going to get their information set up within whatever property management software you use and make sure that it's set up for ongoing rent payments and things like that. It essentially, if you're using a property management software, but then you're going to use someone for leasing. But then once the home gets leased, it's going to be as if you had leased it through those other systems. And it's seamless in that way.

[00:25:39] Ben: Yeah. Very cool. So

[00:25:40] Jason Hull: you're PM

[00:25:41] Ben: software agnostic.

[00:25:42] Ben: Exactly. Yes. That's a much more succinct way of saying it. Thanks.

[00:25:47] Jason Hull: So that just means I've been doing this probably a long time. All right. So you've, you mentioned your solution. You've got the sunscreen that can be, pulled out just separately or if they're using the full leasing service. You've done the pre-qualification, you've got the applicant they can send over the white label thing to the owner. If the owner's like, "I really need to see what info you got." And you've tested out their pay stubs and their bank--

[00:26:11] Jason Hull: right

[00:26:12] Jason Hull: --stuff, and you've maybe connected the pet screening.com. What happens next? You've got

[00:26:17] Ben: a good applic--

[00:26:18] Ben: Yes. Yeah, so the property manager, the owner accepts the application. And at that point, we're going to reach out to the renter, say, "congrats, you've been accepted. Please now pay the security deposit." And as soon as they pay security deposit, then the owner or the property manager is able to connect their bank account, and that money will just automatically get deposited in whatever account that you specify. And then from a lease perspective, from really from the beginning of the process, we would've asked that you provide the preferred lease that you would like for us to use. We're going to get that lease drafted up and we're going to send it over to both the renter and the property manager. For some property managers, they like to review one last time before it gets sent to the renter. So we can fulfill that ask. And then the lease is going to get signed. And as soon as the lease gets signed, we will then dispatch our people back out to the property, do one final walkthrough, and also remove our yard sign and remove any other things that we had, any lock boxes or things like that we got setup. But we do one thing where we will leave a combo lockbox out at the property so that we can facilitate the renter actually moving in. So that's really the final and last step for our system, is facilitating to the renter actually getting the keys so that they have a smooth move in. And then the last step after all of that is we're going to survey the renter and make sure they had a great experience through the whole the whole leasing process.

[00:27:51] Jason Hull: And what's-- before we move on, because I'm curious like what difference you're noticing with these surveys, but let's say they don't accept somebody. What's the process? What happens to the rejects, so to speak? The tenants that didn't pass because a lot of times they're following up and bugging the property manager, "Hey, did you accept me? What's going on?" This sort of thing. What do you do?

[00:28:11] Ben: Yeah. So first of all, we shield the property manager from having to deal with all of that stuff. And I think for the position we're in, I think the natural thing is I think we would do what any other good property manager would do. We'd see if there's any other listings within that property manager that the renter would qualify for. First and foremost, we're going to recommend that of " There are these other listings for the same property manager" or, " do you like that?" And if the renter is not interested in any of those homes, then I think we would look broader to other listings that that are amongst our partners and say, "Hey, renter, maybe it would be better if you lease this property."

[00:28:48] Jason Hull: Yeah. That helps get the other properties filled. That's great.

[00:28:53] Ben: Yeah.

[00:28:53] Ben: Okay.

[00:28:53] Ben: And the renter's really happy too, because they don't have to pay an application fee again, so they're able to reuse their application.

[00:29:00] Jason Hull: Nice. Now what if you have two property managers in the same market and you get an applicant for one, are they completely segregated from being able to apply it to the other, or if they're in the Sunroom system,

[00:29:13] Ben: they can...

[00:29:14] Ben: Great question. Yeah. So we don't want to restrict where renters can apply, right? because that just doesn't make sense. But we have come across the scenario, it's been rare where renters have applied to multiple properties. And so what's really cool about our system is that we have a little disclaimer for the property manager where they can see, "hey, this renter's actually applied for multiple properties," and that way it's clear to them of " Hey, look, this renter is serious about your property, they are, they're hedging their bets," which, that's a common scenario especially in a hot market is if property managers are collecting multiple applicants on a single property, you can bet that the renters-- they know that. And so they're also applying to multiple properties. So I think we do our best to try to mitigate those scenarios. And I think one of the best ways to mitigate those scenarios is really just processing applications quickly and then, and working to get the renter and answer quickly around if they're accepted or denied. And, in most cases, I think renters are willing to tell you which one's their first choice. And so if you're able to process the application really quickly and drive it to decision, it doesn't happen too often where the owner comes back and wants to accept the renter and they've already decided to go somewhere else. It does occasionally, we try to mitigate that.

[00:30:28] Ben: Got it.

[00:30:28] Jason Hull: Okay, cool. So going back to the other path, I'm actually drawing this all out. I've got like a flow

[00:30:34] Ben: chart going on here.

[00:30:36] Ben: Sounds good. Keep

[00:30:37] Jason Hull: track.

[00:30:38] Jason Hull: So you surveyed the renter at the end, like you've got somebody in the property.

[00:30:43] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:30:43] Jason Hull: They've got a lockbox there. I think that's very cool. They can just go and "Can I move in on this day?" "Yep, here's the lockbox. You've got a code or however it works." And they can go get in.

[00:30:52] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:30:52] Jason Hull: And you don't have to show up. They can be there with their new U-Haul when they need to be there. That's super annoying, I think for property managers sometimes. And then afterwards you survey the renter. So I'm curious about the results of this. What's been the shift that people have noticed in the experience? This is why you started this in the beginning. You weren't having a great experience. Some people probably were like, "Drive to our office and you might get a key." Some people are like, "we can meet you maybe this day." It was like a mess. So what sort of feedback are you seeing on these surveys and what sort of shift are property management companies that are working with you noticing with your process versus trying to do this on their

[00:31:30] Ben: own?

[00:31:30] Ben: Yeah, great question. We collect what I would I consider a very important metric and I'm curious if it's come up before in this podcast. It's something called a net promoter score. Yeah. Have you discussed that before? I'm happy to--

[00:31:44] Ben: we

[00:31:44] Jason Hull: haven't really focused on that. But yeah, I think a lot of people are familiar. So net promoter score is when it says "on a scale of maybe zero to 10 or one to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company?" So a lot of people see this, the quick survey on software, different things like this.

[00:32:00] Ben: Yeah, that's right. And so when the net promoter score rank actually comes out, the scale is actually a minus a hundred to a plus 100. You could Google about how that works, but you're right. As a renter, what we would be asking them is, "how likely are you to recommend leasing a property to a friend through Sunroom or through x property management company?" And what we found is we just have a really good net promoter score. So if you could google this around, but the average net promoter score amongst property managers is a seven. And that's not on the zero to 10 scale. That's on the minus a hundred to the plus 100 scale, and. For the renters who lease a property through us, we have a 52 net promoter score.

[00:32:42] Ben: Nice.

[00:32:43] Ben: Yeah. So it's like what I said at the very beginning these renters are just a lot happier when they get in the home. For the property managers, they're seeing less really noisy renters when they first move in. I think that's a common thing that property managers are used to is that when a renter first moves in, that can be when they're talking the most or they're the noisiest. And so I think just anecdotally, property managers have said that, "Hey, these renters are just happier. They're just not causing as much commotion when they first move. And some of that has to do with our process too, right? Allowing renters to even self tour homes, it's a no pressure thing where they're able to really understand what they're buying before they move in. So I believe that helps as well.

[00:33:24] Jason Hull: This is the nerd in me coming out. So there's this really book called _Innovating Analytics_. And they put out this idea, basically the idea of the next generation of net promoter. They have used a lot of data to showcase and it's a little dry, but there's a lot of data to showcase the fundamental flaws of net promoter score, which is, has advantages over doing nothing, right? But then they talk about a new sort of score, which is the word of mouth index. And so we've incorporated that a bit into our business. It basically asks a second question, "how likely are you to discourage others from utilizing that?" Because what they found, just because somebody is not a true promoter, as they categorize them on the high end, like they choose like maybe a seven, eight, or nine or something, does not mean they're actually going to go hurt your business. And so a lot of big companies, they found were spending a lot of money to try and mitigate the people and pay attention to people and help the people they thought were detractors or people that would hurt their business when most of them really wouldn't. Just because it was a two or a three. They found that does not necessarily mean they're actually going to go actively try and destroy your business or hurt you. They just aren't going to tell people about it, because some people just don't want to talk about other businesses. Right? . So then asking a secondary question, how likely are you to tell others not to use this business or whatever. Then it gives you the true people to focus on mitigating or solving challenges for. Really interesting idea, but then they talk about the challenge of mainlining, where if they answer one question one way, first question, they'll answer it the same way, but it's backwards. Because they're just in the mode of answering questions like a zombie and they'll do it the wrong way or read it the wrong way. We've even seen this, so you have to put some questions in between and so it just complicates. But it's a really interesting book. You and I can geek out sometime and show you how I built this out so that it would work effectively, but it helps us identify which people are actually detractors that we need to take care of and focus on, and which people, they never rate anything positively and they're just, but they're quiet, which is fine.

[00:35:25] Jason Hull: Oh that's

[00:35:25] Ben: fascinating. I'll have to check that out.

[00:35:28] Jason Hull: I know, it's pretty nerdy. So_ Innovating Analytics_ is by Larry Freed F R E E D which is an interesting book. Cool. We've asked a lot of questions. You've explained the process. I think we've covered how it works unless we missed anything. But what else do people, property managers coming to you, what other concerns or things could we address here on the podcast before we wrap that they might have? Or what are the big FAQ questions that they ask before they're willing to explore giving up the leasing arm their business?

[00:36:00] Ben: Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of the questions just evolve around how they can still control the process. And so we've invested an incredible amount into giving them those controls, right? Like I think the key is, the way we look at it is look like we're going to be the best at doing this leasing legwork. It's all we do. And we've built technology to really hold ourselves accountable to really high standards. But at the end of the day, like we still want you to have control over who's the right tenant for this property? Or, "how would you like the that application process to go?" For example. And I think we've worked hard to streamline the areas and that, we just realized, hey, this is the best way to do this. But also we recognize that hey, these property managers, they have pride to process for a reason, right, for their particular market that might be the right thing to do. And so we've invested a lot in creating different settings and things like that, that can make it so that they get to use it the way they would like.

[00:37:03] Ben: Cool. So it's

[00:37:04] Jason Hull: really a lot of the big concerns are just about the flexibility. "Do I have to go all in and use everything that you offer?"

[00:37:10] Jason Hull: Right.

[00:37:11] Jason Hull: "Or can I do, some of this and maybe I'll give up pieces later--" because some of y'all entrepreneurs are control freaks. Let's be real.

[00:37:18] Jason Hull: Yes.

[00:37:18] Jason Hull: And you need to let go of some of this stuff and let somebody else do it a little bit better. We have a lot of egos, entrepreneurs. We think our way is the best way all the time and we need to see that maybe somebody else could do this

[00:37:31] Ben: better.

[00:37:31] Ben: But we've also, from

[00:37:32] Jason Hull: experience--

[00:37:33] Jason Hull: I'm guessing you're going to say that Sunroom probably does it better than what most property managers are doing.

[00:37:39] Ben: Better NPS scores?

[00:37:41] Ben: Yeah. I would just say that, some of the property managers that we've seen are the most excited to partner with us are definitely probably the ones listening to your podcast or it's the ones that want to grow. And, we have some great examples of that, right? There's one property manager that we started working with in Austin a couple years ago, and they started with 300 doors. And now I believe they're up to 800 doors. And so by them being able to just, focus on other things, they were able to grow pretty quickly. And because we recognize this and we're starting to set up in these new markets, we actually just this week launched a new program specifically for trying to find these property management companies that are really focused on growth. And so we actually launched this new growth program. That we just put on our website where property managers can apply for the program. And essentially this program if we accept them will actually give them-- and they partner with us-- we'll give them $10,000 to grow their business. And they can, they could use that money for-- or I'd say up to 10,000-- they can use that money for helping them grow. And really the only terms of it is that you're willing to partner with us on leasing to do that. And so we have different ideas of really how to use that money to grow. I know a lot of entrepreneurs already have those ideas and so that's why we yeah, we set up this new program.

[00:39:02] Jason Hull: Awesome. We should chat because we're really good at growing property management companies and yeah, I think there would be a good-- there. We'll chat later. We've also negotiated with most of the top vendors where we've got a hit list, but a lot of the top vendors we're negotiating best in class discounts just for our mastermind members.

[00:39:21] Ben: There you go.

[00:39:21] Jason Hull: So maybe that's something you and I can do with the Sunroom as well. So

[00:39:25] Jason Hull: Yeah .

[00:39:26] Jason Hull: If you're open, that's--

[00:39:27] Jason Hull: yeah. Cool.

[00:39:28] Jason Hull: We've got some big players on board already for some of these things, but I think it'd be really cool to see this is something new and I think it's innovative and it seems really exciting. So we'll we'll chat afterwards, cool. Is there anything else you want people to know before we go and if The last thing maybe is how do they find you? And how do they get in touch and how do they start working with Sunroom?

[00:39:49] Ben: Yeah. Just go to our website, Sunroomleasing.com. Fill out a little form. Be happy to have, someone from our sales team reach out and have a conversation and kind of explain more of these details about what we do. I'm an engineer at heart, so I think for some people, maybe I went into too much detail. But at the same time, knowing I've talked to a lot of property managers they love the details. If you want even more details yeah, go to our website, sunroomleasing.com. Reach out to us and someone from our sales team would love to dig into those details with you.

[00:40:18] Jason Hull: Perfect. I think the last big question everybody would have is be, is going to be what does it cost? Is this affordable? Can we do this? That sort of question. So--

[00:40:29] Jason Hull: yeah.

[00:40:29] Jason Hull: Anything to say about that?

[00:40:31] Ben: Yeah, so we're going to charge, similar to what I would say like other leasing agents would. So we're going to charge like a percentage of first month's rent. That percentage of first month's rent that we charge. It's going to be different depending on the market and depending on what kind of volume that you have. Normally, the way we are setting this up is that we usually make it so that the property manager can still make good money on leasing while still utilizing us for all of it. Property managers can charge a percentage of first month's rent to their owners. That could be different by market. We're usually going to charge, call it 10- 20% less than that so that they're able to still make money on the leasing, but still know that they have a best in class service for that happening. And so that's just for full service. For Sunscreen, that's actually free for property managers to use. And we just charge the renter an application fee. And so that's really the easiest way. If we said a lot of stuff today, people are like, "wow that's a little scary to adopt that big of a, have a company owning leasing." a great way to start to just build a relationship with us and start seeing what we could do would be to start utilizing our application processing system, which, really, it's going to be a really a low risk thing. Even if want to test out having us do one application on one listing or something, we'd be happy to do that.

[00:41:48] Ben: That's the

[00:41:49] Jason Hull: gateway drug. A little bit of Sunscreen, and then you're going to be like, "I want a whole room. I want the Sunroom now."

[00:41:54] Jason Hull: There you go. There you go.

[00:41:55] Jason Hull: "I don't want to deal with this anymore. I'm tired of putting the Sunscreen on. Yeah. Okay.

[00:41:59] Jason Hull: There you go.

[00:42:00] Jason Hull: Cool.

[00:42:01] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:42:01] Jason Hull: All right. Ben, it's been great having you on the show. Check out Sunroomleasing.com and then if you come up with some major developments or big shifts or changes, we'd love to have you back on the show. So thanks for being

[00:42:12] Ben: here.

[00:42:13] Ben: Thanks so much, Jason. And yeah, we'll have to meet up in Austin sometime.

[00:42:16] Ben: All right.

[00:42:18] Jason Hull: All right. Cool. Thanks, Ben.

[00:42:20] Jason Hull: Alright. Everybody, if you've been listening to this, we appreciate you listening to our podcast. We would really appreciate it if you left us a review in exchange. If you got value from this, that would mean a lot to us at DoorGrow and my team. We have been innovating and creating a lot of new stuff at DoorGrow. We've got some really cool stuff coming out. So if you have not been familiar with DoorGrow for a while, we've got some really cool things coming down that we are working on. You should get connected to do a sales call. Check us out at doorgrow.com. Reach out to us. You can reach out to us on any social media. And we would love to connect with you and share with you. We just released the DoorGrow Code, which is the first roadmap that really showcases how to go from zero to a thousand doors in as short of time period as possible. It shows you which things you need to do at which stage, at which door levels, and what questions you have, what major problems you have at each stage, and what you need to do in order to do things in the right order to get to the next level.

[00:43:22] Jason Hull: So if you've been at a similar door count for the last year or maybe two years or three years, maybe even kind feeling stuck or maybe even backsliding a little bit because of property selling off or whatever. We have clients that are adding a lot of doors. Andrew Rocha just chimed in on one of our mastermind calls. He's one of our clients. He added like 50 doors in the last month. We've got clients. One of our clients added 310 doors in a year. We've got another client that added a hundred in gosh, they've doubled their doors. Like we've got clients that are growing really rapidly and they're not spending any money on advertising. I want you to be clear, like our methods are not focused on SEO, pay per click, content marketing, pay-per-lead lead services, social media marketing. Our methods are what really work in the marketplace, and most of them are zero cost, like they cost nothing. It just costs time and effort, and it actually takes less time and less effort than doing cold lead marketing like seo, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, or pay per lead services that exist in the property management space. So I highly recommend you check this out if you're wanting to grow. And we are now helping really significantly. We've built out the best systems and processes and we've been stacking the best coaches in the industry. If you've heard of certain coaches in the industry, we might have them on as experts in our program. We'll be announcing more of that later, but we've got some of the best in the industry that we've brought on as coaches. So it's not the Jason Show. I've got an amazing team of people coaching and we have systems for operations. We have systems for process. We have systems for sales, and our clients are crushing it. Nobody in the marketplace is doing all that DoorGrow's doing or can compete with us. And so if you think you know DoorGrow and you've looked at us or judged us in the past, it might be time to take a new look because your competitors might be working with us or they might work with us, and you're going to wish that it had been you.

[00:45:33] Jason Hull: So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

[00:45:37] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:46:05] Jason Hull: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 192: The Framework Of Belief In Property Management 0

Oct 27, 2022

Entrepreneurship is difficult, and entrepreneurs tend to be very hard on themselves. Sometimes this stems from a lack of confidence or belief in themselves.

Property management growth expert Jason Hull and Sarah Hall, COO of DoorGrow share some of the valuable nuggets of wisdom they learned from Jamie Kern Lima, the CEO of IT Cosmetics and the author of Believe It.

You’ll Learn…

[03:35] The Frameworks of Belief

[07:35] How to Handle Rejection and “No”s

[10:26] The Problem with Hiding in Plain Sight

[14:32] Dealing with Criticism and Doubters

[20:51] “God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.”

Tweetables

“Just because it's a closed door, it's probably closed for a reason. It's not the right door. So just keep going until you find the right one because it will happen.”

“So believe in yourself, believe that you're worthy.”

“It's not until later in life that you realize you want to be different and you want to be weird and you don't want to fit in. You don't want to be the same as everybody else.”

“Businesses go out of business. We fail as entrepreneurs, and if you're failing it's because you gave up.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason Hull: One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs really is just to be able to believe in yourself. Everybody says like, "You need to like, take action and hustle and do this and live the dream," but you have to believe in yourself because if you don't believe in yourself, you don't get it.

[00:00:12] Jason Hull: All right, we are live. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:11] Jason Hull: So I have a special guest with me today, one that I happen to be madly in love with. This is Sarah hall. H-A-L-L. Different last name.

[00:01:24] Sarah Hall: For now.

[00:01:24] Jason Hull: For now. I'm working on changing that y'all. I'm working on changing that one letter in her last name. So this is Sarah. So Sarah, why don't you tell everybody about yourself?

[00:01:34] Sarah Hall: Hmm. All right. So what do you want me to get into? So, uh...

[00:01:37] Jason Hull: Tell them what you do at DoorGrow and in your background.

[00:01:41] Sarah Hall: ...and my background. Okay. Well...

[00:01:42] Jason Hull: And then we'll get into our topic.

[00:01:43] Sarah Hall: Let's see. So currently, I am the COO here at DoorGrow. And so I'm kind of over all of the operations and the financials. I kind of make sure that the wheels are turning and that the business is moving forward, and I have my hands into a lot of the little nitty gritty details. That's kind of what I do at DoorGrow. I am also been a business owner and I've done that for about five years now. About five years I think. And I'm actually I've got a small team at this point. My real background I would say is sales. So I always say I haven't sold anything a day in my life. All I do is I give people the information that they need to make educated decisions. And I think if you believe, you know, that's what you're doing is just kind of educating people, then it's not really sales. You're not really pushing anything on them that, you know, they don't want or don't need. But I have an extensive sales background. I've been working since I was 14 years old, and my first like sales gig was probably when I was about 16 or 17. And I've been doing various forms of sales and now entrepreneur opportunities and all that good stuff ever since.

[00:02:58] Jason Hull: Okay. All right. Sarah's a badass. So I just want you to . , Sarah singlehandedly has cut some of our clients with hundreds of doors like operational and staffing costs in half from a single call. She's very efficient. It's why she's able to run you know, our company at DoorGrow as an operator and COO, while running an entire property management business with hundreds of doors, like as a part-time gig really with one person that's part-time boots on the ground and she's able to like systemize her business to that level. So, She's able to help our clients out a lot in the coaching. And we've got a really awesome team. So what we're going to talk about today, Sarah and I went to a conference recently. We went to Funnel Hacking Live, which is a big marketing conference full of entrepreneurs and they had some amazing speakers. So one of the speakers there was this gal named Jamie Kern Lima, and if you haven't heard of her, you can google her. She's kind of a big deal. But she has this book called _Believe It_, and she was talking about this framework of four steps related to belief. And I thought this would be really powerful to share with our audience. So we want to take you through this briefly and share. So where should we start?

[00:04:11] Sarah Hall: Why don't you go through some of the framework stuff, or should we go into her background? Let's do a little bit about--

[00:04:18] Jason Hull: you tell about the background...

[00:04:19] Sarah Hall: I'll do the background, then we'll do the framework. Then we'll get into the nuts and bolts and nitty gritty stuff. What I found really inspiring about Jamie, is she she saw an issue really she found, ended up relevant to thousands of women all across the globe. She was suffering from a skin issue called I think she had rosacea and she was using all these different makeup brands. She tried just about everything that there was to try concealers and primers, and she's tried it all, every single brand, every single product. Nothing really worked for her. And she was at really like what she thought was the height of her career as a TV news anchor. And she had her earpiece in her ear while she's live.

[00:05:01] Sarah Hall: And her producer is going, "Your makeup is running. You're on live tv and it's running." and she's, like trying to blot. And she had blotted and wiped off almost all of her makeup. And he's going, in her ear, "it's worse now. You made it worse. It's really bad now. You have to fix this." So she finds that. No product really is working for her. So she's after tried everything, she's thinking, Hey, you know what? I need to be the one to create the solution because I know I'm not the only woman who is struggling with this problem. So this is a little bit about her journey on, you know, how she kind of found the issue figured, "Hey, it's on me, right? Nobody else is doing it. It's on me to create this solution." and then how she did it. So I think that's a little bit of her background. Why don't you get into the framework that she had?

[00:05:51] Jason Hull: Yeah. So she shared a framework and she said, you know, one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs really is just to be able to believe in yourself. Everybody says like, "You need to like, take action and hustle and do this and live the dream," but the one fundamental defining factor between those that succeed and those that don't is they have this deep sort of driving motivator or why, but really underneath all that you have to believe in yourself because if you don't believe in yourself, you don't get it. So she has this framework and her framework was number one-- if you're taking notes, go for it. Write it down-- is clarity. Number two is action. Start taking action. Number three, you have to believe it's possible, this possibility, belief. And then number four, you have to believe you are worthy. You have this worthiness belief. And she quoted Joel Ostein and said, "Our setbacks are really setups for something greater," which I loved. And so she talked about finding the why beneath the why, and she says, "If you're not getting results, or you think you have some sort of wire motivator, it's not deep enough," because a lot of times we hit walls. Businesses go out of business. We fail as entrepreneurs, and if you're failing it's because you gave up.

[00:07:02] Jason Hull: And she said you have to use unattainable aspirations. Like we have these dreams that are so big sometimes, but one of my great quotes I wrote down from her was, "Never let others' doubt about you turn into doubt about yourself." Nobody around you is going to get the vision that you feel called to do or that motivator that you have deep down. They're not going to feel at the same level. So they're going to doubt you or they're going to try and protect you and they're going to like shoot it down. And so it's about having that belief that's so deep that you're in alignment with God, universe, your purpose, whatever that you are going to push past and through any objection. She had a lot of rejection and challenges, right?

[00:07:38] Sarah Hall: Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of 'no's. So in, in my notes, it was her and her husband who created this product. And then it was her and her husband who were marketing it and trying to sell it and trying to just get it going. And they were like, "Okay, what can we do? Can we sell it ourselves? This isn't seeming to be working the way we want it to. We need to get another brand, like a larger brand to pick it up, right?" So like, sell it maybe like a L'Oreal or a Maybelline or somebody will buy it and then they can, you know, really market it to the masses. So they were doing this and they were just churning and churning and churning. Neither one of them took a paycheck for three years. So this wasn't something that was like this overnight success that just, you know, she woke up and like a rags to riches overnight story, right? This is a three year struggle. Over those three years, they heard hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of no's, and some of them were really brutal. The most brutal one. She got they-- she said it almost stopped her right then and there. But one of the notes that I wrote is that you can't listen to all of the no's, and you can only really do this as a side note, you can only not listen to the no's if you truly know your purpose and your mission.

[00:08:53] Sarah Hall: So if you don't have that really deep-seated why in you-- why do I even care enough to do this? The no's are going to affect you. But she says, "You cannot listen to the no's. When you get a 'no,' god gives you knowing. And if you end up listening to the no's, if you do succumb to that and you listen to those no's, then what you're doing is you're talking yourself out of your truth."

[00:09:19] Jason Hull: Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I wrote this down. She went to one of her heroes, one of her mentors. It was like a dream. She got an interview with them and the guy said, basically, "it's not going to work. Nobody wants to buy this product from somebody that looks like you," and this sort of thing. And it was like crushing to her. And eventually this guy was working for her, which I thought was just a great ending to her story. But she said, "he gave me a no, and it crushed me, but God gave me a knowing," and I was like, Ooh, I love that. Like you have, knowing like that this is going to work, but you're going to get rejections, you're going to get no's. And if you're not willing to take the no's, and not willing to keep going, you don't really have that knowing or a strong enough purpose, it's going carry you through that. You're going to get rejected. You're going to try and sell property management. You're trying to get clients and people are going to say "no." and you're going to feel friction and it's going to be uncomfortable.

[00:10:10] Jason Hull: And a lot of people avoid all that discomfort and have a fantasy business and they don't even get started. So, she asks this question and it's: "And I want to ask all of you listening, do you listen to the "no" or do you listen to the knowing? The no's will talk you out of your own truth," is what Sarah mentioned. She then talked about when you're hiding in plain sight, like you have big goals but at the expense of your soul, you're not raising your hand. And extroverts hide by entertaining everyone else. And introverts like hide in their own way. But are you hiding in plain sight? I thought was a really big thing. How have you been hiding in plain sight? One way is you're creating so much self doubt inside, or you're supporting others' dreams, but not your own. Or you're championing your kids, but not your own self. These kind of things. These are how we hide. What else do you remember about hiding in plain sight? I just, I thought that was really powerful.

[00:11:01] Sarah Hall: So this one, I actually have it on a different section. She spoke about it a little bit later. It was in the middle of telling her story before, like the real big kind of like turn around.

[00:11:11] Jason Hull: Mm.

[00:11:11] Sarah Hall: But her notes were: authenticity does not guarantee success.

[00:11:16] Jason Hull: Ooh, I have that written down. Authenticity may not guarantee success, but inauthenticity... oh, you were going to say it.

[00:11:23] Sarah Hall: No, you go ahead.

[00:11:24] Jason Hull: No, go ahead.

[00:11:25] Sarah Hall: You took it. Go ahead.

[00:11:27] Jason Hull: I have this... I wrote down "Authenticity may not guarantee success, but inauthenticity guarantees failure." Yeah. But I have that way later. We must have wrote in different orders. But yeah that's I don't know. How's that shown up for you in entrepreneurism? I think we've all hid.

[00:11:46] Sarah Hall: Not so much for me, I think. No.

[00:11:48] Jason Hull: I don't know for--

[00:11:49] Sarah Hall: I think for a very long time, I've just been very comfortable with, you know, who I am and how I do things, and I've always sort of known I'm a little different and I've always been okay with that. But I think that especially when you're young and you're going to school, right? And all the kids come home and they'll cry, "Oh, I don't fit in. Like, I'm not the same. I'm different and I'm weird." And you know, it's not until later in life that you realize you want to be different and you want to be weird and you don't want to fit in. You don't want to be the same as everybody else. And I think I've just always been really comfortable with that, and I've kind of always had the attitude like, "All right, well I am who I am, and there are going to be people who really enjoy that, and there are going to be people who cannot handle that, and that's okay because like if I were to come with a warning label, like I am not for everyone. I'm not, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay. I don't need to be liked by everyone. I don't need everyone to, you know, be like, "Oh, she's so great." It's okay because I know what I'm doing, and I know that I'm comfortable in who I am and in my mission and in my purpose.

[00:12:56] Jason Hull: Yeah, I think I've definitely hid in plain sight. I think I've always had, like I always felt really not confident. I had a lot of insecurity and I would overcompensate by really taking care of my clients and I really wanted to let them have success, but I didn't want to be seen, like I didn't want to do podcasts. I didn't want to be in the limelight. And tell one of my mentors or coaches like, "Jason, like if you want to see the change that you want to see in the industry, you have got to stop waiting on somebody else to do it or hoping somebody else picks up this cause and does it because you have that calling inside. You're the one that needs to do what you know and needs to be done." I had to kind of swallow that and stop because that's a lot easier, right? Sometimes it's just easy to be, stay in the background and that's self doubt. So, what else did you have on her framework or about this?

[00:13:42] Sarah Hall: Well, I think from her, my big takeaway, and it's something that we can all relate to, right? Like everyone I think has been in a situation where we really hope that, you know, we get something or we do something or something happens and then it doesn't. Right. Or, you know, we're chasing a client and we're like, "Oh man, I would love to land this client. I would love to close this deal. You know, I would love to get this promotion. I would love to, you know, have a great hire. I interviewed this person and oh wow. I really loved her. She was so perfect. She would be amazing. I really hope that she, you know, when we extend the offer, she takes it," and we've all heard "no." Right? And there's a little part of you that is so hurt by that. And instead of just taking that pain and kind of dwelling in that. Take it and hang onto it and keep on going.

[00:14:29] Jason Hull: Hmm.

[00:14:29] Sarah Hall: So one of the big turning points in her story was after hearing, you know, no paycheck for three years, hundreds of no's, no company at all would pick her up-- none-- had a really brutal you know from a company who said, "Hey, can I give you some honest feedback?" and she said, "Of course. I want the honest feedback. Tell me. Like if it's going to help me, tell me." And he said, "Well, we're just not confident that a woman that looks like is really going to be the best face for the business."

[00:15:01] Jason Hull: Mm.

[00:15:02] Sarah Hall: So, you know, she wasn't thin enough. She wasn't pretty enough. She had rosacea, which, you know, I may even have some rosacea myself, but, you know, I get very red in the face at times too. But that wasn't back then, like, A standard of beauty, right? It was you know, this one definitive thing and if you didn't fit in that mold, then you know, all these companies just didn't think that you were going to be successful. And that could have been absolutely crushing to so many of us, and she didn't let that stop her. She continued. She kept going, she kept trying. She went to, you know, trade shows and expos and the approach to the company that had already told her "no" multiple times, told her no at the trading show, when you're not supposed to leave your booth, because you can get kicked out of the trade show for leaving your booth. She went and approached, she's like, "Listen, can you watch my booth? I have got to run." She ran back over to that company and said, "I know you guys have told me 'no' before, but I just, I'm going to pitch it to you again," and she did it again, and they took a meeting with her.

[00:16:07] Sarah Hall: And then at this point, everything like all eggs in one basket. She had one shot and it was a 10 minute slot. And in that 10 minutes, like they had to create all of the products. They had to manufacture all of the products because they needed to have a certain amount. That was ready to sell just in case it sold. They also needed to ship it to this company so that if it sold, this company was ready to get it out to their consumers. So they had to spend their last like thousands of dollars just in case this would work. She went, she had about 10 minutes. 10, that was it. And there was a clock. It's not even a truly a 10 minutes because during that time there are certain intervals, and at these intervals you need to hit a certain sales goal. So if you're only two minutes in and you haven't hit sales goal yet, they pull you, you're done game over. So it was literally her last shot. They were about to close the doors and just be done because they couldn't afford to keep going. And she ended up doing it.

[00:17:11] Jason Hull: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:12] Sarah Hall: And not only did she do it, she sold it out-- completely, sold it out. She ended up then getting a buyout from one of the companies that originally told her 'no' a couple times and I believe, if I'm remembering the number correctly, it was a $1.2 billion buyout, billion with a B. That's right. The person that had originally told her 'no' and given her that awful feedback, she said, "I was so tempted to reach back out and say, 'Listen, I've got 1.2 billion reasons why you were wrong,' but instead of doing that, and instead of being like, 'Ha ha, I was right and you were wrong, and look at me, and I knew it all this whole time," she said, "You know, I had to be really thankful for all of the no's in the process."

[00:17:54] Jason Hull: Mm.

[00:17:55] Sarah Hall: Because at the time that she met with a person who just really like destroyed her, almost she, if he had offered her anything, she would've taken it. She would've given up anything.

[00:18:08] Jason Hull: Yeah. For a small amount of money.

[00:18:09] Sarah Hall: So she would've missed out on $1.2 billion because she was so desperate and you know, tired and just, it was such a long journey at that point that she was just ready. She said, "anybody could've come along and given me peanuts for this, and I would've been like, 'Great, thank you. Please take it."

[00:18:28] Jason Hull: So for her, when she went on that show, it was do or die. They were either going to declare bankruptcy because they had shelled out their last dime towards all this product, and if it didn't sell, they were like dead in the water. And so she took a risk. Everybody told her not to do this, but she got on camera and she wiped off her makeup, showed her skin, and showed how red it was and everything--

[00:18:51] Sarah Hall: which is exactly what they told her not to do.

[00:18:54] Jason Hull: Yeah. They told her, "Don't do this."

[00:18:55] Sarah Hall: "Do not do this."

[00:18:56] Jason Hull: She did it any way. And people were sold. She showcased the product and how it worked on herself. And people were amazed and that vulnerability was where she's like, "I am not going to hide in plain sight. I'm going to like do this in front of everybody. And so that's the message is how are you hiding in plain sight?"

[00:19:13] Jason Hull: What do you know deep down you should be doing, but you haven't really done it? You've just been kind of, you've got the facade, you've kind of not been doing it. She mentioned things like maybe you need to start that book you've been dreaming over. Maybe you need to take that leap that you've not done or whatever it might be. She said-- I have a couple great quotes-- one was, "The longest journey is the 18 inches from your head to your heart." I really like that one. And she also said-- I thought this was interesting because she had a lot of success afterwards. She said, "People cheer you on after you've made it" and "be so great they can't ignore you that they eventually have to pay you." So, and the guy that told her that really brutal "No, nobody wants to work with somebody that looks like you" and like this kind of thing. He eventually became on her board. He told her, "I was wrong. I was wrong." And he then was working for her and helping her build the business. And I thought that was a really powerful conversation.

[00:20:07] Jason Hull: So to recap the framework, first you need clarity. Figure out like what is it that you feel deep down that you should do and should be focused on. Take action, massive action. And number three, believe it's possible. You have to continue to believe it's possible, or you're going to give up. And then deeper than that, you have to believe you're worthy. No matter what anyone else says about you, no matter if they say you're not good looking enough or you're not smart enough, or you can't, you have to believe, because you know you have that calling deep down. You have to believe that-- one of the great quotes at the conference was, "God qualifies the call." okay. So if you feel that calling deep down, you're qualified.

[00:20:43] Sarah Hall: The best part--

[00:20:44] Jason Hull: oh, what did I miss?

[00:20:44] Sarah Hall: That's the best part.

[00:20:45] Jason Hull: Oh, then you say it. This is why I keep her around.

[00:20:47] Sarah Hall: Haha! I wrote it down because--

[00:20:49] Sarah Hall: She's got a way better memory than me.

[00:20:51] Sarah Hall: I know. But I heard it and then I heard it again a few times throughout the conference and I was like, "Oh," you know, I heard it the first time, but it didn't sink in the first time.

[00:20:58] Jason Hull: Oh.

[00:20:59] Sarah Hall: It was, "God doesn't call the qualified.

[00:21:02] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:21:03] Sarah Hall: "He qualifies called."

[00:21:05] Jason Hull: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He qualifies the called because if he gives you the call, you feel that deep, deep down or the universe or whatever you're into. If you feel that calling, you know deep down that it's the right thing for you to do, you're qualified. He will help you eventually get qualified. As long as you keep pushing towards it, you will become the person you need to become in order to do that. And Jamie Kern Lima, her thing reinforced us. So that's kind of our message for today.

[00:21:29] Sarah Hall: I've got two more great ones from her.

[00:21:30] Jason Hull: She's got two more quotes.

[00:21:31] Jason Hull: I like one liners from her that I just.

[00:21:33] Sarah Hall: My hand after this event was just done.

[00:21:36] Jason Hull: Yeah.

[00:21:36] Sarah Hall: It's still tight. That was weeks ago. So, in relation to when she had that opportunity and that-- well, she had what she thought was an opportunity, which ended up being another "No," right?

[00:21:47] Jason Hull: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:47] Sarah Hall: But if it had been an opportunity, she would've just sold it to get out of it and been like, "Yes, thank you. Please take it." And she would've missed out on the big deal, right. So she says, "You have to thank God for the open doors. But you also have to thank him for the closed ones." So just because it's a closed door, it's probably closed for a reason. It's not the right door. So just keep going until you find the right one because it will happen. Also, "when you change your relationship with rejection, you change your life."

[00:22:19] Jason Hull: That's a good one.

[00:22:20] Sarah Hall: So that is really big. So those are my two last little gems from her.

[00:22:23] Jason Hull: Yeah. Love it. So that's our message for today. So believe in yourself, believe that you're worthy. And if you don't have the right clarity, if you don't have know the right actions to take, but you feel deep down you should have a property management business, you feel like you should be able to grow this. We want to help you get that clarity. We want to help you take the right actions. So reach out to us. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. You can also go join our free Facebook group, DoorGrowclub.com, and we would love to get connected with you, have our team connect with you, and get you on that right journey and avoid all the sand traps, avoid the common mistakes, and get your business so that it's healthy as quickly as possible. And with that, we are out. So until next time, to our mutual growth. Anything you want to say before we close?

[00:23:12] Sarah Hall: I think that's it.

[00:23:14] Jason Hull: All right. Thanks everybody. Bye. You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:23:42] Jason Hull: At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 191: Being Comfortable vs. Winning As A Property Management Entrepreneur 0

Oct 19, 2022

Are you comfortable with the number of doors you have in your property management business right now? Are you comfortable with the amount of tasks you have on your to-do list? You can be comfortable, OR you can be winning.

In this week’s podcast episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull explores the concept of the comfortable PM entrepreneur and the winning PM entrepreneur.

You’ll Learn…

[01:20] What does it mean to be comfortable in your business?

[03:31] Growing and moving toward the Four Reasons

[06:37] How to become the WINNING property manager

[14:04] Making big shifts and hitting big goals

[16:44] The things you will gain from being a winning entrepreneur

[21:44] How to step into being uncomfortable

Tweetables

“You are not meant to be mediocre. You're not meant to be the comfortable property manager. You're meant to be the winning property management entrepreneur.”

“You're going to need to step into the pain, step into the fear, step into all the stuff you've been avoiding, the discomfort, and take a risk.”

“A business should give you more freedom, but most business owners have less freedom than employees have often.”

“If there's anything that's been on your to-do list for more than a month, it's because you're not the person that should be doing it.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] You know, you're the comfortable pm, ironically, if you have a to-do list that just keeps getting bigger each month instead of smaller.I often say this: if there's anything that's been on your to-do list for more than a month, it's because you're not the person that should be doing it.

[00:00:15] All right, we are live. Welcome everybody to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow, hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:20] So what are we going to talk about today? I think I want to talk a little bit today about the difference between being a comfortable property management entrepreneur and a winning property management entrepreneur. So, last week I talked a little bit-- and I recommend you go check that episode out-- I talked about the drifting versus the driven, so I want to expand a little bit on that and let's talk about... you might be that comfortable property manager or that comfortable property management business owner because really you might identify right now as a property manager. You think, "I'm a property manager," and I think that's a mistake if you are the business owner, if this is your business. You are a business owner. A property manager is the technician level worker in a property management business. They do the work. Right. You might be an owner of a bakery, but if you're the baker, you are the employee. You are the key technician in that business.

[00:02:13] If you are a property manager in a property management business, you are the key technician in that business doing the technical work, meaning you're not the owner. An owner has a business and they hire a property manager, right? So right now you may identify as a property manager and you may also be somewhat comfortable, and really that might mean you're comfortable being uncomfortable. Like you're in a certain level of discomfort, right? Maybe you're not getting on doors quick enough. Maybe the lead gen is not working as well as you wanted to. Maybe you're not closing as many deals as you would like and bringing on new clients. Maybe you know behind the scenes that you're delivery and fulfillment stuff and operations, it's not really well dialed in. Like it's not as good as you are selling everybody on it being and maybe your financial stuff is just not really tight.

[00:03:04] You know, you've got financial issues, financial problems. You're not bringing in enough money. Maybe you're not clear. Cash flow is an issue. Maybe it's getting really expensive to pay out your team members. You're trying to figure it out. These are all solvable problems in the business, but you're kind of comfortable, which is why it's gotten to the point that it is, and you haven't changed it yet. And until it gets painful enough, uncomfortable enough, you're probably not going to change it, and my goal as a coach in working with my clients is to either help them get so much of what they want, that it becomes uncomfortable-- so we had one of our clients, really sharp client. He's doubled his doors in his business since starting with us, and it's gotten really uncomfortable for him. It's painful. And he was talking about the pain of that on the call, and I wanted to use him as an example to other people.

[00:03:59] Like, "Hey, we can get the growth going very easily and once we get it going, it'll be uncomfortable and that's the next problem, the new problem we want all of you to experience." And I was like, "How many of you by show of raise of hands, by show of hands would love to have the problem that he's having right now? That he's got so many doors coming on that it's getting painful," and everybody's hands went up, right? So, I want all of you to experience that kind of pain and that kind of problem as well. And that's really the crux of running a business, that a business is a eternal problem worth solving. No business is ever perfect. No business is ever done. You ramp up lead gen and you ramp up sales... delivery and fulfillment will experience constraints. You start to build out that backend. You hire a bunch of people, you are maybe kind of top heavy when it comes to staffing. You now need to feed that beast more and get more sales, right?

[00:04:48] And so all these functions in the business are always in flux. There's always a juggle. Your business is never done. It's never perfect. It's never finished. And it should be fun, right? We've talked about this on multiple episodes- the four reasons: fulfillment, freedom, contribution, support, and then that fifth reason of safety and certainty, and this is what all of you want. This is why we think we want money is really, we want money because it can give us those things if we use it the right way, but a lot of you make more and more money and you just make your life harder and harder and harder. You just keep doing more and more of the stuff you don't really enjoy doing in your own business. So I'm going to ask you this. Like right now, if you know you're the comfortable pm instead of the winning pm-- you're the comfortable property management entrepreneur if you don't like accounting, but you're still doing accounting-- if you don't love it-- if you don't love doing the sales and you're still doing the sales, if you don't love the operations and the details and the nitty gritty, but you're the one that that sits on the shoulders of. You know, you're the comfortable pm, ironically, if you have a to-do list that just keeps getting bigger each month instead of smaller.

[00:06:05] I often say this: if there's anything that's been on your to-do list for more than a month, it's because you're not the person that should be doing it. All the fun stuff, the stuff that gives you freedom and fulfillment and the sense of contribution and support, you have already gotten those things done. It wouldn't sit on your to-do list for that long typically, but that's the leftover stuff. The stuff you really don't want to do. You're avoiding. You're procrastinating until it becomes so painful, you have to focus on it. And then you "hi-ho" over. "Woo, I'm going to solve this problem."

[00:06:37] I want this to be your old identity, this comfortable pm and I want you to destroy this. Like it has to die if you want to be the winning pm. Let's talk about the winning property manager. The winning property manager is living according to those four reasons, and they have the fifth reason, but this means that they love their day to day. They have a sense of fulfillment. They enjoy getting to do what they're doing. They would do it-- what they're doing each day for free for fun. I would do what I do for free for fun. Coaching clients, helping clients win, this kind of stuff is fun for me. Learning... the stuff that I get to do in my business is fun for me. The first is fulfillment. The second thing is freedom. Like, you want to feel free rather than feeling damned or stuck or like uncomfortable... freedom, you want freedom. A business should give you more freedom, but most business owners have less freedom than employees have often. And then if you have freedom and fulfillment, you're going to get bored if you aren't making a difference in the world. You're going to want to go out and change some lives. You're going to want to give other people that you're going to want to benefit your team. You're going to start to care about other people because you've got your own needs taken care of. You want to make a difference in the world.

[00:07:52] You want to benefit your clients, you want to benefit the tenants, you want to benefit your staff and your team, you want to benefit your family. That feels like winning, right? You've got those things and that means you've got great support. So you're building support around yourself and you're able to support those around you, and that is a winning property management entrepreneur. I want you to have that identity. I want you to feel what that feels like because it feels good to be winning. It feels good to be making a difference in the world. It feels good to be able to feel good about yourself. Come on, right? You know, I've been the comfortable business owner. I've been the comfortable business owner. You know, even fairly recently in my journey, I went back into that, like I went through a divorce, which was rough. I was the one that ended the relationship. There was a lot of stuff that caused me to feel I needed to do that, and that was really hard. You know, without going into the details, you know, I was put into situations that were really painful for me. And she probably felt similarly, right? And so I ended that relationship, and that was hard. It was hard. Getting back into dating, that was kind of tough, you know, at my age, you know, figuring it out. That was hard. And then in the business for a little while, I coasted. I was like, I've got so much going on. I'm trying to figure out how to take care of my kids. I got comfortable because I wanted to explore other things like dating and like figuring out relationships again, and like all this stuff. But eventually I got bored of all that. I got bored of the dating thing. I gave up on that.

[00:09:22] And then I met Sarah. We're getting married in November. We've been dating for a lengthy while and she's my fiance and we're getting married in November. And those people tend to turn up right when we're kind of fed up, and we're done looking. And and, you know, that spark reignited in focusing on my business. I'm like, "I want to revamp and change everything. I want to start doing new programs. I'm getting into working with new coaches. I felt alive again. And that's our natural state. Our natural state is to be alive. I've always been this way. I've always been reinventing myself and learning new things and absorbing new information, and I'm sure a lot of you are like that. That's the entrepreneurial visionary sort of state. That's where we feel alive is when we're in that momentum. And we're, we feel like we're growing. We're growth minded individuals, but to step into that, there's always going to be some fear. Always.

[00:10:20] You are the hero in your own story. If you're life were a movie, you are the protagonist. You're the hero in your story. The people that are watching your story, you getting to watch your story at the end of your life, like you will know you're the hero in your story. And what would that hero do? Like if you were watching this movie, what would you want them to do? You get to write this story and you don't want to sit there and watch yourself just comfortable. That comfort is poison, and I hope it gets painful enough that you decide, "Hey, I want more than this. I want to take on my life. I want to make a difference. I want to do something with myself." And you're tired of the business being mediocre. You're tired of the business having the same problems year after year. You need to get fed up with the sameness. You need to get fed up with it because I'm calling you out onto this journey, just like I did on the previous episode. I'm calling you out, like, I want you to step into your greatness and step into this journey, and I want you to absorb this key idea that you need to step into this new identity. If you had the business of your dreams, that would mean you have become the person that could run that. And so what that means is this: one of my mentors said this. He said, if you don't have the business of your dreams, it's because you're not yet the person that can run it yet. You're not that person yet. So who would you have to become in order to have the business of your dreams?

[00:11:44] You would have to become a more powerful person, a more knowledgeable person, a person that knows acquisition strategies or how to get more doors. A person that knows how to sell a person that knows how to optimize your pricing in your business. A person that knows whether or not their branding is impacting their business or not and how to optimize that. A person that knows whether their website is effective or not. We're going to take you through-- in our program, that's what we do is we first clean up all those leaks in your sales pipeline, and then we stack the acquisition strategies, and then after that, we get you into the systems that you're going to need to build out for your business. You need at least six major systems in your business in order for this business to be scale. And here's the secret, I want you to understand this, a lot of you have gotten comfortable partially because you see future pain on the horizon. You see, like, "once I get to 250 doors," or "if I got to a thousand doors" or whatever, "I know how uncomfortable I am right now," because you're in a state of comfortable discomfort. You're comfortable being uncomfortable. It's the maximum amount of discomfort you are willing to tolerate and be comfortable with. That's where you're at right now.

[00:12:50] Your perception then unconsciously, is that growth would be even more painful. "If I added twice as many doors, it would be twice as painful as it is right now." and that doesn't have to be true. The more doors you add, the more resources you add, the easier it can get, the better your life can get, the less you have to do, the less you do in the business in your role. You get to do more of the few things that you really enjoy doing. And so as you grow and scale, believe me, property managers that have a thousand doors and they build their team in business the right way, their business, their day to day is calm. They love it. They enjoy what they get to do, but you could be at 50 doors or even a hundred doors and hate your life and be miserable and not be very profitable, and it to be very uncomfortable. So at any stage, it can be painful or it can be comfortable. And so my goal is sometimes I have to get people uncomfortable in order for them to go to that next level and chase comfort again and get to that next level where they are now at a higher level as an entrepreneur. So I want to turn you into the entrepreneur that can have the business of your dreams.

[00:14:04] So we've hit kind of a milestone consistently in our monthly revenue, which places us in the stage of being a multimillion dollar company, which is awesome. Like I'm really excited about that in our company, and of course we have a lot of expenses in our business at that stage. So, you know, a multimillion dollar company doesn't mean the business owner gets millions of dollars necessarily, right? Because there's costs, and all of you that are business owners get this. But a lot of times our team members or people watching entrepreneurs go, "Ooh, they have a million dollar company, man, it must be nice to be a millionaire," and I'm sure those of you listening are laughing. You're like, "Yeah, I used to think that way, but now that I run a business, I realize it's probably not the case. In fact, million dollar businesses usually, some of the business owners are making very little, a lot of times because their operational costs are really high, especially marketing agencies or some of the people that are in circles that I'm around. We've been blessed that I have a really effective team. We're very efficient and we've got some great systems in place. I have a great operator. Sarah is our operations person, our COO, and we have a profitable, healthy business, which is great. I appreciate that and I really value my team for that, and it allows me to spend the time doing the things I really enjoy doing.

[00:15:15] So I want you to get out of this pain maybe out of some of these negative emotions and understand this truth of these four reasons, plus that fifth of safety and certainty. Safety and certainty comes when you have your processes documented. You have great team members... like you feel safe in your business. Eventually you'll get to other levels of that when you get to, maybe seven figure or higher business, or you're a million dollar business you know, multimillion dollar company or whatever, you're going to start doing things like asset protection and wealth building stuff, you know, different tax strategies. This is how the ultra wealthy don't pay taxes. There's going to be levels to the safety certainty that it creates around you, and that gives us even greater freedom to go out into the marketplace and take risks and do things when we have that behind us.

[00:16:03] And so I want to help you shift and if you understand this framework of the four reasons, then you can be this empowered winning property management entrepreneur, you can be somebody that is consistently moving closer and closer to that goal of your unique version of these four reasons, and you're loving your day to day. You are making a difference in the world. You feel a sense of freedom. You're free to make choices. You're free to take vacations. You're free to buy your wife some sort of nice gift or your husband some sort of nice gift, right? You're not constantly limited by some sort of stress or worry or constraint in your life. And you will start to see tangible, measurable outcomes. You will see your team members start to align with those four reasons once you have. You can have team members that are experiencing those benefits as well. They will experience more freedom and fulfillment because you're finally in alignment, which means you're not building the wrong team around this fake person, the fake business owner, the fake person that pretends that they are a leader in the business, but they're spending most of their time doing stuff they don't enjoy. That's a fake leader. It's a real business owner, but a fake leader, and people don't want to follow that person. So you're not going to have great team members if you are not happy, They're not going to be happy, and I want you to be happy. Because if you're happy and your team's happy, your owners will be happy, tenants will be more happy, and if tenants are happy and owners are happy and you're happy and your team are happy, that's a great ripple effect that's going to make a difference in the world.

[00:17:38] All right, so a lot of you are thinking, "Well, Jason, this all sounds so too good to be true. If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it. " And I think it's simple. It may not be easy to figure out, but it's simple. And once I explain some of these frameworks, once I showcase things to clients, once I help them understand the secrets to all these different areas or different blind spots or different leaks, then property managers, entrepreneurs, they can see these leaks, they can see these blind spots. And then when you can see these problems, you're going to want to solve them. That's what you do as an entrepreneur. When you can see a problem, it'll annoy you. It'll bother the heck out of you, and you will get that problem solved. And so we help you see the problem, and then we give you the roadmaps for how to solve these problems. And that's the fun of running a business, is knowing which problems need to be worked on, having that clarity, and being able to move it forward and seeing the business progress and seeing it grow, you have to grow as a result. Russell Brunson at the FunnelHacking Live conference, which I mentioned on the previous episode, said, "God tricks us into benefiting people by starting a business. On the journey to making more money, he tricks us into starting a business that benefits other human beings," because a real business solves real problems in the marketplace. At first, you're probably like, "I just want to make money," or "I just want to make ends meet, then I want to make money."

[00:19:01] But eventually you're like, I want to make a difference. And eventually you realize to make money and to make a difference, you have to solve real problems in the marketplace. That's a real business. You're not going to get referrals. You're not going to get new clients. You're not going to get return clients unless you are making that difference and solving real problems in the marketplace. That's what a business does. Otherwise, you're snake oil, right? You're a thief. Right? You need to solve real problems. And I'll tell you this, like solving real problems is super rewarding. It feels really good to change people's lives, to benefit people. That's why we do what we do at DoorGrow. We love that feeling. I get to hear from people on calls every week sharing their wins, sharing how we change their life. One of the clients posted this in one of our groups and said, "Thanks for putting so much gold in front of us, that it's improbable to eat it in one bite," and he said, "Words from my wife 'I wish you would've found DoorGrow two years ago.' she speaks the truth," is what one of our clients, Will Frasier said. We hear that a lot, like, "I wish we'd found DoorGrow several years ago. I wish we had found DoorGrow before," and if you haven't really found us, which means you haven't come on board as a client, you haven't really talked to our sales team, you don't really know what we could do for you.

[00:20:22] You're kind of thinking, "Well, maybe it's similar to where everybody else is doing," you really should check us out. And you'll probably be that person saying, "Man, I wish I had stepped into that earlier." I wanted to share kind of this sort of journey from the comfortable PM to the winning pm and that journey is, you're going to need to step into the pain, step into the fear, step into all the stuff you've been avoiding, the discomfort, and take a risk. It's a risk. And God or the universe may have to put you in a position that becomes so painful that you're like, "I'm finally willing to do something because I'm losing too many doors right now," or "I want to take this next level," or "I'm just fed up with eating, you know, pork and beans every night, or ramen," you know, whatever it is. Like you want to get to the next level. We want to help you get there. And I want you to be the winning property manager. You are not meant to be mediocre. You're not meant to be the comfortable property manager. You're meant to be the winning property management entrepreneur. You are meant to be that. You're meant to be getting positive outcomes. You're meant to be feeling and experiencing positive emotions. You're meant to be a leader. You're meant to have a amazing team. Anybody can have an amazing team. You just need to know what people that have amazing teams know. You just need to know those frameworks. And then you can have an amazing team that doesn't frustrate you and annoy you and you don't have high turnover.

[00:21:44] So I'm inviting you, I'm challenging you to step in and experience that. And to just quickly pitch our program and our offer: we have our DoorGrow and scale Mastermind. It's an amazing program. It's the culmination of lots of stuff that we've learned. We are bringing in all sorts of experts, the best in the industry. Just, there's a lot of value in the program. But some of our major programs: we have our Rapid Revamp. So if you have any lead flow in your business whatsoever, but you've never really had taken a harsh look at your branding, your pricing, your sales process, your website, this whole sales pipeline, this is something that we are going to take you through, usually in the first 90 days of working with us in the Mastermind, that will completely transform the front end of your business. If you've ever watched Bar Rescue with Jon Taffer or The Profit with Marcus Lemonis, that's me for the property management industry. That's what I do. We transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform you, and we want to transform your business, and that's what we do. We rehab these companies or get them ready, just like you get a property rent ready. We remake, remodel, and revamp. So the Rapid Revamp is this rapid 90 day program that we take you through over the course of like 12 or so weeks, and we're tackling some major issues on a week or maybe a two week basis and getting these things really well dialed in just to clean up your sales pipeline.

[00:23:14] After that, or for those who just want to add doors, we have our Growth Accelerator and right now, we have six major things we do. Each one takes about a month. These are six different acquisition vehicles you can build in your business, and none of these cost you advertising dollars. Isn't that amazing? It's not SEO. It's not pay per click like Google Ads. It's not content marketing. It's not social media marketing. It's not pay per lead services. These are all internet marketing. We're avoiding all of that because these people are at the end of the sales cycle and are the shittiest and worst clients. We're focusing on those that you can capture through word of mouth, where you can create warm leads, where you have a 90% close rate instead of a 10% close rate. It takes less time in the sales cycle and sales process, and it takes way less money, and these strategies are really brilliant. We've got our neighbor strategy, our partner strategy. We've got our group prospecting strategy and all these things are things that I've heard of people try to do, or that you may have tried to do, but you're not adding 300 doors in a year from just one strategy like some of our clients. You don't have these things dialed in the way that we psychologically dial these things in, so they're super effective.

[00:24:24] And so we would love to have some of you join us in that Growth Accelerator that we're doing, and we have a monthly class where we're tackling a major growth engine in the business. And that'll be awesome. You get access to our live events. We're doing one here in October. It's already sold out. Totally sold out already. And we still have-- today's the fifth I'm recording this and it's on the 18th and 19th and it's already sold out. And usually we sell the most tickets, like just in the last week or two before an event. That's pretty typical. But we're already sold out. So we'll just have to plan for a bigger spot and bigger venue the next time. Our next one's going to be in May, people. So make sure you are ready for that and you get your tickets early for that. But we sold out. And so we've got the live in-person events. We also have organized our mastermind into tribes. These are like groups of friends where you get to connect with people. We have a monthly tribe meeting that you get in your, with your tribe and at the events you get to go out to lunch and hang out with your tribe. People love the tribes, and it's really cool. So we've got these small groups we call tribes and we named them all gemstones. We've got like tanzanite and sapphire and ruby and amethyst and whatever. We've got these different tribes for our roughly a hundred businesses. And we've divided them up into like five tribes. So we've got these tribes.

[00:25:38] Also, we have planning meetings where we're going through and doing better than EOS, DoorGrow OS-style planning, and we're building out the planning operating system cadence. We're doing your annual planning with you, quarterly planning, monthly planning, etc. and helping you to have strong momentum and clarity on your team. That alone helped me grow my business 300% in a year, people. 300% in a year, just adding that in. And I've worked with the best in the industry when it comes to that stuff, and I've built a system that I believe is the best on the market and we call it DoorGrow OS, which is a culmination of the stuff that I've learned around that. So that's just some of what we're doing. Then we have our Super System. So the Super System is for those that don't need to add doors anymore. You've built that. Like that's a very solvable and easy to solve problem, I really believe, and we can solve that for our clients and create that pain like our client I was telling you about earlier on today's call. He's had so much growth that it's painful. So the next thing is building out the systems and you need six major systems.

[00:26:39] So this is our Super System. It's like the system of systems getting all these systems in place. And each system is probably going to be about a quarter, so about three months, 90 days, to build out a really solid system. We're talking a fully robust process, documentation system, a fully robust planning and accountability system in your business, and financial system in your business, etc. So we've got all these systems that we're going to be building out as part of that, and once you have these systems in place, you'll have a business that you can scale. And our goal is that over the next five years that we're building seven figure businesses that can do seven figure exits. We're building these businesses that can get seven figure exits if they want to, but hopefully because they're in alignment with their dream business and their dream role in the business, and the four reasons that they don't want to, but you have that freedom and that option because the path is the same. So this is kind of our Built to Sell or our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind that we are focused on. So those are some of the cool things that are in the program. Hopefully that gets some of you pumped up and excited. And our program is really affordable. I mean, I'm not going to say it's cheap, but it's less than it would cost you a team member. On a monthly basis, and it's more value.

[00:27:54] So our goal is to be your cheapest team member that makes you the most money. And you don't just get me. You don't just get a brilliant operator, Sarah, COO and coach, or our client success manager, Ashlee, you're also getting access to other experts in the industry that we're bringing into this mastermind, and you get access to all of other clients that are playing a different game than most property managers. They're winning property managers and you need to be hanging out with winning property managers. You need them in your tribe. You need to be in like a tribe like the Tanzanite Tribe. You need to be winning with other winning property managers, so you are not that comfortable property manager. There's a lot of comfortable property managers, and you may not even be connected to any property managers, but you need to be connected to some winning ones, definitely not the comfortable ones.

[00:28:39] So if any of this is interesting to you, reach out, send me a dm. If you're seeing this on my social media, just message me and say, "Hey, Jason." I might notice it because there's a lot of social media platforms I'm on that you may see this on send me a DM. You can send me a DM on Instagram @kingjasonhull. You can send us a DM on DoorGrow, which is @DoorGrow on Instagram, DoorGrow. And you can just go to DoorGrow.com and reach out to our team through the chat or schedule a call with us, whatever it takes. You know, get on a call with us and my team and we will help you figure out if we can help you grow and become a winning property management entrepreneur in your own business.

[00:29:17] That's it for today. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:29:21] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:29:48] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 190: Drifting vs. Being Driven Towards Growth In Property Management 0

Oct 5, 2022

I just got back from an awesome coaching conference at Funnel Hacking Live 2022! I’m armed with so much knowledge and want to share some of that new knowledge with you.

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, describes a concept introduced by Russell Brunson at Funnel Hacking Live: the Drifting vs. the Driven.

You’ll Learn…

[01:48] What it means to be drifting

[04:31] How to escape being a Drifter

[06:44] Shifting out of FEAR and moving toward FAITH

[8:59] The importance of your effort matching your goals

[11:17] How finding a coach or mentor can change your business and your life.

Tweetables

“A lot of you don't need more dollars. You need more freedom and fulfillment in your life. That's why we want the dollars.”

“You can't build a multimillion-dollar company with a $2 'why.’”

“You're probably feeling the call to do something more, do something greater, but you're avoiding it.”

“You cannot have an extraordinary business with an ordinary goal in life.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] You're the hero in this movie called Life. It's your movie. You are the hero, and I want you to recognize that for the hero to have a great story and have a great life, somebody needs to call you out. Somebody needs to give you a challenge, a call to come out of the ordinary world, out of the comfort zone, out of where you are into something extraordinary.

[00:00:18] All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:54] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:17] All right, so today what we're going to be talking about is we're going to be talking about my experience at Funnel Hacking Live. So I just went to this big conference Funnel Hacking Live in Orlando, Florida with Sarah, my fiance and operation operator. And our intention goal and goal was like to, you know, have fun experience, learn some cool stuff, to be able to bring some cool stuff back to our clients and we get a lot of really cool stuff. And I want to share one of the first things that I got out of that conference with all of you. So. Today I'm going to be talking about this idea of the drifting versus the driven, and this was a talk by Russell Brunson. He's the founder of that event. He's the founder of the software ClickFunnels, and he's probably one of the greatest marketers on the planet, and he is avid student of all things marketing and direct response and copywriting and like what works and funnels. He is the person that put funnels on map. And so what Russell was talking about-- his topic was called The Drifting vs. The Driven. And the idea is that there's two types of people that are out there. There's those that are just drifting, and we've all been that person sometimes where we're just kind, coasting, moving along, just drifting. And then there's also those that are the driven, right? They're very driven, they're aggressive, they want to accomplish things. And when you are drifting, there's also just two substances in the universe. There's two sort of things that exist in the universe. There's things that act and there's things that are acted upon, right?

[00:02:54] There's basically creators, and there's those that are created upon, or that are victims, or that are impacted or influenced, and my goal is for all of you to be a creator, right? And entrepreneurs, we know we're driven, right? We're a little bit different than the rest of the world, and there's a lot of people drifting, but even sometimes as entrepreneurs, we get into a state. I was in this for a little while, like after I went through my divorce, that was hard. That was hard stuff, and I just wanted to date, you know, the business was coasting. It was doing well, but I wasn't really focused on growing or aggressively moving it forward or growing. I was drifting.

[00:03:30] And you know, when we're drifting as an entrepreneur, as the visionary, as the founder, as the leader of our organization, guess what? We attract drifters and our team members will drift. They'll just kind of coast. And they might be great team members, but I've noticed the more driven-- because I'm a driven guy naturally, and so the more driven I've gotten, the more I have my goals and the more I'm pushing towards my goals, the more my team steps it up. And one of my mentors, Alex Charfen, he said to me something like "the speed of the entrepreneur is the speed of the team," meaning you set the pace. You set the standard for the drive and how aggressive you are in your business for your entire team, and the drifter is just accepting life. Rather than having a goal, they fall into this hypnotic rhythm of life. I wake up, I eat, I work, I go to sleep, I wake up, I eat, sleep, go to work, etc. And it just becomes default.

[00:04:27] "What do you want to do tonight?"

[00:04:28] "I don't know."

[00:04:29] "Let's watch Netflix again."

[00:04:30] Right? You're just drifting. And so what I would love to do is I want to call out, everybody that's listening to this podcast or watching this on YouTube or wherever you hear about this, I want to call you out, and I want to pull you out of what you're in right now if you're drifting or whatever your experience is right now to something greater, right? Because where you're at right now in the hero's journey-- if you've ever heard of this concept of the hero's journey-- you're in the ordinary world right now, right? That's the ordinary world, and I want to bring you into the extraordinary world, or the supernatural world, right? And that means there's this call to adventure. So if you feel like you've been comfortable for a while, you feel like you've been coasting, I'm going to call you out. I'm going to invite you to do something crazy or risky or scary or adventurous, and that would be to step into something deeper, to find a mentor, a hero, or coach. Every great story where there's the hero and you're the hero in your story. You are the hero in your story, right? You're the hero in this movie called Life. It's your movie. You are the primary character in your universe, right? You're the protagonist. You are the hero, and I want you to recognize that for the hero to have a great story and have a great life, somebody needs to call you out. Somebody needs to give you a challenge, a call to come out of the ordinary world, out of the comfort zone, out of where you are into something extraordinary.

[00:05:55] You cannot have an extraordinary business with an ordinary goal in life. One of the people at Funnel Hacking Live said, "You cannot have like a million dollar company with a $2 'why'." You need a purpose that's bigger. Maybe it's because you want to show your kids and stop being a weakling or wimp for your kids or that you're not showing your kids that there's a greater life available to them and you're playing small and you know it. Maybe it's that your team needs you to step up and you've been kind of burned out on the business for a while. So I'm calling you out of that into something extraordinary, and the call, when it comes to us, we eventually, we start on this journey, but it's scary and most of us avoid the call. You're probably feeling the call to do something more, do something greater, but you're avoiding it. We all do it first. There's this fear and there's pain, but eventually we hear that voice deep down within that says, "Hey, there's something more. You should do this. You should step into this. You should get that mentor. You should get that coaching program. You should read that book. You should do something to move your business forward. You should have more of an impact. You should step up and be a better spouse or partner or you know, parent or whatever it is that's important to you. We feel that call and if we listen to that call and we do the work, we're operating in faith, right? So we're shifting out of fear and we're moving forward in faith.

[00:07:14] And we may still have that fear, but we move forward in faith, and you are the driven. You feel that call. You felt a call to start a business. You felt a call to do something new and you listened to it. It got you started, but then maybe you kind of gave up or maybe you kind of got comfortable. And so, you want to pay attention to these two sort of entities that exist in your body. One's fueled by fear and one's fueled by faith. And you want to pay attention to those because they're fed. The fear based entity is fed on your fears and doubts and uncertainty, and it keeps you where you're at. It holds you tethered, but then there's that faith that pulls you forward and it's fed by taking action. When you get that call, God gives you some little like idea or some little call, you feel some sort of drive, like, "I should be doing something. This feels right to me," and you listen to it and you operate with that little idea that you were given. You will get bigger ideas. The universe, God, whatever-- you will start to be gifted or given bigger ideas. You'll be a steward over something even greater, and this is why you see some people have great success because they may not be the most amazing person. Sometimes they're not even maybe the greatest person, but in that one little area, God or the universe could trust them with one thing and they did it. And so they were trusted with something bigger and something bigger, at least in that area, that they are achieving and benefiting people in.

[00:08:36] Russell said something interesting. He said that God tricks us into building a business that eventually helps others. Like if you want to be successful in business, eventually you get to the point where in order to have a business that functions well, it has to solve a real problem in the marketplace. You can't operate unethically and think that your business will continue to get bigger and continue to grow. We just hit a milestone in our business. We just in the last quarter did half a million. And for some of you that maybe that's a small thing, but for us that's like a, that's awesome. That shows that we are operating at a $2 million run rate. And if things continue we're a multimillion-dollar company. And you know, and there were several years when I went through divorce and like lots of changes in the business. I was comfortable and the business really wasn't scaling or growing. In fact, it'd even dip down like a little bit right? Dip down a little bit. And so, we're operating a multimillion-dollar company and I believe that that's true and I can see it, and we've been doing it, and if we continue, by the end of the year, we will have been a multimillion-dollar company, right? We can say we are a multimillion-dollar company. And that's a vanity metric. It's a vanity goal that I have. But all of you have vanity goals, right? You have things that you want. Maybe it's a door goal you want to hit, but the award or the goal or whatever it is, it needs to be big enough...

[00:09:57] the 'why' needs to be bigger than all the pain, all the challenges, all the friction that it takes to grow and scale a business. Your 'why' needs to be bigger. You can't build a multimillion-dollar company with a $2 'why,' right? The 'why' has to be bigger than all the challenges. So, you know, we go on this journey trying to scale and grow our business, and it's usually towards some sort of self-interest, right? You want to get more money, or maybe it's the four reasons, right? You want more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, more support. Because you don't use this is why we build businesses, right? Businesses are the vehicle to give us those things, and maybe you want that fifth reason of safety and certainty, but out of that self-interest, eventually, in order to get that to work and to achieve that and to make that possible, God uses that vehicle. It tricks us into building a business that helps others, right? And that serves the universe, that serves God's purpose, and then we are now a vehicle and our business is a vehicle to create positive change and impact here in the world. And so this is one of the greatest things that I think you can do as a human being. It's maybe one of the greatest things is to positively impact others' lives, right? So don't feel guilty. Don't pull your punches, don't hold back at all, like go all in. When you hear that call, go all in and go for it.

[00:11:17] Russell shared this story he shared about Michael Jordan and all of you know who Michael Jordan is, but Michael Jordan-- he took a risk on Nike and Nike took a risk on him. Neither of them were a big deal at the time, but they both grew together and Michael Jordan was so driven that he leveled up his entire team. The entire team had to step up and level up in order to move things forward. And he drove the business and drove everything else forward. So this is my challenge to you: I want you to play bigger. I want you to step into find that mentor, find that guru, find that person that is maybe a step ahead of you or maybe has a clue that you feel deep down you should work with. You need to find that. To go on that hero's journey, you have to find the mentor. I spend six figures annually just on coaches and mentors, mastermind programs, things that I'm a part of to learn so that I can come down from the mountain with the magic elixir or whatever, and share that with my people and share that with my tribe and share that with my clients you need to find somebody that can feed into you to help you get to that next level, and maybe it's not the next level of doors or the next level of money. Maybe it's the next level in your relationships. Maybe it's the next level in being a great father or mother. Maybe it's the next level in just you know, getting more fulfillment and freedom and contribution, making a difference in the world out of your business, and it's not just about more revenue.

[00:12:44] A lot of you don't need more dollars. You need more freedom and fulfillment in your life. That's why we want the dollars. Don't get the dollars and not get that, right? And so that's kind of my message today is are you the driven, Are you called? If you have a calling within you and you listen to it, you will be the driven. So listen to that voice deep down. And If you feel the call to work with DoorGrow-- some of you, I've heard it like, "I've been thinking about working with you for a long time." I hear that all the time. "I've been watching you on the sidelines for a while. I've been listening to your podcast." Now's the time. I'm calling you out. Step into doing it because you've heard that call and you're not listening to it, you're not going to get more if that call's there. And if you don't feel that call, then don't work with us. Like it's really obvious. Like you don't need to do anything with us. We don't need clients like that, but I know there's people out there that are meant to work with us that we can help. I know our stuff works. I know we can help you grow and scale your business. I know we can change your life. I know because I hear testimonials from clients every call that we do each week with our group coaching calls, I know that there's people out there that we could benefit, and that's what gets me excited.

[00:13:51] That's my calling. I want to change this industry. I want to help you grow your business. So if that's you, reach out to us. Check us out at doorgrow.com, and we're looking forward to helping you on your journey through this hero's journey. Bye everyone. Until next time, to our mutual growth.

[00:14:06] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:14:33] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 189: How To Profitably Add Pest Control Coverage To Your Property Management Business With Nick Drzayich From Cover Pest 0

Sep 28, 2022

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could sleep at night knowing that you don’t have to worry about pests in the properties you manage?

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull interviews Nick Drzayich from Cover Pests to learn about dealing with pests in property management.

You’ll Learn…

[02:00] Cover Pest… It’s like Insurance for Pest Control

[03:59] Dealing with Pests as a Property Manager

[07:48] Dealing with the Different Kinds of Pests

[13:13] How Partnering with Something Like Cover Pest Works

[16:02] Eliminating Having to Figure Out Who is Gonna Pay the Bill

[17:15] Using Pest Coverage as a Selling Point for Property Management

Tweetables

“We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed.”

“It's nice for the property manager to have someone else get some eyes on the property every once in a while.”

“It's increasing the visibility. It's decreasing some of the potential costs for the owners. It's protecting the owners.”

“We go out, and we take care of it.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nick: We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed and then obviously the property management companies, they don't have to hassle with the back and forth and who's paying the bill.

[00:00:14] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently. Then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:53] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry. Eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow.

[00:01:13] Now, let's get into the show and my guest today, I am hanging out here with Nick, and Nick, you got to tell me your last name. I should have asked you before the show.

[00:01:25] Nick: No, that's okay. I tell everybody to just say "does your eye itch?" And that'll about cover it. Okay. It's pronounced (dur zye ich) Drzayich. It's a Serbian name, and it's way too many consonants in a row.

[00:01:37] Jason: Nick Drzayich. All right. From Cover Pest. Cool. And is it Cover Pest or just "Cover?" Website says "cover."

[00:01:45] Nick: Yeah. Cover Pest. Yeah.

[00:01:47] Jason: Cover Pest. Okay, cool. Well Nick, glad to have you on the show. So tell me-- give us a little bit of background. How did you-- and I'll just say for those listening, it says, "pest control solution for property managers," like on your website. So tell me a little bit about Cover Pest, and how did you get into this?

[00:02:04] Nick: Come from an insurance background actually. 13 years or so ago, I started and grew a independent life insurance agency, and so that's kind of been my background. Right. And so within insurance, you're obviously taking a big cost in life insurance. There's a death benefit with other insurances. There's big expenses that come at some point throughout the life of a policy and you're taking the cost of that and you're spreading it out among all the policy owners.

[00:02:34] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:34] Nick: So kind of with that mindset. I was chatting with my business partner who lives north of me, and he actually runs a pest control company and has for several years. We kind of got to chatting about this combination of life insurance and kind of sharing this cost, spreading the cost out and how you could potentially do that with pest control. And that's how we kind of landed on this idea of using that model to help property management companies take care of their pest control issues, which we know are just a hassle whenever they happen. Yeah. And solve that issue for them and allow them to take that off their plate and add a little bit of revenue in the meantime. Got it. And what areas do you guys cover? Is this a national business? Or is this local? How does this work? Yep. So this is a national business.

[00:03:21] We obviously have the ability to go anywhere in the country. We have, we started it here in our home state of Idaho, which is where we have the bulk of our clients. But ultimately, yeah, we we work with vendors across the country to be able to help take care of the issues that, that property managers are seeing.

[00:03:37] Jason: Cool. So help me understand how this works. Like why would a property manager decide, Hey, I should work with Cover Pest instead of just use some pest control vendors locally and connect with and have these people in as a feather in my cap. What advantages do they have with working with Cover Pest and why would a property manager choose? Or why do they choose to work with you?

[00:03:59] Nick: Yeah. Great question. So. As soon as you mention pest control to a property manager, you're probably going to get just a lot of heartache right there. Whenever an issue comes up, it's technically it's a tenant responsibility. Yeah, but ultimately it's going to come back to the maintenance manager. It's going to come back to the property management company or owner every once in a while. And so they're having to deal with finding a vendor. Vendors got to contact the tenant, get the service done, and then you got to figure out where you're sending the bill, and there's always going to be a fight there. The tenant's not going to want to pay it, the owner doesn't want to pay it, and you, as the property manager, you don't want to pay it either. And the benefit here is that, we work best with companies that have some kind of resident benefit package. So what our service does is it kind of slides right into that resident benefit package, and for a very nominal fee compared to what you would normally pay for pest control, your tenants are able to have all their pest issues covered, and when they need service, they put the request in online-- goes to call. We send a technician out and take care of it. There's no additional cost on top of what that monthly fee is.

[00:05:03] So like I mentioned, we kind of slide in the benefit packages. We also work as a standalone amenity for those that either don't want to put us in a benefit package or don't offer a benefit package.

[00:05:13] Jason: Got it. So what are what are property managers typically bundling in along with Cover Pest in, you know, in addition to Cover Pest in their resident benefits packages that you're seeing?

[00:05:26] Nick: Yeah, so oftentimes we'll see-- a big one is filter service, so furnace filters that are shipped--

[00:05:31] Jason: mm-hmm

[00:05:32] Nick: --every few months. There's a lot of times some kind of a credit building aspect to the benefit package. There's usually some kind of a maintenance, a 24 or seven maintenance benefit that's inside of that package. And then a lot of times there'll be some kind of perks. You get a free maintenance request once a year on something that would normally be charged to you, or you have late fee, late payment protection. Once per year, you can make a late payment and not have to worry about any kind of fees. So those are just some of the things that we're seeing inside of benefit packages along with our service.

[00:06:03] Jason: Got it. And what are you typically seeing property managers charge for this resident benefit package? And I would assume this is something that they're convincing the tenants to buy as a product.

[00:06:15] Nick: Yeah, so ultimately, what we've seen is that the benefit package just rolls right along with the lease agreement. There's not an option there for the tenant to either pay for or not. It just is what it is and you get it. Yep. And they range across the board, right? From, you know, 20 bucks all the way up to 75 plus dollars per month, depending on what's in the package.

[00:06:41] So when we were designing our service to be able to slide into a benefit package, we wanted to be super conscious of increasing that at all right because any increase in a benefit package cost is going to come with some kickback initially. And so there's got to be some good value there. So we had that in mind for sure, but they definitely range. They kind of run the gamut of, you know, pretty cheap all the way up to some pretty expensive packages, depending on what's offered.

[00:07:08] Jason: Got it. Now you said kickback, but I think you mean push back, right?

[00:07:13] Nick: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Jason: Okay. All right. Just making sure. People are like, "is there an affiliate thing going on here?" right. Okay. Yeah. Right. The tenants are going to be a little frustrated if it's too expensive and they're going to say, "Well, why am I being forced to do this? I don't know that I need all that stuff." Okay. So then, can you give us an idea of what this would cost? How do you price this with companies? Is this like on a per unit basis that you work out a deal with the property managers? Are there certain rates? Is this something that they just can do on certain properties that they can convince the owners to buy into? How does that typically work?

[00:07:48] Nick: Yeah. So when we onboard a company. It's pretty much an all or nothing deal. Right. We want to make sure we cover all of their properties regardless of where they're at and if they have current pest issues. We do work individually on a customized basis with each property management company to decide: "all right, what are you seeing typically pest issue wise? What package makes the most sense, and do we need to customize a package to best fit?" So, at a broad level, we have a couple of different packages. One of 'them is more of a basic package that covers the things that don't typically happen a lot, but when they do happen, it's a real hassle.

[00:08:25] So a good example of that would be bed bugs, for example. They don't happen a ton, but when they do, it's a pretty severe cost.

[00:08:32] Jason: Right.

[00:08:33] Nick: Yep. And and then going up from there, our upper package is a little bit more of the common stuff that people call on a regular basis. Your spiders, your ants, wasps, bees, that sort of thing. And so we do have a couple of packages that we work off of, but we do customize with each company and make sure that we're covering what they want and making it specific to them.

[00:08:56] Jason: Got it. I'm sure it differs. Like here in Texas, we have some big bugs and a lot of mosquitoes here in Austin, but yeah, in some markets, I would imagine you've got certain issues that are just typical to that market and then other markets you don't, and it might also have to do with sometimes-- unfortunately might have to do with the class of the property or the area of the property that it's in, how well it's maintained, stuff like that.

[00:09:21] Nick: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, ultimately we don't want the tenants to hesitate to call because that's what normally happens, right? They know that they're responsible for it.

[00:09:30] Jason: Yeah.

[00:09:30] Nick: And so, they don't call and they just kind of sweep it under the rug either literally or figuratively and the pest issue goes untreated and it can get out of hand, and so we want to eliminate that from happening. We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed and then obviously the property management companies, they don't have to hassle with the back and forth and who's paying the bill.

[00:09:57] Jason: So let's make this a little bit real. So let's say you've got a tenant. They've got some pests. I don't know what kind of pests would be a serious issue, but they decide not to call. Give me an example you've heard of, and then it's incurring additional damages that then the owner's going to have to pay for. Can you think of something like that?

[00:10:17] Nick: Well, I can tell you that, for example, like an average bed bug cost to remediate is going to be anywhere between 800 and a thousand bucks.

[00:10:25] Jason: Okay.

[00:10:25] Nick: So right there, you know, our average package is probably around 10 to 12 bucks a month. So if a tenant is paying 10 to 12 bucks a month, they have a bed bug issue, they're paying substantially less than what they would have to pay to have that remediated through just a general pest control company. Those obviously become much bigger issues when you're looking at multi-family situations where units are connected and those bugs can travel. So I've seen that stuff get pretty out of hand, but ultimately we want to get it controlled as, as quickly as we can so that doesn't happen.

[00:11:00] Jason: Yeah. I hate roaches. Really don't like those things like yeah. I remember being in some houses, like some just not really nice areas, like visiting some houses and stuff in upstate New York and high humidity, and there were some units that I went in that had some really nasty infestations with cockroaches and some of them are really freaking tiny. They're just running around all over, so. Yeah, I hate those things.

[00:11:27] Nick: It's rough. It is nice. Yeah. It's nice for the property manager to have someone else get some eyes on the property every once in a while because typically if you're seeing a lot of bugs, there's a reason. The bugs want to eat. And so there's some cleanliness issues there. So it's nice to be able for us to be able to report on what we're seeing and if we're seeing multiple calls on the same property that's a little bit of a red flag to maybe send someone out there to take a look at the property and have a chat with the tenant.

[00:11:52] Jason: Got it. Yeah. So one of the key benefits then is it's giving you greater visibility into some of the problem properties as to what's going on.

[00:12:02] Nick: Yeah, absolutely because we're going to track every time we get a service call, and you're going to see that report as well. So we can both kind of keep eyes on it.

[00:12:09] Jason: Got it. Okay, cool. So this is something they can build into, you know, along with their leases as part of their resident benefit package. It's not going to increase their costs. Does this become a profit center in any way for property managers or is this just mitigating costs?

[00:12:26] Nick: Yeah, we've had property managers use it just to kind of mitigate those costs. No additional revenue.

[00:12:32] Jason: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:32] Nick: Most of the companies we work with as with everything in their benefit package, they're going to add some kind of a mark up there or an admin fee just for them for kind of doing the work and yeah and setting up the relationship. So it makes perfect sense, so that's what most of them will do. And it's kind of up to them, how much they mark it up, but yeah, there's definitely an additional kind of profit stream there that can be created through using Cover.

[00:12:54] Jason: Got it. And certainly some advantages to taking greater care of the property. Cool. So what are the big questions besides the ones you've already touched on that when people come to you, they're really curious to know because I'm sure some of our listeners are probably thinking, "Hey, maybe this is a good idea."

[00:13:13] Nick: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the main questions I get is how do we roll it out? Yeah. And a couple different ways. Typically what we'll do is it's a kind of a slow rollout and it's upon lease renewal or a new lease creation. So as you're working with a property management company, they have new leases come up. They'll send us that batch for the month. That's renewing and we'll get them added into the service catalog. We have had companies that have gone in and asked their tenants, "Hey, do you want to opt into this right now in the middle of your lease?" and that option is there as well.

[00:13:44] Jason: Have you seen much success with that, with them doing that? What percentage do you see typically? I don't know if you have that data, but...

[00:13:52] Nick: that are opting in?

[00:13:54] Jason: Yeah. If they put it out to all of their residents for opt in, I'm just curious what the typical response rate is that people are like, "yeah. I'll go ahead and do that." Maybe 10%?

[00:14:05] Nick: Yeah. It's not high. Not high--

[00:14:07] Jason: yeah

[00:14:07] Nick: because--

[00:14:08] Jason: I would imagine it's like, "Hey spend more money. Do you want to?" And they're like, " yeah."

[00:14:11] Nick: exactly. Yep.

[00:14:13] Jason: Okay.

[00:14:13] Nick: So most frequently, most commonly, it'll be rolled out as leases are renewed and as new properties or leases are assigned, that's the most common way that it's done.

[00:14:23] Jason: Okay. Got it. So they sign up with you. You've worked out the pricing based on what sort of package they need, you implement, consult them and help them figure out how they're going to roll this out, and they're probably building this into their lease with some verbiage. You typically provide some verbiage for them to add to their lease as part of this.

[00:14:41] Nick: Yep, absolutely. We have some stuff that you can throw in.

[00:14:44] Jason: And then they get this rolled out. So then they've got this new maybe profit center, but at least it's being paid for by somebody. It's increasing the visibility. It's decreasing some of the potential costs for the owners. It's protecting the owners. If something gets really bad it could cause a lot of damage. And I'm curious, like, you've mentioned bed bugs, and I mentioned roaches, but what else are you typically seeing causes a lot of damage? I mean, termites, we hear a lot about. Is this something that is checked for or like relevant?

[00:15:13] Nick: Yeah. wood destroying bugs like termites are a completely different animal.

[00:15:18] Jason: Yeah.

[00:15:18] Nick: That's not honestly a part of what we do. It's another specialty altogether. As far as damage is concerned, mice and rats are another one that are--

[00:15:28] Jason: oh yeah.

[00:15:28] Nick: --they're out there, and we hear about them and we treat for those. Those ones will come in and cause some real issues. If nothing else, just scaring the crap out of people.

[00:15:37] Jason: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And then, you know, safely doing the cleanup because--

[00:15:42] Nick: right.

[00:15:43] Jason: --You know, some issues with some of that stuff, so yeah.

[00:15:46] Nick: Yeah.

[00:15:47] Jason: And so no on termites, but yes, on bed bugs, roaches and mice and and rats. Okay. Got it. Any other questions that property managers might ask that would be curious about your service or that you'd like them to understand or know?

[00:16:02] Nick: Yeah, maybe just to, again point out that sometimes when we go out to do a service the property management company will expect another bill from us or think that there'll be another bill coming, but it's all taken care of. Just in that monthly subscription that's paid for by the tenant. There's no additional fee, no additional cost. We go out and we take care of it. And so that's a common question, common concern. One other one that comes to mind is sometimes they'll be rehabbing a property or making some significant changes to one of their properties and they'll want to stop the service or pause the service. We're definitely open to doing that and have done that. So pausing service during a rehab or big remodel is definitely something we can do. That's one question that has come up in the past as well.

[00:16:44] Jason: Unless they potentially could uncover something in the walls during that room.

[00:16:49] Nick: Right. Right. Yeah. And that's another thing to mention. Yeah. Another thing to mention is the service kind of runs with the address, not necessarily the tenant, so--

[00:16:59] Jason: okay.

[00:16:59] Nick: --if you have a property that maybe sat vacant for a couple months, and you had a maintenance manager out there to check on something and he notice a pest issue. He can just give us a call and we'll go take care of it. Even though there's not a tenant in there, because it kind of runs with the address.

[00:17:15] Jason: Got it. And that justifies including it as part of the rent as well. So if you're saying, "Hey, this. This property, in some instances like in California, like you have to usually pay for lawn care if you want the lawn to be maintained because some people just won't do it sometimes, right? So there's certain things you would include. So this would be included. You could then-- that could be a selling point to the tenants. Like this comes with a resident benefit package where it includes this and this, you won't have to worry about pest control. You won't, and these other things.

[00:17:46] Nick: Yep, exactly.

[00:17:47] Jason: Okay. So potentially as the benefit of helping, sweeten the deal a little bit on a potential rental property for a potential resident, so.

[00:17:55] Nick: For sure. Yeah.

[00:17:57] Jason: Cool. Well, I think we've covered most of the highlights. This sounds like-- it sounds like a no brainer. It sounds like a good service. Let's tell everybody how to get in touch with you and how to find you.

[00:18:10] Nick: Yeah, super easy. Our website is CoverPest.com and you can call me anytime. My number's (208) 477-1330. That's my cell. And you can go on to CoverPest.com, submit a form, and we're happy to chat about creating kind of a custom pricing model for your property management company.

[00:18:29] Jason: Cool. So I want to ask one more question. So when they hear you say, "you'll call my cell" and "here's my number," they might be thinking, is this a scalable business? What if somebody has 10,000 doors or they're a big conglomerate, you know, or they're a small property manager. Is this a scalable model for you? Can you handle different size property management companies?

[00:18:50] Nick: Yeah, what's nice is that our portal, our backend portal that's a part of our website makes it really easy for property management companies to go in and add their properties to their list. So every time they have a backed upload of lease renewals. They go to the service portal, they put it in there and they're added and they can see exactly which properties are covered in that month. And then, yeah, we work with a network of pest control companies that we use as vendors to service accounts that we get with property management companies in different states, if that makes.

[00:19:23] Jason: Got it. So you've got this all figured out really well. I appreciate you coming the show, Nick, and it's been great hearing about Cover Pest. So thanks. Thanks for coming on.

[00:19:33] Nick: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:19:36] Jason: All right. Cool. So check them out at coverpest.com sounds like a good service. And as always give me your feedback. I want to hear... those of you that work with Cover Pest, let me know how it goes. And those of you that are tuning in for the first time, and you got some value from this episode, or if you're not tuning in for the first time, give us some feedback. If you find us on YouTube, The Google play store, or you find us on Spotify or iTunes, give us some feedback. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. And we may even give you a shout out on a future episode. So we appreciate that. And if you're interested in growing your business, check us out at doorgrow.com, and if you want to join our free community of property management entrepreneurs, you can go to doorgrowclub.com and that will get you to our Facebook group.

[00:20:23] Join that community. We've got some great people in there and you know, a rising tide raises all ships, as they say this will allow you to connect with some other property managers and have a resource you can go to to ask questions. And we'd love to hear from any of you inside there, so make sure you join. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

[00:20:49] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:21:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 188: Eliminating The Biggest Time Suck In Property Management Sales 0

Sep 20, 2022

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could eliminate the majority of all sales follow-up and get a higher close rate? There is a way to almost completely eliminate the need for following up in sales.

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, spills the secrets to eliminating follow-up in property management.

You’ll Learn…

[01:12] Eliminating the Biggest Time Suck in Sales

[02:41] Always Schedule the Next Interaction

[07:23] What to do When You Get Resistance

[09:30] Getting Follow-Up Permission

[11:54] Giving Leads an “Out”

[13:00] Collapsing Time in Sales

Tweetables

“Wouldn't it be great if you could eliminate the majority of all that follow-up and get a higher close rate.”

“The only reason you need to follow up with people is because you failed to schedule the next interaction.”

“The way to eliminate follow-up altogether is to not have to not have to follow up. It's scheduled already.”

“Eliminate the need for follow-up by always, always, always schedule the next interaction if you can.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Eliminate the need for follow-up by always, always, always schedule the next interaction if you can.

[00:00:05] All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, the daily variety, the unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income.

[00:00:42] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:05] So today's topic. I started late today because I was like, "What do I want to talk about?" And I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about, and the topic that I decided on is eliminating the biggest time suck in sales to close more property management deals.You want to close more property management deals? One quick way is to eliminate the biggest time suck that happens during sales. You want to know what one of the most important things it is to do, but also one of the biggest time sucks in sales. It's follow-up, right? We know that if we don't follow up, you're way less likely to get the deal. If you don't have a good sales CRM, you don't have good follow-up mechanisms in place, you're less likely to get the deal sometimes just following up, gets you the deal. However, if you're spending the majority of your time following up all the time, wouldn't it be great if you could eliminate the majority of all that follow-up and get a higher close rate-- higher close rate than if you were spending most of your time following up-- by eliminating it. I know that sounds crazy. Right. "How could I do that?" I'm going to share with you a secret that I've taught my clients over the years. That's been very effective, something I use in my own business, something I train my sales team on, and this is how to eliminate the need for follow-up.

[00:02:22] So what is follow up? So if you do a cold call or cold interaction with somebody and maybe schedule a call, and you get on a call with them, and you talk with them and maybe it goes pretty well. Then, you need to follow up afterwards-- is what people think, but the only reason you need to follow up with people is because you failed to schedule the next interaction. So, I'm just telling you this secret. It's really simple. The easiest way to eliminate follow up and increase your close rate so you collapse time on the sales cycle, so it takes less time to close deals and you get a higher close rate you're making more money, and the way to eliminate follow-up altogether is to not have to not have to follow up. It's scheduled already. Schedule the next interaction. This is the big secret. It's one of my major key principles I teach in my Sales Secrets training in DoorGrow Academy to our mastermind clients. Eliminate the need for follow-up by always, always, always schedule the next interaction if you can. So what does that mean? What does that look like?

[00:03:30] So let's say you do a cold interaction with somebody and they're like, "Yeah, maybe I'll listen to you. Let's set up a call," and you schedule a call. Well, odds are because it's scheduled, you're going to show up, they're going to show up. You don't need to keep like reaching out, following up, right? Well, during that call, one of your main goals at the end of that call might be to close the deal, but likely you're not going to close the deal on just two interactions, right? A cold one and then one where you kind of pitch your third interaction-- maybe. Maybe it's going to take multiple interactions. So during each interaction, if you always make it a goal to schedule the next interaction-- So you're talking to somebody you're like, "Hey Susie, it's been great getting to know you and your property management needs, really excited where this conversation's going. I think you might be a good fit for our portfolio of properties that we manage. I'd love to set up the next call and go to that next step and share a little bit more detail about what we do," or if they say, "I needed my spouse or business partner," like, "Cool. Let's set a time and bring them to that call. I'll send you some material to check out between now and then. Let's set up a time. When do you think would be a good time where we could all three get together.

[00:04:37] So you want to schedule the next interaction, and the way to do that is you just want to ask them like," how's Thursday at two?" give them a time so they can say yes or no. Don't say, "_When _is a good time," I will ask, "When would be a good time? How's Thursday at two?" So I ask the question, and then I give them an answer. So ask the question, like, "When would be a great time for us to get back together?" And "How's Thursday at two?" then it's a yes or no, it's not like, oh, they start thinking about all the 10 things they have in their week. If they can think of three things, they have to do that week or three things they have to do in a day, they feel overwhelmed and they think, "I'm totally busy that day. I'm so busy this week. I've got my kids starting school. I've got a dentist appointment, and I gotta get my dog groomed." so they're like, "My week... I'm thinking of these things..." and our brain usually can't hold onto more than like three things a lot of times.

[00:05:34] This is why everybody uses lists of three. And so they're going to go, "Oh my gosh. It's not a good week. I've got like three significant things," when they have like maybe 40 hours in a week, maybe more, you know, available that's being spent towards different things throughout the day, work, etc. Maybe they have plenty of time after hours, but there might be a time, right? So if you say, "Well, how's Thursday at two?" If it's a no, they're going to say, "Well, that doesn't work for me," and you're like, "Okay. How's Friday, like maybe at 10:00 AM?" So you can just start trying different times if you have your schedule up while you do this. So get your schedule ready before you end a call or conversation and schedule the next interaction. Always, always, always schedule the next interaction. This is the big secret.

[00:06:20] So if they don't, if they don't take a time, if they give you like some excuse, they might not be interested. That might be the case. But usually what'll happen is they'll say something like, "You know what, Thursday at two's not good. Actually, this week's crazy. Why don't I reach out to you?" That sort of thing. So that puts the ball in their court and now you're going to have to follow up.

[00:06:41] I don't like following up because following up makes you appear needy, and needy is creepy in sales. I want you to be high value. I want people to be wanting to work with you because you're so great. I want people to think of you as the sexy guy or girl at the bar, right? The sexy guy or girl at the bar does not get with everybody. That doesn't make them attractive, right? They're picky about who they work with or who they get with or whatever we're talking about. So you want to be that attractive person at the bar. You want to be that attractive person that says, "You know what? I'm not sure if you're a good fit for our portfolio. I'm not sure if I want to work with you."

[00:07:19] That's another. Hack or tip or secret. So if they resist and they're like, "You know what, I don't know what a time is," I usually just then do the takeaway. The takeaway in sales is just, "Hey, you know, if this isn't interesting to you, Susie, it's totally cool. Just let me know and I'll take you off my follow-up list." usually, if they're not interested, they might say, "Yeah, you know what? I'll reach back out when/ if I'm ready, whatever," they're basically saying in a nice way: "I don't care about what you offer and I'm not really interested, but it'll continue to be nice and waste your time and you can follow] up endlessly with me, keep chasing me, and eventually someday you might figure it out, but I'm not just going to come out and tell you, so just let them off the hook. "Hey, if this isn't interesting to you, if there's other companies you really would rather work with for some crazy reason, then just let me know and I'll take you off my follow-up list.

[00:08:07] Otherwise, I know how busy you are..." this is where it's going to continue unless they do take the out-- "I know how busy you are, so I will continue to follow up until you either tell me, no, you're not interested or I get you on as a client, just letting you know." So then you're letting him know, like the only way out of this loop of follow-up or of appointments or out of your sales process. The only way they can get out is if they're honest with you and they tell you, "No thanks." That's it. They take the out, or they sign up as a client. There's no excuses or like, well, maybe later or, you know, this sort of thing. So go for the next action, like get the next interaction scheduled. If you can't get that, try doing a takeaway. If you feel resistance at all, try doing a takeaway, and what they usually will do though, is not that what they'll usually do is they'll lean back into you because now you're saying, "Well, if this isn't interesting, I'm happy to just take this away." and that's the takeaway in sales. So they're going to lean back into you and go, "No, no, no. I am interested. It's just really a crazy week," and you say, "No problem. I totally understand. When would be a good time for us to get back together? How's next week, maybe on Tuesday? Do you have your calendar ready?"

[00:09:27] and so then they're like, "Yeah, next week would be good." Now, if you can't get the next scheduled interaction, the booby prize is to get follow-up permission. So if they're like, "Well, I don't know my schedule next week." You're like, "Ugh, I'm trying so hard." They're like, "I don't know my schedule next week." and you're like, "Curses!" So then what you're going to do is you're going to say, "Hey, no problem. Why don't I send you my schedule link? I have a calendly.com link. I'll send you my Calendly link. You can pick whatever time works for you. If I don't see something come through by Monday, would it be fair for me to reach out? Would it be okay for me to reach out and see if we could get something scheduled?" and they'll say, "Yeah, sure. So now it's in their court. They can use your schedule link, but it's their choice. And if they don't do it, you're going to follow up. So then you just put a note in your CRM, 'follow up on Monday if nothing's scheduled,' and you check on Monday, you're looking at your list of things to do, and you're like, "Oh, they didn't schedule. I don't see a Calendly or a calendar event scheduled. I'm going to follow up with them."

[00:10:29] So you reach out and you call them up and you don't do a typical follow-up where you sound needy or creepy. You say, "Hey Susie, um, I had down in my notes here to reach out to you if I didn't see something come through, as far as scheduling a time, see if we could get back together. You'd wanted me to reach out and get a time scheduled, so here I am. I'm calling. When is a good time?" And then, if she gives you more resistance, do the takeaway again, and you continue this cycle and they stay in this loop with you permanently forever until they give you a no. Now I generally have kind of a three-strikes rule. So if I feel deep down intuitively that I'm just chasing somebody and they're wasting my time, I just completely take it away legitimately. I'm like, "Alright." I just send them an email or note or if they're ghosting me or I'll just tell them on the phone, "look. I've been following up with you or trying to reach out for several weeks now. It doesn't sound like this is really something that might actually happen. You know, if I'm wrong, let me know but you may just being nice. Yeah. I don't know, but I don't want to waste your time or waste mine, so when you're ready to get it serious about this, or you're ready to move forward, or you want to work with the best property manager in Tucson, Arizona, (or wherever you're at) feel free to reach out, and we can have a conversation and see if we're going to be a good fit for each other. Sound fair?"

[00:11:48] And they'll say, "Yeah, yeah, that sounds fair." "Cool. You know, I'll let you go." Right. So that's kind of what I would do. Sometimes, you need to just completely pull out and take it off at the table and let them know. I've even gone so far with some clients that were like wishy-washy, ghosting us that I know are not going to be good coaching clients... I just take it away from them because they've unqualified themselves. Sometimes I'll take it. I'll let them know, "Hey look, our sales team has had a really difficult time following up with you. You're difficult to reach. You don't respond to our texts or our emails. We can only work with clients that are communicative. We only want to work with clients that do this, that this..." because it's about what you want too, right? "We only want to work with clients that we can help get results that communicate with our team, that aren't difficult, they don't ghost us, they like communicate. And so far, you've proven that you're not that client. So if in the future, you are interested in doing this, which you've told me multiple times that you are, we'll need to have a conversation to see if you're ready to become serious about this and kind of go to the next level and be reliable n communicating with us. Sound fair?" "Yeah. Okay." "All right, cool. You know, good luck, and when you're ready to reach out, we can have that conversation."

[00:13:00] So hopefully this is helpful. So really simple, put them into a loop, a cyclical loop that you're going to continue of more effective follow-up by always scheduling the next interaction, and if you can't, schedule follow-up permission. You basically get permission to follow up. "Cool. Would it be okay if I follow up on Monday or early next week if I don't see something come through and reach out? Would that be cool? And they'll say, yeah, that sounds fair. That sounds cool, and you just keep doing this, so eventually they're either going to have to tell you "no" to get rid of you and be honest and let you go, or they're going to work with you, and they're going to appreciate if they are interested. Eventually, if they're not, they'll let you know. But if they are interested, they will be impressed by your commitment, your follow-up, and your follow-through in doing what you say you're going to do and being your word and keeping your commitments. You reach out on Monday. "I'll follow up on Monday with you, or I'll follow up with you early next week,: and you reach out then. "Cool. Do you still want to do this? If you're not interested? It's cool. Just let me know. I'm a big boy. I won't cry. Just let me know, and I'll take you off our list. I don't want to waste your time or mine. It's totally cool."

[00:14:08] And then they give you some sort of additional excuse that's them saying " yes." And if they don't, then you're gold. You just keep doing it. And you're going to get way more deals and you're going to waste a lot less time following up. So I hope this has been helpful, and for those of you that want to be in a community-- that's free-- of property management entrepreneurs that are supportive, that want to make a difference that want to help other people, people that resonate with, me and my message and DoorGrow and our show, then join our free community on Facebook. It's the DoorGrow club. The DoorGrow club you can get to by going to DoorGrowclub.com. So check us out there and we would love to have you join our group and a community. Really, I do these episodes for free. And my team pushed me to do it. Like I love coaching clients, but sitting here just talking and hearing myself talk isn't super exciting to me.

[00:15:00] The only thing is exciting about doing these podcast episodes is I know that it's going to help someone. Some of you and I, you know, I like making money, so I know it's going to feed some of you coming to us. We get a lot of business from the podcast, but really, I do this just to serve, I do this and make a difference, and I'm hoping this benefits you. If this did benefit you in any way, if our episodes do, please leave us some feedback. Like we want to hear what you think about the show. We want some reviews on iTunes. We want some reviews on YouTube. Comment on YouTube. Where are we at? Where else are we now? We're on Spotify now. Wherever you see us-- I think on the Google play store or some other place-- so wherever you're listening to this at, make sure you comment or leave us some feedback or review and we're going to start giving some shoutouts. We monitor these reviews and I'm going to try and get my team to pay attention to those of you that are doing reviews.

[00:15:49] Make sure your name is in it or on it. And we'll give you some shoutouts if you give us some feedback or anything, we'll acknowledge what you're talking about most likely, so. Give us a good review, and we'll start doing some shout-outs on some of these shows. So we'd really appreciate that.

[00:16:03] So, and that is it for today. So that's it. Bye, everyone.

[00:16:08] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:16:35] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 187: The Myth Of Not Having Enough Time In Property Management 0

Sep 13, 2022

Everyone on Earth has the same amount of time… the same 24 hours in a day, the same 7 days in a week, the same 365 days in a year. I hear the excuse of not having enough time from property management entrepreneurs all the time. The truth is… this is just a myth.

Join property management growth expert, Jason Hull as he debunks the myth of not having enough time in your property management business. Learn how to take the time you have and utilize it effectively in this short episode.

You’ll Learn…

[01:14] The Excuse of Not Having Enough Time

[02:41] You Have the Same Amount of Time as Everyone Else… Take Control of it

[05:37] Entrepreneurs Want MORE Than just More Money

[06:48] Figure out: What are Your True Priorities?

Tweetables

“Supporting others and contributing to others is its own reward in life.”

“If you're not getting the results that you want, that's evidence that you're not spending your currencies-- probably especially time and focus-- on the right things.”

“Time is, I think the most valuable, but focus is the most important when it comes to growing a business.”

“When you say you don't have time, you put yourself in a position in which you are a victim of circumstance. You have no control.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Is it really true you don't have time? Does anybody else on the planet have time to do something similar? Yes. So it's not whether or not the time exists to do certain things, really the honest thing to take a look at is priorities.

[00:00:13] All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, the daily variety, the unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:12] So today's topic-- what I wanted to touch on is something that I shared with some of my clients several weeks back, and I want to talk about the lie or the myth of time as an excuse. So this is something we hear at DoorGrow all the time. We give property managers all these cool ideas and ways to grow their business, and we give them very clear strategies. We even give them scripts, and we often will hear the excuse: "I don't have enough time," and so we have a whole training we built around time to eliminate all of the time that they're spending, but I want to talk about this lie of time. When somebody says, "I don't have time to do this. I don't have enough time," it's not really true. Is it really true you don't have time? Does anybody else on the planet have time to do something similar? Yes. So it's not whether or not the time exists to do certain things, really the honest thing to take a look at is priorities. It's prioritization. Right? So if you say, "I don't have time to do some outreach to investors to add doors, for example," what you're really saying is: "I am prioritizing other things in my business. I'm prioritizing doing maintenance coordination right now. That's my priority. I'm prioritizing handling leasing stuff right now. That's my priority." You may say like, "I don't have time to go to your event," or "I don't have time to do this thing," or "I don't have time for that," but what you're really saying is: "I'm choosing something else."

[00:02:41] See, when you say you don't have time, you put yourself in a position in which you are a victim of circumstance. You have no control, and when you use victim language and victim circumstance and stuff like that, that rewires your brain in a negative way. It rewires your unconscious mind and your subconscious in a negative way. You, my friend, are not a victim. You are at choice. There's two things in the universe. This is a universal thing that probably existed since time began, however, it began, is the law of cause and the law of effect. And so there's two things that exist in the universe: things that act and things that are acted upon. And you don't want to be the thing that's acted upon. You want to be the thing that acts, you want to be the thing that's at choice. You want to be the thing that's in control. Victims are having to be reactive. They're being acted upon. You're not a victim. You're a choice. You chose your life. You are choosing your results right now that you're getting in your business, whether you like them or not, it's your choice. You are choosing whether or not you get support or help you're choosing whether or not you're vulnerable and ask people for support or help. And so you are also choosing how you spend your time. It's your choice. You're prioritizing things, you're just not maybe very good at prioritizing things if you don't have enough time if you find yourself saying that a lot. So you don't generally hear me say, like, "I don't have time for that," or "I don't have enough time," and if I do, what I mean is: "that's not a priority for me. I don't have time to do it because I would rather do this." That's more honest, right? " This is not really a priority. My highest priority right now is coaching clients," or "my highest priority right now is this event that I have coming up," or whatever it might be, or "my highest priority right now is spending time with my kids in this moment," right?

[00:04:29] So I want you to start eliminating the excuse or the lie of saying, "I don't have enough time." You have as much time in a day as everybody else-- Elon Musk, Steve jobs back when he was alive, right? They all had 24 hours in a day. You have the same amount of time as everybody else on the planet. You don't know how much time you have in your life. It is the scarcest resource. I think it's the most important resource out of all the five currencies: time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. Time is, I think the most valuable, but focus is the most important when it comes to growing a business. And so if you don't have enough time, it's because you're choosing to focus on probably the wrong things based on results. Like, if you're not getting the results that you want, that's evidence that you're not spending your currencies-- probably especially time and focus-- on the right things to get the business forward or to get what you want, and I want you to have what you want, because

[00:05:37] I believe what entrepreneurs really want isn't just more money, it isn't to hurt people, it's to get what I call the four reasons-- which I've talked about in a previous episode-- but those reasons are you want more fulfillment in life. You deserve that your kids and your family and your spouse, they all deserve to see somebody that is alive and loves doing what they're doing. That's the best version of you. Fulfillment. Second is freedom. You should have more and more freedom. This is why we think we want money, and I like money. It's great, but it's because I want to have more of these things and you can have more money and not give yourself more of these things, right? Like you have less fulfillment and less freedom in your business right now. So I want to make sure that you have more freedom, more fulfillment, more contribution, and more support in your business. Once you have those first two you just now want to make a difference. That's contribution, and then after that, you're going to want to make sure you have support because it means you don't want to do everything in the business. You don't want to wear every hat. You need a team, you need support, and you want to support others. Supporting others and contributing to others is its own reward in life. I get to do that every day. It's really rewarding, and these are what I want out of life. This is what I want out of my business. And so I want you to give up the excuse of time.

[00:06:48] And I hope this really short episode was helpful for you. I hope it helps you take a look at where you've been a little bit dishonest with yourself and others and you start figuring out: 'what really matters to me? What are my priorities? Is it a priority for me to grow this business? Is it a priority for me to take care of my family, leveraging this business? Is it a priority for me to just get money or do I have four priorities that are more important? Fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support?' If you do that introspection, I hope you get some really good insights. If this is helpful and you'd like some more ideas and tips, or you'd like to work with us, reach out to us at DoorGrow. We would love to support and help you. We've got some cool stuff going on. We innovate so rapidly now. We have so many new things that we're doing. We spend over six figures annually on coaches and mentors, high-level masterminds, people that have scaled and built businesses up to a billion dollars, and these are the people that we are learning and growing from in our organization so that we can turn around and support our clients, so check out our new Built to Sell program if you want to build a business that you could exit from and then decide you don't want to sell it, but you still might want to exit from it. Right? But that's the ultimate freedom. So our Built to Sell program is really awesome. Over the next three to five years, we're going to be taking business owners through this program.

[00:08:07] So if you would like to get in on and build your business to sell so you can exit it in the next three to five years for a seven-figure exit, or just have the ultimate level of those four reasons and do something every day that you love. Either way, we want to help support you towards that goal, so reach out to us and ask us about our new first 90-day onboarding period during this it's called the Rapid Revamp, and we are revamping your entire business in 90 days, including branding, website, sales. I just did a previous episode on this, so you can check that out. It's a really cool program. We're actually restructuring the order of the weeks based on what we're learning in our first class. So we're taking clients through right now. So class two's going to be even more awesome than what you heard about on the previous episode.

[00:08:48] So, that's it for today. So until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:08:52] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:09:19] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 186: Playing The Game When Growing Your Property Management Business 0

Sep 6, 2022

Almost everyone loves a good game with high risk and high rewards. Owning a business is the ULTIMATE high-risk, high-reward game. If you are currently avoiding taking risks, you are avoiding playing the game… this means also avoiding the rewards!

Today, property management growth expert, Jason Hull explores the idea of “playing the game,” finding hope and faith to play the game, taking risks, and finding rewards.

You’ll Learn…

[01:11] Business is a Game + Why Change is Necessary

[07:12] Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway

[10:21] How and Why YOU are in Control of the Game

[11:30] Why we Ask our Clients to Do Uncomfortable Things

[13:40] Lessons Learned from Our Live Events

[16:17] A Program Designed to Help You WIN the Game

Tweetables

“If your goals don't scare you a little bit, they're not big enough.”

“It actually gets easier the bigger you get and the more doors you have if you do it the right way.”

“Business is the ultimate game.”

“Every good thing that's ever come to you in your entire life came as a result of change.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Life is a high-risk, high-reward type of game, and if you're not playing the game, you're avoiding playing the game, then you're avoiding risk, which means you're also avoiding getting the rewards, and if you want to grow your business, you need to be willing to take those risks.

[00:00:12] All right, welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:48] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:11] All right. So what we're gonna be talking about today is: play the game. This is the conversation topic that I talked with my coaching clients today. When we're kids, we enjoy playing games, right? Maybe you played video games. Maybe you played board games. There's games like Monopoly that have been around forever, and why are these games popular? Monopoly is a popular game because it's a game that has high risk and high reward. You can land on one square and lose almost everything, right? And you can build up a square in which somebody can land on something and you can gain everything, right? So high risk, high reward. That is how the game of life is played. Life is a high risk, high reward type of game, and if you're not playing the game, you're you're avoiding playing the game, then you're avoiding risk, which means you're also avoiding getting the rewards, and if you want to grow your business, you need to be willing to take those risks because that's what kind of makes entrepreneurs stand out as different. That's what makes you different. Most people on the planet want safety certainty. That's a higher priority. You cannot have a maximum level of safety certainty and run a business.

[00:02:26] You have to be willing to step into some risk. You have to be willing to try stuff. You have to be willing to fail sometimes. Now one of my favorite mantras that I love to say when I'm experiencing what feels like failure is I love to say and tell myself that I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn. There's no failure, right? You either win or you learn. The only way I fail is if I quit, if I give up. That's the only way I fail. If I'm unwilling to quit, I can't fail. I will eventually figure it out. It might be hard. It might take me a while, but if I'm unwilling to give up, if I'm unwilling to quit, I can't fail. I'm just going to keep learning. Right. The reason I talked about this with clients today is because, in entrepreneurism, in growing your business, you have to make changes. And so I asked my clients today. I said, "Hey, what is your perception of change? What phrases and things do you think are associated with the word change? What do other people think about the word change? And I said, "Comment in the chat," and we got words like 'uncertain' and, you know, ' fear' and 'uncomfortable' and 'necessary' and stuff like that. And so I wanted to reframe that and I said, "What I would like you to do is to reframe change and realize that every single good thing that's come to you in your life, every single good thing came as result of some sort of change. So a lot of times our brain wants to focus that change can be uncomfortable, painful, all these difficult things, but all of the good things that you've had, maybe you found your ultimate life, partner, spouse, whatever, maybe you had kids and that was a big deal to you and you love them. Like maybe you accomplished and earned a degree, or maybe you had some big goal that you hit, or maybe you've built an empire or a business, right? These things are things that took risk, but they also, they had a reward and they involved change. Every good thing that's ever come to you in your entire life came as a result of change.

[00:04:34] And so there's levels to this game that we play in life and in business, and business is the ultimate game. It's the game that has endless levels. Like you just keep leveling up, and in property management, there are specific levels-- I talked about at the conference that we just put on-- specific levels that you go through at certain door ranges and certain challenges that exist at those door ranges, and I've talked about this a bit on previous episodes going through each of the major stages that I notice. And at each of these stages, there's these milestones, these challenges, these things that you have to overcome, these things you have to stop doing and give up and things that you have to start doing and adopt. It's always change, and if you are unwilling to change, if you put a cap on future growth right now in your mind, which means right now, you say, "I only want to get to 200 doors," or, "I only want to get to 300 doors," and you're doing that because of fear, because of fear of pain, you are telling your unconscious mind, "You better avoid getting to that because that is my pain threshold. That's where pain will exist." So your unconscious mind or your subconscious will sabotage and make your life more challenging and help you make bad decisions so that you do not get to that point because that's your maximum level of discomfort or pain is what you're thinking in the back of your mind.

[00:05:54] I want you to recognize and realize that on the other side of pain, fear, discomfort is all of the good stuff. If you grow a business to, say, a thousand doors or greater, and you do it in a healthy way, you can have the ultimate business. You can have the ultimate level of freedom. You can have the ultimate level of fulfillment in life. You can have the ultimate level of contribution and feel like you're making a difference. You can have the ultimate level of support. It actually gets easier the bigger you get and the more doors you have if you do it the right way because you have more resources, you have more finances, you have more money available to hire team members, get systems, to offload. You don't have to be doing anything in your business that you don't want to be doing at that level. And so business actually gets better. It gets better, but yes, there's some painful spots that people give up on. I see a lot of people get stuck at 50, 60 units. I see a lot of people not be able to break that a hundred or barrier, and I see a lot get stuck in that 200 to 400 door category, and they're just maxed out on discomfort. They don't know how to get out of that. And so what I want you to understand is anything you're going to do ever is going to involve some change and you're going to feel afraid to do it because we all start at level one.

[00:07:10] We all start at 'level suck.' That's where we all start, and you're going to start with fear. What I want you to recognize with fear is that when you feel fear but you know it's the right thing that you should be doing, you do it anyway. You feel the fear and do it anyway. You don't wait until the fear goes away. You don't try and kill all the fear. That's what courage is. That's what bravery is. You just do it. And so if you are in a state of fear, all you need to have is hope. You need to transmute that to hope. You need to focus on the goal that you want, the outcome that you want, something positive that you want and create some hope. And then you're going to take action. And if you take action, you'll move towards that next stage out of fear to faith, the opposite and the way that we get to faith, the way that we have faith in something is evidence. This is where we know, like I have faith that this light switch right here on the wall back here, if I go and turn on the one on the right, it will turn on the light above me. I have knowledge that that will happen. I already know. I already have evidence. Faith in your self, faith in your business, these are created through evidence. You need evidence. If you don't have the evidence, you need to create the evidence, and how do you do that? By having hope and by taking action. So you move from fear to faith through hope. You just got to hope for better things and take massive action.

[00:08:30] Taking action alone is what kills that doubt and fear monster, so it kills it, and once you have enough evidence, the doubt and fear die. They can't exist at the same time. You cannot know that you are a closer and know that you can manage a rental property and know that you're really great at what you do and know that you can get people results and know that you can solve their problem and also fear that you won't be able to, or be afraid that it's not going to work out, right? Once you have enough evidence, you know and so the fear's gone. So if you wanna kill the fear, you have to be willing to feel it though. If you're not willing to feel the fear and do it anyway, you won't progress. And so some of us, we kind of lost our edge, like we're a little bit numb. We're a little bit bored. And if you're playing monopoly, and it's a hard game, you don't want to play right away. It's a long game. You need recovery, you need to rest a bit, but if you really enjoy the game because there's high risk and high reward, it's a lot of fun, surprises happen, adventure. These positive pre-frames for change that my clients came up with today were things like, you know, 'adventure' and learning and growth and all these positive things. Those are all things that come with change, and I really believe in our soul, who we are, the things that we learn, the wisdom that we adopt, the knowledge we take in that stays with us, I think forever.

[00:10:04] That stays with us, regardless of whatever your beliefs are, I believe it stays with us forever, me personally, and it changes who you are. You become a new person with new ideas and new beliefs. because at your core, that's who I believe you are. You know, you are the observer that carries these beliefs. You're not your body. You're the person that is in the body, utilizing the body. That's a vehicle. You're not your feelings. You're not fear. These are vehicles. These are things that you can experience, but they're not you, you're not fear. These are things you can experience. You can experience things through your physical body. You can experience things through your emotional body. You can experience things through your mental body, right? Through ideas, mental-- you're also not your thoughts. You might have great thoughts. You might have horrible thoughts. You're not your thoughts necessarily. You're the person behind, the observer. You're the person in control, the creator. You're the person that thinks the thoughts, feels the feelings, and experiences the body. Right? You also, aren't your intuition. These flashes of insight and intuition, that's maybe higher than your mental body. You experience intuition. You leverage and utilize intuition. You connect to the universe or source or God or whatever you're into, right, through your intuition.

[00:11:20] And so I want you to recognize that, if you want to move through fear, you move through it through exposure. You just got to do it. Feel the fear. Do it anyway. And we ask our clients to do uncomfortable things. Like we're just saying, "Hey, your branding sucks. You need to change it. Like you look like a real estate company and that's costing you probably half the deals and leads you could be getting. We could probably double you really quickly, you know, the amount of deals and leads, you're getting just by getting real estate out of your branding. You have a leaky website. You need to change that."

[00:11:49] "Oh, but I like it. We just paid money for it. We did this like--"

[00:11:53] "Yeah, but it's costing you money, right now Right? You need to change that. Maybe you need to change your sales process. Maybe you need to change your pricing." almost everybody needs to change their pricing that comes to us.

[00:12:04] "You need to clean up your pricing. Stop just being that 10% or 8% company or that flat fee of $99 company. There's better pricing, right? There's better models. You're leaving money on the table. It's not just about charging, more it's about having a better, psychologically more effective pricing model. So you can close more deals at a higher price point more easily," which is what one of our clients said just happened to him as he went through our pricing secrets training. So we want to clean up all these leaks. There's lots of other leaks, but it takes you being willing to step off the cliff. It takes you being willing to take that leap of faith, to jump, not knowing if it's going to work out. You have to try stuff and you need to take risk. The good news is we have lots of clients that have tried this stuff. It's proven. We know it works. So we're asking you to take risks that deep down, you know, is the right thing to do, and there's evidence already to help your faith.

[00:12:57] You don't know personally, but there's others that'll say, "Hey, this worked for me. This works. Try it out. Do it. It's scary, but I did it and it worked out." And so be willing to feel the fear, be willing to take action and make sure that you have a good support system around you to help you out. And we would love to be that support system for you here at DoorGrow. You can reach out to us. You can check us out at doorgrow.com. So if you take a look at your business and you feel like you've been stuck for a while, maybe you just need to set a bigger goal. You lack hope. You're not excited anymore. If your goals don't scare you a little bit, they're not big enough. You need to look at your goals and go, "Man, who would I have to become in order to have that? I'm gonna have to change."

[00:13:40] I went to a friend's conference a week or so ago, and he had 1200 people at this event. He coaches auto repair shop owners, and he coaches a niche industry similar to what I do, and he's ahead of, of where I'm at in the game. He's at a higher level in the game, but me seeing that helped my faith. It helped me know, 'Hey, that's possible.' he said from stage, he said, "Five years earlier I had 19 people at my first event." He had 1200 at that event. It was massive. He had 19 people at his first event five years ago. Well, we just did our first event in a while in quite a while. My very first event was in 2018 DoorGrow Live we did in 2018. I was totally scared to do it. It was a big, audacious, crazy thing, and we bit off more than we could chew honestly. I call it my $2 million mistake. You can go back and listen to my previous podcast episode where I talk about that, but we had 150 attendees. This conference we did just for mainly our clients. It was pretty much all just our clients, and we had like 45 there. It was awesome. A lot more conservative, a lot lower budget. We didn't spend $150,000 like we did on the previous event. We spent... I don't know what we spent yet. The numbers aren't all in, but it's way less. And hopefully my team stuck to their budget, so we'll see, but yeah, it went great.

[00:14:57] It was a lot more comfortable and we're going to grow. So we weren't at 19. What my buddy, Aaron told me at his first event, he said he had 19, but he delayed the event because he was embarrassed about how many registrants he got. It was too few. Delayed the event, still only got 19 that showed up. So we're ahead of where Aaron was then, so I will see where we're at in five years, but it helped my faith. And is it scary to start doing these events and to commit to doing these events? And, you know, COVID could hit again, or monkeypox or avian flu or, you know, stuff could come up, right? Stuff could happen, but I hope. I have hope that we will do great things. I have hope that we can change this industry. I have hope that we can make a difference in a lot of business owners' lives, and being at that conference, the one I just put on, our DoorGrow Live that we just did, helped my faith because we heard from lots of clients, we got feedback, we got testimonials, people got value, and I now have evidence. I now have evidence that this is a good thing that this can be good and that we can make a difference. I have more evidence and I want all of you to experience the maximum level of fulfillment in your business, freedom in your business, contribution in your business, and support.

[00:16:17] And so go back and listen to my previous podcast episode if you haven't. That one I talked about our Rapid Revamp program and Built to Sell. Built to sell your business in three to five years, for a seven figure exit. It's totally possible. I actually had somebody speak at my conference that sold his business that he built in three to five years from the ground up, and he sold it for seven figure exit. He's still running the company as part of the buyout that he just sold and he's got like 1300 units, something like that as well. So, really awesome because I didn't tell him what to speak about. I didn't tell him what to share, and he got up and said, "This is what it takes, and these are the levels," and it mimicked all the stuff that I teach, and there was so much synergy and my clients were just like, "Jason's actually telling the truth. Some of the ones that were a little skeptical, some of the ones that are like," Does Jason know what he's doing?" It was really a beautiful thing to see. So that helped our clients' faith, seeing somebody that had done it. So I brought him in like, "I'm not gonna tell you what to talk about. Just share your journey, share what it takes," and he talked about, ironically, he talked about branding, he talked about culture, he talked about all these leaks that we solve in our Rapid Revamp program, which was really exciting.

[00:17:31] So, we have an event coming up in October. We highly recommend that you come and be part of that. If you're debating whether or not DoorGrow's legit, or you should work with DoorGrow, highly recommend you check out our event. It's going to be in Vegas. You can check out the details at doorgrowlive.com and we hope to see there. So, that's it for today. Feel the fear, do it anyway, get out there, create some goals, have some hope, and get the evidence that you need to prove to yourself that it's true. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:18:03] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:18:29] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 185: The DoorGrow Rapid Revamp Program for Transforming your Property Management Business 0

Aug 30, 2022

Do you enjoy your day-to-day in your property management business? At DoorGrow, we want to help our clients build a business that you COULD sell for a seven-figure exit… but you won’t want to. This is the goal of our newest program, Built to Sell.

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull shares the 90-day Rapid Revamp program as part of our new Built to Sell program. Learn how you can completely transform your business from sales and prospecting to branding and websites in just 90 days.

You’ll Learn…

[01:16] The First DoorGrowLive Event in 4 years

[02:28] Building a Business you Could Sell but Won’t Want to

[07:13] An Opportunity to Coach other Property Managers

[10:38] Week by Week Overview of the Rapid Revamp Program

[26:26] What Does the New Program Cost? How Does it Work?

Tweetables

“Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.”

“Culture dictates how you hire and who you hire and who you're able to attract. Culture dictates how you sell and it dictates your sales pitch and how you close deals.”

“I really think this industry is in its infancy and has massive potential, and I am really optimistic about the future.”

“If you don't have the business of your dreams, it's because you don't know what you're doing to some degree. You're doing some of the wrong things. You're doing things that are minus signs for you in your day-to-day.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] I love being in my business. I love getting to do what I get to do. I don't have to wear hats or do things in my business anymore that I don't like doing, and that's our goal for our clients is to help them build that business that is built to sell, but that you don't want to. That's the ultimate freedom in business

[00:00:16] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:16] All right. So, today's topic: we are doing this really cool event it's happening this week. So by the time you see this, it may have already happened. If some of you are following us on iTunes or podcast apps or whatever, this may have already happened, but we're doing a live in-person event. DoorGrowLive, the first event we've done in a long time, and it's gonna be here in Austin and it's gonna be awesome. So we've got this event that we're doing in person. It's mostly gonna be just our clients. I think we have a few attendees or small handful of attendees that are not our clients that are gonna be in attendance, but this is going to be mainly for our clients. It's open to other people. If you're watching this live and you want to be there, you can get a ticket. You can go to doorgrowlive.com and get a ticket, and we have other events. We're gonna be doing an event-- not annually-- we're gonna be doing an event with our clients once a quarter because we have almost a hundred clients in our mastermind and we want to get together in person and meet, and this is going to be awesome. This gives us an opportunity to get together, have speakers. And in our mastermind group, we've got so many people now we're organizing them into tribes, and so they get to create friends and connections. It's super cool.

[00:02:28] So what our current program is it's called Built to Sell, and so the idea is to build a property management business in the next three to five years. That you have the option of selling. It doesn't mean you'll take that option, doesn't mean that you will exit your business for seven figures, which is the goal. You might keep it, right? And that's probably the goal. The ultimate goal is to have the freedom to exit your business, but not want to because you've built it to be fun and you've built it to give you maximum levels of fulfillment in life and freedom, and it's a source for you to contribute and make a difference. And you feel like it's feeding you life. Like you love being in your business. That's the business I have. I love being in my business. I love getting to do what I get to do. I don't have to wear hats or do things in my business anymore that I don't like doing, and that's our goal for our clients is to help them build that business that is built to sell, but that you don't want to. That's the ultimate freedom in business. And so, this Built to Sell program-- built to sell in three to five years to get a seven-figure exit if you want to-- is very doable. It's very doable.

[00:03:37] It's something we know we can help clients do, and the first portion of that, the first 90 days is the Rapid Revamp, and so this is where we are cleaning house on these businesses. This is like _Bar Rescue_ or _The Profit_ or any of these shows where you see them revamp businesses, we are helping them revamp their business. We're cleaning up everything, and I could go over the entire roadmap if some of you are interested in that, but that is the goal is you want to build a business that gives you the ultimate level of fulfillment, the ultimate level of freedom, the ultimate level of contribution, the ultimate level of support. That's why we build a business. It's why we have a team, so we don't have to wear every hat. We don't have to do the things we don't enjoy. We don't have to live in the minus signs in our day, our day's all plus signs. So if you're a property management business owner right now, and you're like, "I know that this is not how it's supposed to work," you might be in that first sand trap as a solopreneur and you're stuck and you're struggling. I've seen hundreds of clients like this and companies and we help them solve this. Like it's an uncomfortable place.

[00:04:41] They call it the solopreneur sand trap. There's lots of people that are in that second sand trap, which is that team sand trap. This is 200 to 400 units usually, and they're like really struggling to figure out: "Why can't my team just be great. Why can't I find great people? Why do they have to keep coming to me and asking me questions all the time for everything? And I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because I'm just constantly inundated with interruptions and having to micromanage my team and approve every major decision, and I'm not even doing the things in the business that I think are the most fun, that feel like the most fulfillment and the most freedom and contribution. I don't feel supported. I feel like I'm having to support everybody else." You've built the wrong team in the wrong business, around the wrong person. That's the problem is you are showing up as the wrong person in your own business, and so this is the idea: Built to Sell. We are helping build the entrepreneurs and businesses and the goal with the entrepreneur is we just need to build you up to be the business owner that can have the business of your dreams. If you don't have the business of your dreams, it's because you don't know what you're doing to some degree. You're doing some of the wrong things. You're doing things that are minus signs for you in your day-to-day.

[00:05:51] You only need maybe about 200 plus doors and about five team members to probably max out on those four reasons if you do it the right way, and then you can have the business of your dreams, be taking vacations. You could be doing the things you want to do. You could have plenty of profit. A member of my team has a property management business, and they have somewhere around, I think, 200 doors and they have 60 to 70% profit margin, and these are C-class properties. And they are not doing really much in the business. They're working basically full-time in my business and they have one part-time person boots on the ground that does the stuff that they need done. That's how efficient property management businesses can run even with C-class properties.

[00:06:36] Right. And so, we're really good at helping you cut your staffing costs in half, reduce the phone calls, reduce interruptions, build the business of your dreams, and that is the goal of the Built to Sell program. That's the goal of this program that we have over the next three to five years that we want to do with you in your business. So, we're really excited. Our next event's going to be in October. So if you want to be at that and come see what we do and come see the momentum that people are creating, come hear from people and see what's going on at DoorGrow. We're creating magic in this industry. I don't think anybody else is doing anything like this, and if you are somebody that wants to coach other property managers, you're like, "Hey, I've had some success, and I want to give back. I want to be in that state of contribution," we will pay you to do that. You can come join DoorGrow. It could be a part-time gig while you run your own company and you can come be part of our coaching team and dedicate a small amount of time out of your month and feel that momentum because I feel like you learn the best. So we will be taking applications for the coaches and we want to bring in the best coaches in the industry. We're already courting and talking to some really amazing people. Some of these people have built up and sold 2000 door+ companies some have coached and consulted multiple companies and helped them grow.

[00:08:01] And so, DoorGrow, we will be the world leaders in property management growth. That's our goal. I invest a lot myself in coaches and mentors-- over six figures a year-- just on my own masterminds and programs that I'm in so that I can learn so that I can give value to my clients, and we are adding all sorts of cool stuff and we're making changes rapidly in our business. We're really excited. So today's podcast is just all about you know, what's going on at DoorGrow, Built to Sell, Rapid Revamp, Scale Program Mastermind... This is the stuff that we're doing that's really, I think, gonna change the industry, and I really think this industry is in its infancy and has massive potential, and I am really optimistic about the future.

[00:08:48] A lot of people are talking about the real estate market crashing, and maybe there's gonna be a crash in all of this. It's inevitable, maybe, or maybe it's not... property management does great during crashes. Property management does great during recessions. There will probably be another pandemic. Like people are saying that that's coming, who knows if it's gonna be monkeypox or whatever. Property managers can handle this stuff. And I think property management's gonna become more and more relevant. It's gonna become more and more critical. And all of these things are gonna drive it. A lot of people that are self-managing were down 50% in rent during the pandemic, but property managers were down very little, like if at all. Smart ones that played their cards right and didn't like expect people to have issues paying and put out messages saying, "Hey, if you're gonna have problems paying..." didn't have problems with people paying in general property managers that made that mistake, maybe went down maybe five, 10%, 15% revenue.

[00:09:44] So I know some of you that made that mistake, right? You preemptively reached out to everybody and you're like, "Hey, if you're having a problem paying rent..." and then they're like, "You know what? I do have problems paying rent. Thank you for like, presenting that option to me." but property management like became more necessary because it became more of an emotional issue. I see that even if tough stuff comes at us in this industry, it's gonna grow. It's gonna get better. We've only been at maybe like 30% market share, right? Between self-managing and managing professionally, and so there's like 70% available room to grow, or at least double, right. If you get to the level of Australia, they're like at 80%, roughly. And we're at 30%, right? So we could double in size and still not be at Australia's level of market penetration in professional management versus self-management. So I think there's lots of opportunity.

[00:10:38] So let me tell you about the Rapid Revamp. Some of you are interested. You're like, "Jason, what do you guys do at DoorGrow how are you gonna help me? Like, what are you gonna do? Let me explain to you the first 90 days, this is week by week. I'm gonna take you through week by week. What we're going to do:

[00:10:51] Week zero: basically, if you come on board, we start these classes once a quarter. So our next class is in October. So get in now because we have limited spots that we're allowing into this class. We are only planning on allowing 30. Our first class though, we took our current clients through it. We have two-thirds of our clients that are in our mastermind go through it, so we have about 60 businesses going through it right now. That's a lot-- more than the class size that we want to have. We want to probably have a class size of maybe half that. So we're gonna probably be allowing about 10 a month into this class because we're building this up over the next quarter until October starts. We've already sold several into the program. They're getting free coaching leading up to it. So if you want to get in, get in now and you get some free coaching, some additional free coaching leading up to it starting in October, and then we're going to start every 90 days after that each quarter we have a class starting. So if you want to be part of this quarter, that's gonna be awesome.

[00:11:51] It's going to be leading into October. This is the winter months where business owners want to work on their businesses. You have some bandwidth. You have some downtime. Property management cools down. This is a great time to focus on making changes in your business, growing your business. And leveling up in your business. And so that zero, we call 'Prepare.' All the weeks start with a 'P.' So that zero week is Prepare, so that zero week probably could last a month or two, depending on when you join leading up to the beginning of the next class. So you're going to be starting on just getting some quick clarity, some quick wins. We'll be coaching you. You'll get a kickoff call, one on one with me. You can do some calls with some of my team members that can coach you on operational challenges, in acquisition challenges and getting doors, growth, so then we're gonna get into week one, and week one is amazing.

[00:12:39] Week one is Prioritize. In this training, we are cutting some companies' staffing costs in half. It doesn't matter how big or how small you are we are able to collapse your time in half. We're sharing with you the secrets, and this week is called Prioritize. It's all about time, and the biggest secret-- I'm just gonna tell you-- is about eliminating phone calls, and we're gonna teach you how to eliminate all the phone calls in your business except the ones you really want to have, which are from prospective clients. You don't need to be talking to anybody else, and so we're going to teach you the secrets of how to systematize your business to eliminate those phone calls, decrease staffing costs without hurting customer service levels, without getting bad reviews, without any of those challenges you think might happen, and so we're also going to get you started on a two-week time study, which is one of my greatest secrets and hacks in figuring out how do we build the business around your "plus signs," where you're going to identify those plus and minus signs, and we're going to start to reduce those interruptions and dramatically change your business.

[00:13:37] So week number two is Purpose. We're going to get into Purpose Secrets and figuring out your personal "why," your business "why," your client-centric mission statement of focusing on clients, and all these things that create culture that also allow you to close more deals, more easily, at a higher price point. So purpose is the most significant thing we've ever taught clients, like when clients-- when we asked them like, "What's the biggest benefit you got by working with DoorGrow? What was the best thing that you learned? They always say it was this stuff." and I know it sounds like fluffy, woo woo bullshit right on the surface, but thousand door companies-- people that have thousand door companies or greater-- they know how critical culture is, and we're going to help you lay the cultural foundation. You know you need this week if you've had bad hires, or you have team members that you feel like are not motivated, or you've been struggling to get people to like take action and do things on your team or business, or you're frustrated, or you're having difficulty closing deals, or you're losing business to other companies. Those are all culture problems. Those are culture problems. They're not sales problems. They're not like hiring problems necessarily. It comes before that. You have to have good culture. Culture dictates how you hire and who you hire and who you're able to attract. Culture dictates how you sell and it dictates your sales pitch and how you close deals.

[00:15:03] People don't close deals because you have better features or benefits or pricing. Those are the bad clients. People close with you and become clients with you-- the great clients-- because they trust you. Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. And so this is how we create trust. It's how we build out our golden bridge sales script with you. It's how we get into four-phase selling. It's how we get into "the three dominoes." All of that stems from your purpose and getting this stuff really clearly defined. It's how you authentically create trust with clients is to let them know what really motivates you. And if you don't help them see that it's something besides just money. Their assumption will be that your goal is just to squeeze as much money out of them as unethically as possible. That's the default assumption when people are selling unless you counter that. And we're going teach how to do that in a powerful way. So that's Purpose.

[00:15:58] Week three, we're getting into Pricing. So this is where we're getting into unique pricing models and methods that are different than what everybody else does. Everybody else does a flat fee or they do a percentage, and so we're getting into the science psychology of pricing strategy and helping you develop three-tier hybrid pricing models and teaching you then how to leverage that to be able to close more deals, more easily, at a higher price point than your competition and how to create incentive structure so that you're getting on more of the higher end properties and the higher rent properties and decentivizing the cheap owners that are difficult to deal with. And so that is a game changer week, and in a single week, you're going to have new pricing because we give you hybrid pricing spreadsheets, we give you different sheets to map stuff out, we give you all the stuff so that you can figure this out.

[00:16:52] Then week four, we get into Positioning. This is all about branding. We are the world's leading property management branding agency. We've rebranded hundreds of companies. Some of the best brands that exist out there in the property management space, we had a hand in coaching them, supporting them, or helping them come up with those names. We do logo design, we help with business cards, print collateral, all of that kind of stuff. So we're gonna help you, and you'll go through our training material, and you'll learn about branding.

[00:17:18] The next week after that is Product. So we are then getting into our first acquisition strategy. We call this the "Trojan horse to selling" or the "side door to closing deals," and we're teaching you a secret strategy on how you can get investors to become clients, doing a thing called product research interviews. And so it's really brilliant. We had a client that just showed up the week after that call, and he said, "I did one of those interviews, and I closed 10 doors on doing one interview," and this is the, like, it's super easy to close deals because the secret is: most investors are not looking for you and they don't think they need you. They're not looking online. That's why Google ads, SEO, these kind of things really are probably a waste of money in a lot of situations for most businesses, so we're teaching you how at no cost, you can go and acquire business more easily. The next week, after product-- and product is a great week. If you are under a hundred doors, you're in that startup stage. This is going to help you learn the secrets that you need to know to have the knowledge to close deals the way a 10-year-old company would know. They know all the problems, they know all the pains. You're gonna learn all of this by using that strategy, and we give you scripts like how to do it, everything. We train you.

[00:18:34] Week six: we're teaching you how to sell because you need to know how to pitch. If you get opportunities with investors to sell, we're gonna teach you how to sell the Pitch week is all about our four-phase selling strategy in which we go through the four phases that make any sales pitch amazing no matter what you're selling. We're going to get into how phase two of this four-phase selling, we're going to teach you the golden bridge script and the golden bridge formula, which is stacked on Purpose week that we went through and we're gonna get into the ultimate pitch, how to build the ultimate pitch based on the Three Dominoes that you need to knock over and how to handle all of their objections during your sales pitch very effectively so that by the end of these three dominoes being knocked down, the only logical conclusion they have is to work with you, with your company, because nothing else would be better or more effective. And so this is really effective for increasing your close rate and helping you sell more.

[00:19:33] After we get through that, then we get into Partners. So week seven, we're getting into Partners and this is how to now, stacking on the previous acquisition strategy of Product, we're now getting into: how do you get more connections through potential partners that can connect you and introduce you to investors so that you can get warm leads and more referrals. One of our clients using this strategy added 310 doors over the last year from just five or six agents and they were able to do this because they implemented this strategy. Now, most referral relationships will give you maybe a referral once or twice maybe a month. Like, and it doesn't work super effectively because they're waiting for people to come to them saying they want property management, which almost never happens, so our strategy is way more effective than that. So we're teaching how to build this outbound partner relationship system in which you are able to grow your business dramatically faster through warm leads and dramatically increased referrals. We're also getting into another strategy called the neighbor strategy, which is also super effective in getting other property management companies to send you business. Really effective. We've got clients just adding sometimes five, 10 doors a month just by getting referrals from property management companies that are in their market sometimes or outside their market. So we'll get in that.

[00:21:00] Week eight: we're getting into Power. We are going to be creating confidence, making sure you have a healthy mindset, making sure that you have the right appearance. You'd be surprised, but we get a lot of clients that struggle with this stuff. They're not confident in their pitch. They say, "um" and "and" too much. They're not polished. They don't smell confident, they don't sound confident, they don't look confident, and that destroys trust. And so even if they're a great property manager, they're artificially destroying trust and killing deals and not getting on business. So we get into that.

[00:21:31] And then week nine: we're getting into Presence. So this is the online presence, website, and making sure that your website content is dialed in so that our team can start building you a really effective website with your new pricing, with your new branding, with your new pitch, with all your new stuff, we're going now help you build out the website. I don't think anybody does this better than us. Our biggest competitors, even if they do more sites than us, they're still copying us and trying to do what we do. Our clients' close rates and their websites are a lot more effective. And you can test your website right now if you want to see if this is a leak by going to doorgrow.com/quiz. That's doorgrow.com/quiz. And test your website and see what kind of grade you get. My guess is you're getting, at very most, maybe a, B, maybe a C. Maybe you're getting a D or an F. We see a lot of Fs come through from some of our competitors.

[00:22:24] Then after website, we're getting into week 10, we're getting into Perception. So this is all about online reviews, how to create a system of warm outreach that allows you to get consistently the majority of your tenants and owners to give you positive reviews and feedback online, leveraging the law of reciprocity. So we give you these scripts. We give you the language. And if you build this system out in your business, you will never have a bad-reviewed company. You'll have great reviews online and you'll be outpacing all of your competition because they mistakenly think that reviews happen by default or if you just ask for reviews, you'll get them. And that doesn't work very well. And you know it! Like you've struggled to get reviews I'm sure. So we're gonna teach you the secret systems in Reputation Secrets, how you're going to crush it and get consistently good reviews. And this has helped some of our clients, this strategy alone has helped some of our clients add a hundred to 200 doors in a year, just this strategy. And it's warm leads. Close rate's easy, it's a high, high close rate. And most property management companies suck and most get bad reviews. You're not going to suck and you're not going to get bad reviews working with us.

[00:23:28] The next week, we're getting into week 11, we're getting into Prospecting. We're going to teach you how to leverage groups because you're going to have some group opportunities come up by doing the Partners and by doing the Product week challenges that we're gonna give you. You're going to have some opportunities come up to pitch to a group, and most people will go do some sort of group presentation to a bunch of realtors, or they'll do a group presentation to a bunch of investors and they walk away with very few deals. We're gonna teach you how to walk away with a lot of relationships and a lot of deals and actual appointments from that event. And so we're going to teach you strategies to do that. And that strategy alone has helped some-- one of my clients went from being at 50, 60 doors to 300 doors in just six months, right. Just using this strategy alone can be super effective, so we're going to stack that strategy on Prospecting, which is groups.

[00:24:25] And then week 12, we're getting into Planning, so then we're going to take a look at: what's the six month roadmap moving forward? You're at the end of this program, like what's coming next? What do you need next? We're gonna help you get super strong clarity, show you the roadmap of what comes next, which is the next six month program, which is Scale as part of this mastermind, and we're gonna show you what we're gonna do next to get you to that next level. This is building out all the systems that you need to have in your business, hiring system, planning systems, et cetera. So we're going to roadmap and do planning.

[00:24:56] And then, week 13 is all about Progress, so we're going to be sharing wins. Everybody's gonna be celebrating, and week 15, which really is starting into the next cycle-- that's where we're doing our next in-person event. So that's where you graduate and that's where we're going to celebrate. You're going to be hanging out with your class, with your buddies, with the people in your tribe, you're going to get your diploma. This is graduation, and you'll get to see the newbies that are coming through the next class. And share your stories with them. It's going to be awesome. So, and in October, our kickoff for the class-- those that joined the October class-- in October 18th and 19th, I believe it is, we are doing our event in Vegas at the signature hotel at the MGM grand. It's going to be awesome. So you will get to see the clients that are going through our Rapid Revamp right now that are going to be graduating and hear from them, and you'll get to be around people that are crushing it, adding doors, you will know you're at the right place, and it's going to be super awesome. And you're gonna be connected to other people that are playing a similar game and investing in themselves. These are rare people. These are business owners and property management business owners and property management business owners that invest in themselves. You're going to get to hang around with some of the coolest people I think that exist in the industry. These are people that are contribution focused. These are people that are game changers. These are people that are making a difference. Some of these people have thousands of doors. Some of them are startups, but they're all growing and they're growing rapidly and they're focused on investing in themselves and growing.

[00:26:26] So that is a quick overview of the rapid revamp program. And if you're curious, "Jason, what does this cost?" Our program is way less than buying into a franchise. It's way less than making a bad hire or spending money on a team member. It's way less than all those things. So it's 10 grand for the program, which is less than you would spend on a year with a marketing firm or some other firm, and you get way less doors and way less results, so this is an absolute no-brainer, and you can break it up into payments and stuff like that if you need to. But anyway, that's it. So that's our Rapid Revamp is the first 90 days, first three months in our Built to Sell program, and then you're going to move into our six-month Scale program and then you'll move into our continuity, our annual program that renews yearly, and that's your next level then. It's going to be awesome. So, reach out to our team, check us out at doorgrow.com. And we would love to set up a call with you and see if you'd be a good fit, see if you are a candidate, somebody that we can work with over the next three to five years to help you have either a seven-figure exit, or just a seven-figure business that you don't want to exit, which is the goal. My hope is that you'll want to keep it because it's the main vehicle for fulfillment and freedom in your life, and you love getting to do what you get to do. So with that, I'm out. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

[00:27:49] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:28:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 184: Real Estate with Intelligence: The Secret to Chambers Theory’s Success in Property Management with Tommy Chambers 0

Aug 23, 2022

At DoorGrow, we aim to expand the property management industry and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We love gathering new strategies and ideas to help savvy property managers grow their businesses.

In this episode, property management growth expert Jason Hull interviews Tommy Chambers from Chambers Theory about the secret to his success.

You’ll Learn…

[02:08] The Secret Power of Trust Equity for Improving Churn Rate

[08:59] Keeping on Clients… Even When they Don’t Really Need You Anymore

[15:09] Benefitting Homeowners and Investors with Ongoing Management

[21:02] Why Recognizing Your Team Matters

[26:07] Systems Every Business Should Have

[31:23] The Importance of Establishing Company Culture

Tweetables

“It's not just about growth. It's also about keeping the ones you have and the clients you have satisfied. So our strategy has been to take care of our people.”

“If your churn rate is high, that means you then have to replace all the doors you are losing every single month. If you're replacing every door that you're losing constantly, then you have stagnation.”

“It's far easier to keep a client than to go acquire new ones... and far cheaper.”

“Hiring is hard. One of the hardest transitions I see entrepreneurs go through is solopreneur to having a team.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Tommy: We said, "Hey, your services don't have to stop when you come back to live in your own home. We can still be your property manager even if we're not collecting rent.

[00:00:08] Jason: All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently. Then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:46] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry. Eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:11] Welcome to the #DoorGrowShow.

[00:01:13] Tommy: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on.

[00:01:15] Jason: Yeah. Glad to have you. So you've been doing property management for how long?

[00:01:20] Tommy: 21 years now.

[00:01:22] Jason: And how long ago did you start your business?

[00:01:25] Tommy: We started Chambers Theory in 2018. This was on the heels of my former company selling to a bigger broker and saw the opportunity to start fresh and bring my theory to the market of what property management should and could look like.

[00:01:42] Jason: Cool. Well, welcome to the show. So you guys reached out and wanted to be on the show, I guess you had been listening to the podcast for a while. We've never worked together, right?

[00:01:52] Tommy: Not yet.

[00:01:52] Jason: Not yet. Not yet. Right. So cool. Well, I'd love to hear how many doors do you guys have right now.

[00:01:58] Tommy: 717.

[00:02:01] Jason: All right. That's a nice number since 2018. So what's your biggest strategy to add doors? How have you grown the business so far?

[00:02:08] Tommy: You know, there's a lot of different ways we've approached that. There's a growth strategy just from organic growth. All of those doors have been organic growth. Of course, we look at acquisitions as well. And then, there's also the client retention. It's not just about growth. It's also about keeping the ones you have and the clients you have satisfied. So our strategy has been to take care of our people, use and try new tech, be early adapters with some new tech, and when we take care of our people and lean into some cool new products and leading-edge technology, the word gets out and when we're effective and take care of our people, people like to follow that. Clients like to follow companies where they have consistency of people they're dealing with and especially if they're happy with their jobs, it really works out well.

[00:02:55] Jason: I love what you said. One of the big things that a lot of businesses fail to look at is churn, you know, and retention. And your churn ratio or churn rate is basically the number of clients you had at the beginning of the month. And then, you divide that by the number of clients you have at the end of the month, basically is how you calculate churn. And so if your churn rate is high, that means you then have to replace all the doors you are losing every single month, if you're replacing every door that you're losing constantly, then you have stagnation, and a lot of business owners try to increase growth, increase lead then, and they don't focus on churn at all or retention at all. And they wonder why they're not making any progress. And it's kind of like trying to run uphill while somebody's pulling you backwards. So what are some things you've done to kind of decrease the churn rate and prevent clients from leaving? And one of the clients that tends to leave the most are accidental investors. Do you avoid those or are you good at convincing them to stay longer?

[00:03:56] Tommy: I love the analogy too. We actually use the analogy of pushing a rope uphill is when you have a high churn rate. Just doesn't make a lot of sense in that it takes a lot of energy to both reintroduce a new client to what your program's like and set expectations and agreements on that, but also to find them, so keeping the ones we have and keeping the ones we have happy is critical for us. And we actually have a high churn, natural high churn type of client base. A lot of our clients are military and US foreign service, which means typically we know when they sign on with us, they're gonna be back to their house in three years, which makes a really interesting... Mm, I'll call it calling or genre of residential property management. When you know your client's gonna be back in three years. You know, you have to plan for that replacement, and you also have this higher calling of care where: geez, this is not just somebody's investment property. This is their home they're going to come back to and the judgment is often a lot more meticulous when they come back and say, "How did you do taking care of my house?" not just, "How much rent did you earn me?"

[00:05:08] So some of the things we do are really to increase the level of care and communication the client feels during the period of time that we know we have them, and we call it building or losing trust equity in every interaction. So the way we describe trust equity is like having gas in your tank and you're going on a trip. You're only gonna go as far as you keep fueling up that gas in that tank. And for us, that gas in that tank with that client is trust equity. So in every interaction, we either see ourselves as building rapport, building trust equity or losing it, or losing the opportunity to build it. So a lot of our practices are focused on: how do we build up trust equity all the way through their journey and make it the full three years? And the positive side of the community that we're working with is: even though there's a high natural churn, there's also a high referral rate from one landlord client to another to utilize our services if we've done a good job for them.

[00:06:11] Jason: Yeah. I like that. Yeah. You know, refueling the tank or recharging the cell phone or, you know, anything. Like nothing just continually runs forever. Right? And I love the idea of trust equity. I've said many times on the show like I really believe sales and deals happen at the speed of trust.

[00:06:29] Tommy: Hmm.

[00:06:30] Jason: And, you know, retaining clients also happens related to trust. Like you're gonna keep clients if they trust you, and that trust is everything that you do in your business, everything that your business puts out there is either creating trust or taking it away to some degree with your clients. And so, one of the main things we focus on at DoorGrow with clients is taking all the major leaks that exist in their sales pipeline related to trust and helping short those leaks and that's always the language we've used around that is to try to make sure they're reducing the leaks. And there's lots of things in the sales pipeline that can destroy trust. It could be the brand. It could be maybe they're not destroying, but they're leaks in trust. Like they might trust a property management company over a real estate company when it comes to branding more.

[00:07:21] And so that could be a leak just at the branding stage there's leaks when it comes to your sales process, there's leaks when it comes to your website, there's leaks when it comes to your pricing, and all of these different things that exist throughout their experience in the sales pipeline can either add value and add trust and build it, or it can take it away. And this is why when we talk about cold leads versus warm leads, or going from a cold interaction or lead to close, the difference between cold and warm is trust, right? We're trying to nurture them through this sales process and through follow-up. And eventually, they get warm enough, they trust enough that we can close the deal, right? And then the trust cycle continues. You have to then onboard them effectively. You have to then make them feel safe because everybody has buyer's remorse after they purchase something. There's an initial dopamine high. When we make a purchase. And after that purchase, after we spend money, there is natural lull. Like it comes back down and that's where people kind of freak out and they look for the problem, and if they see one they're like, "Oh crap, did I make the wrong choice?" So making sure there's this smooth experience through the sales pipeline and then bridging over into onboarding and into their client experience.

[00:08:39] And if you onboard them well, and they have a good experience, you're gonna have a much higher retention rate. So now you've got people that are leaving most likely after about three years. So you've got like this three-year cycle. How do you deal with that? Because every three years you help that churn rate and that's better than some that are taking on accidental investors that are only gonna hang out for a year.

[00:08:59] Tommy: Yeah. So one of the ways we deal with it is-- which I think is unique, is we said, "Hey, your services don't have to stop when you come back to live in your own home. We can still be your property manager even if we're not collecting rent. Often, we were getting calls from clients that came back anyway saying, "Hey, you know, I was your client last year or two years ago. I need a recommendation on an HVAC company," or, "I need a recommendation on a plumber for Thanksgiving before my family comes to visit," or whatever it is. And it was like, well, oftentimes we were getting these calls back from clients anyway, saying, "I just need a contract recommendation," or "I'm going to be away from my house for three weeks on vacation. Can you just check on it once for me if there's a storm?"

[00:09:46] And what we decided to do is instead of treating it like a clumsy process to make it a formal process and organize that thing that was happening anyway, and we said, "Hey, when you come back, you don't have to close out your account. And you can continue to use us for anything related to your house and you can run your expenses through your escrow operating account in property management, and we'd be happy to be part of that for you and give you contractors when you need them." And we made the expense for that minimal, and it's not a profitable activity, yet it kept the connection and it also told these clients, "Hey, you know, we can trust this company even when they're not really making money from us, right, they're truly in it to serve us."

[00:10:32] And what happened is when they got their next assignment, whether they're military or foreign service, but they already had their account open with us, they didn't have to decide, "Oh, who do I want to interview?" Or "Who do I wanna start with this time in property management?" we made it easy for them to just keep going with us and recommend other people to start with us. So that's one of our nuances and I welcome other property managers to do it too. You don't stop serving them when they stop becoming a client, especially if they could become a client again or refer somebody else, you know, continue to offer them some kind of value even after you think that they're done.

[00:11:07] Jason: Yeah. That's fascinating. That makes a lot of sense in a military market. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Do you find that it is more of a loss leader or are you doing this at cost at least?

[00:11:18] Tommy: So I guess you could call it a loss leader if you tried to start a business that way. I mean, once you have a certain scale... our scale of our business, right, is we keep close track of how many property management hours per property we're spending throughout the year, and, you know, we have it down to a science exactly. You know, how many doors to our staff, not just per property management lead, but overall support staff. How many hours are dedicated to these properties? And what we find was keeping these accounts on wasn't costing us a lot of time, but it was giving us a really good return on trust equity. So we were building more trust equity when the client closed out their account, their normal rent collection account, and kept going with us from what we call a heat account or a home escrow account and the home escrow account, you know, we're charging $360 a year, a dollar a day, less than that, really. And oftentimes it was not profitable for us in terms of the hours we spent, but we'd spend, you know, five or six hours a year on those accounts, making recommendations, handling their expenses through their property account. So it wasn't like a money maker, but it really had a return in terms of these clients came back to us and they recommended other people to us because we were building trust in the process, not just cash.

[00:12:45] Jason: So this three-year cycle that you mentioned where they will go off for maybe about three years, and then they want to move back into the property. Do you know how long they're typically staying before they go off again?

[00:12:57] Tommy: Yeah. I mean, it depends on which government agency or department they work for. There's different requirements for each, which we've come to learn quite well. Sometimes they'll come back for, you know, let's say they work for the U.S. state department. They'll come back for one-year language training. So they're, you know, they're coming back from Bangkok and they're gonna be transferred to Nairobi, Kenya 12 months from now. So they know they're coming back just to learn the language of the next place they're going and all the more reason to just keep their account active, right?

[00:13:31] Jason: Yeah.

[00:13:31] Tommy: Often--

[00:13:32] Jason: So they're only back for a year and then they're probably out for maybe another three years?

[00:13:37] Tommy: Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, it tends to be a one or two-year return depending on the nature of their return assignment, domestic assignment. And then, another three years out tends to be.

[00:13:49] Jason: Wow. Okay. So, I mean, so the ratio skewed so that they're gone more than they're back. So by maintaining that relationship, you have built-in future clients.

[00:14:00] Tommy: Nailed it, yeah. Oh, and that maintaining the relationship is where the secret is, as we said. Not doing that turns growth into pushing a rope uphill. If you maintain that relationship, it makes it really easy for that business relationship to continue and that trust equity to grow.

[00:14:18] Jason: Yeah, it's far easier to keep a client than to go acquire new ones... and far cheaper. And it takes a lot less work and if they have a good experience with you, they already know you, trust you, like you, so like it's super easy. Next time they need it, they're gonna go with you as long as they had a good experience, and if that relationship has been maintained, they're still a client. Yeah, no-brainer. It's like, "Hey, we're going out again." "Cool." So pre-framing that from the beginning when you onboard a new client and letting them know, "Look, you're probably gonna go in some cycles. We're used to this. This is how we handle it. This is what we do," they'll just plan on staying with you forever.

[00:14:54] Tommy: Yeah, I'll tell you at first, it's an awkward value proposition, right? It's like, "Well, I'm back. Why do I need to keep a property manager?" And the answer is: you don't. You don't need to. You don't need us nearly as much as you did when you were on the other side of the world and we had a tenant.

[00:15:09] Jason: Yeah.

[00:15:09] Tommy: However, this is why every connection and communication is an opportunity to build trust is when they start to see, "Oh, I'd much rather call my property manager and have them deal with the contractor," or "call my property manager, see if they can check on this after a storm," or, "call my property manager..." whatever it is. The more that they see there's value in the process in the chain, then the more likely they are to say, "Wow, I actually wanted this. I didn't realize you guys even offer when I came back, I could just keep using you at a lower price." So, it's awkward at first because you're used to saying, "Well, these are the reasons we are worth property management: rent collection, and dealing with tenants," and you just have to change that and recognize that actually, we're valuable for a lot of things that the clients trust us on and including, you know, managing, making it easy for them to manage their home escrow account or their expenses related to their property, or we make it a lot easier for them to not call some contractor out of the yellow pages or Google somebody and get lucky. They already know that we have a tried and true stable of contractors.

[00:16:17] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It's frustrating trying to find contractors and having to do the research, so I think that's a great selling proposition and property managers don't like giving out their vendors generally. So if they're a client and you're like, "Hey, let us handle this." If they come back to you... so what do you do in the situations where they're like, "Nope, I don't need you. And I don't want to do this. We're back. I got it handled. But then they call you up and they're like, "Hey who you got for me? You got a contractor that could do this or this?" Do you say, "Well, we have this great program," and you try and get them on the program?

[00:16:50] Tommy: Yeah. We try to reintroduce them to the program, and the reason why is because when you're out of the system, everything it's that much harder to translate the information to what needs to happen, right? Like, okay, you have something that needs to be done, but we don't have all the information in our system and as close anymore, and also our contractors, they like to know that if they bill a property manager, they're gonna get paid in two weeks. We build trust equity with the vendors too, not just the clients. So these contractors would rather get a call from us and say, "Okay, yeah, I'll be happy to do that job tomorrow or Monday, whatever it is because I know you're gonna pay me in two weeks when I send you the invoice," versus, "Oh, I've gotta deal with some homeowner that's calling me. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's not. I don't know if they're gonna pay me on time or if I am going to have to do an accounts receivable issue."

[00:17:43] It's just all smoother through our network when we have the account open. So yes when they call us back, we say, "Hey, of course we can give you the contractor's name and number, happy to do that. We're not gonna block you from that. However, the contractor's gonna prefer to hear from us anyway. So, you know, we're happy to set your account back up." we really put their account on pause if we think they're gonna be going back overseas in a couple of years, but yeah. I mean, we do reintroduce the concept, even if they closed out thinking they didn't need it.

[00:18:13] Jason: Hmm. Got it. So I'm trying to figure out how could this apply to non-military markets if at all possible. So I'm just spitballing here, but I'm wondering if property managers could present this as an actual product or service to just typical homeowners, like, "Hey, we'll handle the vendors, we'll handle maintenance, whatever," and they charge them for that, but they just, they charge some sort of fee and, "We'll take care of all this stuff and handle vendors, and we have the best contractors and we're organized and sort this out. I don't know if people would go for it, but...

[00:18:43] Tommy: Actually, I think it's a growing market and it is happening. A good friend of mine, Lisa Wise, who owns Flock DC, she's trying to build almost a franchise concept, but a series of this very thing where all they do is home management for primary homeowners. She's pursuing this market in high urban markets with really busy professionals who just don't know how or don't want to take the time to take care of their own house. And she's got a great program set up for that. Again, we're not doing it on the scale she's pursuing it. We're offering the service as. Let's build the relationship with the client that we have for rental management before they need us.

[00:19:24] Jason: Sure. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, I think there's an opportunity there for the people in the non-military markets to make that maybe a profit center or something. You cut out the whole tenant side of things, but there's the whole maintenance coordination piece and home management piece, lawn care, grounds, pools.

[00:19:44] Tommy: I'll tell you, I actually think investors would love this, and it might be something we pursue more as we work with investors that'll appreciate this that is to be able to do not just, oh, any expenses related to your personal residents, but to do an analysis like, "Hey, typically for a house your size you're spending two X the amount of water on your water bill that you should be. When you can start to do some financial analysis within their expenses, instead of just saying, "Oh yeah, like you can pass through your expenses through your account. So it's all in one place," but to add value by saying, "This is out of our standard deviation for this expense," or-- and again, you can always add value by saying, "You can call five contractors if you want, but we're buying in bulk as a property manager and we can get you either better pricing or better value of service."

[00:20:33] Jason: Yeah, very cool. So what else would you like to share with people about your business that might be beneficial to property managers listening? You've grown fairly quickly. I think you have the advantage that you're in that military market where you've got people leaving, which is great as long as they have awareness, you're going to be adding doors, which I think is really powerful. You focus on trust equity, which I really like that phrase, and what else do you think really kind of sets you apart, makes your company unique from the competitors in your market?

[00:21:02] Tommy: Yeah, thanks for the question. That trust equity is a strong theme at our company. And what I do is, it's not just with the contractors or with the clients, we're also building trust with one another on the team, and we call it the Camelot principle. So yeah, after you've done battle enough on our team as a property manager, you've been through a couple of tough summers. Summers tend to be the hardest time of the year in our market. Then we award that person with a sword, a sword with etching on it for chambers theory, and we welcome them as a knight of the round table. And what we really want to do is we want to build this interdependence of trust with one another as a team, and part of my promise as the employer and the business owner is to keep the job manageable for them, right?

[00:21:53] Like most of the time as the entrepreneur, like we're trying to get the most out of our teams so we can get more profits and grow and it's healthier. And sometimes it's great. Some of us are, "Hey, we'll pay our people more," which is a wonderful way to look at it, yet sometimes people want their job to be more manageable. Like we can call them to a higher standard, yet we also shouldn't overwhelm or burn out our employees, and it was really telling when we saw right after it was the end of 2020-2021 market, they call it the great resignation. There's a lot of people saying, "Hey I'm done working," seems a lot of it had to do with burnout. People are like, "Life's short, why am I burning myself out for this or for that?" And to really lean in on how do we build trust with one another?

[00:22:37] How do I serve my team by making them part of that round table of strategic decision making, making them part of that process where we say, "Hey, we're serving one another as a team, and then we serve our clients and we build trust with our clients and our contractors after we build it with one another. I have a high respect for these different elite teams in the world, in any industry. I love the new movie Top Gun Maverick. They take the top 1% of 1% of pilots in the Navy and they build this elite team, and yet still the part of the theme of the movie was: how do you take these elite individuals and turn them into a gelled team to accomplish a mission? And that's part of what we're trying to do is it's about believing in one another to accomplish the mission, not just going for the mission at all costs and burning each other out.

[00:23:30] Jason: Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that. I think one of the big mistakes I've seen, having been able to see inside of probably thousands of property management companies and work with lots and lots of entrepreneurs is I think it's a common misconception and a common belief that entrepreneurs carry that their team members want more compensation and that compensation will increase output. And the reason for this is entrepreneurs, we're money motivated, but most people are not. Entrepreneurs and salespeople typically are the two categories of people that are money motivated. But what I find is most of our employees, most of our team members, most of the people on the planet are not actually money motivated in that if you give them bonuses, commissions, incentives, financial incentive, performance doesn't really get better.

[00:24:24] And you can see this if you give team members a disc assessment. The more advanced disc assessments have what's called values index. And one of those values is the economic score. If the economic score is low, they're not money motivated. And if the economic score's high they're very money motivated, but entrepreneurs usually are money motivated, so they by default think, 'That's what would motivate me, so I'm gonna try and inspire them by offering money to get better output, and it backfires because if they're economic score is low and say, for example, their charitable scores high. Some of them have guilt related to money. So you pay them more, the performance actually goes downhill and they get worse. And so if their economic score's low, here's what you do instead, you give them recognition, they're recognition motivated. So I love the idea that you're giving 'em a full sword. You're probably like in front of the team. Recognition, generally, even the people that are money motivated is appreciated, so.

[00:25:28] Tommy: Yeah. I learned that one the hard way, just hearing you talk about it. I was like, oh yeah. I took me right through the past scenario where it's like, "Why am I not getting more? I'm paying this person more," and what they really needed was to be taken and given the opportunity to be believed in more. And actually, they wanted more responsibility, not more compensation. They wanted to show that they're capable of more things, and then the compensation piece made more sense, but they almost really felt like they needed to earn it first, which is beautiful, but I tried to do it the other way around and it didn't work so well.

[00:25:59] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a lesson everybody that runs a company eventually has to learn. And some of us are pretty hard at learning it, but I think another thing having a system in place allows recognition. So our planning cadence at DoorGrow, we call it DoorGrow OS, our operating system and it allows our executive team members to see what each other got done in the previous week or for our monthly goals or for our quarterly goals, and everybody gets to see the wins and gets to see that somebody contributed to the team goals. And a lot of businesses don't even have goals or it's the business owners pushing a goal onto everybody, which is very different. So having a really good operating system like that can really make a difference.

[00:26:46] Tommy: So I really like that system. I wanna talk to you more about that offline.

[00:26:50] Jason: Yeah. We'll chat with that. There's systems out there like EOS and Traction, and some of these, but really shameless plug, DoorGrow OS is better than those systems. Those have some fundamental flaws because they're still either entrepreneur centric and that's not as effective, like any business owner that's ever gotten burnt out or tired it's because you're doing too much and you're probably the biggest bottleneck in your business, and it's because you don't have a good operating system to really leverage your team effectively. And most entrepreneurs, we generally are the biggest bottleneck in our business. That's how it works.

[00:27:25] Tommy: What's interesting is I was gonna add, you said, what else would I offer property manager and other property managers out there from what I've learned and embracing technology. I can tell you, I researched the heck out of all my competition. I researched the heck out of property managers all over the United States, and I love learning about what are their best practices. What are they doing? How's their model set up? How do they value their company? Are they doing this new client retention thing? I love all the best practices and learning from it, but I almost always see, "Oh, we utilize technology," and I'm so curious. And then sometimes when I dig deeper, it's: "We send our clients digital pictures," like digital pictures isn't new technology. That was new technology 15, 20 years ago, or, "Our accounting platform says they're the latest in technology," and there's a lot of different platforms out there. And man, when some of these things came out, they were great platforms for being the latest and greatest at being more efficient in organizing your business.

[00:28:22] To say we utilize technology because you have email or mobile phone, smartphone, or a platform that came out 10 years ago. It's got some updates since... no like I'm interested in the DoorGrow operating system because you guys are leading edge in how to use that to make my business more efficient and grow not because it was something you came up with 10 years ago and you've made a couple of updates since. I'm fascinated by being an early adapter and new tech, not claiming I've got tech because I use email.

[00:28:54] Jason: Yeah, there are. There's a lot of property managers that feel like, "Hey, I used to doing spreadsheets and now I have AppFolio or Buildium, so like we're high tech, so.

[00:29:02] Tommy: Right. "I got a website!"

[00:29:04] Jason: Yeah. They got a website now. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm probably more tech-savvy and geeky than most people on the planet, but yeah we're doing some really cool things at DoorGrow that we really feel like add some serious value to the industry. I think two of the most challenging systems for our clients, once we get them growing that they need that we've built out is a really good planning system. Have project management or task management system, sort of system to assign tasks, but that's tactical work. They don't have anything related to strategic planning, and some have EOS, but there's some fundamental flaws with EOS, but the company that puts out the idea of EOS, the entrepreneur operating system, their goal is to sell coaches for that system, which they call integrators.

[00:29:52] And so they create this org chart in which you have the visionary, which is you usually, the entrepreneur, and then they have the integrator, and then they have the entire team. A fundamental flaw in that is if you have somebody that could run your entire business like that, and you're once removed from it. They could walk away with your business and that's not really a safe place to be, and that's not really how anybody actually does it. So you need a planning system though, and EOS DoorGrow OS, most systems out there will have annual planning, quarterly planning, monthly planning, maybe weekly, maybe some sort of daily things, but that's pretty typical of any business planning system, but you do need a business planning system.

[00:30:30] The other system that every business needs is a really good hiring system. So we just partnered with an AI firm for hiring because our clients always screw this up. Like it's hard. Hiring is hard. One of the hardest transitions I see entrepreneurs go through is solopreneur to having a team. And this is the transition from maybe about a hundred doors into that two to 400 door range, and usually they build the wrong team around the business owner, doing the wrong things, to where the business owner gets maximum lack of fulfillment and misery and being the biggest bottleneck and so really our entire system is built around the entrepreneur, like identifying what they most enjoy and don't enjoy doing, building the team around them and then build a hiring system to bring in the right team members that you actually can trust. Trust equity can only exist if there's culture in a business. And culture can only exist if it's defined so that you can bring in people that can look at that cultural material and say, "Hell yes, I want to be part of this where some people might just want a paycheck and there's a massive difference in output.

[00:31:41] Your team members, it sounds like you have good culture, and so you're probably getting three times the output of companies that have bad culture, and by bad culture I mean they hire team members just based on what the business needs. It's based on skill. And so they have people that are maybe a skill fit. They can do the work, but they're not the personality fit for the role, which means they'll never be great at it or they're not-- the most important-- cultural fit for the role, which means they actually share your values and you can trust them and let go of pieces of the business. So if you have team members you trust, but they can do the job, but they're always coming to you asking questions, you're always having to micromanage them, it's because you lack culture in your business. And you need to get that defined...

[00:32:21] Tommy: I hope-- you can't just have it. It's a continual build. It's just like trust equity like it's a continual... continue to work on, continue to define, continue to build. I would define our culture as that Camelot culture, Camelot principle, which is the heart of it is the saying "In service to one another, there is freedom."

[00:32:40] Jason: Love it. So yeah, service is one of your top cultural values. I love that. We have one at DoorGrow. Ours is called Care ROI, like care, and similar to your trust equity, like we wanna let people know that we care and if we invest care into people, then you know, we're gonna get a return on that investment. Tommy, it's been great connecting with you and chatting. It sounds like you found some cool little ways to facilitate and decrease churn. Appreciate you coming on the show and looking forward to connecting more in the future.

[00:33:11] Tommy: Yeah. Jason, looking forward to also following up with you and chatting, talking more about how you can help us grow.

[00:33:18] Jason: Absolutely. All right.

[00:33:19] Tommy: Cheers.

[00:33:20] Jason: Until next time, everybody, if you're curious about how to grow or scale your property management business, you're curious about DoorGrow OS or some things we mentioned on this show or how to identify culture, or you're just starting to experience that burnout as a visionary, and you don't feel like the visionary anymore. You feel like your best employee, which sucks. We would love to help you get out of that. We have processes to take you through to systematically help you offload, help you feel safe offloading, and helping you have great people to offload to that are actually better at those things you don't enjoy. And you, and a lot of entrepreneurs listening, if you haven't experienced that, you're like, "No, nobody's better than me." Believe me, it's an ego thing. We can kill that real fast. So reach out. We'd love to support you. Check us out at DoorGrow.com. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:34:10] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:34:37] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 183: How To Add Doors Using The Neighbor Strategy For Property Managers 0

Aug 16, 2022

As entrepreneurs, we tend to isolate ourselves from other business owners. This lack of connection can prevent you from adding as many doors as you could be.

Join property management growth expert, Jason Hull as he shares one of DoorGrow’s best strategies for adding doors: the Neighbor Strategy. This strategy will help you form mutually beneficial relationships and alliances with neighboring property management companies that feed you doors.

You’ll Learn…

[01:44] The Issues that Come With Being an Entrepreneur

[04:29] Someone’s Garbage is Your Golden Prospect

[05:50] Finding Two Kinds of Property Management Partners

[08:47] The 3 Steps for Turning a COLD Lead into a WARM Lead

[14:12] Why a Rising Tide Raises All Ships

[16:47] Growing Your Business Without Internet Marketing

Tweetables

“The problem that exists with entrepreneurs is that we are not focused a lot of times on connecting with other entrepreneurs, so a lot of times what we experience as entrepreneurs in our journey is some sort of isolation.”

“I think entrepreneurs, after we taste freedom, we become unemployable. We're just not gonna be great employees because we want to control our destiny and once we have freedom and once we have fulfillment, we then want to contribute.”

“So by giving out some referrals, you're creating a partnership, you're creating people that are going to probably feel obligated to reciprocate and send similar referrals back to you.”

“You could be adding 5, 10, 20 doors a month just from all the referral partners that you've built using the neighbor strategy from other property managers.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] These relationships can be very strategically effective and they can, once you've built up enough of them, that alone could be enough doors coming in every month that keeps you fat and happy. You could be adding 5, 10, 20 doors a month just from all the referral partners that you've built using the neighbor strategy from other property managers. All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently. Then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:56] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry. Eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:21] So, this is a special episode because I'm gonna share with you one of our secret tools. It's so simple, you will kick yourself after hearing it, but it's one of our most effective strategies for getting clients to add doors. And what I find is very few property managers throughout the U.S. or beyond are doing this strategy, which seems crazy. So let's talk about the problem. The problem that exists with entrepreneurs is that we are not focused a lot of times on connecting with other entrepreneurs, so a lot of times what we experience as entrepreneurs in our journey is some sort of isolation. Like we get feedback, negative feedback, constantly from the world if you're an entrepreneur personality type that you should just not change things because you're making everyone uncomfortable. Entrepreneurs are people that move society forward, take risks, change things, and school is not built for that. The school system is built for people to be good employees, not business owners, so in the majority of the people out there, they primarily want safety and certainty. This is a higher priority or value for most people than freedom or fulfillment or contribution or support. I call those the four reasons for entrepreneurs. We care more about freedom and fulfillment than we do about having safety and certainty than having a stable, safe 9-5 job.

[00:02:46] And some of you may have just felt that pressure and eventually gave up that stable 9-5 job to take a risk to start a business, maybe it's your property management business. I remember taking that leap. It's a scary leap, but it's a leap that once you take, you never want to go back because you experience freedom and you taste freedom and then I think entrepreneurs after we taste freedom, we become unemployable. We're just not gonna be great employees because we want to control our destiny and once we have freedom and once we have fulfillment, we then want to contribute. We want to make a difference out there. We want to benefit other people. I get to experience a really awesome or decent level of freedom and fulfillment in my position at DoorGrow and what I do at DoorGrow. I love getting to coach, mentor, and support, and help business owners grow their businesses. And once we start to experience that fulfillment and freedom in our business, the next thing we want to do... it's not enough just to make money and just to feel like we can do what we want to do. We want to make a difference in the world. So it becomes outward-focused.

[00:03:53] We want to contribute. So I'm going to contribute something, I think significant today that I think everyone in the industry should hear this and should know. I recommend you share this episode with every property manager that neighbors you or that you know, and the title of this episode is "The Neighbor Strategy." This is all about the neighbor strategy and how you can help grow your property management business by being a good neighbor, right? And connecting with your neighbors, so that means other property managers. So let me share with you this strategy, and it's really simple. It's really simple.

[00:04:29] So the idea is... here's the problem: the problem is you're not connected to these other property managers. So you get a phone call and somebody says, "Hey, do you manage in Tucson, Arizona?" for example. And you're like, "No, I only do Phoenix-- downtown," or something like that. "I only do Phoenix, Arizona." And they say, "Okay, cool. Goodbye," right? So what you just did is you took perfectly good gold, right? this great lead, and you took it and it's not something you can mine. It's not reachable by you. It's not near where you cover, so you just threw in the trash. Well, I guarantee if the table were turned and you knew that there was a property manager and you were in Phoenix and they were in Tucson and somebody called them up and said, "Hey, do you manage in Phoenix?" and they said, "Actually, no." And they said, "Okay. Alright. Oh, cool. Okay, bye," you'd be like, oh my gosh, I would love to have that, right? That's gold for me, but they just threw it in the garbage. So real simple, the strategy, the neighbor strategy as I call it is to reach out to all the property management companies that are your neighbors that get potential referral opportunities that they could give to you and be their friend and connect with them and to establish a neighbor referral relationship.

[00:05:50] So there's two types of neighbors that you're looking for. So the obvious would be neighbors that are outside of your market. These are property management companies that do the same thing as you, perhaps, maybe they target other niches. Maybe you do single-family residential, maybe they do as well, but they're outside of the market that you geographically cover. So it'd be reaching out to these neighbors and saying, "Hey, if you get a lead, blah, blah, blah, like send 'em our way. If it's outside your market and it's in the area we cover, send 'em to us," conversely, you doing the same for them, right? And creating these strategic alliances and these relationships... really obvious. I have clients that are getting doors every month, just handed to them. You know, one of the members of my team who has a property management business just got five units just a month or two ago, handed to her just by a neighboring property management company that was one of our clients that I say, "Hey, you two should connect. Your markets neighbor each other," and they got connected, and now they're sending business back and forth all the time.

[00:06:57] Now the other category, the second group that you also can connect with also a very effective group are not people outside your market. It's actually property managers inside your market that are in your market, but they do a different niche or niche of property management than you do. They target a different niche, right? A different segment, and what I mean by that is they're focused on a different category or type of property management than you are. So say you do single-family residential and small multi, which is typical for a lot of my clients. You could reach out to commercial management companies in your market.

[00:07:35] You could reach out to association management companies in your market. You could reach out to storage unit and mobile home park management companies in your market because I guarantee that, especially associations, maybe commercial, they are getting requests. They're fielding requests occasionally for residential property management or the type of management that you do, and they just throw it in the garbage. They might have a referral partner, or they might say, "Well, you could talk to this company," but you want to be top of mind for them and create those relationships. And so it's real simple: you just call them up and you share this gold versus garbage analogy that I just shared with you just say, "Hey, sometimes I get this thing that comes to me, and then I just throw in the garbage and I know it's perfectly good gold that somebody else would want.

[00:08:27] And they'll be like, "Yeah, me." And I'm sure you have this situation happen gold versus garbage. You explain the scenario again like somebody calls you up and you're like, "Hey. I would love to have that. Like, we should totally be friends. We should totally be friends," and they're gonna laugh, and they're gonna say, "Yeah, you're right. Like we should do this," right? Really simple. Share the gold versus garbage. Now I'm gonna take this even to the next level and share one of our secrets in our program. This is a secret of how you take a cold lead-- this is a cold lead typically coming in-- and how you convert it into a warm lead before you send it to them, and it changes the close rate on the lead from 10%, which is typical on a cold lead to 90%, maybe as a warm lead. It converts it into a warm lead. The difference between a cold lead and a warm lead is trust, its nurture. And nurturing those through trust so that they're hot enough to close. So here's how you convert this lead that came to you cold asking for property management that you can't service...

[00:09:28] So here is the formula. It's three simple steps to ensure that there is a high percentage close rate that's gonna happen. So the first step is Capture: capture the lead. That's the first step. The second step after you capture the lead, which means get their phone number, get their name, get their property info, whatever. Capture all the information. "Hey, you know what? I don't service there, but let me get your info. I have something really cool. I'm gonna share with you." Capture the lead. That's step one. Step two is share the information of the other company like, "This other company. Here's their name. Here's their phone number. You should talk to them." now, if you really want this to be effective, here's the third step, and you want to make sure that every referral partner neighbor in the neighbor strategy you create, you wanna share with them: do these three steps. Explain it just like this or share this video with them. Just share this video or podcast episode with them and say, "I'm gonna send you something super cool. Here's what I'm thinking. This dude named Jason, he runs a company called DoorGrow and he shared this strategy and I thought it was really clever, and you should hear him explain it."

[00:10:37] So the third step, this is the most important is you amplify. This is how you convert it from a cold lead to a warm lead. So amplification, the way you amplify this, or you convert it into a warm lead is you add trust. So example: I get a lead. I can't service it and I'm like, "Well, let me get your info. Let me give you a name and number of a company. And let me tell you a little bit about them. This property manager, his name is, you know, Fred Flintstone over in, Rubble America or to this city that you need. He is amazing. He is the best property manager in that market. If I had a rental property over there, that's where I would send it. I highly recommend you talk to, you know, Barney Rubble or Fred Flintstone," you get the idea, right? I'm using the Flintstones as an example, but you talk them up. Like you say "They are the go-to one that you should be working within that market. We don't cover it, but if you're gonna work with somebody and you have a property over there, that's the one you should be working with. They've got good reviews. They've got a great process. They have a great business coach. They work with DoorGrow. They're really amazing." Whatever you can say about them to talk them up and help qualify them in the prospect's mind as the best company for them to go with.

[00:11:52] So then they're going to go, "Wow. That other company turned me down, won't service me, but recommended this other one, and I wasn't even sure if I was going to go with them, but they talked this company up highly. I'm gonna talk to 'em." Now because you did steps one and two capture and share there's two opportunities for this deal to happen. The owner client may reach out to the property manager. So there's that potential opportunity, or you then capture that lead, right? You capture their info and you're gonna text it to this buddy or friend, this business owner and send it over to them. And say, "Hey, I just gotta lead. Get on this." Why? Because leads are good for maybe about the first five to 10 minutes after the first 10- 15 minutes, most lead conversion rates drop like 80%. They drop significantly because they're just gonna call the next company and move on, so by giving them the phone number they can call, they can call the property manager. Hopefully, you're answering your phones. And if you're the recipient of this referral, you're gonna answer the call right away. Second, you're gonna get a text message. So hopefully you get the text message and they see that they call even before. So they're like, "Hey, I just texted over to my friend, Fred Flinstone who managed these properties over there, or Bonnie Rubble, his associate. And they'll probably reach out right away, but here's their information, so you can contact them right away.

[00:13:08] Two opportunities, right? Two ways that this can get to them, this referral and this relationship can happen. That then builds goodwill with this other property manager. It creates friendship, there's an alliance there, and they're going to feel a natural need to reciprocate in the future. So by giving out some referrals, you're creating partnership, you're creating people that are going to probably feel obligated to reciprocate and send similar referrals back to you. And so this is the neighbor strategy. So I hope you like this. It is a super simple idea, but we've been sharing this with clients and it's just one little thing to add to the cool referral engines and warm lead strategies that we use at DoorGrow to help our clients grow. This is more of a long game, but you can go and reach out to-- strategically-- and we have scripts for this and we give our clients lists of property managers in their market and outside their market, they could reach out to, so we support our clients in this strategy, but you could very easily do this on your own if you want to, without DoorGrow's help, you can do this on your own, and I really believe a rising tide raises all ships.

[00:14:15] Well, not necessarily some ships won't raise when the tide raises because they're just sitting on the bedrock. They're sitting on the dirt, they're sitting on the sand and that tide goes up... some are going to sink. And I'm cool with that. Like the shittiest, suckiest property management companies should sink, but if you are one of those and you wanna patch up the holes or you're an awesome company and you want to be bigger and better reach out to DoorGrow, we would love to support you in this. This is just one of several strategies that we use with our clients so that they can build this awesome referral engine and funnel of business coming to them. And the cool thing about the neighbor strategy is you can have a hundred different companies. We've got clients in Florida that are getting people in New York and, I think Michigan, there's some sort of connection between Michigan and people going to Florida or having property in Florida. I don't know, and some of these property managers might have clients right now that they're servicing in their market that are in your market that they could connect you to and say, "Hey, I've actually got a client right now that has some units in your market." and so these relationships can be very strategically effective and they can, once you've built up enough of them, that alone could be enough doors coming in every month that keeps you fat and happy. You could be adding 5, 10, 20 doors a month just from all the referral partners that you've built using the neighbor strategy from other property managers.

[00:15:37] Not only that, you may find a mentor, you may find a friend, you may find somebody that you can support and mentor yourself, but I really believe 'a rising tide raises all ships' is a true phrase. Or some sink, right? I mentioned that. Reach out, create these relationships, and let's grow the entire industry. There is no scarcity in property management right now. In the U.S... I was talking to an Australian, did a lot of research, one of the coaches I recently hired and he did a lot of research on property management in his own market. So he was ready to get on a call with me. And when I explained to him that in the U.S., Only about 30% of rental properties are professionally managed and single-family residential. While Australia, he's like, it's so commonplace. It's like 80%. He was blown away. He was like, "That's crazy. There's so much opportunity in the U.S. So much opportunity." There is no scarcity, but they're not looking online. So if you're trying to figure out: "How can I get more business and create more market share instead of fight over that 30% that are already using property managers and try and get them away from another company, which generally never happens. How can I grow my business faster without doing any advertising without doing internet marketing?" Come talk to DoorGrow.

[00:16:53] This is what we help our clients do. One of our clients added 310 doors in the last year. That would be impossible. No matter how much advertising he did, he wouldn't have had the bandwidth. He wouldn't have the sales team that could handle that many leads, do all that follow-up, but warm leads close, easier, faster and more efficiently. And he did that with only five or six realtor referral partners, but he used our strategies and he contacted a thousand, right, just to find those. He had to kiss a few frogs, but we've got some really effective strategies. It's not what you think. It's not the typical way as people try and get referrals. You probably get some occasionally. Here's the thing, the secret there is that nobody wants property management. Nobody's actively, generally looking for it usually, unless they're at the very end of the sales cycle and they're searching online and they're the worst, the most price sensitive. How do you capture that 70% that don't think they need it, but they probably do, you can solve their problems and are not looking for it? That's what we share at DoorGrow. So, one of our top strategies, so reach out to us. We'd love to help you grow your business. And tell us in the comments, if you started doing this, if you've got some good neighbor partners, we'd love to hear about it. And if you hear about this episode and come on board as a client, let us know. We'd love to hear that this has been helpful for you. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:18:12] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:18:39] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 182: When Potential Property Management Clients Choose A Cheaper Competitor 0

Aug 9, 2022

How do you deal with a potential client who chooses a cheaper property management company over you? Sometimes, these clients are just a bad fit, and other times, your sales pitch is actually the problem.

Join property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and learn to deal with price-sensitive prospects and how to qualify potential clients.

You’ll Learn…

[01:54] The Problem is Usually not Price, it’s ____

[05:53] Why You Should Sell Certainty… Not Property Management

[07:38] Using the Golden Bridge Formula in Sales

[11:16] Why Getting Feedback in Lost Sales is Invaluable

[14:22] Building a Business You Can Sell… But Won’t Want to

Tweetables

“Most investors do not want to be landlords. They want to be investors.”

“If you find yourself fighting to keep a client or fighting to get a client, I like to just let go of the tug of war rope.”

“Nobody really wakes up in the morning, goes, "Man, today I wanna buy property management." What they want to buy is peace of mind or safety and certainty.”

“Why do you wake up in the morning? Why do you live the life that you do? Why did you decide that this business was a vehicle for you to get fulfillment from and freedom from and contribution from and support.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] If you find yourself fighting to keep a client or fighting to get a client, I like to just let go of the tug of war rope. This is the easiest way to really win in a tug of war is to just not play the game

[00:00:11] All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, help others, impact lives, increase revenue, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the daily variety, the unique challenges, and excitement that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it though. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:48] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:10] So today what we're gonna be talking about is-- during our Grow Call, one of our mastermind calls today, one of our clients brought up that they had a challenge. They followed up with some leads and they found out that they had gone with a cheaper competitor. And they said this had happened a couple of times, and what that tells me as a coach or as a consultant– that reveals to me that there's a leak maybe in their sales process. They might have just been a bad fit. So we always wanna qualify our clients, but I wanted to discuss today and talk about how to deal with the cheaper competitor when somebody is going with another company and how to prevent that from happening.

[00:01:50] So one of the things that I teach in our sales secrets training is, when people are really heavily focused on price, one tactic is this formula that's based on neurolinguistic programming, that: "It's not A, it's B." and so the way that you can utilize this, that "It's not A, it's B" formula is really powerful when you're trying to change people's thinking from what they're concerned about and thinking about and focused on to what they should be thinking and focused on. So the way this formula works is you just say, "The real issue is not A. (whatever they're thinking about). It's actually. B." So for example, if the real issue is not price, but they're thinking about price, you would say,

[00:02:29] "Hey, Mr. Owner, I find that the real issue and the thing that most savvy investors are focused on is not actually price. The savvyer investors and some of our best clients, what they realize is the real issue isn't price. It's actually things like vacancy. One month of vacancy, if you're paying a mortgage on the property, could be an entire year of management fees. So good property management really may not even cost you anything. If on average you're not very effective at getting the place rented out, or you have a month of vacancy, our management fees would be covered because we're really good at getting things rented out quickly, and we can decrease that vacancy. So that would cover our management fees."

[00:03:07] Or "The real issue isn't price. It might be just getting the best amount for rent, and we're really good at getting rent. And so, some people are not really good at getting the high rent, and some property management companies might not be motivated to. We know how to get the top dollar for rent, and if you haven't raised rent in the last several years and you're 10% below market value, our management fees, even if they're as high as 10% or whatever they might be, it would be offset if we just raised the rent to its effective rate that you can get in the marketplace. And so our management would basically be free. We'd be able to collect more rent and it'd be a wash, right. It wouldn't cost you anything, and you get to get this off of your plate."

[00:03:48] Most investors do not want to be landlords. They want to be investors. Right. And so you can just ask them, "Do you love being a landlord and like doing property management related tasks, or do you really just have this because you really enjoy being an investor and want more investments? Cool. Let me help you do that."

[00:04:04] So the other thing that I coached on during that call is if somebody goes with a cheaper competitor, I love to deal with the tug of war that we normally feel like we need to pull on the end of that rope. If you find yourself fighting to keep a client or fighting to get a client, I like to just let go of the tug of war rope. This is the easiest way to really win in a tug of war is to just not play the game and let them fall on their ass. Like let go of the rope, and let them, you know, let them go. So what you can do-- I would love it if you would just say to them, "Hey, no problem. You've gone with another company because they had a cheaper price. Totally cool. We are perfectly happy to be your second property management company. We're perfectly happy to be the next property manager," and then what you can do to poison the well is just say, "Look, in the future if you run into these problems..." and then state some problems that you know are likely to happen with a not as good of property management company is yours.

[00:05:02] "If you notice these red flags" or "if these things happen to you," and you can future pace them and point out typical problems that they might have with another property management company. "If this happens, when that happens, just remember us. We will still be here. Keep our phone number, reach out to us" and that sort of thing. You also can say, "and would it be cool if I checked in with you in a few months, just see how things are going?" And you can follow up with them. "How's things going with this new management company?" At the very least you could follow up just shy of a year of when their renewal date would be with that other company, just to check in with them and see: "How's your experience been with that other company?

[00:05:38] If they say it's been great, you say, "Cool, really glad you're having a good experience. If it ever changes or you wanna talk to us, you know, we'll be here." But if they haven't had a good experience, then you can deal with that. Now here's the thing to remember. Usually if somebody goes with another company, even if they claim it was based on price, it's because you failed to be effective during your sales pitch in your sales process. Remember, people do not buy property management. Most of your competitors, people that don't listen to the show, people that are not my clients especially, they are going to sell property management. Smarter companies, my clients' companies, what they will do instead is sell safety and certainty. Nobody really wakes up in the morning, goes, "Man, today I wanna buy property management."

[00:06:25] What they want to buy is peace of mind or safety and certainty. This is what they want. And so, effective property management companies don't sell property management for a fee they're selling safety certainty. Now if you recognize this, other companies will not be selling safety and certainty, they'll be selling property management. So you can be a disruptor and you can sell safety and certainty and point out flaws in other companies or red flags to look for, to poison the well that might prevent them from going with another company because those companies are not focused on safety and certainty, giving them peace of mind.

[00:07:01] They're focused on selling property management features and benefits and what they get and that sort of thing. So the way to do that-- we teach that the most effective way to create safety and certainty is to remember this quote from Simon Sinek, who wrote _Start With Why,_ he says in one of his videos, he says, "People do not buy what you do. They buy why you do it." And so one of our most effective sales formulas that we teach is called the "Golden Bridge Formula." And we teach clients how to identify their personal 'why,' how to identify their business 'why,' company core values, client-centric mission statements, some of these materials, decision-making guides, etc.

[00:07:38] This is in our Purpose Secrets training, but once you have that, you can then utilize what we call the Golden Bridge Script or the Golden Bridge Formula, which is basically sharing your personal 'why,' business 'why,' and connecting it to their 'why,' which is what do they want? So if you know what they want and you know what they're trying to get and what they're trying to have and why they have rental properties and why they're doing this, which means during your sales pitch, you need to identify this stuff first. This is the first side of the bridge. It's their side of the bridge. If you're gonna build a bridge to somewhere, you need to know where they're at, what their side is. You need to figure out their 'why,' then you can relate your personal 'why.' Like, why do you wake up in the morning? Why do you live the life that you do? Why did you decide that this business was a vehicle for you to get fulfillment from and freedom from and contribution from and support from, right? The four reasons.

[00:08:27] If you aren't familiar with that, go back and listen to my episode on the four reasons for starting a business. But they need to understand why you're doing this because if you don't relate your 'why,' they're gonna assume that your 'why' is just to squeeze money outta them, probably as unethically as possible. That's the default people assume for any business if they don't understand your real motivation. Like my real motivation, my personal 'why' statement is to inspire others to love true principles. That means I love learning what works and sharing it with other people. That's just fun for me. So I built a business that allows me to do that every day, and that's why our business 'why' is to transform property management business owners and their businesses. That 'why,' our business fulfilling on that 'why' allows me to get personal fulfillment on my 'why.' So the business is in alignment with what I want, and it's in alignment with what you want as a potential client of DoorGrow.

[00:09:19] And so there's alignment when people understand. Then, you've built that bridge. That is the golden bridge. It's the ultimate bridge. The ultimate secret for building trust and rapport quickly is to share your 'why,' the business-- why it exists-- and connect it to their 'why.' Once you've done that, there's an authentic connection between your heart and your motivation to their heart and their motivation. So they know that your interests are in alignment and they can trust you, and sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. Sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. It's not about satisfying logic.

[00:09:52] It's not about satisfying their brain. It's not about all the features and benefits. They will not go with you or work with you just because you have the best features and benefits or the best price necessarily, if they deep down don't trust your motivation and trust you to actually fulfill on it and that you have some sort of inherent motivation to get them what they want. So otherwise, they'll just assume, like I said before, that your motivation is money as unethically as possible, which should not be your motivation. Hopefully, it's not. Most business owners really do want the four reasons. They want freedom, fulfillment, contribution, and support. Money is a side effect of focusing on those things. But when you're lacking those things, then you focus on the fifth reason, which is safety certainty, and that's what your potential clients want, and if you're starving and focusing on safety certainty and giving up those four reasons, you are now a business that's out of alignment, that's less ethical, or that has problems, right?

[00:10:51] So they need to know that that's not you, so shift your focus away from _what _and focus on _why _you do what you do during your sales pitch and process, and that will distinguish you from all of your competition. So that's probably one of the biggest leaks that exist in the sales process. And so you will probably be able to poison the well or stand out, or however you want to phrase it, better than your competition, because you focused on 'why' and not 'what.' Now, if the last thing we shared, if you don't get them on as a client, it's a great idea to do some sort of, almost like an exit interview, but to reach out to them and just get feedback on why they didn't go with you. And if you frame this in a really positive way, like,

[00:11:31] "Hey, it would really mean a lot to me if you could help me out and help me understand, like what made you choose that other company over us." That feedback is invaluable for the future, so you can make changes for the future to make improvements on your pitch, on your sales process. And so if they're just like, "Hey, it was just basically price. You all look the same." That's not feedback that your price is wrong. That's feedback that your pitch is wrong, that you would look the same as everybody else. You're just a commodity. And when you don't focus on _why _and you just focus on _what,_ then you are basically saying, "I'm just a commodity. I'm like every other property management company out there." So doing these exit interviews will give you really valid feedback, you know, or whatever you would call it so that you can improve your sales process in the future. So keeping track of these in your CRM is also a good idea.

[00:12:16] So historically, we would keep track at DoorGrow. If we lost a deal, we would keep track on what the reason was. Was it because they weren't financially qualified, they didn't have the funds? Was it because they couldn't afford us? Was it because this didn't really solve some sort of pain or problem for them, they didn't have any immediate pain or problem or challenge that they needed help with? Things were pretty good. So they're like, "Why should I spend money to work on growing my business? I'm actually growing okay right now," you know, or like, "I love my day-to-day business and I love what I'm doing, so I don't need to improve that." Right? So if they don't have any pain or any problem that we can solve, that might be a reason. So it might be that they just were never available and that we couldn't communicate with them, so we just marked the deals lost because they ghosted us. And so those are the ones that we won't allow to become a client later on 'cause if they're not ethical enough or responsible enough to like, at least tell us they're not interested or to communicate with us, and they just ghost us, we're really careful about bringing those type of clients on 'cause they'd be terrible clients to work with if they're not communicating and don't communicate with us, right?

[00:13:16] So we keep track of these types of things that we get data and we can see: why are people not signing up for the program? Or why are we not closing deals? Why did we lose that deal? And going and asking people, "Why did we lose the deal?" Sometimes we're able to identify an objection or a challenge and find out they went with some alternative or they went with some other thing or they just thought something was missing or they misunderstood something in the program.

[00:13:40] "Well, you guys don't offer a website, and we needed a website with it."

[00:13:43] "Oh, well, we do. We must not have explained that during our pitch."

[00:13:47] So we can then deal with that objection and sometimes still get the business on. So getting that feedback can be very valuable. So hopefully, this episode helps you to be able to know how to deal with those cheaper competitors. I have some great episodes from the past, like with Darren Hunter on people asking for discounts. So before you lose the deal, if they're asking for a cheaper price or the price of the company competitor down the street, check out the interviews that I've done with Darren hunter fee max expert in Australia, and we got some other cool episodes that might be relevant too, dealing with sales or that. So anyway, if you are struggling with anything in your business, growing and scaling your business, we just launched this awesome program called the Rapid Revamp that is part of a bigger program called Built to Sell.

[00:14:32] And so if you wanna build the ultimate property management business, you wanna build a business that is built to sell in the next three to five years, which means in the next three to five years, you can have a seven-figure exit on your property management business because you've been able to grow it, build it up, and get yourself out of being the linchpin in the business and the day to day so that you could sell this business. And here's the secret, you may not want to sell your business. And if you can build a business that you can sell, that is the ultimate business that you would not want to sell. So building a business to sell is how to build a business to keep. This is a business that is an asset that makes you money that you don't have to be involved in the things that you don't want to, and it becomes the ultimate vehicle for you to get fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support in. So it's actually giving you things besides just money. So you're not gonna wanna sell it for just money because it's giving you purpose in life and giving you momentum.

[00:15:26] And so that's the ultimate business. The ultimate level of freedom in a business is to have a business that you could sell if you wanted to, and you can sell it for a nice exit, not being one of the companies that sells because it's got so many problems that it's a bargain for some other company to come in and snatch up because they can improve it and make it so much better and rehab your business. Let us help you rehab your business with our rapid revamp program. So check us out at DoorGrow.com. Our next class starts in October. We've got our first class going through right now. We've got about-- I think about 50 businesses going through this Rapid Revamp. Right now, we are only planning on allowing 30 in our next class. We're allowing our existing clients to go through this class with us. The next class is only gonna be 30 slots. We're only probably letting about 10 on in a month over the next three months leading up to October. So if you want to get your spot reserved, we have some bonuses and some special things that you can have access to even before we start that class if you pay and get signed up for this class.

[00:16:28] So this is not cheap, it's not for the faint of heart, but it's way cheaper than buying into a franchise, and we even have franchisees that are going through this or that choose into this because they want to grow their business, but this is going to be an-- it's an awesome program. We're getting really positive feedback. It's a culmination of everything we learned by doing our mastermind and by doing our former Seed Program, which we had four versions of. So this is version six, I guess maybe, or more of our programs, and this is the best stuff that we know to grow businesses rapidly in a 90 day period to lay the ultimate foundation for growth, and we're calling it the Rapid Revamp, so it includes a website, includes branding-- rebranding-- logo design, includes pricing revamp. We're optimizing all the leaks that exist in your sales pipeline. It does not make sense to do marketing, advertising of any sort if you have-- turning on the hose, so to speak, of this faucet of all these things, if you have a hose connected to it, which is your sales pipeline that has massive leaks at each stage, which would be branding, reputation, website, sales process, pricing, all these different leaks. We're gonna dial in all of these leaks to a level that you have not dialed in before and make sure that your business is really effective.

[00:17:41] So I'm really excited about this program so are our clients. You should be too. So check us out at DoorGrow.com and get onboard for our Rapid Revamp program that's coming up for October, and it's gonna be awesome. So, and we kick it off with an in-person event live and it's gonna be really cool. So, yeah. Get in on this. It's gonna be really cool and you gotta be around some awesome people in your class. So anyway, until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:18:08] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:18:35] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 181: How To Strategically Plan Your Day 0

Aug 2, 2022

Do you experience a lot of pressure and noise in your business? Have you had the same tasks on your to-do list for months? Every business owner benefits from having time set aside for strategic planning.

Property management growth expert, Jason Hull shares the secrets to strategically planning out your daily tasks to lower your stress and tackle to-do list items effectively.

You’ll Learn…

[02:03] Setting Aside Strategic Time and Why it Matters

[03:26] Setting Intentions for Events in Your Day

[05:15] Feeling the Negative Feelings to Lower Pressure and Noise

[08:24] Why Celebrating and Appreciating the Good Matters

[11:23] Finishing up Your Schedule

[14:02] The Secret Final Step: Offloading

Tweetables

“The king or queen needs to eat first, otherwise you're going to have a starving kingdom.”

“One of the simplest daily things you can do to get more juice out of your day, more momentum will be to do daily planning.”

“When you make a decision about what your intention is like, what outcome that you desire to have from this interaction or this event, you are more likely to have that happen.”

“I want you to remember that the only thing you can do with negative emotions is to feel them.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] If your baseline stress level is higher and higher and higher because you're just adapting to things and you're tolerating things, you are going to feel more anxious and more preloaded and more stressed, and it's gonna catch up with you.

[00:00:12] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase your revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers, love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate. Think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:48] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:10] So today's conversation topic for today's show is going to be daily planning. And so what I wanted to go over today with you is daily planning and how I plan my day. A lot of these ideas I learned from one of my mentors and coaches, Alex Charfen, with my own adaptation to this. And so this is my way of doing daily planning. And if you're wanting to follow along or try this or do this, you can go to doorgrow.com/dailyplanning, and you can fill out this form and go through this process. I've built a really cool form to take you through this process. It asks for your email address and it will email you your to-do list of everything that you filled out on this.

[00:02:01] So I'm gonna take you through this. So first step in doing your planning, and you wanna do this either at night, which was recommended by Thanh Pham, one of my friends, who runs asianefficiency.com, and he recommends that you do it the night before. I usually will do it in the mornings early. I like to get up early before the kids, pets, work, phone calls, et cetera, and use that sacred time in the morning, but whatever time that you do this, map out some strategic time, and I want you to be clear on this principle, that strategic time is really where a business owner is best spending their time rather than tactical day to day work, right?

[00:02:42] Tactical stuff needs to get done, but anything that's tactical usually can be done by somebody else. You can offload that you can hire somebody to do that, eventually is the goal. But you spending your time-- somebody needs to be spending their time doing strategic work on the business instead of in the business. Somebody needs to be the general in the tent, you know, making the strategy for the army. The king or queen needs to eat first. Otherwise, you're going to have a starving kingdom. This is where you kind of place yourself at the head of this company and get to be the visionary during strategic time. One of the simplest daily things you can do to get more juice out of your day, more momentum will be to do daily planning.

[00:03:21] So, first thing we want to do is take a look at your schedule for the upcoming day. So the first step is: schedule an intention attracting what you want. So what scheduled events do you have today or for the next day? And what is your intention for each. So for those of you that are a little bit new agey, or those of you that have followed, you know, different gurus or coaches out there, intention is a very powerful thing. You've probably heard them talk about it. What I have found is when I set my intention for what I want to occur or happen, unconsciously something-- it happens differently. Like, I don't know. Some will say the universe like makes it come true, or maybe your unconscious mind starts working on that challenge.

[00:04:03] But when you make a decision about what your intention is like, what outcome that you desire to have from this interaction or this event, you are more likely to have that happen. And so my recommendation is that you go through your schedule, and in the example you'll see on the daily planning form that you'll be filling out, you put some sort of timestamp, like "at 9:00 AM I'm meeting Fred Smith, and my goal is to inspire him to hit his sales goals", for example, or "at 10:00 AM, I'm meeting with Fred Savage from The Wonder Years-- just kidding-- and I'm gonna negotiate a win-win deal." Right? That's my intention. So you're gonna have certain appointments, certain interactions meetings with your team, different.

[00:04:44] What's your intention for each of those and just by consciously setting an intention for each, what I find is I get a lot more of what I really want out of those instead of just kind of stumbling into them. I know what my intention is. And so make sure you have your intention set. You're gonna get much greater results. If your intention is to close the deal, you're far more likely to close the deal just by putting it out there and to your mind, your unconscious mind, to the universe, to God, whatever you believe in-- by setting the intention, you're far more likely to get that result.

[00:05:15] So the next step after you do that is avoiding and discomfort, emotional health, and lowering your pressure and noise. So what uncomfortable feelings did you not want to experience in the previous day? What made you uncomfortable recently? State related actions that you can take. And so as a reminder, I want you to remember that the only thing you can do with negative emotions is to feel them. And usually thinkers like myself, logical people, we try to find ways to not have to feel those uncomfortable feelings in the future. But the only thing you really can do with the feeling is to feel it. And so rather than just analyze about the feeling or analyze it, or just think about, "how can I avoid this in the future and how can I escape this feeling?"

[00:06:00] One thing I would recommend that you set an intention to do as a to-do item is to spend time feeling that feeling. So as an example, these are different action items or to-do items related to discomfort. I find that a lot of these things are simply solved by an Amazon order or something like that. Like I was uncomfortable maybe because I ran outta toothpaste or I ran outta soap or I didn't have this. Cool. Those are easy. I can make those to-do items, "order toothpaste," "order, you know, this," right. Place an Instacart order, get some groceries. Right? So example: upset at partner, fear, I fear an uncomfortable conversation. Have the conversation.

[00:06:38] Another example: feeling anxious. Sit for five minutes and feel through that emotion, that anxiety and feel through it. Lawn, not being mowed, bothering me, research and find a gardener, right? Like these type of things. Right. So figure out what-- because as entrepreneurs, we tend to just keep more and more on our plate. We tend to cause more and more challenges, and we're really adaptable and we get really good at these painful things and these uncomfortable things just becoming white noise. I don't want these to be white noise for you because the more white noise you have, the harder it is to hear everything else, and so if we're talking about emotions and stress, if your baseline stress level is higher and higher and higher because you're just adapting to things and you're tolerating things, you are going to feel more anxious and more preloaded and more stressed, and it's gonna catch up with you.

[00:07:27] And stress is the number one killer, like it eats at you. Your body eventually starts to break down if stress is high enough. It starts to kind of cannibalize itself. So cortisol is released. Cortisol is a stress hormone, cortisol, negates all of the effects of testosterone, which, whether you're a guy or a girl, testosterone is what motivates you to have sex drive. It's what motivates you to accomplish things to some degree, it also can sap other chemicals in your brain, so I want you to be healthy as possible. So we want to lower that baseline pressure and noise. That means clearing out all these really easy, sometimes, things to solve. Right? And sometimes you just need to feel through something and just experience the feeling cuz you cannot feel it forever, and then it will go away.

[00:08:12] So that's the next step. What things could you do that day to solve, you know, discomfort or things that made you uncomfortable in the previous day and just getting clear on which things are causing you discomfort. The third step is celebration. It's celebrate things you wanna reinforce more of. The things you celebrate, tend to grow, and so what wins do you need to celebrate? What wins have you had? What accomplishments do you have? This sends a powerful message to your subconscious, that, "Hey, these wins mattered. A lot of times we make the mistakes as entrepreneurs that we achieve an accomplishment, and then we send a powerful signal to our unconscious that it didn't matter.

[00:08:50] So celebrating those wins, but also celebrate the work. If you are celebrating the work and the effort to achieve certain things, you're going to be much better at achieving those things. That wires your dopamine to be more effective for winning. So celebrate the actions. Celebrate, "Hey, I made 300 phone calls this week of outreach," or Hey, "I did..." whatever it is that you accomplished. Celebrate those type of things you wanna reinforce more of just celebrating the end results sometimes can demoralize us because sometimes we don't have control over the end result, but we can control the actions leading up to it. So celebrate the actions. So example: the team hit 80% of our commitments this week. Post to the team about it and celebrate right. Or highlight them in our meeting today and celebrate with them. Where I worked out three days in a row, brag to somebody. Right. You know, so figure out some action items you can take to reinforce this.

[00:09:48] The next step is appreciate. This is powerful. Now, I used to use the word gratitude, and I love the idea of gratitude, but ' appreciate' is a more effective word. And I like this, especially being here, kind of in the real estate sort of industry, when things appreciate, it has a double meaning. When you want to appreciate something, you are recognizing its value, but not only that, when you appreciate things, you also are taking an asset or something valuable and you're increasing its value. And so the things you want to grow, appreciate them, and they will grow. They're going to appreciate in value as well. So who do you need to appreciate, you know, this day? What are you grateful for today? State related actions that you can take.

[00:10:33] So an example: Adam reached out to all of our clients. I want to appreciate him during our morning huddle or Sarah helped me sort out some ideas. I want to make sure I appreciate her in our morning huddle as a team. Right? So appreciation will give you some action items that will benefit and bless you and your team, right. Putting some appreciation, some gratitude out lets your team know that they get to feel appreciated, and so appreciation helps me grow my team members and helps improve the relationship that I have with my team and improves the culture of the team. So appreciation is powerful. Appreciation helps your relationships. Appreciation helps you with your kids, right? Recognizing things and seeing the good in others, appreciation is the next step and then ideas and inspiration.

[00:11:23] So this is step five: capture your inner genius or other tasks. So throughout the day, I'm usually writing down ideas, taking notes on things, so I wanna go back through those and say, "What ideas did I have? What sparks did I have? Do I want to add these to maybe an idea board or an idea list? Or is there something that I want the team to do? I just got this great idea talking to a client. Maybe we should do that for everybody."

[00:11:47] Anything else? This is basically the, 'anything else category.' What ideas, books, videos, actions you need to take, add to your to-do list. State them as related actions. So for example: read It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried. It's a good book by the way. Or “create sales script for Referral Secrets training,” you know, or stuff like this, right, for my clients. So as you get ideas, you can feed these in your daily planning as well and capture those ideas, so you have them as action items. So if you have, you know, appreciation, gratitude, and these type of things, they should be converted into actionable items, because otherwise they're not really useful, right? Because feelings don't really exist to other people, unless they're expressed, right. Love is an action. Right? Love is an action that creates the feeling of love, so take the action and it will create these things. So I want you to convert these into actions.

[00:12:42] So number six is your to-do list. Like anything else you haven't listed before? Maybe it's not ideas. Maybe it's not other things, but you're just like, "I know these other things need to get done." This is kind of that miscellaneous catchall at the end. Like "I need to email my accountant about that SBA loan thing," or "I need to cancel that unused Hulu account" or, you know, whatever. Right. So anything else on your to-do list? You. Put that stuff in there and you click 'okay.' And then I added this question. This is a very powerful question. This is number seven. This is, I think the last thing, besides it asking for your email address: what is the one thing or your next right thing, right?

[00:13:23] What is the one thing in your business or personal life that if you could do this day, that by doing it will make everything else easier or unnecessary? What's the earliest or first step or next action towards that, the next right thing that you can do to accomplish that one thing. This would make the day a win if you could just get this one thing done. So, and I have an example, like: make money= do four hours of outbound prospecting this day and get some cash in. Right? If that's that's my one focus today, if I could just accomplish that. That allows you to take this big to-do list and boil it down.

[00:14:02] Now, the secret next step in this, that is not mentioned on this daily planning-- I think it's mentioned on the output screen at the end. The last step that you, I want you to take is that if you have any team members, if you have an assistant-- which everybody should have an assistant-- if you have an assistant or team members is to take this output, you plug in your email address, it will then send you an email with your big to-do list of all the stuff that you want to accomplish, and then you take this list and you give this to your assistant or you delegate all these things to your team, so you can cross them off your list. A really good leader has a really good team, and a really good leader knows to delegate. What I do is I take this list-- and if you're handwriting this out, what I used to do when I would hand write it is I would just write somebody's name next to each of these things.

[00:14:53] I'd write some initials for team members. I'm like, " This is Adam's. This is gonna go to Sarah. This is going to go to Kyle on my team. These team members can take these things off my plate." That's why they exist is to support you as an entrepreneur. "And this can go to my assistant, Mar..." so I just as assign these things out. And so that's how I do daily planning. So then my to-do list doesn't continually grow every day. I'm able to delegate and assign, and it gets smaller and smaller every day. My discomfort gets smaller and smaller every day, or I'm tackling something in it every day. I'm appreciating people every day. Right? And when we're grateful, we attract more abundance into our life and better things come to us. Right? So psychologically it rewires our brain for more positivity. I'm starting to notice things that I didn't notice before. So this is really effective. There's a lot of psychology that goes into this planning process.

[00:15:43] I encourage you to use it. I would love to hear from you. So wherever you're seeing this video, comment below, if you start using this or let, let me know, I'd love to get your feedback. What is working for you? What do you do differently in your daily planning, if you have anything else that you do? But this covers most of the things that I've heard regarding plans for the day and will help you have a really clear-- you'll have your agenda for time with your intention, you'll have the things that you're grateful for, you'll have the things that you wanna celebrate, you'll have all your ideas, and you will have the stresses and the discomforts, you'll become more conscious of those so you can get rid of them and offload them to lower your baseline pressure and noise, and you'll have clarity on your one main thing that you need to accomplish that day so you can give yourself permission to have a win, right. And feel like you did something right. So that is daily planning. So I hope this is really helpful. Again, you can check that out by going to doorgrow.com/dailyplanning, one word, and you can go through this daily planning.

[00:16:47] Normally, I only gave this out to clients. It's a super effective way of creating momentum right away for new clients. And I wanna share that with everybody. I hope you find it beneficial. And if you're wanting to get in momentum and get signed up for our upcoming Rapid Revamp program, I highly recommend you check out this new program. It's gonna be really, really awesome. Some of you may have heard about or experienced our Seed Program. Some of you heard about maybe our Grow and Scale Mastermind. We've got this new program called Build to Sell. So you can build a new business, build your business so that you can sell this business in the next three to five years for a seven-figure exit.

[00:17:26] Even if you're starting from scratch, I've helped people scale their business up to this level, or you'll have a business that is built to sell, but you'll realize that when you build a business to sell, it's a great asset and you're gonna want to keep it. So you may want to stay in that business and keep it, but you won't be miserable in it anymore because you've built it effectively, so you're not involved in it the way that you would have to be, and you wouldn't be able to be if you were gonna sell it. Right. And so this is going to create really effective businesses built to sell. The first three-month 90-day program we have is called the Rapid Revamp. We're gonna clean up your pricing, clean up your branding, clean up your website, optimize your entire sales pipeline, clean up your sales process, and give you three of our top acquisition strategies so you're adding doors without spending a dime on marketing, and we're gonna do all that in a 90 day period. It's rapid, it's a training program you're gonna be moving through on a weekly basis with your class with a group.

[00:18:23] Our first class is already starting. By the time you see and hear this, it will have already started, so you are too late for this. We only wanna allow 30 people in. We open this up to our existing mastermind clients. We have over 40 signed up already... already right now. But our next cycle is gonna start in October right after rent week, which is the first week of the month. It's gonna be the week after that on Tuesday. So get in. It's first, come first serve. We're only opening up for a certain number of slots that we feel like we can confidently take through in a course in a class over the next 90 days after that. So make sure you get in early. So if you're interested in this, reach out to our team, you can check us out at doorgrow.com and get on a call.

[00:19:08] So until next time everybody to our mutual growth. And I'm out. Bye everyone.

[00:19:13] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:19:40] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 180: Allowing Pets vs. Not Allowing Pets In Property Management With Logan Miller Of OurPetPolicy 0

Jul 26, 2022

As a property manager, do your clients and owners allow pets? Do you encourage them to? There is an opportunity to create an additional stream of revenue and avoid fraudulent ESA letters by doing something so many owners are afraid of… allowing pets.

This week, property management growth expert, Jason Hull is joined by Logan Miller of OurPetPolicy to discuss the ins and outs of animals in rental properties and why allowing pets can actually be more beneficial for owners and tenants alike.

You’ll Learn…

[01:31] OurPetPolicy’s Mission and Why they Started

[04:00] The Big Issues with Not Allowing Pets in Rental Properties

[08:06] Reducing Fraudulent ESAs and Creating Better Tenants with Screening

[11:46] Keeping Track of Pet Problems with Mapping

[14:53] The Financial Gain for Property Managers

[17:02] Creating Effective Pet Policies and Rules

Tweetables

“It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense if you're gonna cut out two-thirds of the potential client base in one fell swoop by not allowing pets. You're not gonna be able to get as many qualified candidates probably for that property now.”

“When, you know, there's less of a pool of tenants and a little sparse, it could take an extra month on average to find that right tenant, you know, if you're not allowing pets and that feeds back into the return on investment for the owner.”

“Either you allow pets or they will just bring pets or animals into the property and hide it from you-- is a very common scenario-- and most people would rather be honest.”

“It's just another revenue stream that property managers can add is to make sure that they're tacking on pets and people are very willing to pay pet rent or to pay additional fees for a pet.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] There was a property manager who had like over a thousand doors, and he said, "My best secret is I'm really good at convincing owners to allow pets." All right. We are live. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:46] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:07] So today ,my guest is Logan Miller of OurPetPolicy, which you can check out at ourpetpolicy.com. Logan, welcome to the show.

[00:01:17] Hi, thanks Jason. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

[00:01:21] Cool. So Logan, give us a little bit of background on you as an entrepreneur and your journey into how you kind of got to the point where you decided to start something called OurPetPolicy.

[00:01:31] Yeah. Yeah, so it all started, um, back when I was 23, I purchased my first house and it was a duplex and rented it out and became my own property manager of that. And even rented to college couples, and I was surprised at how many of them being, you know, kind of poor college couples, had pets. And a lot of 'em, you know, would say it was an emotional support animal, and because I lived on the property, I didn't have to accept those. And so, they'd end up paying a $300 pet fee to have it. And typically they're, you know, six or 12 months. And it surprised me that they were willing to pay that, but they did. And eventually between me and family members, grew our portfolio and yeah. Actually just before COVID, you know, we had a no pet's policy on those properties as well, and it surprised me how many ESAs we had-- emotional support animals that we had.

[00:02:19] And we got to a point to where, you know, we really looked into it and there were over three fourths of our rentals-- it all had a no pet's policy-- had animals in them and it's like, man, there's gotta be a better way to verify these emotional support animal letters, and so we talked with other property managers, most of them, you know, just accepting the ESA letters. We found online there was lots of websites that sell these letters and we went and got the letters ourselves and surprised at how easy you can get 'em. Just check a box: "I sometimes feel stressed" and they say, congratulations, you qualify for an ESA letter signed by a licensed health professional. And so we, you know, worked with some lawyers and said, "Hey, there's gotta be a good way that we can shut these down, you know, as they're not legitimate" and figured that out and I was like, "Hey, I'll bet other property managers would like this as well," and so just started a business.

[00:03:08] Okay, so our topic today is allowing pets versus not allowing pets. So why don't we chat a little bit about that, and then we can talk a little bit about how you sort of helped solve this problem. But, I remember being at a conference and there was a property manager who had like over a thousand doors, and I asked him what, you know, maybe his secret is, right? If he has one. And he said my best secret-- and I think he was a property manager in Hawaii-- and he said, "My best secret is I'm really good at convincing owners to allow pets." And I said, "Really?" And he's like, "Yeah, I'm good at convincing them to allow pets because usually children cause more damage than pets do."

[00:03:47] And he said, "So I'm able to talk people into allowing pets, which allows us to rent out more property, more easily at a higher price point and just facilitate things. So that was kind of like his big secret that he wanted to share with me. So, what have you noticed about allowing pets versus not allowing pets? So let's chat about that.

[00:04:06] Yeah. Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree. If you look at the statistics out there, they say between, you know, two thirds and even as high as 90% of renters have a pet-- or if you're being technically correct-- have an animal because you know, assistance animals aren't considered pets, right? So, over three forces of the renters are gonna have an animal, and you know, I think a lot of times owners are hesitant to allow those animals, you know, on their properties as they've seen, you know, worst case scenarios. But the reality is, looking at the tenant pool, so many of the tenants have animals that if you want a quick turnaround and be able to, you know, charge-- like you said-- a higher monthly fee, you know, you have to accommodate that.

[00:04:50] Yeah, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense if you're gonna cut out two thirds of the potential client base in one fell swoop by not allowing pets. You're not gonna be able to get as many qualified candidates probably for that property now, but a lot of owners are really afraid of pets. They might not be somebody that has pets or maybe they're just a really terrible pet owner, and they've seen the damage they've allowed their pets to make, maybe. I don't know, but they're afraid or have this fear that: 'if I allow pets in this property, it's gonna be absolutely destroyed.' They're imagining worst case scenarios, cat lady house, full of cat urine, or, you know, dogs with some sort of razor claws like shredding everything and chewing up everything. Right. So with your clients in the past, how did you persuade them to like, let go of that fear or to help mitigate that risk?

[00:05:45] Yeah. And we see this with property managers that we work with. They've, you know, for 20 years have had a no pet's policy but will still have animal issues, you know, as they're getting lots of assistance animals, emotional support animals, service animals, and see that, 'Hey. We're really fighting against this and what, if we move to allowing pets, you know. More than half of them have animals in them already,' and so we go through and, and show 'em, "Hey, you know, first of all, you wanna have really good, specific animal rules and we can talk about those later, but you wanna make sure that those expectation levels are set high so that the tenants know what they're expected to do and to help mitigate that damage potential.

[00:06:28] And then we'll, you know, show 'em the return on investment that they see for allowing animals, which part of it could be renting out faster. Lately, with the rentals, especially around here in Idaho and where, you know, we're helping at, there's a large tenant pool and a lot of applications, and so they haven't seen that here in the past year or so. But when, you know, there's less of a pool of tenants and a little sparse, it could take an extra month on average to find that right tenant, you know, if you're not allowing pets and that feeds back into the return on investment for the owner.

[00:07:02] Yeah. Something else that has come up on some of our group coaching calls in relation to pets is that, you know, either you allow pets or they will just bring pets or animals into the property and hide it from you-- is a very common scenario-- and most people would rather be honest, but they're not gonna give up, you know, having a good place in a lot of situations just because of a pet, right? And they're not gonna get rid of their animal or their pets. And so, what ends up happening is they just hide them, and if they're hiding it. Maybe you won't even see the damage. Maybe there's no damage. Maybe they're able to hide everything really well, but also you're not able to charge pet rent. You're not able to make more fees. You're not able to maybe get some sort of additional deposit or whatever you might do to kind of maximize your fee structure and to reduce risk for the owner and the animals are still in the property. All right. So let's talk a little bit about OurPetPolicy. So what problem does this really solve? I'm curious.

[00:08:06] Yeah. And so like I mentioned earlier that first part where we started off with is, you know, those emotional support animal requests, right? And we see especially with, you know, the younger generation coming and renting, and they're used to finding all their information online and there's so many blogs and posts about emotional support animals, all these websites that are selling these letters, you know, have blogs, YouTube videos and say, "Hey, why pay pet rent?" "If you have a no pet's policy, you know, see if you qualify for an ESA letter and 95% of people do." And so it's really so easy to go get an ESA letter that they're coming in without the pet policy. So we solve that issue and we're able to flag those letters and say, "Hey, you know, would you like to turn it into a pet and pay that pet deposit" or, you know, for the owners that are like, "Hey, I absolutely don't want animals in my property." we help keep their pet policy and go that route, but we do see a lot more and more switching from a no pet policy the pet's allowed.

[00:09:08] And so that's kind of the one, the initial pain point we're solving. But the other thing too is, you know, as tenants come in, a lot of times the damage that their animals cause is because they're naive to their damage potential of a dog or of a cat and they don't know those best practices, and so our goal is to help educate those tenants, and so we have, what's called 'pet curriculum' for those tenants. So it goes through, they're getting a dog, maybe it's for the first time, maybe they've had a dog forever, but they'll go through this interactive training course that says, "Hey, here's the best practices for having a dog," and the common ways that they do cause damage and how to prevent it. And so our goal is to, you know, educate the tenants and make sure that they are responsible animal owners, and I think that, you know, for the owners makes them feel a lot better about having an animal on the property.

[00:09:56] But then it's good for the tenants too, because less damage to the rental is good for the tenant. It's good for the property manager, and it's good for the owner. So that's another way that we're--

[00:10:05] Probably good for the pet.

[00:10:07] So, we've had petscreening.com on our show before, and so I know lots of people listening have probably been using them or have used them before. So how does that compare? What's interesting to me that stood out is you have training material and education, which I don't know if they have that. But that's an interesting take is to also just level up the quality of the tenants in relation to pet care or taking care of their pets or the animals. I don't know if you've done some competitive research. I don't know if these two tools might be complimentary or if they're competitive. So maybe you can just touch on that real quick.

[00:10:40] Yeah. They've been around for a lot longer than we have. We've been out for about two years now, and they started in 2017. And really, you know, in January, 2020, HUD came out with, you know, new guidelines around emotional support animals and those online website letters. That was kind of really our pain point that we were seeing, and so we really took off after that to start with, and then, you know, we were like, "Hey, you know, there's a lot of other issues we'd like to solve with software, our goal is to help manage those pets, you know, from a to Z. So not just the screening side of it, you know, when they're applying, but we wanna have a relationship with those tenants all the way through with the property managers. We do a lot of consulting with the property management companies on best practices and what we're seeing as far as data.

[00:11:25] And like you said, the pet curriculum, we have a pet mapping tool to easily identify the animals. And so, rather than just being on the initial screening side, you know, we try to have a complete a to z pet management system. And so there's a little similarities between us, but in the end, a completely different business model and things that we're doing.

[00:11:46] Got it. So you do do some screening of the pets for prospective tenants and prospective, you know, animals in the properties. What is the mapping tool?

[00:11:59] Yeah. So it makes it real easy to identify the animals that are on the property, and so like in multi-family housing, you get a tenant, take a picture of an animal, send it in, you know, and that's part of our tool as well. The tenants can send in complaints on other tenants in the multifamily housing and it says, you know, "Hey, this dog was digging up the landscaping," or, "Hey, they didn't, you know, clean up after their dog. Here's a picture," and then you can, you know, search that dog real quick, put in the color of the dog, the breed of the dog, whatever, go through all the pictures of, let's say it's a black and white dog. It'll show you all the pictures of the black and white dogs, and you're like, "Oh, they belong in this unit. It's this tenant." And you can attach that complaint right to them, so it makes it quick that way.

[00:12:40] If it's single family housing, what's really nice about it is you can share that with the owners as well. And so if you've got an owner that, you know, maybe that was their house they raised their kids in, you know, they're renting it. They drive by, they keep an eye on it. Instead of them calling you saying, "Hey, I saw an animal in the window. Is it supposed to be there? Is it not supposed to be there?" Going back and forth, you know, they can have access to that, to the pet mapping app and they can look on there and see if that animal's supposed to be in there. If it's not, they can take a picture, submit it directly from there. And so what we're trying to do is, you know, cut down on, on the time spent needed for property managers to do that detective work and figure that out, so.

[00:13:15] That's clever. So if there's an owner that's like going to the property all the time, they probably should just be fired as client, but... all right. So that, that's really interesting. So the mapping tools probably could have been called the snitching tool, which is totally interesting. So I think that's cool. So you're able to map or connect the pet problems to a particular situation or like a particular unit. And now this doesn't expose-- allow neighbors to figure out which neighbor they are or where they're at or anything like that. It just allows the property manager to an identify who has the problem pet.

[00:13:51] Yep, exactly.

[00:13:53] Okay. Cool. Right. We don't want vigilante tenants taking action against a unit.

[00:14:01] Right. Yeah. Right.

[00:14:02] Okay, cool. So yeah, no, this sounds really interesting, and so do you have a background in technology? How did you decide, like, "I want to do this software stuff."

[00:14:11] Yeah, so actually my brother that is the co-founder and he's had a lot technology, you know, startup-- software based startups and businesses and exits. And so he had the software team already built out, and so he's the co-founder with me. So I pitched the idea and and he's like, "Hey, this should be, you know, easy to do. And there's a large market out there and let's go for it."

[00:14:35] Cool. So, can you tell us anything about, roughly about how this works financially, like pricing? Like, does this generally make property managers more money? Is this off set? Like, is this hard for you to sell? Is this easy to sell? Like tell us a little bit about that. I'm sure people listening are curious, so.

[00:14:53] Yeah. Yeah. So our basic fee, like a software fee is 75 cents per door per month. And we go back and show the return on investment with that. And obviously if it's a no pet's allowed policy, you know, it's harder to show that return on investment. But, when the owner looks at it and says, "Hey, it kept this many animals outta my property that I didn't want in there," you know, "Hey, that's well worth it," and especially the education aspect of it, you know, if they are gonna have animals in the property, making sure there is less damage, you know, is gonna turn into that as well. And one thing I also thought'd be good on here talking about allowing pets versus not allowing pets: one of the common discussions we get in with property managers is, you know, what do you charge for a pet deposit? What do you charge for a pet fee? What do you charge for monthly pet rent? And anyways, that's kinda where we go back to that return on investment as well. You know, as we're turning these fraudulent requests into pets paying pet rent is-- you know, if they do charge a pet rent, pet fee, pet deposit, that's where the return on investment, you know, Is huge.

[00:15:58] Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, it's just another revenue stream that property managers can add is to make sure that they're tacking on pets and people are very willing to pay pet rent or to pay additional fees for a pet. They would expect to, right? They just expect to. If they don't, they're like cool, but you know, they're willing to do it, so. I generally haven't heard people mention challenges or pushback from residents on having to do anything for each individual pet. So, yeah, and if you don't do it, I really think people are just gonna sneak 'em in anyway. They're just gonna do it. So I think there's a serious advantage for people being able to be skilled. So maybe something you wanna add in the future is since you already have the educational platform is you have some sort of video or educational material to sell property managers on the benefits of opening up that pet policy to allow pets and animals in the properties and something they could give to owners to convince them like, "Hey, this is a better way to go because if you don't, this is what generally happens and this is a better way to go and there could be more money involved."

[00:17:02] Yeah, and that's part of what we do, you know, helping 'em go from a no pets policy to allowing pets is we give the property managers all of that data and we go through and build out a custom animal addendum with them to show 'em, "Hey, here's what, you know, the tenants are gonna be required to do the rules that they need to follow and I think all property managers should have that, you know, in their animal addendum and have every tenant go through and read through those and sign it. And one common thing we see that's a problem with property managers is they'll have, you know, pet rules in there and those pet rules don't apply to assistance animals. And so assistance animals, you know, if it's not in there as an animal rule, it's called a 'pet rule,' then it doesn't apply to them. So make sure that all the rules that should be followed, whether it's an assistance animal, you know, or a pet, are listed out as animal rules.

[00:17:54] So, and you will help them put an effective pet policy in place that mentions animals.

[00:18:02] Correct. Yep. So we'll have, you know, there's a pet section that talks about the pet fees, you know, pet deposits and all that, and then pet restrictions, a lot of times, you know, dangerous breeds. There's a lot of, you know, maximum weight limits and et cetera, but then there's a whole nother section that's called 'animal rules' that all animals are expected to abide by.

[00:18:21] All right. So I'm looking at the FAQ on one of your sites here. So what are some of the questions that people typically have? This seems like a big one: do you have pet policies for every state that are applicable?

[00:18:32] Yeah. And so we're moving across the country, so we're available to be in every state, and we work with lawyers in every state, you know, as we go into 'em. So far we're in 20 states across the country, and it typically takes us just a couple of weeks to add another state, you know? And like you said, we go in there. We have the specific rules in there cause it's state by state, they'll have rules saying, "Hey, if you represent in an assistance animal fraudulently, you know, there's a fine for that, and we make sure and put that, you know, in the pet policy as well.

[00:19:04] Okay.

[00:19:05] And go through state by state, make sure we found some specifically cities or counties that have specific rules around not being able to charge pet fees and et cetera. And so we work with lawyers in each state to make sure that we're abiding by all those rules.

[00:19:22] So basically you're leveraging the rules and laws that are in each state. You're able to make the policy sound as scary as possible and leverage the rules and penalties that are possible or applicable.

[00:19:38] Yeah. We want to, you know, educate the tenant as well. Right. That, "Hey, there are laws against this."

[00:19:44] Yeah.

[00:19:44] And you know, you wanna be-- they should be honest, but then also know, "Hey, if you, aren't honest, you know, here's the possibilities of recourse, so basically another educational part of it.

[00:19:55] Right. So if they're gonna take the risk to be fraudulent or do the wrong things, they're more educated on that risk. So, okay, cool. Well, I think this sounds really interesting. I'm sure you'll get some people reaching out after they hear this episode. How can they find you? How can they reach out if they're a property manager that's interested in hearing more?

[00:20:16] Yeah. So our phone number's on our website, obviously, you can always call us. We'd love to talk to you. Send us an email to info@ourpetpolicy.com. We go to a lot of the state trade shows. We were just at Apartmentalize, so national shows. And so, yeah, we're getting out there, but feel free to just reach out to us at any time as well.

[00:20:37] So it's 'our,' O-U-R petpolicy.com.

[00:20:43] Yep. Yeah, ourpetpolicy.com.

[00:20:45] Perfect. All right, cool. So I recommend you check them out. Sounds interesting. I'll push maybe some clients your way and see what they think. And I appreciate you coming out and hanging out here on the #DoorGrowShow.

[00:20:57] Hey, thanks for the invite, Jason, I've enjoyed being here.

[00:21:00] Awesome. Anyway, Logan, appreciate you coming on the show. So check out ourpetpolicy.com and if you are looking for the best in growing and acquiring more doors and growing your business, check us out at doorgrow.com. We've got some really cool stuff that's coming down the pipeline that we are going to be doing for our clients. And we're really excited about this. So stay tuned. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:21:24] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:21:51] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 179: How To Use The Myers Briggs Personality Test 0

Jul 19, 2022

Personality tests can be a great way to gauge potential team members and ensure they are a great fit for your business. Myers Briggs is just one of the personality tests we use here at DoorGrow.

Join Jason in this episode as he discusses and describes the Myers Briggs personality test and different personality types in depth.

You’ll Learn…

[01:30] What even is Myers Briggs?

[03:28] How to Hire Correctly Based on Personality Fit

[05:00] Going in Depth for all 4 Attributes in Myers Briggs Assessments

[17:37] The Common Personality Types in Business

[32:07] What to do After You Figure Out Your Personality Type

Tweetables

“Now there's a lot of people that would argue that personality is not always static. Personality is not like always defined and that you can have multiple personalities.”

“People have a main sort of way that they show up in the world and that's probably their primary sort of personality type and getting people to operate outside of that, there's some friction, there's some challenge.”

“One of the biggest, most important things to look at in hiring is personality fit.”

“A lot of times sensors gravitate towards manual labor or doing physical things where they can see physical, tangible, real world results.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Personality fit dictates whether or not they will naturally be good at this job or whether you're going to have to micromanage them, push them and constantly overcome friction in relation to doing the job,

[00:00:11] All right, welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life. And you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income.

[00:00:48] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:11] All right. So today what we're gonna be talking about is a tool that I use to look at personality types. Sometimes some people might view this as just looking at like the equivalent of looking at tea leaves, but we're gonna be talking about Myers Briggs and Myers Briggs assessments. So what is Myers Briggs? So Myers Briggs is a lens through which you can look at certain personality types and in Myers Briggs, there are 16 personality types that exist and a really great website you can go to, to do this testing is 16-- one and then the digit six-- so digits 16 --personalities dot com, so 16personalities.com. So if you go to this website, you can then take their assessment for free or have people on your team or people that you're hiring take this assessment for free. At the end of it, it will ask, "do you want these results emailed to you?" have them say yes, plug in their email address.

[00:02:11] They will get the email results. Have them forward those results to you, or copy the link from that email and give that to you, that shows their results. It's important because then you can see the ratio, the percentage amount on each attribute. There's four attributes to understand in Myers, Briggs. 16 personalities added a fifth attribute, so to speak, but there's four main attributes. So I'm going to teach you quickly on this recording how to quickly, rapidly type somebody in Myers Briggs so that you can get clear on how they show up in this world and what they're like.

[00:02:49] Now there's a lot of people that would argue that personality is not always static. Personality is not like always defined and that you can have multiple personalities. Todd Herman has a great book on that subject, which is about how he helps celebrity athletes and other celebrities come up with or create alternate egos. And it, I believe the book's called _The Alter Ego Effect_. Really cool book, really cool topic. So I highly recommend you check it out. I got to meet Todd in person, hear him speak in person at one of the masterminds I'm involved in as a student and it was really cool to meet him, ask him questions and get clarity on that, so it's worth checking out.

[00:03:28] People have a main sort of way that they show up in the world and that's probably their primary sort of personality type and getting people to operate outside of that, there's some friction, there's some challenge. One of the biggest, most important things to look at in hiring is personality fit. I've spoken about this on some lives and some events before, but really quickly, there are three fits you need when hiring. Personality fit is one of them, culture fit is another, and skill fit. Most people hire based on skill fit alone. Like, 'can they do this job?' Or 'can I teach them to do this job?' But more importantly, is personality fit. Personality fit dictates whether or not they will naturally be good at this job or whether you're going to have to micromanage them, push them and constantly overcome friction in relation to doing the job, right. Somebody's personality, if they're really introverted and shy and don't like talking to people might not be a great salesperson, for example. Somebody in customer service-- if you're putting somebody into customer service, but they're really cold, analytical, and harsh in the way that they do things, they might be terrible at customer service, but maybe they make an awesome operations person. And so we wanna make sure that we're clear on the personality that would be a good fit for a particular role, so that when hiring, we can identify: are these people probably going to be a natural personality fit? The other is cultural fit. Cultural fit, we will not get into on this conversation, but it's the most important of the three fits and that's whether or not you will be able to trust them in the long run, because whether or not they share your values and that sort of thing.

[00:05:00] So let's talk about Myers, Briggs, and how it can help you identify personality fit. You may want to type yourself, so let's go through and type you right now. So grab a pen or a paper or just something and write down there are four main attributes. So the first attribute you need to figure out is, are you an extrovert or an introvert? This is usually pretty obvious for most people. You can just ask people or you can just ask yourself if you know this person, "are they an extrovert, an introvert? Am I an extrovert or an introvert?" The main question I like to ask to figure out if somebody's an extrovert or an introvert, is do you get momentum and excitement from being around people? Or do you get momentum and need to recharge? Do you get recharged or more energy by being around people? Or do you need to be away from people in order to feel like yourself and recharge, and where do you like spending most of your time? Right. So some people are ambiverts, I'm an ambivert. In Myers Briggs, I tend to show up as an actual extrovert, but I have a lot of introvert tendencies.

[00:06:08] So that's important to figure out like which one are they? Because for example, I'm an ENTP typically is how I show up. INTPs from the INTPs that I've known are quite more dramatically introverted. ENTPs are the most extroverted of all of the E types in Myers Briggs, which is half of the 16 personality types. They are the most introverted of all of the extroverted types, so a lot of times they might show up on a test as an INTP, but INTPs, I find are the most introverted of the introverted types and they are extreme introverts and they can go weeks without human contact, and they're totally fine with that.

[00:06:49] A big differentiator there, if you're like me, confused about INTP or ENTP, like I have been in the past: are you charismatic and outgoing? You are probably not an INTP. You're probably not an extreme introvert. You're probably not super introverted if you have charisma and personality. I find INTPs, a lot of times are pretty deadpan, dry, and they're quite brilliant.

[00:07:14] Anyway, we won't go into every single type, but I'll throw examples out throughout the process here. So mark whether you're E or an I. I show up more as an E, but a lot of people might categorize me as an I. So I get that extroverted trait by connecting with clients, coaching clients. I like being on the stage as I am right now, so to speak, sharing ideas with others and benefiting other people, extroverted trait.

[00:07:39] So the next would be whether you are an intuitive or a sensor. So they categorize that letter instead of a E or an I, that next letter is an N for 'intuitive.' They use the second letter. I know it's confusing, but we've already used I in the first set, so they didn't wanna use it again. So it's an N for intuitive or S for a sensor. So how do we categorize these? So in general, my big question or differentiator that I'll ask between these is, "are you usually focused on high level theory, theoretical, big picture, which means you're more of an intuitive, or are you focused on more grounded, practical, real world, reality and your physical senses?"

[00:08:23] So I find sensors are those that like things to be tactile, like they can touch them. They can see real results. A lot of times sensors gravitate towards manual labor or doing physical things where they can see physical, tangible, real world results. A lot of sensors end up in careers or positions where they are doing really grounded, real world work. It could be like policemen, firefighters, plumbers, contractors, stuff like that. A lot of them are more on the sensor category, people that do physical art or do physical things, people that do like tiling floors or people that enjoy building statues or creating things like those a lot of times can be sensors. They're very focused on their physical senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, et cetera.

[00:09:17] Whereas intuitives go in-- a lot of times they're focused on theoretical, big pictures, big ideas, and thinking, and I'll point out that. There's no good or bad personality types necessarily. They're all needed. They're all good and useful in different things. So are you an intuitive or sensor? Another thing I look at with intuitive or sensors, I like to ask, what kind of TV shows are you into? Are you into shows that are very focused on grounded, practical things like crime dramas and historical period pieces and stuff like that (sensor) or are you focused more on, do you like the intuitive type of stuff, which could be more sci-fi or more fantasy based or some of these kind of things where you're getting exposed to potential ideas and big picture things.

[00:10:04] That might relate to the last attribute a little bit too. So that's could be a red herring, but we'll get to that. The next major attribute would be thinker versus feeler. This is usually pretty obvious for most people, and the way that you wanna look at this, everybody is a feeler to some degree, and everybody is a thinker to some degree. A lot of times, feelers mistakenly think they're thinkers because they over-- they tend to overthink things. They ruminate things. They get stuck on things in their head because they're not really good at logical, analytical thinking. They're feelers. And so they just overthink everything, like "how is this gonna impact everybody else from an emotional standpoint?" so that does not mean you are a thinker. That means you are a feeler.

[00:10:46] Thinkers, usually are very quick in their thinking and they approach things logically first. If you approach things from a feeling standpoint first, then you are probably more of a feeler. So if there's a problem and you're looking at this problem, would you use logic and reason first, or would you try and explore things emotionally and make sure people are okay? So another example I will give is if you saw somebody crying on a train that you were on or on a bus you were on or in a public place that you were at, and they were crying, would you naturally think: 'I'm gonna kind of give them their space and let them deal with their stuff,' or do you feel a natural need to immediately reach out and connect and maybe even touch them to communicate? Like, "are you okay? And can I help you with anything?" Thinker versus feeler, right? So, what is your go-to?

[00:11:39] Me? I'm more of a thinker. I'm sure many of you could guess, more on the analytical logical side. I approach things through logic first. One other thing you can look at is a lot of times thinkers when they are not really good at processing emotion or experiencing emotion and don't want to feel negative emotion and so they've gotten really good, as a strategy of leveraging their logic and reason to avoid uncomfortable feelings in the future. So when they experience something uncomfortable or painful emotionally, their go to is to think, "how can I avoid feeling this ever again in the future, and how do I solve this as quick as possible?" And "how do I stop feeling this as soon as possible?" Whereas feelers know that the most effective strategy is to feel that fully, feel through it because the only thing you logically can do with a feeling is to feel it, and once you've fully felt it, it no longer controls you.

[00:12:33] You can avoid a feeling indefinitely and it can constantly be affecting you for years and years to come. It can be a challenge for thinkers. Whereas if you fully feel through something, you cannot feel a feeling forever. You can't feel something forever you'll eventually just kind of get numb to it or get comfortable with it, get used to it, or have kind of processed it and worked through it, and then you can approach it logically and say, "all right, how can I view this in a healthy way? What good came from this? What could I get from that?" And go through maybe a positive focus exercise, so to speak. "Why is this positive?" Right. So thinker versus feeler. So which one are you? Do you approach things through logic and reason first, or do you approach things through feelings first?

[00:13:17] Neither of these are right or wrong. We need both. I like to bring feelers in for things where it's customer service or it's relating to clients or it's community managers or client success managers or roles where we need somebody to love on our clients and make them feel good. Thinkers: operators, logical roles, things like that. So we want thinkers.

[00:13:37] So moving beyond that. We get into the last of the four attributes, which is perceiving versus judging. So this is how you approach the observable world and how you approach learning and how you approach the world around you in your thinking and decision making, perceiving versus judging.

[00:13:57] So a lot of people get really judgemental about the word judging and they're like, "I'm not judging. I'm not judgemental." That's not what that means. And perceiving a lot of people think, "well, I wanna be perceiving." So let me explain this, and then it'll be very clear to you, which one you are. So people that are Ps, that are perceiving, I find to be very creative. They like to pull in lots of ideas from lots of sources. They're very open minded, but they're a bit chaotic and they tend to thrive effectively in chaotic environments, but they live a lot of times. In chaos, they have a messy desk as do I right now. It's a bit messy. You can see my bookshelf is a bit crazy, right?

[00:14:36] So these are, perceivers, they're really good at pulling in lots of ideas, and this is the advantage I have for my clients is I can pull in lots of ideas and create new ideas out of those ideas. And that's where the brilliance and genius comes out in these Ps and how I'm able to benefit clients and help them see things they couldn't see on their own or didn't see otherwise. And that's how we come up with new ideas in really ingenious acquisition strategies and growth strategies and things that are very counterintuitive to what they've been taught sometimes. And this is because Ps can see around the corner. They can see the bigger picture. They can see ideas that Js just cannot see. The problem with Ps though is sometimes they're a little too openminded, so open-minded they get diluted and distracted by too many different ideas. Sometimes Ps are very disorganized. They need support from their team members, from people that are Js. So my assistant is a J.

[00:15:29] They handle my schedule. They handle calendars. They like that kind of stuff. They like checklists and spreadsheets. Js, judging have a box. They have a lens through which they view the world. Anything outside of that box-- when people say, "live outside the box," they're talking to Js. These are Ps talking to Js.

[00:15:47] Js say, "this box keeps me safe. This box keeps the world moving forward. Everything outside of that, like woo woo stuff and maybe even Myers Briggs and aliens and conspiracy theories and all this stuff is complete bullshit, is BS, and is a waste of my time. So anything outside of my current worldview is a waste of my time and is not effective. Unless you can convince me logically otherwise, I'm not gonna waste time exploring all of this other stuff and looking at all this other stuff. This is what is necessary and needed." Right. And so Js are those that tend to move businesses forward as operators, as people that get stuff done. They are really good at calendars, spreadsheets, meticulous details, stuff like that because they will make a quick judgment and throw out anything that does not fit.

[00:16:42] Whereas Ps put everything on the shelf, look at the big picture and come up with some new ideas in putting these different Lego pieces together. And they build really cool shit, right? They build really cool stuff. So Js though are really brilliant at cutting out the fluff, the crap, getting to the point, and moving things forward. That judging box protects the business and protects people and creates really good boundaries and moves things forward. So we need both. So are you perceiving or are you judging?

[00:17:15] Usually if you need an operations person, you need a really good assistant. I do not recommend that they're a P typically. Some of you may, as entrepreneurs may be a P or perceiving, but if you are a J you will tend to want an assistant that is also a J, and if you are a P you'll tend to need an assistant that is a J, right?

[00:17:37] So let's talk about some different personality types. Gosh, I don't have all 16 listed in front of me, but let's talk about some different types, right. ENTPs like myself are often called the debater personality type. They're not really well liked a lot of times because they enjoy the friction and the conflict of debate. I love being wrong and I love being right. Like either one is fine for me because either way I win and I learn and that open-mindedness and being a thinker and having that extroverted intuition, which is the EN allows me to do really creative stuff. And I'm generally naturally good at most things that I apply to.

[00:18:17] I don't though, like to finish things. I love to start ideas, come up with creative ideas, and I have an entire mechanism and machine and team that I've creatively built around me that support me in getting stuff done. So having operators, having fulfillment team members, having client success managers, having sales and marketing manager, like I have a whole executive team and then I have layers underneath some of them. Now what are some good roles for, let's say operations, right? So operations. So Sarah, who is the operator on my team and also my fiance and is beautiful and who I love. She is an INTJ and generally is how she shows up on most tests. She is very introverted a lot of times. She can turn on the charm when she needs to, but she likes having a lot of space and a lot of time to herself, introverted intuition.

[00:19:08] So a lot of really intuitive aspects to her. She just seems to know things, her unconscious figures things out that she doesn't even consciously know. Sometimes she's like, "I feel like we're losing money somewhere here and I don't see it yet, but I just know something's off, and she's always right. Like almost always right. INTJs love being right. They're almost always right, but they are a little rigid because of that J, so they can't see creatively around certain ideas. And so the debator ENTPs sometimes are really good at helping expose them to some new ideas and beating them in the debate situation. But they're great debaters and they love being right and they hate being wrong.

[00:19:47] And they're sometimes very Spock-like Star Trek reference, but they can become so logical and sometimes so cold that emotionally, they will hurt people around them and hurt people from a feeling standpoint because they are thinkers. They are logical, analytical, intuitive thinkers, and they are Js. I find INTJs also really tend to always love animals sometimes, like pretty often, more than people. People drive them crazy because people are unreliable. People make like bad decisions and dumb decisions. They don't just do what they're supposed to do. INTJs are brilliant strategists. They make great operators.

[00:20:26] Other roles, we've got the ENTJ, they're kind of the entrepreneur type. They sort of have the benefits of both of these personality types, and they're usually viewed as the entrepreneur, very enterprising. They're good at scaling things. They can sell very well. They're logical thinkers, intuitive, extroverted, and they're Js, so they make really great business owners, entrepreneurs, sales people, and they can grow and scale things effectively. They're not usually as good with sometimes IP, like intellectual property or coming up with new ideas or creating new ideas, but they're great at taking good ideas and scaling and building these things out in a lot of situations, but they may also have really good ideas. So it just depends. Because of their drive and their tenacity and their ability to figure things out, a lot of times, they are pretty creative and they can gather really good ideas and put things together. But the J usually limits their creativity in that area, but they can recognize a good idea when they see one, right? So ENTJs can be very effective entrepreneurs.

[00:21:25] Other types of entrepreneurs that I'll see besides ENTP and ENTJ is I'll see ENFP. ENFPs are very interesting type of personality types. They are also quite introverted on the extroverted scale of the E types, but they love people. They like to analyze people. They like to figure people out. ENFPs are viewed almost as childlike or flirtatious by people when they're just trying to be friendly. And they're very friendly, but they come across very flirty with a lot of people. People always perceive them as flirts. They're great with other people. They love figuring out personality types. They love this kind of stuff. I learned this initially from, and was exposed to Myers Briggs by an ENFP, and they knew all the different types and they understood people. ENFPs love freedom and creativity.

[00:22:14] They don't have that J. They're feelers that are perceiving. They have F and P and they're intuitives and they're extroverted, so they do not wanna be corralled. They're not great in nine to five job situations, sitting behind a desk and a cubicle. They need to be out. They need to be creativity. They need different environments. So ENFPs, a lot of bartenders are ENFP. It's because they get to connect with a lot of people. It's always different. They can set weird schedules and different schedules. A lot of actors and actresses might be sometimes ENFPs. You get a lot of flight attendants that might be ENFPs. You get a lot of hairdressers, lots of connecting with people, or beauty salons or things like this, and there's also a lot of real estate agents. I believe ENFPs are just love and sunshine. My mother is an ENFP, I believe, and she was a real estate agent, and people just love her. She's like everybody's mom and connects with everybody and she understands people and she's really sharp.

[00:23:07] ENFPs are also really, really, almost religious. They have a deep spiritual sort of belief set internally. Whether they're part of a religion or not, they have really deep beliefs and they're really big advocates for that belief system. And so they like to almost campaign or push that belief out into the marketplace or into the world because they have deeply held beliefs. They're viewed very childlike on the surface and a lot of people don't realize this, but they are really deep, one of the deepest types. Even though they come across like loving, they love rainbows and unicorns and sunshine. A lot of 'em will dye their hair an interesting color and they love to connect with people. And so those are ENFPs. So, one of my daughters is ENFP.

[00:23:54] Another really interesting type is the. Counselor type and they're the INFJ. They're an interesting hybrid between the introvert and extroverted types, in between thinkers and feelers, they have a J but they're a feeler they're intuitive intuition. So INFJs often end up being counselors. They are calming presences in an organization. They tend to be therapists, counselors. INFJs are very-- they can be also very adaptable, but INFJs tend to ruminate a lot because they're feelers. They overthink everyth. And they think about a lot of things. A lot of people talk about the INFJ "door slam." INFJs once they decide they don't like a person or they cut somebody off, they do a door slam and they will cut that person off for life a lot of times. So INFJs also, I find, tend to attract narcissists or believe everybody out there is a narcissist.

[00:24:50] So INFJs because they have such a sensitive, intuitive feeling nature but they're also judging and they can be very, very judgemental. INFJs tend to be one of the most judgemental types towards other types. And they have a lot of judgements towards other types, but they also use that intuition to kind of feel out people and they're very feeling oriented. They're idealists in some ways. And they don't like when the world doesn't look a certain way and they're very intuitive feeling oriented. So INFJs can make really great counselors, therapists, you know, and social workers, stuff like this, where they're interacting with people on a one-on-one intimate, deep basis.

[00:25:31] And those are INFJs. And so a lot of times they'll attract people that are narcissists, or they will view others as a narcissist because they are sometimes self depreciating or allow their needs to kind of be subservient to others. In some instances, until they really become healthier and learn effective boundary setting. In INFJ groups on Facebook and whatever, they complain about a lot of different people about being narcissists. I don't believe that everybody out there that they think is a narcissist is a narcissist or is self-absorbed or selfish. I think that they just aren't really good at attracting good people and setting healthy boundaries. And then they view all these people as the bad guy. So a typical scenario in less healthy INFJs or less evolved or less mature.

[00:26:17] Let's see. What are other types? So the entertainer personality type is ESFP. They're very, openminded, very feeler oriented, very touch and sense oriented and extroverted. ESFPs. They're a lot of fun, sometimes a little bit too much fun. They're the ones that'll be dancing on the tabletop. They need to be the center of attention at all times, if there is a group and it's heightened and people are extrovert in getting attention, they will find a way to get more attention and get more extreme. So they will dance on the tabletop. They will like get everybody to pay attention to them. They will do things. They will be in charge of like getting the most attention sometimes, these ESFPs. They're the entertainer personality type. I sometimes joke that they are the NSFW types, not safe for work. In fact, I saw meme once it had all these hats, 16 hats with all the different types and one hat was missing and the person was putting on, it said not safe for work. The one that was missing was the ESFP, which I thought was funny. So they can be kind of a little bit, you know, extreme and so ESFJs, which I mentioned before, ESFJs are a bit more on the judging side. They're very practical because they're sensors.

[00:27:31] They're also feelers, but they're judging. And so ESFJs and ISFJs are very feeler oriented. ISFJs are more on the introverted side. So ISFJs are very supportive people. They do not want to be in the foreground. ISFJs are the people that want to at the party not be involved at the party. They're not gonna be on the tabletop. ISFJs are those that love being in a supportive role. Putting them into a leadership role is usually a very bad idea. It's very uncomfortable for them. They often are nurses. They often are caretakers. They often are great internal office staff. They have amazing, amazing memories. ISFJs have amazing memories. So do INTJs, but ISFJs have really great memories. They remember numbers, they remember details because they're watching everything and they want to make sure everybody's taken care of, everybody's happy.

[00:28:25] ISFJs often care more about other people than they do about themselves, and they expect everybody else to reciprocate and nobody ever will reciprocate at the level that they care and give to others, so they often feel sad or down that nobody cares for them the way that they wanna be cared for and the way they care for everybody else. That expectation that people will reciprocate is never at the level that they care. They're baking cakes for people. They're doing things for people. They're serving other people. Those are ISFJs, and they are great people to have as a support mechanism and a background support staff in a business.

[00:29:04] ESFJs are a little bit more like them, but they're a little bit more extroverted. They have better boundaries. They're more willing to be in the foreground a bit, and they also can be really good, taking care of people, but they're sensors so they're focused on the practical things.

[00:29:18] And then we've got ENFJs, which are similar. ENFJs are very extroverted intuition. They're great at being leaders of the community. They're really good at knowing who in the group is having a good time, who is not. I generally look for maybe like an ENFJ or ESFJ or somebody like that that's really organized to be a client success manager to take care of and love on our clients and make sure everybody's being dealt with because that extroverted intuition, they're able to perceive intuitively how everybody is receiving things, how they're doing. And they're feelers, so they care primarily about making sure everybody is having a good experience or feeling good about things and they're detail oriented because of that J and they make sure things get done.

[00:30:01] So I think I've covered several different types. What else could I cover? INFP. INFPs are interesting. These are some of the most woo woo of all the types. The most open-minded they're introverted, intuitive feelers that are perceiving. These are people that usually find they wear flowy clothing and they're very woo woo, and they're into all sorts of different ideas that are really sometimes out there, and they are not great at practical real world reality. That's a difficult thing for them. And so you'll find that a lot of people in spiritual, new agey things, a lot of them might be INFPs.

[00:30:41] I would not choose an INFP in my business to do anything that was like, think deadlines and timelines and getting things done efficiently, but they would be very good at like being very spiritual and intuitive and supporting clients through a process and, you know, stuff like that. INFPs are feelers. They have introverted intuition. So they are really focused on intuitively on themself a lot, and they go deep within and their processes. And then they perceive and pull everything in from the universe. And they're just so open minded, sometimes me being a bit more, you know, on the thinker side, feel like they're so open minded, maybe their brains have fallen out. Right. But INFPs have their place and they also can be really, really useful.

[00:31:26] So a little different than the INFJ, which I talked about before, which is a counselor type, which are a bit more on the judging side and making sure things get done, which balances out all that intuition and intuitive internal stuff and introverted stuff and all that feeling. So INFPs, everything's based on a feeling. It's " I feel this way because intuitively I feel like this is a good idea or emotionally, I feel like this is a good idea." So they're very feeling based, so it's very difficult for somebody like an INTJ or somebody like an ENTJ to deal with those people sometimes, because they're just too open-minded, or S types sometimes might find them difficult.

[00:32:01] So those are several different types. I can't think of any other of the 16 types that I might have missed, but one quick hack for anyone, once you get your Myers Briggs type or you get your team members' Myers Briggs type, I recommend that you don't listen to what I just said. You go and do a YouTube search on YouTube for that type. Put 'ENTP' or 'ISFJ' or 'ESFP' or 'INFP.' Put the four letters and then put 'in,' (I-N) 'in' and then 'minutes.' Write the word minutes on YouTube and you'll get these great cartoon explainer videos that some organizations have put out, which they'll show like ENTP in four minutes, or INTJ in five minutes or something. And these really describes for four to five minutes, that personality type in detail and even showing visual examples. And it really makes it clear. You can watch that and go, 'is that really me?' So if you do the 16 personalities test and you see any attributes that are close to 50%, it's like 53%, 54%. It might be a mistype. So you can go check out ENTP and ENFP in minutes and watch these videos and see: "which one really speaks to me?"

[00:33:10] Because any one attribute creates a completely different personality type and a different way of approaching the world. Even if it's very similar to the other type, they have a very different. Cognitive stack and order in which they process information and do things, right? Whether they're extroverted or introverted or whether they're sensor or intuitive, or whether they're a thinker or feeler, they have a different stack in order of what those priorities are as how they approach the world.

[00:33:34] So watch those videos and that will help you. Also, you can use those videos to get clarity on your team member and why you may have had frustrations or difficulties or challenges once you're aware of your type and aware of their type, you'll be able to better assess how can I better relate to them or communicate with them, or why are they the best fit, personality fit for this role? And if you watch that video and you're like, "I do not want this person as my operator," they shouldn't be your operator. Or, "I want this person as my client success manager," they could be your client success manager, and so that will help you assess whether they are the right personality fit for the role that you have them in.

[00:34:11] So I recommend you assess yourself and assess all your team. And I hope this was a really helpful deep dive into Myers Briggs. And as with anything, figure out their personality type, reflect it back to them, ask them questions to see: "is this really you? This is what this kind of says about you," and see what feedback they give you. Because really when you wanna get to know a team member or a person it's really about getting to know _them_. So just use this as a lens and as a tool for feedback and throw those things out at them, those noodles at the wall, and see which ones stick. So that you get a clear picture and they mirror back to you or reflect back to you, "yes, that's true," or "no, that's not really accurate for me. I think I'm more this way," and this will give you a much clearer picture of their personality and whether or not they're a good fit for the role or position. So I hope this is helpful for everybody until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

[00:35:03] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:35:29] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 178: The Slowest & Hardest Path To Growth In Your Property Management Business: Do It Yourself 0

Jul 12, 2022

Frustrated at the pace of your growth? Do you feel like you should be farther along, by now, than you are? Here's what is holding you back... your Ego.

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull explains how trying to do everything yourself can actually hinder and slow your growth.

You’ll Learn…

[01:08] Why You Feel Stuck and Growth Feels Slow…

[03:12] One of the BIGGEST Mistakes You Can Make

[04:25] The Fastest Path to Growth

[05:38] Why You Might Not Feel Like You are Winning

Tweetables

“You are smart enough. You will eventually learn how to do everything, but it'll take you probably a decade longer than some of my clients to get similar results. So let's collapse time.”

“The fastest path to growth where I've had the largest growth in my own business has been to get coaches, mentors, and to really educate myself and to invest in myself and in the business.”

“It's kinda like Indiana Jones running from the boulder. Indiana Jones running is generating cash and revenue. Right, then the boulder is expenses and it's chasing after him every single day.”

“One of the biggest mistakes we can make in our business is to not get the right support that we need in the right way as early as possible, or we get the wrong support.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] One of the biggest mistakes we can make in our business is to not get the right support that we need in the right way as early as possible, or we get the wrong support.

[00:00:09] All right, welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life. And you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income.

[00:00:45] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:08] All right, what's up everybody. So I wanted to have a quick conversation about the slowest and hardest path to growth in your property management business or in any business. So the slowest and hardest path to growth in any business is to do it all yourself. That's the hardest and slowest path. So are you somebody that feels like maybe you should by now be farther along in your business? You're frustrated with the level of growth and money and time and freedom that you have currently?

[00:01:42] Do you feel out of alignment with the four reasons for having a business, which is to have more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, like making a difference and more support in the business, right? Do you feel like you're lacking these things? You haven't maxed these things out? Then, it might be because you have some ego, and we all do, right? This is one of the biggest hurdles I see entrepreneurs go through is in the early stages, they think they're really smart and they think they know it all and they think, 'nobody else could do these things as well as I could,' and they think, 'I could just figure it all out. I could do it all on my own,' and they don't get support.

[00:02:24] Support is the magic secret ingredient. And this is why. I eventually had to humble myself to a degree and go get coaches and mentors. And that's not an easy thing. It was born outta pain and frustration, like being really stuck, hitting my head against the wall, not being able to like make cash flow sometimes or be profitable or all these things early entrepreneurs deal with in their business and their entrepreneurial journey. It was really painful, you know, trying to like focus on sales and getting business on and then trying to deliver and fulfill on that and then realizing I haven't been focused as much on sales and so now you're in a sales slump, so now I need to go back to sales and focus on that. And then the cash flow comes in and then it wanes and then it comes in and it wanes and like this roller coaster that business owners go through.

[00:03:12] One of the biggest mistakes we can make in our business is to not get the right support that we need in the right way as early as possible, or we get the wrong support. Maybe we get the right support, but at the wrong time. Maybe they're the right people, but it's at the wrong time. It's not what the business needs most right now. It's not what the business owner needs most right now, and that's a tactical mistake. It's kinda like Indiana Jones running from the boulder. Indiana Jones running is generating cash and revenue. Right, then the boulder is expenses and it's chasing after him every single day, and the gap in between is cash flow in a business. And if expenses outpace revenue, Indiana Jones dies. Right? He then makes really bad, even worse decisions to try and extend the cashflow like bad business loans with, you know, high percentage APRs and like really bad things a lot of business owners fall prey to.

[00:04:04] So we wanna make sure that you have a business that is scalable and that can grow, and you continue to extend the gap between Indiana Jones and the boulder and you've got good cash flow, and the slowest path to growth is to do it all yourself. That's it like that's the slowest path to growth is to do it all yourself. The fastest path to growth where I've had the largest growth in my own business has been to get coaches, mentors, and to really educate myself and to invest in myself and in the business. I've never had a good coach that hasn't easily paid for their own services plus some. I get a return on that investment quickly, and that's what we do for our clients.

[00:04:48] So I got a message from our client today and he has increased his revenue. His costs have only gone up 22%, but he's increased his revenue, like, well, over a hundred percent in his business, and so we are making businesses a lot more profitable. I love seeing this. So my recommendation to you is that. You should find coaches, mentors, people that have helped people do what you're trying to do already. They have proven track record. They have case studies, they have success stories. We have a bunch of those.

[00:05:22] You can look on YouTube. Go to youtube.com/doorgrow. Watch our case studies. We're releasing new ones all the time. My daughter, Madi puts these out and creates these video clips, and these are just captured during our coaching calls. We have clients that are winning. If you don't feel like you're consistently winning, it might be because you don't have anybody in your corner.

[00:05:44] A lot of entrepreneurs don't even have their own spouse in their corner, or they don't have their own business partner in their corner. Those people are like, “why don't you just get a job?” Or “why are you working so hard?” Or “why are you doing this,” right? We want to be in your corner. We want to help you and your spouse and business partners get in alignment, see the potential, see the growth that you know, deep down that you should be having and doing and make a business that you can not be involved in, you know, that you can exit, and if you have the option to exit, you will probably want to keep that business because it's just making you money, and that just makes sense. You wouldn't need to exit it, right? But having that option is ultimate freedom, right? We want you to max out those four reasons of fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support.

[00:06:29] So let us help you do that. Reach out. We would love to train you and help you learn how to be effective in your business, optimize your pricing, optimize your website, optimize your sales pipeline and process, optimize all of these different things so that you can move your business forward a lot faster. So with that being said, I'm Jason Hull over at door grow, we would love to help you out. Reach out to doorgrow.com, and stop trying to do everything yourself. This is the sand trap. We all fall into early in the entrepreneurial journey and get good support. Get good team members, and you're gonna go a lot faster. So stop trying to learn how to do everything and find the 'who.' 'Who' not 'how.' Find the 'who' that can help you just do that thing and know how to do that thing quickly instead of going around, trying to learn how to do it all on your own.

[00:07:23] You can. You are smart enough. You will eventually learn how to do everything, but it'll take you probably a decade longer than some of my clients to get similar results. So let's collapse time, and that's what coaches have done for me. That's it. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:07:38] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:08:05] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 177: What To Do When You Don't Love Your Clients 0

Jun 29, 2022

Do you love your clients? I love my clients. Property management growth expert Jason Hull has worked with hundreds of PM entrepreneurs over the years, and has found that many property managers complain about tenants, owners, and clients.

If you don’t love your clients, it could be time to take a step back. Join Jason as he gives you 6 changes you can make to love your clients in property management.

You’ll Learn…

[01:48] Finding Clarity for What Clients You Want

[05:17] How to Fix Your Product

[07:27] Why You Should Probably Be Charging More

[08:52] How to Qualify Your Leads to Get Better Clients

[12:43] Changing Your Targeting

[15:16] Why You Should Set Better Boundaries

Tweetables

“The very first thing you need to figure out is who do you want to serve? Who do you wanna have an impact with?”

“If you don't have clients that you are in love with that you love working with and love serving, you probably have a bad product.”

“So if you don't like the clients that you're getting, you might be dealing with a lot of price sensitive, cheap people. If that's the case, you probably are charging too little.”

“Usually the worst prospects are at the end of the sales cycle.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] This is the crux of the beginning of any sales process. This is the most critical piece at the beginning of any sales process in your pipeline is to qualify prospects. All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker.

[00:00:29] DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:47] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:07] All right. What we're gonna be chatting about today is if you do not love your clients. How do you deal with this? If you don't love your clients? So this is a common thing. I hear a lot of people in the property management industry, I hear a lot of people in general complain about their customers. They complain about tenants. They complain about owners. They are experiencing a lot of frustration, and so in general, any entrepreneur, if you do not love your clients-- I love my clients by the way-- if you do not love your clients, you do not feel like they're great people, you enjoy working with them, then maybe you need to take a step back.

[00:01:48] And so, one of the things that I challenge my clients to do is create what's called a client-centric mission statement, an idea that I got from one of my mentors, Alex Charfen. And so the idea with the client-centric mission statement is the very first thing you need to figure out is who do you want to serve? If you're gonna start a business and you're figuring out the mission of this business, who do you wanna serve? Who do you wanna have an impact with? For us, it's largely single family, residential, contribution focused entrepreneurs, you know, property management businesses, like, there's a lot of adjectives there.

[00:02:19] I wanna bring up that maybe you're just focused on the wrong people-- might be the first thing. So I would take a look at that. If you don't like your clients, then figure out who do you really want to serve? Who would you like to have? Because if you don't have an intention and you don't have clarity on the type of client or person that you would like to work with, then you may be experiencing basically the evil genie effect.

[00:02:46] Have any of you ever seen a movie with a genie and there's always some evil twist, right? The genie's kind of a jerk, and the genie gives them what they ask for but with sort of a sneaky sideways grin chuckling to himself like: "I'll give you exactly what you asked for," but they always give them the crappiest or shittiest version of that. So they're like, "Hey, I wanna be, I wanna be rich or I wanna be powerful or whatever." They're like, "cool. You're a drug lord," you know, and people are trying to kill you, right? The evil genie gives you the worst version of this.

[00:03:18] So what I want you to do is write down right now, who do you wanna serve? And when you're figuring that out, just pretend that you're asking for this from an evil genie and the way you deal with the evil genie is you have to have enough adjectives that the evil genie's hands are tied, and it has to give you what you actually really deep down want. So like with our avatar, we want contribution focused entrepreneurs. We don't want jerks. Single family, residential, fee based, property management companies. That's pretty specific, and so it kind of dials it in. There's some other things that we look for that we've put into our client-centric mission statement, but figure out who do you wanna serve? And get that really clearly dialed in with enough adjectives so that if you said, for example: "I want investors in Phoenix, Arizona, you know, that have rental properties." You're like, "cool, I'm gonna give you the worst investors ever, super cheap, hate doing things. They're not even current on all their house payments. They're like the biggest punks ever, right? 'Cause that's what the evil genie's gonna give you.

[00:04:21] So add in enough adjectives that the evil genie hands are tied, and you're protected and you're safe because if you can combat the evil genie, that means you have enough detail there. It's specific enough that you, your unconscious, the universe, God, whatever you believe in or are into can actually give you something really specifically that you want, something very specific. So I want you to be very clear, because if you don't have that intention, you're likely to not get what you want, and I want you to be very intentional about what you do want and have that clarity, because the more clarity you have on what you want, the more likely you are to get it, and the more your unconscious mind or your subconscious can work on all the nitty gritty stuff to help make sure that happens and the more you're gonna be aligned and other people on your team can align and know what you're looking for and everything can go towards that, move towards that.

[00:05:17] Okay. Now, if you don't have clients you really love another issue may be your product. So in a property management business, your product is doing property management and servicing these investors. And so if you don't have clients that you are in love with that you love working with and love serving, you probably have a bad product. So after you have that avatar defined, that personality or that person defined that we just chatted about, and you're clear as to who you would really love to work with, then we need to make sure we have a product that really solves their problem. So I would make a list of all the problems that they have. What are all the problems that they have? What are all the challenges that they deal with with their rental property?

[00:06:00] And then after you make that list of problems-- If you're actually gonna do what I'm telling you to do-- next, turn all of those into solutions. What are all of the things that you do to solve these or could do to solve these? And then take a look at your product? Does it have all of this? Do you currently have all these elements? Because this will give you a bunch of great ideas for how you can improve your business, improve your operations, improve your product and your offering so that it is more attractive, more sexy to your ideal prospect. And so that's the next thing is improve your product because the better the product, the better the client you're going to have. Sometimes clients are just bad clients because the product isn't good enough.

[00:06:40] I've been there. We had a product that was pretty good. It was pretty good, but we had some clients would go through it and not do certain things, and then they would just say, "I just got a website and I didn't get all this other cool stuff," and so that could be a challenge. You want to make sure that you figure out what are all the challenges that some of our clients have or difficulties they have in implementation or in working with us, or rather than the easiest, best ones that just do what we tell them to do, what are some of the other ways we can deal with some of those others so we can turn more of our clients into clients that we love that get a good result?

[00:07:13] And that's something we continually focus on at DoorGrow. We're always optimizing our process. We are looking at even revamping our current program right now and revamping our offer. We're always improving that.

[00:07:25] So, improve your product. The next item is raise your pricing. So if you don't like the clients that you're getting, you might be dealing with a lot of price sensitive, cheap people. If that's the case, you probably are charging too little. It's also really difficult to enjoy your clients or like your clients, if they don't value you enough, and if they don't value you enough, then you need to increase your pricing and charge more money. Most property managers are priced based on the cheapos or the cheapest people in the marketplace. So one of the first things or leaks we want to dial in with our clients is revamping their pricing and making sure it's psychologically effective and helping them figure out: how can they get more money, more easily for more clients, like making sure their pricing is optimized so that they can close more deals at a higher price point more easily.

[00:08:14] So raise your pricing, and that's a lot easier to do if you have good lead flow, which we also help our clients focus on, but once you have enough business and leads coming in, you can get pickier and I want you to be pickier. One easy way to filter out the worst clients, the ones that don't value you, the ones that don't feel like you're worth the time or money to be paying is to raise your rates, raise your pricing. And if your clients have been happy over the last year, haven't had any major disruption to their safety and certainty, which is the thing they want most from a property manager, you can go ahead and disrupt that a little bit by raising your rates and raise your pricing.

[00:08:52] All right. The next item I wanted to talk about: if you do not love your clients, you can increase the qualifications and qualify your prospects better. So if you don't like your clients, you don't like all the people that are coming into your business, coming in through your sales pipeline, then filter. You need better filters, right? And I've talked about the "cycle of suck" and these other challenges where you take on bad clients and it leads to bad properties, and it leads to bad tenants, which leads to bad reviews, which leads to you attracting more bad clients, right? That's the cycle of suck. To escape that, you have to filter your clients.

[00:09:28] This is the crux of the beginning of any sales process. This is the most critical piece at the beginning of any sales process in your pipeline is to qualify prospects. In order to qualify prospects, you need to be clear on what you want. If you're not clear on what you want, which we talked about at the outset of this podcast episode, then you're not gonna be able to qualify people to see if they are what you want. So first, get very crystal clear on what you want. Then, get very crystal clear on what you do not want so that you can qualify these prospects and you can figure out: do they fit what we're looking for or do they not fit what we're looking for? Do they have red flags? Do they have things that we don't want?

[00:10:05] We don't want people that aren't current on their house payments. We don't want people that aren't willing to invest in a new water heater in the middle of winter or people that aren't willing to fix the HVAC challenge, you know, or whatever, right, people that are always broke or don't have the funds and we're always floating them, these kind of things. So make sure you qualify your prospects, ask good questions, interview them. The pickier you are with clients... in sales, this tactic is called prizing, and prizing in sales means you recognize you are the prize and you qualify the prospect and you filter them and you don't take on every client, and that actually makes you more attractive to potential prospects and more attractive to the clients you really would like to have.

[00:10:49] It increases their desire level. It makes you the "sexy guy or girl at the bar." They don't get with everybody. Right. That's why they're attractive. That's why people see they have value. They don't get with everybody. Nobody wants to get with that guy or girl at the bar, right? So I want you to be the sexy guy or girl at the bar, or at least your business to be so that it's picky. It doesn't get with everybody. It's very exclusive in determining who they wanna work with.

[00:11:15] A great book on that subject is _The Pumpkin Plan_ by Mike Michalowicz, who is somebody I've had on my podcast a couple of times. Great book, _Pumpkin Plan_. He talks about how it's important to weed out the bad pumpkins out of the pumpkin patch, so to speak, metaphorically, and to make sure that you're planting the right seed, which this is why we have a program called the seed program to grow your business, which is planting the right seed means your business has a chance of growing into the thing that you want. You cannot plant a crappy pumpkin seed and get a prize winning pumpkin. You have to plant a prize winning pumpkin seed breed of a plant in order for you to have a chance of getting a prize winning pumpkin, right? You cannot plant a pumpkin seed, for example, and get a giant Oak tree if that's your goal. You have to plant something that makes an oak tree. Is it an acorn? An acorn.

[00:12:05] So what I want you to do is start qualifying, get very clear. It needs to be written down, your qualifications for what are red flags and what are green flags for clients? So that when you are selling, you can objectively look at this piece of paper and make a decision. Do they have red flags? Do they have green flags? Do they look like a good candidate? Because it's really easy for us to lie to ourselves and justify to ourselves that this person might be a good fit or maybe we can make it work or it doesn't sound too bad. A lot of times, we sell ourselves on the client, and you want them to be selling themselves on you, like, "here's why I'd be a great client."

[00:12:43] Number five, the fifth thing: change your targeting. This goes back to the very beginning, but make sure that you're targeting to reach these customers, these avatars, these potential prospects is correct. So if you were focused on internet marketing, like SEO, pay per click, content marketing, social media marketing, stuff like that, you are going to attract a lot more of the cheapos that are more price sensitive, because these are the people that are searching online. They're at the end of the sales cycle, they're a little bit more price aware. They're out shopping around. That means word of mouth has not captured them. The best stuff is captured earlier in the sales cycle through word of mouth or other challenges, and if they don't know anybody, they don't have anyone to reach out to, there's nothing obvious, they're gonna now start doing research and they become more price sensitive.

[00:13:26] So usually the worst prospects are at the end of the sales cycle. So if you're targeting the wrong type of people, like we talked about the beginning or your targeting methods are off and your marketing methods or your acquisition methods are off, you're going to attract bad people or the wrong people. And so that is something else to take a look at, and we have really effective strategies that cost $0 in advertising costs. You don't have to do any advertising in order to grow your business more effectively by capturing people earlier in the sales cycle, in the blue ocean, rather than the red bloody water where all the sharks are fighting over the top spot on Google or for attention online, there's very little search volume for property management.

[00:14:07] It really hasn't grown much since 2004, which you can verify for yourself by going to look at trends.google.com. Put in 'property management.' Change the date range from 2004 to the present, and you will see property management search volume has not really increased much at all. If any, since 2004, yet competition there has increased dramatically. This is the red bloody water, all the sharks, biggest sharks, the biggest whales, biggest companies are all fighting for the best fish.

[00:14:35] It's super competitive, but there's this huge blue ocean, 70% that are self-managing. They're not even looking online yet. They don't even know they need property management yet, and there's ways to reach them and ways to get them on as clients. And you can charge more money. They're less price sensitive. You can close deals more easily at a higher price point. It's a lot better. And then you're creating market share for the industry instead of trying to steal it from another company or trying to get somebody that's self-managing that needs a property manager and fighting over all the other companies in that red water. So last, change your targeting.

[00:15:09] Those are some really quick, easy tips for if you don't like your clients, how to change them. You know, I'll add one bonus. One bonus one here is set better boundaries. This might be the most important one of all, if you are not happy with your clients, sometimes you created this monster. You made them into a bad client by not setting and establishing really good boundaries from the get go. You need to establish really good boundaries with your prospects and with your clients from the beginning, that "this is how things work. This is what we will stand for. No, Mr. Owner, we're not going to do that. And here's why," or "yes, we'd be happy to do that for you. Here's what that would cost," right?

[00:15:48] You need to set really good boundaries with your clients. And a lot of that is just really setting good boundaries around communication, how they can communicate with you, how they shouldn't really, most of the time need to communicate with you. They should trust you to take care of things. Setting good boundaries will change your life, so set good boundaries in your property management business. The difference in operational costs between poor boundary setters or really good boundary setters in terms of operational costs is night and day.

[00:16:16] We're talking like sometimes 10 times difference operational costs or really dramatic difference in profitability. The people that have bad boundaries, they're on the phones all day long. They have a team that are on the phones all day long, really bad boundaries, and it's really ineffective. They're talking to prospective tenants, they're talking to existing tenants, they're talking to prospective clients, they're talking to existing clients all day long. It's tons of communication. They're talking to vendors all day long. It's a nightmare. Really effectively set boundaries.

[00:16:43] I know property managers that are managing hundreds of doors with only one part-time person boots on the ground and one virtual assistant, and that's it. I know people that are doing that because they're not talking on the phone and they're only texting, and the only people they really talk to are prospective clients that they want to close deals with. They've got all these boundaries and systems and mechanisms in place and they're protected and insulated, and their business is quiet and it's very easy, right. It's a lot easier. In fact, One of them is the operator of my company. She has her own property management business, has around 200 doors and very easily is able to manage those while working the majority of the time in my business and helping support our team. Brilliant operator.

[00:17:30] So hopefully this helps you figure out how you can start to love your clients. Life's too short. You really should have clients that you enjoy working with. That is part of why you should have a business, is you get more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution. Like you're making a difference in the world. You wanna be doing those things with people that you enjoy being around, that you like, so work backwards, figure out who you would like to be working with, and then get more support from your team, and your team are gonna be far more motivated to support you effectively and help you get all four of these four reasons for having a business.

[00:18:05] And you're gonna get that fifth reason of safety certainty more for yourself if you have clients that you love and you build your business around that. And I know it sounds so simple, and it really can be. Figure out who you love and figure out how to get them and figure out how to please them and figure out how to get more of them and we can help you do that at DoorGrow. That's stuff we focus on every week with our clients. So reach out to us at doorgrow.com, and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.

[00:18:34] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:19:00] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 176: 9 Reasons You Might Not Need a Property Manager 0

Jun 28, 2022

Around 70% of single-family properties in the United States are self-managing. They don’t think they need a property manager. At DoorGrow, we wanted to create an enticing lead magnet for our clients by highlighting some of the things that property managers do (that most people do NOT want to do).

In today’s episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, provides 9 reasons why someone might not need a property manager and instead want to do everything themselves…

You’ll Learn…

[01:21] Why we Created this Idea for Leadgen

[02:26] The Reasons Why Someone Might Not Need a Property Manager

[05:04] Why Someone Would Want a Property Manager to Avoid Dangerous Situations

[06:14] How this Concept can Help You in Sales

Tweetables

“A lot of people that are coming to a property management website might be thinking, ‘do I need a property manager?’ If they're self-managing.”

“You might not need a property manager if you would love a part-time job, managing rental properties. Your full-time job just isn't enough. You just don't have enough to do on a weekly basis.”

“You might not need a property manager. If you love getting maintenance calls during your work week, during weekends, and during holidays, especially at night.”

“You can very easily during your sales process when you're talking with an investor, just say, ‘Hey, do you love doing these things?’ and just list out all the things that you do as a property manager.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] you might not need a property manager if you want to be on call anytime to deal with lockouts, move-ins, move-outs, deposit handling, et cetera. You like things that are suddenly urgent and immediate, interrupting your day. You can handle that. That's totally fun for you.

[00:00:20] All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:58] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:21] So today I wanna share with you an idea called "Reasons You Might Not Need a Property Manager." Okay, so give you a little backstory, add a client in Florida, and we wanted to make kind of a sexy lead magnet for his homepage to capture some leads. And so a lot of people that are coming to a property management website might be thinking, "do I need a property manager?" If they're self-managing, which is usually the biggest target audience, right? They're self-managers. So we wanted to directly attack or attach to that pain or that fear or that uncertainty that they have that, "maybe I don't need a property manager. I'm doing this myself," and they're unsure.

[00:02:03] So you could title this: Nine Reasons You Might Not Need a Property Manager. So let's go through these. You might find this a little fun. It's a little tongue in cheek. But you could do something like this as a lead magnet or in talking to your clients during your sales pitch or process, like let's figure out if you even need a property manager. You might not need one if these things are true.

[00:02:26] So #1: you might not need a property manager if you would love a part-time job, managing rental properties. Your full-time job just isn't enough. You just don't have enough to do on a weekly basis. You might not need a property manager, right? They would take that away from you.

[00:02:46] #2: you might not need a property manager. If you love getting maintenance calls during your work week, during weekends, and during holidays, especially at night.

[00:02:58] #3: you love finding vendors and coordinating times between them and the tenants. You enjoy the challenges of how difficult both parties can be to reach and creatively getting all three parties, you, the vendor, and the tenant in sync, right? That's fun. You might not need a property manager if you like negotiating all of that.

[00:03:17] #4: you might not need a property manager if you are totally comfortable with all the legal liabilities and risks of staying current on, navigating safely, and following all federal fair housing requirements, as well as local and state-level landlord and tenant laws. If that's the case, then you might not need a property manager.

[00:03:42] #5: you love showing property and are fantastic at screening tenants beyond just simple credit scores, and you know how to avoid common scams and can easily identify common, often overlooked red flags that will show in prospective tenants. So you might not need a property manager. They're really good at that, but if you're good at that, you don't need them.

[00:04:08] All right. #6: you might not need a property manager if you want to be on call anytime to deal with lockouts, move-ins, move-outs, deposit handling, et cetera. You like things that are suddenly urgent and immediate, interrupting your day. You can handle that. That's totally fun for you. You might not need a property manager.

[00:04:33] #7: you are comfortable visiting the property to do inspections, to ensure the property is being cared for, and you are comfortable dealing with the tenants complaining or potentially your safety being at risk because they're upset at you. You might not need a property manager, because you're just so awesome like you're just going to deal with these really difficult situations, tenants, and sometimes dangerous situations. You like little danger in your life. I just read a news article-- this is not funny-- an older article where a landlord was killed because they were doing things they probably shouldn't have been doing or dealing with a tenant in a way they probably shouldn't, and the tenant took matters into their own hands, right. So don't try to force yourself into a property if tenants could be armed. Right?

[00:05:24] So you might want a property manager in those situations, but you might not need a property manager if #8: You find it easy to be the bad guy. You love being the bad guy and performing rent collection when tenants aren't paying rent, and you are comfortable being the bad guy when people are making really sob story, heartfelt excuses. You like to be that bad guy. "You lost your job due to COVID? Cool. Well, I'm gonna be the bad guy and get you to pay rent." So if you love being the bad guy, then you might not need a property manager.

[00:06:01] #9: you might not need a property manager if you have no problem raising rent on your existing tenants each year to coincide with inflation to market growth... and we could go on and on and on. So this is a fun little idea for you property managers out there. You can very easily during your sales process when you're talking with an investor, just say, "Hey, do you love doing these things?" and just list out all the things that you do as a property manager. "Do you enjoy doing these pieces? Because if not, my guess is you really enjoy being an investor. You like having real estate investments, but you don't really enjoy being the property manager. So let us take that off your plate."

[00:06:43] And usually, if you ask these questions, they're gonna laugh. "Like do you love dealing with maintenance? Do you love dealing with tenants? Is that fun for you?" They're gonna say no. "No, that's not fun for me."

[00:06:53] "Cool. Let us take that off your plate."

[00:06:55] So I hope this sparked some ideas for you. I hope this is helpful. What ideas do you think I missed? Like, let me know. You can let us know in some of the comments or on our various channels where we post this video. Let us know: what else should we add to this list to expand this? Reasons somebody might not need a property manager, and that's it for today. So if you feel like you'd like to convince more people and get more clients that they do need a property manager, reach out to DoorGrow. We're really good at helping you do that. We'd love to help you grow and scale your business. And until next time, to our mutual growth, everybody. Bye.

[00:07:35] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:08:02] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 175: How Property Managers Can Lower Stress & Increase Productivity Through Biohacking 0

Jun 21, 2022

Owning a business can be really stressful, but there are ways to lower your stress levels as and increase productivity in your business. How? By developing your physical and mental health as the entrepreneur.

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull shares his biohacking techniques and secrets that have allowed him be happy, healthy, and enjoy his day-to-day in his business.

You’ll Learn…

[02:45] Getting Good Water

[05:56] How to Transform your Workouts

[09:22] Making Sure Your Body Recovers

[11:08] The Benefits of Walking… Just Walking

[13:33] 4 Ways to Improve your Lymphatic System

[17:26] The Benefits of Cold Showers and Red Light

[20:17] Making Time to Calm Yourself

[21:25] My Experience with Functional Medicine Doctors

[23:25] Leveling Up your Diet

Tweetables

“A lot of times we might not be focused on our health. We might not be thinking that that's a priority, but if you wanna make more money, in my opinion, it is essential.”

“Being a business owner is stressful in general, and there's a baseline level of pressure and noise that we experience running a business.”

“You need to build the business towards what you want and having the day to day that you want and having the life that you want. That's why we have businesses.”

“Walking doesn't increase stress response in the body. It tells your nervous system that you're calm and that things are okay. It shifts you out of that fight or flight stress response that we tend to shift into as entrepreneurs.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] So I've cut out greens and started on a carnivore diet and I started getting more into meat, getting liver in my diet, getting heart in my diet, and I've found that my inflammation has gone down, because plants, have a lot of oxalates and other things that plants use to protect themselves from getting eaten, and now I jokingly say to people "Plants are trying to kill you,"

[00:00:23] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:01:01] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We wanna transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:24] So today's topic is how property managers can lower their stress, increase productivity by focusing on health. And so a lot of times we might not be focused on our health. We might not be thinking that that's a priority, but if you wanna make more money, in my opinion, it is essential, and it's important in order to get to that next level. And you might be thinking, "I'm doing alright financially. I'm doing okay." But I guarantee you'll be doing a lot better if you focus on your health. So let's talk about this, and, you know, as property managers, what I hear-- feedback from my clients-- is that they deal with a lot of stress. They deal with a lot of challenges. Being a business owner is stressful in general, and there's a baseline level of pressure and noise that we experience running a business. And that baseline is higher and higher, usually as you grow your business, unless you get the right support and set up a business in a way that is gonna protect you.

[00:02:17] You can listen to one of my previous episodes where I talk about the four reasons for running a business and that secret fifth reason, but those four reasons for running a business really is fulfillment, freedom, contribution, and support, and that means you need to be taken care of. That's support, right? And you need to build the business towards what you want and having the day to day that you want and having the life that you want. That's why we have businesses. Otherwise, you might as well just go get a job. So here's some of the tools that I use:

[00:02:45] So one of the most simple, basic things is water, like making sure that you're getting hydrated. And so, my secret for having really good water, cause I'm a little bit of a water snob, is that I distill all of my water. Now, a lot of people are like, "Well, why would you do that? Why don't you just filter and reverse osmosis and all this stuff?" well, the reason I like to distill water is distilling water removes everything from the water, everything. It removes fluoride, which can screw up, like some of your hormone generating things like your pineal gland and calcifies that and other areas of your body. Right?

[00:03:22] So it removes heavy metals. It removes all sorts of chemicals. By distilling water, it turns it into steam. That steam is then cooled, and then it drips and comes out as pure water with nothing in it. Now, distilled water doesn't taste very good, right? So then I add back into that water, what I want to be in it. So real simple, you just go and get a bottle from Amazon of trace minerals. I have this water distilling machine. It takes, maybe about four hours. It does about a liter an hour. So it'll do about, I think, four liters of water or something like that. It's almost a gallon. And then, once it distills it into a pitcher, I dump that pitcher into a glass, water container. In general, you want your water stored in either glass or metal, stainless steel or something like that. You don't want it sitting in plastic. I avoid plastics as much as possible because they have hormone disruptors, and they can screw with your hormones and mess with your testosterone levels if you're a dude, mess with your estrogen levels if you're female.

[00:04:24] So I distill the water and then I add trace minerals back in, so the water tastes really good. Like I really like how it tastes. And you'll have to play around with how much to do because too much minerals doesn't taste great, and too little: it's gonna taste a little flat or weird, but that's how I get really good water, and then I know it doesn't have a lot of the garbage in it that is gonna come through the tap. So what's really interesting is you take that tap water, put in your distiller. Well, what you see left after using your distiller for weeks, you'll just see this cake of stuff of like calcification, chemicals, and gross stuff. And it's like kind of brown and white, and like, this is stuff that you don't want in your body and it smells. It doesn't smell good. This is what's in your water.

[00:05:07] So you can see people go and do some sort of electrolysis on water on some YouTube videos, and you'll see they'll hook metal up to water and they'll do electrolysis to it and all the stuff that's in the water, it will turn brown and like green and stuff like this, and it gets really gross, and that doesn't happen on distilled water. There's nothing for it to do that with. It really makes you think, "Well, maybe I should not be drinking all that garbage. Right. And it came in handy, like here in Austin, we had some issues with water during the freeze and some stuff that happened and we were getting notices like: "the water's not safe to drink. Make sure you boil your water. I'm like, well distilled water is boiled water, so there isn't an issue. It kills bacteria, it kills viruses, it kills germs, turning it into steam. So maybe you trust the municipal water, but. I don't., So that's that's first thing is basic water.

[00:05:56] The other thing is workouts. So let's talk about that. So I don't wanna spend a lot of time working out. Some people wanna spend an hour or two hours. Cool, but a lot of people use the excuse: "I don't have time to work out." Well, there's a really cool system. There's a book written by Dr. Jaquish, I think is how you say his name, but the book title is called Why Weightlifting is a Waste of Time: and so is Cardio, or something like that. That's not the exact title, but the idea he puts out is that you don't have to spend a ton of time. The ultimate goal is to achieve muscle failure. So what's the fastest way to achieve that, to force your muscles in your body in the state of growth?

[00:06:31] Well, he developed a system called the X3 bar, so you can just go to X, the letter X, the digit three, and then bar.com. And you can go get his system. It's like 500 bucks, I think, 600 bucks. I don't know. And it's everything that you need to develop your musculature and your body. And the workouts only take 10 to 15 minutes. So I'll work maybe about 10, 15 minutes. I can do it every day. If I want to, if I'm getting enough rest, I have enough recovery time. I can do a push workout one day, and I can do a pull workout the next day, and I can alternate. And then sometimes I take a day off just to recover or if I didn't get enough sleep, I'll take a day off. So that's the workout thing. So it's just bands. And the cool thing about the bands with the bar is you can lift a lot more weight than you can with free weights or doing weight lifting.

[00:07:22] You can lift a lot more weight because the bands are easier at the lowest points of movement where you are most likely to get injured. So I don't have injuries anymore, working out. It's better than when I used to work out with a trainer three times a week. And I'd be incredibly sore. You don't develop soreness, which is weird. I'm a little sore sometimes if I work out aggressively with it, but it's hard because in order for you to get sore, your body has to build up lactic acid. And that usually takes 30 minutes to an hour to really build up lactic acid. So there isn't enough time for you to develop lactic acid to get sore, which means you might think you're not getting enough or need to work out twice a day or like multiple times, or do extra reps or extra sets. You don't. Like it's intense enough, and I'm getting musculature gains. I'm growing and it's only 10, 15 minutes a day. I know it's crazy. Right. So X3 bar.

[00:08:14] It's got a hard metal bar. You can connect that then to a band. It has a plate that you stand on. I went the extra step and got the accelerator, which is kind of this vibration plate. They partnered with a company to do a vibration plate, which increases growth hormone. So I'm standing on this vibrating plate when I'm doing the workouts and you can do squats. You can do deadlifts, you can do bench press. All this with bands and at the lowest points of movement where you're most likely to get injured with free weights or doing weight lifting, it's the easiest with the band, but then you can exceed the weight that you would be able to do and go beyond that weight because the band gets harder the further that you push it or the more that you stretch it. And then, you can also just do partial movements. You do a full movement, then you do partial movements until you barely can move it and you hit complete failure. So you can do one set of each movement and get to complete failure really quickly and move on to the next movement. And it only takes a small handful of moments a day, and it is only 10, 15 minutes. So I love the X3 bar.

[00:09:22] Now, the other thing related to that is recovery. So how do I know if my body's recovered enough, if I'm not paying attention to soreness like I used to? So I use the Oura ring, which is spelled O-U-R-A, I believe, the Oura ring. So a lot of celebrities are using this. This is a device that, it's actually a little computer ring. And it's got little diodes and things that measure, and at night I'll see it in the dark. I'll see it glowing green around my finger. It's measuring my heart rate. It's measuring like what's going on with my heart, and it tracks this throughout the day. It tracks my sleep patterns and it gives me a score the next day of a readiness score. It gives me a sleep score. It measures activity, so it helps me know, based on my heart rate while I'm sleeping and my resting heart rate, whether or not I'm recovered enough to do my next workout.

[00:10:16] And if I'm getting good enough sleep and good enough nutrition, it's never an issue. Like I'm pretty much ready to workout every day. And so, I like the Oura ring. It helps me know whether or not I should take it easy. I had a late night the other night, having to drive out to pick my fiance up from the airport and it was late. I got back late, and I didn't get enough sleep, so I didn't work out the next day because my readiness score and sleep score was obviously bad and I needed more time to recover. So you can pay attention to those kind of things. If you're sick, things like that, it'll, show up that you're not really ready or you didn't recover. Your heart rate was elevated while you were sleeping. So that was recommended to me by my functional medicine doctor, and it's been a game changer for me in helping me to get good sleep. So sleep is the next big hack is making sure that you get really good sleep so that you have really good recovery.

[00:11:08] Now, the other thing that I try to do is get about 10,000 steps a day of walking, just walking, not running, walking. Walking, doesn't increase stress response in the body. It tells your nervous system that you're calm and that things are okay. It shifts you out of that fight or flight stress response that we tend to shift into as entrepreneurs. And so walking really can have a calming effect. It also is a form of bilateral stimulation, which is used in EMDR therapy, which helps you deal with emotional stress response and emotional issues. So I like to get a walk in., Usually I try to go for a walk in the morning, and then I might try to go for a walk in the evening. And I also have a walking treadmill from a company called lifespan. So underneath me right now, I'm standing on it. There is a treadmill underneath my standing desk. So I highly recommend standing desks so that you're standing. But if you want to even step it up even more, literally, get a walking treadmill so that you can walk throughout the day.

[00:12:08] You can control it from a little panel on your desk and you can get some steps in and movement while you're walking and maybe kind of multitask just a little bit. Right. You're walking, getting some stuff done. I noticed it's a little distracting for clients on calls, so I've been trying not to do that during calls, and do it in between or on calls that maybe are with my team or don't matter maybe as much, because it's kind of distracting to see somebody walking and everybody comments on it every time, so I'm just, I'm tired of having people just comment like, "Hey, what are you doing?" "Walking on a treadmill." And then it turns into a conversation about how cool my treadmill is, and then they want to know about it, and I want to get into whatever we're talking about. Right.

[00:12:44] So, but getting some walks in the morning resets your spine. It gets your digestive tract going. It helps you have healthy bowel movements, like all of these mechanisms, our bodies were made to move and walk, so I recommend you go for a walk in the morning. You get that sunlight. Sunlight is another health hack. It gives you vitamin D. It helps body processes. Your eyes are attuned to sunlight. So also getting sunlight in the morning when you go for a walk and on your skin, both. Have been proven to help your body set its circadian rhythm and to get better energy and better sleep and biological processes happen. So going out into the sunlight, getting some sunlight on your eyeballs and on your skin and going for a walk is healthy. I like to do it without a shirt on, so I get even more vitamin D, but that may not be you.

[00:13:33] Walking also helps your lymphatic system. So the other things I do for health, let's talk about the lymphatic system. Lymphatic system is often neglected, but it's the drainage system in your body. It's the sewage system, and if the sewage system in your house is backed up and not healthy, everyone's gonna be sick in that house, right? It's gonna be gross. Well, that's most people's bodies. They don't have a healthy lymphatic system. So in my office, I have a rebounder. It's a little trampoline that can help flush the lymphatic system because the lymphatic system doesn't move on its own. You need to be walking or moving or jumping can help flush the lymphatic system. Even jumping for like two to five minutes can really help flush the lymphatic system and make it healthier.

[00:14:13] The other thing that I'll do in the morning is I will do dry brushing. So it's a natural brush. It's a brush that's made for skin brushing or dry brushing. This has been used by Chinese cultures for like thousands of years, I guess, but you basically brush your entire skin surface of your entire body. So I'll brush, you know, my face, my neck, like everything. And what I find is it gets the lymph moving. It gets my body feeling a lot healthier. And so I do that before I even go for a walk in the morning, I will do dry brushing, and brush my entire body so that it makes the skin really soft. It removes dead skin cells. It helps your skin have better oxygenation and breathe, keeps you younger. The lymphatic system is what keeps you looking and feeling young a lot of times and gives you more energy if it's healthy and clean, because it's able to remove waste and toxins and congestion and build up in the body. So getting that, using rebounder, going for walks, dry brushing are ways to improve that, and the other thing that I'll use to help my lymphatic system is a sauna.

[00:15:21] So I have a infrared sauna. I got one of those 360, lay down, portable saunas. It looks kind of like a rounded tube or coffin I can lay in and I pull the top part over me. What's really nice about that versus these big room saunas that are really expensive is those big room infrared saunas? The problem is there's no lights or heat generated directly onto the areas where you're sitting on the backs of your legs, on your buttocks, on your hamstring area, on your calves, like there's no light there. Sometimes it's just hitting you from the side, maybe from the front, but I don't feel like it's full. So this is 360. It has a mat with heat and lights. Mine has like rocks of like tourmaline and something else. I don't know, but it's supposed to help with some infrared things and have some benefits. I got mine from-- like a luxury version-- from 1Love Health. So you can check that out at digit one. It's the digit number one and then love health.com. So I got one of their luxury models. It's like black. It's supposed to be low EMF. It's supposed to be low toxicity, like it doesn't have a lot of toxic materials, because when you heat up materials, that can be bad.

[00:16:35] So it's supposed to be really good. I did a lot of research. That's the one that I use and I just have it up on like on a bed in my guest bedroom, in the house. I use that at night. So one of my favorite things to do to end my day is I do my sauna. I do it for like 30 minutes, pretty much at the highest heat setting. You lay down towels on it. So it takes up all the sweat, and I sit in that for about 30 minutes, then I'm really hot and sweaty. The nice thing about that as well is your head can be out. That's too much heat for like your head to be in. Right. So I keep my head out and I can tolerate that a lot longer. I still sweat. My head's sweating. Everything's sweating. Right. I sweat a ton. And then I get out, I drink a whole bunch of water to replace everything that I just lost. And then I take a cold shower.

[00:17:26] So cold showers are one of my other secret hacks. So if you shift your body temperature quickly like that, and you do cold, I find I sleep amazingly well, so I do a cold shower, which feels great after doing all that heat and is also really good for you. Cold also helps attack with like brown fat, which eats up all the fat that you want to go away. And so increasing brown fat helps to increase your body's ability to burn fat and increases your metabolism. So doing a cold shower after a hot sauna feels really great, and then I sleep like a baby and you sleep really well. It's increased my sleep score that shows up on my Oura ring. I have deeper sleep. My recovery is amazing since I've started doing the sauna. My lymphatic system is way healthier since doing the sauna. Highly recommend it. Sweating is super good for you. It releases a lot of gross stuff, a lot of toxins, and then doing those cold showers really helps me cool down, which is important. I'm not gonna go to bed all super sweaty, right? It helps me cool down. And a lot of other health benefits related to that: reduces pain, reduces inflammation, increases recovery.

[00:18:32] So that's my secret hack for super sleep and super recovery is hot sauna, 30 minutes, cold shower maybe 10, 15 minutes until I feel like I'm just used to the water I'm comfortable and I'm no longer feeling hot and sweaty. And then I go to bed. The other thing that's really been helpful that I do in the morning while I'm dry brushing is I have a red light panel, and I got two of the biggest ones available from the best company, which is Platinum LED, platinumled.com I believe is their website, and I got two of their largest panels. I have them connected together. It only really hits the middle of my body. So I will do 20 minutes front, and then I'll turn around and do 20 minutes on my back. I just stand there naked and do my red light. I do this in the morning before I go on my walk. I'll do my dry brushing sometimes while I'm doing that, or right after I do my dry brushing, I'll do the red light. The red light helps boost your metabolism. It helps your mitochondria. It helps improve your health functions. It increases collagen production, so you have healthier prettier skin if you want that. It's been proven to have like some help with hair loss and some of these kind of things. But there's a lot of benefits to the red light. Some are anecdotal, some are proven by science, but red light seems to be really great. It also helps burn fat and other things.

[00:19:55] So I'll do 20 minutes of red light front, 20 minutes of red light back. Sometimes, maybe every other day or once or twice a week, instead of doing front and back, I do side and side. So I'll hit the side of my body and then hit the other side of my body and do the red light so that I'm hitting in other, other areas that aren't normally getting hit.

[00:20:17] So those are several things that I'm doing for health. Now let's talk about also just calming yourself down. One of the things that I do is I have a membership with a float spa, so I go and do float sessions. So if you've never been in a deprivation tank or float spa, what they do is you basically lay in really warm water. It's like over body temperature just slightly, and so it's really comfortable to be in and the air is warm, and it closes on you and it's a pod. And usually it's lit up at first. You lay in it, but it's full of a lot of magnesium. There's a lot of magnesium epsom salts, basically in the water-- high grade magnesium, which is super good for your body. It's absorbed through the skin. It's calming, really calming and there's a lot of health benefits. Most people are magnesium deficient, just look up magnesium deficiency symptoms, and look at the list of symptoms. It's pretty bad, and there's a lot of people that are very deficient in magnesium, and they're focused on trying to solve those problems with weird, like, you know, drugs and things, and they're going to doctors and like have all these problems. And a lot of these things probably could be solved by magnesium deficiency.

[00:21:25] So I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice, but I do recommend that you go get a doctor and I recommend you get a functional medicine doctor, which is a standard medical doctor with better skills at identifying how your body will function and how things affect you, and they don't just focus on drugs and surgery. They focus on getting you tested to figure out what supplements, what nutrition, what gaps, what do you need, what might be going on in your body? For example, I had some heart issues going on and I went to a functional medicine doctor-- tested me, found out I was magnesium deficient, and that was causing my heart to have palpitations, and if I had gone to a standard doctor, they probably would've put me on all sorts of drugs and statins and other things. And I had a client who that's what happened, and he said, "I felt worse." So I was having some arrhythmia symptoms. So my Apple watch was saying you're having heart arrhythmia stuff going on. My heartbeat was getting really elevated. I didn't know why.

[00:22:21] Part of it was because I had started-- I saw some sort of body building thing, fitness thing that said, "Hey, you should take dextrose or maltodextrin after a workout to spike insulin, like to get more muscles, and I was like, "that's a great idea." So I was taking sugar basically, which I didn't realize at the time, but I had candida overgrowth, or yeast overgrowth in my body. I probably had it for a long time and that just fed it. And then, the candida ate the magnesium that my body needed. And so my heart didn't have what it needed to function healthily and properly, and then I was getting like these issues. this is all hindsight, 2020, after going to a functional medicine doctor, getting tested, finding out I had candida overgrowth. I was magnesium deficient. Heart issues went away almost immediately by taking really high grade magnesium supplements. And then I started taking some herbs and cutting out sugar to eliminate the candida overgrowth. Eventually tested that that was dealt with and no longer an issue.

[00:23:20] Candida was also producing a lot of toxins in the body that were giving me migraines and headaches, so I also took Calcium glucarate or some sort of supplement like this that my functional medicine doctor recommended. That also helped to detoxify because it can pass the blood brain barrier and it helped to detox the head and my brain, so I wasn't getting those headaches anymore. And after a while, I didn't have those issues. If I'd gone to a standard doctor, who knows, I might be dead. So I'm really grateful for my functional medicine doctor, shout out to Dr. Roy.

[00:23:52] The other thing that I would recommend is I've shifted-- so I used to do green smoothies. I was a big pro bono to green smoothies because I thought greens were the healthiest, most nutritious thing. So I was doing tons of green, lots of spinach, lots of kale in my smoothies, which is really hard for humans to digest. It's really hard on our gut. We are not chimps or apes or whatever that eat tons and tons of plants. Well, apes like gorillas eat tons and tons of plants have a big belly that just ferments and they eat, like tons and tons of this stuff a day, right? To get the protein that they need in order to have the musculature that they have. We're not wired that way. And so I've cut out greens, cut out green smoothies and started on a carnivore diet based on stuff that I'd seen from people like the Liver King on Instagram and YouTube Carnivore MD, which I've seen on Instagram and YouTube. And I started like getting more into meat, getting liver in my diet, getting heart in my diet, getting these things.

[00:24:53] And I've found that my inflammation has gone down, because plants, have a lot of oxalates and other things that plants use to protect themselves from getting eaten, and now I jokingly say to people around me, "Plants are trying to kill you, because plants really are trying to protect and defend themselves except the fruit part of the plant. Seeds though, a lot of times have a lot of toxic stuff and are not really great for you. Usually plant's goal is to get you to eat the fruit or animals, eat the fruit, and then poop those seeds and spread those seeds around or spit those seeds out or spread those seeds around so they can procreate and grow or whatever they do. Right. So I've found that by cutting out greens and cutting out the toxins and focusing on more of a carnivore diet along with some fruit and you know, more natural based things like that. I have a lot less stress, a lot less inflammation, lot less headaches, a lot less joint issues. I'm a lot healthier, and I'm 44. I'm turning 45 this year people. And I get asked all the time. People are always surprised when I tell 'em how old my oldest kid is that they're 20. And they're like, "you have a 20 year old. How old are you?" Right. So... "what are you doing? What's your secret?" I don't know, maybe it's some of these things, right?

[00:26:07] So as far as food, I eat a lot of meat. I try to get liver and heart in my meat. There's blends like different blends of hamburger or Buffalo meat that has heart and liver in it. Those are my favorite and I try to cook it as little as possible. I've even eaten it totally raw before. I know that sounds crazy, but there's proponents of eating raw meat. To me, I like it cooked a little bit and I keep the middle really as raw as possible, and I like to add-- what I like to do is add a little sauerkraut on it and then add maple syrup, like really dark like real maple syrup and I had a little bit of that and it's so good. So that's what I eat.

[00:26:49] I've mentioned float sessions. I've mentioned food. I've mentioned functional medicine doctor. I think I've covered all the major things that I use. So, I'd love to hear from you. What hacks do you use? What do you use? Comment it below on any of these videos, if you see this on YouTube comment below. If you see this on Facebook or Instagram, comment below, but I'd love to hear what do you do to improve your health and lower your pressure noise? And if you're a property manager that's stressed out, if you take care of these things and you feel healthier, you have more attention, you'll be able to deal with more problems without them derailing you. You'll be able to deal with more stress, and you'll have a much healthier and happier life, and you'll be able to grow your business and enjoy your day to day.

[00:27:32] So that is my tips for today. I hope this has been helpful for everybody to get an update on the stuff that I'm using and doing to hack health and my biohacking tendencies... the other thing is I, I block a lot of blue light during the day, unless I'm outside in sunlight. So I'll wear yellow glasses during day. I'll also wear orange glasses or red glasses at night to block out blue light. So I get good sleep, and I think that's about it. So we'll go ahead and end this there, and until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

[00:28:03] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:28:30] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 174: Property Management Software - The Ultimate Stack 0

Jun 14, 2022

Property management growth expert, Jason Hull, has coached and helped hundreds of property management entrepreneurs change their businesses and lives. After all this time observing the industry, he offers an outside perspective on the kinds of software every PM entrepreneur needs.

In this episode, Jason Hull describes the ultimate stack of software for property management entrepreneurs, from the back office and maintenance to process documentation and hiring.

You’ll Learn…

[03:00] The Best Back Office PM Software

[05:26] Managing Maintenence Requests

[08:11] Doing Showings with Tenant Turner, ShowMojo, and Rently

[10:00] Inspection Software and Sales CRMs

[12:08] What you Need for Processes, Task Management, and Hiring

[18:26] Why to Use the Profit First System

Tweetables

“I don't use property management software because I don't actually manage rental properties, right? But I have talked to thousands of property managers, and so I am kind of like the magic fly on the wall.”

“Leads are really only good for about the first five minutes.”

“I want to be able to pick the best tools because software's way cheaper than people.”

“Shift away from one-off showings to open houses. This is going to be significant in collapsing time there. It creates a sense of false scarcity.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] I want to be able to pick the best tools because software's way cheaper than people, so even some of the most expensive software might only cost you maybe a thousand or 2000 bucks a month, right, if it were really expensive. People usually cost you more than a thousand or 2000 bucks a month.

[00:00:14] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income.

[00:00:51] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show.

[00:01:14] So we're going to talk about the ultimate property management software stack. I get this question all the time, property management software, "what's the ultimate stack?" Or "what software should I use?" Or "I've heard about this," or "we're using this, is this the best?" And I don't use property management software, right? I don't use property management software because I don't actually manage rental properties, right? But I have talked to thousands of property managers, and so I am kind of like the magic fly on the wall that's gotten more info and I don't think there's any other coach, anybody else out there that has the insight or the views or knowledge that I have. And so let me share with you just based on the feedback that I've gotten from property management business owners, my nerdiness related to software (I'm kind of nerdy.) This is what if I were starting property management company, this is the stack that I would use. And I don't think I have relationships with any of these, so they're not paying me to say this. One of the vendors might give me some sort of incentive or something if I send them business, but I don't even know if they're sending me stuff. I don't pay attention to it.

[00:02:25] So, here's kind of the ultimate stack based on what I know right now. And somebody may be watching this and they might think, "there's something better, Jason." If you know that there's something better, comment what you love and what you use and what you think is the ultimate stack. If you're a software geek, if you're a research geek, if you put in a lot of time and energy into this, I'd love to hear from you because I'm always looking for what's best for my clients and for everybody in the industry at large. So for single family, residential property management companies, which is largely the target audience that I focus on, this is the ultimate stack.

[00:03:00] So first, basic, you need some sort of back office property management software. This is going to help you with the accounting piece and keeping track of all your rental properties. This is going to be the main sort of foundational piece in your business software- wise. , Usually I would recommend rentmanager.com. So Rent Manager... I just, I hear the most positive feedback on Rent Manager. And so I recommend that you take a look at that software. Now, I know it's really hard to switch software, so if you are using AppFolio or Buildium or Rentec Direct or Propertyware, or-- gosh, what else is out there? I don't know-- any of these tools, I'm not telling you, you should go switch software. Yeah. You know, it's hard. It's really hard to switch software, and usually people spend a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy to switch software only to notice the other software is missing some things that they liked in the previous one or has some other problems.

[00:04:03] And so that's not generally super effective to do that. So the reason I like Rent Manager, let me explain this and maybe a little bit about why I don't like some of the others, right. Some of the challenges. One of the most common is AppFolio. So one of the reasons I wouldn't choose AppFolio is because AppFolio does not have an open API. Now granted, they have a lot of tools, right? So maybe you don't need it is the justification, but I like to pick the best tools. I don't want one Jack of all trades master of none, maybe master of some, maybe master of a few. I want to build the ultimate stack, and if I'm going to build the ultimate stack, that means I need to be able to pick and choose and create my ultimate Swiss army knife, my ultimate multi-tool, the ultimate thing that I want. And so I want to be able to pick the best tools because software's way cheaper than people, so if I can pick a software, even if it's more expensive or it's additional, instead of translating or transferring that cost onto the shoulders of humans and staffing costs, and I can just mitigate a little bit of staffing costs, it's totally worth it to me. So even though some of the most expensive software might only cost you maybe a thousand or 2000 bucks a month, right, if it were really expensive, people usually cost you more than a thousand or 2000 bucks a month, unless you're getting part-time people or people in the Philippines or something.

[00:05:26] Then usually you need something on the maintenance side, and this is usually maybe once you're at maybe 50 to maybe 150 doors, somewhere in that range. But at some point, you want some leverage when it comes to maintenance coordination. I hear great feedback from Property Meld. Now, these guys, when I did a podcast episode with them, we set up some sort of thing. I think it's still active. It'll send them a lead. They might give me a kickback on it. I can't remember. Property Meld, if you're listening, you should be giving me kickback for this still, but I don't even pay attention to it. But if you go to doorgrow.com/maintenance, long time ago, I set up a quiz. So if you go to this website, I set up a little quiz that you can take, and it will give you, I believe a 10% discount if you fill that out with Property Meld. But Property Meld, what's really cool about Property Meld is basically it's a three-way text message system between you, the tenant, and the vendor.

[00:06:26] And so this allows all three of you to be communicating, and it allows you to see the communication between the tenant and the vendor, which them communicating directly speeds things up like dramatically. There's that transparency that you can see how they're doing and see how it's going. So that's on the maintenance side. Now with Property Meld, they have a relationship, I believe still that if you get their full service, then also that's pairing it with EZ-- spelled E and then Z, which is sort of a cute, clever name that they probably should rebrand, but EZ Repair Hotline. I don't know if it's ezrepair.com or easyrepairhotline.com. Hopefully my team could figure that out when they do the show notes, (it's https://www.ezrepairhotlinellc.com) but EZ Repair and if you talk to Property Meld and get their full service, I guess that's who they use and that's what's included--

[00:07:18] EZ Repair is a call center service. It was founded by Andy Shin. He's been on the podcast before. He used to manage the call center for AAA, so he knows what he's doing. His team's based out of Vegas. And my understanding is they've really improved since he started the business, and they were a lot more affordable than Night Tenders, which became Super Tenders, which I think became Abodea or something like that. So my understanding is that they're are a lot more affordable, and they're comparable. They're pretty decent and pretty good at what they do, and that they made a lot of strides to get even better over time. So I would check out EZ Repair along with that, and what they do is they handle the calls. So they handle your maintenance calls. So then you'll have that for your maintenance calls, and that's going to take a load off of your plate as well. So, that's on the maintenance side.

[00:08:11] The other tool in my ultimate stack if I were making a property management business is: I would get Tenant Turner, and that is just at tenantturner.com. You've got some competitors in this space. You've got Rently, you've got ShowMojo. I've heard good feedback recently on ShowMojo from some people. It seems like they do a pretty decent job. They've also got a call center where they'll field, I think the phone calls, I don't know, related to the rental properties, but Tenant Turner is probably the tool that I would go with as of right now. I've met some of the principals at that business. I like them. I feel like they're stand up guys and ethical. I believe I've had them on my podcast, but I like Tenant Turner, and that's probably what I would go with. So, that would be on the leasing side, and the smart thing to do on the leasing side, quick bone I'll throw out to everybody there is to shift away from one-off showings to open houses.

[00:09:05] This is going to be significant in collapsing time there. It creates a sense of false scarcity, I guess, you know, lots of tenants coming at the same time. Do a 30 minute window. Just do it one weekday in the evening and one weekend day, and do it for a 30 minute window for each and everybody that wants to see that property goes to that, and Tenant Turner can help make sure people are reminded, they show, it can pre-screen, um, allows people to book that time and that sort of stuff, so I would go with Tenant Turner.

[00:09:38] Let me think if there's anything else I would use. I mean, this is kind of the core stack. You've got the main leasing side thing, which would be Tenant Turner and then you've got the maintenance, which are the two big sort of wings of the property management business or challenges. And then you've got your PM back office, which would be Rent Manager. So that would be kind of the core what I would do. Then you need some sort of inspection software. I don't get a lot of feedback on that, but I know there's zInspector I've heard good things about. There's Happy Inspector. There's Inspect & Cloud, and I'm sure all of those integrate with Rent Manager and probably all the other software out there, so I would pick one of those. I would take a look at those, and I would probably have some sort of inspection software as well. And that's going to be a pretty good stack for your business.

[00:10:27] Oh, there's one other software here I would probably recommend as of right now, that would be a sales CRM. As of right now, that would be LeadSimple. So LeadSimple is, as far as I know, the only property management sales CRM. There might be some others that can pull in leads and are okay, but LeadSimple's claim to fame is that if a lead comes in through your web form or your website, you can set up to parse the email, pull the phone number, out and initiate a phone call right away, because leads are really only good for about the first five minutes really, maybe the first 10, but you need to follow up within the first five minutes and then people are impressed. The lead's still hot, it's fresh, and it's not gone stale, to give you some other analogies here, but you want to follow up right away because otherwise, they're going to move on to the next company, and the first property manager that they talk to or that talks to them is more likely to get the deal.

[00:11:19] So, And if you're spending money on lead generation, which I don't recommend, but if you're spending money on like advertising, which I don't recommend there's better ways to grow your business, but if you're spending a bunch of money on advertising, you are wasting a massive amount of money into a leaky sales funnel if you don't have something like LeadSimple, or you aren't following up on leads within the first five to 10 minutes. So that can be effective as well. I send them so much business, they should be sending me some sort of kickback. So LeadSimple, if you hear this, you should be sending me some money, people, 'cause I send you a lot of business. All right. But yeah, I would check out LeadSimple. They have also a workflow built into their platform. That's kind of a, I guess, a competitor to Process Street. Personally, I don't know, Lead Simple's tools, so I can't recommend it, but internally we use Process Street.

[00:12:08] I really like Process Street for processes. This is their website: it's process.st. I've had them on the podcast as well, but I really like Process Street. We use it internally. It's great for creating process documentation, but also for using as a checklist to run through that process, and it records an instance for each checklist every time somebody runs through that and uses that process. And so it's like having a clipboard with check boxes they have to go through each time they do that particular task. Except it's not a clipboard, it's digital. So I like Process Street a lot. You can get really complex with it or you can get really simple. And so we use Process Street internally. I highly recommend it. I like it. Now, I'm hearing some really good feedback lately.

[00:12:55] You also need some sort of task management system just for one off tasks. So there's a lot of people that will use something like Asana. Now, some people are, instead of using Process Street, which is really robust. They'll use something that's maybe not as robust, but has similar functionality to that and Asana, and that's Monday. So I'm hearing some really great things about monday.com for basically largely task management and maybe repetitive processes. Okay, so you may want to check out monday.com for your internal processes. Asana does have repeating tasks and has templates, so you can have sort of formulas of things, but I don't think it has the functionality of people following through a process and being able to show like screen recordings and screen captures and screenshots and steps and Process Street, you can build all that stuff in.

[00:13:49] I don't know if Monday can do that also, but Monday does allow you to kind of see where things are in a stage in a workflow and have stages and stuff. So for you know, really large pools of processes that are being worked on, like maybe you have like 20 properties you're onboarding, you can have an instance of Monday of each, similar in Process Street. In Asana, you would just build out like clone templates, probably. So these are these are some of the tools that I would be taking a look at seriously. If I were to start a property management biz.

[00:14:23] And now the other thing that I would recommend that a property management business is eventually once you have a team, you're going to need some sort of planning system, and we've built what I believe is the ultimate software planning system. We call that DoorGrow OS. OS stands for 'operating systems.' So there's a lot of talk about like EOS which is from like Traction or Rocket Fuel, these books. And, these are good books. It's a good system. These are good ideas. I really feel though that the flaw in this is It's built too much around the entrepreneur is what they claim, but it's not actually built around the entrepreneur. EOS is really built around the idea of the integrator, and the integrator is like the most critical piece in this system. And an integrator really is a glorified operations person that they're also putting over and it should be running your cadence and running your planning, but they're putting over sales and marketing and usually operators should not be over sales and marketing. It's a big tactical mistake in business. And it also is a very top-down system instead of the team kind of, it's, it it plays into the ego of most entrepreneurs thinking they're the visionary and everybody has to do things that they want. And it's very top down.

[00:15:45] DoorGrow OS is more bottom up. It allows you to have your entire team focused on the goals of the business based on what the biggest needs of the business are and the biggest needs of the entrepreneur are. And so, DoorGrow OS is really entrepreneur centric, visionary centric, which it's your business, and then we build the ultimate team and planning and cadence around you so you're going to have a business that actually gives you more freedom, more fulfillment, more contribution, and more support the bigger it gets instead of the reverse. There's some other flaws with EOS, like I don't like their accountability chart where they've got visionary and then integrator, and then the entire team answers to the integrator. I think that's the most dangerous business model ever. You're putting somebody in a position of power in which the entire team are loyal and connected to them. And they're probably not good at being over all of these different department. They basically, if they were or could be, they don't need you. 'Cause they could just chop off that top layer off the accountability chart, which is just a fancy word for an org chart in EOS and eliminate you and they can start their own business, right, if they really are that good.

[00:16:50] So you need a really good planning system. I recommend DoorGrow OS it's really cool system. And then the other thing is you need eventually if you're really wanting to scale and grow your business and you're growing quickly, like a lot of our clients do, you will need an ATS or an applicant tracking system. And so we have our system, which is DoorGrow ATS. And so, this is the ultimate hiring system for a business. We have some really cool stuff coming related to this, but this allows you to basically get really great people and get what I call the three fits, which is having the ultimate hire where they match all three fits, where they're a culture fit, skill fit, and personality fit for your team, and usually the most important of those three is cultural fit. Most people hire just based on what the business needs and based on skill that is needed, so they get a skill fit. But they're not the right personality sometimes for the position, so they're not going to actually be great at it.

[00:17:51] They're maybe not a good culture fit, which means they don't share your values and won't do things in a way that you would feel safe with. And so you'll never fully trust them. And so right now, if you have a team member that's just not great, I guarantee, they're probably not a culture fit or they're probably not a personality fit. Skill fit or intelligence, they just, maybe they're too dumb to do it. Most likely not. They might just not be the right personality and might not be the right cultural fit. So DoorGrow ATS is another system that would need to be built out in the business. And there's several other systems I've talked about on previous episodes that a business might need in the business.

[00:18:26] And I'll throw out one other system that we use in our business that I'm a big fan of, and that is Profit First. We have some other tools like my CEO metrics and some other stuff that my team report in, but I really like, you know, as a basic level, really healthy accounting system, I like the Profit First system. I've had mike Michalowicz the author of the book Profit First on a previous podcast episode. I recommend you check that out if you're running into cashflow issues, if you're having trouble paying your team, if you've run into any of these problems that are very typical in early stage businesses or with entrepreneurs. I've been there. You've probably been there. I highly recommend implementing the Profit First system in your business. It's really simple to implement. It's just getting some additional bank accounts set up and then as money comes in, divvying it up into these different bank accounts based on percentages and making sure that you're taking out a percentage for profits so that you are profitable first and then what's left over one of those will be expenses. And so I recommend taking a look at that. So these are some of the systems that I think would help too.

[00:19:31] If I were building the ultimate stack for the ultimate problem management business, these are the things that I would take a look at. And then really, it's about getting really great people and building a really great team so that you have awesome team members. Yeah. So that's going to create the ultimate business and that we want to build the ultimate business around you. So if you're struggling or trying to figure out how to grow your business, you are running into the bottleneck where you feel like you are the biggest bottleneck in the business, you feel like you're always having to micromanage your team, you're trying to get them motivated, trying to get them to do the right things. I really think you could use our scale program in our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind, and we would love to talk with you. We easily will help pay for the program just by helping you to cut costs, increase the efficiency of your team. Usually, I can get people three times the output from their team or cut their staffing costs in half or by a third, depending on what your goal is, we can increase that. And then we also want to increase your level of what I call the four reasons. You're getting more freedom, more fulfillment, more contribution, and more support.

[00:20:36] So we will realign the business around you and realign the team. So anyway, reach out to us at DoorGrow. Check us out at doorgrow.com and until next time everybody to our mutual growth. I hope you crush it. Take care, everyone.

[00:20:49] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

Download this Episode

DGS 173: Learning at 800-1200 Doors: The Savvy Property Management Entrepreneur 0

Jun 7, 2022

If you have made it to the 800-1200 door range as a property management entrepreneur, you have likely found strategies, essential connections, and executive team members that have helped your business grow and scale.

However, even at this stage, savvy entrepreneurs tend to find themselves dealing with problems. Join property management growth expert, Jason Hull, in the final addition to the DoorGrow Avatars Series as he details the common issues PM entrepreneurs face at 800-1200 doors.

You’ll Learn…

[01:19] Defining the Savvy Property Management Entrepreneur

[03:46] How to Deal with Burnout and Building an Executive Team

[05:00] Learning from Smaller Property Managers

[07:49] Implementing the Ultimate Planning System

[09:06] Transitioning to the Business of Your Dreams

Tweetables

“At the 800 to 1200 door range, these are savvy property management entrepreneurs. They are savvy at running a team. They're savvy in their business.”

“As you come up through this DoorGrow scale that I've been talking about of these different stages in the life cycle, you gradually are being more connected to other savvy people and mentors.”

“It's helpful for you to be around these smaller and more nimble property management businesses, because these businesses, they can implement stuff quickly.”

“One of the best tips I can have is you need to get a really efficient operating system in place.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] This is better. This is going to allow your team to be involved in decision-making instead of you being so top down, trying to tell everybody what the goals are and what they should be doing right? Because that means you're dragging them up the mountain. They're like all sitting in a wagon and you're clearing the path ahead and trying to drag them up to the goal.

[00:00:17] We want to get the team pulling you in the wagon. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:55] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:19] So today we're going to be continuing on that series of these different stages in the life cycle of being a property management entrepreneur. So this might be way beyond where you can even maybe imagine your business at right now, but we've gotten to the point where we're at now that 800 to 1200 door range. So at the 800 to 1200 door range, these are savvy property management entrepreneurs. They are savvy at running a team. They're savvy in their business, so they have probably by now had mentors, coaches... they've invested in themselves, and this is something that's very unique between them and maybe a solopreneur is they've really been investing in themselves in order to get to this level. It's not really possible to get to this level without some self investment and without having really good culture defined in their business. So they have a business that has culture. They have a cohesive team. They've been in the business for a while, like a long time, maybe more than a decade, maybe more than two decades.

[00:02:24] At this stage, this might be a multi-generational family business, or maybe it was part of somebody else's business and it was purchased, right. But there's some depth in this business at this stage. They're rare at this stage. There's not a lot of businesses, especially in the single family, residential or small multi space that are at 800 to 1200 doors.

[00:02:45] Likely at this stage, if you're the entrepreneur or the business owner, you likely have little to no connection to the business in some ways. Like you just might not be super focused on it. If you are, I want to talk to you because I love those business owners. They're still engaged. They're still passionate about the business and they usually love the stuff that I teach even more than people at earlier stages because they are ready for it and they can value it. You know, a lot of the things that I learn and absorb and take in by investing in my own self in high level masterminds and coaches and books and everything that I do to learn, they love this stuff because they're ready for it.

[00:03:24] They know how useful it is, and I get the best feedback from the most high functioning people, and those are my favorite people to work with. But there's a lot at this stage, they've really checked out. Some have been completely burnt out on the business. They've put somebody else in to run it. Their whole goal has been, "how do I escape from this business, this vehicle that's uncomfortable?" So they put somebody else in place.

[00:03:46] So they have an executive team, they have hiring systems, they have a defined sales process, they have a BDM most likely. Somebody else is doing sales for them a lot of the time. Their website is usually I find outdated. They're only updating it maybe once every 10 years, maybe sometimes only once every five years, so their website's probably overdue for an upgrade. I've noticed they often have acquired multiple property management companies, at least maybe two usually, at least one or two including a significant competitor. So they've eaten somebody up, and they're possibly looking for the nearest exit to see if anybody else would be willing to do the same for them because they might be burnt out.

[00:04:27] So, they have built this really great executive team in which each member of this team takes complete ownership over a piece of the business, so they have somebody in place that's handling all of the maintenance stuff. They have somebody in place that's handling the management stuff. They have somebody in place that's handling the internal operations for the business. They have somebody in place that's handling the financials and the accounting and the bookkeeping and the reporting and all that. So they have key people. That's an executive team, so that they don't have to wear every hat or do all of these things in the business.

[00:05:00] What else about them? Something that's really important at this stage: they're now paying attention to the smaller businesses that are in the industry. They go to NARPM events and different things like this because they want to see what the little guys are doing and what innovations other people have, because they want to maybe apply this, but they don't want to be the guinea pig. They want to see what all the little guinea pigs are doing and experimenting with and whether or not it was hurtful or helpful for their business. And so they benefit by being around other property management entrepreneurs that are not at their level. Now, they do probably have connections, network, mastermind people that they hang out with that are at their level. You know, they've got some connections there 'cause you don't get to this stage without some connections and some relationships. Solopreneurs are heavily isolated, and as you come up through this DoorGrow scale that I've been talking about of these different stages in the life cycle, you gradually are being more connected to other savvy people and mentors, peers, heroes that you want to be connected to, or that you look up to so that you can get good ideas, good feedback, and that are not the emperor with no clothes sitting on top of your little micro kingdom.

[00:06:18] You recognize there's people out there that are doing better than you are that can give you good feedback. So it's helpful for you to be around these smaller and more nimble property management businesses, because these businesses, they can implement stuff quickly. They can adopt new technology rapidly, way faster than you can, right? Because for you, you have a really large ship. It's difficult to maneuver this thing and to turn it and to make changes because you have a lot of doors, you have a lot of team members, and there's a bit of friction there generally. But the advantage you have is that even small optimizations, small tweaks, small improvements at various stages of your pipeline, to your pricing, to your website, to all the things that we could facilitate or help with at DoorGrow...

[00:07:03] Small tweaks and improvements, for you, give you a big result. It makes a big difference. It can have a significant financial impact. It's very easy for us to save you a little bit of money on staffing costs or increase efficiency a little bit or to make small movements that will easily pay for any of our services or program and help you justify it. So and paying for something like DoorGrow and services is really a drop in the bucket. You waste way more money, probably on bad team members or team members that aren't as efficient as they could be. Staffing costs are really high for you at this stage. And so we want to find some efficiencies and some ways to improve some stuff. That is those at the 800 to 1200 doors.

[00:07:49] So one of the best tips I can have is you need to get a really efficient operating system in place. We call that DoorGrow OS. It's the most effective strategic planning system that I believe exists. A lot of people are getting caught up on Traction and EOS, and this. This is better. This is going to allow your team to be involved in decision-making and your team bottom up to be creating the goals and the growth of the business instead of you being so top down, trying to tell everybody what the goals are and what they should be doing and being a dictator, right? Because that means you're dragging them up the mountain. They're like all sitting in a wagon and you're clearing the path ahead and trying to drag them up to the goal.

[00:08:30] We want to get the team pulling you in the wagon. You just are sitting in it with your map and your strategy and your pen, and you're figuring out where we need to go, and they're clearing the jungle path. They're laying out the road. They're making it easy and they're pulling you along. And when you have that really good executive team and you have a really good strategic vision and plan in place that your team runs and that your operator really leads and is in control of, you will see your business grow rapidly significantly because you'll be able to focus on what the business needs most right now, instead of everybody just doing their day-to-day work.

[00:09:06] So that's something that we can help you with DoorGrow, so, that's basically, I think, about it at that stage that I want to touch on today. These are really, usually, cool business owners. They're either really cool or they're really burnt out. So hopefully you're not the burnt out one. If you are, let's transition you into the business of your dreams, and if you feel like you're close to having the business of your dreams, you just need some tweaks, talk to us at DoorGrow. We'll help you out. So that's it for today until next time, to our mutual growth, make sure to go to doorgrow.com. Schedule a call with our team, and join our free Facebook group at doorgrowclub.com. Bye, everyone.

[00:09:43] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:10:10] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 172: Creating Leverage at 600-800 Doors in Your Property Management Business 0

May 31, 2022

Once an entrepreneur reaches a certain level of doors in their property management business, they often seek to quit wearing so many hats and offload as much as they can. Unfortunately, even with 600-800 doors, PM entrepreneurs struggle to build an executive team, enjoy their day-to-day, and reach their business’s full potential.

In this episode, Jason shares his insight on the unique challenges that property management business owners face in the 600-800 door range.

You’ll Learn…

[01:16] The Next Property Management Entrepreneur Avatar

[02:00] What Entrepreneurs Have in The 600-800 Door Range

[03:20] A Common Mistake Entrepreneurs Make with Ads

[05:59] Expanding and Starting New Businesses

[07:00] Why PM Entrepreneurs Get Stuck at 600-800 Doors

[08:55] How to Get Support and Get Unstuck

Tweetables

“It's really difficult to outpace the market attrition with marketing.”

“If the main goal is the four reasons…If you do it the right way, this could be really a fun time in the business.”

“Have an executive team, trust them to implement things, paint the picture of the vision, and focus on building the right culture and investing in coaching and mentoring and supporting your team members.”

“We need a framework, a planning system, so that this is done effectively, that's led by the team, that's not top down and pushed and forced by you. This is where you really start to trust your team.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] We get into this temptation where we're like, "I can just throw money at things to solve a problem." Unfortunately, this usually becomes painful as the market shifts. And at this stage, you probably are losing more doors due to the owners selling than advertising can replace.

[00:00:15] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:01:16] All right. So today we're going to continue on this series of going through these different stages of the property management entrepreneur life cycle. So really brief recap: we've touched on some of these different stages, like being a pure startup in the startup stage, solopreneurs, creating a little bit of leverage. Today we're going to talk about the 600 to 800 door category. So last time, we talked about the 400 to 600 door category. And so, there's kind of a category of property management business owners in the 600 to 800 doors. And at this stage, they are actively seeking to escape the day-to-day and to get others into key positions.

[00:02:00] So usually, universally, you have a BDM by about the stage. You're probably no longer doing all the sales yourself. You might, if you really love that and you're really good at that, you may hold onto that. But a lot of times they're getting a BDM. They're no longer focused on doing the sales. Either that, or you've made it probably your full-time focus like that's probably your full-time focus and you now have somebody else handling all the operations. So you've picked one of those sides: you've either shifted to doing all the operations and kind of running the business, and you have a BDM that's doing the sales, or you've shifted into being the salesperson, and you have an operator in your company.

[00:02:39] But either way, you're likely totally out of the actual day-to-day, boots-on-the-ground-level work of operations or fulfillment in the property management business. So at this stage, you probably now believe in pulling in outside experts. You probably believe in using coaches and mentors. You probably believe in investing in yourself and in the business to move the business forward. I don't think you generally get to this stage unless you've kind of moved past that idea that "I'm going to do it all on my own, and I'm going to do it all myself" and "I have all the answers." Right? You've evolved beyond that. Because that would have held you back or held you small, you know, prior to this.

[00:03:20] So, sometimes at this stage, what I see is that they're too focused, too heavily focused or in an unhealthy way, leveraged towards doing advertising. So they're spending a lot of money on ads in order to try and get leads, to grow their business, and they lose sight of opportunities related to maybe warm leads or referrals or prospecting or networking methods that could be effective because they've gravitated towards something they feel like they can just throw money at. Cause we get into this temptation where we're like, "I can just throw money at things to solve a problem." So you might be trying to solve the problem of the lead generation by paying for ads or advertising.

[00:04:04] Unfortunately, this usually becomes painful as the market shifts. And at this stage, you probably are losing more doors due to the owners selling than advertising can replace. This happens depending on how the market is going. You'll see property managers that are highly leveraged towards advertising and are spending a lot of their money and capital towards advertising in a bad market-- or I guess I should say a hot real estate market where investors are selling. They usually find that they're losing more doors than they can replace through advertising, because it's really difficult to outpace the market attrition with marketing. Right. And so, a lot of times at this stage, I notice property managers still have branding issues, but usually at this stage, they're a little less likely to make the changes they need to. So it's really difficult. They feel pretty cemented in their name, even if it's costing them money. So sometimes, I can get them to change or fix those things and it's always worth it if there's a leak there. But they're a little bit more rigid.

[00:05:07] At this stage, they've broken through some major pain and major stress points in a business to get to this level that cause most property managers to just say, "I don't want to get too big." Most property managers feel pain in the 200 to 400 door stage, and it gets really painful as they're kind of getting just beyond that, unless they finally break down and undo and redo how they do just about everything and finally let go of control and let go of doing some things and build an effective team or an executive level team. And so at this stage, you're probably building an executive level team or have team members that you trust to kind of start to own pieces of the business a little bit. So you broken through those major things, but you've likely moved on to other opportunities and are distracted by other businesses. So this is really tempting. I see this a lot.

[00:05:59] Once you get this business somewhat healthy and you get it to this stage, a lot of these business owners decide "I'm going to go start another property management business in another city," or "I'm going to go start another business like locally," or "I'm going to do some other things." So the entrepreneurial bug of startup stage that's tempting: business gets a little bit boring for them. So then they go and kind of start to screw up their focus and their attention by focusing on other things. And so they go and start to start other businesses, do other things, and then the main business doesn't really probably reach its full potential. It struggles a little bit. They might have some key people in place and they might get a little bit disconnected from reality or from what the business needs.

[00:06:43] So at this stage, this leveraged property management entrepreneur-- we'll call them leveraged because they have some leverage-- they have some key people. They're not having to wear every hat and do everything. They've probably got a pretty decent team by now. And very few entrepreneurs get to this level. Usually I see it, the 600 to 800 door level, the business owner starts to check out. Usually if they can get to this and they do it in a healthy way-- it's rare, but if I see them get to this stage and they do it in a healthy way, they will continue to grow and get to higher levels. But there's a lot of property managers that get stuck or stop at the 600 to 800 door level, because they're really burnt out on the business. They didn't really build it the right way. They didn't build the team the right way. And they are now trying to figure out: "how can I put somebody in place so I can get out of this business?" and so I see a lot of business owners during this stage kind of check out.

[00:07:38] By this point, they've been through so much pain and trial and tribulation and suffering and struggle that they're burnt out and they're done. So they get people in place. They get somebody to manage and run the business. They get an operator, they get a BDM, and then they're like, "The only thing I'm going to do is maybe show up the broker on our conferences and talk about how many doors I have." And you'll see some people that do that even at higher level door amounts. But if the main goal is the four reasons as I've talked about on previous episodes-- of having a business. This is the primary goal is to have more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, more support. If you do it the right way, this could be really a fun time in the business... if you do it the right way, but for a lot, at this point, they have the option or the opportunity to step out and get somebody else running the majority of everything for them, and just be an actual business owner, which might be tempting.

[00:08:34] So they might then put this business up and exit it fully, put it up for sale and find a company that is willing to acquire them. But this is a difficult stage. It can be, but I think the hardest stage is probably that 200 to 400 doors. That's really tough. That's one of the most painful stages I see companies at. So that's about all I think I have to say about that. So if you are in this stage, you probably would like some support on the operational side of things. You might want to give your team members better coaching and better support, so we would bring you into our mastermind and we would support your operator and we would support your BDMs so that they can both become really exceptional in those roles, which helps the business grow a lot more quickly, and it would help you to be able to just focus on the visionary side of things in dreaming and coming up with new ideas. And it would help put your ideas into a framework that the team can help you to build. Because now you have the team that can help you build things. We need a framework, a planning system, so that this is done effectively, that's led by the team, that's not top down and pushed and forced by you.

[00:09:47] This is where you really start to trust your team. Have an executive team, trust them to implement things, paint the picture of the vision, and focus on building the right culture and investing in coaching and mentoring and supporting your team members. We can help you do that in our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. So if that sounds interesting, reach out to us. You can go to doorgrow.com, or you can join our free Facebook group, which you can get to by going to doorgrowclub.com. So that's it for today. Until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.

Download this Episode

DGS 171: Client Interview With Brannon Potts 0

May 24, 2022

At DoorGrow, we have some of the savviest property entrepreneurs on the planet in our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. Brannon Potts is a property management business owner in North Texas, who joined DoorGrow with only 71 doors. In only 3 months, Brannon was able to grow his business to over 100 doors with 70 more on the way!

Join property management growth expert, Jason Hull, as he interviews Brannon Potts, a DoorGrow client. Brannon shares his experience with DoorGrow and how he has seen it make a beneficial impact on his business.

You’ll Learn…

[01:12] Meet DoorGrow client Brannon Potts

[04:42] Investing in Yourself and Your Business with Coaching

[07:27] What Makes Jason and DoorGrow Different?

[13:09] DoorGrow’s Two Key Ideas…

[20:07] Finding Fulfillment by Growing and Scaling the Business

[22:49] How Brannon used DoorGrow’s Script to Add Doors

[27:08] How You can Grow and Scale Your Business

Tweetables

“We have these moments as coaches where we feel like-- it's similar to as being a dad and seeing your kid get an award or do something.”

“As you've been building your business, it could get uglier and more painful, but we always try to make sure that the client understands that's the wrong way to do it.”

“Good, coaching or good marketing or good anything that you're going to pay for should give you an ROI, right? That means it's a good investment.”

“A lot of people are thinking ‘I'd rather just spend money. I'd rather just spend money because it would save me time,’ That's a cost. That's not an investment.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason: For those that are on the fence, thinking about DoorGrow maybe they've heard about DoorGrow, what would you say?

[00:00:05] Brannon: You might not like this, but I think it's so good, sometimes I wouldn't want to tell anybody cause it's so good for people.

[00:00:12] Jason: All right. Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, And you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.

[00:00:49] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:12] And my guest today is one of my clients, Brannon Potts. Brannon, welcome to the show.

[00:01:19] Brannon: Thank you. Thank

[00:01:20] Jason: you.

[00:01:21] So it's good to have you. So Brannon, you're a client that I really enjoy working with. 1. Because you just do what I tell you to do, and it works and you're doing the right things. So I appreciate you as a client because that's always fun for me is to have clients that like, believe in what we're doing, and get it. And do it. You know, starting out, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about how you got into property management in the first place?

[00:01:47] Brannon: Sure. I think it was back-- late 2016. We were actually doing well in our sales business but had a friend give us some advice about getting into property management and you say it, even in the intro: at first, I didn't have just a great perception of property management, but I said, okay, I'm going to get into this business, learn it. I didn't know it very much. I didn't know it really much at all. And we began to grow. And over these years, we just, we grew a little bit and happened to see one of your ads and started investigating and just said, you know what? I want to join this coaching. And I did. I just said, "I really don't know very much about the property management business, and you have a background in coaching this. I'm just going to follow what he says, not question it, and just do it."

[00:02:46] And then I was going to hold your feet to the fire because you promised it and committed that if I did, you would refund my money, and I began to do that and I still have so much more to go because in your coaching, the depth of that coaching that you give, I think I'm only maybe touching on 10% of it right now. And I'm looking forward to actually many years to come of getting deeper and deeper in implementing all the things that you provide in coaching because I've been coached before. I've been actually a coach myself for the sales side. And what we've always been taught is when you teach people, typically only 10% implement what you're teaching. And I said, man, "I don't want to be that 90% that doesn't. I want to be the 10% that does. And let the chips fall where they may and begin doing exactly what you said, trying to follow it as closely as I could."

[00:03:44] And what do you know? It happens. We grow, we have probably at this point, we're either from the initial investment of the coaching-- I bet you we're-- I'm trying to think-- three, four times, maybe five times now the dollars that we're generating from the coaching. So it was a great investment.

[00:04:04] Jason: You mean on a monthly basis?

[00:04:06] On a monthly basis.

[00:04:07] Yeah. So you've got way more residual income than what the program costs. So it's a no-brainer. And that's one of our initial goals with clients. Like we want to get them paid and make sure the program's double paid for within hopefully the first 30 to 60 days is the goal so that they can justify the expense and keep going. And then I guess you could say it's paying you now, to be part of the program.

[00:04:27] Brannon: It's-- I've made money off of this coaching and that's what everybody wants.

[00:04:32] Jason: That's what good, coaching or good marketing or good anything that you're going to pay for should give you an ROI, right? That means it's a good investment. So I'm glad that you're getting a good return on your investment. That's our goal. So you brought up something that I think it's interesting that you've worked with a lot of coaches. I've worked with a lot of coaches too. You know, I think one thing that's a little bit different from me than maybe other coaches in the industry, but there's a lot of coaches out there that don't have coaches. And they don't get coached themselves. And I think that's one of my competitive advantages, which is really simple is that I pay for really expensive coaching and masterminds and high ticket things to be involved in so that I can turn around and have value to give to my clients.

[00:05:16] Like I just came back from a mastermind, I pay a lot of money to be in it, and I shared an idea today with the group that you thought was pretty cool. We were talking about not focusing on referrals instead of referring to them, as in asking for– what did I say? I'll let you say it...

[00:05:32] Brannon: an introduction. And that is an extra benefit is not just taking the wisdom you already have. You're still pouring into yourself so that you have something to pour out.

[00:05:45] Cause I think a lot of people stop getting things poured into them and the great people, great leaders, and great entrepreneurs need something poured into them so that they can pour out to others. We need that relationship to continue. And that's what I appreciate of your coaching. It's your coaching, but you're still getting coached and I'm getting the benefit of your expense of coaching and you're handing extra value to us.

[00:06:14] Jason: Yeah. I'm not even going to say how much I spend on coaching a year right now, but it's a lot, it's a lot. I'm in two really high-ticket masterminds, but for me, I love it because I get to hang out with the best. Like I'm talking business owners that are doing millions and millions of dollars. I was hanging out with people that are doing millions a month in business. Some are hitting a million a month or more. And these are the kind of people I get to hang out with. And I love to be able to learn. It's fun for me. And having a program in which I get to share that stuff. That's just even more fun for me. Cause I love to share what I'm learning. That's just fun for me. So...

[00:06:51] Brannon: As soon as you brought that up, I went out and shared that with my team, the ones that were here at the moment, and then I'm going to share that again on another meeting of not asking for the referral, but asking for the introduction. There's just many layers to that, of how good it is.

[00:07:09] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And we chatted about that on our group coaching call today. And for those that are not in our group, you're missing out. So Brannon what have you noticed since joining the program? I mean, You talked about some of the concerns you had coming in and some of the challenges you were dealing with, and you mentioned that you've made your money back, you've gotten some results. How does this compare or differ or relate to all the other coaching stuff that you've been involved in the past?

[00:07:34] Brannon: Jason, I don't want you to get a big head, but it has been the best coaching I've had. And I talk about it all the time. I've been through several different coaches, both in the real estate side, and just some life coaches, and the value you bring is multiple layers and genuinely appreciate that, because that's what you teach us is bringing value to people and you do. And I would share this with anyone. This is not a sales pitch. This is true value. You bring on so many different layers and that's why I've shared in the past, and I've shared it even with my wife. I said, "I see myself. I've only scratched the surface of the value you've already brought. And I see this for many years to come that I plan to be a part of this. Cause it's not a cost, it's been an investment," and yes, we're talking about growing doors, but there's many other layers to the coaching of growing the business and how you do that from operations to people who you hire, what their duties are. This was exactly what I was looking for 'cause I did not have that knowledge. Though I've succeeded it at higher levels in a lot of ways in the real estate industry, these were the parts I didn't know. And I feel like I've still got so much more to learn.

[00:09:01] Jason: I really appreciate that. That's-- that means a lot to me. I appreciate it. So for me, it's interesting to me because I've been in this business-- I founded it, and we had some tough times starting this business out and like me building a team I've gone through the entrepreneurial life cycle and journey that I coach clients on. And DoorGrow, our company has made so many changes, even in the last quarter. Like the slew of things that we get done that are on our list for quarterly planning is just amazing to me that we're able to accomplish. DoorGrow's not even the same company it was a year ago. Not even close. And some clients maybe worked with us in the past or knew about us in the past, or maybe we just did a website a long time ago. And DoorGrow is not even close to the same company. Some people are probably hearing you going "operations?" And like "this?" And like "coaching." And they're like, what? And it's funny because people, I think judge me and DoorGrow sometimes by who I was maybe five years ago or two years ago, or even a year ago.

[00:10:06] And my personal development aggression, I guess you could say, or my drive and the level of the team members that I have and the drive of the team and how quickly we're able to make changes and implement is I mean, I'm obviously biased, but I think it's pretty amazing. So yeah. And I think people could give us a chance that haven't been with us for a while. Our new mastermind is just really awesome and I think people are really crushing it, which is really fun to see.

[00:10:32] Brannon: And the connections you make in that coaching group. There's several people that I've made connections with that will be valuable for the future and just collaborating or, "Hey, I'm having this struggle. How have you handled it?" There's just, there's so much value and I agree it's even in-- what is it? Five months now I've been in the program it's changed and added more layers to it. But that's because of your growth. You didn't stay stagnant. You're still growing yourself and have something to pour out.

[00:11:07] Jason: I'd feel guilty if I took even the majority of the credit, like my operator, Sarah, also my fiance, she's moved the needle significantly in this business, Adam, over fulfillment, Ashlee who's over a client success-- like we've got some amazing people on my team and they're moving most of the objectives forward that we have each quarter, and it's been just awesome to see. And that's part of the DoorGrow OS planning system that we've got and that sort of thing. We've got 90 members in the mastermind, so I appreciate that you brought up community cause that's a big focus of ours moving forward this quarter is we're really trying to focus on improving the community aspect. A lot of people joined for the content in DoorGrow Academy and the material that we have and the ideas, and then the people win because of the coaching. But people generally in a program will stay because of the community and the connection and the benefits of having that comradery, 'cause you know, being an entrepreneur can be a lonely journey without being connected to others, so we're really focused on that, improving that, in fact, we've got about 90 members in the mastermind, 90 businesses. We probably have on average about two people per business. So we've got probably about somewhere close to 200 people in the program I think that are actively involved.

[00:12:17] We haven't really grown honestly for the last, maybe two, three months, which is weird, but we've been filtering a lot of people out. We've been really trying to make sure people are active and engaged and shaking the tree, so to speak and some of the people that weren't really engaged or active in our outreach and stuff have dropped off while we've been adding people, but we've cleaned that up. So like the program's really clean. And so I'm really excited about the community aspect because most of the people now are all pretty much engaged. And in at least on one of the calls and doing their check-ins and moving forward. So I think even though the group is still about the same size it's been for a little while, it's a lot mightier, so we're really excited about that. And now that it's cleaned out, now we're going to be adding, I think a lot of people that are going to be staying in the program a lot longer and it'll be, even we're going to be growing for sure. Yeah. So Brannon, what do you feel like are some of the most significant things that you've got out of it so far? Because a lot of people, they hear you probably saying, "Hey, DoorGrow's great. Coaching's great." And you mentioned you're making more money. What are some of the key things that really have stood out to you that you're like, "Hey, like this is different or this is interesting," or that you've really valued?

[00:13:29] Brannon: I think a couple of things. There are multiple layers, so I can talk about this for a while, but the key things initially were: how to lead generate that didn't cost money. And sometimes you hear that and you think, "oh, this is just a sales pitch." It was very genuine, and it was very good. And I implemented that. So the only cost was my time and following through with what the coaching did and that added the doors very quickly. The second was helping design a pricing plan and how to put that together. I implemented one of the plans, the hybrid plan that you discuss and implemented that and began to sell that. And through selling it, I've shared this in our mastermind, how I sell that. And I'm seeing how it resonates with owners and just those two things alone, those two changes that we made alone made money. Those are just the two things initially. And then you offer other things that we're beginning to tap into and

[00:14:40] there's so much there, the content, I can only absorb so much at the moment and I'm trying to fully implement those well, but that also gives me a path for several years to come things that I'll be able to dive deeper into different sections of what all you offer and implement those. So I see a path, but those two things alone were the big key movers, which you steer people to. Doing that lead generation first and then begin some pricing and other things. So those two are the big steps that made it an investment and made us money.

[00:15:17] Jason: Yeah, if any of my competitors are listening and they want to figure out how to steal some of the magic from DoorGrow, we focus on two main things with clients and you can probably feel this. I don't think you've heard me mention this Brannon, but one of our big goals within the first 30 to 60 days is we want to make sure clients have really strong clarity on what the future holds for them, like what direction to go in. So we have our clarity assessments we take you through, so you know clearly which path. We have three different paths we take people down depending on which thing is the biggest problem in the business right now. And we focus on pain first. So we get them clarity on what they want and where the pain is and then results. So we want to get them as quickly and as effortlessly as possible to the results. So we're giving you the scripts, the language, the outreach, like all the different things to do. And you mentioned lead gen without spending money, and I know a lot of people are thinking "I'd rather just spend money. I'd rather just spend money because it would save me time," is what they think. What would you say to that?

[00:16:18] Brannon: Yeah, boy, that's a cost. That's not an investment. This is a deeper level of long-term residual lead generation so that what you teach in the coaching pays dividends, not just now, but in the future, it continues to pay residual dividends and you haven't spent any money on it because the big thing in starting a property management company or starting any company is to generate revenue before expenses and it fit with the principles of that is, is generating that revenue before you have any hard costs, which help you get profitable better and faster, then you can have money to do other things to grow it even faster.

[00:17:04] Jason: Yeah there's several things we focus on with clients. We want to decrease the expenses in the business. So we talk about how a lot of property managers, we mentioned this on today's call, right? Like a lot of property managers... it's not about what they need to do more of, or add more of in the business. It's about some of the things they need to eliminate that they are doing. And then we get into, the lead gen piece. A lot of people mistakenly think that they can generate more leads by doing advertising or paid advertising, but that actually are colder leads that take more time. So we've actually decreased your time investment into lead generation and we've zeroed out the costs.

[00:17:43] Brannon: And usually it's a better quality person--

[00:17:45] Jason: --and it's an absolutely better quality lead, right? The conversion rate's way higher because we're focusing on warmer lead generation. And the other thing that I think is a secret is that you're creating market share while other property managers are fighting over the small amount of existing market share that exists. They're all in the red water. It's ugly and bloody, and there's a lot of scarcity. And I'm guessing you don't really feel much scarcity in growing your property management business?

[00:18:11] Brannon: Not at all. It's doing so well, there's moments we have to just pause for a few minutes to absorb all the new clients coming on board so that we handle them, you know? It's not from lack of business coming in now from this lead gen source, it's making sure that we handle them effectively. And we talk about this in the coaching too, of how to handle the operations when all this business comes and how to handle it effectively and efficiently.

[00:18:38] Jason: That's one of my favorite problems to do is make the growth become so uncomfortable and painful. And then we shift to solving that problem. Everybody wants that problem, but we want to create that problem for our clients that they're having so much growth that it's gotten uncomfortable and they have to start hiring and scaling their systems, so. And then yeah, pricing strategy. We talk about-- like you mentioned the hybrid pricing. Initially, I got the idea from Scott Brady. He's really sharp entrepreneur. And then we've put our own nuance and spin to it to make sure that people do it effectively. So it's psychologically really effective and that's been really really great for our clients that are starting to implement that.

[00:19:16] So, yeah, you're right. There's a lot more in the program. I'm excited for you to get into some of the other stuff and get through it. Because I love seeing clients get all these different pieces dialed in because the speed at which the company moves forward is rapid. Now, a lot of people, a lot of property managers are already burnt out. They're already burnt out in their business. They're not enjoying it, which I would normally say, they're just doing it wrong, but that's, I think also one of the key things that we focus on at DoorGrow is not just building a business that just gets more crazy and more hectic and moves fast, that you enjoy less and less, which is typical. Most get to 200 to 400 doors and they're burnt out. They're micromanaging their team. They hate their day-to-day.

[00:19:56] Brannon: You talk about both growing with quantity, but also growing with quality and creating a quality of life too.

[00:20:05] Jason: Yeah, it's a big deal. So our primary focus is on, I call it the four reasons. I've done a previous podcast episode on that. For those listening, you can go back and listen to that. That's our primary goal is to move people towards the four reasons of more fulfillment, more freedom, more contribution, and more support. And as you've been building your business, it could get uglier and more painful, but we always try to make sure that the client understands that's the wrong way to do it. Like we can get you more support and make it more fun and you do less and less in the business.

[00:20:36] Brannon: I like to learn and listen as it scales, how to scale it, and you share this in the coaching, how to scale it properly so that you don't get burnout. So I'm aware of that and want to make sure that happens not just for me, but y'all also share how to do that for your team too. The positions and the different times to hire and how to do that effectively. So it's not just for the owner, but it's how to create quality for everyone.

[00:21:06] Jason: So you've seen some results in the program. What do you feel like your team's perspective of all this movement and change has been, and maybe even your spouse, like how is this kind of rippling out around you? Is this creating some pain and problems for people around you? Or how did they feel about all this?

[00:21:24] Brannon: Jason, you'll appreciate that I use a lot of your quotes at home. But, when you're hearing good things, you want to share it. So I would say we're growing and I think the team, I know the team is all on board and they're excited about the growth, but as any good growth, there is stretching and you have to go through that stretching process that makes you better, but you've provided several good things that help the team that I'm using to help them get through the stretching with the growth that we're having. And we'll take this problem of growth, as we all remember the great recession and we were begging to be busy. I keep mindful of that, of being grateful that we are and would not take the other side of that of not being busy. I keep that in mind and I encourage the team, and they're encouraged by the growth too. They're very excited. Even our sales team notices it and they're like, "man, maybe I should be on that side of the business." They get really excited about it.

[00:22:25] Jason: What's one thing you feel like you could share maybe with the audience, people that aren't in the program that might benefit them, that is maybe something you learned in the program or, maybe just a mindset shift or a takeaway or something that might be helpful to those that are listening?

[00:22:41] Brannon: Boy. That's there's so many...

[00:22:43] Jason: There are those that are struggling. What feedback or idea would you want to share with them?

[00:22:49] Brannon: I think, you know, looking for referrals from agents that are working in the multi-family or property industry that are selling investments that has helped us quite a bit, but what's been beneficial in the coaching is you've given a great template of a script of how to do it that is genuine, that really flows well and is right in line with building high trust with clients and with agents. That's been the number one benefit of the coaching is not just that idea, but then even giving a practical script that really works. We've been in coaching. We've all been in different programs where we'll see a script that is just not realistic because that person doesn't do it. Your script is genuinely realistic, and it works. I tested it. It worked. I went line by line, even had the script in front of me as I'm going through it, and it really flowed genuine and real and generated referrals that day.

[00:23:58] Jason: That was actually one of those moments. We have these moments as coaches where we feel like-- it's similar to as being a dad and seeing your kid get an award or do something, but one of those moments for me was when you sent me your call recording, and you just followed the script. Because I get a lot of call recordings from clients and they don't follow the script. They either don't feel confident doing it that way, or they say it different or they think they're trying to be cute or clever. And then I'm coaching them like, "stop saying 'um' and stop saying 'kinda' and 'maybe' like show confidence." you just followed the script, and it went so beautifully, and that was just really rewarding to me to be able to hear that and go " yes! It worked." And hear that result like real-time is really cool.

[00:24:43] Brannon: I think I came into the coaching with the mindset and I thought of that 90-10 principle, and I said, "I'm going to be the 10%. Sink or swim, I'm going to be the 10% and I'm just going to follow it" and let it go where it went. But the beauty of it is, it went well. And it would for anyone that followed because we all know as we coach or teach, the ones that just say, "Hey, I'm going to be humble and I'm just going to do what you say, and let's see what happens." it generally works.

[00:25:16] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to tell clients like, "Hey, it's proven. If Brannon can do it, anybody else can do it too. Brannon's not any smarter or cooler than anybody else in our program, other than the fact that he does the work and he does what we tell them to do. And that makes you, I think, pretty smart and pretty cool. So I appreciate you, Brannon. So, um, Cool. I, appreciate you coming and taking some time out of your day to be here on the #DoorGrowShow and on the podcast. For those that are. On the fence, thinking about DoorGrow maybe they've heard about DoorGrow, a year ago or five years ago or in the past. What would you say to them now? You're on the other side of the paywall. You see what's going on in the community. What would you say?

[00:25:57] Brannon: Well, You might not like this, but I think it's so good, sometimes I wouldn't want to tell anybody 'cause it's so good for people.

[00:26:06] Jason: I've heard that. I've heard that quite a bit, which is really funny. Like "I want everyone to do it except my competition."

[00:26:12] Brannon: That's it.

[00:26:13] Jason: So which market are you in?

[00:26:16] Brannon: We're in north Texas.

[00:26:17] Jason: All right. So if you're in north Texas, Brannon says, do not do the DoorGrow thing. It's not going to work out for you probably, but everybody else should totally join this program. Does that sound accurate?

[00:26:30] Brannon: North Texas property managers and there's plenty of business for all of us.

[00:26:35] Jason: There is. That's something, I think that we're really big on the program. You're not in the red water feeling scarcity fighting with other property managers. There's 70% are self-managing, there's tons of available potential business out there, and you've been able to tap into that tap and you're getting plenty from it and yeah, there's plenty of business out there. Very cool. Brannon appreciate you being a client. Appreciate you taking time out. And anything you wanna say before we wrap this up?

[00:27:03] Brannon: No, I think I've covered quite a bit myself.

[00:27:05] Jason: All right. Awesome. Thanks, Brannon. All right. So for those that have been listening to this and you're curious or interested in DoorGrow, you can reach out to us. And if you want to test the waters a little bit and get familiar with this, because this may be the first time you've heard about us for some reason, join our Facebook group, go to doorgrowclub.com. Videos like this get pushed into the group. I do live streams multiple times a week now. I'm sharing concepts and ideas. My goal and job is to prove to you that we have some value to offer to you. Once you get beyond the paywall, there's even more. And so join the DoorGrowClub. You can go to doorgrowclub.com to get to our Facebook group. The other thing that I would recommend is just go to doorgrow.com.

[00:27:52] If you're curious and you want to set up a call and talk to my sales team, they will listen to you. I have great people on the team. They really care about our vision of helping property managers. And so if you're struggling with some issues, some challenges, bring it up to them and talk with them and they will help you see if there's a path in which we can help you deal with those challenges, whether it's you're just not enjoying your day to day, you're struggling with your team and with operations, you're struggling to figure out how to add doors and grow your business, you hate your website, you don't like your brand. Like we can help solve these problems for you and they'll help you see how we can do that. And they'll also give you access to our seven frameworks training so you can see seven different growth frameworks and really shift your mindset out of the idea that you need cold leads and you need to do advertising and you need to spend a bunch of money on marketing.

[00:28:41] We'll shift you out of that and help you see why that mindset actually has been hurting your growth and will benefit you and get you moving forward. And that's it for today. So until next time, everybody to our mutual growth. Reach out to DoorGrow, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, everyone.

[00:28:55] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:29:22] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe.

[00:29:43] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode

DGS 170: What Property Managers At 400-600 Doors Need To Know 0

May 17, 2022

If you are a property management entrepreneur in the 400-600 door range, you likely experience the same issues as others in this category: company culture, strategic planning, and more.

In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull continues the stages of the Property Management Entrepreneurial Journey series with the 400-600 door category.

You’ll Learn…

[01:10] Recap of the Other Property Management Entrepreneur Types

[03:29] Defining the 400-600 Door Range

[04:52] Making Sure You Have Help in the Business

[06:42] How to Build Your Team and Processes

[08:23] Optimizing Your Business: Strategic Planning

[10:09] Transitioning from Transactional to Transformational Leadership

[11:20] Recap of the Other Property Management Entrepreneur Types

Tweetables

“So by the time you get to this 400 to 600 door stage, you are either in a massive amount of pain, it's really painful, or you finally solve some of those issues.”

“So I'm hoping if you're at this stage, business is not crazy. It's not crazy at work, and things are good. And a good book recommendation is It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried.”

“I believe most meetings are wasted time, but strategic planning, strategic meetings is one of the ways we really help scale and grow property management companies.”

“If you don't have really clear strong culture, you probably don't have a really clear, good team.”

Resources

DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind

TalkRoute Referral Link

Transcript

[00:00:00] So by the time you get to this 400 to 600 door stage, you are either in a massive amount of pain, it's really painful, or you finally solve some of those issues.

[00:00:10] All right. Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships and residual income.

[00:00:46] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and the business owner. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.

[00:01:10] All right. So on previous episodes, we were doing this series of talking about all these different stages of property management entrepreneurs, and just to catch people up that have missed those, go back and watch those-- or listen. But what we talked about is we talked about pure startups, and then we talked about those that are kind of seekers and getting past that fantasy stage, and now they have a real business and seekers where they're kind of trying to figure stuff out, and these are all different door levels.

[00:01:36] And then we talked about the solo preneur property managers, and then we talked about those stuck property managers on one of the recordings. And then we talked about the transitioning property management entrepreneur, has broken the 100 door barrier, and they're leading into that next sand trap, which by default, they'll get to within a year or two, usually in the 200 to 400 door category. And we talked about that. I call it the standard property management entrepreneurs. So we talked about that group and category. And then during that last recording, I talked about the side biz, property management entrepreneur, cause some artificially break, the 100 door barrier and they really just have a side business. Real estate is maybe their main thing. And they artificially are stealing resources from that business.

[00:02:19] All right. That brings you to the present and you're missing a lot of good info so that you can understand where you're at in this journey and which things you should have tackled at these various stages. We're going to talk a little bit today about. That next level. This is those that break past that 200 to 400 door sand trap. Sometimes I call it the second sand trap, maybe the third sand trap. First one is usually where just getting started. That's like the hardest hurdle for a lot. And so that could be the first, the real first sand trap once you've launched your business though is about 50, 60 doors, I see a lot. I call it the solopreneur sand trap.

[00:02:53] A lot of people get stuck there. They paint themselves into a corner. They end up trapped and that's really uncomfortable for them. So it's not like working. So the next sand trap is that 200 to 400 door stage. If you break the 100 door barrier in a healthy way within a year or two, you'll be there. And that 200 to 400 door stage I've talked about on the previous recording for the podcast. If you can break through that sand trap, and this is the team sand trap, and trying to figure out how to deal with the team, you're now going to be at this next level in the 400 to 600 door category.

[00:03:29] Now, if you have achieved this level, you're at 400 to 600 doors, you may have done this through acquisition. Maybe you acquired another property management company. Maybe you got here just through grit and sheer will, and doing a lot of the sales yourself. At this stage, you probably have a pretty solid team because that 200 to 400 door stage is really painful trying to figure out your team. So now, you've got a good team. You probably like most of the people on it, and you probably aren't dealing with a ton of churn with the team. And probably at this stage, you've offloaded some of the growth oriented tasks. You may have a BDM at this stage most likely. If not, this is probably the next level for you.

[00:04:15] So you might be a closer, and you want to focus on your area of genius and you have offloaded everything else. So you're still just the closer and you're closing a lot of deals, which is cool if you're good at that and you love that. If not, at this stage, I'm guessing by now you've already got some people helping you with the sales side, because you just probably wouldn't have gotten here, but if not, you need to get a BDM or at the very least a sales assistant. That you can maybe groom to be a BDM. But a sales assistant that you can offload at least the follow-up the appointment setting, stuff like that. So you need a setter basically while you act as closer.

[00:04:52] So you've probably gotten out of the day-to-day operations at 400 to 600 doors. If you're still heavily involved in day-to-day operations, I'd be surprised, at this level. I don't see that very often. However, even at this level, you still are likely your own best employee, right? You still have your hands in quite a few things. You probably have many of your processes to find 'cause usually at that 200 to 400 door stage, that's like becomes a heavy focus because it becomes so painful. You need to get these processes defined and you realize there's a lack of consistency and you realize the team aren't doing things the way that you would want, and it becomes painful. So by the time you get to this 400 to 600 door stage, you are either in a massive amount of pain, it's really painful, or you finally solve some of those issues.

[00:05:40] So I'm hoping if you're at this stage, business is not crazy. It's not crazy at work, and things are good. And a good book recommendation is It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried. He's one of the founders, creators of Basecamp, CEO of Basecamp. Really, really great book. I got to hang out with Jason Fried years before he wrote that book. And he basically, during a 90 minute called taught me some of those principles and it was a game changer for my business in making the business more calm and more quiet and focusing on asynchronous communication, some other really cool ideas. So I highly recommend you check that out. One thing I'll disagree with Jason-- if you ever hear this is the idea of not having planning and not having meetings. I believe most meetings are wasted time, but strategic planning, strategic meetings is one of the ways we really help scale and grow property management companies. Game changer. And and that's using our system, DoorGrow OS, and I believe that that's more effective than EOS for those that are into rocket fuel and traction and all that kind of jazz.

[00:06:42] All right. Let's talk about this 400 to 600 door company and your team. So you probably have a good team. You like them. And if not, you might have one or two people you don't like, but you probably like most of your team. You probably, at this point have an operator in the business. You have somebody that's dealing with the operational side of things, because most of you are visionaries and visionary entrepreneurs probably need that in order to make it to this level. You probably have some systems and mechanisms in place. It's most likely that you do, you have probably some sort of maintenance process and system in place. You have a system for communication with clients that's working out really well. You have a task management system internally for the business, maybe Asana or Monday or some sort of tool that hands out tasks. We use Basecamp at DoorGrow for the little one-off tasks. And then we use Process Street for processes.

[00:07:38] So you may have something like AppFolio plus, which I heard good things about or Process Street or LeadSimple has a tool in their sales CRM for processes, checklists, that sort of thing. So you're going to have something for repeating processes that's connected to checking things off. Like it's a checklist, not just like an owner's manual that sits in the glove box of a car and no one looks at like standard operating procedures on a Google drive that nobody ever looks at. It's not going to be like that. Right. So you have some sort of process documentation checklist system as well. So that means you have a tactical task management system, you have a process system for repeatable processes, and you have some sort of communication system going with clients as well as probably several other systems.

[00:08:23] So you've focused on building some systems out. Now at this stage, there's a lot of optimization. You need to optimize and figure out how to do that. And so you need to figure out what you need to do next. So you need to figure out what you need to do right now in order to control the future. You need to figure out: "how can I plan and create the future with my team?" So this is where you take your team and you need to shift them into strategic planning and build a strategic system and that would be DoorGrow OS is what I would recommend, of course. So, but you need to build a strategic system where you can get the entire team moving the business forward with you.

[00:09:05] So the 200 to 400 door primary focus is really creating culture. If you don't have really clear strong culture, you probably don't have a really clear, good team and you're not going to get to the 400 to 600 door level. So you probably have a healthier level of culture. If not, this is going to be a focus. You need to develop cohesive culture. It needs to be documented. You need to develop cohesive, strategic planning for the business, and you need to develop an internal communication system for the team that doesn't involve one to everyone communication constantly like Slack or some of these tools where you're communicating one to an entire group, and everyone thinks you need to read everything. It's about building asynchronous communication, so really you need an effective culture, effective hiring system, effective planning system for strategic planning, strategic stuff, not the tactical day-to-day stuff like I just talked about, and you need an internal communication system, which goes along with that planning and a correct cadence of meetings can reduce a lot of communication and interruptions in business. So, this is how to get to the next level.

[00:10:09] So, they have many of the processes defined and operations are running fairly smoothly in the business. Now you need to get all the team members helping you innovate in the business, not just getting stuff done that you tell them, which is transactional. Now you need to transfer and move towards transformational leadership. Transactional is I give you a task. You come back and say, you did it. I pay you a dollar, give you a task and you come back and do it, and that's the transaction. Transformational is I give you an outcome and a deadline, and then I support you in moving it forward, but you get to come up with how to get this done. And this is where you now start to have team members that think for themselves and innovate and move things forward. Instead of you having to micromanage everybody on your team, through processes and checklists. So if you're spending all your time trying to create tasks and trying to tell the team what to do and answer every question, you have a broken business that needs a strategic planning system, and that's going to free you up.

[00:11:11] But in order to do that, you need really good culture, really good team members, and now you can implement a really good planning system and you need a really good operations person or an operator if that stuff isn't fun for you. If you don't love spreadsheets and checklists and process documentation and calendars and all that kind of stuff, you're probably more of a visionary entrepreneur. You're more on the sales and marketing side of the spectrum. And you're going to enjoy that a lot more. So hopefully this is helpful for those of you. If you would like some help, if you're at this level-- I love working property managers at this level. A lot property managers at this level, some of them start to get really painful. And they, if they make it to the next level, they've checked out. I want to make this easy for you, help you implement a strategic planning system in your business. We focus on this in our DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind. It's the "Scale" portion. Really awesome. I'd love to get you on a call with our team so we can figure out if we can help you grow your business and scale faster and get your team in better alignment.

[00:12:05] And this alone can cut your staffing costs easily in half, sometimes by a third down to a third, by getting all these things really in healthy alignment and getting you in healthy alignment with your team. You're going to get way more output and that's the greatest expense in a business. So, if that's interesting to you check us out, join our Facebook group. If you're not yet ready to talk to us: doorgrowclub.com. You can go to doorgrowclub.com, join that, and we will love on you and hopefully eventually convince you to get on a call with us. Otherwise, reach out check us out at doorgrow.com and book a call. There's a little link at the top, and we'd love to talk with you and see if we can help you grow and scale your business until next time, everybody, to our mutual growth by everyone.

[00:12:47] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!

[00:13:14] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe.

[00:13:35] Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Download this Episode